Introduction
So, I’ve spent the past 2-3 days setting up author guests for Season #2 of my Live podcast Book Chatter. After
taking the summer off and basically removing myself as much as possible from the Kindle world and Kindle blogs, it’s
remarkable to immerse myself in it the past few days with “fresh eyes.” In setting up author interviews for Book
Chatter, I mostly use kindleboards.com, and I have been inundated with requests from authors who want to be featured on the
podcast. Many of these authors I have never heard of, and a good many have books that are selling remarkably well.
All of this has
given me pause for reflection (coupled with my blog post from last week) to consider today’s how to publish a book question:
How Do I Explain the eBook Phenomenon?
What was the tipping point that has led to 3 million people buying
eReading devices (mostly Kindles, Nooks, and Sony eReaders)?
After all, eBooks were not a new idea. They date back to at least the mid 1990s with folks trying to publish CD-rom
versions of stories.
However, it wasn’t seen
as viable though until Stephen King stumbled upon millions of dollars in 2000 with what most consider the first electronic
mass-market download: RIDING THE BULLET.
Check out his ForeWord to the collection Everything’s
Eventual, for his reflection and speculation as to what happened when he published the eBook version of his novella and
literally made over a million dollars in 24 hours.
His
enormous surprise success had to have awakened in Amazon’s Jeff Bezos the realization that people would pay money for
electronic books, and the result was the first generation Kindle available to the public in 2007. And as anyone who has followed
this knows, the rest is history.
Still
though, how do you explain the cultural change in value regarding how to publish a book, and ultimately how we buy books?
As controversial as this may sound, I think the heart of the problem
lies with Creative Writing programs. Dating as far back as the early to mid-1990s, I sensed what seemed to me an elitist mentality
permeating through our country’s Creative Writing programs. The very MFA programs that were highly regarded in the 1970s
and 80s had become oversaturated in our culture. By the mid-1990s, it seemed like every college was launching a new “MFA”
program for Creative Writers.
The sense that trickled
down to kids applying to these programs was that getting an MFA degree in Creative Writing was a viable career path to becoming
a writer. Tens of thousands of students applied to these programs, took out student loans, spent lots of money on tuition
with the notion that “this is how you become a novelist in our culture.”
What is seriously problematic about this is that university culture is largely driven by a
non-profit ethos.
Most universities are
not privatized, and the values adopted through a Creative Writing program in a non-profit academic environment are fundamentally
at odds with the for-profit, free-market world of traditional publishing.
Instead of placing an emphasis on marketability, consumer ethics, advertising, and sound business philosophies, hundreds
of Creative Writing programs around the country emphasize craft and a deep respect for (arguably subjective) elements of style
and pathos.
Honestly, it always seemed like bullshit
to me.
It smacked of an elitist politicization of what
a good story was all about… and it never wholly jibed with what I had seen working in a movie theater between the ages
of 16 and 18.
At that theater, I had been on the front
lines of consumer-driven storytelling, and it didn’t match what I was being taught and reading about in places like
the New Yorker or Harper’s or the Atlantic Monthly.
I had seen people spending tens of thousands of dollars every weekend at the movie theater,
had seen the cool marketing campaigns production companies had used to spread the word about an upcoming film… and
if it was not totally at odds with the MFA Creative Writing culture, it sure as hell was a frowned upon distant relative.
So, we can blame it all on MFA Creative Programs?
Is that really fair, though?
What happened
was that the best of these MFA graduates found their way into the New York publishing machinery. Unable to sell a novel, many
took jobs as assistant editors, as publicists, as managing editors, as graphic designers… anything they could to get
their foot in the door of major New York publishing.
And
so what began to come out of New York publishing in the 1990s and early 2000s was a brand of fiction directly at odds with
what consumers wanted. These MFA graduates whose values had been shaped by a non-profit “love of craft” ethos
developed in our nation’s top Creative Writing programs filtered the kinds of books that ultimately reached readers'
hands.
Writers who wrote flashy, pulpy type novels
that would have thrived in the 1950s-1970s were being rejected time and time again. Novelists whose stories would have sold
well for their glitter and trashiness (and arguably “poor” writing) were rejected by New York publishing’s
MFA-grounded values.
The reality is that consumers
want the glitter. They want the blue collar ethos. They want the trash and the clever marketing, and all the stuff that has
made the movie industry one of the most profitable industries in the world.
And New York publishing wasn’t delivering the goods.
So, along came Amazon Kindle.
What
Kindle has done is nothing short of a cultural revolution whose depths we’ve only begun to explore.
Sounds like a big statement, but the reality is that the kinds
of stories that are thriving in the new eBook market are not literary mainstream novels. They’re not Nobel winners and
former New Yorker pieces. What is thriving is chick-lit, vampire stories, sex and suspense, ghost stories.
What is thriving is fun.
Because this is what consumers want.
So what needs to happen to repair New York publishing?
With all large cultural or system-wide changes, it takes time. Fundamentally, our nation’s
Creative Writing programs absolutely must shift their values.
What needs to happen is that our universities’ Creative Writing programs place less emphasis on teaching craft-centered
writing and balance better a focus on sound business principles and the history of publishing… as a business of marketing,
advertising, and consumer-driven principles.
This
may not be possible.
After all, university culture
is a culture of for-the-good-of-society non-profit mentality.
Eventually, MFA tenure lines will dry up when writers of literary fiction cannot get published at all. I think we’re
already seeing this begin to happen.
So again, the
best way to solve this problem is to hire into Creative Writing programs, writers who embrace self-publishing, the use of
technology, and who understand the value of lessons learned from the history of marketing and advertising in publishing. These
folk could develop curriculum that will better prepare tomorrow’s writers for the world they will face in trying to
sell their stories in our culture.
====================
If you disagree or have other thoughts, comments or feedback,
please feel free to post your responses. Thanks, guys.
Hey, folks, I'd like to introduce author Cherish D'Angelo at howtopublishabook.org today. Cherish is the author
of Lancelot's Lady, which is available as an eBook from KoboBooks, Amazon's Kindle Store, Smashwords and other ebook retailers, and she is our guest blogger today.
Cherish
D'Angelo, author of Lancelot's Lady
Lancelot's
Lady Synopsis: A Bahamas holiday from dying billionaire JT
Lance, a man with a dark secret, leads palliative nurse Rhianna McLeod to Jonathan, a man with his own troubled past, and
Rhianna finds herself drawn to the handsome recluse, while unbeknownst to her, someone with a horrific plan is hunting her
down.
================
Thank you so much for featuring me on your blog during my Cherish the Romance Virtual
Book Tour, which launches my award-winning romantic suspense, Lancelot's Lady. Today I'll be talking about the exciting changes
in the book industry and the traditional and non-traditional ways authors can publish their works.
If you're a writer who has been looking
into getting published, you probably know there are two ways to go about this: the "traditional" way and the "non-traditional"
way. Each method of publishing comes with its own set of pros and cons, and it's important for any aspiring author to understand
the differences in order to make the best choice.
The traditional way has been around for decades. It entails finding a recognized publishing
company that pays advances and royalties that meet certain standards in this industry. You can do this with or without the
assistance of a literary agent, though they are almost as difficult to get as a publisher. This method of publishing is viewed
as the elite of the elite, especially if an author signs with one of the Big 6 publishing companies, like Random House or
Harper Collins.
Nearly
every author I've met has had the same dream: a major publisher will discover them, give them a high advance of well over
$100,000 and maybe a three-book deal. Sadly, this dream has become a reality for a small percentage of authors.
2010 marks a year of major changes
in the book industry. Some smaller publishing houses have closed. Some have merged with other companies. Larger publishers
have had to let employees go. Some have merged imprints and job titles to cut costs. Many are floundering in a sea of change,
especially with the ebook industry taking off so dramatically. Everyone wants a piece of the pie, but some won't get there
in time. The book industry as we have known it for so many decades is crumbling in bits and pieces and no one is absolutely
sure what will remain.
Yet
this is an exciting time for writers who want to explore a "non-traditional" option. Never before have we seen so
many successful self-published authors. Never before have we had a time where authors can control the content and
delivery. For anyone not afraid to take risks, this is the time to dive in. For writers who are independent and confident,
this is YOUR time.
I've
had the experience of being self-published and traditionally published. I've seen the good and not so good with each side.
Until recently, I would say it was a 50/50 split. Now with the evolution of ebooks and the ease at which authors can publish
their own ebooks to Kobo, Kindle, Smashwords, iBooks and more, I see there is more power on the self-published side. We don't
have to wait a year or two for our next book to come out, which means readers won't have to wait. Writers make the decisions;
we're in control―something we've never had.
It's a different world for our industry, but it's also an exciting one. You have a choice:
sink or swim. eBooks signify great change and an even greater future for readers, writers and publishers. And I'm ready to
embrace it. I'm ready to swim with the tides of change. Are you?
~Cherish D'Angelo
==================
You can learn more about Lancelot's Lady and Cherish D'Angelo (aka Cheryl Kaye Tardif) at http://www.cherishdangelo.com and http://www.cherylktardif.blogspot.com. Follow Cherish from September 27 to October 10 on her Cherish the Romance Virtual Book Tour and win prizes.
What
changes do you predict will occur in the book industry in the next 5 years?
Leave a comment here, with email address, to be entered
into the prize draws. You're guaranteed to receive at least 1 free ebook just for doing so. Plus you'll be entered
to win a Kobo ereader. Winners will be announced after October 10th.
