Samhain Tanking?

The recent news is that Samhain has sent out a letter informing their authors that they will be shutting its doors, but carrying on with the current production of books. The reasons seem to be financial. A decline in sales. This is not too far from the tail of Ellora's Cave, which is another tale of woe.

I've been wrestling with the poor sales topic on my blog for five years now. I do mean, primarily, small press and brand name independents. I've been in total denial and shock about this subject, even after suffering from a slump in sales during this time that was shocking and unexpected. It began to occur to me that nearly half a million self-published books (check my figures--I've heard different numbers) a year was going to have a devastating effect on the small and big presses.

Yes, absolutely, the $.99 books are much more financially attractive than the 2.99 to $5.99 small trade pub prices. That is a no brainer, and I'm talking about the general consumer view. They can load their reading devices up for next to nothing. And how ironic it is when I hear someone, like a dinosaur industry insider, say that people are buying more books than ever. They sure are--the $.99 books. All day long. Let's not even count the freebies or the celebrity authors who have jumped the trade-published ship. These are stunningly low book prices and incentives when compared to the climate over seven years ago.

Lets also face the fact that writers or published authors can't keep the editor out of our/their heads when reading books. C' mon now. We wonder how in the heck can thousands of self-published books be any good when we run across some or many that do not measure up to (our) professional standards. Caveat: I've read and critiqued some excellently written SP books that are clean, gripping and exceptionally entertaining. I wonder how in hell these books were passed up by the trade. I've also seen the stinkers--I mean everything is screwed up--format, cover design, blurbs, grammar, plot--they fail on all counts. And there's the thing--they fail on MY accounts.

IMO, non-writers (readers) are much more forgiving when they start that $.99 book. They care about story--a thrilling, new read in a genre that interests them. Hasn't that always been the mantra of even the most critical, published authors--story first? Those bargain-hunting readers are not overly concerned about POV shifts, placement of semi-colons and colons, type font and size, grammar blunders and other technical snafus. Many can see them, but it's easier to gloss over them.

Conclusion: trade publishing has and is suffering from a huge shift in readership and fan base. I'm talking a major shift involving tens, if not hundreds of thousands of readers and purchases over a relatively short time frame. These slots were once the "golden ticket" of small trade publishers. Look at how fast this vice is tightening.

Self-published authors have a fanatical support for each other (check out their largest group site). They buy their fellow's books. They are tight knit, and many of them are critical of the stanch gate-keeping practices of the industry--they were looked over, forgotten or ignored. Can't say that I blame them at all. The Big Five has shot me down for 14 straight years--those elitist pigs!

Conclusion: there goes another huge chunk of the readership and purchases.

Declining sales slumps due to other factors?

Conclusion: Kids and adults are reading fewer and fewer books every year, in spite of the digital ease by which to obtain them. Every year is a small downhill slide. All age spectrums are glued to their smart phones, I-pods and other reading devices, but primarily for social media, research, bargain shopping and games. Saving grace: writers and authors load up on books and shorts in this area, and this has helped to keep our noses above water.

Amazon and other online retailers have made it incredibly easy to self-publish. Although some assistance is necessary to prep these books for online retail. And that might cost some bucks.

Conclusion: It's been said that everyone has a book in them. Population Earth = seven billion. Hah! I'm not even going to touch that one. We don't have to mention how many self-published authors/readers and trade authors have spread the news about how anybody can get published today. Not to mention the terrific book prices found all over. It's true. How about those celebrity best-selling authors who have written articles and run blogs in favor of self-publishing. Those heavy weights have huge readerships and influence. 

Who is responsible for this deteriorating slide? Self-pubbed authors? Big Five greed? Amazon? Borders going under? Cut backs on major newspaper and magazine book reviews? Employee cuts? Too many books?

Conclusion: If technology had an ass, I'd kick it. There's where it started--everything else slid into it, catching the draft.

Who is going to be the first to go?

Small press, I believe, will get hit the hardest first. Those little guys could all disappear, given enough downward trending and time. You can't downsize an already small publisher. They have no wiggle room. Ellora's Cave and Samhain has proven this, and they really aren't that small. Self-publishing will survive and grow. The Big corps and their imprints better hold on to and increase their leverage of precise target-marketing and book store placement--that is the only card up their sleeve. They'll need to spend more money to snag market share away from the SP industry. Unless they keep ambulance chasing those best-selling SP authors so they can gain control. Oh, agents are going to suffer a bit. Who needs them if nearly everyone decides to self-publish? Publishing house employees will suffer cutbacks because of lost revenue.

I have a lot of doom and gloom prophesies. I know. I wish I had the answer in a bottle. I think the Big Five imprints could chop their book prices down as far as they dare without losing buckets of money. And they'll have to adapt much faster with each new opportunity and trend. For increased therapy and readership, we need a huge best-selling series akin to the Harry Potter books, and we need these blockbuster tomes about every seven to ten years or so. I think the small trade presses need to regulate their finances much better. Misappropriation of funds have been a small press killer; IMO, more than any other downfall.

Females account for roughly 65% of all book purchases. Men and boys are sorely lacking in this area. Guys, click some books into your shopping cart or patronize your nearest independent or chain bookstore.

Sorry for the rant. But I believe that many of these factors are relevant to what happened to Samhain.

Writing a Series?

I swear and, as God is my witness, I had a terrible prejudice against anyone who wrote a series, or planned to write one before their first book was even picked up. I laughed at anyone who wrote a complete series and had no agent to push it. Back in the day, series books weren't as popular as they are now. Today, it's almost a given that large independents and big publishers like/love to sell a series. Two-book, trilogies and large series packages are more popular than EVER. Multiple books are actually favored by publishers--it seems to be the advantageous way to hook  readers, build a fan base, and at the same time, launch a debut author. If you've written a standalone today, chances are excellent that you will be asked to follow it up with a sequel or more books that belong to a series--your special universe. I was left in the dust, from my own account, all those years ago, up until just fairly recently.

So, I want to formally APOLOGIZE for my narrow view and ridiculous exclamations.

I've completed a trilogy, edited  it with my agent, and turned it over. It's now going out on submission. 

I can't tell you what kind of hard work this project cost me. It was a mountain of writing, revising, editing and titling.I was hesitant every step of the way, wondering if all of this effort could possibly pay off. Then I realized, what did I really have to lose? I'd made them standalones, with only slight references to each other that could be removed very easily. So I just about guaranteed myself a possible sale--somewhere--even if it was small press. When the work was done, I was satisfied, and so was my agent, who said "I think we really have something hear."

I can remember J.K. Rowling penning (starting) Chamber of Secrets before her first book was picked up. Now that's MOXIE! Or call it blind faith. Not only that, it was her intention to write seven books! Look what happened to Twilight, Hunger Games, Wool, Divergent--they went on to success--becoming huge breakouts. 

Now that my YA trilogy is over, I mourn it. I miss my characters. Terribly so. I can't believe that I did this, stepping up to the plate and accomplishing my most difficult writing project ever.

If you have a series in mind, go for it! Don't let anybody stop you, and field those rejections for solid and valid comments. I think you will eventually sell. Even if you have to self-publish, I believe you will garner a much larger fan base with multiple books.

Good luck with your series. Press on, have faith and reap the rewards. 

Email Marketing

Email marketing is not as complicated as you think. It's simply a means to advertise or inform potential customers over the Internet that you have something of interest to offer them. You can sell products, information or services by directly contacting persons who are looking for what you offer. Email marketing is cheap, fast and surprisingly interactive. An email marketing campaigns starts with some valuable tips.

Your Virtual Base of Operations

For your email marketing push, the first consideration is your source or home base on the Internet. This will be your website, newsletter or a blog. You can find free websites on the Internet by Googling phrases such as “free websites”, “free website construction” and “no-cost websites.” You can purchase a hosted website or domain by searching the Internet. Domain websites are very cheap, some of them costing only $10 to $15 dollars per year. Domain websites that cost more will have more features and design choices that include everything from reader traffic patterns and locations to buy buttons or small databases and spreadsheets. If you are selling a product (like a book) you might want a website that can host and display lots of visual data like photos, diagrams or videos. Make sure your website or blog has a comment section where potential customers or visitors can ask questions and receive your reply. Design your website or blog with ease of function in mind. Do not clutter it with extraneous features which will cause slow loading. 

Your Brand

Remember in your email marketing campaign, you will need to give your site a name or title. You can use your name, but use it in conjunction with your product or services—like the pen name you use on your genre books. Be clever or cute if you want, or give it a more serious and formal tone. Selling medical supplies might have a more formal or technical tone, while a dog-grooming business might use a more relaxed and humorous title. Books might include a clever or enticing reader hook. Stay on target with a specific theme. If you are selling books, keep all information relative to books and reading subjects, with no deviations to other personal topics. This shows professionalism and expertise.

Communication and Building your Audience

An email marketing campaign means learning how to write an intriguing and interesting newsletter or blog topic. Find help on the Internet to increase your writing skill. Do you belong to some blogs on the Internet? What is it about them it that attracts you? What attracts you to their information or news?

 Concentrate on subject matter that will interest and draw your targeted audience. Join Internet groups that offer the same topic you are covering, and solicit memberships and readers to your site by leaving a link to your website or blog in your profile or at the bottom of your message post in the “signature line.” Record all email addresses of persons you find might be interested in your topic and send them an invitation to your site, blog or your newsletter. Drop a link to your site everywhere you go—interact with the online community as often as you can. Become a presence. Once you begin to draw subscribers and readers to your site, encourage them to spread the word.

Frequency and Drive

Post on your blogs or website, or send out newsletters frequently and with a steady rhythm. Once a day is great, or at least two to three times per week. Once a week is enough to drive interest and hold it. Vary your content with new and updated information relative to your topic. Thank your subscribers and answer all comments. Nothing helps increase traffic to your site with an email marketing campaign than word-of-mouth advertising. Don't expect immediate results, but rather build up your audience with a slow and steady pace. Before long, you’ll have a plentiful and growing audience that can only get larger and more popular.      

Writers Fruit Salad

The following questions popped up in a number of writer’s groups, particularly Absolute Write. They were interesting because they were more personal than the norm. Kind of a spill your guts in nature. I’m a truth-teller. I won’t shy or back off such questions because I’ve been in this too long to hide anything. Yet they are only my experiences. So, have at me, and I hope you learn something or take a trip down a writer’s memory lane.

WHAT ARE YOUR WORD COUNT TARGETS FOR YA AND ADULT NOVELS?

I have to at least be over the 65,000 word mark, 200 plus pages for a YA title before I feel adequate or accomplished. I'm more comfortable with 80,000 or more for any adult title. But I convinced my last publisher to give me the large font in the book, so I got my thieving little way of keeping my page count up there, when my word count was a little slim for a novel (my novels) at about 62,000. (For anyone who has a lean YA title, just ask your publisher to jack up the font and that will do the trick—that’s where you get your extra pages—some fluff up. I think they call them “Easy Readers” or some such. They come out real nice looking that way too). I've written five big books in the past that were all about 110,000 to 120,000--I just don't have that kind of steam anymore unless I'm writing something truly epic with a grand scale and multiple viewpoint characters. I just finished a NA genre book that came in at 216 pages and 72,000 words, and I'm not really happy about the small size of that one—I do consider it an adult novel. I do like a book that has at least enough room on the spine to be noticed or read from a distance.
I had terrific success writing short stories many years ago. I don't know why I want nothing to do with them now. I wrote two prequel shorts for my SF publisher recently, only because he asked me to. I did kind of enjoy the experience and they fit right in with the main title! I just might be afraid of shorts because I'm 28 years out of practice with churning them out.  

WHAT ABOUT THIRD PERSON V.S.F1RST PERSON?

Out of 22 books I've only written ONE first person narrative and it was a novella. I'm so damn jealous of those who can master and write in 1rst--it's been so popular in so many YA titles that really broke out and became bestsellers these last couple of years.
During the Dinosaur era when I first started out (exact year as James M. here--1987) there was kind of standard rule or popular belief that third person tight was the only thing that had the best chance of getting published. First person was just a little bit frowned upon--just not the real favorite style. I kid you not. Oh, and memoires and auto biographies? Uh, they were discouraged much more back then.

MY ATTITUDE ABOUT THE PUBLISHING PAST AND THE OLD GUARD.
The dinosaur era, speaking of which--there was a time when we SFWA members laughed at Whitley Strieber because of his alien contact confession—now look at him! We choked with hilarity when the fantasy writers wanted to join and merge with the Science Fiction Writers of America. We were an elite snooty ass bunch of thespians (uh, they still are a wee bit to this day). The mid-old SF guard is still mostly there, and there was an earlier time when you could exchange dozens of letters with Asimov, Robert Bloch, Anderson, Heinlein and other notables. We all had time for each other then--no Internet--lots of regular mail, some which were banged out on typewriters. Tons of us used 4th Class Special Book Rate to mail our fulls and partials--which you marked as disposable if you couldn't afford their round trip. It was a time when I made fun of Clive Barker because he was such a punk at the BEAs. Oh, boy, did I eat that one in a Hellraiser sort of way. Yeah, back then, if you were serious you mailed 400 to 500 pages.
The dinos are almost extinct now, and we're reckoning with this new age of Internet and instant publication for Indie writers. I'm confronted with massive computer storage systems, programming needs, clicks, drop downs, links, navigating social media and a hard-copy list that has over 70 passwords and user names. Motherboard crashes? I've had four of those. It makes me long for my IBM Selectric. I've been so god-damned stupid trying to adapt to all this, I rarely if ever touch any friggin key on my board that doesn't spell a word and belong in a text file. I’m more than hopelessly lost in this computer tech world.
HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN WRITING?

I wrote three longhand pencil novels on yellow rule paper in 1975. My next stint was from 1987 to 1991 when I published two successful non-fiction books and about 15 short stories, which landed me in the SFWA. My agent at that time was Richard Curtis, and he failed to sell three of my completed novels. I wrote an additional 3 novels that I never bothered subbing to the agent or anywhere. I stopped writing in 1991. Total books written = eight.
My current, third stint journey has lasted from Dec, 2004 (joined Absolute Write writers group at that time) until now. Wrote about 17 books during that time which includes a really neat non-fic dinosaur book. My first two novel publications came in 2007 and six others have followed, plus two prequel shorts. My agent now has an additional six completed, revised, edited and polished novels (a trilogy and picture book in there) and my current NA WIP which was just finished, waxed to bedazzlement and sent yesterday. She's going to "stagger" sub all of them in 2016 and see which poop pie sticks to the wall. I'm counting on the trilogy to bust out with a NYC biggie—so is agent. Got everything crossed including my eyes.  

HAVE YOU GIVEN UP OR TRUNKED MANY BOOKS?
I can't even tell you how many false starts I've had--books that went from the 20,000 to 40,000 words and got dumped midstream. Maybe eight to10 of them. I'd have to look them up.

BIG FIVE OR SMALL GUYS?
I've never been without an agent my entire writing career. Which makes me think I'm jinxed somehow, since that huge contract has been illusive, with only advances that numbered in the low thousands during my earliest years. Back then we had the “medium sized” presses--which still got you into every library in the United States and all the large franchise book stores, like Waldens and B. Dalton. Today, there is a littler gray area between small/independent presses and the Big Five and all their imprints. Either you land a publisher that has real distribution to brick and mortar stores and pays a nice advance, or you settle for a small press that will typically sell between 75 and 150 books in their lifetime. We do have some really high-end small presses which fork over advances and have distribution. These “middle” type small press publishers might have a large staff, a marketing manager, foreign rights department and other such extras. Bookatour and Entangled would be these types of successful small press/independents.

In conclusion: keep a diary or journal of your writing life and history. You might have to recall your bio when your talented little ass hits the big time.  

What is a Stealth Agent? What is an A-List Agent?

First, Stealth Agents:

My agent was/is a stealth agent. She was/is an A-lister in hiding. You will run across these in your search. Oh, God, you say. That's a whole new kettle of fish. Real short: in most cases, a stealth agent does not have a website, Twitter feed, FB account--NONE of it. No footprint. They might only be registered in a few online media listings, like Agent Query, and there you will find almost nothing about them except a phone number and an email address. They might even announce that they are closed to queries at the present. I Googled one such agent and found a few listings associated with books she had repped on Amazon.

When I Googled those authors I found them to be best-sellers and name celebrities. It was quite a shock to find out how successful she was. I also found more information about her at my AW writing site which confirmed my suspicions. Everyone agreed that she WAS a very successful agent and had dinosaur longevity. She only stays/stayed invisible because her stable was full, she wasn't taking on queries and she concentrated on furthering the careers of her current authors. Quite noble, actually. The secret handshake to her was, simply sending her a proposal whether she liked it or not! Hah! I did this and she took me on, bowled over with the number of books I had finished and ready. She said, "Oh, you know the way to my heart-you came and got me." I don't recommend this strategy for other authors. It's a coin flip. Don’t try to get into the Richard Curtiss Agency this way—he’ll flatly tell you he’s only interested in non-fiction. Yet, he has his ear open to the right scout and movie exec.

The A-lister: look up your favorite genre or contemporary books and authors at the major book stores and look in the dedication pages. Make note if the publisher is a large one, i.e S&S, Ace, Harlequin, Penguin/Random, etc. You'll find out what agent sold those books. Large, popular houses = A-list agents (for the most part). It's a good feeler gauge, but some new agents make big sales too, just not that many of them. Google the name of the agent on the Amazon book page and, wallah! You'll see how many books, ranks, best sellers the agent has dealt with. Better: ask the agent straight away for their rep history, author names she reps, length of business and so on. An A-list agent is How Big, How Many and for How Long. You’re likely to get an agent/author contract.

B-list agents, who also sometimes call themselves "boutique (or medium-sized) agencies" generally have several dozen sales under their belts with medium sized publishers and maybe a few large ones. Heh, don't get me started on Medium size, that's a whole new article. B-list agents are oft times known by first names in the industry and their over-the-line phone pitches are not frowned upon. Many of them (not all) are based in the NY area and have kissy-face lunches with publishers, as well as the A-listers. Agent/author contracts are common.

C-listers are new, have only a couple of sales and are eager to pull in new authors. I say, "pull" because they can compete and be aggressive about signing you. They're just starting out. I can’t say that I recommend them. Caveat: it can also be said that a C-list agent will pull out all stops to find you a publisher and that can mean dozens and dozens of rounds. I have heard of a few authors who are repped by C-list agents and are happy with the arrangement and have no complaints. But I beg them to wait two or three years and tell me the same thing. A no-name agent in the business can be as bad as no agent at all. Besides, do you want your book tied up for two or three years indefinitely? They are more than likely to sign an author to more than one book. You might get an author/agent contract.

Is there such a thing as a D-list agent? Well, yeah. They are the ones that sign you for a one-book contract (having no care about your career), charge a reading fee for a synopses, chapters or full and exceed the royalty share of 15%. They also tack on undefined administrative costs—postage—copying services, mailers and sometimes an hourly rate. They most likely will offer you their lofty editorial services, or refer you which gets them a kickback. You might not get a written contract with them, but it’s not likely.

ETA: Don’t fret if you don’t get a author/agent contract with any agent. It’s no reason to panic and it happens all the time. In this business, your/their word does carry a bond. No so in the movie industry.

Hope this helps a little.