Hit

Joe: So tell us about HIT, the 40,000 word prequel to the Codename: Chandler series.

Ann:  Hit takes place before Exposed. Chandler is tasked with assassinating the CEO of a biotech company who is attempting to sell top secret technology to the highest bidder. Her biggest challenge is getting past the man's bodyguard, and when that bodyguard ends up being a sexy spy with skills comparable to hers, she realizes she has met her match.

Joe: The character of Heath (the sexy spy) also appears in Three (coming June 25). I love this guy, and think he's among the best you've ever created. Coming from a romance background (4 million books in print) what makes Heath both a good and an unlikely romantic hero?

Ann: Heath has a lot of attitude, humor, bravado, sex appeal, and he loves women. He's also an over-the-top romantic, a guy who is in love with love, and a champion for the downtrodden.

So how is he not the perfect romance hero?

Well he also happens to be an assassin with an adrenaline addiction. He adheres only to his own code. He lives for revenge and doesn't believe in trust. And even if you're the love of his life, if he is forced to kill you, he just might.

In other words, he's the perfect guy for Chandler.

Joe: Like the others in the series (Exposed, Flee, Spree, Three) does Hit also contain graphic sex?

Ann: Of course! To me, sex is a way to dramatize a character's inner conflicts. Instead of sittin' and thinkin' about their deepest desires and most devastating fears, a character is engaged in an action that strips away their defenses and shows them for who they really are. And of course what a person does shows who they are far more than anything they could possibly say or think.

Violent scenes can bring out the same type of true, uncensored character moments as sex, although for Chandler violence is a day at the office. The emotion surrounding sex is much more dangerous territory.

Joe: So I heard your co-writer, Konrath, only wrote about 5000 words of this, and you wrote 35,000, yet somehow he still get's 25% of the profits. How does that work?

Ann: Yeah, that Konrath is worthless, isn't he? ;D

You created the character of Chandler, and in the first book, you invited me on board to help flesh her out and make her human. From there, we've come up with storylines and backstories together, and we decided early on that we would share the profit of any Chandler story. But while the novels are 50/50 in work and profit, we decided that on projects where one person wrote the majority of the book, we would split the proceeds 75/25.

We've spent a lot of time writing the novels (some are rather long), but we're also working on other projects. This arrangement enables us to write more Chandler stories while also doing other things. So while Joe was writing Stirred with Blake Crouch, I wrote most of Exposed. And while he was writing Haunted House, I wrote most of Hit. Now he will be writing Naughty while I'm focusing on Cut Too Deep.

Joe: So does that mean, when I finish Naughty (the next short novel in the series) you get 25% even if you don't write a word?

Ann: Hell yes! Didn't you read my explanation above? But I'm sure I'll contribute a few words. I wouldn't want you to have all the fun.

Joe: This series can be read in any order, and it isn't necessary to read everything to enjoy any story by itself. But for the diehard fans who insist on chronology, we wrote it so Flee, Spree, and Three all take place in the same week, and Hit, Exposed, and Naughty take place prior to that trilogy.

If you're obsessive about this sort of thing, the order goes:

HIT
EXPOSED
NAUGHTY (coming soon)
FLEE
SPREE
THREE

What makes this series different than other spy novels about assassins, say like that guy Barry Eisler I've heard about?

Ann: Barry who? ;)

I adore Barry's books. Barry strives for realism, and his books reflect that. Joe and I aim for a more over-the-top sort of spy story with realism taking a back seat. I like to describe the Chandler books as action movies in book form. They are meant to be thrilling, exciting, sexy, humorous, and above all, entertaining. An emotional rollercoaster of sexy spy craziness. But suspend your disbelief before entering her world, and put your tongue firmly in your cheek.

Joe: Are we going to see Chandler and Heath again?

Ann: Definitely. At the end of Three, the story is over, but only for now. Chandler has much ahead of her, and we hope to explore that in our next Codename: Chandler book, FREE.

As for Heath, this annoying buddy of mine keeps bugging me to write a book featuring him, so maybe I'll put some thought to that.

Joe: So when is the sequel to your bestseller Pushed Too Far coming out?

Ann: I'm working on Cut Too Deep right now. So look for it late this summer. Dead Too Soon will follow before Christmas. And how about your next Jack Daniels book, Joe?

Joe: I'm doing Last Call with Crouch, which will tie up the Jack Daniels/Luther Kite/Lucy & Donaldson arcs. Fans want it, and Blake and I have a fun idea for it, if I can pull him away from his Wayward Pines TV show and M. Night Shyamalan long enough...

Any regrets leaving Harlequin and going indie?

Ann: The fact that you can ask that question, Joe, proves that you haven't been reading your own blog. ;) Try this story.

To add to the 2012 numbers I revealed in the blog, Pushed Too Far has now made more in its first year of release than any of my traditionally published books have in up to thirteen years. And of course that's not my only self-published work.

Besides money, the other amazing thing about self-publishing is the sheer fun of writing stories exactly the way I want to write them. When I published with Harlequin, I was lucky to have editors who allowed me to push the boundaries a little bit, especially earlier in my career. Later things became more restrictive. That isn't a bad thing, necessarily. There are reader expectations to consider. But I felt I wanted to do more.

With Pushed Too Far, I originally planned to submit to the Big Five (formally Big Six), and that was the game plan I worked out with my agents. But the landscape of the publishing industry changed beneath me. And I happen to have this friend who had been examining these changes for a while. So I listened to him and chose not to submit Pushed Too Far to anyone. Instead I self-published.

Best decision I ever made.

Joe: Any advice for authors?

Ann: Sure.

First, focus on the quality. Always. Forever. All writers, no matter how long they've been writing, no matter how they've chosen to be published, need to focus on telling a good story, a story readers are willing to pay to read. That is not an easy thing to learn. As Alexandra Sokoloff said in the comments section of her recent guest post on this blog, if you're not in it for the long haul, you're probably not going to see a lot of success.
The marketing is easy compared to learning to give good story. Publishing in any form is not a get-rich-quick scheme.

Second, look around you. The people who are going to help you most in your career are your friends.
In 2006 I attended a mystery conference called Bouchercon. I wrote romantic suspense, had never attended a mystery conference, but I picked this one since it was held in my home town of Madison, Wisconsin. I met a fellow author in the bar, and we got into a debate about the value of conferences over a few beers. He insisted that conferences were useful to authors because they allowed us to meet fans and sell books.

I like meeting fans and selling books, but maybe because of our gender difference, or maybe because I came from the romance world, I saw things a bit differently. To me, the biggest value of conferences (and to a lesser extent social media) was and is meeting friends. Sometimes those friends are readers. Most of the time they're other writers. Occasionally they are even publishing industry professionals. But regardless of specific walk of life, I can say without hesitation that my career, my creative life, and my personal sanity have benefited more from making friends than from anything else I've ever done.

So my biggest advice to new authors is to find friends. Those are the people who will help you grow as a writer, and you will help them. Friendship is deeper than networking, and it's different from mentorship. Friendship is about genuine connection, and the benefits of that connection flow both ways.

Joe: Nicely put. I met you, Blake, and Barry at conferences, and have worked with you and them on many occasions. Not only have I made money with you guys, but I've learned with you as the industry changed, and I've been able to up my game as a result.

Collaboration is a wonderful way to become a better writer, double your fanbase, and increase your output (which increases your virtual shelf space.) And with the right partner, it's also a lot of fun.

Now everyone go and buy Hit. It's loaded with violence and explicit sex, and it's only $2.99.

Haunted House

Now available on Kindle for $3.99.

BEYOND AFRAID...

It was an experiment in fear.

Eight people, each chosen because they lived through a terrifying experience. Survivors. They don't scare easily. They know how to fight back.

BEYOND TRAPPED...

Each is paid a million dollars to spend one night in a house. The old Butler House, where those grisly murders occurred so many years ago. A house that is supposedly haunted. 

BEYOND ENDURANCE...

They can take whatever they want with them. Religious items. Survival gear. Weapons. All they need to do is last the night.

But there is something evil in this house. Something very evil, and very real. And when the dying starts, it comes with horrifying violence and brutal finality.

There are much scarier things than ghosts.

Things that will kill you slowly and delight in your screams.

Things that won't let you get out alive.

HAUNTED HOUSE
People are dying to leave

Jack Kilborn, author of AFRAID, TRAPPED, and ENDURANCE, brings back some favorite characters from those earlier novels and puts them through his own unique brand of hell. One that hurts real bad. One that will scare you to death.

Are you brave enough?


Notes and Background

After a three year hiatus, Jack Kilborn is back. And so is JA Konrath. HAUNTED HOUSE not only features characters from AFRAID, TRAPPED, and ENDURANCE, it also brings back Dr. Frank Belgium (from ORIGIN), Detective Tom Mankowski (from THE LIST), and Moni Draper (from SERIAL KILLERS UNCUT).

One of the wonderful things about self-publishing is being able to write books I wouldn't normally be able to sell. What legacy publisher would ever release a novel that is a sequel to six other, unrelated novels?

Observant fans will find references and in-jokes to some of my other books and characters. I've gotten lots of fan mail over the years from readers asking for sequels, and it is nice to be in a position to oblige them. HAUNTED HOUSE really is a love letter to my fans. I never would have written it if it wasn't for all the support, encouragement, and kind words I've gotten over the years.

That said, HAUNTED HOUSE can also be read without prior knowledge of any of my work. It stands alone just fine (though new readers might wonder how Mathison the monkey got so damn smart without reading AFRAID first).

I came up with the idea for this book a while ago, partly from watching old haunted house movies (The Haunting, The Legend of Hell House, The House on Haunted Hill, Amityville Horror, Poltergeist, House) and partly from my love of going to haunted houses around Halloween. Back in my younger years, I got to dress up as a monster and scare people at a local haunted house, and it remains one of my favorite holiday memories. While writing this book I tried to capture that tingly/fun feeling of walking through the dark and having a ghost pop out and say "Boo!" For this reason, HAUNTED HOUSE is a bit less intense than the other Kilborn novels, and has more humor in it. Who doesn't giggle nervously while going through a haunted house?

I also loved playing with and breaking convention. Thrillers (and most genre novels) are formulaic, and many contain scenes we've all seen before. I had a lot of fun defying reader expectations by setting up something recognizable and obvious and then going in a different direction. I also did a big no-no for fiction: stopping the action to include a very long infodump, which is something I always caution newbie writers against.

If you're a fan of my writing, or of this blog, I hope you give HAUNTED HOUSE a try. Even if the other Kilborn books were too graphic for you, HAUNTED HOUSE is a gentler, more fun kind of horror novel.

Also, to coincide with this release, my horror collaboration novel DRACULAS is currently free.

As always, thanks for reading, and feel free to spread the word.

Blood Moon and Having Control

Joe sez: I asked my friend Alex Sokoloff for a guest blog about why she decided to self-publish her latest novel, Blood Moon, which is currently free on Kindle. My thoughts follow hers.

Here's Alex:

Alex: I’m Alexandra Sokoloff, former screenwriter, former traditionally-published midlist author, new e publishing convert.

Last summer I made the leap – I decided not to go for a traditional deal for my new thriller, Huntress Moon. I put it out as an e book instead.  

Much as Ann Voss Peterson wrote about here, and Rob Gregory Browne and Brett Battles wrote about here, I made more money in the first month of release, just on Amazon, than I'd ever made for a traditional advance. 

The book has just been nominated for a Thriller Award in the ITW's brand new Best E Book Original Novel category.

Joe asked me to blog for him about my e publishing experience, and my background and perspective is a little different from some of the other indie authors who have weighed in here, because I've also represented writers as a union activist, on the Board of Directors of the WGAw, the screenwriters union.

I hate to say it, but writers have a problem.  We hate business.  We have a further, worse problem. We have a collective suicidal fantasy that we don’t have to understand business because we’re creative.

I've made my living solely from my writing since I was twenty-five years old.  Making writing pay is not optional for me. That means, much as I hate it, paying attention to business is not optional, either.

I did eleven years as a professional screenwriter before I snapped and wrote my first novel. People thought I was insane to start writing books when I was making a good living as a screenwriter. That's everyone's dream anyway, right?  Add pension and health benefits and you’d have to be crazy to leave that for something that everyone says will never pay the bills.  But the thing is, I had gotten really active in the WGA, the screenwriters' union, which meant the business side of the business was in my face constantly, unignorable. I saw the film business model changing before my eyes, studios squeezing writers for more and more script drafts for less and less money, and as bad as I am at math, I could see that in a few years I wouldn't be able to sustain a living simply because of the work time added without compensation.  Add to this the fact that I’m a woman. In a good year women get a whopping 20% of the writing jobs in Hollywood.  I HAD to do something else.

So I wrote a book, and I sold it to a Big Six publisher, and then sold the next, and the advances were not enough to live on, but the foreign sales and some film options made it doable. Barely. In the meantime, though, I was learning the book business. And it wasn't looking good.

I was lucky, because early on Joe lectured me on bookstore co-op. And e books, too, back before ANYONE was talking about e books, but it was his rant on co-op that really got me thinking. I didn't particularly want to hear it, but you can't unhear something like that.  Co-op means that in publishing, the odds are stacked against everyone but the bestsellers.  The publishers pay bookstores for placement to improve on the success of their biggest cash cows, at the expense of all the rest of us. The chances of breaking out of that hierarchy are astronomical.  I was working my ass off at promotion, getting nominated for major mystery, thriller and horror awards, but I was quickly learning none of that meant anything to my publisher. By my fourth book I was done with being crippled by someone else’s mediocre expectations.  And by then, there was an option.  A scary option, but a real option.

I was slower than I wanted to be to self-publish because of just life - several devastating personal losses in the space of a year. It stopped my writing cold. It also took over a year to get my small backlist back - thank God I’m one of the ones who did. But during this really horrible time (the recession on top of everything else…) I finally started writing Huntress Moon, and I was studying e publishing.  What authors did and didn’t do. What Amazon and Barnes & Noble did or didn’t do. I read Joe’s blog. I read the Kindleboards. I watched friends like Joe, and Blake Crouch, Barry Eisler, CJ Lyons, Scott Nicholson, Ann Voss Peterson, Elle Lothlorien, Brett Battles, Rob Gregory Browne, JD Rhoades, LJ Sellers, Diane Chamberlain and Sarah Shaber.  I read the financial numbers they were so generous about sharing.   And I’d like to say something about that, right now. I constantly see and hear people criticize and disparage self-published authors for sharing sales numbers.  It’s bragging, it’s undignified, it’s not what REAL writers do.

Bullshit.  That is a massive lie deliberately perpetuated by corporations to keep writers happily slaving in the dark.  Happens just the same in Hollywood.  Don’t ever let the writers talk to each other, because then they’ll figure it out.

Writers talking openly about numbers should be the norm, not a radical political act.

But thank God I know a lot of radicals. Precisely because writers like Joe and the above shared their sales numbers, I knew e publishing for a living was not only doable, but a potentially far more lucrative option for me than traditional publishing.  So I studied, and I wrote, and I put up a non-fiction e workbook based on my Screenwriting Tricks for Authors blog, which taught me all the technical things I needed to know.  By the time Huntress Moon was done, I was already hearing things like “It’s too late.” “That e-publishing ship has sailed.” But that wasn’t what I was seeing, from people who were doing it right.  I took all I’d learned and put out the book as an e book original in July of last year.  And prayed.

In the first three months Huntress Moon was out, I made enough money on that ONE book, just on Amazon, just in e-format, to live comfortably for a year.  I got flooded with e mail from new readers who had never heard of me but who loved the book and were now buying all my others.  My Facebook subscribers jumped from 500 to 20,000 and kept growing - over 78,000 at this writing. 

That chunk of money and the steady income stream that followed has given me plenty of stress-free time to write the sequel and start the third book in the series. In the meantime, the royalties keep coming every month.  I know exactly what I’m making.  I know when I have to adjust, when I have to do a promo.  I know by when I have to make another lump sum to carry me through the next fiscal year. The clarity, compared to publisher royalty statements, is breathtaking.

And it’s not just financial. As I said, this month Huntress Moon was nominated for a Thriller Award. I am privileged to have the book recognized along with books by a star list of some of my favorite traditionally published authors.  ITW may be the first, but what do you want to bet that by two years from now every major genre award will have added a self-published category?

And yet I know far too many traditionally published authors, friends, who started out in publishing at the exact same time I did or sooner, who are struggling and sinking, and - even when traditional advances are being cut in half, and the big publishers are consolidating right and left - these writers will not grab for this obvious lifeline.  To them, I’d like to say here:

Did I do the right thing, self-publishing? I’ll paraphrase Ann Voss Peterson.  I only wish I had done it sooner.

I’m releasing the sequel to Huntress Moon this week: today through Thursday Blood Moon is free for Kindle.

You can also get Huntress Moon for just 99 cents, this week only. 

I hope you’ll give them a try!

Joe sez: First of all, everyone needs to pick up Huntress Moon for 99 cents, and Blood Moon for free. Do it now, I'll be here when you get back.

Got them? Good. You'll enjoy them. Alex is a great writer, and you can tell she worked in Hollywood because her books are, well, cinematic. She knows an incredible amount about plotting, characterization, and structure, and reading a Sokoloff book is not only entertaining, but a great way to learn how to improve your craft. In fact, you should also pick up her ebook Screenwriting Tricks For Authors. You'll learn a lot, and it's a steal at $2.99.

I was smiling reading Alex's blog post, not only because I'm thrilled for her success, but because it took me back to my early days as a writer and blogger.

Believe it or not, no writers spoke publicly about how much money they were making before I started doing so. And no writers ever talked about coop (which was publishing's dirty little secret) before I did.

I shared these things with writers for the very reason Alex states: writers talking to other writers should be the norm, not the exception.

Before writers began associating me with the self-publishing revolution, I was known as an innovator when it came to self-promotion. I learned how the publishing business worked, reverse-engineered it to find its strengths and weaknesses, and then figured out what writers could do to maximize their sales.

The sad fact was, compared to the power publishers had, writers had very little control over how well their books sold. I did my best to maximize the amount of control I had by:

1. Learning as much as I could. This was done by asking questions, talking to peers and publishing people, and speaking openly on this blog. By being frank, I encouraged frank discussions in my comments, and learned a lot from a lot of people (including those who stayed anonymous because they feared repercussions from their publishers).

2. Experimenting and refining my methods.

3. Working harder than any writer to self-promote, before or since. 

By doing this, I was able to eek out a living, keep my books in print, and develop a loyal fanbase. But I still had many novels that I couldn't sell, and my novels that were legacy published never caught fire and became bestsellers.

I didn't have enough control to do better. I was at the mercy of an archaic, inefficient, uncaring industry that refused to try and improve.

Consider these factors of publishing, and rate how important they are to you as a writer:

1. Cover art
2. Price
3. Sales and free promotions
4. Title
5. Speed to publication
6. Distribution
7. Marketing and promotion

When I worked with legacy publishers, I had zero control over cover art. They chose it, with minimal input from me (that they ignored). Price was set by them. Sales promotions (if ever) were set by them. They made me change my titles. They took 12 to 18 months to publish after I finished the book. They controlled distribution (where the books were available) and coop (how it was displayed). And while I did marketing and promo on my own, I didn't have the deep pockets or reach that my publishers had.

Enter ebooks. Suddenly I had complete control over the above. And now I'm making $100,000 a month.

Coincidence? I don't think so. 

Taking control over your career is scary. It means taking risks. Failing often. Having no one but yourself to blame. Learning new skills. Branching out beyond your comfort zone. 

And there are no guarantees. Alex is smart and talented, but she took a huge risk by self-publishing. A guaranteed advance--even a small one--is hard to pass up in exchange for a spin at the wheel of fortune. Luck plays a large role in success, and not many writers get lucky.

But Alex has always been one to seek control. Her activism in the WGA on behalf of screenwriters was her way of fighting for more control. 

With self-publishing, she doesn't have to butt heads with studios, or with publishers. She can do things her way. In this case, launching a brand new title for free, which is something so gutsy I have yet to try it myself. Do you think any publisher would launch a book as a freebie? 

I hope it works for Alex. I suspect it will. And I respect the courage it took to try it, and all the courage it took to get to the point where she's able to try it.

For the first time ever, the artist has control. Now the question is: what are you going to do with that control? 

The Proteus Cure

Joe sez: F. Paul Wilson is my favorite author. I've known him for years, and have had the pleasure of writing with him on a few occassions (see DRACULAS for an example).

When I heard about his latest project, co-written with Tracy L. Carbone, I asked them about it. My thoughts following the interview.

What’s THE PROTEUS CURE about?

TRACY:  It’s a medical thriller that’s hard to talk about without spoilers.  It’s about a brother and a sister, Bill and Abra Gilchrist, who’ve developed a cure for cancer – all kinds of cancer.  That sounds impossible because there’s a cancer for every tissue in the body, but–

PAUL: Tracy came up with an idea for an omnipotential stem-cell therapy that replaces tumors with non-cancerous cells. Since omnipotential stem cells can become any tissue, they can overcome any tumor.  The hitch in THE PROTEUS CURE is that they don’t stop there.  And this is where the spoilers begin, so this is where I stop.

TRACY:  We could have gone lurid with people turning into mutants–

PAUL: Like a third eye and all that–

TRACY: –but that wasn’t the idea.  I think where we went is much scarier, because it can’t be laughed off.  It’s deeply unsettling and disturbing because you can see how it might happen.  The issues we address are about parenthood and identity.

PAUL: The Gilchrists aren’t evil.  They’re curing people of cancer.  There’s just this one annoying side effect, which they’ve found a way to mask.  But Murphy’s Law is inescapable and something goes wrong during the clinical trial.  They’ve got to scramble to cover it up–

TRACY: –because, depending on your personality, some side-effects are acceptable and some are not.  Some people will be okay with the side-effect because they’re now cancer free.  But others will be calling the FDA and malpractice lawyers. 

PAUL: One of the Gilchrist’s will do anything to cover it up.  After all, it’s a cure for cancer.  You can’t allow someone to derail a cure for cancer!  And that’s when our oncologist heroine gets caught in the middle.

Why are you indie publishing THE PROTEUS CURE?

PAUL: We had an offer from my publisher that I thought low.  In the past my collaborations have never sold as well as my solo novels.  I don’t know why.  The reviews are just as good.  Maybe my readers don’t like to see someone else’s name of the cover.  Whatever the reason, the sales figures never match up and the offer reflected that.

Tracy and I talked it over.  In the old days (like five, six years ago) we’d have been on the short end of a take-it-or-leave it proposition.  That’s no longer the case.  But this was her opportunity to be published by one of the Big Five.  If she said yes, we would have done it.  (She has a big emotional investment in this book – she came up with the seminal idea, after all – and I wasn’t going to pull the Big Five rug out from under her.)

What was your reaction, Tracy?

TRACY: I asked Paul if he thought we could make more going the indie route. 

PAUL: I said I did, and sooner – the indie will have it published and selling before my hardworking agent would be finished arguing contract commas with the publisher’s rights department.  Plus all rights remain with us.

TRACY: I said, Let’s do it.  And so it’s coming out under Robert Barr’s Shadowridge Press imprint.

Are you pissed at your publisher?

PAUL: Not at all. Submitting a book is the start of a negotiation.  We were asking: What are the rights to our novel worth to you?  After the dust had settled we realized the hardcover, softcover, and ebook rights were more valuable to us than to them.  So, no deal.  No rancor on my part (and I hope not on theirs).  Simply… no deal.

I’m not doing this out of spite.  Life’s too short for that.  They offered what they thought THE PROTEUS CURE was worth in today’s thriller market.  I love my publisher; he’s a stand-up guy, always accessible, one of the savviest in the business.  And I’ve known my editor forever.  There’s no emotion involved here.  It’s purely a business decision. 

Will you indie pub your next book?

PAUL: Frankly, I don’t want to be a publisher.  Controlling all the rights is nice, but with that comes all sorts of busywork that keeps me from writing.  So I’m willing to surrender those rights for an adequate advance and let the industry pros do their thing while I start the next book.  As I said, my publisher gets first look.  After finishing FEAR CITY, the last of the Early Years Trilogy, I’ll start on a thriller that’s been percolating for years.  I hope they’ll love it. I hope they’ll offer an advance we can both live with.

How about you, Tracy?  Will you indie pub you next book?

TRACY: Though my views were different several years ago, I’ve come around to seeing the advantage of using an Indie publisher. I like having say over the cover art, and the royalties are a lot higher. The quick turnaround from manuscript submission to seeing the book in print is the driving force for me. I published RESTITUTION, a dark psychological thriller, and THE COLLECTION AND OTHER DARKTALES, a group of horror stories, through Indie publisher Shadowridge Press and was pleased with the result. My next thriller, HOPE HOUSE, about genetically modified infants being sold through a black market adoption agency, will be coming out in June.

How did this collaboration come about?

PAUL: It started with Tracy so I’ll let her begin, but I want it clear from the git-go that THE PROTEUS CURE is a genuine collaboration.  Not one of those phony deals where the newbie does all the work and the established writer simply attaches his name.  Tracy would do a few thousand words and pass it to me and I’d do a few thousand and pass it back. This is a definite 50-50 project, and it's not some lightweight toss-off either: it weighs in at 115,000 words with virtually no fat.

TRACY: Couldn’t have said it better. I approached Paul at a conference for his opinion about a medical thriller I was starting. His first reaction was, “No, that couldn’t work.” I argued it could. We went back and forth and finally he said something like, “Okay, maybe, just maybe, but the story is all wrong.” He explained it from a science and story standpoint. A couple of hours later we were brainstorming this great new novel. Within a few days we’d decided to write it together. I was thrilled for his mentorship and to know the book would be that much better for his involvement.

PAUL: I realized I was thinking more about PROTEUS than my own next book.  When we came up with the final twist I was psyched.  I had to get involved.

What was the process?

TRACY: Before writing a word of prose, we created a fully formed outline with subsections denoting POV changes. For example, Chapter One might have sections one through eight showing four characters’ actions. Paul would say, “Okay, you take the odd numbers and I’ll take even.” This way we took turns writing the characters’ POVs and neither of us had a character that was all our own. Except for the technical medical scenes which are clearly Paul’s, our styles are blended together throughout the story.

PAUL: I've found that an outline is vital to collaborating on a tightly plotted thriller, where certain events have to take place in a certain order for the story to build suspense and make sense.  The sequence has to be arranged in advance so that nobody's blowing the reveals.  Both authors need to be able to anticipate those reveals in their sections. 

THE PROTEUS CURE:

Kindle http://tinyurl.com/bwb3mjd for $3.99.

Trade Paperback http://tinyurl.com/d4bgcwn for $16.99

Joe sez: I believe it was Bob Mayer who coined the term "hybrid publishing." This is a catchall description for those authors who are diversifying, doing some self-pub and some legacy or Amazon pub.

I've got five ebooks with Amazon imprints, and last month sold about 14,000 copies of those titles. For me it's a no-brainer. Diversify the portfolio, get alternate revenue streams, and reach new customers.

As much as I rant against legacy publishing, the fact remains that it treats some authors well.

Publishing is a business, not an ideology. Writers need to set goals according to their needs. Different projects can lend themselves to different ways of publishing. 

If you are an author who has been given a choice of how to publish, think long and hard about it. How important is an advance? Royalty percentage? Control? Speed to publication? Validation? Getting into bookstores and libraries? 

This isn't "us vs. them". It never has been. It's simply about finding the formula that you're happy with. Once you do that, it doesn't matter what anyone else says.

Now go buy THE PROTEUS CURE, or I'm going to quit blogging forever.

Konrath on Patterson

Perhaps you've seen the ad James Patterson recently ran in the NYT.

If you don't want to squint at the jpg, here's what Patterson wrote:

"If there are no bookstores, no libraries, no serious publishers with passionate, dedicated, idealistic editors, what will happen to our literature? Who will discover and mentor new writers? Who will publish our important books? What will happen if there are no more books like these?"

Then there's a list of 38 books, including All the President's Men, Catcher in the Rye, The Color Purple, Fahrenheit 451, Catch 22, etc. I agree that many of them are great.

Then he ends with:

"The Federal Government has stepped in to save banks, and the automobile industry, but where are they on the important subject of books? Or if the answer is state and local government, where are they? Is any state doing anything? Why are there no impassioned editorials in influential newspapers or magazines? Who will save our books? Our libraries? Our bookstores?"

I respect Patterson for his marketing genius. I also like many of his books. He makes 94 million dollars a year, so he's obviously doing quite a bit right.

But I'm not finding much to agree with here.

"what will happen to our literature?"

Perhaps writers will write it? Aren't they the ones who wrote all of those books on that list?

One of those books mentioned above was Different Seasons by Stephen King. Does anyone think King will quit writing because the publishing world keeps changing and evolving? Is there anything that could get him to stop writing?

There are thousands of authors self-publishing. I'm sure some of them are writing great, important literature.

Bookstores, libraries, passionate editors, and publishers don't write books. They help books find readers. Like Amazon does, by connecting readers and writers.

Except Amazon has no barriers to entry, and gives writers a better royalty rate.

"Who will discover and mentor new writers?"

When did writers become invalids who are incapable of growing, learning, and improving without hand-holding?

Are books such rare, delicate hothouse flowers that the utmost care must be given to their nurturing and feeding or they'll perish without it?

With ebooks, the readers are the ones who discover new writers. And those readers actually have a chance to discover more books than ever before, because many of them were never mentored by the establishment.

I'm reminded of the story behind the publication of The Confederacy of Dunces. The author, John Kennedy Toole, was rejected by publishers, was supposedly very upset about it, and eventually killed himself. His mother took up the cause to publish the book posthumously, and eventually it was--by Louisiana State University. And then it won the Pulitzer.

Would Toole have been so disheartened if he could have self-pubbed via KDP? We'll never know. But here is a case where a great work of art in search of a mentor didn't get one, and only through the determination of the dead writer's mother did it go on to become recognized as one of the greatest works in literature.

Toole needed less mentoring, fewer roadblocks, and more opportunities to get his book published. Which self-publishing allows.

"Who will publish our important books?"

I'm the first to admit that I'm an entertainer. That's all I aspire to be. Whiskey Sour will never be Catcher in the Rye, nor was it meant to be.

But I'm pretty sure there are writers who have important books in them. And rather than go through what Toole--and no doubt countless others--had to go through with the legacy system, they now have the opportunity to publish those works themselves.

Perhaps, without the legacy system, there will be no Maxwell Perkins to guide those geniuses of tomorrow. But there have always been, and always will be writing classes. And critique groups. And freelance editors. And peers. A writer doesn't have to work alone. And in exchange for getting this assistance, the writer doesn't then have to pay a large percentage of royalties, forever.

Passive Guy has some smart things to say about the nurturing aspect of publishing:

"Does nurturing even belong in a healthy business relationship?

PG says maybe some baby authors want nurturing, but most grown-up authors don’t. If you simply must have nurturing, maybe a dog or cat is a better idea than an agent or publisher. They’ll love you to pieces and never ask for a contract (unless the cat hires an attorney).

Like many things in traditional publishing, maybe you get nurturing whether you want it or not.

Here’s an idea. Let’s make nurturing an à la carte option that the author can pay for:

Agency Commission – 15% with nurturing, 7.5% without nurturing

Publisher Ebook Royalties – 25% with nurturing, 50% without nurturing"

While there are substantive differences between mentoring and nurturing, I must say that while I was taught many things about legacy publishing by those in the business, I didn't require any mentoring, nurturing, or hand-holding. I was lucky to find a good agent, Jane Dystel, who believed in me and was willing to work hard on my behalf, even when countless publishers rejected my books. Books that never were traditionally published, but have gone on to earn me over a million dollars.

The publishing industry did not teach me craft. I never required much editing. And though I never considered my books "important" I sure tried in vain to get my publishers behind them. Which never happened.

But I'll answer the actual question. If the true concern is that great books (like the 38 on the above list) will get lost in the ebook tsunami of crap (which I debunked, but I digress), then I have a perfect solution:

James Patterson's Important Literature Series

All Patterson has to do is hire a group of editors to sift through self-published books, looking for great literature. Authors can also submit their work to this program. Then, when worthy books are discovered, Patterson can make a big announcement, re-publish it with a lot of press and fanfare and his name behind it, and these important books won't get lost in the kerfuffle.

I don't see this costing very much to do. Oprah did it with her book club. There are people other than those in publishing who can discover great books and help get them noticed.

If Patterson won't fund it, why not get a government grant for that instead of a bailout?

"The Federal Government has stepped in to save banks, and the automobile industry, but where are they on the important subject of books?"

While our nation does have an unfortunate history of helping the careless, uber-rich upper class continue to stay uber-rich by cleaning up after their greedy mistakes by using the tax money of the middle class, how about instead the publishing industry simply tries to compete? Maybe by embracing technology instead of repeatedly trying to halt its progress? Maybe by lowering the prices of books so more people had access to them? Maybe by treating authors fairly?

Barry Eisler and I did a post on this two years ago, showing publishers how they could compete.

The Federal Government doesn't need to intervene. Unless they can somehow force every executive in NY Publishing to read my blog. 

"Who will save our books? Our libraries? Our bookstores?"

Last I checked, books don't need saving. Ebooks are thriving.

Our libraries would be thriving as well, if the publishers Patterson is pleading for actually played fair with their digital rights. I have a solution for that, too.

And bookstores? Well, as my friend Ann Voss Peterson said, look how every musician stopped making music once all the record stores went out of business.

Oh, wait. People are still making music. Good music, in fact. And lots of it. Even without record stores in every town.

I also need to point out that there are a lot of great books released by legacy publishers that fail to ever find their audience, and then go out of print. Publishers can discover important novels, and then fail to properly promote them. Which brings up an interesting point: All of those important books on the above list are big bestsellers.

What about all the great books that don't hit the NYT list? Who speaks for those?

Patterson recently was interviewed in Salon to talk about the ad, and I didn't find much to agree with there, either.

"E-books are fine and dandy, but it’s all happening so quickly, and I don’t think anyone thought through the consequences of having many fewer bookstores, of libraries being shut down or limited, of publishers going out of business — possibly in the future, many publishers going out of business."

Because without libraries, bookstores, or publishers there will be no more books?

Of course there will be books.

Will there be places to get books?

Sure there will.

And the books will be cheaper, and the authors will make a higher royalty.

I'd also argue that books will be more accessible. Some people don't live near bookstores or libraries. But a Kindle allows people anywhere to buy ebooks, and to also get them for free.

If Patterson is worried that the poor won't be able to afford Kindles, how about asking the government to buy Kindles for all libraries to loan to patrons, and forcing publishers to drop DRM and sell ebooks to libraries as I described in my link above? Doesn't that seem like it will be more helpful, practical, and less expensive than a bailout?

And if the government doesn't do it, well, 94 million dollars would buy 1,300,000 Kindles. There are 121,000 libraries in the US, so each one would get ten.

Patterson is doing a great deal of good for the world, with www.readkiddoread.com, with his scholarships, with all of the books he gives away.

But maybe the industry he's working in doesn't serve the greater good. Maybe he should be backing a different horse.

Is Patterson really concerned about important books being lost? With his money and fame helping important books get publicity, and with every library having access to Kindles and inexpensive ebooks, shouldn't that alleviate his concerns?

"In Germany, Italy, and France, they protect bookstores and publishers. It is widely practiced in parts of Europe. I don’t think that’s outlandish."

I'm all for my tax dollars funding museums, protecting some endangered species, and even helping start-up companies with low interest loans.

But I don't want my tax dollars going toward capitalist ventures that are no longer valid because technology is changing while they continue to cling to outdated business models.

Great books will be written without the Big 5. People will be able to buy books without brick and mortar bookstores. And any enterprise that exists to make money should do so because it is good at what it does, not because the government is bailing it so it can continue to make bad decisions and inevitably fold anyway.

"There might be tax breaks, there might be limitations on the monopolies in the book business. We haven’t gotten into laws that should or shouldn’t be done in terms of the internet."

I'm all for limitations on monopolies in the book business. I call it collusion. Like the DOJ does. Scott Turow spoke of a "rich literary culture" which Barry and I took him to task for.

But I'm not for giving tax breaks to a billion dollar industry that hurts authors and readers.

"The press doesn't deal with the effects of e-books as a story. Borders closing down is treated as a business story. Where we are in Westchester during the summer, you’d think that’d be a bookstore haven, and there’s nothing. And that’s not unusual. I don’t think we can be the country we’d like to be without literature."

If you own a Kindle, Mr. Patterson, you don't need a bookstore in Westchester, and you don't have to worry about being without literature.

If you can't afford a Kindle, let's use our tax dollars for that. Get Kindles into all libraries, so everyone has access to ebooks.

Borders closing is a business story. They didn't close because people are reading less. They closed because people are finding their books elsewhere.

"I was in Nashville last night to go to a kickoff at Ann Patchett’s store. One of the things we agreed on is there are too many people talking about things who don’t do anything. She did something. She bought a bookstore. To some extent, it’s a symbolic act. But it got a lot of coverage. And it has to be out of love."

Just because libraries and bookstores are where people used to discover great books doesn't mean that without them people will never discover great books.

Just because the publishing industry published great books doesn't mean without them no more great books will be published.

Paper is only one way to deliver a story to a reader. And it's actually an expensive, archaic, slow, and extremely limited way to do so compared to ebooks.

I like bookstores. A lot. I visited over 1200 of them, signing books.

But it is possible to love books without patronizing bookstores. And it is possible for books to thrive without them being sold by bookstores.

That said, two years ago Blake Crouch and I came up with some ideas to help save bookstores. Not a single bookstore contacted us.

"I don’t think we have a real strong spokesperson in the publishing community, someone who can stand up. If they were, they got distracted by lawsuits [against Amazon and publishing houses]. That scares publishers, as it should. It doesn't really matter. I’m stepping up a little. But it’d be nice if it was the head of a publishing company."

What would be nice is if publishers actually cared about readers and writers, instead of their own continued existence. But I don't blame them for worrying about their stockholders. That's capitalism.

Which is exactly why, if the system is failing, they SHOULD NOT be bailed out.

They ran the industry. They were the gatekeepers. They made their fortunes, and also helped Patterson make his. Now they aren't needed. And it is entirely their fault they aren't needed. And asking the government to help them is like asking peasants to use their money to buy Marie Antoinette cake.

If James Patterson wants to step up, ads asking for the government to bail out the publishing industry isn't the way to lead a crusade to save libraries and important books.

Patterson could use his considerable weight to get publishers to work with libraries, instead of against them.

He could use his fame and money to help discover and promote important works of literature.

He could use his fortune to make sure all libraries get ereading devices, or he could lobby for that cause.

He could.

Addendum: After writing this piece, I read a blog by August Wainwright on this issue, and he brings up some interesting points that I missed.

Eisler on Digital Denial

Barry Eisler: This past Saturday, I gave one of the keynotes at the 21st annual Pike's Peak Writers Convention (great conference and I highly recommend it to other writers). During my talk, I shared some thoughts on the choices writers have today in publishing -- thoughts which, judging from some of the Twitter comments I've seen, have caused a bit of upset here and there. Because I think it's beneficial when ideas are pressure-checked by people with differing views, I welcome the discussion, and I hope we can continue it here.

Here's the gist of my talk:

• Up until roughly six years ago, the only viable means of book distribution was paper. Accordingly, a writer who wanted to reach a mass audience needed a paper distribution partner.

• The primary value-add offered by legacy publishers has traditionally been paper distribution. Certainly legacy publishers offer many other services (much of which is outsourced) -- editorial, copyediting, proofreading, book packaging, and marketing, to name the most obvious -- but the primary service, the one the others are built on, has always been paper distribution.

• The advent of digital book distribution means that today, not all authors need a paper distribution partner. Authors can reach (and thousands of authors are reaching) a mass audience in digital by self-publishing instead (a third option, Amazon publishing, combines elements of both systems).

• The ideal of legacy publishing is that an editor falls in love with a manuscript, the writer is showered with a large advance from the publisher, the publisher expertly edits, packages, markets, and distributes the book, and all the author ever has to worry about ever after is writing bestselling book after bestselling book, while the publisher handles all the marketing and other business aspects.

• The ideal of legacy publishing is not a fantasy -- after all, some writers have experienced it. But there are very few such writers within the system as a whole. Statistically speaking, therefore, the odds of success in legacy publishing can be thought of as a kind of lottery -- but this is true of self-publishing, as well, where the odds of success are also statistically low.

• It's important to compare the reality of one system to the reality of the other. Too often, people compare the reality of self-publishing to the ideal of legacy publishing, and such a skewed comparison doesn't yield useful results. The most useful way to look at the choice between legacy publishing and self-publishing, therefore, is as a choice between two kinds of lottery, each with different odds, different kinds of payouts, and different overall advantages and disadvantages.

• It follows that, in determining which system would be the best personal fit, writers should evaluate their objectives, talents, skills, and inclinations, along with the various differences in the two systems (there's a lot more that could be usefully said on this topic; perhaps in a separate post). There's no one-size-fits-all, and what represents the right fit for one writer won't necessarily be the right fit for another.

• While we writers do have to choose a single route for a given book (at least initially), it's important to remember that we can choose a different route for a subsequent book. That is, you can do one book with a legacy publisher, another with Amazon, and a third you can self-publish. And so on. It's not an either/or universe.

• Overall, where writers used to have only one choice (find a paper distribution partner or fail commercially as a writer), today we have many choices -- for any given book, and even more so over the course of a career. If you're a writer, having more choices is a great thing.

Now, I know there are some sensitivities in the establishment publishing world about the changes I describe above, but I didn't think anything I discussed was going to be particularly controversial. In fact, I think most of it is factual (is it not true that, until recently, books were distributed entirely in paper?) or axiomatic (is choice for writers bad?), and I characterized it as such. I think in retrospect I might have done a better job of distinguishing between what strikes me as fact and axiom on the one hand, and what I recognize as opinion on the other (I try to be careful in this regard, but inevitably something slips by when I'm giving a live talk). But still, I don't see much that's particularly contentious in the way I tried to sort out the state of publishing today.

Nonetheless, one literary agent in the audience, Sorche Elizabeth Fairbank, tweeted that I was "offering up bullshit" in suggesting that a legacy publisher's primary value is paper distribution. Because this is an exceptionally important point of disagreement, I'd like to talk about it a bit more.

As I've noted, an author who wants to reach a mass audience in paper needs a paper distribution partner. But an author who wants to reach a mass audience in digital needs no distribution partner at all. It is simply a fact -- a fact -- that a lone author can distribute 100% as effectively by herself as she can with the assistance of a multi-billion dollar international conglomerate (again, editing, marketing and all the rest is a separate story; for the moment, we are talking only about distribution).

To put it another way: a publisher offering an author digital distribution services is like someone offering me air. I already have it and I don't need to pay extra for it. I know it can be unsettling in some circles to have the matter stated so baldly, but I really don't think the matter is disputable, either. In digital, as Clay Shirky has said, "Publishing is a button."

Legacy publishers typically offer authors only 17.5% of the list price of a digital book, while they keep 52.5% for themselves (the retailer keeps 30%). If distribution is of secondary value, it might make sense that a publisher would continue to offer an author so little even when no distribution services are offered. The theory would be something like, "Author, we only give you about 15% of list price in paper, where we offer distribution services, and because distribution services are a relatively unimportant part of the publishing services we offer you, it makes perfect sense that we would offer you only a smidgeon more -- 17.5% -- in digital, where we don't offer distribution services. You know, because distribution is only worth about 2.5% of what we charge you overall."

If, on the other hand, distribution is the primary, or even just an important value-added service a publisher can offer, then it makes no sense that publishers are offering authors roughly the same amount whether or not they are doing any distribution.

To put it another way: in paper publishing, legacy publishers offer authors services A, B, C, and D, and charge X for all of it. In digital publishing, legacy publishers offer authors services B, C, and D… but they are still charging roughly X, even though service A is no longer part of the package. If service A was an immaterial service, the new pricing makes some sense. If service A was a critical service, it's difficult to understand why a publisher would charge the same even when service A is no longer being provided. If a restaurant stops offering refills of coffee with the dessert it serves along with its steak dinners but doesn't lower its prices, you probably won't care. If it stops serving steak, you might wonder why the bill hasn't been adjusted accordingly.

So the question is, is distribution more like refills of coffee, or more like steak? Fairbank seems to believe it's more like refills of coffee -- that distribution isn't a particularly important publisher service. But does her position make sense? Here's a thought experiment to test her proposition: imagine your publisher tells you tomorrow that it can no longer offer you, say, copyediting services, and that you will have to hire a copyeditor yourself. No worries, though -- of course the publisher offers to charge you less for their overall bundle of services as a result. About how much of a price break would you feel is reasonable under the circumstances?

Now, imagine your publisher tells you instead that it can no longer offer you paper distribution services, and that you will have to engage a printing press, hire a fleet of trucks, lease warehouses, develop relationships with wholesalers, and come up with a system for the delivery, consignment, and return of your paper books. No worries, though -- of course the publisher offers to charge you less for their overall bundle of services as a result. About how much of a price break would you feel is reasonable now?

I imagine different people will respond with somewhat different numbers to my thought experiment. But I also expect that all authors would at a minimum insist on a far steeper discount in the absence of distribution services than they would in the absence of copyediting. And ditto for any other service besides copyediting, or even in addition to it. Why? Because there is nothing more fundamental, more important, or more difficult for authors to acquire on their own in paper publishing than distribution. If a publisher doesn't properly edit your book, or chooses a bad cover, or writes a silly author bio, or even engages in a giant marketing fail, the book can still make money. But if the publisher doesn't properly distribute the book, then the book will be unavailable (or at least its availability will be severely curtailed), no one will be able to buy it, and the author will be hosed. Distribution is the one area where an author is totally dependent on the publisher in paper publishing, and the area where publisher failures will have the most catastrophic results.

For all these reasons, I think it's difficult to argue other than that paper distribution has traditionally been legacy publishing's primary value-add, and I'm surprised that such an anodyne observation could provoke controversy, let alone consternation. Maybe in some circles, putting it so plainly just isn't the done thing? It's bad manners to depart from pretty talk about how legacy publishers "nurture" authors, and to focus instead on actual value? I'm not sure.

The reactions of other agents and editors were even more surprising. Agent Jennifer Laughran of Andrea Brown Lit recommended that Fairbank "Stop listening! Save yourself!" Agent Janet Reid of Janet Reid Literary advised that it's a mistake to even attend a conference where I'm speaking (apparently it's not sufficiently protective to boycott just me; you have to boycott the entire conference). Agent Pam van Hylckama Vlieg of Larson Pomada tweeted that she wanted to walk out, though she didn't. Agent Barry Goldblatt of Barry Goldblatt Literary tweeted, "I had to be restrained in my seat. What a douche!" (Goldblatt subsequently retracted the name-calling aspect). Fairbank also claimed that a Random House editor left early, fuming, rather than listen to my presentation.

(Apparently, you didn't even have to know what was said to know it was bad: author Lauren Dane offered up a variety of reactions, suggesting talks like mine are "insulting," "condescending," "smug," and "dismissive," before acknowledging, "Oh, I do want to say, I wasn't there. I only saw one quote that I have no other context for so I could totally be reading it wrong." Indeed. Why let a lack of any relevant knowledge get in the way of a chance to offer a string of public opinions?)

These reactions, and the attitudes behind them, aren't just immature. They're also fundamentally unhealthy. How can agents and editors serve writers in a dramatically changing industry if they refuse to listen to new and contrary views? If they believe -- and actually advise others -- that it's a mistake even to risk exposure to contrary views? I mean, I think "Authors Guild" president Scott Turow is misleadingly wrong about just about everything, but I still listen to him and publicly respond (if only he had the integrity to respond in kind, as his critics have done him a great and unappreciated service in consistently pointing out his many errors).

What's also noteworthy is the extremely positive reaction I've received from scores of the writers at the event (which, at the risk of stating the obvious, was in fact a conference for writers, at least as suggested in the conference's name). Of course, it's possible there's some vast, silent majority of writers who despised my presentation as much as the agents and editors did, but I think it's more likely that it was primarily agents and editors who found my thoughts on how authors could make good choices so threatening that they felt compelled to warn people it was dangerous even to listen, or walked out as though I was advocating the slaughter of baby seals or some other beyond-the-pale thing. Which leads to a question: Agents and editors, do you think it's a good sign for your business that your reactions to a talk on what's best for authors would diverge so radically from the reactions of the very authors you ostensibly serve -- authors without whom you cannot make a living? And if it's not a good sign, what might you do to correct course and serve authors better?

One difference I consistently see -- and that consistently concerns me -- between proponents of choice in publishing on the one hand, and proponents of establishment publishing on the other, is the willingness of the first group to engage critics, and the latter's refusal. I know behaviors like sniping to your followers on Twitter, or walking out of a keynote in dudgeon, can offer some brief emotional satisfaction, but what do such behaviors do to help writers? I've tweeted this post to the people I named in it, and I hope they'll come by to offer their thoughts. Why not? Wouldn't writers benefit from such a discussion? And in the end, isn't that what we all want?

Joe sez: I believe Barry's well-reasoned, polite response to his critics and their childish behavior is admirable. It's also spot-on.

But I'd take it further.

Paper distribution isn't just the primary service legacy publishers provide. It's the only essential service they provide. Every other service can be obtained by an author without the need for a legacy publisher's involvement. Editing, cover art, proofing, even marketing, promotion, and advertising--an author can source any or all of these for a one-time, sunk cost. Why pay an editor a royalty forever? Some writers spend months--if not years--writing a book. The best editor in the world shouldn't require more than a few weeks to edit a manuscript--and a few days is probably much more common. So the writer spends months, the editor spends days, and the company the editor works for earns... 52.5%, forever?

But it gets even more lopsided. Because this not just primary, but essential service--paper distribution--has never been provided equally. Some authors get the five-star treatment with books available every place books can be sold. The vast majority of authors are not so lucky. Most of my peers never had their books for sale in a Walmart. Some didn't even get into the chain bookstores. Some who got into the chain stores only had one copy available for sale, and it was spine-out in section.

So the thing that authors needed most from publishers--paper distribution, the ESSENTIAL service publishers were supposed to provide--has always been provided unevenly.

(To agent Sorche Fairbank… still think it's so out-to-lunch to suggest that publishing is a lottery, with only a few big winners out of everyone who buys a ticket?)

When Barry speaks of the ideal of legacy publishing, he's talking about getting a huge advance and having blockbuster sales. It is indeed possible. And I've said, many times, hold onto your e-rights if you get a legacy offer unless they offer you an incredible amount of money. If they do, take it and run.

Most of us will never be offered a fortune, though. And most of us will never get the star treatment and a golden ticket to the top of the bestseller lists.

In fact, the vast majority of us who sign with legacy publishers, hoping for the ideal experience legacy can offer, have our expectations dashed.

Imagine going to a restaurant, paying $50 for a steak, and getting a tiny bit of gristle and a single sprig of undercooked broccoli. Wouldn't you be mad at the restaurant?

Actually, if you were starving to death, no you wouldn't. You'd be grateful for the shit they served you, and you'd pray to the universe they would deign to serve you again.

That was how it was in the days of paper-only publishing. Legacy publishers were the only place a writer could hope to get food.

But then a funny thing happened called ebooks. Suddenly, paper distribution wasn't that important anymore. Ebook distribution didn't demand a cartel lock on all retail outlets. Authors could reach readers without gatekeepers.

The ideal of self-publishing--huge success--may be just as elusive as huge success is in legacy publishing. But I believe, as evidenced by my experience and the experiences of many of my peers, that the reality of self-publishing trumps the reality of legacy.

Self-pubbers can bring their books to market much faster, days or weeks instead of months or years.

Self-pubbers have control over things that writers deem important, like editing, cover art, and title.

Self-pubbers get 70% royalties.

Self-pubbers set the price of their book.

Self-pubbers can make changes to their books quickly.

Self-pubbers can reach just as many, if not more, readers with their ebooks than legacy publishers can.

Self-pubbing has no gatekeepers or barriers to entry. It doesn't take months/years of querying with fingers crossed to reach potential readers.

In the legacy system, there are a few bestsellers making a ton of money. It is the same with self-pubbing. But in legacy, there were a lot of authors making very little money. I haven't taken any polls, but I know many former legacy authors who are making more self-pubbing than they ever did, and many authors who were never invited into the legacy industry who are making money for the first time.

Legacy still has the paper advantage. But your chances of leveraging that paper advantage to huge success are slim, and what you're giving up to take that chance--70% royalties--is quite a lot.

Writers need to arm themselves with facts and act accordingly. Is it worth losing 52.5% royalties on every ebook sold on the hope you'll make up the difference in sales selling paper books (and getting 6%-15% per copy sold)?

As I write this, six of my ebooks previously published by the legacy industry are in the Amazon Top 100. None of them hit the Top 100 prior to my getting my rights back. With a combination of pricing and marketing, I managed to sell over 30,000 ebooks in three days. 

I may be an exception. I've always said that luck plays an important role in success, and that your results will vary. My sales aren't a goal to shoot for, any more than Stephen King's sales are (and his sales blow mine away).

But writers should know that there is a choice, for the first time ever. Agents and publishers also need to understand this. While my success may be atypical, more and more authors are finding success (whatever your definition of success is) via self-publishing.

Now, I can fully understand how disturbing this change must be to those whose livelihood is entangled with the prosperity of legacy publishing. Bestselling authors, agents, editors, anyone who works for publishers... these people have a vested interest in the status quo. And newbie authors, raised on a steady diet of legacy mythology, often defend the very industry that continues to exclude them. After all, it's tough to give up on a goal you've been pursuing for so long.

But denying the fundamental changes in publishing doesn't make the changes go away. It just makes you look foolish. And things have changed dramatically. Publishers might still be useful, but they're no longer necessary, and useful and necessary are not the same thing and can't command the same price. Doubt me? As of this writing, five of the top thirty most popular authors on Amazon are self-published (at the moment, I'm #3).

Writers finally have a choice. Some people welcome that. Others are terrified by it and in serious denial.

But maybe I'm wrong about this. Maybe Barry's wrong, too. So to all the people who were calling him names on Twitter, or walking out of his talk and advising others to do the same, I say this. Have the integrity to defend your public statements and the courage to respond to people with different views. Stop cluck-clucking about the people you disagree with and engage them. It would be a good way to demonstrate to writers that you're in it for them.