What Writers Need to Do When We Run Out of Gas
There have been numerous articles written about writer’s block- that horrific time in our lives when our “Muse” takes a vacation and all creativity comes to a screeching halt. Web sites abound on the subject, with many experts giving their opinions on the causes and solutions, most of which we’ve all heard before. But the topic of this article is not about this well known malady, but a more serious affliction: writer’s stall. What happens when we run out of gas on the “Road To Riches”?
With every two steps forward we take as writers, it seems we get pushed back three. It’s hard not to get discouraged and harder still to continue writing when the odds are being stacked higher and higher against us.
In this day of electronic publishing, it only takes a small investment to become a “published” author. iUniverse, Xlibris and a host of other print-on-demand publishers opened the door to hundreds of hopeful writers eager to see their years of hard work finally appear on bookstore shelves. But the door was quickly slammed shut as store after store refused entry to these “vanity press” titles.
E-books were a hot idea when they were first proposed and a number of writers flocked to these publishers in hopes that readers would enjoy the convenience of reading their work on-line, or through the use of the new technology of the “Rocket E-Book Reader”. But the cost of the device was out of reach for most people. Given the choice of “paper or plastic”, fans of the printed word still preferred the traditional pulp novel over the futuristic metallic device.
Organizations such as the National Writers Union and the Authors Guild have been fighting the legal battle over reproduction rights for years, taking our case all the way to the Supreme Court. Yes, we won the battle, but now it appears we may have lost the war as magazines now demand we give up all rights, including electronic ones, or they won’t buy our submissions.
And it’s not any easier on authors. Once that first book is in your hands, the hard work of promotion and marketing is left almost totally up to you. Unless you’re a Stephen King, Anne Rice or another “name” author, getting your book into stores or attracting public attention is an exhausting effort, with most of the effort returning zero results. It’s become a viscous cycle of frustration. In order to make it onto the bookstore shelves, you need to be a “name”, but you can’t make a name for yourself unless you’re on the bookstore shelves!
Once your book is published the road becomes laden with even more detours and obstacles. You send your novel to fifteen reviewers and no one responds. You hold book signing events and only three people attend, two of whom are your family and the other one wants information on finding an agent for their novel. You receive excellent newspaper, radio and cable television coverage, but sales are still under 100 for the month. And as you stare at a blank screen and an obnoxious blinking cursor at three in the morning, you begin to ask yourself: is it all worth it?
Bookstores are covered with titles from authors who have written ten, twenty or more novels and you can’t even begin the first sentence of the first chapter of your second one. The plot is in your head, the characters, the story, every detail mapped out perfectly. Yet it remains trapped for months while distractions always seem to get in the way, and you begin to wonder if you will ever be able to free it onto the written page. And if you do, will it be as good as the last one or will anyone read it, or will it too be stuck in the traffic jam on the “Road To Riches”?
Then you read about some infamous political figure who just signed a multi-million-dollar book contract and you’re thinking “I’m sleeping with the wrong Bill.” (Providing your partner’s name is Bill!) And you start having doubts that your writing is any good. Was it just a case of temporary insanity that caused you to sit at the computer for hours writing and re-writing page after page of a story no one may ever read?
Self-doubt begins to creep in, as the money begins to drain out. Hours spent working on a web site hundreds of people read, but no one hits the “donate $1.00 per story” to help sustain. Cyber pats on the back and accolades from around the world feel good, but they don’t pay the monthly access fee. So, the column slips by another month. You miss the deadline on the short story contest you were going to enter and all you have to show for your next novel is the title. Your engine is stalled, your gas tank is empty and there you sit. Stranded. Alone on a deserted highway on a very lonely road without a cell phone or an emergency flare, you start to question why you began this journey in the first place.
Then a minor miracle happens. A voice in distant cyber space “yells” at you to get off your butt and send three chapters of your novel by Thursday or else. After helping your teenager with an essay, she calls from college to tell you you’re not a good writer, you’re a great writer. Your daughter locks you in your office and won’t let you out until you’ve finished the column. The local university calls to tell you five people signed up for your class. Your e-box is filled with mail from readers saying how much they enjoyed your latest contribution to their Association newsletter. A magazine editor you highly respect asks you to interview a very “interesting” author who spends an hour and a half reminding you why you started on this journey. Not for the fame, not for the riches, but for the sheer joy of the ride.
And you discover there’s just enough gas left in the tank to start the engine. Just enough to begin the journey again, no matter where it leads. In spite of the hazards, in spite of the road blocks and in spite of the occasional stall on the “Road to Riches”, there isn’t any other road you’d rather be on, because writing isn’t what we do, it’s who we are. And we love it!
Know Your Rights Before You’re Left Out!
When publishing was only a matter of paper and ink, and reading material was produced by hand, author’s “rights” were pretty simple. There were none. Whatever the author wrote, the author sold and the author kept the money. With the invention of the printing press, came a new industry, Publishing. The good news for authors was that their works could be reproduced in large quantities. The bad news was that authors and writers now needed protection from these same publishers in order to receive fair compensation for each reproduction of their work sold. In order to insure the author would receive this compensation, more than a handshake was needed. Thus began the first written agreement between the publisher and the author; the contract, and a new terminology was created around the phrase author’s “rights”.
The first contracts were a simple agreement between the publisher and author. Publisher agrees to pay author a percentage of each book sold. For awhile things were going along quite well and everybody was happy. Then, one day, the owner of a local theater read a novel and decided it would make an interesting play. A new contract had to be drawn up between the author of the original work, the publisher of that work and the theater owner (renamed “Producer”) who wanted to use the work of the talented author for their own profit, Thus the term “Dramatic” rights was added to the vocabulary and things started to get a little complicated. Authors and writers needed help in the ever growing “rights” industry and a new profession was born: the Literary Agent. (Not to be, but often is, confused with another profession held in equally high esteem, the Lawyer.)
In the early days of horse and buggy when books were delivered only to a small area, local rights were all one needed. But with the onset of trains, planes and automobiles, “international”rights became part of the contracts. Along with the birth of the motion picture industry, came the added line “film rights” which begat television rights, which begat video tape and audio books rights as well.
The relationship between all parties was going along quite well for most of the 20th century. Authors were writing, agents were rejecting author’s writing, author’s kept writing, agents sent manuscripts to publishers, publishers rejected manuscripts, agents got lucky, agents got 10%, publishers got rich, agents got richer, authors got burned out. Then, during the latter part of the 1990’s, the entire industry took a dramatic turn with the creation of a brand new publishing medium: The Internet, and it begat a brand new term never before heard of in the history of the published world: “Electronic” rights.
As recently as 1995, the Writers Market didn’t even show a listing for ebook rights. For the writing novice, all they listed was the usual explanation of First Serial Rights – or North American Rights, Second serial (reprint) Rights, Subsidiary Rights, and Dramatic, Television, and Motion Picture Rights, which are usually purchased on a one-year option, generally for 10% of the total price by an interested party, usually a producer, who then tries to sell the idea to other people. (Remember our friendly little “theater owner”?)
Electronic rights can cover a lot of territory. Take this article for example. It’s being read on your computer screen, but you can also download it to your hard drive, make a print copy, or several print copies, and send it out across the world in an instant. And the author, me, wouldn’t receive one dime for any of it. However, before you hit that button, check the top of this page, and you’ll see a little © symbol. Hey, it’s “copyrighted”! Which means if I catch you making money off my work, I’ll see you in court. It also means that anything I write cannot be reproduced in any form without my express, written permission. (So, just go ahead and ask first!) But the ebook rights go much further than simply the reproduction of articles. It includes full length books, and is now a very important part of any legitimate book contract. It’s also something that every author and writer should be totally knowledgeable about before signing any contract. If you have an agent, there is a good possibility they aren’t up on all the legalities of this new industry. But, I’m assuming that since you’re reading this on an electronic device, most of you are more knowledgeable than most on the wonders of ebook and epublishing.
The writing and publishing profession is changing almost daily. Print-On-Demand companies are giving traditional publishing houses a run for their money. Ebook publishers, such as Smashwords.com and many others are making huge strides in the electronic market which is growing at a furious pace. Literary agents and traditional publishers who aren’t totally aware of this new industry or thought that this is only a “temporary phase” are finding themselves out of a job.
You only need to follow the recent law suit brought by the Author Guild against GOOGLE to see where the future is going, and it’s not a good one for writers.
Authors who are not fully knowledgeable of their rights in this new electronic age, are going to find themselves losing vast sums of money to them that do. The bottom line is, KNOW YOUR RIGHTS before you sign on that same bottom line. Your reputation as well as your bank account demands no less.
Author Raven West 
Get OUT of the Publishing Traffic Jam
Raven West ♦ February 23, 2014 ♦ Leave a comment
For the financially independent, there was the alternate toll-road. Self-publishing and subsidized publishing (also, unfortunately called “vanity” publishing) was a path less traveled by, but one which many authors hoped would lead to riches, or at least lead to enough wealth to cover the cost of the toll.
Until the latter part of the twentieth century, those were the only two courses for an author to embark on if they wanted to be published. No longer. Computer technology, high speed printers and the Internet has changed the entire highway system. The rocky road of agent to publisher to bookstore to reader has been replaced by the manuscript to hard drive to reader highway of the Cyberspace Transit System. In today’s high tech market, ebooks are downloaded in a fraction of the time it would take to print a book. Print-On-Demand publishers produce a hard print copy in a few days, with no huge stacks of inventory piling up in warehouses, or author’s garages. Seemingly overnight, anyone with a computer and a modem became a “published” author and the “road to riches” has become twenty-four hour traffic jam.
With thousands of authors worldwide driving their new found published work on the same road at the same time, it’s getting harder to see the finish line, let alone reach it. With hundreds of new titles going on-line daily, and hundreds of new authors adding to the massive list on Amazon.com, the problem is no longer getting your book in print. The problem now is getting your book noticed, purchased and read.
Those who have already made it need not worry. Established authors will continue to attract an audience, whether they publish in paper or in cyberspace. The rest of us are only hoping we won’t run out of gas while we’re stuck in traffic. The goal may still be the same, but the length of time it takes to reach that goal just became a whole lot longer. The influx of POD and Ebook publishers has more than doubled since 1999 when Writers Club first announced their new print on demand program. iUniverse entered the scene in October of that same year, followed by Xlibris, 1stBooks, and a number of others. Ebook publishers began paving their own roads early on, and now there are more than fifty, with more than a hundred titles each!
At a meeting of the National Writers Union, Literary Agent Sandra Dykstra commented that iUniverse’s goal to publish 30,000 titles was admirable, but how were they going to find 30,000 readers? Wouldn’t it be better to stay on the well paved road, built by traditional publishing houses that have a more select list and sell 30,000 copies of one title? She had a point. To a point. With so many authors publishing so many titles, how does one avoid the traffic jam on the road to riches? The solution is not to u-turn to the old ways. The solution is to get off at the next exit, find an alternate route, or build your own road!
The old ways worked in the old days, but the 21st Century put an end to the “old” ways and there’s no turning back. While technology has made it easier than ever to publish a book, it has also made it that much harder for newly published authors to break away from the pack and find an audience. The Internet has given authors the golden opportunity to reach an international readership. It’s up to the authors to use this technology to construct their very own road to riches.
Web sites devoted to the promotion of new books are begin created almost daily. The key is in knowing where these sites are and the best way to use them. Any search engine will help you begin the search, but don’t stop there. There are many Egroups listed in Yahoo specifically designed for new authors. These are an excellent source for promotion ideas, plus you can attend any of these ‘round the clock in all kinds of weather without ever having to leave your desk. Members exchange information, support and motivation for each other in cyberspace. Some sites run weekly or monthly live “chats” with a variety of industry guests. DO NOT BE SHY about self-promotion. Lean on that horn long and loud. Post your reviews on all on-line bookstores. If someone gives your book a decent review, copy it and post it everywhere you can. Build your own resource list for your specific genre and promote yourself at least once a day someplace on your list. If you write romance, don’t try to be the “next” Danielle Steele. If you write horror, don’t try to be the “next” Stephen King. Whatever you write, be the very first YOU.
It takes time, hard work and effort, but if you keep your eye one the road ahead and hold tight to that wheel as you speed down your own highway, your own road to riches will leave everyone else far behind eating your dust.
Good luck and good writing!
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