Why Les Miserables Won’t Win Best Picture, and Why It Doesn’t Matter
I am a Les Miserables fanatic. I’ve seen the play twelve times since 1985. My collection of Les Miserables souvenirs include several coffee mugs, two keychains, one the brass keychain of the theater ticket, two match boxes, t-shirt, sweatshirt, nightshirt, beach towel, pen, movie and play posters, the complete Broadway production on both cassette and CD, piano and clarinet sheet music, the recently published book Les Miserables – From Stage to Screen and of course Victor Hugo’s novel.
When it was announced that, at long last, the production was going to be made into a movie, I had my doubts. When I heard who they had cast for the major characters, I was skeptical to say the least. To say I was pleasantly surprised would be a gross understatement.
When the movie premiered on Christmas day, I woke up at 6am to drive to Century City in Los Angeles to see the movie in IMAX. The theater was sold out. The audience applauded the performances as enthusiastically as if they were in a live theater. I’ve seen the movie four additional times. Once with my husband, who actually sobbed at the finale, once with my daughters and twice by myself. And each time, went through an entire box of tissues.
Yet I know the movie will not win the Oscar for best picture. Up against the more popular and contemporary war movies Argo, Zero Dark Thirty and even Lincoln, Les Miserables doesn’t stand a chance, but it doesn’t matter.
Because of this film, I could feed my “addiction” 5 times for less than the price of one theater ticket. Because of this film, I only needed to drive 10 minutes to the closest movie theater instead of having to drive more than an hour to a theater. Because of this film, thousands of fans, new ones and ones yet to be born will have the opportunity to experience this incredible story written more than 150 years ago.
Long after this year’s Oscar winner fades from memory, Les Miserables will continue to inspire, enthrall and gain new fans for generations to come.
And that is why winning tonight won’t matter.
But wouldn’t it be wonderful if it did?
Writers Beware! Don’t sign away your soul just to be published!
The life of a writer takes many strange turns and on the way we meet many strange people. We love to hear that the time we spend typing our guts onto a computer screen is appreciated, and we are ecstatic beyond words when a publisher is enthusiastic enough about our work to offer us a contract. That is, after all, the ultimate goal of any author. When it finally happens, our first reaction is to open a bottle of champagne and have a party. Until we discover the champagne has gone flat and all we have to show for the celebration is the dirty plates and left-over food.
Yes, this is yet another story of the pricks of the world who love to burst our happiness bubble. Although I enjoy sharing my “horror” stories with fellow authors, I do wish they’d stop happening to me! But I digress. Back to the story.
I met “Marge” (not her real name, although why I want to protect her I have no idea) at a writers conference where I was invited to conduct a workshop on electronic publishing. After the presentation, she told me she was interested in taking over the publication of my novel “Red Wine For Breakfast” and, after reading the first three chapters of my new novel “First Class Male”, wanted to offer me an advance on that one as well. I was thrilled. I checked out her credentials on the web and she seemed legit. We spoke on the phone several times over the course of the next few weeks and planned to meet for lunch near her hometown, which was about a two hour drive up the California coast, where we would finalize the two contracts. She even suggested I obtain an agent to protect my interests, which I did through a contact in one of my writer’s organizations.
On Thursday morning, I had a publisher. I met Marge at her favorite restaurant where she knew everyone and everyone knew her. My first indication that things were not exactly the way she’d presented them, was when the entire staff practically ran from the room when she rolled in. Oh, did I forget to mention? Marge is in a wheelchair. I was impressed with her energy and enthusiasm in spite of being afflicted with MS, and felt she was THE person to take my book to the top of the Best Seller List.
She was very warm and friendly and we shared some light conversation over an overpriced lunch which was, she pointed out, her treat . Marge talked about how she’d inherited the publishing company and had so much money, she didn’t know what to do with it. She showed me her five caret diamond and mentioned how much she’d spent on her previous author, who she was having problems with. She then began telling me, in intimate detail all about the problems, including her suspicion that the author was having an affair. I attributed the small cringe in my stomach to the curry salad dressing, but something told me things were only going to go downhill from there.
We finally got down to business, and she produced the first contract in which she would take over the publication of my novel. The one I’d spent four years on. The one that was already in bookstores, on the web and doing just fine. Her plan was to do a mass market paperback, put in airports and grocery stores, even Costco and WalMart. And I’d get 30% of all sales. It sounded great…until she took out her pen and crossed out the paragraph that referred to the advance. It was her understanding that since the book was already out, she wasn’t going to pay me anything for the rights, but the royalties would be sufficient. The curry was now starting to make it’s way back up into my throat.
When she pulled out the second contract, which was a boilerplate she’d printed off the internet, she apologized for the misunderstanding regarding the advance she had previously offered. This was a small company, she said, so she couldn’t possibly offer me the $1,000, but only half that amount. (She could hock the ring, I thought but didn’t think it was a good time to make that suggestion) I read through the rest of the contract and was stunned to see that, for a mere $250.00, she expected me to sign over ALL rights, till death did us part, to her company. The salad was now threatening to join the dressing. Unfortunately, she’d forgotten to keep the last page which stated in big, bold letters: THIS CONTRACT FAVORS THE PUBLISHER. No, DUH!
I took the papers, put them into my briefcase and told her I would discuss it with my agent (which I had) and my attorney (which I didn’t have) and get back to her. Still feeling that maybe there would be room for negotiation, I didn’t want to tell her what I was really thinking. Until she made a comment that totally destroyed any chance of us ever working together, even if she had offered me ten million dollars. Marge, the nice lady in a wheelchair, told me her lawyer asked her if she would have any trouble working with a JEW! Yes, that’s what she said. And, if you can believe this, her response to his question was; “Some of my best friends are Jewish.”
I excused myself from the table, went to the bathroom and tossed the $24.95 salad into the toilet. Taking a deep breath, I returned to the table where Marge was busy selling my book and asking me to sign them for the ambushed customers and staff who couldn’t say no to the “handicapped” lady. I smiled. I signed. I watch her pocket the $13.95 for a book she had purchased from me at MY cost. When the last of the books were sold, I thanked her for lunch, got into my car and drove back down the coast. The view was extraordinary, the ocean magnificent. The temptation too great. I pulled off the side of the road, tore the contracts into tiny little pieces, threw them into the ocean and watched as they floated into oblivion.
Thursday morning, I had a publisher. Thursday afternoon, I didn’t, and when I returned home, I opened a bottle of champagne and celebrated.
Author Raven West 
Erase the “Self-Published” Label – Become a Publisher!
Raven West ♦ March 31, 2013 ♦ Leave a comment
Once upon a time, a very long time ago – actually, it was only about a decade ago, but it seems like a very very VERY long time ago – the question everyone I met at book signings and festivals was “What is your book about?” If they liked the answer, they bought a personally signed copy and I happily took their money.
Soon after, the question most asked at these same venues is “are you self-published?” This is usually followed by a silent “so your book isn’t worth anything” followed by a series of questions as to how they can find a publisher for themselves.
My short response was for them to go on-line. When they walk away without a personally signed copy of my novel, I’m thinking I should have told them to go someplace else. Someplace a lot hotter.
When I respond that my publisher went out of business, so I re-published the print copies with Createspace and the Ebooks with Smashwords, suddenly I became a “less than” author. The old tag “vanity publishing” invalidated all the work I’d put in to the writing of my novels, the many hours searching for an agent, finding an agent, firing the agent, getting a publisher, having the publisher go out of business, etc. just didn’t matter.
Neither did the fact the books sold more than 15,000 copies, and were ranked in the top 100 at Amazon for all of two weeks. Neither did the fact that self-published authors have greater control over their work and earn more royalties than many authors, or that even authors who have managed to go the traditional route find it not to be the “stuff that dreams are made of” the self-published tag is still considered by most of the reading public to indicate that your work just isn’t as good as someone else’s who is published by a third party.
After iUniverse and a few others hit the scene in the 1990’s, the number of subsidiary publishers exploded. Anyone with a manuscript and a few hundred dollars could now be a “published” author. Authors were no longer “self-published” even though they were paying to have their books printed, they could respond to the question with “no, my publisher is…” And for a time, that was sufficient to appease the masses.
It didn’t take that long for those masses to get wise to this deception.
So, with many of the traditional publishing houses going out of business, and the cost of subsidiary publishers, for the most part, being way beyond what most starving writers are willing or able to spend, we began to seek other means of solving both the eliminating the self-published label and being a published author without having to mortgage the house to do so.
Creative people come up with creative solutions.
Start your own publishing company!
There are many sites on-line which will help you in the details on the “how-to”, but the why is simple. Being “published” by anyone OTHER then yourself adds credibility to your book! When you contact bookstores as a publisher on behalf of your author, they won’t slam the phone in your ear. (Ok, so you can’t exactly slam cell phones, but whatever…)
You’ll be able to register at book fairs as a publishing company, not just your name. Even if yours is the only book your company publishes!
Yes, it is a bit of a lie. You’re still a self-published author but it’s your publishing company who is publishing your book. Unless you reveal the facts, no one is going to know, or care. You’ll now be able to answer that question posed by an inquisitive author at a book faire who probably isn’t going to buy your personally autographed copy of your book anyway, with a catchy publisher’s name!
And who knows, if that author sends you their manuscript, you might make a few extra bucks in the process!
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