I’ve seen a disturbing trend lately of headlines like “Can Any Device Save Publishing?” and the like. I started this year with “Still Not Dead” posts about the industry (inspired by Rachel Caine’s brilliant still not dead posts when she was going through something a whole lot more serious – cancer). I’m going to finish the year the same way.

Publishing is not dead. Is it changing? Of course. The seasons change, the date changes, my socks and underwear…well, now we’re just getting personal. Of course, we need to change with it. More than half of the conversations I’ve had lately have been about this very same topic. But authors will always be needed to write new and exciting books, agents will be needed to submit and negotiate the terms, editors will be needed to make these works all they can be, designers will be needed for lay-outs, art departments for covers, publicists for…you get the idea. Whether these books are downloaded in e-book or digital audio form, ordered on-line or bought from brick and mortar stores, publishing will survive.

Me? I’m buying a lot of books this holiday season. New, not used, so that the author gets the royalties and the sale factors in when publishers look at an author’s numbers and decide whether to buy his or her next work. I love inexpensive books as much as the next person, but one way to assure that beloved series continue is to buy new and close to their release dates.

I’m also vowing this new year to become one with my Kindle so that I can do more reading on it, though I have to admit I don’t think I’ll ever kick my addition to bound books. There’s just something about them.

My husband has always loved audio books, but my mind is usually going in too many different directions to focus on them. This summer, we took a long drive to and from Tennessee to go kayaking with Gwen and Rod Hunter, and my husband had Orson Scott Card’s wonderful ENDER’S GAME on the stereo. I was hooked. When it finished, we immediately moved on to SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD. Now there’s yet another wonderful way I can appreciate the written/spoken word.

I don’t think we should bemoan the changes that are taking place in the industry (though I do think we need to make sure that the companies that control the technology and platforms are not the ones calling the shots on pricing, etc. – see earlier posts on price wars and loss leaders). I think we should celebrate that there are so many ways for people to experience our art. The important thing is how we set the standards and negotiate the terms now so that we have a sustainable business plan.

My two cents.

Today's guest blog is with the multi-talented Laura Anne Gilman (suricattus ), fantastic editor, short story and novel writer, wine connoisseur, friend, and client of "rival" agent Jennifer Jackson (arcaedia ).  (I put rival in quotations not because we're not competitors, but because it's not a hair-pulling and name calling sort of thing, even after said wine has been consumed.)

Changing Gears, without Losing the Love by Laura Anne Gilman

 

[this essay was inspired by a conversation Our Hostess and I had over drinks one night, about how difficult it can be, sometimes, to reach into yourself and pull out what a story needs… how scary it can be to face expectations – of both ourselves, and our readers.]

Writers write.  That’s a given.  But sometimes we write… different.  And it terrifies us.

For the past five years, I’ve been best known for the urban fantasy “Retrievers” series, a kick-ass heroine in a contemporary setting, magic and mayhem and moral complications, all happening at the rat-a-tat pace of New York City.

I love those books, and the way people respond to them.  And yet… even as I was having a fantabulous time with urban fantasy, there were other things tickling at my brain, other stories I wanted to tell; other styles I wanted to play with. 

There’s a risk in changing gears, though.  What if your readers don’t follow you?  What if the book is terrible? What if, what if…?   Writers, dear readers, are neurotic and delicate creatures, even when we’re trying to be tough as nails. So although I played around in my short fiction, I stayed focused on urban fantasy, and the Cosa Nostradamus novels.

And then a passing comment by my agent triggered an idea: a wine-based fantasy.  Why not?  I am a wine nerd of good standing (I even spent a year working in a wine store), and the idea of wine-makers as magicians seemed to make absolute and perfect sense to me – what is the transformation of grape juice into wine but the most basic alchemy, after all?  And thanks to Christianity, wine already carries mythical overtones, and the setting of an alternate 14^th Century world was ripe for what I’d been wanting to write about....  And then the character’s voice hit me.

I couldn’t stop myself, I ran with it – or, more precisely, it ran with me.  For a year, I lived with this book even as I was working on the next Retrievers novel.  I researched historical methods of winemaking.  I read articles on vinification and the genetic diversity of grape varietals.  I traveled to Burgundy and spent ten days getting my hands – literally – dirty in the fields, soaking up as much detail as I could to make my “Lands Vin” as true as possible.  I talked to everyone, from the guy who hired out his horse-and-plow to the scion of a multinational winemaking family, to make my characters as real and as grounded as possible.  I tasted as many wines as I could, to get a feel for the different types of grapes that would make up the Second growth within my world.

(Oh, okay, you caught me.  I tasted as many wines as I could because I love discovering new wines.  But it was legitimate research, too!)

And now, 18 months later, Flesh and Fire: Book 1 of The Vineart War, has hit the bookstores.  The reviewers have already been quite kind – it got a starred review from both Publishers Weekly and Library Journal – but I have absolutely no idea how my readers will react.  

And I’ve discovered… I’m okay with that. 

Changing gears was scary as hell.  It made me look at my writing, my storytelling, and my own hang-ups and fears under a bright and occasionally painful light, pulling me totally out of my comfort zone.   But the results were worth it – and I will carry what I learned forward for the rest of my writing career.

The important thing -- in writing, in love, in life – is not to be afraid.  Happy Book-birthday, Flesh and Fire.  And thank you, for reminding me of that.

I was asked if my keynote speech from the Heritage Book Festival would be available anywhere for people to revisit.  At the time, I thought I might use the information for an article or save the speech for another event, but since technology moves so quickly, by the time I could do that, a lot of my info could very well be obsolete!  So, for those of you who missed or or simply want some of the information you missed while I was speaking at NY speed, I give you "New Publishing Paradigms."

NEW PUBLISHING PARADIGMS

We’re living in a strange and exciting time in publishing, where technology is advancing so quickly, we’re all moving at light speed just trying to keep up with it.  You may worry about what this means for writers and readers.  Will we get left behind?  Will texting, Twittering, web-based gaming and alternate worlds take over for the more gentle comfort of curling up with a good book?

You’ll be happy to know that far from this being the case, technology companies, publishers and booksellers alike already looking ahead, designing new paradigms to embrace this brave new world.  Contrary to what we might fear – raising a generation completely taken with the immediacy of cyberspace and the brevity of texting – the National Endowment for the Arts’ shows an increase in literacy for the first time in the history of their survey conducted five times since 1982.  And the increases aren’t insignificant!  7% among adults and 9% among young adults.  They found that fiction accounts for most of the new growth among adult readers and that 84% of adults who read literature downloaded from the Internet also read books.  How does this mesh with the tougher trends we’ve been seeing in the market?  Remember that there are more new titles published each year (recently as many as 275,000 books according to the July 20, 2009 Publishers Weekly), which means that there are more books out there competing for an audience.  Even though that audience is growing, this translates to a heck of a lot of competition.  I’ll talk about some innovative ways publishers are reaching out to their readers, but first I want to discuss some of the new means we have of getting books into the readers’ hands.

Like me, I’m sure you’ve been hearing a lot about e-books and DRM (Digital Rights Management).  Electronic books are still a small fraction of the total market but they are growing. 

( Read more... )

If you’ve read my blog (or any agent’s blog) for a while, you know that ours is not a nine to five job.  Not by a long shot.  My weekends bear a striking resemblance to my work weeks.  Lots and lots of reading and critiquing —queries, client manuscripts, partials, proposals….  If I don’t read at least six to eight hours in a weekend, my work piles up to ridiculous heights.  Don’t forget that I read in the evenings and sometimes even during the business day if I don’t have contracts to look over, submissions to get out, checks to chase, e-mails and phone calls to answer, rights reversions or reconciliations to print to request….  But every once in a while, I have to give myself permission to take a break, otherwise I lose all perspective.  Reading and critiquing works back to back to back can lead to burn-out.  I’m not truly serving my authors, who come first, or queriers, who, by necessity, come second, if I’m not giving it my all.

So every once in a while, like on the fourth of July, I have to give myself permission to pause.  (Not the fifth, in case you’re concerned that I’ve turned to workaholics anonymous.  Then I stayed home to read for hours in the morning to make up for my slacking the day before while my husband and son went off to Busch Gardens with friends to ride coasters and eat funnel cake.) 

I’m talking about it here because authors need to do the same.  Every once in a while, find what gives you peace.  Change your venue, if need be, and quiet your mind.  You’ll be surprised what it’ll come up with when you give it a chance to catch up with you.  Because, let’s face it, the brain never shuts down.  We may be doing other things—playing with the puppy, doing dishes, watching fireworks—but our stories are so all-consuming that they’re always in the back of our minds.  We’re constantly, subconsciously working on the puzzle.  I had a difficult end to the last week, where I got a “this could be huge” comment on my concept and, essentially, a “change everything” on my execution of a new mid-grade series I’m working on.  It threw me into torment, because I’d had the same sense of Eureka! on the premise, but have a terrible self-defeating fear that I won’t be able to pull it off.  Very, very awful to feel that you just might not be good enough to go for the gold.  So I balked against the notes and shut down.  Didn’t work on the novel for days.  Little did I know, it just doesn’t work that way.  By Sunday, my mind had, unbeknownst to me, worked out several ways to change or enhance what I’d already done.  The beginnings of my finished novels hardly ever resemble the first chapters of my early drafts.  I always have to remember that.  Still, it’s torture to throw out so much work and begin again, not even knowing if all the blood, sweat and tears will be worth it in the end.

Anyway, whatever you do—writing, agenting, painting—you sometimes need to give yourself a break.  Don’t think of it as slacking (easier said than done, I know), but as refreshing.  In the end, it’ll be more productive than slogging along down the wrong path or slowing and slowing because things have lost their luster to the point where you come to a complete stop.

This has been a public service announcement brought to you by the word epiphany.  Learn it, live it, love it.  Ephiphany

Remember your mother telling you “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”?  Well, I’m not suggesting that each and every blog should be all sweetness and light, but something publicists et. al. don’t mention when they suggest that you go forth and blog is that blogs can be as demotional as promotional.  If you turn people off or bore them or rant on and on about your editor/copyeditor/cover/sales/etc.  it can actually be damaging to your career.  If you come across as offensive, indiscreet or difficult to deal with, you might find that publishing houses are reluctant to deal with you.  Once something is out in the ether, it’s never truly gone, even if it’s later friend-locked or erased, it’s cached somewhere.  Plus, there’s no telling how many people have already buzzed about your blog, quoted you, saved the post, forwarded it to their friends and family.  Basically, publishing is the biggest small world there is (except maybe the film industry).  Everybody knows everybody else at maximum one remove.  Yes, in our business Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is a very dull game. 

Does this mean I’m suggesting you don’t tell it like it is?  Well, yes, if it’s an issue between you and your publishing house, it should stay that way.  You wouldn’t like your editor to blog all over the Internet about your inability to properly place your commas or the plot holes present in your first draft, patched only because of their eagle editorial eye.  Have the same courtesy in return.   Publishing is a business, which means professionalism should be more than just a buzzword.