Mysterious Matters: Mystery Publishing Demystified

Would Everyone Please Stop Bitching About the Price of Books (Including eBooks)?

A romantic anecdote from 1980 that leads to some insights about book prices today:

That year, I was a young editor doing historical novels and learning the business. I found myself in a great little bookstore in Brookline, Massachusetts, that I used to frequent. The owners had a very good sense of the market and I used to run ideas past them as I attempted to figure out what the hell I was doing.

One day I was looking at the best-seller table and struggling with whether to buy a new book that was the talk of the town. I didn't have much interest in it, but I felt I SHOULD read it. (You know the feeling.) A young woman next standing near me caught my eye as I flipped through the first couple of pages. "Buying into the hype?" she asked. "Or struggling against it?" 

As she had a copy of the same book in her hand, I replied "And I might ask you the same question." 

She replied that she was on a limited budget and the waiting list for the book was a mile long at the library. Ultimately she gave me a smile, put the book down, and went on her merry way to explore other parts of the store. Though money was tight, her smile was more powerful than a simple slip of green paper, so I took two copies of the book to the front of the store and purchased them. I asked the owner for two bags, a sheet of paper, and a pen. I wrote a note: "I would love to discuss the hype and whether or not the book lives up to it. If you'd like to talk, maybe meet me here a month from today around 7 p.m.? Agatho." I then put the book and note in the bag, handed it to owner, and asked him to give it to the young lady before she left the store. Then I ran out as fast as my cowardly little legs would take me.

The young lady has now been my wife for 33 years.  

So as not to keep you in suspense, the book was Jean M. Auel's THE CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR, and the cover price was $12.95. As I mentioned, the year was 1980.

I used CPI (Consumer Price Index) inflation rate to calculate what $12.95 in 1980 would be worth now, in 2015. The answer: $37.45.

So, if book prices had kept up with inflation, the way groceries, and houses, and everything else has, we'd now be paying in the area of $40 for a hardcover book.  But do we pay anywhere near that?  No, we do not. To use the stellar books from last week's post as examples, I am going to list their current price on Amazon. In parentheses are what you would have paid for these books in 1980:

THE DEVIL'S SHARE, by Wallace Stroby

Today's price in hardcover: $19.25 ($6.66)

Today's ebook price: $12.99 ($4.49)

 

GREEN HELL, by Ken Bruen

Today's price in hardcover: $18.63 ($6.44)

Today's ebook price: $9.00 ($3.11)

 

NEVER KILL A FRIEND, by Martin Hill

Today's price in hardcover: $20.45 ($7.07)

Today's price in ebook: $4.99 ($1.73)

 

TAKING PITY, by David Mark

Today's price in hardcover: $17.31 ($5.99)

Today's price in ebook: $5.99 ($2.19)

 

So, please take a close look at the (1980) prices. In 1980 I paid $12.95 for a copy of CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR. That same year, I could have bought THE DEVIL'S SHARE for $6.66, TAKING PITY for $5.99, or GREEN HELL for $6.44.  In other words, hardcover books are HALF the price today that they were in 1980.

But let's not stop there. Let's also look at ebooks, which are insanely cheap. Today, in 2015, you have the chance to get a HARDCOVER original (traditionally a sign of top quality) for about a sixth of what you would have paid for THE CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR in 1980.  NEVER KILL A FRIEND would have cost you a mere $1.73 in 1980.

Is it any wonder why we in the industry get so frustrated at the number of book grubbers who never want to spend a dime for books, who grab as many free books at conventions as possible (with the goal of reselling them as soon as possible), and who complain about us greedy publishers who just want to shake money out of the poor, unsuspecting public? (I hasten to add that I am not including library patrons in any of this. Libraries buy books. Publishers get revenue and authors get royalties. Those on limited budgets get to read good books. Everyone wins.)

The Internet Age has much to recommend it, but with it has come this bizarre expectation that all entertainment should be free. The number of illegal PDF's of my company's books all over the Web is sickening -- even more sickening is the number of people who have no compunction about downloading these books because, after all, they deserve free books, and why not stick it to the greedy publishers?

Madonna recently said that anyone who downloads any of her songs illegally is raping her. Her metaphor is not inappropriate.

 

 

How Now, Robert Galbraith

So, we all know what's been going on with "Robert Galbraith" and his alter ego, J.K. Rowling.  How on earth did this closely guarded secret seep out? Why, oh why, can't we trust people to keep secret pseudonyms under wraps?  We must credit those highly sophisticated readers who saw a "woman's hand" in the descriptions of clothing; we must also recognize that J.K. Rowling's style is so dazzling, so unique, that it was bound to be recognized sooner or later. The whole thing is just so unfair, so bloody unfair. Who would be so dastardly as to blow the cover of a well-intentioned best-selling writer who just wanted the "liberating experience" of escaping from her own name? Find that person, please, and hang him (or her).

Ahem.

Now that we've got the obligatory hand-wringing out of the way, let's admit what we all know but don't necessarily like to publicize. And perhaps, in the process, we can admit exactly how our industry works (as if everybody doesn't already know).

I'm assuming J.K. was feeling a bit insecure as a result of the decidedly unenthusiastic reception of The Casual Vacancy,which was recently cited as one of the most abandoned books of recent years (i.e., "abandoned" in the sense of starting it but not finishing it). I am guessing that she was looking for unbiased evidence that she is a good writer, that the Harry Potter phenomenon was somehow the result of her stellar writing or plotting abilities. (It was not.) 

J.K.R. is in the most enviable, and rarest, of positions among modern writers. She doesn't need money. She doesn't ever have to worry about where her next book contract is coming from. By virtue of what's she done in the past, she is guaranteed a huge audience willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. This gives her the ability to say, "I'm writing under a pseudonym, and that's that." Because surely any agent IN THE WORLD would say "That's a really bad idea, and I won't let you do it." I suspect, too, that if the publisher had known who Robert Galbraith really was, they would never have published the book under that name.

Now editors who rejected the book (I was not one of them, I admit - not because I bid for it, but because it wasn't sent to me) are explaining apologetically why they didn't buy the book. Most come down to, "Not really different/distinct enough, not a good enough marketing hook, competent and decent but I didn't love it." Which I can say, now that I've read the first two chapters, would have been exactly my reaction, too.

Listen, we all know that the bigger your name, the bigger your publishing contract and the more books you sell (usually). I can name a dozen people right off the top of my head who haven't written a good book in years, but whose work rockets to the top of the best-seller list based on past history. It's not uncommon - in fact, it's the norm. Does this really come as a surprise to anyone? And does it come as a surprise that J.K. Rowling's writing and plotting don't really stand out in a market (i.e., crime fiction) that has some really stellar people working in it? If we're going to be deadly honest here (and why not?), she's a mediocre writer, and perhaps she should recognize this and be thankful for her success rather than trying to have the market reassure her of something that just isn't true.

This situation reminds of the movie Soap Dish, in which Sally Field plays a soap opera actress. When she's feeling insecure or unloved, she has her assistant take her to the mall, where she allows herself to be "discovered" behind her disguise so that adoring fans can flock to her, their love fully on display. What I'm wondering about here, though - and I admit I don't know this - is whether this "revelation" was initiated by the publisher or by the JKR camp. If the publisher, I say, "Hooray" (without irony). Anything we publishers can do to sell scads of copies to keep the money coming in, is just fine by me. I know that if I was Robert Galbraith's editor, I'd be standing naked in Times Square (next to the Cowboy) declaring Galbraith's true identity.

If it came from the JKR camp, I think the whole thing is pretty damned tacky. It was a grand experiment that failed... the imagination of the mystery reading public was not captured by The Cuckoo's Calling. That should have been the end of it, though maybe a decade hence the secret could have been let out. I'm reminded of a warning often repeated by my father: "Don't test your friends, because they won't pass." Don't test readers, either. They have too many other choices.

 

 

 

Why Do We Like Reading About Things We Can't Bear?

This question has been pre-occupying my mind so much for the last few days that I think I have to talk to some psychologists to try to find an answer:

Why do we like reading about things we can't listen to or watch on TV?

This comes as a result of recent horrific story in NYC.  Several days ago, an elderly (73-year-old) woman was raped in Central Park's Strawberry Fields. The investigation is ongoing, but authorities are tying it to the idea that the woman took a photograph a week earlier showing a man doing something he shouldn't be doing in public.  

For many of us old enough to remember, the news story was horrifically reminiscent of what has become known as the "Central Park Jogger" case in 1979, a particularly brutal case that terrorized women's psyches in Manhattan for years to come.

I heard about this latest case on the radio as I was driving, and after the initial news report, I turned it off. I didn't want to hear more about it - It was too much to handle. And I can admit this only to millions of people on the Internet, it immediately struck me what a good set-up it would be for a novel. Great setting, inexplicable crime, professional crime scene people coming in to do what they do best, an investigation that uncovers information quickly.

So why, I have to ask myself, would I read or publish a book with this type of plot (provided the manuscript is good), when I couldn't bear to hear about the details on the radio?

Many theorists and observers have provided answers to the question "Why do we read crime fiction?" The question seems to come up a few times a year on Internet gathering sites for mystery lovers: DorothyL, Murder Must Advertise, and so on.The answers run the gamut from writers who say, "I was working out my frustrations on paper, killing off some people who needed to be killed" to readers who say "I love to see justice done."

Yet something specific must motivate the mystery reader to choose our genre. Many people read across genres, fiction and nonfiction, but over the years I've talked with many readers who stick mostly to crime fiction and thrillers. Are these a particularly violent or twisted group of people?  That hasn't been my impression.

Looking at my own reasons for loving the genre, I think that the aspect that has always appealed to me the most is the sense of a game between reader and writer, or between villain and hero. I'm a huge fan of puzzles - crosswords, word searches, crostics, logic puzzles, you name it. And, having grown up on many of the Golden Age writers, I loved the feeling of pitting my wits against other smart people. No surprise that 50 years later, I am still looking for manuscripts that seek to outwit me. They, sadly, are few and far between. The reason for that, I think, is that more and more people are reading for character and psychology, for pure escapism, and less for the puzzle.

(An interesting note about that - When reading through Amazon reviews, I can easily identify the people who are like me. They are often the lone 2- or 3-star reviews among the masses of 4- and 5-star reviews. Many of them say, "Huh? OK, the characters are fine, and the setting is nice, but where's the mystery?)

I also think the genre allows for intense creativity - hence the many different genres, and the many different methods employed by P.I., professional sleuth, amateur, antihero in a noir novel, et al. I know formula is a part of our game, but for me the books that rise to the top are those that layer a creativity on top of the formula. This is a really tricky proposition. I've published books that fit that description that have taken off (which made me think, "Ah, the reading public GETS it!"") and books with that description that have sunk like rocks (which made me think, "Oh God, does this mean I have to start publishing books with punning titles to keep my job?")

Still, I'm avoiding my own question: Why can I read novels about these kinds of events, while I can't listen to radio reports?

It probably has something to do with having daughters and granddaughers, not to mention a wife. When I first heard about the Strawberry Fields case, before the victim's age was released, the first thing I did was call my wife, who then immediately called our three kids/grandkids in the New York area. All was well - but feelings were already a bit raw following the anniversary of 9/11.

And the crime itself - so brutal. In some ways, worse than murder (though take me with a grain of salt on that). But I'm starting to think that readers (and editors) have a way of thinking about fictional murder that lets us read about it without getting too disturbed by it - the way we'd be disturbed in reality.

So here's my theory: Many of us look on a fictional murder not as a horrific act of violence but rather as a means of elimination.  The murderered characters are eliminated from society to get the story going, and some others are murdered in the course of the book to keep the plot moving. In a sense, then, genre fiction turns these people into objects and uses them to build a book with a good story, an interesting cast of characters, and so on. They're not so much "murders" as they are the removal of characters.

I suspect many can, and should, argue with that theory. Certainly there are many books that trace the victim's life and create great reader sympathy (a good example is Ruth Rendell's SIMISOLA).  And yet, how else to reconcile the cozy lover's need for no sex, no violence, and no profanity - in a quaint village - with the desire for a murder?  

Maybe it comes down to, as so many have suggested, a simple desire to see justice done, regardless of the subgenre. Even in hardboiled/noir, there tends to be a normative character with a stronger sense of morality who's willing to run down the creeps and bring them to justice (even if it's a violent, subjective justice - and who among us has not wanted to take the law into his/her own hands, at least once a week?).   

All thoughts are welcome.

 

 

 

 

 

Vanity Publishing, Self Publishing, and ePublishing, Redux

Somehow, weeks have slipped away from me since my original post about the challenges faced by the industry, as well as some of the serious problems inherent in self-publishing. Because it's a topic I care so much about, I kept track of the comments posted in response (both here and in other forums that link to this blog occasionally), meaning to write a coherent response.

But just as writers must cleanse themselves of distractions to do what they need to do - write - I have to focus on manuscripts. It's been a pretty busy manuscript season, but it's slowing down a bit. 

I have to say, I'm a little depressed by what I've read. Usually by this time of year I've bought three or four manuscripts. To date in 2012, I've bought only one. The other editors here are experiencing a similar dry spell.

Before I go on to part two of the vanity publishing debate, let me just say this: Since March, I've read several quite good books and queries. Unfortunately, almost all of them fell into the mixed-genre category. You know, things like "supernatural mysteries," "paranormal thrillers," and the like. I really, really don't see any significant market for these books, though I may not be looking in the right places. I wish so many of the aspiring novelists whose work I've read recently had chosen one genre and stuck with it - they might have had a chance. Mixing up the genres like that is asking for trouble ( = rejections). Despite vampire-mania, a friend of mine who writes horror novels (though I'm told the new term is "dark fiction") tells me that even diehard fans of that genre are buying fewer books.

Anyway - given the response to my recent blog entry, in which I was accused of everything from "bitterness" and "jealousy" (of what, I have to wonder), to carrying a torch and a pitchfork, to egotistical short-sightedness, to a general incoherence in my ability to frame an argument, to the speculation that my entry was a "satire," I thought I'd try to set the record straight on a few matters.

1. I don't work for one of the Big Six fiction houses. I work for an independent press. I see myself as one of the good guys. My company allows open (unagented) submissions, and we read everything we get. And, most of the time, we respond with a personal note offering some sort of comment or critique on the work. 

2. Certain responses indicate that I don't "point the finger" at commercial publishing in a "shame on you" kind of way. Um, I would suggest that those who think that read a bit more of this blog. Listen, I work in the industry and I love it. But I've never said it's perfect, and many times I've expressed sympathy for the people struggling to get noticed while celebrities, children of the famous, and tired writers of formula get contracts and hit the best-seller lists. As I have said from the very first post I ever wrote on this blog, publishing is a BUSINESS and we need to make money. We do that by TRYING to find manuscripts we think will sell. Our record isn't always great (I'm sure many will bring up the Fifty Shades of Gray example to point to "big publishing's" vast ignorance and poor taste) but the fact is - No matter the size of the publisher, we try every day to find and publish books that people will want to buy and read. End of story.

3. All of that said, I do think I need to clarify a key point. It is true that e-publishing and self-publishing are not necessarily synonymous. Some eBooks go through the same acquisitions and editorial processes as those of print books. In the arguments over terminology, my key point may have been lost: That I respect any writer whose work has been SELECTED FOR PUBLICATION, EDITED, and PREPARED FOR THE MARKET by someone OTHER THAN THE WRITER. This holds true regardless of format. I can't back the following assertion up with anything other than many decades of experience: EVERY WRITER NEEDS TO BE EDITED.  Unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there who call themselves editors who can't really edit, just as there are lots of folks calling themselves writers who can't write. Being selected by a reputable editor or publisher (whether for print or electronic circulation) means that your work stands out from the crowd enough to be brought to market in a professional manner - which means professionally edited, professionally typeset/formatted, and professionally publicized. I repeat, once again, that reputable publishers pay for all these services, and the writers do not.

4. Regarding pricing issues for ebooks: I have to thank the many people who commented on the challenges we face here. The model is still working itself out. I personally believe that mysteries (because that's what I publish) should be priced at about $6.99 to $8.99 for most books, or $9.99 for best-sellers. What I perceive going on is the attempt by the self-published to undercut the prices of professionally published ebooks in order to give themselves a competitive advantage. It's not a bad idea - as Walmart has proven, low prices work. And Robert Rosenwald, president of Poisoned Pen Press and a man I respect, recently published an article in which he speculated that some of his experiments with lower prices led to greater overall revenue. That article was an eye-opener for me, but - to foretell exactly what's going to happen would require a crystal ball that I don't have.

5. Here's where I have a problem and will continue to have a problem that it is my (and my company's) job to overcome: Many of these self-published folks behave, and present themselves, as if their books have gone through the same quality-control processes as professional books have. But some of those who commented on this blog may well be right - This may be a case of lots of people making lots of noise about their own work, with very little impact on the market. However, I am going to continue arguing that the word "noise" is very appropriate here, that all of this self-published stuff is competing for people's attention in a world where people are more harried, and have less time to pay attention, than ever before. As a result, messages get diluted to the point where they make zero impact. This makes it very, very difficult to launch new authors - which leads us back to the accusation that "big bad publishing companies" ignore art and focus on what will sell. For those of you who consider yourself artists, I would remind you that even the great Renaissance artists had patrons, and those who make a living as artists today have people willing to pay HUGE amounts for their work. How many of you reading this would be willing to pay $5,000 for the next James Patterson novel?

6. Many comments exhibit a profound ignorance of the economics of publishing. Do you think it's cheap to edit, typeset, format, print, warehouse, market, ship, and publicize books? I can tell you - it isn't. Are you aware that prices are now set based on the amount of money Amazon is willing to pay for a book? That means that if you need to get $8 for a hardback just to cover your printing, shipping, and royalty costs (think of the breakdown this way: a single copy might cost $3 to print/bind, $3 to mail, and pay a $2 royalty), you must price your book at a minimum of $17.95 because Amazon will give you only 45% of the cover price.  Note that the $8 doesn't include ANY OTHER COSTS - not the publishing house staff, not the review copies, not the cover design, not the book grubbers promising reviews but just wanting free copies to sell on Amazon marketplace...  

This leads me to the key thing I want to say. I found the comments on that other post as revealing in what they DIDN'T say as in what they DID say. Specifically:

1. Nobody acknowledged the massive (and probably illegal, if you consider antitrust laws) market power that Amazon now holds, a power that it wields to set prices and control publisher behavior. Not one commenter addressed any of the many widely publicized ethical issues at which Amazon is at the center. Let's face it, folks: Amazon is the Walmart of the electronic world. How many of you who sing Amazon's praises for "letting the market dictate what's good, letting readers decide what they want to buy" are big fans of Walmart? Because they engage in EXACTLY the same kinds of anti-competitive practices.

2. Commenters seemed to conveniently overlook the way Amazon sells dreams of best-sellerdom to every single person on Earth. From their ads, you'd think that everyone who uploads something onto Kindle is making millions. No - the only entity making millions on all those uploaded books is Amazon itself, because (now that their infrastructure is in place), they let someone else do all the work, and they just sit back and collect the money. Have you seen those ads that promise young women and men that they'll turn them into famous models? How about all those ads promising that those who respond can become "secret shoppers" who can get free goods everywhere in turn for giving their opinion? What about people who promise to get you an "in" with the record company - all you have to do is rent their studio and pay them to produce your demo?  All of them - including Amazon - are selling false hope to people. And many (not all, but many) of the self-published are so fixated, so deluded, that they fall for it. And has anyone noticed that Amazon searches now list the Kindle version of a book FIRST?  Any ideas why they might be doing THAT?

3. Apple now has more cash than the U.S. government. Do you really think their corporate mission is to act in the best interests of readers and writers?  But I saw no comments about Apple, its business practices, or its attempts to wrest control of the ebook market from Amazon. But I have to give kudos to the marketing/publicity folks at both companies - They've succeeded in spinning their stories in such a way that THEY are the good guys, battling for consumers, while publishers are the bad, money-grubbing, corporate scumbags who are out to destroy culture, separate people from their hard-earned money, and collude to fix prices. Oh - and I should add another little thing that I recently noticed. You used to be able to go to iTunes and buy that catchy single you heard on the radio. But the last three times I've tried to do that, I've been told that the single is available only with the full CD purchase. Hmm, can it be that Apple established this business model a number of years ago with this exact goal in mind - to change the way people buy music, to predatorily destroy another industry, and to then exert monopoly power? 

I understand that people want to be published - I really do. But to equate a self-published project in any way with a professionally edited and published work is to do a tremendous disservice to those who have passed the quality-control process. 

All of this said, I have expressed support for ebooks in the past, and I'll do so again. They're not my cup of tea - I don't like reading on a screen. But many people do - and it's our job as a going business concern to give people the products they want to buy. That DOESN'T mean, however, that we should sell products for less than the market would bear - that would be sheer foolishness. It's going to take a while for all of this dust to settle, so stay tuned.

 

 

 

Rant to Department of Justice: Get a Life

OK, so let me get this straight.

The airlines just get bigger and bigger. Continental merges with United to create the world's largest airline. Ticket prices go up. Services goes down. WAY, WAY down.

Banks keep getting bigger and bigger, with colossi buying up independent state or regional banks. Fees go through the roof while interest rates on savings go through the floor.

Investment firms are declared "too big to fail" (as a result of merger after merger) while hard-working people lose their retirement funds.

Mrs. See's candies, those wonderful San Francisco chocolates, are now a part of Berkshire Hathaway.

Speculators continue to drive up the price of crude oil, making gasoline prices skyrocket. But that's OK.

In a nutshell: Huge, powerful companies are merging, acquiring, eliminating jobs left and right, sending work overseas, and the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division nods sagely and with delighted approval. No, the Antitrust Division has much bigger fish to fry. Why hold banks accountable for ruining people's lives when you can sue the publishing industry for price fixing?

For those of you who don't know, it is likely that the Department of Justice is going to sue Apple and the large publishers for attempting to fix prices, especially the new ebook model. What a great use of the taxpayers' money! Last time I checked, people don't take out mortgages to buy novels. The publishing industry doesn't foreclose on their homes or charge them $5 when they use an ATM outside their network. Our products sell in the $5 - $30 range and are completely discretionary purchases. Nobody is holding a gun to anyone's head saying, "Buy this book or I'll blow your fucking head off."

What are publishers doing, you may ask? We're simply trying to establish a model that does not devalue our products to the level of mass-produced Chinese garbage. We're trying to prevent Amazon from ITS predatory practices of using our products as loss leaders and its many other questionable (and borderline unethical) business decisions.

And what do we get for trying to protect intellectual property - and to protect the industry that is responsible for world literacy from going the way of the music business - and for our attempts to find a fair model that compensates authors and agents while not sending us into bankruptcy? A proposed lawsuit for "price fixing."

Department of Justice: I hereby declare you the biggest bunch of morons, imbeciles, and shitheads on the face of this planet.  Let's hope your government pensions remain intact when one bank runs the United States, gasoline costs $10 a gallon, and one mega-airline has swallowed up all others. Then you'll get to read your $2.99 paperback or .99 ebook on a flight to Chicago that has cost you $4,000.

John Grisham and the "Book Per Year"

I recently read an interview with John Grisham in the London Guardian. I'm not sure I'd include Grisham in my list of "mystery writers" - I think most would agree that he falls into the category of "thriller" writer. For me, the blockbuster mystery writers are Laura Lippman, Harlan Coben, Janet Evanovich, Patricia Cornwell, P.D. James, Ruth Rendell ....

In the article, Grisham discusses one of his secrets of success, a tip shared with him early in his career. An editor said to him, "The big guys come out every year." By that, he meant that Stephen King, Michael Crichton, Tom Clancy, et al. published a book a year, thus keeping themselves in the public eye. And, looking at the mystery luminaries in the previous paragraph, I think we can see that many of them do at least one book a year, and sometimes more than that.

I'm not sure Grisham is giving himself enough credit, though. Clearly, he's hit on a formula that people like. I don't read much Grisham; I want as little to do with lawyers as possible. But I've read a couple, and they've been fast and entertaining, with good twists and turns.

And, on the other side of the coin, there are writers whose fans salivate for years waiting for the next book. The late great Sarah Caudwell was one of them; and I wish George Dawes Green would write more. In a completely separate genre, Jean Auel's fans followed her over the course of (I think) 7 books and 30 years.

A book per year is a lot to ask of a writer; but I can think of many writers who'd love nothing more than being able to do just that. And yet, in and of itself, a book a year isn't enough to get you to the top. I can think of two dozen writers off the top of my head who've published at least one book a year (the late Dell Shannon/Elizabeth Linington used to do three) who never get out of the 5-10K range in terms of sales per book. That's respectable and can pay some of the bills, though perhaps not both the mortgage AND the car payment.

The publicist/marketer in me understands the need to stay in the public eye. There's something annoyingly fickle about the American public. It's a machine that has to be fed. With so many people (read: musicians, novelists, journalists, actors) vying for attention and those precious few top slots, "if you snooze, you lose." Look at Lady Gaga. Say/think what you will about her (I'm mostly a fan, even if she occasionally becomes tiresome), she knows how to keep the public interested. That's no mean feat. If we think of books as commercial products - and I do - then it makes sense to stay in the public eye, to keep building your brand. Michael Crichton knew this; so does Stephen King. Both, I think, also had the vocations to be professional, full-time writers, which doesn't hurt.

The other side of the coin, of course, is the question: How good can a book be when a writer whips it out in three months? With some writers, it doesn't matter. For instance, I like or love almost everything Joyce Carol Oates writes, and they don't come more prolific than that. But others (who shall remain nameless)... oh Lord, have the recent books been total garbage. As an editor, I say: Get them out the door, bring in the revenue, pay the bills, reward the staff. As a reader, I think: If this manuscript came to me as a first submission by an unpublished writer, I'd get out my rubber REJECT stamp by page 10. It is another curious American phenomenon that word of mouth about a book can be so bad and yet people keep buying more books by the same writer. (Think, for example, of a book that 1,500 reviews on Amazon, of which 1,000 or more have 1-star ratings.) Reading those reviews, I think hope springs eternal; devoted fans are hoping for a return to form for a favorite writer (this rarely materializes). Also, to give these writers their due, they have succeeded in crafting a basis and a character that keeps readers wanting to know WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. That is no small feat.

I have an author on my list - one of my favorites of my career. S/he is always brimming with ideas. The manuscripts come to me pristine. I feel like less of an editor because s/he just "gets it" and needs so little input from me. I say, "Give me more books." S/he replies, "Agatho, give me more money so that I don't have to work for a living, and you'll get more books." Alas - the constant dilemma. Because author X might be able to give me two books a year under two different names, but that doesn't guarantee that we'll be able to sell scads of them.  But we try, oh how we try! 

 

A Question of Rights

Recent comments on the blog, and emails to me, have brought up questions of distribution. Specifically, why is it that (for example) Australians can't buy English books in Australia, or German readers can't buy U.S. books in Germany?  

The answer lies in the rights negotiated and granted in the original publishing contract.

Make no mistake: Publishers of all stripes have one thing in common. We want people buying and reading our books. At the end of the day, that's how we bring in money and pay the bills (including royalties to authors). We have no reason to ever knowingly or willfully prevent people from purchasing our products; doing so is against our self-interests.

Running up against our desire to sell books are two main impediments, however.

First, there is the issue of piracy, both domestic and international. As we have all discovered, it becomes next to impossible to control your intellectual property once it gets into digital format. Even with DRM (digital rights management), it's not hard for the tech-savvy to turn a purchased ebook into a file illegally uploaded to a fileshare site, while publishers watch almost helplessly as thousands of people illegally download the property, thus depriving us of revenue and our authors of money. For this reason, in the early days of ebooks, I was very much in favor of releasing ebooks only after a period of time had elapsed - the way we typically see a paperback come a while after the hardcover. The huge growth in fiction sales on Kindle, Nook, etc., has changed my mind somewhat; but make no mistake, the piracy issue is very much there and costs the industry billions of dollars per year in lost revenue.

Even with the printed book, there are certain international markets where printed piracy is the coin of the realm. These include China and India. A publisher may decide to do everything it is power to prevent printed books from reaching these markets, where copyright laws are laxly enforced. People will scan the book, then print it cheaply and sell it on the street; and I don't think we can be blamed for not wanting to support the black market. Of course, it's a losing battle because any pirate can go on eBay, get a copy of the book, and still sell illegal copies of it. So why would we spend all that time, money, paper, and distribution in getting books into areas where we'll lose our shirts? 

Second is the issue of negotiated rights. Nowadays there really is no such thing as "the publisher" of a work. Agents negotiate rights of different kinds to different publishers, going with the highest bidder. Rights can and do include: hardback, trade paperback, mass-market paperback, ebook, serialization, and so on. And then add to that geographic rights: You can have U.S.rights, North American (U.S. & Canada rights), European rights, world rights, and so forth.

In the case of books written in English, an agent might decide that the best publisher in the U.S. is not the best publisher in another country with a sizable English-speaking population, such as Australia or the UK.  Local/national publishers tend to be better with local marketing/publicity than the U.S. publisher, even though all the big houses have an international presence. We might be prevented from selling our book in Germany because the agent has a German publisher interested in bringing out both an English and a German version of the book simultaneously. And since the typical publishing contract is at its core an assignment of exclusive rights to sell the product, we may be prohibited from selling an eBook in markets to which we do not have the rights. This would explain why, for example, one of my books might not be available as an eBook in Australia.

Agents make their money by maximizing royalty revenue for authors, so they cannot be blamed for wanting to squeeze as much revenue as possible out of the granting of rights. But our industry is not predictable. The agent may not be able to sell any Australian rights at all; meanwhile, the U.S. publisher is prevented from selling books in Australia. Thus the Australian reader is left in the lurch. Unfortunately, there is nothing that publishers can do about this.

I have even heard stories recently about agents trying to sell print rights separately from ebook rights. Frankly, I think any editor who'd sign a contract like that should have his head examined. All of the work goes into the print product; why let some other publisher free-ride on the ebook sales? But, as I always say, we're in a new world with new technologies cropping up every day, and business models are changing, so we shall see what the future holds. At the end of the day, though, everyone needs to remember that publishing is a BUSINESS and publishers exist to make PROFIT.  We're not nonprofit organizations, and we have the right to run our businesses in ways that minimize our costs and maximize our revenues.

Seeking Panelists

Does anyone remember the forums in Harper's Magazine, that great feature in which a moderator and five or so panelists discuss a topic of current interest?

I'd like to do an online forum here on Mysterious Matters, and I'm seeking panelists.  I'm hoping this will be the first in a series.  If all goes well with the first, I'd like to do a few per year, each on a different topic.

For the first, I'd like to talk to writers who have at least one book published and who are trying to increase the awareness of their work.  The ideal candidates will:

• Be published by a small or independent press.  (Poisoned Pen is independent and therefore a part of the universe.)  I'm not saying I'll definitely discriminate against those published by larger houses, but everyone who reads Mysterious Matters knows that I'm an advocate for small presses, so my choices will most likely be guided by my prejudices.
• Have a Yahoo account with Yahoo messenger, by which I'll conduct the forum.  (The good news is, if you don't currently have an account, you can get one for free.)

I'd like to get a mix of writers in different sub-genres: police procedurals, cozy, etc.  

The topic of the first panel will be: ORIGINALITY.  I haven't come up with all the questions yet, but I'd like us to talk about unique or interesting plot ideas, narrative structures, characters, and situations.  I'd like to talk about some of the "greats" and "firsts," as well as ideas for how mysteries can resonate with the reading public by taking chances or doing something new and exciting.  

If you'd like to take part, please send me an email at agathomystery AT yahoo DOT com by January 30th. I'll choose the panelists by the first week in February, and we'll schedule the online chat for mid-February.  I'll try to schedule the chat on a Saturday or Sunday so that people don't have to do too much juggling with their work schedules.  I'll record the chat, then edit out the boring bits, and post it here on Mysterious Matters, along with a mini biography of each panelist and a book shot.

In your email, tell me a little about yourself, your work, and your publisher(s).  I'll buy a book by each writer chosen to participate, so getting chosen means a sale of at least one book, with the potential for more sales among the Mysterious Matters readership.

The volume of mail I get means that I'm not able to respond individually.   Hope to hear from you.

To those who blog, post, etc.: Please feel free to spread the word, share this link, or cut and paste this entry into whichever fora mystery writers and readers congregate.  Future topics will include, I hope, a readers' panel and an editors' panel.  

 

The Year in Review 2009

Well, 2009 is for all intents and purposes over.  And I have just two words about that:  Thank God.

It was a rough year for a lot of people.  Tempers ran short, bankbooks ran on empty, job security seemed to be at an all-time low.  Publishers large and small laid people off, consolidated operations and production groups.  Remaining staff felt overworked and underappreciated, more so than usual.  Book sales were down, because books are a discretionary purchase.  As I write this, things are looking up, fortunately - and I hope they continue to do so, because I don't think our collective national psyche can handle another year like 2008-2009.

I did see a number of trends this year; whether or not they become permanent is of course the question.

1. More agents are getting out of fiction markets.  This is a direct result of publishers' increasing unwillingness to pay large advances to unknowns.  More than 85% of writers don't earn out their advances, and publishers are frankly tired of it.  The economy allowed us to push back; and because agents follow the money (who can blame them? - they need to earn a living too), more and more of them stopped taking on new writers.  On the positive side, this will mean more opportunities for independent presses. On the negative side, writers of fiction now more than ever need to reconcile themselves to the vast certainty that writing novels won't pay the bills.

2. More commissioning is being done.  We've always commissioned books with authors we liked, but in 2009 I saw more of it being done than ever.  We call up an agent or author we like with our idea for a series and say, "Can you write me a mystery with this type of hobby and this type of heroine?"  We'll be seeing lots of pseudonyms in upcoming years as those lucky enough to have established themselves, or to have well-connected agents, find themselves writing commissioned work that they may or may not believe in.  Frankly this disturbs me a bit, as this could lead to a sort of Disneyfication of our industry, where corporate types make the decisions and the artists really don't matter much, as long as they look good and put out a saleable product.  But we shall see.

3. More reviewing is being done on the Web.  We did have the news of Kirkus closing down; and I think most of us viewed the decision with mixed feelings.  Very few of us haven't been burned by Kirkus reviews, which were infamous for being nasty.  Yet the journal was a reliable source of reviews, and getting a starred review there meant something.  The reviewers there were also professionals; and there is no substitute for a professional reviewer who understands the craft of reviewing.  The Web-based reviews are putting reviewing in the hands of the people, and while I have long been a fan of Amazon's willingness to allow readers to comment on books, I'm not sure that the closing of a reputable review engine is a good thing.

4. Careers have stalled.  This has been a major bummer for me and many colleagues.  Several of us had authors we felt were about to take off, people whose third or fourth book was poised to "hit."  And yet they didn't, as people fell back on the old reliables, the big names who can be counted on to provide a formulaic read that satisfies the itch more reliably than someone new or emerging.  We actually had a discussion in our office about releasing no new books in 2009, but we felt this would not be fair to authors or to our bottom line, since some sales are better than none.  Now we shall see if the writers can put their noses to the grindstone again, and do another book, and hope that 2010 sees the return to a more adventurous buying style.

We did see some highlights in 2009, so herewith my Cheers and Jeers for the year.

CHEERS to the Kindle.  This technology is helping to sell books while also giving people with limited space an option to buy and keep as many books as they want. We're having some adjustment issues here, but in the long run the much lower unit cost of a Kindle book is going to be good for publishers and authors.  I do have reservations about Amazon's market power, and how they are using it to squeeze more out of publishers, but we have to accept the reality of the marketplace, and many of us are finally coming to religion on this issue.

CHEERS to HarperCollins.  A large player, HarperCollins is launching a new imprint that pays no advances, allows no returns, and offers authors a cut of profit rather than a typical royalty structure.  Some authors (and, I'm sure, MWA) are up in arms about this; but the fact is that nobody forces anyone to sign a publishing contract, and those writers who think they can do better elsewhere have every right to go to another house to get their book published.  If publishing is to survive in our money-centric 21st century, we have to continue our emphasis on the bottom line.  And let's not forget how many people this industry employs--designers, artists, printers, warehouse folk, and so forth.  We have a responsibility to pay our bills on time; and with the work we do, we deserve to make a profit for our labors.  HC's new imprint seeks to fix the terrible inequities that we all know exist but which the current system perpetuates.  I will be watching this one closely.

CHEERS to Dan Brown.  The Lost Symbol did light up bookbuyers' eyes in 2009, though it did not seem quite as ineluctable as The DaVinci Code, which has reportedly sold more than 25 million copies to date.  I do find it quite interesting that the publishing phenomena these days belong to the children's and young adult market, what with Harry Potter and the Twilight series.  This is good news in that it shows us that young people are reading, and actively looking forward to books.  It's a bit sad, though, that those of us in adult trade haven't been able to galvanize the population with something really stellar.  Maybe we need more children's and YA editors moving into adult editorial.

JEERS to Al Roker.  I am a man of strong opinions, and I make no secret of the fact that I detest celebrity mystery novels.  Who knows whether Roker even wrote The Morning Show Murders?  Most likely not; the credit is probably due to Dick Lochte, who is credited as "co-author."  Many fine books will have been rejected so that Roker could get his large advance, and many a mystery reader will have been pulled in by celebrity to purchase this thing.  Yes, such books are good for the genre, and good for the publisher, and certainly good for the poor publicist, who can't get Joe Schmo a media appearance anywhere, ever, but will have CNBC and the New York Times banging down the door to get some of Roker's time.  And, of course, I would not be saying any of this if we were Roker's publisher--not that we could afford it.

JEERS to the Amazon Vine program.  It seemed like a good idea to some: Get in touch with the most active reviewers/readers on Amazon and offer them ARCs of coming books, to help them spread the word about new titles.  But the reviewers clearly were not vetted closely or at all, and the result is a system that gets the wrong books into the wrong hands on a regular basis, which flies in the face of all our publicists' wisdom that the key to a successful review program is making sure the right reviewers get the book, and the wrong ones don't.  I can't paint all the Vine reviewers with the same brush, as many do take the job seriously and do a fine job of pointing out the pros and cons of any particular title.  But there's also a rather large subset that has gone mad with power, that uses Vine as a platform on which to project their bitterness, anger, and "erudition."  There is clearly a glee they are taking in trashing books, now that their egos have been swollen.  Our publicist said she would quit if we took part in this program, and I am quite glad we made the decision we did.  

JEERS to Reviewing the Evidence.  Strangely enough, I have complimented this online review of crime fiction in the past.  And I do stand by the fact that the reviewing on RTE is of consistently high quality. However, it came to my attention this year that RTE follows a policy of reviewing only the books published by those on MWA's "approved" publishers list.  MWA makes no secret of its commitment to writers; and I likewise make no secret of my support for the rights of publishers. Any review engine that discriminates against independent presses and the authors published by them does not have my support.  Frankly, I'm a bit embarrassed that I didn't realize RTE's policy until very recently, when our publicist said to me, "Oh, didn't you know?  MWA is the master, and RTE is its bitch."

JEERS to DorothyL's moderator.  This has been the source of quite a lot of fun gossip in the office.  Our assistant forwards us emails of interest, and this year we saw a long line of nasty, high-handed postings by the moderator, who, it seems, plays favorites and likes to toss those who have annoyed him off the list.  This is a far cry from the early days of DangerMouse, who ran the list with a lighter touch in the days before it became a marketing tool.  I'm always amazed at the mail I get expressing frustration with DorothyL, at the number of people who say they read it more out of habit than for any other reason, and that they tend to blip past most of the entries as the equivalent of spam.  There is nothing to be done about this, and our publicist argues that DL has been invaluable for the writers who have made their presence known on it.  But it no longer seems like the hospitable place it was, and certainly the moderator plays a large role in that.  "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

On a more personal note, in December of this year, Mysterious Matters had its 100,000th hit.  Thank you to all who take the time to read my longwinded postings and occasional diatribes; and thank you as well to those who take the time to write.  I may not always write back - partially because I do need to stay focused on my work, and partially because I need to maintain perspective - but I always read everything you send, and many of your emails have formed the basis for my musings and postings.  

In 2010, my goal is to make Mysterious Matters a bit more interactive, to try to start more forums in which lovers of crime fiction can exchange ideas and "talk back" to publishers.  I have some ideas for doing this, which I hope to get off the ground in January or February.  In the meantime, all the best for a Happy New Year and a successful, stress-free (or at least reduced-stress) 2010.