Since the week of workshops and deadlines has me wrapped up more than I expected, not quite done with the next Sacred Cows.
Yesterday, Kris and I were getting a laugh from a great song by new artist Sara Bareilles called “King of Anything.” You can find it at iTunes right here. At least listen to the chorus. And listen to it with agents in mind. I’m fairly certain, not 100%, but fairly certain she was writing the song about a bad relationship. But wow does it fit a bad agent relationship PERFECTLY.
On another topic:
Two nights ago about 14 professional writers got together in a room and we had a five hour discussion on ebooks. Even though I was the leader of the discussion, I learned a bunch and came away buzzing yet again. I won’t begin to talk about all the stuff here. But just let me say it’s a great time to be a professional fiction writer. Sure, things are changing faster than many can keep up with, but that’s exciting and with many of the changes, the mess that the agent system has become slowly loses its grasp on the business.
Someone asked me if I see agents surviving the changes. I said “Sure, some of them. The ones that have a good business model, who don’t read slush, who give added value to their clients in sales and contacts, who understand their clients and don’t try to control them or take care of them or tell them what to write.”
But my belief is that the agent model that so many of my posts have focused on will be gone. The publishers will have taken back over the slush piles in one form or another, and new forms of agents will emerge.
Also a new form of scam agent will emerge, so caution folks. Get control of your money and except for education, money flows to the writer. Again, never let anyone touch your money first.
Will book publishing in paper form be around in twenty years? Of course. In fact, there will be more books being published in paper. But the publishers will have changed. A large number of small presses will be flourishing, combing electronic and paper publishing. Larger publishers will be following the same model, combining paper and electronic publishing. Mass market paperbacks will be a thing of the past in twenty years, trade paperbacks will be standard, with hardbacks still being premium books.
But major New York publishers have a pretty hard turning or tipping point coming with all their contracts, labor unions, high overhead, the return system, and warehouses and shipping costs. When books go to 25% electronic in sales, the weight of the costs of each paper book will drive the price point too high and force even more of an change. Some publishers already see this coming and are doing their best to move, but the union contracts, high overhead, and returns systems pretty much has the big publishers caught in a nasty trap.
This all is going to take time to work through the system and in this day of instant fear and communication, we’ll see a lot of “the sky is falling” stuff. But nothing is falling, it’s changing. And the changes are fantastic for writers.
Stay on top of it is my suggestion. Ignore doom and gloom and just watch and move with the system. Learn the business, expect no one to take care of you, and keep having fun.
Now yet another topic:
I just got a very sad phone call from a friend who lost a cat today. Made me very sad, since we have lost five cats and gave another away in the last year. Two went from just old age, great old ladies names Willow and The Goddess. We put down another from sickness named Ezri. She was a powerful cat. When we had the full compound up here, we were always rescuing cats. Ezri was the last non rescue cat we had. The three we have left inside are all rescues.
But we also had two outdoor cats up until a week or so ago. Yellow Kitty and Rufus. Yellow Kitty was a wild male I managed to pet after two years and Rufus was a neighbor’s cat who left them for us. Both slept on our front porch in shelters and would have nothing to do with coming inside. Of course feeding cats outside brings raccoons and I was close friends with two and their yearly kittens. This year mom had four kittens. The raccoons and cats were buddies and even would eat from the same bowl.
Then one day the hilltop was silent. Both cats and all raccoons were gone. Something had taken them all. No signs of any of them. No signs of life at all.
So this last year we have lost five cats. We’re down to the three inside. In this big house, often hours will go by and I don’t see a cat. I can’t imagine being without cats around, but wow it is tough when we lose them. And my friend this morning was very sad, as he should be.
So if you have cats, give them a hug, enjoy their company while they let you, because they will move on faster than you want them to.
No cats as of right now, other than a wild one that roams the woods around the house, but I’ve got a beagle and two house rabbits. They get hugs every day. Even the wild cat gets food left out for him every once in a while; figured it’s better to feed him than have him getting into the garbage or worse.
And yes, it’s exciting times for fiction writers, and for publishing. I’m with you in thinking that print will survive, though probably with a different business model. It’s going to have to happen for publishers to survive, and most of them will survive in one form or another. I can imagine a day when digital could take up a big percentage of the market, but I think there’ll always be print to some extent or other.
Dean, if I ever doubted your perspicacity in regards to the writing business (which I haven’t–well, okay, maybe at the beginnings of a few Sacred Cows posts, but not by the time I finished reading them), I would stop after reading your predictions. As an unpublished writer, I don’t have enough information to make any predictions myself, but the ones you’ve mentioned in this post make way, way more sense than any others I’ve read. Hardly anyone else even mentions small presses.
But I’m mostly commenting to say I’m so, so sorry to hear about your cats. Losing five in one year must be incredibly awful. I’ll be sure to hug my cats… except the ones who would bite me if I did. (I love them anyway.)
Kaitlyn,
Thanks. And I actually think small presses are going to explode in about a thousand different configurations. Kris and I helped a small press get started called WMG Publishing that is doing our short fiction in electronic form to start with. Kris and I are closely involved with the press since we had Pulphouse experience and it is our work going up. It’s one way that writers can control what happens to their work. Many writers are just starting their own small press for their own work, some computer smart people are starting small presses to help writers get work up, and so on. Only time will tell which presses survive and grow.
Pulphouse, by Locus numbers, was for a number of years the 5th largest publisher of science fiction and fantasy in the country. If I had managed to keep it alive and keep it growing, it would have been bought by a larger company and become an imprint like TOR Books. Or I might have kept it on its own like Jim Baen did with his company.
The normal pattern in publishing is for large companies to form, then have issues up top and have smaller publishers fill in under them and eventually grow into the large companies and then the pattern repeats. In this new world, it’s even easier for small presses to start and the folks up top are in for a bumpy ride the next few years, of that there is no doubt.
The stereotype says that men like dogs and women like cats, but I’ve always liked cats and my wife likes dogs. Right now we have two dogs and three cats, one of whom is getting along in age, and is fairly crabby with the two young twin kitties we picked up in January of this year.
Previously, we had a tabby for a long time — funny cat, gorgeous fur, fun to hold, but sorta needy — who went out the front door one day last Fall, and was never seen nor heard from again. The oldster’s two sisters vanished in 1999, both due to an unfortunate habit of climbing up into car engines. Won’t share the grizzly details.
I agree, appreciate the cats when you have them, because chances are good they will be gone suddenly or without your understanding why.
Right now it’s fun because one of the orange-furred twins has latched onto my daughter. She’s named him Crookshanks — after the feline companion of Hermione from the Harry Potter series — and he is stunningly patient with her. Ordinarily cats and young children don’t get along, but she throws him around like a small potato sack, and he just comes back for more. Sleeps on her bed every chance he gets, in fact. Follows her all over the house, and so forth. If we have to lose him, I hope it’s not for a long, long time.
Sorry about your cats. We had to say goodbye to our cat a few months ago. About a week later I was in my office and felt I was being watched. I looked up and saw a tortoiseshell cat sitting on the ledge looking at me through the window. It was almost as if she said, “I hear you have a opening for a cat.”
Gypsy is a great cat, but she won’t stay off my car.
Sigh. I’m so sorry about your cats. Our two were very happy to have us home from vacation and I’ll give them extra scritchies in memory of yours.
We also have one who lives with our tenant (we pay for everything, the cat keeps our tenant company) and we’re about to acquire two outdoor cats who will live in an enclosed run Ken’s building next to the house.
Our two indoor cats hate all other cats, so despite our big house, we can’t have any more inside. I wish we could, because there are so many in need of rescue!
Dean, just wanted to take a moment to compliment you and all regular participants on the level of discourse here. I mostly stay off the public internet, and this is the one of the few blogs I ever participate in (and certainly the only one I’ve ever particpated in often, apart from the Ninc blog which I helped set up).
This past week or so, due to a (mild) foot injury keeping me chairbound almost 24/7, I’ve been trawling the internet much more than usual, reading writer-oriented sites I rarely read, and visiting writer-oriented sites I’ve never before visited. And it’s not a mistake I’m not likely to make again any time soon.
There’s a baseline of civility in the discussions here that’s not as common throughout the internet, alas, as it ought to be. Maybe using “moderated status” for posts is a factor there, or maybe it’s just the particular crowd attracted to this blog. Either way, my unplanned tour-de-Net has certainly refreshed my appreciation of the tone maintained here.
Aw, man. I’m just catching up reading your posts. I’m so sorry about Rufus and Yellow Kitty. I’m going to give Beansie an extra hug tonight and tell him it’s from his folks.
Thanks, Annie. Sure is quiet outside except for the sudden appearance of birds now that the boys are gone. Very sad. Never an outdoor cat again. Ever. No matter how wild.
Thanks!