Holy, smokes. Between Neil Gaiman’s wonderful speech and Joe Konrath’s fantastic new post about publishing, this has been a stunning few days while I have been off teaching.
So after watching Neil’s speech, go read Joe’s new post about publishing. Read it carefully. Joe is spot on the money, folks. Spot on. So is Neil. Wow, great stuff.
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2012/05/exploited-writers-in-unfair-industry.html
Bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith has written more than one hundred popular novels and well over two hundred published short stories. His novels include the science fiction novel Laying the Music to Rest and the thriller The Hunted as D.W. Smith. With Kristine Kathryn Rusch, he is the coauthor of The Tenth Planet trilogy and The 10th Kingdom. He writes under many pen names and has also ghosted for a number of top bestselling writers.
Dean has also written books and comics for all three major comic book companies, Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse, and has done scripts for Hollywood. One movie was actually made.
Over his career he has also been an editor and publisher, first at Pulphouse Publishing, then for VB Tech Journal, then for Pocket Books. He is now an executive editor for Fiction River.
WMG Publishing Inc. is now my major publisher of all my coming novels, collections, and short stories.
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Yup. Read it yesterday. Amazing post. Simply amazing. We newbies are very very lucky to have the likes of you all to learn from. Thank you so much!
Joe Konrath really struck a cord with me in that post, Dean. I mentioned it in a post I wrote on my site. http://www.shaunkilgore.com/2012/05/newbies-perspective-on-indie-publishing.html
Heck the last few posts have been good on his site. There’s been so much going on.
Thanks, again Dean for your continued vigilance in connecting us to the information critical for our learning and adapting to this new environment.
It gives me confidence in the future of writing and writers when thought leaders like you, Kris, Joe keep exposing key structural issues and showing us another way; a way were we have more influence and self determination.
Had a colleague tell me that publishers still offer a great many services to writers. I suggested that they make those actual services then. Charge me for it. If they can get me great covers, copyediting, and publicity, then sweet! How much?
Trouble is, the answer has been: 50% of your earnings for the lifetime of the book. Hmmmm… sorry, guys. Way too much. I was thinking more $1000 for all of that. Total. Because everything they can offer just gets readers in the door. It’s the story that keeps them coming back, and that’s my responsibility.
LOL, EF. Great idea. But your number is way off. They don’t ever give you 50% of anything. It’s often 6-8% of cover for mass market, 8-10% for trade paper, and 25% of NET for electronic. (14-18% depending) So nope, they do the services for around 85% or more for the rest of the life of the book. You are spot on. They should offer the service. (grin)
He just did another good one on ebook pricing.
Dean, under what circumstances does a traditional publishing deal EVER make sense any longer? Presuming no one’s going to hand off a decent six figure advance, just what is it that traditional publishers can do that we can’t do for ourselves?
Stepehen, I’m going to answer that question in a full blog. Stay tuned. Good question. There are many factors, actually.
Joe’s done it again. Right on the money. I’ve said forever e-readers are delivery devices for story, period. Nice to see Joe say it too.
I certainly don’t weep for bad business decisions by the dinosaurs of publishing, but for us indie publishers we’ll have a nice pool of out of work editors looking for freelance work. Very nice for us.