Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Award: File This Under Depressing {Signs of the Publishingpocolypse}

It has been a hundred years since this photo of "Newspaper Row" in New York City was taken. I have a feeling the buildings of major New York book publishers will be on the historic tour before another 50 years is up.

This morning I clicked on this article detailing the 6 finalists of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, which awards a promising new author a Penguin publishing contract and $15,000 advance. Great. I want to enter next time around. Except let’s take a look at what’s really going on here. Penguin is using Amazon to vet new authors, narrow thousands of entries down to 6, and then let the public decide on a winner.

Translation: Penguin no longer knows how to find or pick a winning novel.

I’m all about social media, but isn’t the purpose of a publishing house to be able to source and promote new talent? If a major house like Penguin can’t do it, who can? Just another sign of the Publishinpocolypse, IMHO. Even major New York publishing houses need the public to tell them which book to publish.

Okay, so on the other side, it’s brilliant. Penguin is basically taking the risk out of publishing a novel by letting the public tell them which one they’re most interested in before Penguin takes the risk of signing the author and investing in the book. But as an author, I find this depressing.

Reason This Sucks #1: If Penguin can’t source good talent, why are we authors busting our chops to find a way to submit our work to them? Attempting to become a traditionally published author is looking less and less like a career choice and more and more like playing lotto.

Reason This Sucks #2: I’m an entrepreneurial sort and would happily skip the rejection slip doldrums in favor of publishing my first novel myself (it’s what I did with my first non-fiction book). But there still is no tool to replicate the distribution and promotion power of major publishing houses. Take it from me: promoting your own book on your own takes superhuman stamina with unpredictable results.

The Publishing World Needs Turnkey Promotion Tools

I can forego the ego boost of having my novel accepted by a traditional publishing house if there is a viable way to promote it on my own. Could someone please create a turnkey promotion system for self-published books that actually works? The services offered by print-on-demand and self-publishing houses are a joke, better labeled distribution services than promotion tools. There’s your mission, new media startups of Silicon Valley. Go.

Oh, and email me at laurakcowan at gmail when you’re done. I’ll be your first beta tester, paid user, and enthusiastic evangelist.

Passing the Pen to the Next Generation of Writers

I had a tornado dream recently. In it, I sat outside a farm house with a family that was not my own and waited for a storm to approach. I have had tornado dreams before, always warning me of coming turbulence in my life: the last ones warned me of an impending layoff, the first of the dissolution of my church family in a traumatic church split that ripped my family and new in-laws apart days after my wedding. So, suffice it to say that I pay attention to tornado dreams, and I have been chewing on this new one for several weeks. I believe its significance is deep and two-fold, and even extends beyond me to some of you.

The odd things about this dream were that:

1) this was not my family–a first for my tornado dreams that always warn of swift changes coming in my life (i.e. the winds of change)

2) I knew before the dream even began that the older man in the family was going to die, that there was nothing I could do about it, and that my job was to protect the young girl of the family

3) when the tornado came at us, it had four funnels instead of one, which I believe refers to 4 events coming in quick succession to disrupt my life

I woke up with a strong sense that the little girl represented my writing, specifically my novel.

Then I had a second dream, in which I found myself swimming in the Pacific Ocean while toxic waste and industrial trash washed past me in two warm waves. This was one week before the Fukushima tsunami and nuclear meltdown, but I don’t think this deals with anything so literal.

THE DREAMS’ INTERPRETATION

Funnel #1 & Wave #1) I discussed my dreams with a few friends, who both told me they felt the dreams were actually about boundaries. Setting boundaries with a negative person in my life who is jealous of my writing lifestyle so I could focus on my writing, specifically. But that didn’t feel like a complete interpretation.

Funnel #2) Then my mentor passed away, and the dream took on a second meaning: I believe the fact that there was nothing I could do to save the man’s life in my dream meant that I was also to set boundaries on worrying about what happened to Mr. Davis and again to focus on my writing.

Funnel #3) Then I suddenly found myself the new Transportation Editor for Inhabitat, a great job that again challenges me to set healthy boundaries to make sure my writing doesn’t get shelved in all the busyness.

Funnel #4 & Wave #2) I’m still waiting on event number four, which I expect to be represented by the fourth tornado spout and the second toxic wave and relate to setting boundaries with a negative person again, but something occurred to me regarding the second meaning of the dream….

THE DEEPER MEANING

David E. was a professional mentor to me, who gave me a foot in the door in the magazine/online media world and who gave me great advice about how to live a writing life. One sense I had about my dream was that the timing was no accident. I grieved the fact that he couldn’t see my success with Inhabitat because he passed away just a week before I got the job–the day I applied, in fact. In a sense, I believe he passed a baton–shall I say pen–to me to carry on his love of quality writing. He told me I was one of the best fact-checkers and copy editors he had ever known, and I felt that if there was a mantle there to pick up, I wanted to carry on David’s legacy of writing craft and storytelling. It would honor his memory. I don’t think I’m the only one of his employees or friends who could pick up this job and run with it, but I am one of many who have that choice.

I started to wonder if my recent post about the changing of the guard in media was actually occurring as I pondered the subject. I found this article about the best-paid mystery writers in America and discovered that several of them had already passed away. Ditto for sound and media pioneer Sidney Harman, who just passed. In fact, it seems that many giants of the last media age are retiring or passing away. So, beyond the idea of setting boundaries to protect my own writing during this time of swift change, I am also wondering how many mantles are out there to be picked up. Do you want to place your feet solidly in the center of the New York book publishing scene or become a pioneer of new media? I say go for it. I am. Whether you honor someone’s legacy or take back territory for quality writing and integrity in the business world, there are posts standing empty that need to be filled and will be. Which one will you claim as your own?

Don’t Despise The Day of Small Things

Just a quick post today. A lot has been happening lately with the book, the blog, and my novel in progress (more on that later!) but through all the little steps forward and the big steps forward I have felt in my spirit a repeated reminder:

“Don’t despise the day of small things.”

Big things are coming, and they’re coming soon. I could write so many posts on how I know that, but you’d think me even crazier than you already do, so I’ll skip that part and just tell you that I’m looking forward to an AMAZING year in 2011. But all that success had to start with a seed. And that seed has to sprout before it can bloom. We’re at the sprout stage now. And when I start to get angsty about things not moving forward fast enough, I remind myself to enjoy what may possibly be the last days of the seed stage: I have time to relax. I have relative anonymity (yes, at some point that may go out the window, and I’m feeling good and bad about that).

If you are on your way to big successes, or you hope you are, take the time to enjoy the little steps forward as part of the journey. Someday you’ll look back and remember this time as the last time you had time to relax before the big time hit and your world changed. Your day is coming. Don’t despise the day of small things, which is when you are tested to see if you’re ready to handle more.

Peace!

–Laura

Will You Self-Publish Online? E-book Sales Triple in 2009

My book isn't this many pages yet... but I'm working on it!

According to a new article in the Wall Street Journal online, traditional book sales fell 1.8% last year, but e-book sales tripled to $313 million. Of course traditional book sales still totaled a gargantuan $23.9 billion, but this is starting to sound more and more like the shift to e-commerce, don’t you think? It’s got me thinking about my options when I get this novel to press.

Are you publishing a book anytime soon, and what options are you considering? I knew that self-publishers online were making it easier for new authors to get in front of readers, but this article really impressed me with the numbers. Amazon is competing with traditional houses by offering 70% royalties on e-book sales. That is quadruple a traditional royalty cut, which changes the game of how many sales an author needs to make some money on a book. E-books that can be read on Kindle are especially popular, and apparently a lot of authors are re-publishing their out-of-print works electronically and making decent incomes by putting their out-of-contract work back to work for them. And what’s really changed is that readers are more willing to read books in electronic format (as evidenced by the sales numbers) AND electronic publishers such as Amazon are doing a much better job these days of marketing and distribution, so it’s not all up to the author to promote their work. That sounds workable to me. I think the equation just tipped in favor of this option for a lot of writers out there.

I know, I shouldn’t even be thinking about this stage of the process yet, but it has me hopeful that when I decide my novel is ready to publish I won’t be hit with a brick wall of rejection notices. I think I’m going to set a deadline, pitch the traditional publishers, and then move ahead with publishing it myself if need-be. Even if my deadline is too hasty, I wouldn’t be the first author to self-publish first and then get picked up by a traditional house later. But first I have to write this darn book….

“To Be A Writer, You Must Write”

Old Typewriter by Petr Kratochvil

Oh, man! I just love this post from writer Allison Winn on what separates published and unpublished writers (doing the hard work of writing!), especially the bit about letting plots gestate a bit in your mind before writing them down. I’m a few (okay, more than a few) paces behind her in the publishing process, so it encouraged me to hear that a successful writer has a similar writing process to my own. I definitely spend most of my “writing time” just thinking about my story, my characters, and what the next step is in fleshing out the story. (This works great with a full-time mom lifestyle, too, since I spend a lot of time away from the computer.) The post also gives me a kick in the pants to put in the hard work required to make my book a success. Thanks, Allison!

Ichubbawha?? (The Sound of Me Doing Another Double-take.)

One of the desires of my heart: my stunningly beautiful back yard.

I ask you: What is UP with this serendipity thing? We just moved our daughter from her co-sleeper mini crib to a full-size crib, and she has adapted so well that I have gotten my two best nights of sleep in months… which means that my relentless drive has come out of hibernation and I started thinking about how to find more work–maybe even break into a new genre. As if I need to diversify, I know! I just would love to get into editing fiction–sci-fi/fantasy and mysteries, specifically–in addition to the Christian nonfiction and automotive work I’m already doing.

I just said (there seems to be something about saying these things out loud) to my husband that I was thinking of pursuing a new client, and ran an idea by him regarding how I might make it easier for myself to break that new-genre barrier. He said go for it, and before I could look up the company I was thinking of cold-calling, someone else came to me and asked if I might be interested in my dream editing job. Well, one of them. I have a lot of dream jobs. Well, yes! Yes, I would. It’s in Christian publishing, so maybe I’ll wait on that idea to pursue fiction work for a few weeks. We’ll see where this goes.

Lately this scripture verse keeps running through my head, and I hope that it encourages you as it has been encouraging me: “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4, NIV). Every time I hear this verse, I’m reminded that I don’t have to slave for the things I want, nor do I have to choose between the relationship I want to develop with my Daddy in heaven and the dreams He has given me to pursue here on earth. “Relax, Laura!” that scripture says to me. “Just breathe, enjoy God and life, and everything will fall into place.”

And so it has, once again. Maybe I should spend more time meditating on this verse and less time ranting about Jeremiah 12:1.

Am I Nuts?

My writing and editing background is diverse, shall we say: Christian book publishers, independent book co-publishers, automotive magazines, how-to e-content. Now, I seem to have added mommy blogging to the list, rather unintentionally.

I love cloth diapering my baby girl, and am always looking for ways to save even more money on the super-cute modern kind of cloth diapers. I happened to comment on a cloth diaper blog post about how I’d love to see a post on the subject of saving money, because so many cloth diapering moms spend loads of money on their fluff habits.

They asked me to write it! I did write it… they didn’t want the post after all because it promoted so many sites other than theirs (they are associated with a cloth diaper shop). So, I gave it to another cloth diaper blog not associated with a shop, and she happily posted the info so it wouldn’t go to waste.

Anyway, the question is this: am I nuts? Not about diapers; that’s rather obvious, but about further diversifying the already wide range of subjects I work with? Sure, I enjoy writing practically anything, but is this spreading myself too thin? Failing to brand my skills properly? Or, is this the kind of ability (do anything! do it yesterday!) that is necessary in this economy? It’s bugging me, even though I’m super-excited to see more of my stuff in print. (My latest article in Automobile Quarterly is coming out next issue, too, lol. Car collections and diapers… like I said, kind of weird, but I love it all!) What do you think?

The Future of News Is…

Front Page of La Canadien, 1806

Anyone else sick of the discussion about how the media/publishing industries can make money going forward? Not a single business model seems to be working anymore. This means one of three things: 1) There is no solution. An economic recovery will bring with it more advertising dollars, and we’ll stagger on until then. 2) There is a solution, but we haven’t gone on enough chat shows to find it yet. 3) There is no solution; there are solutions!

I’ll choose what’s behind door number three. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what the news will look like in the future, and what I would be willing to pay for. The sad truth? I’m not really eager to pay for anything online, and that’s where I’ll be getting my news, for sure. For me to subscribe to a news service, it will have to be one-stop shopping, customized, interactive, and take the work/time out of exploring the web. I can see an improved Google homepage fulfilling some of these functions, and it occurs to me that the various functions I want from my “news” could be performed by different companies, different applications. What if we all started building niche news-serving tools like iPhone apps and then put together the best ones? Instead of reinventing the entire concept of publishing and news, we can simply invest piece by piece in the companies and tools that deliver content in new and tasty ways.

Here’s what Laura’s news feed of the (not too distant, I hope) future will look like:

- Headline news I can filter by category (block politics right before elections, or block sports I don’t give a whit about), produced by traditional news reporting/distributing agencies.

- Niche publishing industry, green technology, general interest IT, arts & entertainment, and international personal interest news. A combination of traditional reporting sources and blogs.

- Suggested news stories of all kinds based on my preferences and click-throughs.

- RSS feeds with a tool that suggests new blogs I might like to follow.

- An RSS reader that compiles blog feeds by category for easy viewing.

- A tool that keeps me informed of new or high levels of traffic on various websites across the intertubes.

- A tool that suggests new social media contacts based on my interests and activity.

- A tool that crawls the web for the best price on an item I’m thinking of purchasing, or finds baby gear sweepstakes, etc.

We consumers will pay one-time or ongoing fees for the apps that bring us the type of content filtering we like best. We can continue to pay for some content that is valuable to us, and less in-depth content will be supported by advertising dollars (hey, it could work as a partial strategy).

The good news? I believe at least marginally decent versions of all these tools/services are already available! Someone (ahem, Google) just has to put it together in a way that serves users on computers and phones, and they’re sitting on a mountain of gold. Seriously, if an iPhone fart app can make hundreds of thousands of dollars, there’s some money there for news-serving, web-exploring, horizon-expanding apps, don’t you think?

What would you like your news to do for you that it’s not currently? How would you like to access published content? Is your content lacking depth, accessibility? Let’s start a new conversation, please, on what news and published content product we’re willing to buy, not just how to make money off the old product after it’s long expired.

Editors Helping Editors

@milehighfool and @LydiaBreakfast have been hosting some great chats on Twitter (#editorchat) for the past couple Wednesday nights, to help editors and writers connect and discuss how to help one another. This week’s topic was fair pay for editors and how free online content and slashed budgets are affecting pay for writers. If you’re on Twitter, check it out. The more the merrier. : )

Also, if there are any topics you would like to discuss here, please let me know. I’d love to get to know more of you and hear about your recent experience in the publishing industry.

White-Collar Third World

If you’ve ever worked on a blog or for a publisher with online content, you know that it can be nonstop, frantic work. The online editors I’ve known have been chained to their desks and phones, fueled by caffeine drips, trying to churn out interesting and timely content for voracious readers 24/7. Voracious readers are great! Don’t get me wrong. But our insatiable appetites for free information in real-time are starting to look like our Wal-Mart shopping. We want it fast; we want it on the cheap; we want more of it! And this is creating a huge problem–for us.

As consumers of media we need to realize we’re driving market forces that are driving down writers’ and editors’ salaries, shuttering thousands of publishers, and in the process reducing the scope and quality of the content available to us. It’s natural for people to want cheaper items, goods, and services as quickly as possible. If we value quality reporting and writing, however, there is a bottom line to how much time and money it takes to provide publishing and reporting services, and I think we are crossing that line right now. You know that when The New York Times is defending bad decisions about which stories to run, it’s an epidemic.

I got pretty excited at the chance to write for a high-profile Web 2.0 startup site this week. I knew they didn’t pay all that well but was considering the gig to gain visibility and experience. When I watched their tutorial on how to pick an assignment, though, it became obvious from their screenshots that six months ago the company paid two to three times as much for the exact same content. It wasn’t great pay then, and an editor admitted to me that pay had been a “real sticking point” lately. No shit. Not only was it insultingly, prohibitively bad pay, but they were literally advertising the fact because of their sloppiness in editing the tutorial videos… which probably occurred because they laid off the majority of their in-house editorial staff a month ago due to financial pressures. Anyone else feel the pull of that downward spiral?

The editor politely laid out how much time it took writers to put these assignments together, and it boiled down to below minimum wage for research, writing, two to three rounds of edits, wiki coding the article, an extensive style guide to learn, AND only being paid for each article on acceptance. Basically, high-profile companies are beginning to offer third-world wages because they can or have to to stay afloat. What kind of content do you think that pay is going to buy for their organization and readers?

How much do you value quality reporting and writing? Are you happy to accept writing and reporting from people who either are paid $2 an hour or have to cut major corners in order to make their living as writers? What information might you as a reader miss out on because no one is being paid to find it for you? There is a debate raging right now about the entire business model media is built around, and my lil ol’ blog post isn’t going to resolve that issue. (See Mitch Ratcliffe’s post about the economics of journalism at ZDNet for a great analysis.) It seems important to me, though, that readers realize there is a cost to the free and constant flow of online content. Maybe awareness of this fact will help engage people in finding a solution that serves both industry and consumers.