![]() |
#61 | |
Guru
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Posts: 826
Karma: 18573626
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: Canada
Device: Kobo Touch, Nexus 7 (2013)
|
Quote:
Last edited by Ninjalawyer; 10-23-2014 at 09:25 AM. |
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#62 |
Grand Sorcerer
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Posts: 28,577
Karma: 204127028
Join Date: Jan 2010
Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD
|
Yep. The days of a Lester Del Rey-type editor taking a fledgling writer under their wing and teaching them how to write highly-marketable SFF were gone before ebooks. I'm mostly OK with this. There's no doubt they knew their business, but that sort of mentor/apprentice relationship also results in a lot of same-same books being published. Stagnation abounded.
|
![]() |
![]() |
Advert | |
|
![]() |
#63 |
Grand Sorcerer
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Posts: 7,452
Karma: 7185064
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Linköpng, Sweden
Device: Kindle Voyage, Nexus 5, Kindle PW
|
I was thinking about developing from good to very good and I do not think that is gone.
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#64 | |
Guru
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Posts: 826
Karma: 18573626
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: Canada
Device: Kobo Touch, Nexus 7 (2013)
|
Quote:
My understanding is that no real development happens for existing authors. They'll edit your manuscript (usually), provide some marketing (more and more rare), but that's it. The explosion of indie publishing isn't happening just because anyone can publish (although that's part of it), but also because there's less and less value coming from the publishers who expect authors and their agents to do more of the heavy lifting that they used to do. Part of the reason to that you might find it harder to find really stand-out genre fiction is because agents tend to be extremely conservative in what they'll agree to try and sell. Because agents have to do more of the work, many won't take a chance on risky works, only works they think the publishers will like. This has the effect of creating a bit of sameness in genre fiction. Last edited by Ninjalawyer; 10-23-2014 at 01:37 PM. |
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#65 |
Guru
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Posts: 997
Karma: 12000001
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Seattle Wahington U.S.
Device: kindle
|
Also "Publishers" don't do editing. Some specific person employed by them does. These may be anything from excellent to just average in ability, possibly less. And those editors aren't hatched in creches in the basement of the publisher's buildings. Those budding editors hired by the publishers could just as easily work for themselves and hire out their services. Do you really think that the only way to get a book professionally edited is by going through the BPHs? It is a perfect career for a laid off or retired experienced editor who wants to work part time at home. Lots of talent available even outside of the BPHs.
|
![]() |
![]() |
Advert | |
|
![]() |
#66 |
Grand Sorcerer
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Posts: 7,452
Karma: 7185064
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Linköpng, Sweden
Device: Kindle Voyage, Nexus 5, Kindle PW
|
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#67 |
Bookmaker & Cat Slave
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Posts: 11,503
Karma: 158448243
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Device: K2, iPad, KFire, PPW, Voyage, NookColor. 2 Droid, Oasis, Boox Note2
|
With all due respect to everyone involved in this discussion, on this front, I'd like to add that I spend a lot of time doing nothing but working with authors that come to me with rights-reverted books, backlist books, new direct-to-ebook series/novels, etc. Almost all of these "backlisters," as I call them, were BPH pubbed. As many of you know, we work with enormous names, famous names, less-famous names, and so on and so forth, so it's a wealth of experience.
And they will all tell you precisely the same thing: for one thing, the midlist isn't "dying," it's dead. It's died a terrible, horrible, long, drawn-out death. If you're a genre reader, particularly sci-fi and fantasy, this will be painfully noticeable to you. Why? Because the money put into midlisters just didn't earn out. Not in a big enough way to compensate for all that alleged "writer development." Now, if you are submitting to BPH's (and even imprints thereof), the questions you get back are, "how big is your platform" and "how far into your [final] editing process are you?" No serious developmental revisions are expected. The Annie Lamotte days--when her beloved editor would tell her to go rewrite a book--are reserved for gigantic sellers and for those wee not-gigantic sellers (as Lamotte was herself) that are beloved of the PH, if not by the public. Those who work in that rarefied air: literature. But thousands--literally, thousands--of midlisters have been thrown out into the streets. if your reading tastes are for literature, rejoice: your authors will probably still get some--not a lot--development and coaching. If you read genre fiction, fuhgeddaboudit. For example, if anyone here remembers what Charlaine Harris and Laurell K. Hamilton were, status-wise and readership-wise, BEFORE they were widely discovered--solid midlisters--that group is essentially gone now. This is spectacularly true also over in Mystery and Suspense. I know of an author who, within the last few years, had a book come out in hardcover, from a BPH, and that book was nominated for BOTH an Edgar and a Macavity--that was dropped by his/her PH. Dropped. Not enough big-time sales, it seems, and s/he doesn't even need much editing. (Same author has had the last laugh, though; we produced a new series for him/her, direct-to-digital, which was then picked up by another BPH imprint, direct-to-the-front-table at B&N, and as of last week, has been picked up by NBC Prime for a new TV series that's going into pilot as I write this. But, the moral of the story remains: midlister, until now. 20+ years of being a solid, reliable, suspense-midlister.) Writers previously pubbed and editors have been talking about the midlist death spiral for at least a decade now; one such example, from 2004: http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/...postcount=2227 . When this was first talked about, BTW, it was "chain bookstores out to kill the midlist," mind you, before anyone decides that somehow, this is ALSO Amazon's fault... So, the idea that BPH's are essentially nurseries for good writers to become great writers, are incubators for talent...that's just not true any longer. Worse, there's a new and (to me) unpleasant sentiment, amongst many writers, that they just don't NEED that development time. They don't need the 10K hours, they don't need critiquing, editing, etc. I see that daily. They just don't want to put in the work, the time, the months, the years. It's all instant gratification. And I see myriad ms's come in that are good, but NOT great. They'll never see that thin air, at Amazon, the first-page of sales results, because they didn't have an editor, or even a solid critique group. So, I concur, on one front with Tompe; once upon a time, in ye olden days, the BPH's and imprints had a real purpose in their development processes. Of course, "young" (read: new) writers still had to be in the 2%, to even make it over the transom. But nonetheless, young talent developed through tutelage and seeing what great editing could do for them. "Editors" in-house at places like Random House really existed. (Think Jack Nicholson in Wolf, sorta). But those days are GONE. So, while you may wish to argue about how Amazon's alleged monopsony may affect the "good of the public," don't think that they're somehow killing off the benefits of trade-pubbing. Trade pubbing's big remaining benefit is advances; that's it. The old marketing machines, etc., that newer authors could rely on are pretty much dead, unless they knock it out of the park with the next Gone Girl. I wish--I really do--that it wasn't true. I've seen a lot of my favorite midlisters disappear from the shelves (and naturally, hope that they'll end up at my doors), but the Death Spiral is responsible for that. If anything, I would think that Amazon's very existence--the advent of web-ordering, etc., instead of "ordering to net" might help benefit those very midlisters, in maybe reversing the Death Spiral. Now, THAT would be a true benefit. One last thought about the Spate of Hate: Spoiler:
Hitch |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#68 |
Ninja Librarian
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Posts: 179
Karma: 347750
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Denmark
Device: Sony PRS-950, Cybook 3. gen, Sony T1, Kindle Paperwhite
|
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#69 |
Guru
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Posts: 826
Karma: 18573626
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: Canada
Device: Kobo Touch, Nexus 7 (2013)
|
That was a great post. Thanks for that.
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#70 |
Ex-Helpdesk Junkie
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Posts: 19,421
Karma: 85400180
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: The Beaten Path, USA, Roundworld, This Side of Infinity
Device: Kindle Touch fw5.3.7 (Wifi only)
|
Thank you Hitch, that was very enlightening. +1 karma.
![]() Thanks for the link and the anecdote. |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#71 | |
Star Gawker
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Posts: 526
Karma: 6944314
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Spruce Grove, AB Canada
Device: Kindle Paperwhite
|
Quote:
![]() |
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#72 |
Bookmaker & Cat Slave
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Posts: 11,503
Karma: 158448243
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Device: K2, iPad, KFire, PPW, Voyage, NookColor. 2 Droid, Oasis, Boox Note2
|
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#73 |
Grand Sorcerer
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Posts: 11,732
Karma: 128354696
Join Date: May 2009
Location: 26 kly from Sgr A*
Device: T100TA,PW2,PRS-T1,KT,FireHD 8.9,K2, PB360,BeBook One,Axim51v,TC1000
|
Right on the money.
Not much to add, except that: 1- Typical midlist advances these days run in the low 4 figures. I've seem reports of offers in the $1500 range. Which might have been reasonable in the early '70's but these days it won't pay the bills for a month (after taxes, agent fees, etc) much less the 12-18 months it takes for a tradpub title to come out. 2- Even the fabled "six-figure" advances breathlessly discussed by the traditionalist apologists come with so many caveats and accounting tricks that no midlist writer can actually make a living off tradpub contracts. About the hate spew, I've recently discovered that while there is a concerted anti-Amazon campaign going on, there is a deeper root to the hate. The root is, as pointed out repeatedly, elitist class warfare of which Amazon is merely the latest target. In fact, most of the FUD being dished at Amazon now has been flying around for over a hundred years. Every last one of the "Amazon is going to bring on the bookopolypse"charges is recycled and has been leveled at mass market book retailers for the last hundred years, from Dept Stores like Macys, to newstands, pharmacies, mall bookstores, and even the big box stores. And I do mean it literally: the exact same accusations in the exact same words. "Devaluing books"? Check. "Books aren't products"? Check. "They're trying to monopolize bookselling"? Check. There is a whole century of that crap coming from the exact same circles. The names change, but the blather is 100% the same. I'm currently reading RELUCTANT CAPITALISTS by Laura J. Miller and laughing my head off at the carbon copy arguments from the teens, 30's, 50's and 60's... Practically every single decade. The book is old, up to 2006, so Amazon barely rates a mention. Amusibgly, Special snowflakes have a long history of failure behind them; every single target of their hate spew has gone on to prosper and succeed despite the apoplectic sputtering. Worth a read. Very educational. (But buy it used: the ebook and pbook prices are (ironically) too high. http://www.amazon.com/Reluctant-Capi...=UTF8&sr=&qid= Last edited by fjtorres; 10-25-2014 at 12:59 PM. |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#74 |
Addict
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Posts: 264
Karma: 1747577
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Device: PocketBook 360
|
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#75 |
Bookmaker & Cat Slave
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Posts: 11,503
Karma: 158448243
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Device: K2, iPad, KFire, PPW, Voyage, NookColor. 2 Droid, Oasis, Boox Note2
|
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
|
![]() |
||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Amazon Launches 'Login and Pay with Amazon' for a Seamless Buying Experience | DreamWriter | News | 7 | 10-10-2013 02:06 PM |
Amazon now offers EFT payment to UK & EU authors for Amazon.com sales | avantman42 | Writers' Corner | 16 | 02-20-2013 06:03 PM |
Elgan: Here comes Amazon's 'Kindle for movies' I predict that Amazon will ship a vide | GeoffC | News | 15 | 05-23-2011 01:40 AM |
will Amazon tamper / delete non-amazon books side-loaded with Calibre? | Victoria | Devices | 18 | 02-26-2011 10:12 AM |