Category Archives: electronic publishing

A Review of the Final (?) Issue of Realms of Fantasy, Plus Some Suggestions

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Well, I had hoped it would never come to this.  While Realms of Fantasy hasn’t exactly been my favorite magazine, I’m very sorry that it has ceased publication and this will be my final review.  For the time being, at least.  It’s come back twice before, so we can always hope. 

This issue wasn’t planned as a final issue, so I don’t know if there were any stories still in inventory.  I imagine if there were, the authors were paid a kill fee and hopefully some of them will see publication elsewhere.

Publisher William Gilchrist said in his farewell post on the magazine’s website that the October issue would appear in print and would be late. He indicated that the issue should be available by November 15.  I haven’t seen it, but it might not have arrived yet.  B&N tends to be late getting the print copies.  I bought the PDF version from the website.

Anyway, let’s look at the fiction.

There are five stories in this issue.  We’ll take them in order.

First out of the gate is “Return to Paraiso” by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz.  I’ve not read anything by Ms. Loenen-Ruiz before.  This was a well written piece about a girl who is brought back to her village by the army in an unnamed Central American country.  She’s pregnant and kept in a cage.  She may also be the consort of a god and carrying his child.  This story falls into the nature mother’s passivity defeats the evil of masculine machines, a type of story that really doesn’t appeal much to me.  However, this one was better written than most things in this vein, and I rather liked it.

“The Man Who Made No Mistakes” by Scott William Carter is by far the most ambitious and morally complex story in this issue and arguably in any issue of the magazine since its last resurrection.  It concerns a young man with the ability to go back in time and change the course of events.  The only catch is he can’t go further back than the most recent change, whether that’s five minutes ago or five years.  He’s in something of a quandary because he’s committed a horrible crime and the way a certain person is affected by that crime is the only thing that keeps civilization from collapsing.  Every attempt he makes to undo the crime ends in major disaster.  It’s one of the strongest stories I’ve read in months, and I expect to see it on the awards ballots and in some of the Years’ Best anthologies next year.

“Second Childhood” by Jerry Oltion is a ghost story of a sorts.  Oltion is a writer that doesn’t always connect with me, in part because I find his work too preachy at times.  This particular story isn’t as bad as some, but not a lot happens in it beyond the narrator’s mother comes back from the dead and various discussions the narrator has with her husband about the implications of that event.  While some men might find the situation to be a horror story, I couldn’t get too excited about it.

The cover story, “Sweeping the Hearthstone” by Betsy James, is what I think of as a typical RoF story.  It’s about a girl who comes to work in an inn, only to discover there’s a spirit inhabiting the hearthstone in the main hall.  A spirit who is romantically interested in her, an interest that turns out to be mutual.  This one is about emotions.  While competently executed, it’s not the sort of thing I prefer to read.

The final story is “Barbie Marries the Jolly Fat Baker” by Nick DiChario, in which the toy knight runs away from home because Princess Barbie is getting it on with the baker toy.  Given the author, I expected this one to be competently executed (in this I wasn’t disappointed) and something more original (in this I was disappointed).  The ending gave me the impression the author got bored with his scenario and didn’t know where to take it, and so just stopped.

So that’s an overview of the stories in the October 2011 issue of Realms of Fantasy.  This is (for now) the last issue.  With the exception of the Carter, and to a lesser degree, the Loenen-Ruiz, there isn’t a lot here to recommend it.  I realize your mileage may vary.

I hope RoF returns.  It’s happened twice before.  Maybe it will again.  If it does, I’d like to make a couple of suggestions to any potential buyers/publishers.

First, go digital.  Several prominent magazines began as print and are now electronic only, including but not limited to Fantasy, Something Wicked, and Apex, while others such as Clarkesworld, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Lightspeed, and Heroic Fantasy Quarterly started out electronically and seem to be doing just fine. I can’t imagine all the color illustrations are cheap to print.  You can get the same quality of illustration electronically.  You also don’t have warehousing, shipping, returns, paper, or printing costs.

Second, stop trying to be the one stop shop for all things fantasy.  This issue contained 84 pages.  By my count, 26.5 of them were fiction, with words from the story on the page.  Each story had a full page illustration (not included in the previous page count), plus there were several pages of ads scattered among the fiction.  There was more nonfiction relating to fantasy in this issue than there was fantasy itself.  I can’t speak for most readers, but I never bought RoF for the reviews or columns.  I bought it for the fiction.  With less than half of the contents being fiction, even taking ads into account, it doesn’t seem like a good buy for the money.  The nonfiction columns, such as “Folkroots” or art features, are fine, but really, do we need 15 pages reviewing games, books (3 columns: general fantasy, urban fantasy, and YA), plus graphic novels?  This issue was typical of most I’ve seen.  Decide what you want the magazine to focus on, fiction or reviews, then do that better than your competition.  Don’t try to be all things to all people.

Finally, get a new editorial team.  Shawna McCarthy has been the editor of the magazine since its inception.  Every time the publication has been sold, the new owners have kept her on.  While I don’t question her credentials, I have reservations about her taste in fantasy.  The stories all seem to be about the same.  One of the commentators on the Black Gate post about the closing of the magazine called it chick-lit fantasy.  I’d have to agree.  The primary content seems to be about the emotional lives of women, with fantasy elements thrown in. 

I realize there are a number of people who like that type of fantasy, not all of  them women.  But it doesn’t seem to be a successful formula commercially.  If it were, why does it keep failing.  I have no problem with one of the stories in each issue being in this vein, and while it’s not my preferred subgenre of fantasy, I do read widely enough that I would read, and possibly enjoy, something along these lines if there were plenty of variety to go along with it.  There’s virtually no sword and sorcery in RoF, and what little I’ve seen this past year has been marginally S&S.  And while I don’t think each issue should be only S&S either, I do think there should be a great deal more adventure oriented fantasy in the magazine. 

To sum up, the final issue, with the exception of the Carter story, was nothing particularly outstanding.  Writing that sentence gives me no pleasure, nor does the fact that the magazine has failed again.  I do hope someone will bring it back.  I think it could survive, given a change of emphasis and direction, especially if published as an e-mag.

Indie Books: A Tsunami of…?

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You hear a lot of talk in the publishing world these days about indie published ebooks.  Some think they’re nothing short of the salvation of western civilization because they allow authors to connect directly to readers.  Others, to a large extent publishers, editors, and agents, insist that indie publishing will bury us all under a tsunami of crap.  And of course you every possible position in between those two extremes.

A couple of days ago, Passive Guy at The Passive Voice, posted something about a publisher reporting ebook sales.  In the comments section, Mick Griggs included a link to this essay.  (Thanks, PG and Mick.)

Mark Williams, the author of that essay insists, quite convincingly, that instead of  a tsunami of crap, we’re starting to see a tsunami of excellence.  If you have an ereader, are thinking about buying an ereader, or even interested in what effect ereaders and epublishing will have on your future book buying, you should check that essay out.

I decided to do a little commentary myself, based on some things I’ve posted lately.

I’ve looked at four indie ebooks in the last month.  Those books were Tisarian’s Treasure, Age of Giants:  Awakening, Dark Heroes, and Stones.  The links in the previous sentence are to the reviews.

Now, this analysis is completely unscientific; statistically speaking, my sample size is too small to be significant.

Still, as a snapshot, it is an informative look at what’s going on in the adventure and fantasy fields.  Two of the books, Tisarian’s Treasure and Dark Heroes, are available in print editions as well as electronic formats.  The question is, are these publications crap?

When dealing with electronic publishing, crap can be defined two ways.  One is the quality of the writing itself.  The other is the formatting.  I’ll address the latter first, since formatting is something that can be changed fairly easily after publication compared to print books.  With the partial exception of Dark Heroes, with which I had some issues in regard to no table of contents, all the books listed above were well formatted, had decent to great cover art that reflected the content, and were well laid out and organized.

The quality of the works varied a little, because Dark Heroes was an anthology and some of the stories didn’t resonate with me as well as others, but all were at the worst well written and highly readable.  The better written stories flowed, grabbed me, and made me want to read more.  Given that these books started at $0.99, and most major publishers’ electronic books start at $6.99 or $7.99, I’d say any one of the four I’ve looked at are a better buy than almost anything coming out of major New York houses. 

Like I said, I realize my sample size isn’t a representative cross-section of what’s out there.  But I want to argue that it doesn’t have to be.  I’m old enough to know what I like.  I’m going to pick up books that I think will appeal to my tastes and preferences.  That doesn’t mean everything I read will, but I load the odds in my favor.  I also like a lot of variety and am not afraid to try something new from time to time.  Indie publishing provides that at affordable prices.

When was the last time you saw something really new come out of New York publishing?  The majority of books from major publishers look fairly interchangeable to me.

Is there crap in the world of indie publishing?  Yes.  Sturgeon’s Law, remember?  But clearly there’s excellence out there, too.  New York publishing has gotten so afraid of taking risks that we’re being given a steady diet of the same old thing.  Indie writers are finding an audience that they haven’t been able to find through major houses.  More power to them.

Oh, and that tsunami of crap that New York publishers, editors, and agents say we’ll be drowning in?  I agree, we are drowning in a tsunami of crap.  I just don’t think it’s coming from indie publishing.

A Review of Stones by Gerald So, Yet Another Well-Done Ebook

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Stones
Gerald So
various ebook formats, $0.99

Long ago, when the world was young, the Moon was new, dinosaurs ruled the land, and I was in high school, two of the three television networks decided to do what networks have always done.  (Yes, children, at one time there were only three television networks instead of half a million; if you didn’t like what was on, you read a book.  There was no internet.  I told you, the world was young.)  They decided to cash in on the popularity a little movie entitled Raiders of the Lost Ark by airing shows in a similar vein, namely adventures set in the Pacific in the 1930s.

I don’t remember which networks they were, and I’m too lazy to look it up.  One show was entitled Bring ‘Em Back Alive, the fictitious adventures of real life big game hunter Frank Buck, author of a book of the same title, and starring Bruce Boxleitner.  The other was Tales of the Gold Monkey.  It starred Stephen Collins and several of the characters were spies.

It’s Tales of the Gold Monkey that Stones most closely resembles.

This is not accidental.  So dedicated the book to Donald P. Bellisario, creator of the show.

How do the stories stack up?  They were a delight to read.  The central character, C. J. Stone, is a pilot in the Caribbean in the 1930s, and So does an excellent job of capturing the tone of the era.  The stories are short, almost vignettes in some cases.  But they work.  They were a lot of fun, and I’ll be tracking down the other stories about Stone that are mentioned in the author bio.

I also want to say a word about the formatting of the book.  This is another of several ebooks I’ve looked at lately (see here, here, and here), only this one has no print version.  I have to say I’m impressed.  There’s an interactive table of contents.  While not flashy, the cover art gives you an excellent idea of what you’re getting with the book.  The black and white illustration does more to match the tone of the time in which the book is set than a color cover would.

This is one worth picking up.  Hopefully, Mr. So will continue to write about this character.  I’d love to read more of his adventures.

Tisarian’s Treasure: An Example of an Indie Published Ebook Done Right

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Tisarian’s Treasure
J. M. Martin
Cover by Peter Ortiz, interior illustrations by Julie Dillon
ebook 0.99, paperback $5.99

There’s been a lot of discussion online over the last year about the quality of what are called indie published books by their proponents and disparagingly called self-published books by the publishing, agenting, and critical establishment.  You can probably tell from the title of this post as well as how I worded the previous sentence which side of the issue I come down on.

So, rather than simply discuss the merits of the story and the writing itself  in this novella, which I will do, I’d like, begging the indulgence of the author and artists, to go beyond that and discuss the qualities of the publishing as well. 

Most opponents of indie publishing will try to scare you with Chicken Little-esque cries of “You won’t be able to find any quality; you’ll be buried in a sea of crap!” 

Like we aren’t now.  Sturgeon’s Law has never been repealed and never will be.  For those of you who don’t know, Sturgeon’s Law, after the science fiction and fantasy author Theodore Sturgeon, simply says that 90% of everything is crap.  I submit for your consideration what’s on most bookstore shelves.

Fortunately, Tisarian’s Treasure is in the 10%.  We’ll start with the story and the writing since those are what will ultimately make or break an ebook.  (I’m going to confine my comments to the ebook since that’s what I have.)  Problems of formatting can be fixed much more quickly and easily than problems of story and writing.

The writing is fluid and smooth, in the style of an old fashioned pirate novel, which is what this essentially is, with fantasy elements thrown in for fun.  Mr. Martin paints in both broad swathes and in detail, and his prose is lyrical and highly readable.

It’s the story of Dr. Alexandre Mallory, who finds himself marooned on an island with a handful of other survivors of an attack by the pirate Thadieus Drake.  Dr. Mallory has recently been in the service of said Captain Drake, although unwillingly.  Also with them is Oberon Teag, a pirate who has a tattoo on his back showing the location of the famed Tisarian’s Treasure.  It’s on the island they on which they’ve taken refuge.

Also in the group is the woman Katalin, who has mild prophetic powers.  She’s brave, beautiful, strong-willed, and one of the most interesting characters in the novella.

The plot, the characters, and the dialogue are all first rate.  The characters exhibit courage, treachery, ambition, and sacrifice.  They grow and change.  The ending is satisfying, and there’s room for more installments.  (That’s a hint, J. M.)

This story is set in the author’s world of Khaladune.  I’d like to sail these seas and visit this world again.  Fortunately, I will.  There’s a Khaladune story in the anthology Dark Heroes, which I hope to finish and review sometime next week.

Now, let’s look at the production values.  The cover art is gorgeous, of a professional level I’d expect from New York on a major fantasy novel.  The b&w interior illustrations are a nice added bonus, and while Ms. Dillon’s views of the characters don’t exactly match mine, they are well done and add a level of value to the book. 

The formatting on the epub (Nook) version is better than what I’ve read in ebooks by major publishers.  There were no missing line breaks between paragraphs because there were no line breaks between paragraphs.  Instead, the paragraphs were indented, just like in a print book.  I can’t tell you how much I appreciated that touch.  I hate line breaks between paragraphs when I’m reading fiction.  None of the lines extended off the page like those of a certain publisher I’ll not name sometimes do.  In fact, the only odd thing about the formatting was that occasionally a page number would skip.  That’s a page number, not a page.  And it wasn’t a big deal.

In short, Tisarian’s Treasure had everything I’m looking for in an ebook.  Captivating story, highly readable prose, professional art, and well-done formatting. 

Tisarian’s Treasure is available for both Kindle and Nook, with a paper edition available for those you haven’t gotten an ereader. This is one you will want to check out.

First J. K. Rowling; Who’s Next?

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It’s been a busy week, and I’ve not had time to post as much as I’d like.  (I did manage to submit a story to a top pro market, so the week hasn’t been a total wash.)

One thing that did happen, which is still echoing, was the announcement by J. K. Rowling that she will be publishing the Harry Potter books herself through a new website.  She’s able to do this because she retains the rights to the electronic editions.  (If you want to know more about this, start with this series of posts by Passive Guy at The Passive Voice.)

There’s been a lot of talk (mostly from publishers and agents) about how Rowling is an outlier, that most writers won’t be able to do this.  I’m not so sure.  This could very well change publishing permanently.  For the first time an author will control access and price, not a publisher, not a distributor, not a buyer for a major chain, not Amazon. 

While the ramifications of this development are still being debated, I thought I would throw out a question:

What other authors, fantasy in particular but other genres are open to consideration, could be the next to pull something like this off?  Which ones would you like to see next? 

From what I understand, it takes some financial resources to put together a deal like this.  Forget the interactive website for a minute and just think about books.  Who do you think is a big enough name to self publish their works and sell directly from their website only without going through an intermediary?  I’m not talking about a newbie who doesn’t have the audience, but someone who is a brand name.  I’m also not talking about an author like J. A. Konrath, who sells through Amazon, Smashwords, B&N, etc.  I’m talking about the author being the only source for the book.

Stephen King and Tom Clancy come to mind.  George R. R. Martin is riding high right now with a successful adaption of A Game of Thrones on HBO and the upcoming release of A Dance with Dragons.  He could probably pull it off.

I realize that many of the top names may not own the electronic rights to their works or have other contractual restrictions.  Let’s assume for the sake of this discussion that those things don’t apply.  Also, Rowling’s announcement says she wants her readers to be able to read he books on any platform.  So let’s assume that the ereader isn’t an issue.

Who is next?

The Latest on ebooks

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Passive Guy over at The Passive Voice has been doing an amazing job of keeping up with changes in the publishing world, frequently posting two or three items a day.  Today he posted this little tidbit about ebook sales surpassing paperback and hardback sales combined at Amazon.  If you’re interested in where publishing is going, he’s one of the people you ought to be reading.

More on Ebook Prices

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My wife had surgery yesterday morning.  She’s home now and doing fine, but I have been and will be a little distracted.  Also it doesn’t help that I’m in the middle of final exams.  Point being, posts for the next few days, when there are any, will tend to be short and sweet.

So for your education and edification, let me refer you to the following post about ebook prices by Nik Fletcher, at the end of which he makes a couple of good suggestions.  And thanks to Passive Guy at The Passive Voice for making me aware of this post.

E-Book Prices: A Not-So-Brief Rant

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Ok, the main point of this post is to vent my spleen.  I’m not sure what good it will do other than perhaps get some frustration out of my system.  But if you’re reading this, you’re probably among the people who would most understand.

I was browsing in the local Barnes and Noble over the weekend.  There were a number of books there in multiple genres that looked intriguing (no big surprise).  One in particular seemed to be a really good fit for this blog.  It was a new release in mass market paperback, and no, I’m not going to tell you the title.  I’ll refrain out of respect to the author.  You’ll see why in a minute.  It appeared to be something that would move quickly to the top of the TBR pile, both because it looked like something I would really enjoy as well as something the people who read this blog would be interested in.

Now, before I go any further, you need to understand something to get some context.

After moving to the house where we currently live, we had to make a decision about what to put in storage since this house is considerably smaller than the previous one.  Over half my library is currently in boxes.  Much of what isn’t probably should be for the simple reason that I don’t have much space.  As in literally none.  I don’t have room in the house to bring more books in.  The shelves are spilling over, and my wife is starting to complain about tripping over the stacks on the floor.  Which is why I got an ereader, specifically a Nook, because B&N is just down the road.  When I buy a paper book, I need to clear space by either taking one (or some) to storage, selling them, or giving them to friends.  I will still buy paper books from a few writers, either because those writers are ones I want to read in physical copies or because I want them signed.  Also, there are some books that don’t have electronic editions, especially if they’re from small presses.  But with those exceptions, all of my book buying for the foreseeable future needs to be in electronic format.

I’ve got my Nook with me at B&N, so I check to see if there’s an electronic edition of this particular book.  Yep, sure enough, there is.

It costs the same as the paper edition.

Which means it will cost me more than the paper edition, because with a B&N card, I get a discount on the paper copy.  While annoying, it’s not so surprising.  I don’t have a problem with a business model in which electronic copies are similar or even identical in price to the paper copies initially, with the electronic copies dropping  in price over the course of the next few months.  I probably won’t buy the electronic copies until they’ve dropped in price.   Not just because I’m cheap, but I’m so far behind on my reading that usually it takes a couple of months before most new books rise to the top of the TBR pile.  So why not wait and pay the lower price?  If I want the book so badly that I buy it when it’s first published, it’s probably one I would want in paper.

But that model not what I see happening.  Most of the major houses that I’ve checked aren’t lowering the price of the ebooks after a few months, at least not by very much.  Now, I admit I haven’t done anything even approximating a scientific survey.  But looking at the things I read and the types of books I buy, I don’t see a lot publishers pricing their electronic copies much differently than their paper copies.  (Angry Robot seems to be an exception.)  For example, I would love to have the Del Rey Robert E. Howard collections in electronic format.  That way I could read whichever story I wanted to wherever I am as long as I have the Nook with me.  All of them as of this writing are either $12.99 or $13.99.  The exception is the newest collection, Sword Woman, which is only $9.99.  I have no idea why that one is priced so low now, because I bought it electronically when it was published a few months ago and paid $12.99.  And, yes, I hear what you’re saying:  I can get other electronic editions of Howard’s work.  But I want the Del Rey editions because those are the ones that have the corrected texts, the alternate drafts, and the fragments, as well as other material.  My point is I think these books are priced a little high.

I realize supply and demand, author popularity in other words, comes into play.  I’m okay with that.  A publisher expecting someone to pay more for a popular author than for an unknown is not unreasonable.  That’s the way the free market works.  It’s not just someone like Howard, an author has been around for a while and has a solid fan base that isn’t going to go away, whose books are being overpriced.  I’ve looked at a number of titles from a variety of publishers, and most of them are priced the same as the paper editions or maybe a dollar less.  (I’m talking mass market paperbacks here; electronic versions of books only available in hardcover are usually about half the hardcover price.  But hardcovers are luxury items.)  And not all of these titles are recent.  And not all of the authors are well known.  There are several first novels that look appealing by people I’ve never heard of before that have the same price in electronic and paper formats.

Before you conclude I’m one of these people who think ebooks should be priced at one or two dollars, I’m not.  I don’t have a problem paying between $5 and $10 for an electronic version of a book, although I naturally prefer the lower end of that range, provided the paper copy is considerably more expensive.  I see no reason to pay the same price for an electronic book as I do a paper copy, no matter what the price is on the paper copy.  There’s no reason I should.  There’s still editing, copy-editing, layout, cover art, and similar costs no matter what the format.  These all need to be taken into account when pricing the book, which is why I don’t think one or two bucks is a reasonable price for many ebooks, especially those coming from major publishers.  But there’s no printing costs, no shipping costs, no warehousing costs for electronic books.  I find it hard to believe a dollar difference between electronic books and paper books covers all the cost of printing, shipping, warehousing, etc.  The publishers shouldn’t expect me to pay for the rent on their Manhattan offices by gouging me on the price of the ebook.

If most of the difference in production costs between electronic and paper books went to the author, I would have a different opinion.  But it doesn’t, and so neither do I.  See J. A Konrath’s analysis for some numbers to get an idea of how much money most authors see on your average ebook compared to how much the publishers get. 

So I find  book I want to read, one that has an electronic version priced at or near the price of the paper version.  I have some choices.  I buy the paper copy, but with the spatial and spousal limitations I have, that’s not an option I can use very often.  Let’s assume it’s not in this case, which is a safe assumption.  I can buy the ebook, and sell out my principles, letting the publisher manipulate me to pay a price I think is too high.  I have a really difficult time doing that.  Or I can take what’s behind door number three, as they used to say on the game show Let’s Make a Deal.  I can pass on buying the book and wait for a copy to show up in a used book store.

That last would be my default option except for one thing.  There’s a writer who won’t get paid for the book.  As an aspiring writer myself, I have as big a problem with that as with the first two options.  I realize not everyone does.  If the average book buyer thinks the cost of an ebook is too high, they won’t buy it.  There’s more than enough to read out there that’s priced lower. More good and interesting stuff than any one person can ever read in an entire lifetime.  With the internet connecting second hand book dealers with customers miles away, a reader can find the book he or she wants at a lower price by exercising a little patience.

And that’s where I think big publishing is going to hurt itself.  By pricing itself out of the market.  Publishing is very much a free market right now in the sense that customers have power and the publishers don’t.  We have power, like I stated, to wait, read something else, or get it used.  That power is only going to increase as more authors begin to self-publish, both backlist titles and new books, and price their books significantly below what publishers are charging.  Readers are going to expect a certain price range on books, and books outside that range aren’t going to sell.  With the cost of fuel rising and driving everything else up along with it, book buying is going to become more of a luxury.  I know it is for me.  That means that higher priced ebooks are going to be less attractive to readers.  And the trend will probably get a lot worse before it gets better.

We need more variety in fantasy and science fiction, in detective fiction and historical adventure.  Not less.  There’s too much lowest common denominator crap on the shelves as it is.  That means more writers need a way to get their books to readers and still make enough to keep writing.  That won’t happen if their books, print or electronic, don’t sell.  The publishers will drop them like hot rocks.  And more voices will be silenced. More careers will end far too early.  And everyone, readers and authors and publishers, will all be the poorer for it.

Oh, and if you’re wondering what I decided about that book I really want to read and review for you here?  I’m still thinking about it.

E-books, Self Publishing, and the Blog That Kicked a Hornet’s Nest, Plus a Few Questions

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The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
Chris Anderson
Hyperion, 228 p., $15.95

You’re probably wondering what a book on economics has to do with sword and sorcery, heroic fiction, and historical adventure?  Well, I’m going to tell you.  Everything.

Over at Dean Wesley Smith’s site, he’s been doing a number of blog posts on different topics.  One of them is a series on the New World of Publishing.  They’re fascinating, thought provoking, controversial, and well worth your time if you have any interest at all in writing.  I’m still reading through them, and more are being continually added, but one of the first deals with self-publishing. 

It was once a stigma to self publish your book, to the point that many considered it to be the kiss of death.  Conventional wisdom at numerous convention panels aimed at writer wanna-be’s said don’t do it.  Ever.  Or else A Real Publisher Will Never Take You Seriously.  Well, perhaps it wasn’t quite that extreme, but it was close at times. 

Now Mr. Smith, along with a number of other writers, are beginning to sing a different song.  One of the things I like about the comments to these posts is that a number of smart people don’t hesitate to speak up.  In one of them, Laura Resnick, daughter of science fiction author Mike Resnick, and a bestselling author in her own right, mentioned this book along with a followup one that I’m going to read next. 

This book is a major reason I was late in getting the previous post up. I couldn’t put it down.  Finally, I had to so I could finish The Heretic Kings.  I still haven’t written the essay on “The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune”, the next in the series on Kull. 

The whole premise of the book is that in the 20th century, production and distribution of popular media (books, magazines, movies, music) was in the hands of a few people and/or corporations.  This lead to a front loaded filtering process whereby content was filtered preconsumer.  The result became a hit oriented business model in which the companies gamble on a small number of products every month, knowing that many or most wouldn’t recoup their costs and hoping that one or two would make enough to cover the losers.  This led to a fairly uniform culture catering to the lowest common denominator.  Niche interests and markets tended to be marginalized due to cost effectiveness concerns.

Since the advent of the internet, desktop publishing, and related technologies, such as iTunes, ereaders, file sharing software, etc., the market is moving away from hits and more toward niches.  Anderson’s argument isn’t that hits are going away (they aren’t), but that they are and will become less important than in the past.  More and more business will be done in what is known as the tail of the distribution, where niche markets for the first time can thrive, and those who cater to the niches can actually make a living without having to go through a corporate gatekeeper.  Instead, the gatekeeper will be the consumer, who through the use of technology (e.g, search engines, reader reviews, blogs) can find items (music, movies, books, etc.) that fit individual tastes.

Where this applies to publishing is that authors now have the power (if they recognize it and choose to use it) to publish their own books.  Indeed, many midlist authors are doing this with their out of print backlists.  But it’s not just authors who have been published by New York.  I followed links through several sites and blogs a little over a week ago, and I ended up on a site run by a young woman (20-something) who, after being rejected by the major publishers, simply decided to self publish electronically.  In something on the order of a year, she was able to quit her day job.  She also had foreign publishers knocking on her door asking about foreign rights.  Now she was writing teenage vampire angst type stuff, so I don’t know how well her experience would translate to sword and sorcery or historical fiction.

Much of the book content sold through some sort of electronic medium is not available in stores, even if a print copy from a major publisher exists.  My unscientific observation is that this is especially true for sword and sorcery, historical adventure, and any fantasy that isn’t a Tolkien clone, sensitive vampires, or steampunk.  I had to special order Scott Oden’s Lion of Cairo because my local Barnes and Noble didn’t carry it.  (Look for a review here sometime in the next couple of months.)  Borders’ announcement on Sunday that it was delaying payment for a second month just strengthens the arguments that brick-and-mortar stores may be in more danger than publishers.

The dicussions I’ve read have been lively, thought provoking, and often heated.  What Dean Wesley Smith and some others are essentially arguing is that now is the best time to be a writer.  While New York and traditional publishing won’t ever go away, the action is shifting to the author who treats writing as a business rather than art. because they are the ones who will have the best of both worlds.

A challenge Smith has set for himself is to write two stories a week and publish them electronically.  The most recent will be available for free on his web site and will remain up until the new story is finished.  These stories are published in all the main electronic formats and available for sale on his site as well as e-book outlets such as Amazon.  With two weeks off for vacation, Mr. Smith will have written 100 new stories this year if he completes the challenge.  Furthermore, they will be for sale bringing him income.

Now, for those of you still with me, here’s how this applies to the type of fiction readers of this blog want to read.  I see the possibility of an untapped source of sword and sorcery fiction and historical fiction..  This all sounds good in principle.  Writers of good adventure fiction could actually have careers without having to deal with sales numbers killing their books because their books will only be removed from the market when they, the writers, choose to remove them.  Reader reviews would guide potential readers to new authors.  Those who want to write this type of fiction could, and those who want to read it would have something to read, and what get published (and therefore read) would not be influenced by the marketing departments of New York conglomerate publishers.

Of course I could be completely off base with what I’ve been thinking.  Wouldn’t be the first time.  So I want to run a brief informal survey.  Please feel free to respond in the comments.

Would you be willing to buy a story, collection, or novel electronically if it was self published by an author with name recognition?

Would you buy a self published story, collection, or novel if the author were unfamiliar to you but had good reader reviews?

How much would you be willing to pay?  Assume a short story would sell for 99 cents, which is pretty much the floor imposed by the existing royalty structures of Amazon, B&N, etc., and go from there.

Would you be willing to buy a collection of essays or nonfiction?

I’d really like to hear from some of you, especially those who have been following this blog since the beginning or close to it.  What do you think?  Are we on the cusp of a potential explosion of good adventure fiction, or am I dreaming?