Something about the delicate sensibilities of many serious folks, especially those with things that they feel are important and must be said, causes us to think that promoting ideas is somehow bad, or unsporting or backwards. People should simply flock to good ideas and shun bad ones because of their inherent value and NOT how attractively they are packaged or how frequently they are repeated. And maybe that's true. Maybe people should have better filters. Doesn't matter how attractive Fox News' female anchor types are. It's still bullshit. But you know what? They make a ton and a half of money. In fact, for better or for worse I'd contend that the Republican Party in America runs ENTIRELY on the myth that they are down trodden, unrepresented under dogs. Now, I hate pretty much everything they say but that is some very clever branding right there. But let me step back from my "pinko commie traitor" sensibilities. The P word in question isn't politics but promotion. Eh. Same difference.
See, I think many of us live in an ideal world where good ideas are magic psychic magnets and people are inevitably attracted to them by the very forces of nature. This is not true. We do not live in a world like that. And your great ideas are likely to fall on deaf ears if you don't promote. That's assuming they fall on any ears at all. For instance, my being a lazy shit and never so much as mentioning this blog to my friends is why no one reads it. See that works? Promoting gets readers. Not promoting gets not-readers.
If you're looking to be an author, there's something you have to know. Especially if you're going to be even on the slightly lucrative side of mid-list. You'll be expected to promote yourself and quite possibly others. A lot. And these days, it falls more and more on the shoulders of the author themselves to arrange it. Sure, your publisher will send books hither and yon to garner review quotes from other authors and from newspapers and whatnot. But you want a book tour? That's all you, baby. Unless you're James Patterson, they are not flying you anywhere. The most they'll do is, when you say "hey, I'm planning to visit relatives out by such-and-such." they might make a few phone calls and try and arrange an interview with local radio or something. Author websites and/or facebook pages and/or twitter and/or blog is pretty much required at this point. Guess what? That's also you. Honestly? I started this blog to "practice" in case I ever became an author, or as, say, an agent or an editor needed to be able to give my authors some assistance. That's why I never expected even to have the readership I've got. If you're not already used to the idea of tweeting or blogging or SOMETHING, get cracking.
So here's a good example for you. I don't read nearly as much SF and Fantasy as I used to, but I still read Peter David. Maybe you've never heard of him, but he is actually a master of self promotion. How he manages it when he's so damn prolific is beyond me, but in certain circles he's a God. And considering his Tim-Burton like reputation for being a loose cannon, his ability to get twice as much work as even he could reasonably do is a sure sign that his books sell and his names carry weight. So why is that?
1) He writes for every damn medium ever. His best works in my opinion are his original novels like Sir Apropos of Nothing or Knight Life but he has also written a bajillion comic books, dozens of licensed novels, SF TV shows and movies, and at least one video game.
2) He's got a very sucessful blog. Feel free to examine it. Many of his posts get enormous feedback. It updates virtually everyday. If he has nothing new to say, he posts from his legendary "But I digress" opinion column from the Comic Book Buyer's Guide. Which is odd in itself since they've been collected and published elsewhere and he's just giving it away. Also, he keeps himself in the loop with the conversations.
3) He's just clever as hell. You may never have heard of an author writing a book on behalf of a punk rock band. David has. You may not expect him to appear in their music videos, but David did. And it's not the first time he's wrangled himself some cameos. It actually becomes sort of an Easter Egg for his fans to see if he shows up in something he was involved in making. Pretty sure in one B Rated movie he rushes into a scene and gets immediately killed and it was literally just there for the tradition of Peter David Cameos.
4) Non-stop tour of comic, gaming and fantasy conventions. About the only thing that kept me on my feet at the NY Comicon was the idea of seeing him. Which I didn't. Apparently some of my friends did and their response was "Hey you were right. He's really cool. I always thought he was some tosser but he's actually pretty awesome." This did not lighten my mood but whatevs.
5) David publishes different things with different people. He's got books with, to name a few, Ace, Pocket, TOR, Del-Ray and whoever publishes Marvel's movie adaptations because he writes all of those. It might strike you that being THE BEST LICENSED NOVELIST EVER is a lot like saying I AM THE BEST AT SMASHING MY OWN TEETH IN WITH A FIRE EXTINGUISHER FOR ATTENTION but may I just say...it works? 'Cuz they're quick, lucrative projects he needs to continue to live as a writer and it keeps his name in circulation.
Okay. Well. That was ramble-y. But oh wells. I had other things to say but talked too long already. It's just not a good morning. Anyway, join me again next time for a continued examination of the current landscape for various media entrepreneurs such as authors and startup publishers in different mediums.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Carpe Fulgur and the Purple Cow: Capitalism ho! Part II
Okay, so I know I said I'd do this yesterday, but... shutup. At one point I was trying to put everything in a Monday-Wednesday-Friday update schedule, or possibly even Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday. Obviously that didn't pan out but I've come to really enjoy this whole "I'll post when I damn well please scenario." In reality, it probably means nothing since the handful of readers I have all follow the blog and are informed when I update. Even so, it gives me enormous satisfaction to imagine that there are people angrily stomping their feet and saying "where's my daily Crewd?" All dickery aside, here's the promised part II explanation of Carpe Fulgur's astonishing 110,000+ selling first project.
3. Digital Distribution. I'll go into more detail hopefully later this week about why traditional retail is, if not inherently evil (although it might BE evil at this point, I don't think that's inherent), it is at least unecessary and indeed damaging to some products. For purposes here, suffice to say that choosing to release Recettear only as a download resulted in several things including but possibly not limited to
A) Limiting risk. Since there is no per copy production cost, warehousing, shipping, or cost of returns beyond lost sales (normally returns add warehousing and shipping costs) a startup like Carpe Fulgur was able to meet an unexpectedly huge demand INSTANTLY and without having to allocate ANY MONEY AT ALL to the production of the item. In short, their only expenses were their own time.
B) It simplifies the amount of work they have to do. For one, they didn't have to attempt to contract any warehousing companies or attempt to ship stacks of the game from their basement. It also meant they didn't need to find a company to professionally burn the discs or print up flashy boxes, or glossy instructional manuals. They didn't need to convince major retailers like Gamestop to carry their product. Frankly, they'd probably have been laughed out of town anyway, and since Gamestop bought pretty much every other major software retailer, inclduing Electronic's Boutique, Software Etc. Babbages and CompUSA, and if memory serves, is owned in turn by Walmart, their refusal would've killed the project instantly. Even if it had survived, good luck trying to get indepently owned software and gaming stores to pick up on it. You have a lot of ground to cover there. Big companies would use sales reps for that sort of thing. Startups may not have that kind of dough. Or those connections.
C) Because of the difference in production costs and the smaller cut digital distributors such as Steam take when compared to the massive discounts copies are sold to retailers for, Carpe Fulgur was able to effectively charge less and maintain better margins. Likely as not, they actually made more money per copy, but I'm not privy to their accounts so I can only say for sure that their margins were a whole lot better. In other words- similar profits with virtually no risk. Great for the customer too, obviously. In retail, the game probably would've been 29.99. Online it was 19.99. I got it during the holiday sale for 10. I've played for 40 hours and I can guarantee I'll play it for another forty before I forget I own it or stop caring entirely. That's a pretty damn good deal. Consider this- a movie ticket round these parts is 15 for two hours of entertainment. So for the equivalent of 80 hours, movies would run me 600 bucks. That's a lot of entertainment for such a small investment. That'll spur sales, sure as shit.
4. Carpe Fulgur also promoted the ever loving FUCK out of that game. And let this be a lesson to you: it doesn't if you're good if no one knows it. You can't expect people to find you- at least not in large numbers. But thanks to the all mighty internet, finding interested parties isn't as hard as you would think. Carpe Fulgur made a non-stop circuit of interviews on all sorts of gaming websites- mostly these are non-profit fan run organizations which are and have been for sometime, of far more use especially to niche audiences than traditional gaming magazines. They also, just as an example, released a demo of the game. Most products don't do that sort of thing. Books are just beggining to put out sample chapters as e-books because they can do that now without it really costing any money to produce. However, game demos, like some sample chapters, are short, out of context, possibly an early version that will change. It's not really that good. And yes, it can catch interest and I see no reason NOT to release a sample, but the number of sales it translates into is usually...well, worthwhile but hardly overwhelming. Carpe Fulgur released a demo that was 2 hours long. Using the actual opening of the actual game, going so far as to allow the player to save and transfer the file to the finished version.
For more information, feel free to check out this article. Meantime, I think my focus will be on the importance as well as methods of self promotion next time, then on to matters of production and retail.
Oh, and in case anyone missed it, "Capitalism ho!" is the catchphrase of the main character (an adorable little girl) of Recettear, Carpe Fulgurs first game. The purple cow refers to Seth Godin- marketing Guru. I thought he'd be a good fit considering this old thing, which frankly, I'm a little surprised it took him as long as it did to announce.
3. Digital Distribution. I'll go into more detail hopefully later this week about why traditional retail is, if not inherently evil (although it might BE evil at this point, I don't think that's inherent), it is at least unecessary and indeed damaging to some products. For purposes here, suffice to say that choosing to release Recettear only as a download resulted in several things including but possibly not limited to
A) Limiting risk. Since there is no per copy production cost, warehousing, shipping, or cost of returns beyond lost sales (normally returns add warehousing and shipping costs) a startup like Carpe Fulgur was able to meet an unexpectedly huge demand INSTANTLY and without having to allocate ANY MONEY AT ALL to the production of the item. In short, their only expenses were their own time.
B) It simplifies the amount of work they have to do. For one, they didn't have to attempt to contract any warehousing companies or attempt to ship stacks of the game from their basement. It also meant they didn't need to find a company to professionally burn the discs or print up flashy boxes, or glossy instructional manuals. They didn't need to convince major retailers like Gamestop to carry their product. Frankly, they'd probably have been laughed out of town anyway, and since Gamestop bought pretty much every other major software retailer, inclduing Electronic's Boutique, Software Etc. Babbages and CompUSA, and if memory serves, is owned in turn by Walmart, their refusal would've killed the project instantly. Even if it had survived, good luck trying to get indepently owned software and gaming stores to pick up on it. You have a lot of ground to cover there. Big companies would use sales reps for that sort of thing. Startups may not have that kind of dough. Or those connections.
C) Because of the difference in production costs and the smaller cut digital distributors such as Steam take when compared to the massive discounts copies are sold to retailers for, Carpe Fulgur was able to effectively charge less and maintain better margins. Likely as not, they actually made more money per copy, but I'm not privy to their accounts so I can only say for sure that their margins were a whole lot better. In other words- similar profits with virtually no risk. Great for the customer too, obviously. In retail, the game probably would've been 29.99. Online it was 19.99. I got it during the holiday sale for 10. I've played for 40 hours and I can guarantee I'll play it for another forty before I forget I own it or stop caring entirely. That's a pretty damn good deal. Consider this- a movie ticket round these parts is 15 for two hours of entertainment. So for the equivalent of 80 hours, movies would run me 600 bucks. That's a lot of entertainment for such a small investment. That'll spur sales, sure as shit.
4. Carpe Fulgur also promoted the ever loving FUCK out of that game. And let this be a lesson to you: it doesn't if you're good if no one knows it. You can't expect people to find you- at least not in large numbers. But thanks to the all mighty internet, finding interested parties isn't as hard as you would think. Carpe Fulgur made a non-stop circuit of interviews on all sorts of gaming websites- mostly these are non-profit fan run organizations which are and have been for sometime, of far more use especially to niche audiences than traditional gaming magazines. They also, just as an example, released a demo of the game. Most products don't do that sort of thing. Books are just beggining to put out sample chapters as e-books because they can do that now without it really costing any money to produce. However, game demos, like some sample chapters, are short, out of context, possibly an early version that will change. It's not really that good. And yes, it can catch interest and I see no reason NOT to release a sample, but the number of sales it translates into is usually...well, worthwhile but hardly overwhelming. Carpe Fulgur released a demo that was 2 hours long. Using the actual opening of the actual game, going so far as to allow the player to save and transfer the file to the finished version.
For more information, feel free to check out this article. Meantime, I think my focus will be on the importance as well as methods of self promotion next time, then on to matters of production and retail.
Oh, and in case anyone missed it, "Capitalism ho!" is the catchphrase of the main character (an adorable little girl) of Recettear, Carpe Fulgurs first game. The purple cow refers to Seth Godin- marketing Guru. I thought he'd be a good fit considering this old thing, which frankly, I'm a little surprised it took him as long as it did to announce.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Carpe Fulgur and the Purple Cow: Capitalism Ho! Part I
So today I'd like to talk about something a little bit different. I don't want any of you to freak out or think that the lessons here don't apply just because it's a slightly different form of publishing than you're used to. That is, I'd like to talk about Carpe Fulgur, a brand new, start up publisher of video games that sold over 100,000 copies of its very first project between September and December alone. To put this in perspective the average book sells less than 10,000 over the entire course of it's "initial sales period" of a year. So how did they do it? And can you, if you want to, do something similar?
1: Finding the product.
Carpe Fulgur started with just two guys and eventually became a three person operation. They're not rolling in money, have no corporate sponsors and didn't even live on the same side of the country when they started out. Since they didn't have the resources to develop a game (or write it, if you will) they chose instead to translate one. To this effect they found a company in Japan called Easy Game Station. While larger publishers and developers would either laugh them out of town or demand more money than a startup without corporate backing could pay, EGS had never had a game released outside Japan before and was willing to deal, and for a reasonable amount of money. And after that first success, you better believe Carpe Fulgur will get a better deal next time around. You might be surprised at how easy it might be to do something like that. I dunno. Maybe you're literate in Russian. What's to stop you from striking up deals with Russian publishers or agents or even the authors directly to translate their books? The answer is nothing. Translation is just one example of under-served markets- because small companies see a lot of work and big companies see mediocre sales. But who knows? Maybe you love Magical realism. That's an exclusively Latin American genre. You're fluent in Spanish and familiar with multiple national dialects. Why not approach the publishers and say "I'll give you a cut and you'll finally have a release in [insert territories you can reach]
2: Nicheness to the rescue. The game Carpe Fulgur released is an RPG. I know many of you don't know or actively dislike video games, so let me give you the short definition. RPGs tend to be:
A) text heavy
B) have battle systems that focus largely or exclusively on preperation and strategy rather than on the manual dexterity of pushing the proper buttons at the right time
C) Fantasy and Sci-fi settings, and often associated with cutesy graphics.
Consequently, although they're very popular in places like Japan and Korea, most Americans find them to be indescribably boring. And all three of the hallmarks are present in Recettear, a game about a little girl (Recette) and a fairy (Tear) who open an item shop in a generic high-fantasy world in order to pay back her MIA adventurer father's debts (Her catch phrase, naturally, is "Capitalism ho!") What you probably can't see from just this explanation is the fact that RPG players are extremely well connected with one another. While video games on the whole have become mainstream, the RPG has not. It's sort of the last bastion of the ultra nerdy, and they cling together for the safety that numbers provides. They also eagerly support any company willing to take the risk of lackluster business associated with serving such a small portion of the market. Carpe Fulgur gets double points because they're not only producing what that community wanted, but they get to honestly say "we're just a couple of guys like you." Yes, one of their names is Robin. No, it isn't me. Yes, it'd be cool if it was. The point is, even my beloved Atlus well known for its niche focus, endless promotions, pre-order bonuses, customer appeal and it's easy availibility to reviewers and journalists is, despite being an awesome company who set standards far above average (and yes, I'm proud to say I was a fanboy long before they became popular even amongst their niche audience) is still a big, essentially faceless company. Hell, they even poke fun of that by having many of their newsletters attributed to an evil super computer (marketing?). Carpe Fulgur is legitimately tiny. They know it. Their customers know it. Their customers want them to survive. And a tight, symbiotic relationship is formed.
Well, since this is getting long (and yesterday's was insanely long) I'll save the rest of this (namely, promotional efforts and distribution methods) for tommorow. Look forward to it.
1: Finding the product.
Carpe Fulgur started with just two guys and eventually became a three person operation. They're not rolling in money, have no corporate sponsors and didn't even live on the same side of the country when they started out. Since they didn't have the resources to develop a game (or write it, if you will) they chose instead to translate one. To this effect they found a company in Japan called Easy Game Station. While larger publishers and developers would either laugh them out of town or demand more money than a startup without corporate backing could pay, EGS had never had a game released outside Japan before and was willing to deal, and for a reasonable amount of money. And after that first success, you better believe Carpe Fulgur will get a better deal next time around. You might be surprised at how easy it might be to do something like that. I dunno. Maybe you're literate in Russian. What's to stop you from striking up deals with Russian publishers or agents or even the authors directly to translate their books? The answer is nothing. Translation is just one example of under-served markets- because small companies see a lot of work and big companies see mediocre sales. But who knows? Maybe you love Magical realism. That's an exclusively Latin American genre. You're fluent in Spanish and familiar with multiple national dialects. Why not approach the publishers and say "I'll give you a cut and you'll finally have a release in [insert territories you can reach]
2: Nicheness to the rescue. The game Carpe Fulgur released is an RPG. I know many of you don't know or actively dislike video games, so let me give you the short definition. RPGs tend to be:
A) text heavy
B) have battle systems that focus largely or exclusively on preperation and strategy rather than on the manual dexterity of pushing the proper buttons at the right time
C) Fantasy and Sci-fi settings, and often associated with cutesy graphics.
Consequently, although they're very popular in places like Japan and Korea, most Americans find them to be indescribably boring. And all three of the hallmarks are present in Recettear, a game about a little girl (Recette) and a fairy (Tear) who open an item shop in a generic high-fantasy world in order to pay back her MIA adventurer father's debts (Her catch phrase, naturally, is "Capitalism ho!") What you probably can't see from just this explanation is the fact that RPG players are extremely well connected with one another. While video games on the whole have become mainstream, the RPG has not. It's sort of the last bastion of the ultra nerdy, and they cling together for the safety that numbers provides. They also eagerly support any company willing to take the risk of lackluster business associated with serving such a small portion of the market. Carpe Fulgur gets double points because they're not only producing what that community wanted, but they get to honestly say "we're just a couple of guys like you." Yes, one of their names is Robin. No, it isn't me. Yes, it'd be cool if it was. The point is, even my beloved Atlus well known for its niche focus, endless promotions, pre-order bonuses, customer appeal and it's easy availibility to reviewers and journalists is, despite being an awesome company who set standards far above average (and yes, I'm proud to say I was a fanboy long before they became popular even amongst their niche audience) is still a big, essentially faceless company. Hell, they even poke fun of that by having many of their newsletters attributed to an evil super computer (marketing?). Carpe Fulgur is legitimately tiny. They know it. Their customers know it. Their customers want them to survive. And a tight, symbiotic relationship is formed.
Well, since this is getting long (and yesterday's was insanely long) I'll save the rest of this (namely, promotional efforts and distribution methods) for tommorow. Look forward to it.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Self publishing success
Before I get started, I wanted to mention one thing. I've had cause recently to think back to when I was new to agent assistantry when each new query was a grand adventure into absurdia. These days, I've seen virtually everything. Even if I haven't seen it ten times before, the odds of it making an impression as unusual in any way- good, bad, weird etc. are slim. If the cause of these recollections is reading, yes. I've even seen that geographical coordinate thing (very likely the same author, actually). But a query came just yesterday I believe that made me smile. It opens:
Dear Messrs. McVeigh and Crew:
I am contacting you regarding representation for my novel [title removed to protect anonymity], complete at a little over 75,000 words, because Mark is bald and Robin has a blog that is, in its own way, subversive. Professionalism without austerity.
My first thought: "Holy shit. I had no idea I was professional or subversive. But considering I take it as a compliment, maybe I am." My second thought: "Shortest author bio ever- either 'I am a bald subversive' or 'I like bald subversives'. Neat-o."
On to more significant matters- the promised first post in a series about media entrepreneurship. And there's actually no better place to start than with the idea of self publishing authors. Now, I'm sure all of you have heard or felt at one time or another that self publishing is "vanity" publishing and that there is little to nothing worth rescuing from that garbage. This may or may not be true on the whole, but it ignores a lot of other plain and simple truths. For one, self publishing used to be very common. If it was good enough for Poe, it's good enough for you. And of course, there are plenty of times when there was gold to be mined and the powers that be completely missed out.
Here's a fun one, the emergence of the keitai novelists in Japan. Seriously, read that article because it's a hoot. And although that 15 year old girl (now 16, I guess) was writing books that sounded truly awful, she sold over 100,000 copies by this time last year. How many books have any of us sold? Or closer to home you have examples like Richard Paul Evans. He only ever writes "christmas" books and they don't seem terribly interesting to me. But he self published to give the thing away as gifts and wound up becoming a bestseller in hardcover and paperback at the same time which NEVER happens. Even he didn't realize what a product he had.
These aren't my favorite examples though because neither was really intentional. So I'd much rather talk about Zane. Haven't heard of her? Neither had I until a few years ago. What she writes isn't really my thing. But here's what you need to know, apart from her having only one name. Because of her own life and tastes she noticed a big gap in the book market. There were no romance novels for black women. So she started writing online and developed a following. Of black women. In like, 1998. Those dark and terrible days when the tech savvy boasted about having a second phone line for their 56K. I mean, it was the dark ages. How she pulled that off is beyond me. But she did. So she started to self publish and sell them herself. Before long, she was getting six figure deals from Simon and Schuster (who also do Richard Paul Evan's books, coincidentally), then she had her own imprint there and was directing and producing her own TV specials for...cinemax, if memory serves.
Why does this matter? Well, either the entirety of publishing had it's head so far up its ass that the idea of black romance had never ever occurred to anyone and they'd never been pitched anything like it- which I don't believe for a second- or they casually dismissed it as a genre that was either too small or too difficult to reach to justify bothering with. So in comes Zane and becomes synonymous with the genre itself. Now, I still don't want to read her books, but it's no joke to say that every black romance has one of the following three connections to her-
1- She wrote it
2- She runs the imprint which published it
3- She inspired it
See, publishers can make mistakes too. They misjudged the size or tenacity of that audience. For reasons I'll explain later, probably next week, this has a lot to do with retail models and pressure to produce nothing but guaranteed best sellers. But whether you want to see them as well intentioned but trapped in a corner, or clueless and outdated this is just one example of how there are markets not being served to their fullest. And to be clear: you don't have to be Zane to be successful. The market can exist and simply be under-served. A smaller company can pull a profit worth their time from 10,000 copies compared to S&S's need to sell 50,000. A self publisher could sell 1,000 copies and have made a difference. It wasn't so long ago that I got a query from an author who wrote an extremely detailed how to manual for model train do-it-yourselfers. How many of those are there? I've met one model train guy in all my life and I'm pretty sure he has neither the time nor the money nor the desire to build custom engines from scratch. But this author sold 1,000 copies or some such to railroad museums and hobby shops. The only part where he fell down is thinking that publishers were going to be able to sell it any better than he was already doing himself. But his product was so unique that while 1,000 copies may not have made him a ton of money, he filled an invaluable gap for those people. One I can honestly say I'd never have thought of.
So here's your mission if you should choose to accept it- think about your hobbies, or your education or even those around you and try to identify some unusual skillset or knowledge base and ask yourself if there's a an audience for that. Because I guarantee you there is. The first Sci-fi magazines in America had subscriber bases in the hundreds and the readers were spread so thin you could go for miles without finding another one. But over time, people have become more connected, especially these days due to the internet. You could go to a damn Sci-fi, gaming, or comic convention every weekend all year round if you had the resources. Because geeks nerds and losers have found each other. It's exactly what Zane did but she pulled it off singehandedly. You'd be surprised at what there's a market for. The short answer is EVERYTHING. And while they used to be largely irrelevant because they were too hard to reach THAT ISN'T TRUE ANYMORE.
Next time I'll go into detail on a case I find particularly interesting about a recently released niche product and how they used its very niche-ness to propel it to massive commercial success.
Dear Messrs. McVeigh and Crew:
I am contacting you regarding representation for my novel [title removed to protect anonymity], complete at a little over 75,000 words, because Mark is bald and Robin has a blog that is, in its own way, subversive. Professionalism without austerity.
My first thought: "Holy shit. I had no idea I was professional or subversive. But considering I take it as a compliment, maybe I am." My second thought: "Shortest author bio ever- either 'I am a bald subversive' or 'I like bald subversives'. Neat-o."
On to more significant matters- the promised first post in a series about media entrepreneurship. And there's actually no better place to start than with the idea of self publishing authors. Now, I'm sure all of you have heard or felt at one time or another that self publishing is "vanity" publishing and that there is little to nothing worth rescuing from that garbage. This may or may not be true on the whole, but it ignores a lot of other plain and simple truths. For one, self publishing used to be very common. If it was good enough for Poe, it's good enough for you. And of course, there are plenty of times when there was gold to be mined and the powers that be completely missed out.
Here's a fun one, the emergence of the keitai novelists in Japan. Seriously, read that article because it's a hoot. And although that 15 year old girl (now 16, I guess) was writing books that sounded truly awful, she sold over 100,000 copies by this time last year. How many books have any of us sold? Or closer to home you have examples like Richard Paul Evans. He only ever writes "christmas" books and they don't seem terribly interesting to me. But he self published to give the thing away as gifts and wound up becoming a bestseller in hardcover and paperback at the same time which NEVER happens. Even he didn't realize what a product he had.
These aren't my favorite examples though because neither was really intentional. So I'd much rather talk about Zane. Haven't heard of her? Neither had I until a few years ago. What she writes isn't really my thing. But here's what you need to know, apart from her having only one name. Because of her own life and tastes she noticed a big gap in the book market. There were no romance novels for black women. So she started writing online and developed a following. Of black women. In like, 1998. Those dark and terrible days when the tech savvy boasted about having a second phone line for their 56K. I mean, it was the dark ages. How she pulled that off is beyond me. But she did. So she started to self publish and sell them herself. Before long, she was getting six figure deals from Simon and Schuster (who also do Richard Paul Evan's books, coincidentally), then she had her own imprint there and was directing and producing her own TV specials for...cinemax, if memory serves.
Why does this matter? Well, either the entirety of publishing had it's head so far up its ass that the idea of black romance had never ever occurred to anyone and they'd never been pitched anything like it- which I don't believe for a second- or they casually dismissed it as a genre that was either too small or too difficult to reach to justify bothering with. So in comes Zane and becomes synonymous with the genre itself. Now, I still don't want to read her books, but it's no joke to say that every black romance has one of the following three connections to her-
1- She wrote it
2- She runs the imprint which published it
3- She inspired it
See, publishers can make mistakes too. They misjudged the size or tenacity of that audience. For reasons I'll explain later, probably next week, this has a lot to do with retail models and pressure to produce nothing but guaranteed best sellers. But whether you want to see them as well intentioned but trapped in a corner, or clueless and outdated this is just one example of how there are markets not being served to their fullest. And to be clear: you don't have to be Zane to be successful. The market can exist and simply be under-served. A smaller company can pull a profit worth their time from 10,000 copies compared to S&S's need to sell 50,000. A self publisher could sell 1,000 copies and have made a difference. It wasn't so long ago that I got a query from an author who wrote an extremely detailed how to manual for model train do-it-yourselfers. How many of those are there? I've met one model train guy in all my life and I'm pretty sure he has neither the time nor the money nor the desire to build custom engines from scratch. But this author sold 1,000 copies or some such to railroad museums and hobby shops. The only part where he fell down is thinking that publishers were going to be able to sell it any better than he was already doing himself. But his product was so unique that while 1,000 copies may not have made him a ton of money, he filled an invaluable gap for those people. One I can honestly say I'd never have thought of.
So here's your mission if you should choose to accept it- think about your hobbies, or your education or even those around you and try to identify some unusual skillset or knowledge base and ask yourself if there's a an audience for that. Because I guarantee you there is. The first Sci-fi magazines in America had subscriber bases in the hundreds and the readers were spread so thin you could go for miles without finding another one. But over time, people have become more connected, especially these days due to the internet. You could go to a damn Sci-fi, gaming, or comic convention every weekend all year round if you had the resources. Because geeks nerds and losers have found each other. It's exactly what Zane did but she pulled it off singehandedly. You'd be surprised at what there's a market for. The short answer is EVERYTHING. And while they used to be largely irrelevant because they were too hard to reach THAT ISN'T TRUE ANYMORE.
Next time I'll go into detail on a case I find particularly interesting about a recently released niche product and how they used its very niche-ness to propel it to massive commercial success.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Eras are pretty short these days
I have a good friend who goes to the same publishing program I went to. Back in Venezuela where he's from, he's an old hand at the process and up here he's been working as a translator. He's trying to convince me to go into business with him. You know what's stopping us from opening our own publishing house? Well, other than the fact that he needs sponsorship to eventually become a citizen? You'd think we'd be afraid of failure. I mean, I'm pretty gutless. But he said something I can't really argue with. He said "It's easier to make our own business than find another one willing to pay us."
Publishing's a tough gig. Not that life is easy in general, especially in the current climate. You know I still get e-mails from a temp agency I worked through years ago? I saw one posting not long ago- 10 years experience, MBA required, bilingual executive assistant starting at 40K. In New York (or Connecticut where that company is) 40K is nothing. You know what an apartment costs in NYC, Westchester, Putnam, or Fairfield counties (that is, anywhere within 2 hours of NYC). I wanted to laugh when I saw that. Who, with 10 years prior experience as an executive assistant, and with those credentials would work for a company that paid so little and had a list of duties a mile long- and most of them far beneath anyone who qualified for that position? But that's where were are today. And publishing was always like that.
You know, recently the Rejectionist quit her job. I'm assuming (given who my readers are and that I've linked her before) that all's y'all know about the Rejectionist? Well, she detailed how hard it was for her to find that job in the first place (Listen, if you don't want it, I could use a full time gig) but that it was holding her back from pursuing her own dream. This is sort of like a kick in the nuts to yours truly. See, I'm an academic born and bred. I'm accustomed to strategizing but not having to be there when shit goes down. I love digital distribution but I don't own an e-reader yet. That sort of thing. Really, I love the IDEA of digital distribution. Hell, my thesis at the publishing program was all about how the industry is polarized and becoming moreso everyday. Random House won't print if it won't sell 50,000 copies in the first year, but thanks to various technology such as print on demand, or online publicity startup costs are lower than ever and potential audience for niche products are easier to reach than ever. I made the case that while Harper Collins isn't likely to fold, we're entering an era in which small specialists are on the rise and taking market share back from enormous generalists.
Honestly, I think that's good for the consumer. At the same time, I'm a rabid consumer of media in all its forms. The whole point of mass media is to reach a mass audience. It's the same reason I roll my eyes at ultra high-end literary fiction that assumes if you don't like it that you must be an ill bred country idiot. Why write if no one reads? Or more accurately, since writing is a fine hobby... why publish if no one reads? So you see, I have a bizarre conundrum. On the one hand, I salute entrepreneurs for their kutzpah and simultaneously scratch my head and wonder what they think they'll accomplish. Because of a confluence of events including but not limited to the Rejectionist's resignations and the currently-still-theoretical discussions I have with my Venezuelan compadre I think it's the perfect time to go back through some of my thoughts on the subject and share them with you. So for the next week or so, I'll be highlighting cases of successful media entrepreneurship. As a warm up, check out Gary Vaynerchuk here who I cited in my thesis (or as I call him Gary Wine-and-Chops.)
Publishing's a tough gig. Not that life is easy in general, especially in the current climate. You know I still get e-mails from a temp agency I worked through years ago? I saw one posting not long ago- 10 years experience, MBA required, bilingual executive assistant starting at 40K. In New York (or Connecticut where that company is) 40K is nothing. You know what an apartment costs in NYC, Westchester, Putnam, or Fairfield counties (that is, anywhere within 2 hours of NYC). I wanted to laugh when I saw that. Who, with 10 years prior experience as an executive assistant, and with those credentials would work for a company that paid so little and had a list of duties a mile long- and most of them far beneath anyone who qualified for that position? But that's where were are today. And publishing was always like that.
You know, recently the Rejectionist quit her job. I'm assuming (given who my readers are and that I've linked her before) that all's y'all know about the Rejectionist? Well, she detailed how hard it was for her to find that job in the first place (Listen, if you don't want it, I could use a full time gig) but that it was holding her back from pursuing her own dream. This is sort of like a kick in the nuts to yours truly. See, I'm an academic born and bred. I'm accustomed to strategizing but not having to be there when shit goes down. I love digital distribution but I don't own an e-reader yet. That sort of thing. Really, I love the IDEA of digital distribution. Hell, my thesis at the publishing program was all about how the industry is polarized and becoming moreso everyday. Random House won't print if it won't sell 50,000 copies in the first year, but thanks to various technology such as print on demand, or online publicity startup costs are lower than ever and potential audience for niche products are easier to reach than ever. I made the case that while Harper Collins isn't likely to fold, we're entering an era in which small specialists are on the rise and taking market share back from enormous generalists.
Honestly, I think that's good for the consumer. At the same time, I'm a rabid consumer of media in all its forms. The whole point of mass media is to reach a mass audience. It's the same reason I roll my eyes at ultra high-end literary fiction that assumes if you don't like it that you must be an ill bred country idiot. Why write if no one reads? Or more accurately, since writing is a fine hobby... why publish if no one reads? So you see, I have a bizarre conundrum. On the one hand, I salute entrepreneurs for their kutzpah and simultaneously scratch my head and wonder what they think they'll accomplish. Because of a confluence of events including but not limited to the Rejectionist's resignations and the currently-still-theoretical discussions I have with my Venezuelan compadre I think it's the perfect time to go back through some of my thoughts on the subject and share them with you. So for the next week or so, I'll be highlighting cases of successful media entrepreneurship. As a warm up, check out Gary Vaynerchuk here who I cited in my thesis (or as I call him Gary Wine-and-Chops.)
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Robin's Reviews: Monkeying Around Pt. II
So, I'm not going to call them rapid anymore. They always end up longer than I intended (I really need to go back to writing these in Word ahead of time so's I can edit them before they go up) and this one doesn't even have the excuse of two reviews at once. Even so, this may be my shortest review yet.
The book-
The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic by R.K. Narayan
The Review-
Don't read it.
You say that's not a review? Okay, fine, but don't blame me if this gets wordy. Although they've shortened an enormous epic into about 160 pages, it's just not very interesting. Even as an amateur folklorist I sort of yawned my way through. See, from the moment of his birth, Rama, an avatar of the preserver god Vishnu is basically Ancient Indian Superman. He's calm and wise and handsome and completely invincible and everybody loves him. Nothing is a challenge for him, which makes it hard to relate. The main story doesn't really kick in until half way through and it should have been solved instantly, but the ONLY mistake Rama ever makes drags the story out for a hundred more pages. Meanwhile, I find him to be a huge jerk. He lets his wife get kidnapped by a nearly omnipotent demon who's got the hots for her and then accuses her of being unfaithful to him months later when he finally gets off his ass and rescues her. What a guy. Mr. Perfect Justice over there who everyone loves. Did I mention he murders, in a very cowardly way, I might add, the rightful ruler of this kingdom of intelligent, magical monkies in order to install a puppet ruler to gain allies he doesn't even need but who march to the death on his behalf because he and his brother kick down their doors and threaten them if they don't help? Yeah. All that stuff about how kind and wonderful he is wears a little thin when this sort of thing happens. Indeed, the only good to come out of any of that was Hanuman, one of those Monkies. He's hilarious. He gets sent on a scouting mission, gets captured, and they try and light him on fire but he escapes and burns the entire demon city to the ground. Oh, and what was Rama doing? Pining. Hanuman for the win! Also: Hanuman was very directly the inspiration for Sun Wukong, the monkey in Journey to the West.
Also, without going into the whole of Hindu mythology, you've probably heard of the basic three gods of their pantheon. Brahma is the creator, but he's seen as a well intentioned idiot and isn't actually very important in their mythos. The real powers are Vishnu, the preserver, and Shiva, the destroyer. That might sound like Shiva is the "evil" one but in actuality he's more like the personification of entropy. And since they see the world as horribly flawed, it needs to be broken down piece by piece, examined, and then the gods can try it again. So it's a vital function. The whole epic is basically a propoganda piece for the cult Vishnu though, so it's basically spitting in Shiva's face every three sentences. I'm not cool with that because frankly, Shiva's more interesting. Did you know that his most devout supporters are young women? Or that one of is symbols is very phallic looking and that those some young women will climb ladders and pour buckets of milk over twenty foot high stone statues of said symbol? Also he has blue skin and dances the dance OF DOOM. I think that would've made a better story, don't you?
Anyway, join me next time for the start of a series I've been meaning to do for a while about Media entrepreneurship.
The book-
The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic by R.K. Narayan
The Review-
Don't read it.
You say that's not a review? Okay, fine, but don't blame me if this gets wordy. Although they've shortened an enormous epic into about 160 pages, it's just not very interesting. Even as an amateur folklorist I sort of yawned my way through. See, from the moment of his birth, Rama, an avatar of the preserver god Vishnu is basically Ancient Indian Superman. He's calm and wise and handsome and completely invincible and everybody loves him. Nothing is a challenge for him, which makes it hard to relate. The main story doesn't really kick in until half way through and it should have been solved instantly, but the ONLY mistake Rama ever makes drags the story out for a hundred more pages. Meanwhile, I find him to be a huge jerk. He lets his wife get kidnapped by a nearly omnipotent demon who's got the hots for her and then accuses her of being unfaithful to him months later when he finally gets off his ass and rescues her. What a guy. Mr. Perfect Justice over there who everyone loves. Did I mention he murders, in a very cowardly way, I might add, the rightful ruler of this kingdom of intelligent, magical monkies in order to install a puppet ruler to gain allies he doesn't even need but who march to the death on his behalf because he and his brother kick down their doors and threaten them if they don't help? Yeah. All that stuff about how kind and wonderful he is wears a little thin when this sort of thing happens. Indeed, the only good to come out of any of that was Hanuman, one of those Monkies. He's hilarious. He gets sent on a scouting mission, gets captured, and they try and light him on fire but he escapes and burns the entire demon city to the ground. Oh, and what was Rama doing? Pining. Hanuman for the win! Also: Hanuman was very directly the inspiration for Sun Wukong, the monkey in Journey to the West.
Also, without going into the whole of Hindu mythology, you've probably heard of the basic three gods of their pantheon. Brahma is the creator, but he's seen as a well intentioned idiot and isn't actually very important in their mythos. The real powers are Vishnu, the preserver, and Shiva, the destroyer. That might sound like Shiva is the "evil" one but in actuality he's more like the personification of entropy. And since they see the world as horribly flawed, it needs to be broken down piece by piece, examined, and then the gods can try it again. So it's a vital function. The whole epic is basically a propoganda piece for the cult Vishnu though, so it's basically spitting in Shiva's face every three sentences. I'm not cool with that because frankly, Shiva's more interesting. Did you know that his most devout supporters are young women? Or that one of is symbols is very phallic looking and that those some young women will climb ladders and pour buckets of milk over twenty foot high stone statues of said symbol? Also he has blue skin and dances the dance OF DOOM. I think that would've made a better story, don't you?
Anyway, join me next time for the start of a series I've been meaning to do for a while about Media entrepreneurship.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Luella Critique
Okay. Well here we are. The first page w/comments on The Luella, a space pirate adventure romance paranormal revenge thing. Not sure why I hold these contests mid month. I've been sitting on this for weeks. Oh wells.
***********************
A blond haired, black eyed, Cut that comma bastion of a man rolled in his cot and groaned. Blood soaked his blankets, running in rivers until it puddled at its lowest point before dropping in a stream of crimson beads on the floor I know what you’re trying to say but it’s hard to express. I’d simplify this. Easiest fix without losing the puddle on the blanket is to simply remove “at its lowest point.” . The wound was deep, but far from lethal if he had allowed it to be treated. He wanted to die, and that was that This kicks off some serious telling. Show me this stuff. Try replacing with a simple “He had not.” Or even removing it. Afterwards, I might skip all the way down to the dialogue. Ease us in a little.. If there was a reason for his will to spiral off the mortal coil, it was because he hated himself. To put a finer point on the matter, he hated the entire galaxy. Ow. My head. Stop hitting me over it.More importantly he hated one woman. That is, loved and hated her, separated only by a thin line in the sand that fueled his long, blood-drenched career.
“Cap’n, yer wound… ” Ellipses are bad. Also, who is talking? Does it matter?“To hell with it,” the Captain growled.
“But it can be fixed… ” Nix it {the ellipsis}“I did not ask you to tell me what I already know,” said the Captain. “Where is the General?”
“He just rounded Gilar.”
The Captain winced and gasped in pain. Slowly bleeding to death was taking longer than he expected. Pure win!
“There isn’t time. You must intercept the boy.”
The Captain’s First Mate leaned back in his chair, away from the light of the lamp. He did not want the Captain to see the skeptical expression painted on his visage.
“You can’t fool me,” said the Captain. “I know you don’t approve.”
“I don’t think yer ready to be tossed over the railin’,” said the First Mate. Lacks conviction. Maybe it’s the “yer” and the “railin’” that makes it hard to take seriously. Probably more the fact that we’re not sure why this would get him tossed over and, being that he’s bleeding to death, doesn’t seem that important. Maybe replace with “are you trying to get yourself killed.” And then cut the Captain’s response to “Now is as good a time as any.”
*********************************
Thinking about it, I have an odd way of editing. I don't try and fix everything. I just go into such detail about the biggest stuff that I shame authors into learning to self correct. I wonder if that's good or bad? Either way, it keeps me amused. Leave no dead horse unbeaten. That's my motto. For instance, a battle weary, blood thirsty pirate, vicious and mean and possibly with an attraction to his former captain was afraid to talk about sex at one point. To me that's either a serious character trait to be mentioned several times in order to build up to a major plot point OR it just falls apart because it doesn't seem realistic. Admittedly, I only saw the first twenty but it seemed more like the latter. Did I explain that to the poor author? Or did I do a parody of the Monty Python dead parrot sketch except with synonyms for sex rather than death? I think the answer is obvious. It's called the dead pirate sex sketch. When one pirate used his "massively heavy hand" to "savegely tear a tuft of hair" did I say, "cutting a few words would make it stronger" or did I make up my own scene to highlight the absurdity?
Pirate: Ha! I knew it was a rug.
Theodore: No! You’ve pulled the rug out from over me!
Pirate *Drawing sword*: It’s carpets for you.
You know something? I'm a huge asshole. Seriously. Any of you guys still interested in letting me actally see your WIP? I don't get to savage things when I'm on official business. And I gotta say, the savagery is what gets me up in the morning. What do you say? Any other volunteers? Anyone else want to be a hero?
Meantime, I hope it was actually helpful. Particularly to the author, but to all's y'all as well if there's anything you can glean from it.
***********************
A blond haired, black eyed, Cut that comma bastion of a man rolled in his cot and groaned. Blood soaked his blankets, running in rivers until it puddled at its lowest point before dropping in a stream of crimson beads on the floor I know what you’re trying to say but it’s hard to express. I’d simplify this. Easiest fix without losing the puddle on the blanket is to simply remove “at its lowest point.” . The wound was deep, but far from lethal if he had allowed it to be treated. He wanted to die, and that was that This kicks off some serious telling. Show me this stuff. Try replacing with a simple “He had not.” Or even removing it. Afterwards, I might skip all the way down to the dialogue. Ease us in a little.. If there was a reason for his will to spiral off the mortal coil, it was because he hated himself. To put a finer point on the matter, he hated the entire galaxy. Ow. My head. Stop hitting me over it.More importantly he hated one woman. That is, loved and hated her, separated only by a thin line in the sand that fueled his long, blood-drenched career.
“Cap’n, yer wound… ” Ellipses are bad. Also, who is talking? Does it matter?“To hell with it,” the Captain growled.
“But it can be fixed… ” Nix it {the ellipsis}“I did not ask you to tell me what I already know,” said the Captain. “Where is the General?”
“He just rounded Gilar.”
The Captain winced and gasped in pain. Slowly bleeding to death was taking longer than he expected. Pure win!
“There isn’t time. You must intercept the boy.”
The Captain’s First Mate leaned back in his chair, away from the light of the lamp. He did not want the Captain to see the skeptical expression painted on his visage.
“You can’t fool me,” said the Captain. “I know you don’t approve.”
“I don’t think yer ready to be tossed over the railin’,” said the First Mate. Lacks conviction. Maybe it’s the “yer” and the “railin’” that makes it hard to take seriously. Probably more the fact that we’re not sure why this would get him tossed over and, being that he’s bleeding to death, doesn’t seem that important. Maybe replace with “are you trying to get yourself killed.” And then cut the Captain’s response to “Now is as good a time as any.”
*********************************
Thinking about it, I have an odd way of editing. I don't try and fix everything. I just go into such detail about the biggest stuff that I shame authors into learning to self correct. I wonder if that's good or bad? Either way, it keeps me amused. Leave no dead horse unbeaten. That's my motto. For instance, a battle weary, blood thirsty pirate, vicious and mean and possibly with an attraction to his former captain was afraid to talk about sex at one point. To me that's either a serious character trait to be mentioned several times in order to build up to a major plot point OR it just falls apart because it doesn't seem realistic. Admittedly, I only saw the first twenty but it seemed more like the latter. Did I explain that to the poor author? Or did I do a parody of the Monty Python dead parrot sketch except with synonyms for sex rather than death? I think the answer is obvious. It's called the dead pirate sex sketch. When one pirate used his "massively heavy hand" to "savegely tear a tuft of hair" did I say, "cutting a few words would make it stronger" or did I make up my own scene to highlight the absurdity?
Pirate: Ha! I knew it was a rug.
Theodore: No! You’ve pulled the rug out from over me!
Pirate *Drawing sword*: It’s carpets for you.
You know something? I'm a huge asshole. Seriously. Any of you guys still interested in letting me actally see your WIP? I don't get to savage things when I'm on official business. And I gotta say, the savagery is what gets me up in the morning. What do you say? Any other volunteers? Anyone else want to be a hero?
Meantime, I hope it was actually helpful. Particularly to the author, but to all's y'all as well if there's anything you can glean from it.
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