Steve Weddle Archives

Entry Music For A Writer

Music, Steve Weddle Comments Off

Aug 082012

By Steve Weddle

So Chris F. Holm listed his “5 Favorite Musical Artists of Author Chris F. Holm” and, inasmuch as the list follows the title, I assume he is correct. I have no reason to doubt that these are Mr. Holm’s favorites. Perhaps he had originally thought REO Speedwagon or Air Supply could creep in around the top of the list, but wanted to maintain his street cred. I have no way of knowing this for certain, though. This was a list for a writer, Chris F. Holm. (PS Buy this book.)

Music for writers is different. Perhaps music for swimmers is different still. Music for neurosurgeons. If either one of my current psychiatrists were to tell me that his favorite musical artist happened to be, say, Nine Inch Nails, that would cause me some concern.

I wrote many stories this past year or two after getting some Drive-By Truckers stuck in my head. Frankie Bill sent along a CD with “Decoration Day” on it, and I misheard the line “The state let him go, but I guess it was best cause nobody needs all us Lawsons alive.” To my hear, the line ended “nobody needs all this loss in his life.” That sent me off writing a story about a man who tries to fake bravery to help his son.

I imagine that happens to most writers. You hear a line, rightly or wrongly, and it pushes into you, earworm.

While we’re hanging out in the “D” section of the library, I should mention The Decemberists, Dawes, Damien Rice, Dog’s Eye View, Dead Milkmen, and probably many others.

From “That Western Skyline” by Dawes, via John Hornor Jacobs:

So I followed her here to Birmingham, where the soil is so much richer
And though my aching pride might guide my hand, she did not ask for me to come.
So I wait for her all through the day, as if I wait for her surrender.
And every time I get her to look my way, she says I'm not where I belong.
But I watch her father preach on Sundays.
I know the hymnals all by heart.
But oh Lou, no my dreams did not come true.
No, they only came apart.

The best songs, the best songs for writers, are those that not only tell a story, but make you want to tell a story. Tom Waits. Bob Dylan. Afghan Whigs. The Avett Brothers. Dinosaur Jr. Pixies. Elvis Costello. Neko Case. Hub. Steve Earle. Emmylou Harris.

Maybe when I’m doing the actual writing, I’d rather have Gould’s Goldberg in my ear. (Not the more recent version, of course. Blech.)

But when I’m letting my brain mush slosh around a bit, ready to sponge up bits here and there, I’d rather listen to some Iron & Wine, Gillian Welch, or Justin Townes Earle.

The best songs, for writers, end up being writing prompts, with a little banjo on the side.

It seems like the unraveling has started too soon,

Now I'm sleeping in hallways and I'm drinking perfume.

Are Libraries Killing Authors?

ANTHONY NEIL SMITH, Indie Booksellers, libraries, Save the libraries, Steve Weddle, Victor Gischler Comments Off

Aug 012012

By Steve Weddle

Sheesh. Where to start, right?

First, our own Jay Stringer has his OLD GOLD out. It’s a great book. I’ve read it. I dug it. You should read it. In fact, I’ll grab a commenter and get you a copy.

Also, Sean Chercover's THE TRINITY GAME is just out. Look here and you'll have to get your own copy.

There’s this thing about Carroll Bryant.

And I guess I should mention some of this Harrogate-gate stuff. (In America, we end all scandals in “-gate” ever since President James Buchanan was caught one Thursday night, nuts-deep in a bowl of Watergate Salad.) Anyhoo, you can catch up here and here.

A couple of issues raised from the same author. One is alleged racism.

The other is that an author creates a bunch of accounts using faked names and gives himself many positive reviews. We’ve walked around this issue before and, certainly, will do so again.

This week, I’m thinking about books and video games.

Someone said something sometime along the lines of this: “If video games had been invented before books, we’d be telling our kids to quit staring slackjawed at sheets of paper and get interactive by joining their friends playing video games.”

It’s a matter of the more established thing being established because it had been established, I suppose.

So, along the lines of “what if this thing had come before that thing,” today let’s play THE LIBRARY GAME.

Imagine for a second that public lending libraries never existed. If you wanted to read a book, you had to buy it, or perhaps borrow the one book from your friend, who had to buy it.

Heck, maybe used bookstores don’t exist, either.

Imagine a world in which, in order to read a book, you had to purchase a copy of that book. In hardback.

Imagine how happy publishers would be. I picture them all having lunch in Manhattan, frolicking about in their bowls of Watergate Salad. (Do Yankees eat Watergate Salad?)

Consider that the norm for, let’s say, a thousand years.

Now, go out and try to start a public lending library.

Hey, we're going to let you have this book for a few weeks. You don't have to purchase it. Just bring it back when you're done, so we can let someone else read it for free.

Bwahaha. Fat chance, right?

Seems to me that, if libraries didn’t already exist, you’d never be able to start them.

The ebook lending fight is just a small part of it, you know.

Take this, from a PW article last year:

When it comes to e-books, the numbers are especially notable, because only half of the big six currently allow libraries to lend e-books (Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan currently do not enable e-book lending). In 2010, Macmillan CEO John Sargent called library e-books “a thorny problem” for publishers. “It’s like Netflix, but you don’t pay for it,” Sargent famously said. “How is that a good model for us?”

So, the library buys a couple of copies of SALAD RECIPES and lends them out to a couple of people every 14 days. You want to read SALAD RECIPIES, so you add your name to the waiting list. Which is fine, as you’ve been reading THE HARRIET LANE STORY for the past week and are due to get BACHELOR CONFIRMED when a patron returns it within the next few days. You’re set. You read many, many books from the library. Your tax dollars at work!

Publishers, and some authors, get mad when you use the library. Or when you buy a used book. I’m reminded of something Neil Smith said on Twitter one day, many months ago. He said that he didn’t care whether you got his books used or at the library or found them in a dentist’s office. He was just hoping folks read and liked them.

And, yet, there’s a huge disagreement in The Community about whether --
Writers who sell their Kindle books for 99 cents are devaluing writing
Free book pushes online are a bad thing
Libraries are draining sales
Ebooks being lent is ruinous
And on and on.

I grew up visiting my town’s library, my school’s library. I’d find books I liked by authors I liked, and I’d end up buying other books by those authors. I think many people do that. The library might have two of seven books from an author. If you like those two, maybe you'll buy the other five.

I don’t get to the library as often now as I did when I was a kid, but I still scan the catalog often. If I’m interested in a disposable book – some thriller I’m not likely to savor – I might check the library. If they don’t have it, I’ll check the bookstore – either physical or digital. Maybe I’ll grab the book there. For me, libraries are still important, still vital to finding new authors.

I’m much more likely to take a chance on an author if I see a good-looking book on the Just Arrived shelf than if I see that same book for $25.95 at my local indie or $12.95 online.

I am not a full-time author. I am not the president of a book publishing company. I don't see libraries as taking money out of my pocket, and I don’t have their much more nuanced understanding of what this means for profits.

I’ve worked in the newspaper industry for (counts fingers, removes socks) years. We’ve always sent subscriptions to local libraries so that patrons can read the paper without having to purchase copies.
I’ve never considered that money out of my pocket.

But publishers and authors are looking for the right “model,” and that’s not exactly the same thing that the libraries are looking for.

Libraries are successful when 1,000 readers line up to read the two copies of GONE GIRL. For publishers, this could be seen as a problem.

You can search the Internet yourself if you want, but various sites suggest that libraries account for about 10 percent of book sales for authors. Do indie bookstores account for more?

Are used bookstores "lost sales" for authors? Are yard sales?

For some authors and publishers, libraries are "lost sales" in the same way piracy is -- or used books.

When someone tells you -- "Oh. Here's my copy of GUN MONKEYS. You have to read it. Here. You'll love it" -- does Victor Gischler die a little inside?

Some authors, including Neil Smith, love for you to get a used copy.

Some authors, including Paulo Coehlo, love for you to get pirated copies of their ebooks.

Cory Doctorow loves for you to get his ebooks, many of which are free.

Other authors want to hand you a free copy of their first book in a series in hopes that you’ll spend $9.99 up the new second book.

And in with all of this is the fight over ebooks in libraries and, oddly enough, paper books in libraries.

Seems odd to ask if there’s a storm that’s been brewing, that’s getting more stormy -- with libraries on one side and publishers and authors on the other, but, well, there it is.

How did libraries become the bad guy?

Sandra Seamans: The Interview

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Jul 252012

By Steve Weddle

If you know anything about short stories and crime fiction, then you already know Sandra Seamans. Her blog, My Little Corner, is a must-read -- as are her stories.

COLD RIFTS, her collection from Snubnose, is on many digital TBR piles right. Here stories can be found all over the web. Here. And here. And here.

I've worked with Sandra on a couple of projects -- the very first Needle mag and the DISCOUNT NOIR collection Patti Abbott and I edited.

Sandra was nice enough to answer some of my questions about writing style and short stories and much more.

Steve: Your “My Little Corner” blog claims to be a place for your “scattered thoughts.” In fact, your site provides a great deal of real news about what’s going on in the fiction community. From new publishers to contest and anthology calls, your site is one of the most useful sites for short story writers. How did you get to this point?

Sandra: Pretty much by accident. I started the blog without any idea of what to do with one and no expectation that anyone would actually read it. Once I figured out how to post links I started linking to online zines to make it easier for me to find markets when I had a story to sell and also to find stories to read. When I decided to clean out my email files, I discovered a whole slew of zine links and market listings which I added to the blog. It seemed a shame to stop there, so I just kept adding new links as I found them.

I always appreciated when other writers shared markets with me, so the blog was a way for me to pass that kindness forward. It's also been a joy for me to watch other writers get published in those new markets. It's such a big world out there on the 'net that having links in one place makes it easier for writers to find the type of market they're looking for.
Along the way I realized that by focusing only on mystery markets, crime writers were missing out on other outlets for their work. That mystery/crime stories fit in all genres, especially in many of the horror markets. So I began adding anthology calls, contest, and writing advice links for all the genres. It's been a lot of fun for me and hopefully useful to other writers.

Steve: Benjamin Whitmer, another of my favorite writers, has called your COLD RIFTS “a fierce, sorrowful” book of stories. How did you choose these stories for this collection?

Sandra: With a great deal of hair pulling. I knew they all needed to be dark stories because that's what Snubnose Press publishes. Since most of my work has been published online I felt the need to make the bulk of the collection new stories. I had six new stories and a half-written novella (which turned into a novelette) in my files that fit the bill. Besides finishing the novelette, I also wrote two more new stories and lengthened a pair of published flash stories. The rest was just a matter of deciding which published pieces would compliment the new work.

Putting them into some kind of order was the tricky part. I spent hours writing down lists of stories, their themes, lengths, male or female protags. I finally wound up loosely putting them together in groups of four - two dark stories, one paranormal and one humorous. What I hoped for in this arrangement was to break up the intensity of the darkest crime stories so that readers didn't feel like they were being pummeled to death with disaster. One other thing I did was mix in a good dose of male protags so the male readers won't be overwhelmed with a feminine point of view. I didn't want the collection to appeal strictly to women, I wanted something for everyone to enjoy

Steve: At a recent Mystery Writers of America meeting, Snubnose Publisher Brian Lindenmuth talked about your book in addition to some of the others that indie press is publishing. How helpful has it been to be in a community of like-minded readers and writers?

Sandra: It's like having your own private cheerleaders. They're always there with an encouraging word and a helping hand when you need it.

Steve: You’ve had stories published nearly everywhere, at places that continue and places that have moved on – Shred of Evidence, Pulp Pusher, Scalped ezine. How has the market for short story writers changed over the past few years?

Sandra: The biggest change has come in the last year or so with e-publishing. More and more small presses are putting together anthologies and writers are getting a percentage of the profits. The amounts aren't huge but it beats constantly giving it away for free or having it sit in a drawer collecting dust.

I also love that print magazines are making a comeback. We've got Needle, Pulp Modern, and Grift which are publishing some great stories. And it's not just the mystery genre, there's new horror and sci-fi/fantasy print zines showing up.

The online zines are always in flux and I suspect always will be. What I have noticed is that some of them are starting to put together "best of" anthologies and e-pubbing them which puts the stories in front of a larger audience. Others, like The Big Click, Noir Nation, Spinetingler and ThugLit, are putting out new issues in this manner, which helps pay their bills and put a little jingle in the writer's pockets.

Steve: GRIMM TALES, an Untreed Reads publication, is a collection of stories in which top authors retell a Grimm tale in modern terms. How did your story come about?

Sandra: The minute John Kenyon put up the challenge to rewrite a fairytale into a crime story, I was in. Yeah, I’m a fairytale freak. I also knew I wanted to do something different. There are only so many variations of the usual suspects that you can write. I found a website that had many of the Grimm's published. Reading down through the list of titles "The Blue Light" caught my eye. It was the story of a Soldier who'd fought for the King and when he was wounded and not as useful, the King sent him away. Through a meeting with a witch he finds a way to get his revenge on the King - perfect setup for a crime story. I used the basics of the fairytale but turned the soldier into a cleanup man for a mob boss, gave him some rules he lived by and off we went. It was a fun story to write.

Steve: You’ve been writing stories for years, of course. Have your habits of writing changed? Are you quicker? More deliberate? Has it gotten easier?

Sandra: In some ways it’s easier. The blank page doesn’t scare me as much as it used to. I’ve also discovered that every idea that pops into my brain won't always make a good story, but the time spent writing and going nowhere isn’t wasted. Bits and pieces of those “useless” stories generally find there way into other stories that do work.

I’ve also learned to take my time, to think more about the character’s motives instead of just charging ahead into the action. The hardest part for me is setting the story aside for a week or two then going back. Setting the story aside allows my brain the freedom to mull over what I’ve written and consider other options or new scenes that would open the story up more or help explain better what’s going on. When I finally reopen the file, I usually have several pages full of notes and new scenes sketched out.

Each new story, at least for me, is a learning process. I’m learning to take my time instead of just banging away, then having to cut out half of what I’ve written. The hardest part is learning to trust my instincts. Inside, you know what is or isn’t working. You just have to trust that inner voice. Trust that it knows you're doing what’s right for the story when you hit the delete key.

Steve: In the Age Of The Laptop, the “room of one’s own” idea seems to be fading away. People write in coffee shops, of all places.. Do you have a favorite place to write or are you one of those people who scrawls down a complete story anywhere?

Sandra: I have a small office in the house where I work on my computer. I don’t have a laptop that moves from room to room but you’ll find notepads (junk mail envelopes make great note paper, too) and pens in just about every room where I’ve scrawled down ideas for new stories, bits of dialogue for the current wip, or random scenes that I think will take an old story into a new direction.

Living in the country, there’s no nearby coffee shops, so it’s just me at home with my Mr. Coffee to keep me company.

Steve: What short story writers should people be reading now?

Sandra: There's so many of them, it's difficult to choose, and everyone's taste in stories is so different. Some of the writers I've enjoyed lately are Charles Dodd White, Seamus Scanlon, and Misty Skaggs. These writers tend toward the more literary side of my short story reading. For the crime/mystery group I'd say Art Taylor, Thomas Pluck, Jane Hammons, Libby Cudmore and Jen Conley. And of course, there are a hundred others out there that everyone should be reading, just click on any online zine and you’ll find them.

Steve: What are you working on now?

Sandra: I'm always working on the next story. Recently, I was invited to submit a story to a charity anthology with an end of the world theme. I was stumped until I came across an old micro-flash that I’d written and believe, that with a bit of research, it will work into a good short story. One of the joys of flash fiction is that there’s always more story to tell.

I also have several “finished” stories simmering in their file folders that need to be opened. They just need a few more scenes added and a bit of polishing before they get kicked out the door. And then there's the Western that I’m working on. I know pretty much how it’s going to unfold, it’s just a matter of getting it from my head to the page.

Check out My Little Corner to keep up-to-date on all the crime fiction happenings.

Google Alerts Make Authors Jerkfaces

ebooks, facebook, piracy, Pirates, Steve Weddle, Terry Goodkind Comments Off

Jul 182012

By Steve Weddle

Kids, gather ‘round. I’m going to tell you how it was when your grandma and I were your age.

See, we didn’t have all of this Twitter and Facebook. We grew up in East Bumfart. We had a weekly paper called The East Bumfart Beacon-Eagle. On Sundays, I’d drive up to Fartopolis and pick up the Sunday paper. They had a couple reviews of books. You know, a cookbook, maybe. Or something they got from one of those New York papers from a week before. Anyway, that was how we found out about books. And we talked to Gladys down at the county library. You probably don’t remember her. She was Berta Mae’s great-aunt. Anyway, she’d tell us about a book we should read and then she’d order for us from that Inter-Library Loan thing they got going down there. Then she’d give us a call on the telephone the next month and tell us the book was there.

Anyhoo, we didn’t always find out about books and such. Now that brings me to what I wanted to talk about: you and these author friends of yours.

See, now you have this terrible, awful weapon called GOOGLE ALERTS. And I know damn well what you use it for. See, you and your author friends put your names in there.

Holy shit, I’m tired of this grandpa voice. Hang on.

Barumph. Barumph.

OK. That’s better.

So last week I blathered about the Terry Goodkind loyalty thing and at the end there I mentioned the Terry Goodkind piracy thing.

He had been blogging about releasing his book as an ebook and had engaged his audience about pirates. He’d said, as best I can tell, that he knows piracy exists and what should be done about it and why do pirates pirate and all. One of the big reasons was convenience. So he set about making the book available in all platforms. Seems that, in this Age of the Internet and all, engaging with readers is easier and, you know, kind of expected. So, that's what Mr. Goodkind did and good on him.

Then a dude pirated the book.

So, as the story goes, Goodkind contacts the dude and doesn’t like the response, so Goodkind then publishes the guy’s personal information.

I mentioned this on Twitter, and Mr. Goodkind tweeted back at me to say that he had most certainly not released personal information.

Really? Personal information was never posted. Geez. Sorry. Don't I feel like an asshole for suggesting that you posted the guy's personal info. I didn't know that you just said, "Hey. Someone pirated my book." I thought you had used information to personally identify him. I'm really sorr---- wait. hang on. What, ho! To the Internet, ye searchers for Truthinesses. This is from Mr. Goodkind's post on Facebook:

By the way, I've blurred the particulars.

Goodkind posted the guy's name. He posted country of residence. OK. He posted the guy's date of birth. Why would you post the guy's date of birth? What could people on the Internet do with a guy's name and date of birth? Oh, and his Sony PSN usertag. And his website. And his Twitter handle.

Piracy is bad. Ebook pirates take money from authors, take food from the mouths of the author's children. Yes. We can have that discussion anytime you'd like. I'm not interested in discussion the particulars of Mr. Goodkind's response. Others have done that. He has done that. Fine. I've read as much of Mr. Goodkind's books as he's read of mine, which is to say diddly-squat. Let his fans and his h8ters hash it out.

But let's use what Mr. Goodkind did as a jumping-off point here to talk about the larger issue.

The Google Alerts system is turning authors into assholes.

You make a Google Alert with your name. Why wouldn't you? Of course you should. I do. When someone posts something on the Internet with my name (or the name of defensive back Eric Weddle), then I get an email and a link to that post.

This is quite important for authors. As you'll recall from what Grandpa said earlier, back in the olden days, you never really got news about books. Maybe in the Sunday paper, back when daily newspapers covered books.

So if you were an author in 1975 and someone in The East Bumfart Beacon-Eagle said your book was "an inane collection of seven stories, without much point or purpose" then you probably didn't hear about it. Unless your agent or editor or a cousin near Easte Bumfart happened to see it. Then maybe you read that. But they probably just kept that from you. Because authors tend to be big wussies when it comes to criticism.

(Yes. I know this, because if someone says something critical about something I've written, then I cry for a while. Not right away, of course. I'll glare. Then when that singer who used to be famous comes on TV to say "help the puppies" I will cry for three hours because I'd been saving it up without knowing it. Look, I am a complicated and delicate flower. I realize this.)

But now, if someone at darkandtemperateclimates.bloggerspots.net posts a review of your book, you know within 24 hours.

I will never understand how a book like this gets published. I have written five novels vastly better than this, and I can't find an agent. Yet here is this book, about a crime family of dragon breeders taking over San Francisco in the 1850s, and this book is now part of a trilogy? The writing is childish, the characters shallow, and the cover seems to have been scraped together by a diuretic rhinoceros.

So, that pops up in your inbox that afternoon. Years ago, you'd have never known. Maybe that would have been in a local newspaper. Maybe it would have been on a Geocities site.

Now you've seen it. You can't unsee the thing. So what do you do?

Many authors just laugh. Some tell their spouses. Their editors or agents.

More and more, it seems, authors post to Facebook and Twitter. They blog about it -- sometimes go great and glorious result. They spread the word around about a negative review on Amazon.

Of course, sometimes the hoped-for response seems to be, "Oh, that sucks." Sometimes, it's something else.

Look, I'm not about to say how someone should or shouldn't respond to negative comments on their work. Whatever you do is your own business.

But I will say that things seem to be getting nastier now that authors can find all the bad reviews and send their fans after the reviewer.

What was Mr. Goodkind trying to accomplish by posting the pirate's website address and Twitter handle and birthdate and PSN user ID?

What are authors hoping to accomplish when they link to a nasty review of their books? Are they trying to send their fans out on the attack? Is this wrong?

Is it OK to vote down a bad review on Amazon?

Is it different to comment on that review by posting, "Yeah. You're an idiot reader and don't deserve to read this piece of beauty"?

When does this become Inciting To Riot?

What about 200 commenters showing up at a reader's darkandtemperateclimates.bloggerspots.net to personally attack the reviewer?

In the age of Google Alerts and constant Internet access, is it just easier to find the bad reviews and respond to them?

Is it just easier to be an asshole?

Be Good, Be Kind: On Loyalty and Publishing

Steve Weddle Comments Off

Jul 112012

By Steve Weddle

So it's a Terry Goodkind week, huh? Um, OK.

First, there was this article by Alan Beatts. Off the news that Goodkind is self-publishing a book, Beatts uses the Borderland Books post to question Goodkind's loyalty.

To my eye the picture overall looks like Goodkind left Tor for more money (probably) and a bigger audience (by writing a main-stream thriller). He failed to get anything like the sales that his new publisher was looking for and either they kicked him to the curb or he broke the contract. The[n] he went back to his old publisher, who took him on. But then, not happy with them for some reason, he has now decided to self-publish.
Bear in mind that Tor, the publisher he's treated this way, is the company that gave him his start. Granted, publishing is complicated, being an author is hard, and that combination makes for some difficult decisions. But still, perhaps Mr. Goodkind is not the most loyal fellow on the planet.

(By the way, if you'd like to read a post that Beatts wrote about Borderland Books, you can find it at Tor's website.)

The picture to my eye differs somewhat from the picture in the eye of Mr. Beatts. Looks as if Goodkind is doing what is best for Goodkind and Tor and Penguin are doing what is best for them, respectively.

Claiming that an author was given "his start" by a publisher is an idea that might not sit well with authors.

The post seems to suggest that Goodkind owes something to his publisher. He doesn't owe them blind loyalty. He doesn't owe them a lifetime of work. He doesn't owe them Right of First Refusal (ROFR) for everything he ever writes ever. He doesn't owe them anything except what is agreed upon by both parties. Who signed a contract. For both sides. Perhaps Goodkind granted Tor ROFR for the next fifty years. Perhaps he granted them Lifetime Loyalty. If he did and he broke the contract for Lifetime Loyalty, he should be flogged. Or sued. Or whatever it is they do.

But if he signed a contract for three books and delivered three books years ago, then, um, isn't that fine? I don't know. I'm just a simple caveman lawyer, but it seems that if he said he's going to do a thing and then he does the thing, then you're done. Unless you want to agree to do another thing. Which he did. With someone else. Which seems fine, right? I don't know. I'm sure it's hella complicated. A new contract is a new contract, right?

To my eye, though, if you and a publisher sign a contract, then once the contracty agreements are completed, then isn't that the end of the contract? He still owes the publisher because the publisher "gave him his start"? Yeah. My ass.

Couldn't the publisher drop him? Or worse?

Look, let me explain something to you. You sign a two-book deal with a publisher. They promote you and pay you and all sorts of lovely things. Then, for reasons not caused by you or your publisher, the book tanks. Instead of selling out the print run of 50,000, you sell 25,000 copies of the book.

What is the publisher supposed to do? Your second book is already under contract. They agreed to publish it. And maybe they don't drop you right there. But maybe they just don't overly promote your second book. Which, of course, sells nine copies. Should they have been obligated to spend full-page NYT money on your second book when your first book tanked? Are they bound by loyalty? Or is it just the author who is bound to the publisher?

Publishing is a business. Writing is a business. If Goodkind wants to self-publish a book instead of working with a publisher, isn't that fine? Does he owe a publisher anything? Of course he does. He owes the publisher whatever it is he and the publisher agreed that he owes the publisher. And the publisher owes him whatever it was that he and the publisher agreed upon. That's why they sign contracts. That's what contracts are. If you're not sure, you can google it. It's on the internet.

From what Mr. Beatts says, Goodkind was in the middle of a three-book deal when he decided to go ebook/self-pub with this book. OMG, guys. Tor is totally going to sue him for this. Oh, wait. They're not? Everything is cool? Hmm. Someone should tell the internet bloggers.

It seems that Goodkind has books under contract with Tor, but not this book he is self-publishing. Or it was, but now it isn't. OK. So what's the problem?

Beatts suggests:

There is no reason that a publishing contract can't include a prohibition against the author self-publishing anything without the publisher's permission.

GAK! OK. I'm done throwing up. Wait, not yet. Hang on.

If I weren't a good Christian boy, I might say "JESUS GOD!" As it is, I'll just offer a HOLY HELL!

Are you kidding me? Of course there's a reason a publishing contract can't include that. It's smells predatory and unfair and unethical. But if both sides agree to a contract, isn't it fair by nature? No. Look up predatory lending and predatory contracts. (Always a good idea to have fantastic agent.)

If you've delivered two DragonBanger books of your three-book DragonBanger contract with HF Publishing and you have a YA story about a race car driver, why the hell would you need HF Publishing to allow you to upload it to Kindle? That doesn't have anything do with loyalty. It's in the contract.

If HF Publishing has Right of First Refusal in the contract, fine. That can cover books of the same genre, though sometimes it merely covers similar "novel-length" works. Saying contracts could "include a prohibition against the author self-publishing anything without the publisher's permission" is unworkable. Anything? Anything? Publishers can prohibit you from self-publishing a collection of letters to your puppy? If you write a series of urban vampyre romances for Trends Today Publishing, then you shouldn't be able to publish a book called "100 Ways to Baste Your Turkey"? Beatts isn't suggesting what publishers OUGHT to do, he explains in the comments. He's just saying there's no reason a contract couldn't include that. I disagree with that. I think common sense disagrees, too.

You enter a contract with a publisher. You're equals in that regard. You provide the writing, and they provide all the publishing

What's the next idea? "There is no reason that a publishing contract can't include a prohibition against the author's promotion of non-HFPublishing books without publisher's permission." So, Author, you want to promote books that we didn't publish? Where's your loyalty?

Publishers provide great, often immeasurable benefit to writers, and writers provide great benefits to publishers. Publishers and writers, when successful, tend to work their respective asses off. They are in this together, but they are under contract, not best buddies who get married. (Though they are not prohibited from marrying each other, depending on the contract.)

They think a best-selling novelist of symbologist thrillers can make them money. And if the author is late with a book, well, then people get fired. This is a business. Then maybe the publisher doesn't devote as much time, effort, or money to the next one. Not because the publisher isn't loyal to the author, but because it doesn't make business sense. And maybe the author signs a deal elsewhere, because the Anaheim Angels need a home run hitter. Or whatever.

To my eye, saying that the author "owes loyalty" to a publisher because the publisher "gave him his start" misses a key component of the publishing business -- you know, the business part.

Publishers, those that last, don't succeed because they believe an author is an A-OK kind of guy. They don't look at an author whose last three books have shat the bed and say, "Oh, I gotta pony up some more dough for that cat." They continue publishing because they were correct in believing that the author's contracted writing is a good investment. If that works out, then the two parties continue to work together. When publishers and writers make good decisions based on finances, they can afford to stay in business.

As an author, you have to make the decisions that work best for you. I can guarantee you that the smart publishers are making the decisions that work best for them. When those overlap, it's a beautiful world.

I've signed many contracts in my 42 years. I don't go back to Clyde's Auto Emporium because that's where I signed my first contract. I go back because that worked out pretty great. And Clyde (though it's Clyde's half-sister now, after the propane accident) doesn't offer me a contract because of my charm and good looks (though I wouldn't blame anyone if they did). We continue to enter into contracts because the contracts work for us. That's what contracts are.

Can you imagine if the publishing world tried to work based on loyalty?

Here's another Tommy Terribone thriller. You all hated the last three, but we're sticking with him.

Ah, sorry. Forgot the rules. That would never happen. The publisher is investing in the author. Only authors have to show loyalty, right? Beatts concludes:

Our society has generally been in agreement for centuries that when someone is willing to risk their money on something that may or may not be successful, they're entitled to all the profit that comes from that risk and that they're allowed to protect that profit within the law. Should publishers be held to any other standard?

I love it when our society agrees on shit for centuries.You know, except for slavery.

---------

Oh, and the other Terry Goodkind news? He did a thing about an alleged ebook pirate.

Tips for Subbing to Mags

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Jul 042012

By Steve Weddle

We continue to discuss Tom Piccirilli's excellent crime fiction novel THE LAST KIND WORDS over at the DSD book club page.

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Tips for Subbing to Mags

As the editor over at NEEDLE: A Magazine of Noir, I see quite a few stories on a weekly basis. I've also worked on some more "literary" magazines, including New Delta Review (when I was MFAing and teaching at LSU).

So I thought I'd pass along some tips if you're 1) interested in submitting to fiction/literary magazines and 2) give a damn about anything I have to say.

At NEEDLE, I'm joined in reading stories by Matt Funk and Stephen Blackmoore. Naomi Johnson is on hiatus after long, grueling hours I forced on her. And DSD's own Scott Parker was with us at the beginning helping out before he thought better of it. So it's a team effort. These are just my thoughts.

Do not blather on in your cover letter.
Look, it's super neat that you were published in Burning River Monthly. And Triangulation. And Far Flung Fiction. And those other 19 mags and websites. Honestly, I've never heard of any of them. And even if I had, it won't matter. You'd think if you said, "This is my first submission I'm sending out since having had my last three published at The New Yorker" would matter. It doesn't. See, we're going to look at your story whether you were loved by The New Yorker or just your mom.

Do show you know the mag
This is a big one. When we started out with the magazine, we got listed at Duotrope. Very pleased, of course. Love those folks.
And, yet, what happens is that we get many, many, many, many submissions from people who are sending the same story out to 50 magazines and sites.
If you say something to show you're not carpet-bombing the world with your story, you'll be better off. We'll look at your story either way, but it's better to say, "I really liked 'The Hung Nut' in your fall issue."

Do really, actually, for reals -- know the magazine
You'd be surprised how many horror, sci-fi, fantasy stories we get at our noir publication. Unless you think the number is 100 a week. Then maybe you wouldn't be surprised. Some people who write stories want that story published. They don't care where. They don't care that no one who gets a noir mag is looking in that noir mag for a story about the mining revolt on New Jupiter. If you're a real writer, seriously, you want the best audience for your work. Choose wisely.

Do not send us a chapter from your novel
Seriously. I did not get up from my futon today to promote your crappy novel. If the magazine you're sending to says that they accept "stand-alone chapters" or something along those lines, you're probably better just passing it off as a story. Seriously. If you say -- "This is an exciting chapter from my historical noir series featuring beat detective Nick Nickleback and his sidekick and lover, Quartermayne, in the quest to discover the true identity of Jack the Ripper. In this chapter, they come face to face with their biggest foe so far. I think you'll enjoy it." -- then I shall share your home address with my twitter followers, telling them you need advice on how best to kill your neighbor's puppies.

We accept simultaneous submissions, but you need to let us know immediately if your story is accepted elsewhere, because we don't want to accept your story only to find out that you already had it accepted elsewhere.
This means you, James T. Sessions, Jr. of 1223 East 10th Street, Apt. 2-C, Alamogordo, New Mexico.

Do not send us the story as soon as you finish it
There's no rush. We're not going to read it today. We might not get to it this week. We have a backlog. Everyone has a backlog. So take your time. Finish it. Do something else. Come back to it in a week and walk through it again. Let the thing breathe a little. Please.

Do not act like a dick if your story gets rejected
Look, pal. I've had stories rejected by magazines you've never heard of. So don't think I don't know what it's like to get a note back saying, "We really didn't connect with this character, though we do appreciate your creative grammar." You know what? They weren't right for my story. And maybe the magazine you sent to isn't right for your story. Maybe the editor goes to the trouble to give you an explanation of why your story wasn't a good fit for the magazine.
And guess what? When an editor sends a note along with a rejection, the editor is not entering into a debate with you. Editor: "Some of these details seemed to throw our readers off." You: "Throw your readers off? LOL. Your readers are probably morons because I spent 83 hours researching this story and making sure the facts are correct because I am a real writer and you are an ill-fitting colostomy bag." Yeah, don't do that. Just use that anger to write a better story. And maybe take a closer look at those details.

Do not send in a PDF of your collection and ask the magazine to pick a favorite story to publish
Yes. This has happened.

Oh, and your mileage may vary and all that.

OK. Now your turn. What tips am I forgetting? What tips did I screw up?

Mining Your Unpublished Novels

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Jun 272012

By Steve Weddle

We're talking about THE LAST KIND WORDS in the DSD book club. Pop over and join in. Feel free to start your own thread, too.

Oh, and here's a cool interview with Julian Barnes. I just read THE SENSE OF AN ENDING and quite dug it. The interview is from a decade or so ago, but still has great insight into reading and writing.

INTERVIEWER
Of course, some novelists have produced only one great book—Dr. Zhivago, The Leopard. In fact, should one be a sort of jobbing novelist and produce lots of books at regular intervals? Why shouldn’t one great book suffice?
BARNES
Absolutely right. No reason at all why one should go on writing just for the sake of it. I think it is very important to stop when you haven’t got anything to say. But novelists sometimes stop for the wrong reasons—Barbara Pym gave up because she was discouraged by her publisher, who said that her books had become flat. I’m not much of an E. M. Forster fan, but he stopped when he thought he had nothing more to say. That is admirable. Perhaps he should have stopped even earlier.

Also, PULP INK is free for now. The book has all your favorite authors, so go grab a free copy.

And I've started a thing for your phone/mobile/tablet that I call Shorts2Go in response to friends who've said they like to read stories on their phones. I looked for decent sites that collected stories I liked and wanted to share with folks. Some were cool. None were formatted to work cleanly on your phone. Or my phone. So I started Shorts2Go. For you people. Because I love you. Dave says I should Kickstart it for $100,000 so I can buy copies of WITNESS TO DEATH.

So, anyhoo, I've been working on the next big project.

I have two novels in the drawer. They're the first and second of a series. The first one set things up fairly well, but, for whatever reason, we never closed the deal on it. The second one takes most of the same characters and throws them into another disaster.

You know how this works, so why am I explaining it to you?

Well, I went back to the first novel to streamline it. Keep in mind, this is a novel I started nearly a decade ago. I don't write the same way anymore. I don't have the same, well, whatever it is real writers call "style." My writing is different and I write differently.

So revisiting the first novel is weird as hell.

Anyhoo, I figured I'd take some of what I liked from the first one and some of what I liked from the second one and see could I work something out. They both have similar themes, though the second one is considerably darker than the first.

But they both have good writing in them. I say that with very little pride. I'm just telling you. There's good writing in there. And there's writing that's not so awesome. So, I don't want to just let the characters in there die, never to exist, suffocated in some .rtf file on a hard drive I won't be able to find in a few years.

Have you ever mined earlier works for pieces? I mean, extensive mining? Not running down there and grabbing a scene, but really devoting a year to digging about?

Did it work? Is there a trick to doing it well?

The Once-a-Year Problem

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Jun 202012

By Steve Weddle

OK. Over at the DSD Book Club, we're reading THE LAST KIND WORDS. Grab your Tom Piccirilli and head on over. We'll start posting discussion topics there, probably next week.

--

The InBox here at DSD HQ has been flooded with articles and links about this here "One Book A Year" Thing.

According to the NYT, Lee Child and John Grisham are being asked to write more than a book a year.

Which makes sense.

Publishers say that a carefully released short story, timed six to eight weeks before a big hardcover comes out, can entice new readers who might be willing to pay 99 cents for a story but reluctant to spend $14 for a new e-book or $26 for a hardcover. That can translate into higher preorder sales for the novel and even a lift in sales of older books by the author, which are easily accessible as e-book impulse purchases for consumers with Nooks or Kindles.

So, publishers are asking writers for smaller, promotional pieces? OK. And publishers are asking writers for more than one novel a year? OK. Publishers want to make money. Writers want to make money. Selling more of a thing means more money. And one thing can lead into another. OK.

I remember when The Office was a popular television show. They'd have "webisodes" you could watch online. I never did. But they were supposedly these 10-minute clips you could watch between shows, between seasons, to get your fix.

Spring training and winter ball are good examples for baseball. Fall league. Rookie ball. These are all ways to keep interested in The Sport of Baseball while the main show is on hiatus, I guess.

What seems odd is the various responses of writers. Some look at the new opportunities and delve into something different. Grisham, as that NYT piece says, writes young adult between his thrillers. Others write prequels or alternate universe pieces for their main series.

But some writers seem to see the new opportunity as a burden. Seems they feel like Lucy and Ethel working on the line at the candy factory. Traditionally, writers with a series -- thriller, mystery, etc. -- would put out a book a year, often in the same month. The bookstores would know that August is Johnny Author's month and would plan accordingly. Stock. Signings. Then every October is the newest dog training mystery from Jane Deplumme. There was a schedule, damn it. Now it's all screwed up. Now full-time writers are being pressured to write more than a book a year.

Some folks seem to think that this is the fault of self-published writers. See, they bust onto the scene with four or five trunk novels and now Johnny Author's publisher wants Johnny to do the same.

Other folks, who have done the math, have pointed out that if a full-time author writes 1,000 words a day, then the full-time author (FTA) will have 365,000 words each year -- four or five novels.

The FTAs have countered, saying that you have to figure in research time and travel time and convention time and editing time and promotion time.

Others have pointed out that if you have a Grisham book on Jan. 1 and then a Grisham novella on June 1 and then a Grisham novel on Sept. 1, then the people who read Jo Blo because they were told "she's like a midwestern Grisham" might never have discovered her, because there's no Down Time for Grisham publications.

Our own Joelle Charbonneau has 17 books coming out in the next two years. Friend of the blog Chris F. Holm has two "Collector" books coming out this year. Many authors -- maybe you -- have more than one book a year coming out. Heck, I know writers with non-author day jobs who do a book a year.

Obvious point that must be made: Everyone writes at a different pace.

I'm not sure, as some have said, that this is the fault of self-published authors flooding the marketplace with three books a year each.

Self-pubbed books -- or indie books, or whatever it is this week -- might take less time to "produce."

If I'm a big seller of vegetables, I might get vegetables from farmers all over the planet. They produce and then send in to my warehouses. I have to have those little stickers printed. I have to work with the grocery stores. I have to work with advertising agencies. I have to argue for eye-level shelf placement. I have all sorts of things I have to do. I have committees set up for this. This takes a great deal of work, a good amount of overhead, as it were.

Meanwhile, there's a man down the street who pulls his cukes out of the ground (updated below) on Friday morning, rinses them, drops them into bushel buckets in the back of his truck, and carries them down to the farmers' market.

Are the farmers' market cukes better? Maybe. Maybe not. But have they been "vetted" by the corporate committees looking to make a profit? No. Have they been through all the steps that the corporate cucumbers go through? No. Might there be spots on them that aren't on the corporate cukes? Maybe. But I've had my share of corporate cukes that were bland or blotchy.

But the farmers' market is able to get things into your hands much faster, once the cuke comes out of the ground.

When the grocery stores and food corporations lose market share to the farmers' markets, they're going to lower costs, to increase their revenue, to work on the bottom line.

More cukes at a better price? Yes, please. It's what the cuke eaters of the world want. And it's what the corporations of the world want.

Readers want more to read. And they want it quicker. The corporations that have signed FTAs to multi-book deals want more to sell. Of course they do. Why wouldn't they? And if a 10,000-word Jack Reacher story between novels helps to promote the upcoming novel, that's a win for the corporation that owns the book and the reader who enjoys the book and the author who wrote the book.

The old adage still works: Write the best book you can. Just, you know, write more of them. Because if the grocery store runs out of cucumbers, there's a market open downtown that has some. And folks love them some good cukes. Is that the fault of the farmers' market?

UPDATE: I've been informed that my cavalier reference to pulling cukes from the ground is incorrect. Cukes actually grow from the sky.

WOWZER: The Frank Wheeler, Jr Interview

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Jun 132012

By Steve Weddle

Fellow Team Decker member Frank Wheeler, Jr. stopped by to talk about his critically acclaimed debut, THE WOWZER.

In the Arkansas Ozarks, old-timers spin tales of the Wowzer, a giant panther-like creature that decapitates those who wander too far into the woods. County sheriff’s deputy Jerry was raised on Wowzer stories, but they aren’t enough to stop him from carrying out his own business in the remote hills. Jerry’s more than a sheriff’s deputy; he moonlights as muscle for local drug traffickers, who sometimes need people to get hurt—or get dead.

Fortunately, Jerry’s pretty good at his job. And since Tom Haskell runs the sheriff’s office and the drug-protection racket, Jerry doesn’t see much of a moral dilemma. That is, until he starts thinking about getting out of the trade, and then things get complicated fast. For starters, Jerry’s girl Maggie flees the state after learning about a disturbing diagnosis tucked inside Jerry’s psych report. And now Sheriff Haskell is dragging his feet paying Jerry his cut of the drug money. Is Haskell just reluctant to lose his top muscle? Or is he plotting to take out the man who knows his dirtiest secrets? Fans of hardboiled, “country noir” fiction will love gnashing on Frank Wheeler’s violent and darkly comic debut, sneaking a glimpse into the mind of a killer whose inner monster is about to be unleashed.

Steve Weddle: What’s the one book you most often suggest to people?

Frank Wheeler, Jr: There’s a couple, of course. For fiction fans, I often suggest “Old Man and the Sea.” I’m still in awe at how Hemingway managed to pack so much into a hundred pages and change. That’s how you do it.

For writers looking to improve their craft, I suggest Forster’s “Aspects of the Novel.” It still gives the best, simplest, and most useful overview and breakdown of how a novel works.

SW: You’ve said your family stories pushed you towards THE WOWZER. What other family stories have you heard that would make good stories? Or what other overheard stories are you wanting to tell?

FW: My former-cattle-rancher great uncle in Oklahoma told me plenty. I’ve got another great uncle who, along with my grandma, was raised in northern Louisiana. He was a one-legged truck driver and later raised dachshunds. Another uncle, from the Arkansas bunch, was a submarine commander in the nuclear navy. I’ve grown up in the best possible place for a storyteller to be… surrounded by other storytellers whose experience I may profit from.

SW: Do you think being labeled “Crime Fiction” helps market your book? Does a label like “Rural Noir” provide too tight a limit?

FW: Sure. There are lots more people who read “Crime Fiction” than there are people who are turned off by it. I don’t object to the label “Rural Noir” because that’s what this book is. A story set out in the woods can be just as interesting as one set in a big city.

SW: What’s your ideal book reading as an author? As a listener? Do you prefer readings from the work followed by questions and answers? Do you prefer stories about how the book came about?

FW: Truth be told, I haven’t given a reading of my work in close to ten years, so I really couldn’t say. As a listener, I like the Q&A to follow the reading. And I find that the stories about how the book came to be are often the most interesting part of the reading. Frequently, I can relate to them, and it makes my own process not seem so arbitrary or directionless.

SW: As a debut novelist, what’s the one thing you know now that you wished known two years ago?

FW: I wish I’d known that it can take a lot of time to get a manuscript from a submitted draft to a printed book. And I don’t just mean the calendar days. The time feels different, passes more slowly. That whole watched-pot-never-boils thing. Yeah, I was pulling out my hair for a while. I wish I’d known that even though mine didn’t take that long (relative to the publishing business norm), that space between acceptance and publication was going to feel like an eternity.

SW: Patricia Highsmith was a hot topic at the last NoirCon. How does THE WOWZER fit into a world with what she and others – including Jim Thompson – have done in terms of the protagonist’s state of mind?

FW: I heard someone say about James Cagney that all the bad guys he played didn’t know they were bad guys. I love Highsmith’s work, and her Ripley novels were a big part of my decision to make the character a psychopath. But to be honest, I didn’t know who Jim Thompson was until I read what Scott Wolven wrote, comparing THE WOWZER to Thompson’s work. What I like about this type of character is that it’s a kind of day-pass into a world without the constraint of conscience. You get the experience of doing lots of bad things, and don’t have to feel guilt over it. And then you get to come back from it.

SW: Why does THE WOWZER have to take place in the Ozarks? Why not Florida? Seattle?

Frank Wheeler, Jr

FW: Cause that’s where Jerry’s from , don’t you know nothin’?

I love the Ozarks. A lot of relatives on my mother’s side lived there, and we’d visit now and then. Being a flatlander most of my life (Central Texas, Eastern New Mexico, Nebraska), the mountains made quite an impact. So did the great uncles who showed me what storytelling was. That was the voice I tried to capture: my uncles from the area, spinning a yarn.

SW: THE WOWZER has been called “a profane, violent, strangely captivating romance.” How is it that a hard-boiled piece of country noir can also have a romance?

FW: Even monsters need love. Well, some of them, anyway. That’s what I learned from those old HBO “Iceman” documentaries. The guy did love his family, but kept that separate from his job as a hitman. That’s in our nature. We seek companionship and intimacy with others. Even those who are profoundly detached, they still have that instinct, even if they can’t conventionally, or safely, express it.

SW: Why don’t you have a website? Why aren’t you on Twitter all day? Are you sure you’re a real author?

FW: I’m what you might call a “slow learner” when it comes to computers. My brother in law, a programmer-genius, is actually helping me develop a website that should be up in the near future. As for Twitter, see, I have a couple of these things called jobs. And also a wife I like to spend time with. But I drop in occasionally to shoot my mouth off.

SW: What are you working on next?

FW: I’m in the last stages of revision for a new novel. It’s set in Nebraska, in a place very like my hometown. If I just call it hardboiled WESTERN noir, then that means it’s hardboiled noir set between 1865 and 1900. So I guess it’s hardboiled CONTEMPORARY western noir. Or whichever sequencing of those words works best. Maybe I just invented that category. This novel is actually based on my short story “The Good Life,” which appeared in issue #7 of CrimeFactory magazine. And I’m also chipping away at a sequel to THE WOWZER.

State of Short Fiction: UPDATED

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Jun 062012

By Steve Weddle

UPDATE BELOW

Howdy, peeps. I'm spending Tuesday night with the Mystery Writers of America in Bethesda. I'm in good company as our own Brian and Sandra are supposed to be there, too.

Recent postings on the Short Mystery Fiction Society's Listserv questioned if a "Renaissance of shorts in short fiction" were occurring. And it's perhaps easy to see what prompted that discussion. While the oldest of the digest journals, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, recently celebrated its seventieth anniversary, other journals -- both in print and online -- are sprouting up regularly, and booms in e-publishing have also resulted in a bonanza of short-story collections being no more than a few clicks away.

Details here.

I'll attempt a short write-up at some point on Wednesday, June 6.

In the meantime, head over to the DSD Group site on GoodReads to vote for our Summer Big Read for our book group. Click here.

Thanks.

UPDATE:

I took a picture.

So I think that went well. Brian, Sandra, and I talked about short fiction and answered some questions. I hope they were the sort of answers that were, you know, helpful.

I find a sort of balance at these things. The fact that I don't know what I'm about to say balances out with the fact that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

I'll tell you what's weird, though. This was in the basement of the Hyatt in Bethesda. They probably don't call it the basement. Maybe it's The Lowerzinne Level or something. Anyhoo, this is the place with Morton's Hoity-Toity and Steak on the first floor. Last week I sent out "On Submission" a story I'd written about that place. Was weird seeing it again. Like bumping into some jerk you know after you've just pretended to be him and called the county real estate assessment office complaining that your taxes are too low and that the problem with the country is all those damn [whatever is the race of the county assessor].
OK. Maybe not as convoluted as that. But weird.

So it seems short fiction is alive and well, finding homes online and in print. Which is good news, you know, as it's what we do.

But what is also clearly evident is that people care about this stuff, and they care about talking through this stuff. This writing stuff. This reading stuff.

Groups like Mystery Writers of America chapters and critique groups and workshops are fantastic for indirect reasons, as well as those direct ones. Sure you maybe get some advice on the story you're writing. But you get to be with like-minded people. You know, in person and stuff.

It's like belonging to a tribe, I guess. And it's damned helpful.

And here's a book some of those folks have just put together -- a fifth volume. Check it.

THIS JOB IS MURDER

The latest installment in the Chesapeake Crimes mystery series focuses on working stiffs—literally! Included in this collection are new tales by: Shari Randall, C. Ellett Logan, Karen Cantwell, E. B. Davis, Jill Breslau, David Autry, Harriette Sackler, Barb Goffman, Ellen Herbert, Smita Harish Jain, Leone Ciporin, Cathy Wiley, Donna Andrews, Art Taylor. Foreword by Elaine Viets.

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