Curmudgeon's Lair

authorsguild.org said...

Last week Amazon announced that it would be requiring that all books that it sells that are produced through on-demand means be printed by BookSurge, their in-house on-demand printer/publisher. Amazon pitched this as a customer service matter, a means for more speedily delivering print-on-demand books and allowing for the bundling of shipments with other items purchased at the same time from Amazon. It also put a bit of an environmental spin on the move -- claiming less transportation fuel is used (this is unlikely, but that's another story) when all items are shipped directly from Amazon.

We, and many others, think something else is afoot. Ingram Industries' Lightning Source is currently the dominant printer for on-demand titles, and they appear to be quite efficient at their task. They ship on-demand titles shortly after they are ordered through Amazon directly to the customer. It's a nice business for Ingram, since they get a percentage of the sales and a printing fee for every on-demand book they ship. Amazon would be foolish not to covet that business.

What's the rub? Once Amazon owns the supply chain, it has effective control of much of the "long tail" of publishing -- the enormous number of titles that sell in low volumes but which, in aggregate, make a lot of money for the aggregator. Since Amazon has a firm grip on the retailing of these books (it's uneconomic for physical book stores to stock many of these titles), owning the supply chain would allow it to easily increase its profit margins on these books: it need only insist on buying at a deeper discount -- or it can choose to charge more for its printing of the books -- to increase its profits. Most publishers could do little but grumble and comply.

We suspect this maneuver by Amazon is far more about profit margin than it is about customer service or fossil fuels. The potential big losers (other than Ingram) if Amazon does impose greater discounts on the industry, are authors -- since many are paid for on-demand sales based on the publisher's gross revenues -- and publishers.

We're reviewing the antitrust and other legal implications of Amazon's bold move. If you have any information on this matter that you think could be helpful to us, please call us at (212) 563-5904 and ask for the legal services department, or send an e-mail to staff@authorsguild.org.

Feel free to post or forward this message in its entirety.

What we have here today is a mixed bag. Part rant and part update.

The Zokutou word meter is back up. They disabled it just before the start of Nanorimo because use had skyrocketed and was crashing their system.

I'm not as savvy about computers as I was ten years ago. I've fallen out of the loop with many things and that is one of them. Zokutou put the code up for do it yourselfers, but i was just not knowledgeable enough to use it. Now that it's back up, here's the status for Kady's Vengeance. The Exile Returns ended on a cliff-hanger, so I can understand the impatience to get it going again. With luck (and hard work) the novel should be out the first week of January.

81,289 / 75,000 (108.4%)

So long as it does not go over 100,000 words, Jean will not start pressuring me to break it up. I could lie about the length, but my publisher reads my blogs.

And now the rant. As DragonSlayer is fond of saying about me "Cover your ears, the lizard is about to rant."

Rant One:

A never ending source of amusement for me is the stupidity of the members of the Axhole of Imbecile. Dungstain posted over at Rusty Nail that I had angered Philbin. He seemed to mean it as a threat. Philbin posted on his blog, taking many things out of context that I had said (that appears to be the standard operating procedure of a lot of folks, not just the Axholes) and then bragged that I'm giving him great PR.

As I stated before, controversy does not sell books. My readership would never purchase a book called Bukkakeworld. They are looking for another type of writing completely. As for those who hate me and read this blog, all of them hate Philbin more. So he's really not getting any place.

My rants are thoughtful and considering, while his are filled with empty vitriol.

The problems lie not with Philbin, Pacione, and Dagstine, but with a certain type of mentality that is finding less and less acceptance on the internet. There is (as I am certain many of you are aware) a netiquette movement among websites, messageboards, and blogs. When I first encountered it several years ago, I was irritated because I felt that it violated my freedom of speech. However, as time passed and i saw how toxic the net had become, I began to reconsider it. Vitriol for the sake of vitriol serves no purpose in the general sphere of positive interaction. It should never be allowed to become commonplace.

It has long been held that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. But what happens when that squeaky wheel is abusive? I am certain that you have all encountered folks who attempt to destroy a conversation by abusive language, derision, and nastiness rather than have a quiet discussion of the pros and cons of something on a messageboard. More and more messageboards are becoming aware that the problem needs to be nipped in the bud before it ruins a board for the majority of those who go there.

i post a lot at sfreader because even when the topic of a thread becomes heated, the folks there stay within bounds and no one descends into abusive patterns to take cheap shots at folks. Another nice place is Spinetinglers. Both of them are good boards. The admin at Silverthought intervened and squashed abusive posting there. It needs to be that way. Reducing the toxic level at boards makes it more friendly.

There are always places to post one's ire. I prefer to do it on my blogs. But I also try (and hopefully succeed) at finding a postive angle for my complaints.

Rant Two;

How the hell do I stop the telemarketers from calling? It used to be that real people were on the other end and when the answering machine picked up they went away. Now it is all being done by computer and last night the calls filled up my answering machine with computerized pitches for everything from Viagra to new car loans. I was sound asleep when I was awakened by one of them. Annoyed, I sprang out of bed and jerked the connections to the phone loose. I reconnected the phone a couple of hours ago and deleted all the messages. However, it was an aggravation that i could have done without.

Dagstine went to TODP and stated that he thought Rusty Nail and I were the leaders of the TODP crowd. He did this to get TODP and I going at each other again. I misread a couple of posts in that thread and fell for it, thinking "okay, here we go again." However, a night's sleep convinced me that I was wrong.

Dagstine knew my past history with TODP and he was trying to set me up. He almost managed it. I must make a resolution to not respond when I am tired and my brain wiring is not working at optimal levels.

I am an aging warhorse who has worked in publishing since the late '70s. I have done many different things in the course of a long career. The dynamics of publishing have changed a lot. One of the biggest changes has been the advent of the internet.

I have always had a very bad temper. Sometimes I ride it like a greenbroke horse. Other times I shove a bit in its mouth and have friends hauling on the check reins and screaming "NO!"

Debbie Moorhouse, author of Sundown and other stories, has said that I have only three modes: write, rant, and self-destruct.

I think that's true of a lot of folks on the internet. Debbie is one of the wiser folks out there and avoids drama. She's also one of the first people to hollar "whoa" when i take the bit in my teeth and attempt to jump a canyon that I had mistaken for a narrow ditch.

Dagstine could learn a lot from Debbie. So could I, but bad habits are hard to break, and by the time that you're my age they are deeply ingrained.

Most writers are attention whores. If we weren't, we would stay off the net and just write stories.

The desire for attention is a double-edged sword. It cuts both ways. It can be both positive and negative. When we entertain and provide insights into what we do; when we share what we enjoy and delight in; well, then it is a positive thing.

When we create drama for the sake of drama, getting our attention by manipulation, trolling, and generally toxic behaviors, then that is the negative side of authorial attention whoring.

As I have said before, controversy does not create more sales. It just brings the lookie loos to your site, messageboard, blogs, and whatever.

What purpose does it serve to directly engage people who obviously dislike you the way that Dagstine did at TODP? I often wonder if people are stirring the shit to sniff the methane and get high.

I limit myself to my blogs and posting comments at the Rusty Nail and I go for long periods without posting. I can't put that much stress on my energy level. The post polio syndrome is hard enough to deal with without expending my limited energies on things that really don't make a difference.

When drama comes looking for me, I'll deal with it and then get back to the matters that count.

I kind of wish it would die, but I seriously doubt it ever will.

Dagstine is still trying to pull a "booga booga" on the horror community with Pacione's memoirs. I keep saying that, while they are aggravating at times, they are essentially harmless. Even if Pacione named names, in this day and age, a writer would have to be buggering children or sacrificing babies to even get an eyebrow raised at what they do in their real life.

Anyone who tried to read Pacione's memoirs would wonder what drugs the author was on when he wrote them. That's why no one in their right mind would ever take what he wrote seriously. There never was any dangerous libel or threat to the community from the works of Pacione.

Dagstine is a drama quean [sic] of the first order. Nothing more. He thinks that he is a sainted individual, and yet he hangs with the worst provocateurs in the industry.

Unless you are someone with major credits and a name, controversy no longer sells books. The number of hits someone gets on their website is not and never has been an indication of sales. The majors published books by people whose websites and blogs got huge numbers of comments and attention, only to be disappointed by the sales figures.

With so much free stuff on the net, one of the first things that a person will do, when shown a new author involved in a controversy, is to google them. The vast majority have something out there free to read, either in an ezine or on their sites. If they don't like the writing style, then there are no sales.

Back in the 1950s, 'banned in Boston' could get you more sales. But back then writers were less accessible than they are now. Today, the public has become jaded and inured to controversy. The media and publishers have done controversy to death and most folks have become yawningly blasé about it.

As the old saying goes, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Dagstine cannot write his way out of a used condom. Philbin can write, but no one really cares about his subject matter beyond a tiny fraction of hardcore fanatics who like reading about time travelers raping baby dinosaurs.

Trying to force feed -- by way of controversy -- the reading public what they do not wish to read will not sell books. Disparaging your readership and fans will not sell books.

Dagstine and Philbin are excellent examples of what is wrong with small press horror these days. Talentless writing, poor characterization, and books and novels based upon delivering the "scares" is not going to sell books. The pond is shrinking.

The old tired formula of man goes to haunted house, monster eats him, is no longer working for the larger reading public, which is dominated by the soccer moms.

Furthermore, regardless of what the powers that be say to the contrary, the US is in a recession. The bulk of the book buyers is the Middle Class. There was a time when writers were principally trying to compete for people's beer money. But in this time of rising costs, more often we are competing for their grocery and gas money. There is less and less discretionary money in people's pockets.

Economics alone are accounting for the largest share in the dwindling pond of people who will buy horror and other genre works. At $15 for a small press tradepaper, $7.99 for a mass market book from the majors, and $4.99 for the average indie ebook, what are people going to buy?

Controversy alone is not going to break someone out of the small press ghetto and into the high class sales of the mass market.