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Speculative Fiction, Gateway Drugs, and Literacy

ByJohn Brown

You can read the transcript of my remarks at the American Librarian Association (ALA) conference in Chicago on July 11 below as well as the supporting information.

IS SF/Fantasy Key to Teen Literacy?

Intro

I am so happy to be here. And I’m happy share some good news. David McCollough, the Pulitzer prize winning historian shared this fact in his commencement speech at the University of Utah this spring. “There are yet “more public libraries in America than there are McDonalds.” [Cheering]

We have not yet been assimilated!

Of course, this is due in a large part to you, the librarians who care for the collections and take care of the patrons. Which is why I think you deserve a big round of applause. Give yourselves a hand. [Applause]

Fiction is a literal drug

I want to start my remarks with two quotes.

Ray Bradbury was recently interviewed in a NY Times article  He said, “I don’t believe in colleges and universities.” This is what he said, “I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries.” He said this because when he graduated from High School he didn’t have enough money to go to college. So he went to the library three days a week for ten years.

The next quote is from the great poet Dylan Thomas–“Do not go gentle into that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the light”–that guy. He said,  “My education was the liberty I had to read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out.”

If you look at Bradbury and Thomas, they read, not because there was some grade involved, not because someone went after them with a stick—they read from hunger. From thirst. They read with wild abandon because they found in reading something they couldn’t find elsewhere.

I want to suggest one thing they found was a drug. [Laughter] I’m not speaking in metaphor. I’m talking about real physical response. As real and physical as the response you get when you or I take aspirin, brandy, or crack. Well, I hope we’re not taking crack. [Laughter] 

When we think about drugs we think about pills, smoke, injections. But those are simply one set of delivery mechanisms for chemicals that trigger a physical response. There are other delivery mechanisms. Other triggers. One of them is fiction.

Now I don’t have time today to detail how this works. But I will write it up on my website for those who are interested. The key thing to remember is that fiction, the kind of fiction we love, the kind that keeps us up at night sitting on the edge of the tub or locked in a closet with a light, the kind of fiction goes beyond cognition, beyond data and facts. We find it so pleasurable precisely because it triggers and guides a physical response.

So how does all of this apply to science fiction and fantasy? Here’s the deal. And here’s where we come to our topic. Science fiction and fantasy is, for our youth, one of the most powerful gateways drugs into the fictive experience. Of course, there are ideas in science fiction and fantasy that ripple out to the society. But even if there weren’t, the happy side-effect of an addiction to this drug is improved literacy. And we all know how much that impacts.

Numbas

Now I know those of you who work with young adult circulation have seen this. But I thought it might be interesting to get some actual numbers so we can start to gauge the scope of the science fiction and  fantasy effect.

My interest in this began when I saw the results of the latest NEA survey. They have this graph showing reading rates in all age groups dropping horribly since 1982. By 2002 the graph is taking a nose dive.  Then in 2008 everything turns around. And among the young adults (18-24), we see the biggest increase—9%.

I saw they had a genre preference question in this survey. Of course, I wondered about science fiction and fantasy. So I contacted the NEA and dug into the details. It appears that 34% of the 18-24 group say they like to read science fiction and fantasy. That’s a big number. That’s 1 in 3.

Of course, I wanted another data pont, so I went to BookScan and asked for data on book sales. Because the wonderful people there love librarians and Tor Books, they said of course. We looked at juvenile fiction sales from 2004-2008. What we saw was that science fiction and fantasy grew 144% during that period. All the other genres only grew 23%. We also saw that science fiction and fantasy currently make up almost 30% of the juvenile fiction market. So about 1/3.

Now there are some problems with the BookScan data. Yes, it only cover 60-70% of the market. It’s not in Wal-mart, grocery stories, and a few other places. But what’s more problematic for this issue is that they don’t break up the juvenile sales by age. It includes everything for folks one month old to age eighteen. So I’ve got books like Go Dog, Go in the dataset along with Twilight and Go Dog, Go isn’t categorized as fantasy. [Laughter] My suspicion is that if we narrow it down to the middle grade and YA group, we’ll see more science fiction and fantasy.

So I needed someone who did break it up by age. Well, who does that? You do. Libraries do. Besides, a lot of youth don’t have the $ to buy lots of books. So I went to some libraries in Utah and Ohio and got their YA fiction circulation stats. Here’s what I found: 60-80% of the YA fiction circulation is science fiction and fantasy. This does not include graphic novels or magna. It’s text fiction.

Folks, this is a big drug. I don’t know what part science fiction and fantasy played in the rise in reading rates, that would require a larger and more rigorous study. But I can tell you this: We want to see the impact of science fiction and fantasy on our society? We’re seeing it right now.

My Story

This large effect makes sense because science fiction and fantasy deliver experiences that are intersting to and matter to youth. It’s chock full of and encounter with the strange, weird, and wonderful; adventure and danger; doing something meaningful; being someone special, someone desireable, someone wanted in the group. All that coming of age stuff. So no wonder it’s a huge gateway drug.

I know that it was in my case. I wasn’t a reader. I don’t think I read more than twenty or twenty-four book from kindergater to sixth grade. I look at the little fellows in my local school today and they read that many titles in the first six months of the first grade. But I didn’t. I wasn’t a reader. I do remember loving the look and feel of these small chubby books. [Laughter]

I would take them them up to the librarian to check them out. She’d look down at me. “Are you going to read all that?” she’d ask. “Yes,” I’d say. Of course, it was lie. [Laughter] It was a huge lie because I would take them home and put them up on my dresser and just look at them.  Just loving the look and feel. And then when it was time to check them in, I’d take them back and give them to the librarian. “Did you read all that?”

“Yes,” I’d say. And that’s how I became an author–lying to librarians. [Laughter] 

Now in sixth grade my sister, we were in the car, I had four sisters and we had one TV, and so you had to reserve the time for your programs. So my sister says, “I have to watch The Hobbit for school.” Now I don’t know anything about The Hobbit. It sounded like a romance. [Laughter] I protested. No, way–we’re not going to watch some dumb kissing thing.

“No,” she said. “It’s got dragons.”

“You’re lying,” I said.

I was convinced I was doomed. But it didn’t matter. We watched it. It had dragons. And I loved the experience so much I wanted another hit. Shortly thereafter my mother and father went on a business trip. I went over to my buddy’s house. So the first day we come up out of the basement to go to school and I said, “Oh, I’m feeling sick.” So my buddy went off to school and I went back down into the basement and played hookie for two days and read The Hobbit.

It was amazing. More amazing than the movie. I had to have that experience again. And so I read Ursula LeGuin, Patricia McKillip, Donaldson, Terry Brooks. I kept reading because it delivered a cognitive-physical experience I loved. Of course, I didn’t put it that way back then. It was more along the lines of, duuuude. [Laughter]

Now I got a BA in English and a Masters in Accounting. Those degress required a lot of reading. But I didn’t develop the requisite literacy skills in school. I developed them in science fiction and fantasy.

And so when I started to write I was naturally drawn to fantasy. Having experienced this wonderful thing, I wanted to produce that and share it with others. So this novel that’s coming out has the gosh-wow I still love. It’s set in a world were humans are ranched by beings of immense power. There’s a young man and young woman in terrible trouble. So it has monsters, magic, and mayhem. But I also found fantasy big enough to let me explore other things that have become more important to me as I’ve aged. Like family, sacrifice, and redemption. And I hope people enjoy all that. But ultimately, I hope this book does for someone else what The Hobbit did for me and opens a door to a wonderful addiction. And, of course, as a powerful side-effect, improves the literacy of some rascal or rascaless. [Laughter]

Conclusion

I want to end where we began with that Thomas quote.

“My education was the liberty I had to read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out.”

That kind of wild abandon will happen when the drug takes effect. And for many of our youth, probably at least one in three, that’s going to be when they ingest a few ounces of SF & Fantasy.

Thank you.

[Applause]

Supporting Numbers

How fiction is a drug

Emotion is not a cognition, although cognition plays a part. It’s not just in your brain. It involves a physical response, which means it involves chemicals. 

We sometimes forget that our bodies produce a staggering number of chemicals. Sometimes they produce in response to external stimuli—the sun triggers the creation of vitamin D, ingested sugar triggers the production of insulin, the sight of a ravening lion standing not five feet away with nothing between him and me produces, among other things, adrenaline.

Lots of these reactions, we don’t notice. But there’s a whole group of these physical responses that we do. We lump them together and call them emotions.

Jenefer Robinson in her wonderful book Deeper Than Reason, explains, “Emotions are our way of responding to events in the environment (either external or internal)” that matter to us. They are “physiological changes that register the event in a bodily way and get us ready to respond appropriately.” Fight, flight, pursue, woo, investigate. They focus our attention, get us ready to take action, and communicate all this to others.

So while I might not feel the production of vitamin D, I do feel the fear of the lion. Fear is a wonderful thing—it keeps us alive. It raises our heart rate, pumps us full of drugs that prepare us to flee or fight. The emotion writes itself on our faces in order to, among other things, communicate the situation to those around us, warning others and calling for help. It is a physical response. Yes, there are cognitions involved, but there are also chemicals.

The latest research on emotion shows that emotion is a process that involves three things. (1) An affective appraisal of our environment that signals something important to us—a threat or opportunity. (2) This triggers an immediate physical response (chemicals, galvanic skin response, accelerated heart rates, facial expressions, etc.). (3) At this point cognitive (conscious thought) appraisals kick in and help us monitor the situation and moderate the physical response.

For example, I go out to the yard and step on this thing that slithers through the grass. The sensory signals immediately trigger a physical response to get me ready to flee or fight–heart rate, adrenaline, etc. Then I notice the snake is far too long. I look closer. It’s the garden hose. My physical response changes. I laugh, feel relief. Research has shown that when we read text, the same process occurs. We do indeed have the same types of physical responses. In some cases they’re more intense.

Now here’s the thing. This physical response is triggered not just by threats and opportunities we perceive with our senses, things out there. It is also triggered by thought. Thoughts deliver a physical response just as surely as crack does. We have the research to prove it. In fact, sometimes thought delivers a more powerful physical response. Here’s but one example. Did you know that people with a phobia of snakes have a stronger reaction to reading a passage about snakes than they do to the actual critter?

This is where fiction comes in. As I stated in my speech, fiction, the kind of fiction we love, the kind that keeps us up at night sitting on the edge of the tub or locked in a closet with a light, the kind that lingers in the fabric of our clothes and our hair long after we close the book, that kind of fiction goes beyond cognition, beyond data and facts. That kind of fiction triggers a physical response.

It does this, and this is one difference from emotion triggered by our own thoughts or the sensory data we pick up from the world, because fiction, by its very nature, its very structure, is actually guiding our emotional response. Our physical response. This management of the response is in fact one of the things that we find so pleasurable about it.

To find out more, please read:

  • The Science of Emotion by Randolph R. Cornelius
  • Deeper Than Reason: Emotion and its Role in Literature, Music, and Art by Jenefer Robinson

You may then want to search out texts by Dolf Zillmann, Jennings Bryant, and Peter Vorderer.

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    Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin + Interview

    ByJohn Brown

    I have read few books more interesting than Temple Grandin’s Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior.

    In it she describes her world of autism and how it helped her a perspective into animals unlike any other expert in the field. She can literally see what we block out. It’s part of what helped her make a huge impact on the meat packing industry.

    And it’s had an impact on her. When she was visiting her grandparents once in Arizona, she saw a squeeze chute in operation on a ranch. She saw the cattle calm, for the most part, in the chute. “Watching those cattle calm down,” she says, “I knew I needed a squeeze chute of my own.” So when she got back home she built a human-sized one with the help of her teacher. “I got through my teenage years thanks to my squeeze machine and my horses.”

    Grandin is not a vegetarian activitst (she eats meat herself) or a brutal slayer. She has taken the middle ground between the fantatics that want to prevent the consumption of all meat, on one hand, or totally disregard the life of animals on the other. She writes, she says, “because I wish animals could have more than just a low-stress life and a quick, painless death. I wish animals could have a good life, too, with something useful to do. I think we owe them that.”

    Temple has dozens and dozens of insights into animals, which she shares here. You’ll learn about rapist roosters and the problem of one-trait breeding, whether prediators find it “fun to kill a groundhog” (yes, she says, they do), whether animals have true cognition, and so many other things it’s impossible to list them here. I was fascinated on every page. If you have anything to do with animals, you’re going to LOVE this book.

    Get the book. Read it. In the meantime, watch a 27 minute interview of Temple by Doug Fabrizio on Utah NOW. I caught this on TV flipping through the channels and couldn’t look away. This is a fascinating interview of a fascinating woman.

    Source:Temple Grandin on Utah NOW

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    Update and Fage

    ByJohn Brown

    I passed the 90% mark today on SERVANT. It’s been wonderful going back through this story, remembering why I loved these characters so much. The cover too is coming along. I’m looking forward to revealing it in the near future. Right now everything looks like it will release on target, although that may change.

    While you’re here, you know I have been on a quest for delicious low-sugar yogurt for some time. I have found it at last. Behold.

    Fage 2 percent yogurt

    No Greek yogurt has a better taste or texture. And there’s no added sugar. Add some fruit and it’s heaven.

    It’s pronounced “fa-yeh.” Except, how do you pronounce that? Who comes up with product names nobody can pronounce? 

    But it doesn’t matter how you pronounce it. We luvs it, Precious.

     

     

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  • Indie Thoughts: How much does it cost to publish a book independently?

    ByJohn Brown

    Is The Guardian right?

    Does it really cost $6,000 to publish a book independently?

    Is that the price to become Hemmingway these days?

    Lots of commenters at The Passive Voice said the numbers were rubbish. Far too high. They said this was yet another thinly-veiled bit of  flimflam The Guardian cooked up to depress indies and send aspiring authors into the arms of the zombie traditionalists.

    I actually thought the piece was good.

    Why?

    Because I like numbers. I did get a Master’s degree in accounting, after all.

    But is it just that numbers are sexy?

    It’s true the shape of the number 3 can be glorious. 9 is a stunner as well. But the slopes and curves of these digits is not why I like them. Numbers, even if they’re bad numbers, allow you to start thinking about costs. They allow you to question whether they could be reduced. Or whether you’re getting any bang for your buck in a certain category. Heck, numbers allow you to discover whether you’re allocating way too much in one area and far too little in another.

    I thought The Guardian did a great job breaking the costs out into categories and starting an examination. The question is: are the categories and amounts political fictions or real?

    Comparing My Numbers

    One way numbers do all the things I mentioned above is by letting you do comparisons. So I figured I’d compare The Guardian’s numbers with a set of my own. I’ve published four books independently. How do my costs stack up?

    Here are the costs for the latest.

    Cover: $500

    • $500 for illustration
    • $0 for cover design (I have a friend who is so incredibly generous with his time)
    • Cover for some genres can cost less. Some folks do it themselves. Most of those do-it-yourself covers look awful.
    • The zombie traditionalists can sometimes spend a few thousand. And when they do it right, they get some amazing, AMAZING, work.
    • Verdict: The Guardian’s number seems reasonable, but I’m thinking the range is a few hundred up to a few thousand for something that doesn’t give the average reader worms.

    Editing: $0

    • My wife, former technical writer, current language arts teacher, is my editor. There are some other folks I’ve tapped as well.
    • If I didn’t have her, I’d need someone. My experience is that if you yourself are not an editor, and you try to do this, you’re going to end up with a poorly edited book. Even with her experience, we’re still finding it hard, and are working to get the process down. We might outsource this in the future.
    • I’ve gotten reasonable quotes, and they’re all around $600-900. And that’s just for a copy edit. You want other kind of editing, you’re going to pay more.
    • Verdict: The Guardian’s number is high, but not if you tap into a bunch of pros for multiple edits.

    Formatting for POD and ebook: $120

    • I do the interiors myself, so the labor is free. If I had to pay, it could run anywhere from $100-$300 or more.
    • I pay a subscription fee for InDesign. If I release two books a year, it comes out to roughly $120/book.
    • I spent $300 taking a class on basic interior design principles. But that was just the beginning. I must have spent 50-70 hours, maybe more, last October and November, banging my head against the wall as I learned this. Luckily, all that thrashing about didn’t result in any medical bills. I’ve had to spend maybe 10-20 more since then learning advanced techniques and keeping the basics fresh.
    • Verdict: The Guardian didn’t even include this.

    ISBN: $0

    • I owe my friend; without him, this would definitely be a cost. I’m such a free loader.
    • Verdict: The Guardian’s number is good.

    Copyright Registration: $55

    • $20 bucks to mail 2 copies to the Copyright Registration Office
    • $35 processing fee
    • Yes, you do want to do this. For detail on why, see The Copyright Handbook by Stephen Fishman.
    • Verdict: Another miss

    Print-on-demand fees: $0

    • I go with CreateSpace instead of Lightning Source
    • Verdict: Another miss

    Notice what’s NOT up there that was in The Guardian article: reviews and review copies.

    Why don’t I include them?

    First, I would never pay for a Kirkus review. I wouldn’t because it appears such reviews mean little to readers. They don’t seem to generate much notice or desire to sample. Here’s what readers report matter to them. Such pre-publication reviews DO matter to store and library book buyers. But, as an indie, I’m not focusing on those channels.  Those channels are in the hands of the zombie traditionalists.

    What about review copies?

    You don’t need them to publish. All this review business is marketing. And you don’t need marketing to publish.

    So what are my totals? I’ve included The Guardian numbers so you can see the differences.

    Category My Costs Guardian Estimates
    Cover $500 $750
    Editing and proofing $0 $4,000
    Ebook and POD Formatting $100 ?
    ISBN $0 $125
    Copyright Registration $55 ?
    POD setup fees $0 ?
    Reviews – $825
    Review Copies – $300
    TOTAL $655 $6,000

    Whoa! The Guardian estimated a cost that’s ten times what it costs me. But I don’t think that’s a sign of some plot. If I’d paid an editor and cover designer and formatter and didn’t mooch my ISBNs, that could have added as much as $1,000-$2,000 to my total. I have friends who have paid more.

    Furthermore, that’s just for the ebook and hard copy. Depending on if you publish an audio edition and how you do it, you could spend another $2,000-$3,000.

    What does this tell you? It tells me that the reporter made a good start, but needed to do a bit more digging. It also tells me there’s a huge variability in the costs depending on the skills you and your friends possess. It also shows that this is a business. I doesn’t cost a gazillion dollars to publish. It’s not like the $200,000-500,000 you need to start some food franchises, but you’d better be prepared to fork over some cash and/or a lot of hard work.

    In fact, when you consider that last point of sweat equity, the $655 is completely misleading because it does not capture the hours I spent, at least 20-60, doing my part of the cover, editing, and formatting. Nor the time spent by my wife or friends. There’s a huge opportunity cost there.

    What’s the value of what I could have done with that time?

    It’s for dang sure not reflected in the $655.

    Marketing

    I didn’t include marketing in those costs above because marketing is its own beast. You can publish and do zero marketing. You can publish and do gobs. And just as with the publishing costs, marketing costs will vary based on what you can do in-house and what your situation is. It costs JK Rowling nothing to get covered in  every news outlet in the land. She sneezes, and we get a report about her. You and I are probably going to have to work harder to get noticed.

    There are all sorts of marketing costs. Whatever those costs, marketing has a job to do. It’s got to pay for itself. It’s got to help pay for the cost of publishing. And it’s got to help me meet my goal of winning new readers and compensating me for my time.

    There are lots of cost categories depending on what you decide to do:

    • Hard copies you sell at events
    • Travel and lodging required to attend events
    • Hard copies and postage for reviewers
    • Time writing blog posts
    • Promotions with folks like BookBub and BookSends
    • Giveaways
    • Etc.

    The bottom line is that I think it’s good to separate these costs from publishing so you can measure their effectiveness against sales. Marketing is about revenue generation. These costs really have nothing to do with producing a book.

    Books and Lemonade

    I’m going to go off an a tangent here for a second. Some folks suggest that indie authors shouldn’t do much marketing. Especially if they only have one or two books out.

    I find no evidence to support the idea that just writing the next book is all you need to do for readers to hear about you and beat a path to your door. It’s true you’ve got to write the next book. You must get new product out the door. Hey, I learned that when book 2 from the publisher fell into a black hole. But that doesn’t mean marketing and promotion are inappropriate,  wrong-headed, or a waste of time or money.

    Let me ask you a question.

    Let’s say Juanito is a no-name in the lemonade business. He’s just starting from scratch with dreams of becoming a big time lemonader. Who thinks it’s a good idea for him to open a lemonade stand in his back yard? Or better yet, in a closet in his basement? And when folks suggest that the stand might get more business if he lets the neighbors know about it or puts the stand in a place with a lot of foot traffic, who says, no, that’s a waste of time and money–the key to selling more lemonade is whipping more batches up in the kitchen?

    In retail, you must get folks to notice your product and then persuade them to try it. Now, maybe you’ve got something going that’s generating all the notice and sampling you can handle.  Maybe you lucked out.

    What percentage of indies are in that situation? Raise your hands, please.

    What? We’re not all inundated with hordes of readers? We’re not  all swimming in gold? Imagine that.

    The fact is that it’s tough to get notice. It’s tough to get people to try. But there are some things we can do to increase our odds. Selling books is a retail business. Retail lives and dies by visibility. Yeah, you need word of mouth. But you need to be noticed and sampled in large enough amounts to keep that word of mouth going.

    What would you rather have? 100,000 people all over the country in many social networks (I’m not talking about Facebook) noticing and sampling and talking about your product, or would you rather have five?

    In the brick and mortar world, there are lots of ways to get visibility without doing much TV or internet advertising. Ways to get notice include things as simple as signage and a store’s location. For example, you get a ton of eyeballs just situating your restaurant in the parking lot of a big destination shopping mall. You get eyeballs putting a sign on top of a 100 foot pole next to the freeway exit saying “Gas & Eats.” Online retailers get noticed in other ways.

    Without blathering on about that (this was a post on publishing costs), let me just say that until customers begin to line up and start throwing hundred dollar bills at me, it appears I’m going to have to do what every other retail business has done for hundreds of years–get my lemonade stand out of the basement and into the park with lots of thirsty kids and moms.

    EDIT 8/30/2014

    While a number of folks are assuming the article was written as part of some vast conspiracy to undermine indie authors, David Gaughran posted some criticism in the article’s comment section that actually make sense.

    DavidGaughran

    The reason I’m so annoyed by the inaccuracies in this article is that this kind of misinformation is creates an information gap which allows shady operators to flourish.

    Vanity press operators thrive because inexperienced authors think that self-publishing is either difficult or expensive. It’s neither of those things, and articles like this only serve to reinforce this false notion. That’s why I think this piece is irresponsible as well as inaccurate.

    Companies like Author Solutions specifically target the most inexperience authors, the ones who know least about self-publishing and the industry in general, the ones who have fallen under the spell of various myths (like that self-publishing costs $6,000).

    As a commenter said below, saying self-publishing costs $6,000 is like saying houses cost $10m. You can spend that much, but you don’t need to.

    It costs me less than a third of that to publish a book, and I use a Big 5 cover designer as well as an editor with over ten years experience working for traditional publishers. Anyone can look at my books and immediately see that they are produced to professional standards.

    You don’t even have to spend as much as I do to get a quality product. If authors are on a tighter budget, they can purchase a pre-made cover design. There are some wonderful pre-mades out there for as little as $40. You will have to invest a fair bit of time combing through the sites to find something suitable, but if you are on a shoestring budget it’s an option.

    Same goes for content editing/developmental editing. All manuscripts will need a thorough copy edit, but you can get by without a specific content edit with successive round of beta readers. Again, this will require a time investment – writers usually trade beta reads of each other’s work. But if you’re on a tighter budget, it’s another way you can save money.

    This is why this piece is so off. Even going the “deluxe” route shouldn’t cost more than $2,000. And if you don’t have $2,000, there are plenty of options where you can achieve a quality product, spending far less, if you are willing to put in a little time.

    There are ways you can save money in other areas too. It’s a waste of money for an author (especially a new author) to buy a NetGalley membership for themselves. Authors can (and do) form collectives to buy a membership between them – often spending just $20 per person. I got a NetGalley spot for a month, for free, by bartering with another author. (I didn’t think it was quite worth $20, by the way, let alone $400).

    If you need reviews, there are much better and cheaper ways. Submitting to book bloggers costs nothing (we usually send e-book copies or PDFs, rather than hard copies). Doing an e-book giveaway on LibraryThing costs nothing. Giving out electronic ARCs in advance of your release costs nothing. And all of these are much more effective than giving any kind of money to Kirkus, let alone $425.

    But I guess it doesn’t matter how many experienced self-publishers (and editors who work with same) tell you that your figures are off, or that you don’t need ISBNs to self-publish, you are going to stick to your guns.

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  • Writing update: Curse Draft 3 FINISHED, The Book Academy

    ByJohn Brown

    Fanfare!

    Draft 3 of Curse of a Dark God is finished.

    Finished!

    Finished!

     

    FIIIIINIIIIIIISHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    245,000 words. 873 manuscript pages.

    That’s a big book. SERVANT was only 170,000. A “normal” novel is somewhere around 90,000 – 120,000 words. I just emailed it to my agent with a huge sigh of relief. And a hope that the editoral sword of Damocles has been lifted a bit. I’m sure my editor will want some changes–most certainly fewer words–but hopefully this is a draft we can agree on and, therefore, set a release date.

    I want to thank the following folks for reading the opening and giving me their feedback. I’ll be incorporating their comments, along with those of my beta readers, agent, and editors, in my review for the edits I’ll make to draft 4. Some of the comments, actually, made it into draft 3.

    • Adam Teachout
    • Alexis Cooper
    • Alex Lamborn
    • Amy Lamborn
    • Cameron Wilson
    • Darren Eggett
    • David C. Walton
    • David West
    • Eric Allen
    • Garrett Winn
    • Hyrum Grissom
    • Justin Fisher
    • Krista Hoeppner Leahy
    • Laurel Amberdine
    • Lindsey Tolis
    • Lynette Wood
    • Martin Cahill
    • Melanie Goldmund
    • Merrill Nielson
    • Mette Ivie Harrison
    • Nick Dianatkhah
    • Rachel Gao 
    • Robert Thompson
    • Steve Diamond
    • Wesley Amodt

    Again, all of you listed above–THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH FOR READING AND RESPONDING!! We luvs you, Precious. And if I missed anyone, please send me an email smack. Your name needs to be there. I’ll move it over into the fiction section later.

    For those who missed out, I’m planning on posting the beginning of Dark God’s Glory for review as well. Although I don’t know how it’s going to work out with pub dates. We’ll have to see.  

    By the way, here’s the opening chapter as it now stands. It may very well change.

    1.   The Harvester

    Berosus saw the girl the first day he arrived on the shores of the New Lands. She was a beautiful Koramite mix. Dark hair. Clear skin the color of caramel. A full set of teeth. But it was her stunning jade eyes that decided him. That and the playful but firm way she handled the sailors wanting more than just a few pints of her grog. He found lodging in a barn that night then ordered three of his men to kidnap her.

    When the time was right, they brought her to him up on the hill. It was in the afternoon of the sixth day. The sun shone brightly in the blue autumn sky. The breeze rustled through the grass and trees. He untied the bonds around her wrists and told her to sit down. He said, “Some of the spark’s gone out of your eyes.”

    She said, “Six days in a hole will do that to you.”

    He gave her credit. She was scared and hiding it very well. He said, “You’re destined for great things.”

    She looked at the tattoos on his wrists, which would tell her nothing, and said, “I’ve a father to tend to, and three brothers.”

    He said, “What’s your name?”

    “Jade.”

    “Of course. Well, Jade. You’re good stock.” He motioned at her. “Wide hips, good bone structure. You would have born many fine children and increased the Mother’s herd. But there’s a higher purpose.”

    She said, “You’re one of those Shimites, aren’t you. One of his sleth.”

    “Ho,” he laughed. “No, lovely. Shim is a nothing. A gnat. A beetle. No, I am a Seeker. A servant of the Sublime. And you will serve me. Does that please you?”

    “You’re not marked.”

    “No, Seekers never are. We can’t announce our coming, now, can we?”

    She swallowed. “They say Shim’s brought on a curse.”

    “That he has,” Berosus replied. “And you’re going to help remove it.” He pulled the rough, black gloryhorn from its pouch. “Do you know what this is?”

    “Not a simple horn,” she said, “or you wouldn’t have asked.”

    She was smart. Brave. Oh, but he liked this one. He had indeed chosen well. “No, not a mere horn. It’s a weave. And like all weaves it needs soul to bring it to life. This one needs a lot of soul.”

    He saw she understood what that meant, for the last of her feisty spirit drained away. She glanced down the hill. She was going to run; he could see it in her eyes. He gave her credit again. She was real quality. By this point many females would have been in a panic, in tears or begging him for mercy. But this one still had her wits.

    He snatched her by the wrist. “Don’t spoil it. You’ll be remembered. I will remember you, this hill, the smell of the autumn leaves, and your eyes under the blue sky.”

    She tried to wrench her arm free, but Berosus had an iron grip. Her tattoo marked her as property of the Mother and gave him access. He pushed through the barriers of her flesh to the soul within and felt her scream.

    #

    When Berosus finished, the husk of Jade’s body stared past him at the trees. Her body and the remnant soul which lingered there might live on for a few days, maybe even a few weeks, but there was no point in allowing that to occur. It would seek the familiar; it would walk back to her home, go about its old habits. Maybe it would sit in a favorite chair, maybe eat a piece of bread or go through the motions of drawing water. But it wouldn’t respond to the conversations of her loved ones or their later pleadings. All this would only raise questions, and questions at this point would not be useful. So Berosus killed the body with a sharp twist to the neck and laid it down upon the dried autumn grass at his feet.

    The captain of Berosus’ dreadmen had brought a small meal. Berosus picked up a salted herring that lay in the cloth the captain had spread upon the grass and took a bite. “Life is meant to be lived consciously,” Berosus said, “deliberately.”

    “Yes, Bright One,” the dreadmen said.

    With his free hand, Berosus ran a handful of the female’s luxurious dark hair through his fingers. He traced her brow and the ridge of her cheek bone, traced the delicate curve of her lips. She was so beautiful in her repose. As graceful and sensuous as the rich petals of an iris.

    “Every day a banquet is spread, Captain. And if you’re not careful, you’ll miss it.” Berosus disdained the Divines who sent others to do their work. Life was full of gifts, full of scenes such as these. And every day they missed it.

    He took another bite of herring.

    The captain said, “We have a report, Bright One.”

    Berosus ignored him. The scene was perfect. The breeze blew gentle waves through the dry meadow grass about Jade. The heads of the grass nodded to and fro, as if reaching out to touch her.

    He contemplated her a moment more then picked up the leather pouch that held the rough, black gloryhorn where the essential parts of the girl’s soul still lived on and put the strap over his neck.

    The gloryhorn was the weave he would use to harvest the fruit of this land. He’d needed a soul to quicken it. He could have used anyone’s soul, but it pleased him to think of Jade in there, for every time he saw the horn, he would also think of her, this hill, and the grass rippling in the breeze. He would think of how poignant it was for something of such beauty to bring forth such destruction.

    He finished the herring and sucked his two fingers clean. In the distance, the towers of Shim’s fortress rose above the trees. “What is the report?”

    “The Mungonite priest has been spotted.”

    Berosus nodded. “Good. We need to find him before he talks.”

    “I’ve already dispatched men.”

    Berosus looked out at Shim’s fortress. He’d been watching Shim’s army for the past six days, and his orders were to harvest every last one of them.

    It was clear to him this army was sleth. They were using weaves of might, but none were in the pattern of any of the houses of Kains he knew. There were no Guardian Divines, no tethered skir, no Fire sacrifices. There simply were no signs that would indicate an enemy Mother was here, claiming this human herd. But there was the sleth Argoth and his Grove.

    When Berosus had received his orders, he’d been informed by the glorious Mother of Mokad herself that this nest of sleth had killed two Divines and perhaps even one of her sisters. He saw now they were starting to build an army of dreadmen. It was all very impressive for sleth. But their time was at an end.

    He looked down upon the body of Jade. She would have been harvested anyway. This outbreak of slethery had to be stopped before it grew too large. A small sleth nest could be useful at times in managing the herd or in attacking another Mother’s holdings. But an army of them would only cause problems. And you couldn’t just kill the leaders. Ideas and knowledge spread like disease. In this situation, it was best to simply destroy them all. 

    Berosus smoothed one side of his long blond moustache and then the other. About him in the woods, his dreadmen kept watch. He’d received message via the weave that bound his chief general to him that the ships with the troops and the other Divines were making good progress. They expected to arrive in just a few days, which gave him just enought time to put himself in place.

    In the distance, banners and wreaths were being hung at the fortress. He thought it fitting: on the morrow, the inhabitants of this land would celebrate the good gifts of the harvest with their annual apple dance feast. In truth, they were only fattening themselves for the real harvest.

    Harvesting humans was essentially the same as harvesting any animal. You gathered them together. Then you killed them. Like many social animals, humans banded together when under threat. Provide the right motivation, and the herd would gather itself.

    “Captain,” he said. “Tomorrow evening at the feast, we set things in motion. You will send in someone with poison. Let him clearly demonstrate our intent.”

    “It will be done, Bright One.”

    Berosus took in a great breath of the sweet air. The day was brisk, the sky sunny and clear. He hoped the sunshine held. It was such fine weather for slaughter.

    Edit. See, it’s already changed. I had two versions when I posted this blog. I let Nellie read both. And she reports that this one created much more interest (curiosity, in this case) much faster. Sigh. It’s a good thing I’m taking a break.

    1.   The Harvester

    The young girl was beautiful. Dark hair. Stunning jade eyes. Clear skin the color of caramel. But her body was merely a husk now because Berosus had removed the vast majority of her soul.

    The husk of her body and the remnant soul which lingered there might live on for a few days, maybe even a few weeks, but there was no point in allowing that to occur. The body would seek the familiar; it would walk back to its home, go about its old habits. Maybe it would sit in a favorite chair, maybe eat a piece of bread or go through the motions of drawing water. But it wouldn’t respond to the conversations of her loved ones or their later pleadings. All this would only raise questions, and questions at this point would be inconvenient. So Berosus killed the girl’s body with a sharp twist to the neck and laid it down upon the dried autumn grass at his feet.

    The captain of Berosus’ dreadmen had brought a small meal. Berosus picked up a salted herring that lay in the cloth the captain had spread upon the grass and took a bite. “Life is meant to be lived consciously,” Berosus said, “deliberately.”

    “Yes, Bright One,” the dreadmen said.

    With his free hand, Berosus ran a handful of the female’s luxurious dark hair through his fingers. He traced her brow and the ridge of her cheek bone, traced the delicate curve of her lips. She was so beautiful in her repose. As graceful and sensuous as the rich petals of an iris.

    “Every day a banquet is spread, Captain. And if you’re not careful, you’ll miss it.” Berosus disdained the Divines who sent others to do their work. Life was full of gifts, full of scenes such as these. And every day they missed it.

    He took another bite of herring.

    The captain said, “We have a report, Bright One.”

    Berosus ignored him. The scene was perfect. The breeze blew gentle waves through the dry meadow grass about Jade. The heads of the grass nodded to and fro, as if reaching out to touch her.

    He contemplated her a moment more then picked up the leather pouch that held the rough, black gloryhorn where the essential parts of the girl’s soul still lived on and put the strap over his neck.

    The gloryhorn was the weave he would use to harvest the fruit of this land. He’d needed a soul to quicken it. He could have used anyone’s soul, but it pleased him to think of Jade in there, for every time he saw the horn, he would also think of her, this hill, and the grass rippling in the breeze. He would think of how poignant it was for something of such beauty to bring forth such destruction.

    He finished the herring and sucked his two fingers clean. In the distance, the towers of Shim’s fortress rose above the trees. “What is the report?”

    “The Mungonite priest has been spotted.”

    Berosus nodded. “Good. We need to find him before he talks.”

    “I’ve already dispatched men.”

    Berosus looked out at Shim’s fortress. He’d been watching Shim’s army for the past six days, and his orders were to harvest every last one of them.

    It was clear to him this army was sleth. They were using weaves of might, but none were in the pattern of any of the houses of Kains he knew. There were no Guardian Divines, no tethered skir, no Fire sacrifices. There simply were no signs that would indicate an enemy Mother was here, claiming this human herd. But there was the sleth Argoth and his Grove.

    When Berosus had received his orders, he’d been informed by the glorious Mother of Mokad herself that this nest of sleth had killed two Divines and perhaps even one of her sisters. He saw now they were starting to build an army of dreadmen. It was all very impressive for sleth. But their time was at an end.

    He looked down upon the body of Jade. She had solid bone structure, wide hips for bearing children, even teeth. She was good stock. In regular circumstances, she would have grown up to bear many fine children and increase the herd. She would have provided many souls as meat for the Mothers. But she would have been harvested anyway. This outbreak of slethery had to be stopped before it grew too large. A small sleth nest could be useful at times in managing the herd or in attacking another Mother’s holdings. But an army of them would only cause problems. And you couldn’t just kill the leaders. Ideas and knowledge spread like disease. In this situation, it was best to simply destroy them all. 

    Berosus smoothed one side of his long blond moustache and then the other. About him in the woods, his dreadmen kept watch. He’d received message via the weave that bound his chief general to him that the ships with the troops and the other Divines were making good progress. They expected to arrive in just a few days, which gave him just enought time to put himself in place.

    In the distance, banners and wreaths were being hung at the fortress. He thought it fitting: on the morrow, the inhabitants of this land would celebrate the good gifts of the harvest with their annual apple dance feast. In truth, they were only fattening themselves for the real harvest.

    Harvesting humans was essentially the same as harvesting any animal. You gathered them together. Then you killed them. Like many social animals, humans banded together when under threat. Provide the right motivation, and the herd would gather itself.

    “Captain,” he said. “Tomorrow evening at the feast, we set things in motion. You will send in someone with poison. Let him clearly demonstrate our intent.”

    “It will be done, Bright One.”

    Berosus took in a great breath of the sweet air. The day was brisk, the sky sunny and clear. He hoped the sunshine held. It was such fine weather for slaughter.

    ***

    In other news, I was invited to present at The Book Academy conference that will be held at UVU in Orem, UT on Thursday, September 30th. It looks like it’s going to be a great time.

    Date & Time Event Type Area Notes
    Thursday, September 30 Writers conference Orem, UT The Book Academy is a one-day conference designed to give authors, aspiring authors, and avid readers the opportunity to learn more about writing, the publishing industry, and the books they love while networking with other authors, publishing professionals, and book lovers. Classes will be taught by successful authors and publishing professionals on writing basics, publishing, marketing, book clubs, and more.*This year it will be hosted by Utah Valley University. The theme is “Power up your writing.” I’ll be teaching a one-hour class on how to make a good idea great. More details to come.
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  • Who Will Play in The eBook Supply Chain?

    ByJohn Brown

    I was reading this Konrath post by Barry Eisler on the “Attack of the self-publishing memes” in which he argues that there isn’t an inherent conflict of interest for agents to also help authors epub their books. This got me thinking about the steps (tasks) in the current supply chain, who was going to provide them, and where the biggest value lay.

    Here’s the process right now as I understand it from manuscript to reader. The numbers are only task identifiers and don’t represent sequential order in every case, although I did try to sort them that way.

    PAPER CHANNEL TASKS THROUGH BRICK & MORTAR OUTLETS

    SELL MANUSCRIPT TO PUBLISHER
    1. Promote manuscript to editor at publisher
    2. Negotiate contract with publisher

    EDIT MANUSCRIPT
    3. Story edit manuscript
    4. Revise for story edits
    5. Copy edit manuscript
    6. Revise for copy edits

    PREPARE BOOK
    7. Create cover design and art (a marketing/advertising function)
    8. Obtain ISBN
    9. Typeset book
    10. Print book

    MARKET BOOK TO WHOLESALERS, RETAILERS, AND LIBRARIES
    11. Establish book selling hierarchy (lead book, second lead, etc.)
    12. Obtain reviews from trade publications, newspapers, websites, authors, etc.
    13. Create sales catalog and other sales documents
    14. Contact book buyers and promote books (calls, visits, conferences, etc.)
    15. Take orders

    DISTRIBUTE BOOK
    16. Ship to retail outlets and wholesalers
    17. Warehouse book
    18. Process reader purchases & returns

    PROMOTE BOOK TO TARGET AUDIENCE
    19. Publicity, including free copies
    20. Advertising
    21. Co-op display purchases

    SELF-PUB EBOOK AND POD PAPER CHANNEL TASKS

    EDIT MANUSCRIPT
    1. Story edit manuscript
    2. Revise for story edits
    3. Copy edit manuscript
    4. Revise for copy edits

    PREPARE BOOK
    5. Create cover design and art (which you could lump under marketing)
    6. Obtain ISBN
    7. Format book for ereaders and POD services (CreateSpace etc.)

    DISTRIBUTE BOOK
    8. Upload book to retail and library outlets
    9. Warehouse the bytes
    10. Process reader purchases & returns

    MARKET BOOK TO LIBRARIES AND TARGET AUDIENCE
    11. Obtaining reviews from trade publications, newspapers, websites, authors, etc.
    12. Publicity, including free copies
    13. Advertising, including website display etc.

    AUDIO BOOK CHANNEL TASKS
    There are actually two channels here–physical audio books (CDs) and downloads (Audible, etc.).

    I would assume the physical audio would follow the marketing, distributing, and promoting aspects of the paper channel tasks and add in the audio production tasks. Downloadable audio would follow the marketing of the ebooks and add in the audio production tasks.

    THOUGHTS
    I’m sure I’m missing some key steps somewhere. Somebody please supply them if you see gaps.

    As for the future, here’s what I see. The paper channel tasks aren’t going to change much. Nor do I think the people performing the various tasks will either. For example, I just don’t think POD machines are going to catch on in stores and wipe out distributors. They may take out printers (#10) of trade and mass market paperbacks. But I haven’t seen a POD machine that can do hardbacks. Maybe the PODs will move to the retail outlets. But I don’t think so. Somebody disabuse me of the notion.

    However, I do think there will be some interesting developments in the ebook/POD channel.

    Right now a lot of authors are spending time performing tasks 6, 7, and 8. Some literary agencies are wanting to charge 15% forever for those steps with maybe a little cover design. But tasks 6-8 are the tasks that require the least amount of skill and will soon be automated.

    Formatting for ebooks now is like coding html was for webpages 10 years ago–people in the code spending hours tweaking crap. Right now it takes you about a day to learn how to format a novel for the various ebook readers. Once you know how to do it, you’ll spend a day, maybe two, formatting your novel and uploading it. Or you can pay someone else to do it–any responsible teenager will do.

    But within the next year I predict an application coming (if it’s not already here) that will hook into Word and other programs that will make the labor obsolete. Creating a Kindle document will be like creating a PDF document in Word today—you just click Save.

    Uploading could be automated as well across various sites with some application. But it’s fairly easy now.

    So for which tasks are these ebook distributors wanting to charge 15% forever? Obtaining an ISBN?

    I don’t even think they even do that.

    Amazon and the other ebook retailers have a lock on 9 & 10. It would be incredibly hard to dislodge those gorillas. So I think the place where literary agencies and others who want to play in the indie ebook/POD supply chain are going to flourish is in the other tasks that require the most skills–editing, cover art, and marketing, which I’ve marked in blue.

    Authors interested in the indie ebook/POD channel are going to want service providers who can deliver great editing, cover art, and marketing. They’re going to want folks who can help them sell into traditional domestic and foreign paper distribution channels. They’re going to want folks who can help them sell rights to other buyers–audio, film, etc.  And they’re going to want help with their contracts.

    If I were an agency, graphic artist, editor, intellectual rights lawyer, or some other entrepreneur trying to serve indie ebook/POD authors, that’s where I’d spend my time.

    Dystel & Goodrich literary agency recently announced they would do something like this . . . almost.

    Over the past months and years we’ve come to the realization that e-publishing is yet another area in which we can be of service to our clients as literary agents. From authors who want to have their work available once the physical edition has gone out of print and the rights have reverted, to those whose books we believe in and feel passionately about but couldn’t sell—oftentimes, after approaching 20 or more houses—we realized that part of our job as agents in this new publishing milieu is to facilitate these works being made available as e-books and through POD and other editions.

    Right now, you’re thinking, oh, DGLM is going to be another of those agencies that has decided to become an e-publisher and charge clients whose books they can’t sell 50% of their income for the privilege of uploading their work. Some of you may be mumbling, “Uh…that’s a conflict of interest.” We get it and we understand how that can be the perception. However, we have no intention of becoming e-publishers. As we said above, we have too much respect for the work that publishers do and too much respect for the work we ourselves do to muddy the waters in such a way.

    Again, what we are going to do is to facilitate e-publishing for those of our clients who decide that they want to go this route, after consultation and strategizing about whether they should try traditional publishing first or perhaps simply set aside the current book and move on to the next. We will charge a 15% commission for our services in helping them project manage everything from choosing a cover artist to working with a copyeditor to uploading their work. We will continue to negotiate all agreements that may ensue as a result of e-publishing, try to place subsidiary rights where applicable, collect monies and review statements to make sure the author is being paid. In short, we will continue to be agents and do the myriad things that agents do.

    Our intention is to keep on trying to find books we think we can sell to traditional publishing houses, to negotiate the best deal (always), and to give our authors as many options as we can. Because we will continue to be commission-based, we will not be automatically pushing authors into e-publishing. Again, we want to give our authors options and empower them to do what they set out to do all along: have their work read by the largest possible audience

    However, from what I understand they’re not offering to perform the necessary tasks for 15% forever, only the project management of the tasks. Which means the author will still be paying for the editing and cover art and marketing.

    15% forever for project management (a list of to-do’s in this case) and a service provider contact list? Where the author still pays for the editing, cover design and art, and marketing?

    Ummmmm, no.

    Others like D&G will pop up. But the ones that indie authors will eventually go to will be those that deliver on the high-skill tasks for reasonable rates.  Those will be the ones playing in the ebook supply chain of the future.

    Many authors will contract the tasks separately themselves.  But a lot of authors won’t want to do that. They’ll want a one-stop-shop. Or one that does most of it. Some of those one-stop-shops will charge an upfront fee and will probably accept anyone who can pay. Others will make most of their money on a % of the sales to readers and libraries, footing the initial costs of the tasks, and will only work with clients they think will pay out, which if you think about it isn’t really an idie (self-pub) model at all. That’s the space traditional publishers play in right now.

    But in the ebook/POD world distribution is no longer a key barrier to entry for new competitors. And so I expect to see a whole bunch of new publishers coming to play in that space. Those that select, edit, and market well will flourish.

    Meanwhile, I don’t think most of us authors care which road we take and who we play with. Well, as long as they play nice and don’t poop in the sandbox. We just want to get our stories in to the hands of massive numbers of delighted readers.

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