Janny Wurts on Slow Burn in publishing

[Teresa Edgerton]

This part from that same comment stood out for me:

Any thread you go into where people are asking for book suggestions (no matter what type of books the OP asks for) nets basically the same 15 or so suggestions. Maybe one or two slightly different ones. It doesn’t matter what type of story you want, you’re going to get a book by Sanderson suggested to you. Wheel of Time and Game of Thrones might get tossed out, same with Jim Butcher stuff. Don’t like Grimdark? Who cares here comes a Mark Laurence book, and forget about how terrible the first book is, Michael J. Sullivan’s books are going to get sent your way.

Because I see that sort of thing all the time here when someone asks for recommendations. Most of the people posting will reel off a list of their favorite authors even if they don't fit what the original poster was asking for. Instead of thinking hard and looking back into their book reading history for books that might fit, people will recommend what they personally like and are currently reading and think of justifications for why the person asking the question might like it despite the fact that it is exactly the opposite of what they were asking for. That's why I don't read or contribute to the threads where people ask for recommendations anymore. They're too frustrating to read, and I have to use a lot of control to stop myself from (virtually) shouting, "No, no, that's not what they asked for at all."

The monthly reading threads contain recommendations that are far more diverse. But still, for a forum full of enthusiastic readers, you would think we could do better.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I tend to recommend the same stuff because I like it but try not to answer threads where I don't like what the poster wants. If that makes any sense.

 

[ratsy]

Hey just because I have read all of those guys....don't forget Abercrombie and Rothfuss though

 

[Dave]

I see that sort of thing all the time here when someone asks for recommendations. Most of the people posting will reel off a list of their favorite authors even if they don't fit what the original poster was asking for.

At least on Chronicles members are being honest about their views, even if they don't answer the OP's question. My problem is that I have real doubts that most Amazon and Goodreads reviews are honest.

Even where there is some algorithm involved (I'm thinking of TV and Film on Netflix here) the suggestions of what I will like are often wrong.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

But they aren't being honest, Dave, when the question is not "What do you like" but "What will I like, given that I like xx and don't like yy." They aren't trying to deceive, but they aren't giving an honest answer to the question.

And really, they ought to be doing better than the Amazon algorithm, because they can take into consideration what the reader says they want, rather than something that was incidental to the story.

For instance, on Amazon, I ordered a couple of books in a series which, among it's large cast of characters were two gay men who became a couple. It doesn't matter to me if characters are gay; as far as I was concerned that neither added nor detracted from the plot. But Amazon decided that I was a big fan of gay romances. A human being who knew I liked those books and had read them too should respond to what I said I particularly liked about the series.

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

This part from that same comment stood out for me:

Any thread you go into where people are asking for book suggestions (no matter what type of books the OP asks for) nets basically the same 15 or so suggestions. Maybe one or two slightly different ones. It doesn’t matter what type of story you want, you’re going to get a book by Sanderson suggested to you. Wheel of Time and Game of Thrones might get tossed out, same with Jim Butcher stuff. Don’t like Grimdark? Who cares here comes a Mark Laurence book, and forget about how terrible the first book is, Michael J. Sullivan’s books are going to get sent your way.

Because I see that sort of thing all the time here when someone asks for recommendations. Most of the people posting will reel off a list of their favorite authors even if they don't fit what the original poster was asking for. Instead of thinking hard and looking back into their book reading history for books that might fit, people will recommend what they personally like and are currently reading and think of justifications for why the person asking the question might like it despite the fact that it is exactly the opposite of what they were asking for. That's why I don't read or contribute to the threads where people ask for recommendations anymore. They're too frustrating to read, and I have to use a lot of control to stop myself from (virtually) shouting, "No, no, that's not what they asked for at all."

The monthly reading threads contain recommendations that are far more diverse. But still, for a forum full of enthusiastic readers, you would think we could do better.

Well said. That's been my experience here with recs as well.

Or worse, derailing arguments about why the OP should read the exact books they said they didn't want to read in the first place.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I remember when someone asked for recommendations and specifically said they didn't like stories where adults had sex with children.

And sure enough, there were people recommending A Game of Thrones saying (essentially) that, well, there was that one scene, but they were sure the OP wouldn't mind it because that's the way things were back then, and the scene isn't graphic.

That's not the way I remember the scene. And why should someone who didn't like to read about that sort of thing care whether "that's the way they did things back then" anyway? (One might ask, "back when?" since it's an invented history, but that's another subject.)

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Baffling!

 

[Dave]

I remember when someone asked for recommendations and specifically said they didn't like stories where...

I do think the good thing about my wife's Book Club is that they choose genres to read that they are unfamiliar with. Obviously, your example is deliberately extreme and you probably won't convince someone of the joys of reading that, but there are people who say that they never read science fiction, or fantasy, or romance, or classics, or foreign authors, when really those restrictions are just a prejudice they need to overcome.

So, surely recommendations still have to be a good thing, and must be better from people who know you well. Some Chronicles members know each other very well, so maybe people shouldn't ask for, or give recommendations until they know the other person better. Some recommendations here have just been to answer the question, "are there any other books like....?" which I can't really see can go wrong.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Some recommendations here have just been to answer the question, "are there any other books like....?" which I can't really see can go wrong.

And yet it has, many times. Especially when the people giving the recommendations apparently have no idea what books by the authors the OP mentions are actually like. (And the example I gave was not the most extreme I have seen.) It's partly, I think, that they are trying so hard to be helpful, and don't want anyone to go away without a list of recommended books. And they are eager to share their delight in their favorite authors. It's not useful in those circumstances, but it's well-meant.

Of course a lot of the time when people ask for recommendations they are looking for something like Martin, Abercrombie, Rothfuss, Lynch etc. so it all works out. But it doesn't open up any new horizons, or help brand new or obscure writers. It doesn't help the kind of writers Janny Wurts was referring to.

What your wife's Book Club is doing sounds like a good way to open up people's eyes to books they turn out to love but would otherwise never have discovered.

 

[Roy1]

it would help if indie bookstores came on board for the fight though. Foyles, self-styled indie giant, has been stripping out indie presses from their online store since before christmas. that doesn't help exposure at all.

There is an independent press section in Foyles near the Graphic novel and manga stand on the first floor.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

I'm not so sure you can blame the publishers for this change in publishing - unless of course you mean Amazon. The publishers are just riding a wave and if they fall off - well they'll drown too. And while you can blame technology it's really only the enabler.

The fact is in my opinion that this is a movment. A social change we're seeing. Technology and indie publication allows anyone and everyone to write a book. Some good, some bad. It allows a lot of "new and shiny" stuff to arise - stuff that would never once have been permitted by the gatekeepers. And what do you know - people like it. That's the change.

You can't blame the publishers for being less willing to nurture talents. It's not only a case of why should they anymore? It's a case of you'd be a fool to do it. You could nurture a dozen authors and while you're busy nurturing them, a thousand new authors with a thousand new books - and I'm only talking about the brilliant and commercial ones not the hundred thousand crap ones - have come through and you've wasted all that time for no reward. That's very bad for a publisher. They're losing money and market share. And at the same time any of those thousand new authors and their works are a potential gold mine. Should you really expect a publisher to simply ignore them?

Personally I expect this trend to become more extreme, and I don't expect that there's anything that can be done about it. You're witnessing a movement and it's only going to gain ground.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I'm afraid I disagree with much of what you say, Greg. The trend started before ebooks, before Amazon, back when authors who wanted to self publish used vanity presses. The midlist authors were being squeezed out even back then.

Do all these other factors contribute these days? Very likely. But it goes both ways. Books that would have once been published as midlist titles are self-published now because the publishers won't take them. Editors would love to buy them, but sales and marketing departments say no. In 1989, when my first book was published, some SFF imprints were releasing ten new titles a month. Ten. By the time that Amazon came on the scene five years later that number had already dropped significantly. More and more the huge corporations were buying up the smaller corporations that owned the publishers. And the huge corporations wanted books that would sell large quantities and sell them in the first couple of months.

After a while they started demanding electronic rights in our contracts. Non-negotiable they said. SFWA had a few things to say, and they backed down. Probably it was a bluff anyway -- or a way of paying smaller advances, as we negotiated to keep our electronic rights, not because we knew they would be valuable but because we were not quite sure what they would be or what new technologies might come under that heading eventually. It was the uncertainty of what those clauses might mean in the future that worried us. Would it be ebooks (which was a concept some of us hadn't even heard of before the electronic rights fuss) or something yet to be imagined? Publishers didn't know either, so they graciously allowed our agents to strike out that clause. They could wait to insist on it in future contracts when they knew what the rights were really worth. And nobody seemed to be thinking in terms of ebooks facilitating self publishing.

The corporations were already changing publishing and pushing midlist authors out. Ebooks were not the reason. Self-publishing wasn't a factor yet.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

One thing that does strick me, though, is that ebooks and spublishing actually offers back opportunities to build a slow burn career - many authors are quietly going about their business of releasing books, building a following, and doing okay from it. Not remarkably so, not giving up the day job so, but enough to sustain some time to write. Since that's pretty much what a mid-list author could expect, I think it may be that the model has shifted from bookshops - who have started to depress me with their identikit ranges and limited title range, frankly* - to online.

* fifteen years ago local buyers still had sway and publisher reps were still valid. A shop could do well taking its individualised approach, even in big chains. Now, buying is done centrally (apart from some local titles, maybe) and the same 200 books will dominate any sff section. I've been knocking around a few the last couple of months at signings and it mostly goes Abercrombie, Banks, lawrence, Martin, etc etc with so little variation. To find variety, one has to look online so, to find mid-list authors surely online is where its at.

 

[chopper]

yep, but then it doesn't help - as i said back upstream - to have "independent" stores like Foyles stripping out small presses from their online range, presumably because those presses are genre (spit, hack). Roy is probably right that they do still support some indies, but Grimbold Books for example had the door slammed in their face with no explanation.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

yep, but then it doesn't help - as i said back upstream - to have "independent" stores like Foyles stripping out small presses from their online range, presumably because those presses are genre (spit, hack). Roy is probably right that they do still support some indies, but Grimbold Books for example had the door slammed in their face with no explanation.

My guess, and I don't know Foyle's business model as well as some, is that the central buying team were not convinced that the sales from Grimbold would be sufficient to merit a central account. Waterstones in some way have a better model than some as they will purchase small quantity of books from Lightning Source where there is a proven sales base, especially in local stores.

For what it's worth, I think small presses asking for a full stock range or for central buying is largely futile. Much better to establish a trading partnership first. To do that, go for individual titles on a local basis. So your local Waterstones, or authors local to Foyles. What you're seeking from them is the agreement that shops can stock a title on a store by store basis ie it's down to the discretion of the manager - and most local managers, especially of key stores, can probably get that for you. Once that's in place, get it into a couple of stores and hope it sells through. Better to sell out in small quantities than have them sitting with stock (although I have one chain happy to sit with stock for the time being, but that's very supportive of them). Once you've done that a few times, hopefully it'll be automatic replenishment and a couple of other stores might look at it.) and then, if Grimbold books are doing well in several stores, that's the time to hit for central stocking.

In Waterstones, locally, I've sold about 20 copies, and more across the UK through orders. In Easons, I've sold significantly more. When I approached both about Inish they were happy to support it even though it's self published because they can see there is a sales base, and that I have repeat custom (plus it has a local theme.).

So, slowly, slowly catch the bookstore....

 

[psychotick]

Hi Teresa,

I'm sure you're right - but you can't actually blame sharks for behaving like sharks. It's just what they do. However the impact of vanity press would have been relatively small on the decision making of publishers since they printed the books but never put them in book stores. Publishers have simply always been interested in maximising profits.

Ebooks and self publishing massively change the game. An author doesn't have to pay to be published as with vanity press. He has free entry to the market. And what we're seeing now is the result as literally hundreds of thousands of new titles get added to Amazon's shop each year. And yes most of them aren't ready to be published, but enough are and they eat at the profits of the trade publishers. Go to any genre you like on Amaon and look at the top say fifty and you'll find that perhaps half of them are indie works. The last check I did was just over forty percent. This hurts the publishers. It makes their environment much more competative, and the bigger sharks eat the little ones as fast as they can. Nothing too unusual there.

But publishers also have to cut costs, and that's where the midlisters get eaten. Once, in a less competative market, maybe they could have afforded to nurture writers for longer - give themselves enough rope to hang themselves as they say. But that's downtime and dead money in a market where their competitors are stealing everything they can find. So the amount of rope if you'll excuse the mataphor, that a publisher is willing to extend to a new talent has become much, much shorter. And the reasoning is simple. Not are they only losing market share and money, but why should they nurture new writers at all when they can simply troll the best sellers in each genre, spot the indies, and pick them up? It makes better financial sense for them to take an already successful writer and do the final polish than it does to take an unknown talent. Witness Amazons new imprints as a perfect example.

This is a trend that I suspect is only going to grow.

As for bookstores, again the large will swallow up the small. That's again simply market forces in action. And now I understand some bookstores are able to print. That means you go to the store, browse the catalogue, say I'll have this one please, and they can print it in front of you. I expect this trend to continue too - and that will probably seal the fate of most trade publishers. After all why should a bookstore only stock trade published books if they can print anything and have customers who want anything? I think the Harvard bookstore is leading the charge here, but there are others.

As I say this is a movement and it won't be stopped. People, authors and publishers, simply have to learn how to ride the wave.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[chopper]

...
So, slowly, slowly catch the bookstore....

oh i agree absolutely. i can't help thinking that the stores are not exactly helping themselves sometimes - all well and good to jump through all their hoops, but it doesn't bring the bookstores any closer to the community or the creators...

 

[Jo Zebedee]

oh i agree absolutely. i can't help thinking that the stores are not exactly helping themselves sometimes - all well and good to jump through all their hoops, but it doesn't bring the bookstores any closer to the community or the creators...

Couldn't agreee more. There are some chains more proactive than others (Easons are a good example) but the creation-bookstore chain has been broken, or at least has contracted, and I'm not sure anyone knows how to fix that. Especially when I'm as likely to sell a book to someone in Nevada as from thrity miles down the road.

 

[MWagner]

Books that would have once been published as midlist titles are self-published now because the publishers won't take them. Editors would love to buy them, but sales and marketing departments say no. In 1989, when my first book was published, some SFF imprints were releasing ten new titles a month. Ten. By the time that Amazon came on the scene five years later that number had already dropped significantly. More and more the huge corporations were buying up the smaller corporations that owned the publishers. And the huge corporations wanted books that would sell large quantities and sell them in the first couple of months.

But there's a reason those small and mid-sized publishers got taken over by big corporations: they were already struggling to make money. They couldn't compete with the bigger publishers that could exploit economies of scale. A small publisher today run the way publishers were run 25 years ago would not make money.

This sea change is not confined to publishing. The 'mid-list' is dead in movies, in music, and in videogames. Instead, we have a two-tier model of creative business: an enormous amount of new, cheap, and unvetted material created by amateurs flooding into the market, and out of those a very small number of mega-hits. As someone who enjoys the mid-list (in fiction, movies, music, and videogames), this new model is unwelcome. But we can't lay it all at the feet of big bad corporations. To some extent, the new model reflects that desires and choices of today's creators and audience.

And for writers, the upside is the accessibility of the new model. Not only are a lot of new authors getting published, but more people than ever are aspiring to be writers. Our local convention for aspiring SF&F writers has over 300 attendees. And this in a city of 1 million. Four years ago it had under 200 attendees. 25 years ago (if someone had even thought to hold such a convention) I doubt it would have attracted more than 20 or 30 people. So far more people creating, and fewer of them hitting the jackpot.