I had a lot of marvelous, thoughtful comments on last week’s blog. I didn’t respond, in part because I was extremely busy this past week, but mostly because I would have been expressing my opinion on the commenter’s life and career choices. I try not to do that, particularly in public.
We’re all different, and because of the new world of publishing, we all have choices like we’ve never had before. As writers, we choose what’s best for us and our circumstance, and that’s our business.
I was stating mine last week: I write this blog for writers who want to make a living at writing or what I called career writers.
Some of the comments, in combination with things I’ve seen in the mainstream press over the past few months, got me thinking. One commenter on another website said something along the lines of “Rusch doesn’t know how many writers are making a living these days.”
That commenter was right: I don’t. Neither does the commenter. We both know that the number of writers making a living at writing is tremendously higher than it was just five short years ago. I’m guessing, but I believe the number is also higher than it was ten or fifteen years ago.
But looking at the percentage of writers who have written something who are now making a living gives an added perspective, at least for me. I suspect—and again, I don’t have the numbers (I’m not sure anyone does)—that the percentage of writers who are now making a living out of the pool of existing writers is about the same as the percentage of writers who made a living at it in the previous two Golden Ages of fiction writing (at least in the US): the 1950s and (weirdly) the 1930s.
What happened in both of those time periods was an increase in venues for work, due to a change in forms. In the 1920s and 1930s, the rise of the pulp magazines increased the number of paying markets so quickly that writers (like Frederik Pohl, who died this week) sometimes wrote entire issues of the pulps all by themselves.
In the 1950s, the rise of the paperback gave a lot of writers the opportunity to publish and make a living, writers who hadn’t had that chance before. New markets, new publishing houses, new everything.
The 1950s boom ended in a severe distribution crisis. The 1930s ended with paper drives caused by the war. (I’m simplifying in both cases.)
In other words, serious change happened that had an impact on the ways that writers made a living at writing.
Now, we’re seeing the same thing. The rise in indie publishing—or rather, the return of indie publishing (it was really big a century ago as well: we wouldn’t be reading Edgar Rice Burroughs, Frank L. Baum, or Virginia Wolfe without self-publishing/indie publishing)—has given writers who never could or could no longer get traditional book deals the opportunity to publish their books. And not just publish them, but do so in a way that will get a wide audience as well as allow the writer a creative freedom she hasn’t had in the past.
This change—the rise of the internet and ecommerce—is hitting all of the arts, and doing so in a variety of ways. The music industry went through it first, and in some aspects, the television/movie industry is just starting into it. It’s so much easier to produce a film now than it ever was—I can do so from my computer in my tiny office if I want to. Distribution is easier too, thanks to places like iTunes and YouTube and a variety of other services I know nothing about.
The changes are happening so fast, especially in our publishing neck of the woods, that it’s head-spinning. Yesterday, Amazon announced its new bundling service, MatchBook, which I’m grateful for as a reader.
Just last week, I bought an ebook version of a book I already owned in hardcover because my old eyes didn’t want to look at the tiny print, and the damn hardcover would have made a better doorstop than reading material. I didn’t want to sit at a table to read it, heavy as it was, but I’m happy to own it. I like having this author’s books in hardcover. I just happened to read her last two in ebook. 🙂
I know I’m not alone in this, and I do hope that the bigger publishers sign onto this program. I’ll be urging my publishers to do so as well.
In the trades this week, there’s talk of subscription services like Spotify or Netflix for ebooks. We’ll see if readers go for that. I think pricing will be an issue.
But I can guarantee you this: When we look back on this blog post six months from now, we’ll all frown and mutter to ourselves: Really? Those two things were happening at the same time? Or we’ll say: That was only six months ago? It feels so five years ago.
I’m about to enter a business venture with a writer who is always on the cutting edge of any new publication and any new trend. He mentioned in e-mail that what we’re going to do will probably only last a year or two before becoming passé, so the time to jump on that bandwagon is now. I completely agree, and so we’re jumping, even though we’re both busy as hell.
We recognize the patterns: everything is moving quickly, and we’re going to try as much of it as we can before it changes. We don’t know what impact one change will have on the rest of the industry. We also don’t know what will stay and what will disappear after a few months.
No one does, in any of the entertainment industries.
For example, Wednesday’s The Hollywood Reporter had an article about the changes in the network television pilot season, brought on by cable and Netflix. Apparently, the number of drama pilots offered to the television networks was way down this year, caused by the changes in the way that consumers are watching dramas.
One reason for this is that there are so many dramas already in production that the go-to people, (show runners, producers, and established writers) are already working and don’t have time for something new.
But there are other reasons, listed in my favorite part of the article:
Many writers who are available often are more interested in chasing their own passion projects a la Breaking Bad or House of Cards, say several top agents. Plus, a cable drama doesn’t have to compete against 50 to 70 other hourlong entries in development the way it would in broadcast — and once on the air, the likelihood of survival is considerably greater. Even the traditional advantage network executives have had in being able to promise financial rewards far greater than their cable cousins has slipped with what some are dubbing the “Netflix effect,” referring to the streaming service’s willingness to shell out big money, straight-to-series orders and limited creative interference — a combination against which ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC often can’t compete.
Sound familiar? Writers like the control. Hmmm…
Of course the big networks won’t go away, and they’ll find something else to fill the hole left by the drama pilots, or maybe they’ll go back to developing their own content like they did when I was a kid. But that’s in flux, due to the technology, just like everything else.
And since I’m looking at other forms of entertainment right now, there’s this:
Tuesday’s Los Angeles Times had a fascinating article about the entertainment company, Prospect Park, which had a dream of saving soap operas by continuing them online. Soap operas got their start in radio, and got their name because they “sold soap”—in other words, they sold a lot of advertising.
My mother, born in 1918, listened to soap operas on the radio starting when the soap operas did, and followed them to the new medium of television in the 1950s. If she were alive today, she’d probably be watching online.
But the fascinating thing to me, the writer trying to survive in the new world of publishing, isn’t the history of soap operas, it’s the struggle that Prospect Park is still having in finding the right way to sell the soap operas to the online market.
Going from radio to television meant learning how to have action in soap operas, not just a lot of dialogue and dramatic music. Going from television to online is causing some changes as well. As The LA Times reported:
The producers determined they had miscalculated audience willingness to follow the shows to the Web. They also decided shows had to be shorter, move faster and be available in multiple episodes for binge viewing. They had tried to be more like a TV network, but they realized they had to be more like video service Netflix. And instead of letting stories unfold slowly, over months or even years, they had to write crisp story lines with a distinct beginning, middle and end.
In all of the entertainment industries, it’s about experimentation, and a new learning curve, bringing an old model to a new format.
Commenters like the one I mentioned above say that I don’t know how many writers are now making a living at writing, and I don’t. I also don’t know how many writers will want to keep at the writing career over years and decades. I also don’t know how many of those writers will suffer when something—and I don’t know what—has some kind of impact on the way those writers are doing business.
One thing I do know is that big traditional publishers haven’t died. In fact, they’re reporting record profits even though their book sales are down. Why is this? Because of the terrible deals that publishers offered writers—and which writers took—when e-books became a force five years ago.
Instead of splitting the e-book revenue 50/50 as a subsidiary right (like other subsidiary rights), or paying for e-books based on the cover price the way that publishers do on print books, publishers offered—and writers agreed—to 25% of net (with net usually undefined). That means that publishers are getting a lot of profit on ebooks, even when the sales decline. You can see the effects of this in the Publisher’s Weekly article I linked to above, when you look at the comparison between sales and earnings in the digital sphere in almost all of these companies. You see the phrase “digital accounted for (%) of revenue” over and over again, and that percentage is generally higher than the year before even when digital sales went down.
Big publishers are still searching for the best way to make money. Most of them are confused by the new products coming in like the subscription services. In fact, one online publishing trade journal characterized the Wall Street Journal’s take on this as “The Folly of Netflix for books.”
Right now, traditional publishing has taken the position that everything new is threatening and/or wrong for books. And that attitude is familiar. The music industry had the same attitude years ago.
The real key for those of us in publishing is that we don’t know what we don’t know. And we won’t know it for a while. Seriously. We’re all expounding on what will work, what won’t work, what might work, what everything is going to be like fifteen years from now, and we don’t know.
The fact that we don’t know and can’t predict what the landscape will look like after all this disruptive technological change became really clear to me a few weeks ago, when I read an article in Entertainment Weekly. Titled, “How The Music Industry Saved Itself,” the article looks at the assumptions the industry made way back when, and the reality that has hit since. (Right now, EW expects you to buy the issue, which is the August 2, 2013 edition, so I can’t link to the article.)
We all know that the music industry got nailed by the digital revolution. This article claims that album sales went from 785 million in 2000 to 326 million in 2010. But now, in 2013, “stability is resting comfortably on the horizon” because of the growth in market share for digital music and “the explosion of streaming.” More than 50 billion songs were streamed this year in part because of event albums.
The advent of stability seems so…well… stable that the article’s author Kyle Anderson feels comfortable in giving rules for the new music industry.
They are:
1. Give Away A Little, Get Back A Lot
2. Offer Options
3. Embrace Even Older Technology
4. Work Outside The System
5. Don’t Be Like Kanye
Anderson compares what the industry believed ten years ago to what it now knows. For example, he takes on the “free” controversy this way:
When the MP3 became public enemy No. 1, the assumption was that if you offered any music for free, the buying public would never again pony up for an album. But music fans respond to getting an advance taste for free. A number of high-profile artists…made their new albums available as free streams a week before the release dates, and they all enjoyed a significant first-week sales bump over their previous releases.
Notice that this was a free stream. Only the most dedicated could actually figure out a way to keep the album. If you liked it, you had to buy it.
Which brings us to his second point—options—which I fight new indie writers about all the time.
He writes:
For years, industry executives assumed that people only wanted their music one way, but actually they’re happy to diversify their intake—a streaming subscription here, a handful of iTunes downloads there, and yes, even good old-fashioned CDs.
Not only that, but his third point—embrace older technology—goes to the heart of book publishing. He’s talking about vinyl, which has seen a nearly 4 million piece growth in the past five years, but he could easily be talking about hardcovers or maybe even collectible books. And, you’ll note, that the labels are offering vinyl and a free download of the music as a single package. Sounds like MatchBook, doesn’t it?
Working outside the system is about innovative ways of marketing the music, through apps, through mixtapes, and so on. All creative, all different. And that’s what we’re facing in the publishing industry. All kinds of different choices—some of which will work, some won’t, and some which will work for a while.
The last point—don’t be like Kanye—was about how Kanye West refused to adopt the industry’s new model. For his latest album, he did almost no appearances (very important in music), and had no advance streaming or preorders. As a result, his first-week sales were at a career low for West, and went down 80% in the second week.
Essentially, Kyle Anderson’s point is that the internet, digital downloads, and the availability of all kinds of music broke the music industry and then remade it. The music industry is far enough ahead of publishing that the music industry actually has some long-term data on what works and what doesn’t. The rate of change has slowed. The music industry now believes it’s in the new normal.
The publishing industry isn’t stable yet. We’re still in the disruption part of the cycle. We won’t stabilize for a few years at best.
Until then, I think the only pronouncements we as writers in the industry can make is that we don’t know what we don’t know. And what we do know is that things will change.
We have to pay attention. We can’t assume that what we’re doing today will work tomorrow.
I think the biggest takeaway from the articles about other media that I’ve mentioned here is that consumers want choices. And, like the artists themselves, the consumers want control over those choices. They want TV dramas on demand so that they can binge-watch and they want once-per-week appointment television. They want streaming music and vinyl albums. They want hardcover books and ebooks.
They might even want never-ending print stories that mimic the soap operas of old. Serials, as the pulps called them.
We don’t know.
Someday, someone will be able to say that stability is on the horizon for the publishing industry, just like Anderson did this summer for the music industry. But that day is still years off. If we follow music’s trajectory, we won’t see stability on the horizon until 2022, thirteen years from the start of the disruption.
Until then, to misquote Margo Channing from All About Eve, “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”
This blog came into being in part because you guys asked me to continue The Freelancer’s Survival Guide, only focused on the publishing industry. Since things were changing so quickly, I figured a weekly blog was a good way to figure out what was happening.
I don’t know if I’ve figured anything out except that the most unexpected things work in the most unexpected ways. I do know that this blog takes time from my novel writing (about 2 books per year’s worth!), so I want the blog to fund itself.
So, if you learned anything or got anything out of a past blog, please leave a tip on the way out.
“The Business Rusch: We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know” copyright © 2013 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
Hopefully I’m not overstaying my welcome in the comments section but I, too, am very (dare I say intensely) curious what you and your friend are planning that is a short-term opportunity (relatively — you spoke of a year or two window before it would become passe). My great writerly ambition is multi-threaded stories (with some transmedia elements added in). I just finished a new release that ended a serial and of course some readers hated the last installment. I want a labrythine app for each story with push notifications and ability to purchase new “levels” — which could be alternate endings, etc. You don’t buy a book, you buy a world and, like Frazetta with his paintings, a story of mine isn’t finished until I say it is.
You’ve covered a lot of ground here, Kris. Very interesting stuff some of which I had never heard before.
My take on us indies is we are still in such early days where everything is going to land and who will be left standing is unclear. These subscription services appear to be the “new” hot thing which will probably have many imitators. The reality is subscription services are not new at all but I’m concerned as an indie publisher how the royalties will be divided. I expect the devil will be in the details in the contracts. Something to watch. If you would do a blog on this topic down the road I and no doubt others would very much appreciate your views on the overall topic as it evolves.
Thanks again for the great information.
A couple of weeks ago, I posted on Baen’s Bar that the urgency of advocacy on Fred Pohl’s blog augured bad news of his health.
Tuesday night I responded to his death on The Bar and in a discussion of a new indie-published writer announcing his new work, comparing the hundreds of pulp markets & pb original slots for writers in the ’30s and ’50s as you highlighted above, Kris.
Both the paper shortage and the distributor crash restricted the print-medium’s effective range. One only need examine the range-size to body-size to understand the mathematical laws of biology that govern dwarf-mammoths on islands.
As a reader, I prefer tree-books over e-books but as a consumer I prefer options.
Corporate consolidation restricts my options while indie-publishing increases them.
I predict more dwarf-mammoths among the archipelagos.
JJB
Love the analogy, JJ. 🙂 Thanks.
Regarding serialization, the most popular stories on the free erotica stories are the never ending long serials. So the audience is there, at least in one genre. At least one writer is making a decent profit by rolling out chapters once/week for free while offering the entire thing for pay. So if you get hooked and want to binge, you can for a small fee. If you’re patient, you can get a new chapter on a regular schedule.
I was just talking to an actor friend two weeks ago and he was talking about how content providers were in the driver’s seat. So many A list actors are doing tv and cable tv because that is where most of the good writing is.
Then we spoke about the netflix and amazon prime streaming for movies and shows, and he was really on me about getting aggressive about a script adaptation of one of my books.
To these rookie eyes, it looks like content providers are in the best position we could possibly be in. It’s being new to this and knowing how to be at the front of the trends that gets to me. I’m concentrating on getting to the 20 book milestone, but trying not to get tunnel vision and miss out on opportunities that might make my career jump.
Every time I read your posts (and often Laura’s and other’s responses) I’m reminded of just how much I don’t know. Sometimes I find it a little unnerving trying to build a career on top of shifting ground, so is it still a wise thing to just concentrate on ‘writing the next book’? Because that’s essentially all I’ve been doing at this point.
Always write the next book, Ramon. That’s the only thing we can be sure of, imho.
Unknown unknowns. Are you channeling Donald Rumsfeld?
I was thinking about how the conventional wisdom on self-publishing keeps shifting, and realized that “conventional” in this context means like Worldcon: It’s in a different place every year.
I also wonder if at least part of self-publishing’s future won’t involve groups of authors joining together to form organizations/communities that fall somewhere between solo self-publishing and traditional publishers. The strength and success of such groups would largely depend on the combined reputation and professionalism of the members. (Book View Cafe — and, in a smaller way, you and Dean — is kind of like this already, isn’t it?) I can foresee such groups, if successful enough, eventually hiring a managing editor and other staff to handle the scutwork of publishing (design, marketing, etc.), moving somewhat in the direction of traditional publishing again. The historical example might be back in the wild-and-wooly early days of the Hollywood movie industry, when Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford, et al., formed United Artists.
Bruce, Dean and I actually started another traditional publishing company. WMG is 100% old-fashioned in the new world, using new techniques. And we are part-owners, not employees. So we’re not in that model, although the company is writer-based. So maybe we are new. I don’t know. 🙂 But Book View Cafe is a different entity, a commune–more or less–of like-minded authors, trading information and time and services. Also a new/old model. I think we’ll see a lot of those. Some will work, and some will be unrecognizable in 50 years–like United Artists. 🙂
Good points all.
Bruce, a good contemporary example of what you are talking about with indie author organizations/publishers would be co-ops like The Indie Voice (dotcom) for romance. They formed an LLC, did .99 box set of something like 6 authors, hit NYT/USA today. I know another group with less high-profile authors (but still far above me) that did it (sans LLC I believe) with 5 authors and also hit at least USA Today. (I do think the phenomenon might dilute the value of hitting NYT/USA – but it’s a pretty powerful tool that indies have right now for gaining visibility, adding accolades, and maybe (particularly when the books are first in series) significantly boosting backlist while the box set is riding high.)
I get anxious about all this as a knee-jerk reflex… until I have a reality check by recalling my 20+ years of constant struggle in traditional publishing. In my first 20 years in the biz, at least 7 book publishers either dumped me or folded under me; most of them after 1-2 books. I was always dealing with canceled contracts, folded companies, broken promises, obliterated expectations. I was ALWAYS looking for work and trying to recoup from losses like that. And since writing has been my full-time, self-supporting living throughout my career, these incidents weren’t just blows to my “ego” or my career, they were blows to my ability to pay my bills, so I spent most of those 20 years scrambling, scrimpling, worried about money, calling Marty Greenberg (the legendary packager, RIP) to ask for work, etc.
And I realize, oh, wait, ANY changes in the industry are better for me than the way things WERE all those years.
Just self-publishing my backlist (which I’m still in the process of doing) accounted for 1/3 of my income last year and was a key factor in my being able to buy a house in October.
I can write and EARN FROM any frontlist I want to write, for the rest of my career; whereas I could never before afford to write more than a proposal, since I couldn’t afford to spend real time on something I wouldn’t be PAID for, and the old system allowed VERY FEW options for me to be paid. Self-publishing has changed all that.
The rise of small and mid-size presses, as production and distribution become less and less expensive, has also increased my options for getting work and getting paid. As has the growing market for affordable audio books and the drastically reduced costs of producing and distribution audio, including the fast-rising custom of writers producing their -own- audio via programs like ACX. Crowdfunding options like Kickstarter now make it possible for us to get funding for new ventures from a wide variety of sources, which was never the case before.
I keep reminding myself that for all that I have no idea what’ll happen tomorrow or next year or 5 years from now, and I am even pretty confused and overwhelmed by what’s happening today… I am a content provider. And a good story, well told, is the basis of all these formats and distribution channels.
So what I think about these days is how to double or triple my output, as well as how to explore more distirbution channels and formats, because the one key thing has NOT changed (content is still needed, and I’m a content provider), and THE key thing HAS changed: publishers can no longer bottleneck the market or control my ability to earn income from my writing.
Great post, Laura. Thanks!
Interesting times indeed. This is the first I have heard of Kindle Matchbook. I should be able to take advantage of this to obtain Kindle versions of several of your works that I purchased through them. Hopefully Amazon Marketplace purchases will be included with this, as I have sometimes purchased books there as well.
My books will be in the service, Dave. It’ll just take some time to get them enrolled. Thanks!
I find the notion of serialization intriguing. I am presently working my way through a story cycle, originally drafted in 1500-word chunks in email as skits, pastiches, etc. It could be seen as a never-ending story. The book-length chunks I’m planning to break it into are almost arbitrary and have more to do with the yardage than any structure of the story, the novelization being imposed after the fact, as it were.
Any thoughts as to what I’d have to do to my web site to make a streaming serial available to plug an ebook (and eventually paperback) for sale on Amazon, B&N, Kobo, et al?
M
I don’t know. Does anyone else?
Can I playfully suggest that Kris, after doing a podcast with Platt/Truant/DaveWhoseLastNameICan’tRememberAndFeelBadBecauseThisFactCameUpInARecentPodcast, should get spanked for not mentioning them as someone to look at for seeing how serials are done? 😀 I write steamy romances, so suggesting spankings in good humor is second nature at this point. 😀
🙂 There’s so much I could say, and I…won’t. 🙂
When I answer comments, I do it on the fly, so I almost never link or mention anything because I’m an airhead. I usually have to check things two or three times before I actually get the details right.
Two very successful serializer/ebookers are at mcahogarth.com and starwalkerblog.com
Thanks, Liana. I will go and see what I can learn.
On further consideration, I’m imagining that the trick is to make the content (in my case a serial novel) available on a free-sample basis (only in full, rather than in excerpts), while at the same time making it easier to just go buy the thing. You may be able to make it impossible to select the text and save it out. I’ve seen sites where that was done. (May not be desirable, but it’s a starting point.) If one then provides links to Amazon, et al, there you go.
But let me see what I can learn.
M
Mark — google Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant (horror serials with several partners, who also are awesome but these two have the easiest to remember names) and Sara Fawkes (erotic romance) for popular serials. You’ll probably find other serials in the alsoboughts of these authors.
There are a great many ways to do serials (and those two will give you two different ways). I don’t like to do massive #s of installments and have been sticking to 3 in the serial. First book in serial releases at 2.99 and stays that way until some time after #2 releases (monitor sales to see when you’re loosing steam and jeopardizing #3 having an audience) and goes free around the time #3 releases. #2 goes at 2.99 and stays there, #3 may launch at .99 for a few days for dedicated readers (usually mail list subscribers) and to enhance discoverability (I just launched #3 on Saturday at .99 and cracked top 1000 (best was 816 so far) on Amazon and top 700 (6##) on B&N (not much of a feat, actually — maybe ranking or reporting is broken because it too far less than I thought). I’ll flip it to 2.99 after midnight Monday.
I don’t give anything more than short excerpts on my site. Free should (IMO) be where they are a click away from the buy button on paid content — so in the store where you can keep good metrics, get reviews in the store’s ecosystem, show up in alsoboughts, chart in genres, etc. If you give that full free first installment on your site, you’re hurting in-store discoverability by seriously diluting the # of in-store reads you get.
But, anyway, check out Platt/Truant/Fawkes for some good examples.
Thanks for saying this, Kris! Earlier this week, I did a promotion interview for a trad anthology one of my stories is in. I was afraid I was coming off flippant when I said things are changing so fast that any advice I’d give a new writer could be totally irrelevant tomorrow.
I’m always careful to say that these days when I’m being interviewed. My advice might be outdated in hours!
Very nice description anticipating the disruptive events to new normal curve for publishing. Let’s enjoy the ride.
The hint about your edgy new project without telling us what it might be is intriguing, so that worked. I’m keeping an eye out.
Streaming e-book services? Amazon is doing that with rentals on a limited basis with Prime, but one borrow a month isn’t enough for me.
Finally, are writers making a living? Well, I don’t know either. But there was a time some years back when the writers in Hollywood went on strike. Hollywood was hard-nosed and didn’t hire them back. We were (and still are) treated to an avalanche of inane reality shows. Now Hollywood can’t get writers to work on network drama because they are gainfully employed elsewhere in TV’s new normal.
Great post, right on the money.
Kathryn, I’ve been thinking a lot about that strike the last few years. It was really prescient on the part of screenwriters. Too bad book writers never stood up for themselves. And then there was a strike about online $$s… It’s amazing how things change. 🙂 Thanks for the comment.
Thanks, Kris, Really interesting, as always. I am trad published in the UK, Germany, Russia, etc., but also self-publish in North America and elsewhere. Hands down, indie publishing is more fun. If you want to try something new, you just do it. There’s no special pleading, no running into ‘we don’t do that,’ or the host of other obstacles you get from working with a big publisher.
I’ve made stories free to readers in developing countries via Worldreader, and I’m launching a new middle grade series with the help of Wattpad, who’ll be serializing it before it goes on sale. It’s a blast!
While many of us are fixated on the bottom line, we should never underestimate the sheer joy that many of these changes have brought to authors, and readers.
You’re right, this is a golden age. We should enjoy it.
Sounds wonderful, Sean. I’m not familiar with Worldreader or Wattpad. Looks like some things to investigate. Thanks!
Wattpad is fun – though it’s not a sales platform. At heart, it’s a site where people can post up their works-in-progress and get feedback. It’s primarily teens, though the site now has adult sections and plenty of older readers.
I find it’s a great way to connect with readers – for my YA pen name. So far, I haven’t put any of my romance there at all. 🙂 YMMV
Good to know, Anthea. Thank you!
I really am in the wrong business, arent I? I should be making movies, TV shows or music instead of writing fiction! lol
If we didn’t sleep, we’d have time to do it all. Oh, wait, that’s a Nancy Kress idea. 🙂
I was at a viewing of the recent film “Mush Ado about Nothing” that Jos Wheton produced, and while it takes someone with his name and contacts to get the result into the mainstream theaters, whe way he did it says a lot.
He was scheduled to take a week’s vacation after filming wrapped on the Avengers.
Instead, he called up friends, and in that week, in his house, using three cameras (two of which were very high end digital video cameras, but one of which is a Canon 5D mk III DSLR still camera with some video capabilities which sells for $4K on amazon), he filmed the movie.
He then had a friend load some video editing software and music software on his laptop, and in the following weeks he edited Avengers during the day in the studio with professional equipment and Much Ado about Nothing in the evening on his laptop, and composed the music for the movie (after learning how to use the new software).
no, this wasn’t a blockbuster, and he was able to get a lot of good people to work cheap, but if you saw this on the big screen you would not have had any idea how cheaply it was put together.
Yeah, I’m familiar with that, David, and I love it. He’s used alternate media before, like Dr. Horrible. Great stuff.
Kris, I find the “We don’t know what we don’t know,” thing oddly uplifting. I’m part of a new author-founded and author-driven romance and women’s fiction imprint called Montana Born Books (from new author-founded, author-driven publisher Tule Publishing Group) that is launching with our first title next week.
We don’t know if this venture is going to fly… but neither does anyone else, and all we can do is what we’re already doing – go in as strong and savvy as we can and stay nimble on our publishing feet.
Love the way so many of us are doing this, including you.
Thanks, Lilian. I find not-knowing very freeing, since I’ve always fought conventional wisdom anyway. (Adults of 3-year-olds hate “why”? and I seem to be a perpetual 3-year-old. Why can’t we do that? Who said? 🙂 )
Laughing, and having flashbacks to my four erstwhile three-year-olds. I *tried* to answer all those whys, I really did.