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Publishing

Eighty-nine kinds of BAD IDEA

Just about all of you who read me are very likely people who also read John Scalzi. If you are a Scalzi reader, you’ve probably already seen his post about Hydra, Random House’s new self-pub imprint.

If you haven’t, however, you should go over here and read it. Right now. Note also that he links off to Writer Beware’s post on the same topic.

Executive summary: if you’re an aspiring author, run far, FAR away from these deal terms or anything like them. Don’t let the allure of being published–and believe me, I get it, that’s a REALLY SHINY ALLURE–blind you to contract terms that would completely screw you out of getting any actual money. Go self-pub before you go Hydra. It’d be harder work for you but then you’d actually get to keep your money.

Spread the word. Boost the hell out of this signal.

ETA: Scalzi’s put up a followup post analyzing a contract from Alibi, the sister imprint of Hydra. (Hydra is the SF/F imprint in this clusterfuck, and Alibi is the crime/mystery imprint.) Go read his analysis of the contract terms if you haven’t already. And I reiterate: if you are ever faced with a contract of this nature, SET IT ON FIRE AND THEN RUN AWAY.

Obligatory disclaimer: yes, I’m aware that my current publisher is not an advance-paying publisher, which is the big opening beef Scalzi’s got against this contract. However, I also note that before I signed my contract with Carina, I read the hell out of that contract, and I landed an agent who also understood the contract and who negotiated with Carina on my behalf on the things that could be negotiated upon. And another agent also gave me feedback on what Carina’s contract terms were like, so I understood going in what I’d be doing.

So obviously, I do not have a problem with working with a non-advance-paying publisher. I do have a problem, though, with everything else Scalzi points out about that contract.

March 6, 2013 by
Publishing

Meanwhile, in Category Worst Idea Ever

This afternoon I got the most bogglesome piece of spam I’ve ever received in my life–and the first attempt I’ve ever had flung at me to take advantage of my being an indie author.

The service pitched to me was based around the entire idea of posting your work to their cloud system, that your book would be stored as encrypted data in their proprietary system, and that readers would only be able to get at it via a web browser or via their apps. They would be able to sync content down to be read offline, and the system would be able to keep track of what chapters in the book had been read. All of which sounds like tech that’s already in play for the major ebook vendors.

But the first yellow alert went off when I saw that their first big pitch in the mail was all about putting ads in your ebook, in front of every chapter. That they could be static ads, or even videos!

And yellow alert went straight up to RED ALERT ACTION STATIONS SET CONDITION ONE THROUGHOUT THE SHIP when, upon closer inspection of their email, I saw that they were also trying to pitch the idea of how you could channel your earnings into putting ads about your book in other authors’ books on the system.

I am whomperjawed by this. Because 1) let me assure you, people, My Very First Writing Scam Email is NOT a Writing Milestone I particularly wanted to reach, and 2) the really sad thing here is that I can in fact see that there are people who might try to buy into this service. I can absolutely see the train of thought that might lead an ill-informed writer to making that decision.

But I’m here to tell you, fellow writers, if you ever get flung an email like this, run away. Because you know what I didn’t see in that email pitch? Anything about actually selling your book to readers, or what the royalties earned on those sales would be, or anything of the sort. The emphasis is all on what you would in theory make off the viewing of ads–and on encouraging you to channel earnings into buying ads in other people’s books.

And now, I think I’ll fire off some tweets at Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware and see if she knows about this. ‘Cause I mean, damn.

February 21, 2013 by
Publishing

Indie booksellers sue Amazon, publishers re: DRM

Seeing this news come across the blogs this morning: Indie Booksellers Sue Amazon, Big Six Over E-book DRM. (That’s a Publisher’s Weekly article.) Scalzi has commentary here and Cory Doctorow chimes in over here. Jane of DearAuthor.com, who is in fact a lawyer, has commentary over here.

The long and short of it so far appears to be that while there is a suit to be made against Amazon, this isn’t it. I am nonetheless following this story with interest. As a writer whose available books are all going to be specifically DRM-free (both the self-pubbed ones and the ones from Carina) for the time being, I am absolutely in favor of killing DRM with fire. And as a reader who just bought a second ereader for the express purpose of supporting her local indie bookstore, I’d absolutely like to see it be easier for indie bookstores to sell digital content.

But like some of the commenters on Scalzi’s post, I’m not entirely sure yet what this suit thinks it’s trying to accomplish–it’s unclear as to whether they’re trying to get DRM killed entirely, or whether they want in on the DRM action (I’m not seeing a link yet to the actual suit so I can’t dig into it). Doctorow and Dear Author are both pointing out that the suit’s badly presenting its understanding of the technical aspects of DRM, which is not helping. And from what I’m seeing so far, they’re right.

It’s important to note that the new partnership US indie bookstores can set up with Kobo does tie a customer into a specific ecosystem–i.e., Kobo’s. But that’s ultimately only really a problem if DRM is involved. If DRM is not a factor, and assuming that the content has in fact been cleared for worldwide sale (which IS a different question than ‘does it have DRM on it?’), then the customer can happily buy ebooks from her indie bookstore, other bookstores elsewhere in the country or even the world, Amazon, B&N, wherever the hell she wants. That’s ultimately the place where I’d like to see us get with ebooks, and it’s why I direct a LOT of my ebook purchasing power to support publishers who make a point of selling DRM-free content (assuming of course that they are books I actually want to, y’know, read).

But failing that, I can see an argument for trying to lean on Amazon to either a) back off using an exclusive DRM, or b) allowing indie bookstores access to the Kindle ecosystem.

That, however, I see happening approximately about the same time hell freezes over. So yeah, not sure really what this lawsuit thinks it’s trying to do. I’ll be over here munching popcorn and waiting to see if it figures itself out!

February 21, 2013 by
Other People's Books, Publishing

Dorchester continuing to implode

I suspect that many of you who’ll see this post are already following the fine ladies at Smart Bitches Trashy Books. But in case you aren’t, SB Sarah put up this post today with the last round of what’s been an ongoing saga of WTF from Dorchester, a romance publisher that’s been in severe financial straits.

Dorchester’s been handling this in very strange ways, and the latest round of it is quite alarming, especially if you happen to be an author: many Dorchester authors haven’t been paid royalties for their titles for years now, and others are beginning to report that despite the fact that rights for their works have reverted to them, Dorchester is continuing to digitally sell them as well as offer them for free as Kindle downloads.

This is unacceptable. So if you’re a romance reader, please be on the lookout for Dorchester titles, and avoid buying them if you can. (SB Sarah provides links off to other posts about the topic, and the affected authors she mentions are posting in the comments, asking readers to refrain from buying the freely offered books and instead sit tight until they can provide digital copies that they’re selling themselves.)

October 20, 2010 by