Why Almost Everyone Is Pissed About Harlequin

It seems there’s some confusion about why just about everyone in the professional world of writing is up in arms about Harlequin’s decision to create a vanity press imprint (Harlequin Horizons). I thought the reasons were fairly clearly spelled out by the RWA (Romance Writers Association), the MWA (Mystery Writers Association), and the SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association). Seems I was wrong (a lot of really idiotic, ignorant stuff is being said in support of Harlequin right now, which will shock most people with a conscience). So, I’m going to spell it out for you to make it damned clear, with a few curse words for effect. The ScamFirst off, Harlequin is starting what is called vanity publishing, which is even worse than self-publishing because it gets the whole production model wrong: the author pays someone else to put together and print their work, then the printer keeps a part of the profits. There’s a reason why vanity publishers are so hated by almost everyone except the naive and the stupid. They are perpetual liars on a scale that most politicians would be astonished by, and they have to be, because they essentially are selling services to people that don’t need them, and fucking people out of their hard-earned money. Likewise, vanity presses often can’t meet the quality that professional third parties or traditional publishers put out. So they lie. A lot. They flower up everything they say about their services and wannabe-writers flock in and drop off their money to be handed a mediocre product that they can’t even sell enough of to make back what they put into it. This is what Harlequin is doing, right down to the lying and flowering bits. Does it seem logical why the RWA, MWA, SWFA, authors, et. al. are pissed off? Here we have a major publisher joining in on the author scamming, and thinking that somehow it’s right. The Lie and the Corporate MindfuckHarlequin has really sold themselves on the idea that they’re doing something wonderful. After all, publishing is changing, right? All them blasted writers organizations who are there to make sure authors don’t get fucked over by scam agents, etc. are just part of some out-of-date old people’s cling to the past, right? Wrong. They exist to protect writers on numerous levels. But Harlequin thinks otherwise. They think that vanity publishing is the wave of the future. That’s right. They think something that has been around longer than POD, that has been scamming and fucking people over for decades is the wave of the future. Something sound fishy? It should, because we’ve heard similar BS before. The difference between what Lulu does and what Harlequin is going to do is that Lulu doesn’t lie to you. It tells you right up front: you’re self-publishing, and you can do it for free, or buy some of our packages, and we keep a little cut (a real little cut, actually). Harlequin is saying this: you’ll pay us shitloads of money and we’ll print your book, and, oh, by the way, maybe we’ll pick it up for the regular imprints too (we won’t really), the ones that get in bookstores and sell lots of books, oh, and you’ll have the Harlequin brand on it (but it will be worth crap), so it’ll be worth moneys, and, oh, we won’t tell you that your book won’t be edited by our professional editors (because it probably won’t), so we’ll just let you pretend it does. To be fair, they changed one of those, now, since the new imprint won’t say Harlequin in the name, but that’s really irrelevant at this point. Harlequin is doing everything they can to paint this whole thing up like it’s the golden beacon of publishing wonders, when it isn’t. The closest you can get to that are POD services like Lulu or Createspace, who do a damned good job not pretending to be what they are: places that profit off selling a few copies of a lot of different books, while still giving you a cut and not charging you up the ass for services. Lulu and Createspace have latched onto a brilliant method of printing books that traditionally publishers (with exception to many small presses) have yet to see value in. But that’s not what we’re here to talk about… The SFWA and friends are pissed about this because it’s damn obvious what’s going on: Harlequin is trying to make a profit off of its slush pile at the expense of a whole lot of innocent authors who don’t know any better, all while doing very little to make clear what all of that entails. Which is this:–You’ll pay a lot to get it printed.–It won’t be in bookstores.–It won’t sell many copies.–Unless you’re the luckiest damned person alive, it won’t get picked up by a major publisher because most, if not all, publishers won’t touch it with a 200 mile pole.–You’ll be broke.–Nobody will actually edit your work, and if someone does, it won’t be edited very well. –You’ll be raped by the stigma associated with self-publishing in general, and more specifically the kind attached to vanity publishing (a much less lovable version of the anti-self-publishing vitriol). Harlequin is literally like healthcare companies who profit off of sick people, making the whole thing super shiny with a nice bow and a whole lot of B.S. to sell it to the masses. The SFWA and friends have rightly called them out for it. They’re pissed because they believe that authors should be paid, and not the other way around. And it’s a good thing to be pissed about. They don’t like seeing authors getting screwed any more than the rest of us. Harlequin’s attempts to do everything it can to screw authors is getting everything it deserves for it. These are the reasons why the SFWA, RWA, MWA, and most anyone with a conscience are pissed off. It’s not because Harlequin is cashing in

A Reiteration: Books and Music; Lovers, But Not Twins

I am consistently shocked by the persistence of the belief that books (and particularly the book industry) are somehow exactly the same as music (and the music industry). While there are certainly analogous relationships between the two, the idea that consumers view them as the same is absurd. Let’s break this down, because it needs to be made clear that no matter what parallels exist between the two, they are inherently different things. Point #1 — ConsumptionWhen you listen to music, you are engaging in a particular form of auditory consumption that requires very little in the way of thought processes. This is not to say that music cannot foster thought, just that the vast majority of people listen to music primarily for effect. The necessity for anything else does not typically exist. This is not true with books. When you read a book, you are engaging several different sections of your mind. You are using visual thought processes on top of a string of cognitive processes that take in the words and translate them so your brain can make the appropriate visual or non-visual stimuli that denotes understanding. You cannot read a book without also thinking. It’s impossible. To put it simply: we read books and listen to music. This is irrefutable. To say that this is not true is to essentially claim that anything we know about human culture and biology is 100% incorrect. Now, obviously audiobooks change the equation a bit, but only slightly. All an audiobook does is change the visual process to an auditory one; everything else, generally speaking, remains the same, with exception to poor audio quality or annoying voice acting that can ruin the listening process. This leads us into point #2. Point #2 — Determining QualityOne of the primary problems with the self-publishing argument for the book/music analogy is that it intentionally ignores the process through which consumers determine quality. As with the modes of consumption, determinations of quality for books and music differ greatly, and this is linked directly to how we consume these two things. With music, determining quality is typically immediate, with little time on the part of the consumer to create an opinion. Most people have particular listening tastes (such as only liking certain genres) and have different reactions to different forms of music. The result of this is that usually a consumer can tell if something will be enjoyable (of any degree) within the first few seconds (this also varies somewhat depending on the music. I hate country music, so when I hear two seconds of a country song, I tune out; but I don’t hate all rock music, and sometimes it can take ten to twenty seconds to decide if I want to listen to any more of a song). Books, however, require of consumers a considerable amount of time. One cannot, for example, multitask while reading a book (with minor exceptions), and so when a consumer reads a book, they have dedicated themselves to the process. Unlike music, determinations of quality in books are not immediate, and neither are they quick or smooth processes. Bad books are not always determined by the first sentence or even the first twenty pages. Sometimes a bad book doesn’t show itself until the end, and getting there understandably takes time. Even if it takes you until the end of a song, chances are it will have taken you only a few minutes, as opposed to several hours. The only way we currently have of determining quality in books is through editors or reviews; neither are perfect, and usually the latter is useless primarily because personal taste always enters into it–tastes are different from person to person. Point #3 — Indie ProblematicsSelf-published authors often try to claim that because independent music took off, so too must independent writers. The problem is that a lot of the times, these same authors have no idea what they are talking about. The indie music scene is not a new thing. It wasn’t even new when mp3.com and the various other indie music sites appeared. In fact, the independent music industry has been around since the early 1900s, and it has never been quite as non-traditional as people think. The creation of indie labels was not an attempt to allow artists to do whatever they wanted with their music, but simply a way of escaping a system of enormous record labels who wanted too much control; the big labels still exist, and so do many of the indie labels, who have since become rather large themselves. Additionally, true indie music is not nearly as glamorous as people think, and often the instances people cling to as great examples of how “self-publishing” can work are actually of bands/singers who already had enormous followings before going true indie. Some good examples of artists starting indie and being successful do exist, but they succeed primarily because of the first two points in this post. The book industry, by the way, already has its own indie industry. They’re called small presses, and these places publish all sorts of niche literature all across the world. They have editors and marketing teams too, but obviously are not as powerful as the big boys. But where everything falls apart in the self-publishing argument is when they make the assumption that if indie worked for music, it must work for them too. Well, that would be true if the first two points of this post were incorrect. Since they are not, the reality has to be acknowledged: all success in indie music is because of points #1 and #2. Consumers simply do not view music the same as books, and, thus, are much more willing to accept music as a self-published form. After all, a consumer can listen to samples of music and spend only a few minutes of their day doing so; they cannot do the same with books. What all of these points come to is this: books are

Ignorance is Bliss: More Self-Publishing Nonsense

It amazes me the things people say about the publishing industry. I often wonder if there’s a magical world that some of these folks live in that I somehow missed the train to get to. It’s almost like an anti-publishing psychosis that leads certain individuals to spout nonsense as if it’s fact. I liken this sort of staunch, ignorant anti-traditional-publishing/pro-self-publishing-with-lies to FOX News and its continued claim that it’s fair and balance, when clearly it’s not (it’s not really a news organization either, if you want to get right to it, but most of the T.V. news stations aren’t about news anymore–FOX is just more loudmouthed about its inaccuracies). So, when I saw this post about publishers being doomed and why it doesn’t matter, I about choked on whatever I was drinking at the time. The post is full of so much nonsense it’s like eating a Glenn Beck/Bill O’Reilly/Rachel Maddow/Keith Olbermann orgy sandwich. Case in point, I give you the following paragraphs (edited down to get rid of the fat): Yeah? So what. So we lose publishers and book stores. Who cares? The key in Grisham’s statement is where he says, ‘…and though I’ll probably be alright.’ He means writers will be alright. The big scary fact of the matter is that we simply don’t give a tiny damn whether or not a publisher prints a book or an author does. Publishers read, accept, edit, design, print and promote books. At least they used to. I don’t care what anyone tells you, but we do not need the editors. Writers can do that. You write the book and you edit it and you’re done with it. Readers are getting used to reading writers without editors. That’s why blogs are so popular. No editors…No reader cares about Penguin. There is absolutely no excuse for a writer to work hard on a story, hammering it into existence from nothing, polishing it and making it exactly what he or she wants it to be… and then sit around to wait for some agent or publisher to get back via the U.S. mail so that said writer can be allowed to move on and send out yet another plea for acceptance. Can you see why I liken this to FOX News? There’s so much wrong with this that the only way I can break it down and correct its inaccuracies is to take it to task, piece by piece. Claim #1 — Who cares about losing publishers and bookstores? (WRONG)A lot of people do, including authors. Loss of bookstores means loss of sales. Loss of publishers means authors now have to fork out thousands and thousands of dollars to market their books to even make a reasonable living, while simultaneously fighting off the still legitimate stigma against self-publishing. How many writers do you know who can afford a twenty city book tour across the U.S.? Maybe a few dozen at best, all of them successful because of bookstores and publishers. There are no self-published authors who can meet the financial power of folks like Grisham. None. Claim #2 — Grisham means that all writers will be alright (WRONG)No, Grisham means that he will be alright, which is why he said that he will be alright. Grisham is not a moron. The guy is filthy rich for writing stories that people want. That’s reality. If nobody wanted his books, he wouldn’t be filthy rich. And when he says he will be alright, he understands that the economy, the way books are being marketed, and the way the publishing industry is changing will ultimate change nothing at all for him. For everyone else that isn’t on the same financial tier? They’re probably going to suffer. Claim #3 — We don’t give a damn who prints a book (author or publisher) (WRONG)If the author actually knew the industry, he’d know this claim is a load of B.S. I don’t know who the hell the “we” is, but consumers still care very much about who publishes a book. Authors care too. The assumption in the self-publishing world seems to be that because more people are SPing, that means traditional publishing is losing ground. The reality? The Internet has just made it easier to SP, so more people who might not have done it before because of the cost, are doing it now. That doesn’t mean that self-publishing is magically better than it was before POD or the net, it just means that it’s bigger because more people can do it. Consumers still pay attention to this and still give a crap about who publishes a book. Sales show this to be true. If this wasn’t true, we’d see more self-published books getting the same play as folks like Grisham or Rowling or whomever. Since we don’t, this claim is bogus. Claim #4 — Publishers don’t read, accept, edit, design, print and promote books anymore (WRONG)Publishers may not be promoting as many books as they have in the past, but they are still promoting books, a lot. In fact, you’d be surprised how many books do get marketing campaigns, however small, thanks to blogging and the like. I regular get emails about books that recently came out that have not be chucked out there like all the big boys. I read some of those books too. They promote books all over the place, but since consumers want more books than they ever did before (even if they don’t read them), publishers have to pump out more volumes each year. I don’t like it, but consumers do have a lot of power in the book industry. As for the other stuff: I don’t think the author has ever worked for a publisher. I have, and still do. We read, accept/reject, edit, design, and print (well, in digital form) all kinds of books. I mostly do the reading and accepting/rejecting, but I know that someone edits the books and designs them for release. But, then, this whole complaint by

Reality Check: The Average Consumer and Books

Reality: The average consumer spends roughly 8 seconds looking at the cover of a book before deciding to pick it up and 15 seconds reading the back cover (or inside cover) before making the decision to buy it. Some of you might wonder who this average consumer is. Most of you reading this blog are likely not part of that category. Average consumers are predominately those who engage in impulse buying, who generally browse quite literally by gut and “random” instinct. They are not likely to spend hours deciding if they want a book, because they either don’t have the time or the patience to do so. As such, the average consumer does not read loads of reviews, nor do they read excerpts–they may look at reviews briefly to see the star rating, but beyond that, anything considered “extra work” by said consumers is firmly in the realm of the less-than-average. Knowing this, it’s not hard to understand why it is that so many books that become “bestsellers” tend to be of the mainstream vein, and thus, more simplistic in their prose stylings. The fact is that average consumers are not interested in reading as a product of effort; they want to be entertained. These people are the same folks who have, for so long, found television and films to be exceptional objects to spend time on, and also who the majority of the less “serious” film productions are geared towards. But you shouldn’t be put off by this. Average consumers are what keeps the book, radio, TV, film, and music industries alive. Without them there would be no Elvis, no Stephen King, no Howard Stern, and no Star Wars or Star Trek. These individuals, while perhaps now considered in a more critical light, have always been firmly in the realm of the average consumer precisely because they are entertaining. And entertainment isn’t a bad thing. Those who think that literature should be only about art are also those who are upset that what has made literature so much more acceptable and popular today and in the past are those genres and prose stylings that are more easily received by average consumers. The fact is that most book consumers are not those who are likely to read Salman Rushdie or Ernest Hemingway; while some certainly do, perhaps by a stroke of luck in seeing more “literary” works on the bargain shelves or in a pretty new cover, these instances are, more or less, flukes. Salman Rushdie may actually be a poor example here, too, since much of his popularity occurred after writing The Satanic Verses, which earned him the rank of most-hated-man-by-extremist-Muslims for a while, giving him plenty of free press. But why is any of this important? Because if you expect to do anything within the book industry, such as selling short stories or your first novel, you need to understand how the market works. You can be the best thing since sliced bread, but that means nothing to the average consumer, because ultimately what catches their interest is what will entertain them. This does not mean that you should write to the market; anybody who says to write to the market is essentially mentally defective. What this does mean is that you should be well aware of how the market functions before you become published. Write what you love, but don’t pretend that you know who the consumer is, and that you have the right to make demands upon them, or get mad at them when they don’t buy your novel in droves. The average consumer doesn’t care about you. They control the market. They will not do extra work for your incredibly complex, amazing novel; that work belongs to a different demographic of more astute, cautious readers. Ultimately, it comes down to this: the consumer is not your bitch, no matter what kind of novel you write. They are not obligated to read excerpts or to go out of their way to do what you want them to do, and most of them won’t, ever. The average consumer is far more likely to pick up the next Stephen King novel, knowing that it will suit their needs, than spend twenty minutes or an hour reading up on your fantastic new novel. But, who knows, you might get lucky and become the next Stephen King or Tom Clancy or Dan Brown (or *insert your favorite bestselling author here*). It happens, but only to a handful of authors in a bloated industry of debuts. (A lot of this is directed to self-publishers, who need to understand the market and why they must always fight tooth and nail to get even a little leeway–and also why it’s pretty much impossible for self-publishing to effectively change the course of the industry without essentially altering bookstores; that probably won’t happen until there is a way to determine quality and if self-publishers can offer the same guarantees to bookstores as traditional publishers. A lot of folks I talked with before seemed to have a perception of average consumers that is inconsistent with reality. While it’s nice to delude oneself with imaginative constructs of consumer culture, such delusions are not reality. This doesn’t mean you can’t do well self-published or published by a small press, or published with a particularly niche book; it just means that most of the market won’t know who you are or care. Trying to change that is probably a losing battle.)

Thoughts On Taking Criticism

These last few days have put a lot of interesting thoughts into my head, particularly on the issue of how to take criticism. I consider this to be a writer’s best skill aside from talent, because how you react to what others say about you or your writing will have an influence on how you are perceived by others, and will say a lot about who you are as a writer. Take my recent discussion and criticism of self-publishing and the dozens of responses there (some of which have been removed by one of the authors, which I have saved primarily because they were interesting, particularly in this discussion here). What is interesting about that particular post are the kinds of reactions taken against what I wrote: some were relatively calm and collected and were more interested in debating the issue, some were vehemently opposed, so much so as to make personal attacks, and then there were some who seemed to be unclear on how they wanted to react, deleting posts or generally making rude comments and then attempting more rational discussions elsewhere (and these are general observations, not hints at particular individuals) There is only one individual who has had any useful impact on me in this discussion. This person has acted in a way that I think should be a model for people in that particular industry (with some minor exceptions, which are mostly irrelevant). Instead of attacking me personally for my criticisms of an industry s/he ardently supports, s/he debated me on it, seemingly attempting to get at the crux of the issue. To be fair, I find myself agreeing very much with this individual on many points, and disagreeing with her/him on others, and s/he seems more like the kind of person that could change my mind on the issue of self-publishing than many of the others that have been a part of the discussion. Why? The mostly level-headed approach and the ability to tackle the issue without resorting to reducing discussions to the I’m-high-and-mighty form, or feeling the need to make unsubstantiated claims of validation, etc. And this is interesting, because it says a lot about how this individual was able to take the criticism, and how writers should take criticism in general. The reality is that no matter what kind of writer you are, you are going to get criticized. Even great writers get hit with negative comments. They either shrug them off, get irritated and blast the critic, or let it consume them from the inside out. And published, successful writers have exhibited all of those reactions; some of them get away with the more nasty comments, and others don’t. Those that react negatively, who attack or let criticism consume them, are those who probably shouldn’t be attempting to write publicly in the first place. It hints at an insecurity, a deep fissure within the self that suggests how mutable an individual can be in the face of a negative comment. And reactions do have weight on how one is perceived. I think, here, of the Cole A. Adams story, in which an author got so upset about being criticized that he basically goaded the critic into committing suicide. Obviously that hasn’t happened here, but there certainly have been some bitter, angry individuals who have seen fit to make personal attacks instead of either ignoring the criticism or tackling it in a more level-headed manner. And like Mr. Adams, these aren’t people I could see myself ever working with, even if I were more interested in the industry they support. But I don’t suspect most of them care about that, much like Mr. Adams probably doesn’t care that a lot of people no longer want to work with him (or maybe he does). The point is that criticism doesn’t go away because you get upset about it; it remains, always. But if you can’t take the criticism, why be in a particular industry at all, whether it be music, acting, or writing? You can’t avoid it unless you keep yourself private and never let your work be viewed by people who may potentially criticize you for it. But maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s okay to react in the way that some authors have in the past. What do you all think? Where do you draw the line between acceptable behavior and acting childishly?

Self-publishing Redux: The Good Books Three

In the aftermath of my criticism of self-publishing I thought it would be a good idea to point out some of those self-published books that I have enjoyed. Since no further introductions are needed, I’ll just dig right in: The Dark Dreamweaver by Nick RuthBy far one of my favorite self-published fantasy novels. With a cast of bizarre and fascinating characters, this one gripped me when I first read it years ago and it’s been in my library every since. It’s the kind of book I can see reading to my future children (when or wherever they happen to spring up).You can find my review of it here (warning: this is an exceptionally old review) The Tales of Tanglewood: The Lon Dubh Whistle by Scott KessmanI guess it’s somewhat strange that two of the best self-published books I have read also happen to be novels meant for younger audiences. Still, Kessman’s work is fun, a bit quirky, and magical; it’s another one of those books that I’d love to read to my kids one day. We’ll see!You can find a link to my review here. Honeycomb by Israel Del RioThe one adult novel that I found to be quite remarkable. While it’s not a perfect book, it’s premise is fascinating and the writing is generally pretty strong. Contains some interesting examinations of the afterlife and the complicated relationships between a series of connected individuals. Certainly worthy of a good read, in my opinion.You can find a link to my review here. There you have it! Evidence that I don’t hate all self-published novels. Have any of you read any particularly good SF/F novels that were self-published? Let me know in the comments!