Why I’m Glad I Was Poor When I Was A Stupid Writer
I’ve been thinking back to the good old days when I was young and unaware of my imminent demise from alcohol poisoning or a brain aneurysm. It occurred to me, in that musing, that I should be very grateful about growing up on welfare and various other degrees of poor-ness. Why? When I started really getting into writing, there weren’t a lot of great ways to “get published.” This whole “webzine” thing hadn’t happened yet, publishers were far away, meaning you had to pay for postage (because nobody took email submissions back in the day), and the scammers (i.e. what are now called vanity presses, in various shapes, since there was no Lulu or Createspace) were everywhere, milking anyone they could for every cent (to be fair, Lulu and Createspace milk you too, but at least they are honest about it and seem to avoid the unethical methods other companies do). And back in those days, I was a dumbass. I actually thought that it was the same thing to spend $5 to send a manuscript to a publisher, to wait months and months and months, to get accepted with a $5,000 advance, and to see my book on the shelves as spending $5,000 to have a company print my book under the guise that somehow I would end up the same as Stephen King, that my book would be in stores and people would love me and all that happy stuff, and that the company was accurate and honest in its claims. I learned my lesson eventually, much the same way so many others have: by seeing other people who weren’t as poor, but equally as stupid as myself, get screwed over and lied to or put into various stages of delusion about the reality of their existence as “published writers.” So, if there’s anything to be grateful for when it comes to being poor as hell as a kid, it’s that I didn’t have the money to do something absolutely positively stupid. You know, like fall for some of the horrible crap described here.
Weak Prose and Boredom
I’m finding myself becoming more and more bored by the style of prose exemplified by the contemporary mainstream publishing model. Not all of it bores me, and I don’t think most of it is bad, per se, but there are times when I will read a book and find myself wondering why I’m reading it at all. I’ve always read to be entertained, but lately some of the books I’ve tried to read have failed on that mark. I lose interest in the prose, not the ideas being expressed (although sometimes the ideas cause me to roll my eyes, which is, perhaps, an unavoidable symptom of having “seen it before and in better form”). I suspect a lot of this has to do with a change in tastes. No, I’m not becoming a weird “literary” reader (though I like me some literary fiction in the SF/F vein), but I do like the novels I read to have prose that does more than just “get the job done.” I want the prose to say something to me, to show me things, rather than tell me they exist. Words like “intricate” or “stiff” are meaningless if I don’t understand the context, or see what it is the author is trying to say. I understand the impulse to have prose that isn’t flowery, but sometimes a little flare to one’s prose can make for a more enjoyable experience. The kind of prose I’m talking about here is weak prose. The author forgets that they’re not just telling a story, but showing one. It happens a lot, and for many readers, that’s good enough–for publishers too, because they sell a lot of books with weak prose. But, this sort of bare bones prose is, to me, a waste of paper. Stories deserve more. They deserve a little description, some clever uses of prose, or a little more than two-dimensional character development or plots. Liven things up a bit, folks. It’s okay, really. Readers will love you for it if you can make your writing a little more interesting. If they don’t, then hit them with a cumbersome object.
Payfail: The SF/F Pay Rate Fiasco
(I’d like to add that @maplemuse from Twitter has a blog post that actually takes a very level-headed approach to the Black Matrix problem. I agree with most of the assessments made there, to be honest. The distinction between 4theluv and profit is important to make in this case.) A lot has been said recently about pay rates and what’s wrong with them. Scalzi has chimed in by ripping into a particularly small pulp magazine paying what everyone agrees is a crappy rate, and has even gone after folks who defend lower rates. Others have added their opinions, but it is Scalzi that has had the most impact on it all. And, honestly, great, fine, that’s wonderful. Scalzi has every right to say whatever he likes, but there are few times when I actually disagree with the guy. In this case it’s not because he has the general idea wrong, but because his method of going after the problem is somewhat idiotic and I think it’s about time Scalzi took a step back and shut up. See, Scalzi has never had the same sort of career the rest of us writers have or are trying to have. He admits this. He is in a position in his career where he can get paid loads of money for his short stories; the notoriety of his name makes it possible. (Edit: Oh, and it should be said that the guy deserves it, because he writes good stuff.) But everyone else doesn’t have that luxury. Of course writers should get paid fair rates, but the reality is that there are no fair-paying short markets for SF/F anyway. Even the pros pay crap compared to the highest pay non-genre markets (and by crap, I really mean crap, because there are some literary fiction markets that pay dollars per word, rather than cents). Whether it’s five cents or three cents, it really doesn’t matter, because neither rate is a good one. If Scalzi is going to rip into Black Matrix, then he should probably rip into the whole of the genre short market for its dedication to paying next to nothing for a whole lot of work. If this were still 1930, five cents a word would be great, but it’s not. This is 2009 and even the highest paying, genre-specific pro market barely pays enough to allow a writer to live remotely comfortably for a month in this country. (Clarkesworld, for example, pays 10 cents a word with a 4,000-word limit. That amounts to $400, which is well short of being able to pay my rent, and I live in a fairly cheap area. That’s not to say they’re a terrible mag–there’s a reason they can’t pay $10 a word–just that even the highest paying SF/F short fiction markets don’t pay all that well at all.) On the other side of this, however, are arguments that, to me, make little sense. Some folks out there actually think that pay rate determines the quality of the fiction published; at the same time, though, these same folks acknowledge that, hey, even big name genre writers will submit to a low-paying market for a variety of reasons. Don’t they see the hypocrisy? Let’s dig into the truth: yes, a lot of low-paying markets also print a lot of not-so-great work. But, hell, so do the pro-paying markets. There’s a reason I don’t subscribe to a lot of the big boys, and why their numbers of falling. But some of the lower paying markets also print a lot of excellent work. What about places like Lone Star Stories, Abyss & Apex, GUD, Ideomancer, Electric Velocipede, Shimmer, etc. All these markets pay lower rates than the big boys (and in some cases significantly lower rates), yet are also known for printing great stories. Some of the aforementioned magazines have been nominated for awards or have had stories they’ve published printed in “Best of” anthologies. Such things are indicators of quality. So the idea that pay rate has something to do with quality clearly is not true of all publications (though probably true of many of them). I can’t help feeling that all of this discussion is doing the SF/F community no good whatsoever. It’s another attempt to create a divide over petty nonsense (i.e. pay). I’d love it if every magazine could afford to pay at least pro rate, but the only way that will work is if the market is big enough to accommodate the increased rate. It’s not, and most of the pro markets are fairly specific in the kinds of work they publish. Not all of us write that stuff, leaving smaller, lower paying markets for more unusual or niche short stories. Now, maybe Black Matrix, the market Scalzi has torn to shreds, is one of those crap-paying, crap-producing markets. Maybe. Or maybe it’s another one of those markets that has the potential to be great, that is just now getting its sea legs, and might become something better in the future. I don’t know. I’m not trying to say that pay rate isn’t important. I submit a lot of work to the higher paying markets specifically because they tend to have larger readership, but I submit to smaller, lower paying markets too, some of which have fairly large readerships. Mostly what I care about is getting my work out there, but in markets that seem to matter. What do you all think about all that has been going on? Do you care about rate?
5 More Things No Writer Should Ever Do
The publishing world is an interesting place. It’s full of eccentrics and alcoholics and all manner of slightly-mental weirdos and nutbags who make life interesting. When I wrote the original “10 Things No Writer Should Ever Do,” I kept it fairly focused on the issue of submissions, with a few allusions to certain nutty writers. Now’s the time for a much more interesting list of things no writer should ever do: Photoshop yourself into the photo of an established author.I’m sure there’s an intelligent reason to do this in an alternate dimension where unethical practices are acceptable, but in the real world there’s no logical reason to do something this stupid, especially if you’re not going to do it very well. Robert Stanek, a self-published author of supposedly terrible fantasy novels, did just that. Claiming to have done a book signing with Brian Jacques, Stanek photoshopped himself into a picture, but forgot to include his legs underneath the table. He’s tried to play it off as either jealous authors trying to discredit him or an evil anti-Stanek conspiracy a la Area 51 where evil gerbils from space are trying to ruin his life. Okay, so he didn’t say that last one, but he might as well have. And what’s wrong with this? It’s all kinds of stupid. Don’t do it. It makes you look like a horrible human being and could be a career killer. Plus, it’s a good idea to at least pretend that you exist in reality as fantasy writers. We have enough problems convincing people we’re not all wackjobs with unhealthy interests in things that don’t exist… Use fake accounts to post negative reviews of your “competition” while sneakily name-dropping yourself.Stanek again? Well he’s not the only one, and this kind of stuff happens all over the place, it just so happens to get more notice when someone with a certain level of Internet clout does it. But either way, it’s bad news. If you get caught it could have devastating consequences for your career. Your accounts could be banned from Amazon, along with your books, and you could end up being the social pariah of the publishing community, unless you’re good at spinning a conspiracy story. Some people have that skill. Others end up looking like that crazy homeless guy who thinks Big Foot ate his shoes and sold his parents to the Chupacabra. Use fake accounts to post positive reviews of your own work.As if the item before this weren’t bad enough, some folks have been accused and others found guilty of trying to hype themselves by using fake Amazon accounts to write fake positive reviews. Amazon, it seems is trying to combat this sort of thing by introducing a system that lets people know if a certain user actually bought the book in question from Amazon, but it’s a few years too late and a step or two too short of being efficient. The ore pressing concern is that there’s all kinds of stupid about this. Look, it’s lame enough to have your parents review your book, but it’s worse when you have to do it yourself. Is it that hard to get reviews these days? Maybe some authors don’t have parents, or they have no friends to hit up for reviews. Whatever the reason, getting caught being an idiot is no picnic. At least if you’re going to fake your reviews, be creative about it. Write a memoir full of fiction.Remember that guy from Oprah who wrote that memoir full of half-truths and lies? He sold a crapload of books, primarily because he was on Oprah, but he’s also now remembered for being a lying scumbag. The moral of the story? Don’t lie. Fiction writers generally have to lie, since everything they write about isn’t true anyway, but don’t go above and beyond and start lying about everything else. Don’t make up stories or exaggerate your own life just to sell books. It’s not worth it. Because when someone figures out the truth, it’ll hit you like a brick wall. Ask the crash test dummies how that feels… Sue people when legally you have no recourse to do so.This has happened in almost every media field, from television to literature, and it’s become far more common today because the Internet makes it so darn easy. The worst thing about this is that some people don’t understand that you can’t sue someone for stating an opinion about the quality of your work; the result is that a lot of naive folks will back down under the pressure of fake legal notices. And scam authors know this. A friend of mine once received a notice telling her she would be sued by a guy claiming to be an author’s legal representative, but who turned out to be the kid’s father. The notice, by the way, claimed that my friend could be sued for material damages for stating an opinion, one that happened to be 100% true (the author’s work really sucked something awful). But authors keep doing things like this, sending out legal notices and trying to sue people for their opinions. Why is this a problem? Well, for one, it’s illegal to send fake legal notices in certain instances. The big one, though, is that you look like a thin-skinned little weasel and it adds weight to the very things you’re trying to stifle. You don’t see bestselling authors doing things like this very often for a reason. It’s just stupid. What other stupid things have you seen authors doing? If you’ve got an interesting story to bring my way, let me know in the comments!
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
What Are Editors Good For?
I’ll tell you. Editors are gatekeepers. The whole purpose of an editor in the publishing business is to weed out the bad and leave only the good. This is especially true in magazine publishing (online or in print). If you think that every story written is good, then you are sadly mistaken. Just because you have written something doesn’t mean that it needs to be seen. Bad stories exist. That said, it should be acknowledged that editors don’t always get it right; but that’s the nature of the human condition. Editors spruce up prose. They don’t do it quite as much as the other kind of editor that you hire, but they do make good writing better. In book publishing, an editor does a hell of a lot of work, and most of the time the work they do is good work. I’ve seen manuscripts from before publication and after and can honestly say that the final product is almost always better than the original thing. Editors make you into a better writer. Emphasis on better. They don’t make you into the greatest writer ever, but they certainly teach you a few things. Ask anyone published by a major publisher or even a small press. Ask them if their editor taught them anything. They did, didn’t they? I thought so. Editors are dedicated to good books. They are not evil, but benevolent creatures with only one goal in mind: find and publish good books that consumers will like. They don’t always get it right (but, hell, let’s face it, writers don’t either), but they put a hell of a lot of work and TLC into every book they edit. They want to put out good books. In fact, they have to. A string of horrible books that don’t sell very well could spell certain doom for an editor; it’s in their best interest to provide consumers with good products. And if you don’t believe that, then ask an author published by a traditional press. Ask someone at Tor or Penguin whether or not their editors did a lot of work to produce a quality product. Did you ask? And? I thought so. The thing is, some people are jaded against traditional publishing. Sometimes it’s for good reason, and a lot of the time it’s not. Editors are not useless entities. They serve a vital purpose in publishing, and writers need them (even good writers). Self-published writers need them too. Every sentence you write isn’t gold. Sometimes a sentence is utter drivel. The problem is that writers don’t always know that, and it can take a good editor to make them see it. If I missed anything here, let me know. I’m learning a lot of the editing trade, so if there are things editors do that I’ve forgotten, leave a comment! (This post is a preface to another post I have coming up. I’m trying to wrap my head around a string of paragraphs written elsewhere that I can’t help staring at–not because they are interesting, but because what is being said is so ignorant and stupid that I can’t help gawking at the words. Expect that soon.)