The Decline of Traditional Publishing

The publishing industry is hard to figure out.

For one thing, the sheer number of books published in the United States is outrageous. The last I heard it was in the neighborhood of 65,000 annually.

Good business practice? No! These publishers are competing with themselves, often publishing dozens of titles on the same hot topic. Would any other industry do such a thing?

Why does publishing do it?

It seems to me that the publishing industry's marketing strategy is a crapshoot: Flood the market with 65,000 titles. A tiny handful will takeoff, indicating great potential profit in them. Then disregard the other 64,995 titles so that you put all your promotional and book-publicity efforts into these few titles, while doing nothing to actually sell the other 98% of the books you publish.

Just tell those other authors that they must do all the marketing of their books themselves and do it at their own expense.

Obviously then, publishers feel no obligation to authors, nor any real partnership with them. The proof is in the fact that an outrageous percentage of books (more than 98%) lose money!

Result? Your book gets one short print run, and then your dream is over. You get no royalties, because the profits all go to the publisher until sales exceed initial production costs. That generally doesn't happen until the second or third print run, which never happens. Plus, you've spent your tiny advance many times over on airfare to promote the publisher's product for them.

I'd like to have someone twist that fact into anything but "vanity" publishing. Yes, that's right: is traditional publishing anything but vanity publishing in most cases?

Which is why publishers are more often concerned about your connections and ability to get yourself on TV talk shows than about the quality of your book. Indeed, the quality of your book, or its importance to the literature on that subject, is worth almost nothing anymore. Your book proposal must promise big-name endorsements, promise hundreds of book-signings all over the country at your own expense, promise a book-publicity program that will supply you to promote the publisher's product on various TV and radio talk shows throughout the nation.

I'm sorry, but that's the criteria the publishing industry's uppity "gatekeepers" are using to decide who is worthy of their giving voice to.

Hmm, why not self-publish then?

In fact, most publishers have even ditched the task of editing. That is another part of the publishing process that has been dumped on the author to have done at his or her own expense.

The result is that the publisher has minimized its loss in the 98% of projects that fail to make money - by shifting that loss to the author's bank account. The handful of blockbusters more than make up for the publisher's tiny share of the loss in publishing the rest of its books.

Indeed, this parasitize-the-author scheme works: though 98% of their projects lose money, publishers have the highest profit margins of any industry in this country, often up to around 20% (as compared with around 8% for the oil industry).

Many people mistakenly still equate traditional publishing by the big New York houses as somehow "legitimizing" and giving the author "credibility" and "authority" on the subject. But let's think twice. Just look at all the books those houses publish on the paranormal.

If you write a book in which you claim to have been abducted by aliens, Simon & Schuster publishing it doesn't make it credible. It just proves that Simon & Schuster isn't credible.

We see this most glaringly in an election year. The same publisher publishes dozens of books, by both the far left and the far right. Read a few of each to see that both cannot be true and that at least one of these authors must therefore be lying his or her head off, not even respecting truthfulness about the facts.

So, much for the legitimacy of books traditionally published by the big Manhattan houses. They publish the work of quacks and the wildest liars as if oblivious to any moral obligation not to.

This can't go on forever. People notice and stop buying books, simply because they no longer trust the information in them.

Often publishing floods a market - such as the golf or tennis market - with an avalanche of books, all of which just rehash the same old cliches and pass off rote instruction as "simplifying things." This method of instruction imbues golf with the obsession over form that characterizes the martial arts. The result is that it is no longer a game: it is an obsession with swinging "right." That (a) doesn't work, (b) actually hinders the player's progress, and (c) makes every purchase after the first golf book you bought a waste of money on a book that says nothing the first one didn't say.

Eventually golfers catch on, get sick of that, and quit buying golf books. You have ruinously exploited your market by convincing golfers that no golf book will do their game any good. Hence the industry is to blame for drying up much of its own market this way.

Quality, quality, quality - products that work and really HELP the buyer.

Another example of drying up the market is how mass-market books are sold by hooking prospective buyers' curiosity instead of legitimate interest. The problem with that is that curiosity is short-lived. Therefore, after you have had your curiosity piqued by a half-dozen celebrity tomes on politics, you stop buying that junk in the grocery-checkout line, because what do you care what Whooppi Goldberg has to say about Clinton's impeachment? She knows no more about it than you do. Her stories and ramblings are nothing to you. You have never gotten past Chapter 3 in any such book before tossing it in the circular file. Why waste more money on literary jabber?

In short, pursuit of the fast buck has borne bad fruit today in the ever-shrinking market for what book publishing sells.

All those great prices you see at online book sellers? Below cost. That's a lot of unsold copies sitting in warehouses - copies that bookstores bought and returned unsold. What other kind of store gets to return unsold merchandise? Is that any incentive to really try to sell your book?

And so these slashed prices are just the alternative to burning all those unsold copies, which cost money to warehouse.

This situation has been worsening since the price of paper skyrocketed in the 1990's and conglomerates took over – the biggest ones being foreign conglomerates partly under the control of their foreign governments.

Bertelsmann is a good example. It's a German company partly subsidized by the German government. It's a publisher of anti-American magazines of the socialist far-left in Germany, which, after France, has the most anti-American populace in all of Europe.

Pardon me for being suspicious of such interests controlling the vast majority of what we Americans get to read or see on TV. I think that's as dangerous as having Chinese companies manufacture the guidance system of our Air Force's F-22s.

Note: please don't jump to the conclusion that this is an indictment of globalization. It simply means that, for national security reasons, there are some industries that must never be outsourced or controlled by foreign companies, especially when those companies are under the thumb of their governments through either direct or indirect (manipulative) controls.

     

To be a writer

Why do you want to be a writer?

The question itself is revealing. Is that what you want? "To be a writer"?

To BE a writer. To BE something. Not to DO something?

I don't think there is any field with such a vast majority of simple "wanna-bees." Writing attracts people with this desire because it is a way to get attention.

They view writing as some sort of public address system, a way to be heard. Period.

The problem is that there are a billion other wanna-bee writers with the same goal. Can you surface to the top in that attention-seeking crowd?

OK, in a small market, such as academic publishing or publishing in English outside North America, you may have the chance of the average frog in a small pond. Especially if you have friends in high places in the publishing industry. But the world shrinks by the day, and it is fast becoming as difficult to succeed in these low-competition markets as it is in the big one.

Since attention is all a wanna-bee is after, writing is all about THEM, not the reader (i.e., customer). Can you imagine the manufacturer of any other product having this attitude? No, right? That attitude would be the formula for failure in any other business.

You see indications of this misguided goal in many writers' resistance to suggestions that would improve their product. Some view it as a kind of come-down to write in plain English. They think their readers read to be impressed by their high-sounding rhetoric, long sentences, and complex constructions.

Is that not pure narcissism?

Others are preachers. They think the whole world is just dying to hear their enlightening sermon-in-print

I know that my own writing was never any good until I got serious about it and started writing to make money. Suddenly my whole attitude changed! Now it was all about the reader, not me. Now I appreciated good editing, and it never pushed my ego's buttons. Now I saw the value in plain English. Now my writing became clear, concise, sharp, and strong so that it sunk in and meant something concrete. Now people told me they appreciated the simplicity and clarity that enabled them to grasp what I was getting at with minimal effort.

As James Frey writes, writing is a service industry. It produces a product. In fiction the product is for entertainment. In non-fiction it is information.

Of course, your writing should enlighten. But people don't read to be preached at or impressed. They read for entertainment and/or information.

If providing that product is something you'd like to do and can do well, go for it, because you have a decent chance to succeed. But if all you want is "to be" a writer = someone who gets a lot of attention = think twice, because your chances of success are nil.

     

More on the Business of Writing

Continued from The Business of Writing Part 1.

Another thing I learned is that developing a line of products makes a big difference. Sales of my tennis strategy guide took off when I added more products and put them in a Pro Shop on the site.

I guess that makes sense. Potential customers then see that you are serious. They see experience creating these publications, and this instills greater trust in their quality. It also indicates success, because people won't continue to waste time developing new products if they are having no success.

I suppose all that may occur to the potential customers almost subconsciously.

Increasing the buyer's options also makes a big difference. Sales took off again when I stopped offering the product as a download only and added the option of (a) purchasing a backup CD, (b) purchasing on a custom CD-ROM, and (c) purchasing major products in paperback.

Interestingly, despite the cost of a paperback, some people just don't like this new finagled ebook thing and want nothing but a dead-tree version, no matter how much more it costs. And some have more sensible reasons for needing a paperback.

But I found that the main benefit isn't in the sales of the paperback. Sales of the electronic versions increase!

CD-ROM editions and backup CDs are attractive to people who don't know a lot about computing. They like getting the product (or at least a backup copy of the download file) in a tangible medium.

But again, just offering these options makes sales of the download version increase.

     

The Business of Writing

Some thoughts on the business end of writing. But first a disclaimer: If you are getting business advice from me, you are in trouble!

That said, here are a few things I learned and noticed. Note that, in college, I was one of those "helper types" (studying to be a teacher) who would have felt it beneath me to stoop to a mercenary course of study by taking any business classes. So, what I do know, I have learned by reinventing the wheel.

The first lesson I learned is that it isn't about "making a better mousetrap."

You can have the best mousetrap in the world. Head-and-shoulders above the competition. Your mousetrap can be a "revolutionary breakthrough" – a real one – and that won't do you any good.

Let me qualify that statement: It won't do you any good until you have made a name for yourself in that industry.

That's because people may rave about your product, but they won't spread the word. Not unless word is already spreading because you have already made a name for yourself. Go figure.

I learned this the hard way. I have a product like that, my first product: The Operation Doubles Tennis Strategy Guide. It isn't just better; it's much better. It is no hype when I say that its formational approach truly is innovative, that it is revolutionary and a breakthrough.

Unfortunately, those terms have become such a cliché that I can't use them in sales copy for fear of the boomerang effect they would have on potential customers, making them think this book is just more of the same ole same ole + the same ole hype.

I expected word-of-mouth publicity to kick in and gradually increase sales and traffic to my tennis site. But it didn't. Go figure.

Why?

I don't know, but I suspect that much buying is merely conspicuous consumption or buying something that may even be useless junk, just because the buyer thinks buying this junk is all the rage.

In fora where players discuss various products, you can't miss the almost fanatical loyalty to the famous name of the author or the well-known name brand, rather than the product itself. Which reminds me of the first designer to get the bright idea of putting his name on blue jeans. People nearly trampled each other in the stampede to become walking billboards to make his name famous. Almost like it's a popularity contest and everyone wants to be on the winning side.

Even in the case of a product like this tennis book – one that has a big impact on how many tennis matches you win. Go figure. Vanity and the herding instinct trump success on the scoreboard.

But I think there's more to it, because people really do want to win more tennis matches and therefore must be buying with that end in mind. Unfortunately, however, "experts" today have people thinking that we aren't qualified to make any judgments ourelves.

This is a selling handle, of course. Undermine people's confidence in their own common sense, good judgment, and even EXPERIENCE to make them buy yours.

These "experts" feel that they need to insult our intelligence by even pontificating on what to pack in our tote bags. Like we are that stupid. Like we'd never have thought of throwing in a few band-aids without that "expert" advising us to do so.

That's like paying an MD to show you how to take your temperature.

So, I suspect that, until you have been generally recognized as an authority figure in an industry, people don't trust their judgment about your product enough to spread the word about it. Even FACTS don't measure up to this mysterious aura of being an authority figure. Even if this book has drammatically raised players' ranking or their first-serving percentage. Oh, they will rave about that – to you and those who already know about it. But word-of-mouth publicity never gets going. Go figure.

It took me a long time to get my head around this fact. I kept trying to improve an already outstanding product. Fix – oh, how horrible! – a typo in it. Rewrite a sentence that could be misread or that the reader could miss the point of. Improve the aesthetics of the layout and design. Make purely technical improvements to improve the quality of print or to reduce the number of points in those drawings of tiny human figures in the court diagrams.

I felt like a hamster in a treadmill. None of it did any noticeable good. Sales didn't get off that flatline and take off until I became a recognized authority in the industry.

But that isn't all. I discovered other things that help, too, though we writerly types may fail to see the value in them. More on these other stepping-stones to success, later.

     

The Reader's Experience

Art is a medium of communication. Every art form is a language. Each language has its possibilities and limitations.

Novelists work with words. In some ways this art form is least limited in the type of information it can convey. For example, though the visual arts (like photography, sculpture, and painting) give us access to the subject's inner person, only words can take you right into her head. Yet literature has its limitations, too. Since the advent of moving pictures this limitation has become a big disadvantage. Unless your novel really gives today's readers something more, something worth the effort of reading, they would rather watch a movie or television program.

If you flatter yourself with the notion that people who don't read books are just too unintelligent for your material, you are probably going to fail. It isn't a moral issue. People who truly appreciate art for art's sake don't think one should have to work at entertainment. So, it's perfectly natural for people to prefer entertainment they needn't make any effort to absorb, especially when it's a much more vivid and immediate experience than reading a novel.

Therefore, today, novel writing simply must make readers visualize immediate moment-to-moment action. Your stage/screen is the image-ination. It's a part of the reader's brain you must get and keep control of. By the power of suggestion, words paint pictures there. To make readers "get the picture" words must…

• be nearly effortless to read
• be visual
• never disrupt the picture by calling attention to themselves.

To see how important writing this way is, consider how much a playwright or screen writer shows — instead of just having some character tell about.

     

It's All About the Reader

Publishing is a trade, and writing is a commercial product. It's a business. A service industry. People buy fiction to get an enjoyable experience in fantasy. Not to be guided, edified, informed, educated, changed, shamed, preached at, or persuaded of anything.

Many writers fail because they view writing as a way to get attention. They have a burning desire to express themselves and think the world cares to listen. They have something to say and think the world cares to hear it. They view a book as some sort of public address system. Unfortunately, everybody wants to get attention, but nobody wants to give it. Everybody wants to be heard, but nobody wants to listen. If you want to get something off your chest to the world, go find it in microcosm — some stranger — and try to tell him. You reply, "What do you think I am? nuts?" Nobody would dream of walking up to some stranger on the street and spamming him that way. Except wanna-be writers, who dream of doing it on a national scale.

Now, maybe if you pay that stranger for his attention he would give it. But you can't expect him to pay you for his attention. So, here's the best advice you'll ever get: Don't think you need to impress people by how you write. Writing for attention sabotages the hard work of many who would otherwise be fine, successful, and happy writers. Such a writer becomes the proverbial "talker," self-absorbed and oblivious to the person he's talking to. That's because, since it's all about him getting attention, it's all about HIM. Good writers know it's all about the reader.

That's why good writing never calls attention to itself, whereas poor writing does. Good writing evokes emotion, whereas poor writing expresses it.

Good writers know that reading fiction is primarily an emotional experience and that the writer's job is to manipulate the reader's emotions, not to vent his own. To manipulate the reader's emotions you must know your reader. Pay constant attention to her, and know the effect your words are having on her.

The trick is to attract no attention. For, the message is what counts, not the medium. Even in nonfiction, writing should be as transparent as possible. In fiction, the writing should disappear, absorbing the reader into the story as though she is experiencing it in the here and now. That's what impresses acquisitions editors.

Beautiful and elegant prose is never loud. In his works, Shakespeare sometimes has characters comment on other written works of his day. When he praises writing, he does so for two qualities: modesty and imagination. Though fame can go to a writer's head as easily as anybody else's, if you disregard all the really famous writers and consider all other successful writers, you'll be struck by how many are modest people.

So, just be yourself and tell a good story. Your job isn't to impress people, improve people, or express yourself: it's to deliver a reading experience enjoyable enough to be worth the reader's precious time.

Owning that fact is no more a "sellout" than selling any merchandise is. Indeed, selling oneself, instead of one's work, is hardly taking the high moral ground. And the need to entertain your reader doesn't mean that great writing has gone the way of the dinosaur, either. If a great heart and great thoughts are in you, they will out! But remember that you are just a storyteller.

     

The Lit Fuse Device in Melodrama and Comedy

The Lit Fuse device is common in melodrama and comedy.

The very old "Perils of Pauline" movies are a melodramatic example. The villain, Snidely Whiplash, demands, "You must marry me!"

"No! No! I won't marry you!" she cries.

"But you must marry me!"

"No! No! I won't marry you!"

"But you must marry me!"

"No! No! I won't marry you!"

If he can't have her, nobody can. So Snidely ties her to the railroad tracks. Our hero, Dudley Doright, must get there to save her before the 12:10 arrives.

The old television series, Batman, parodied the Lit Fuse device. In every episode Batman and Robin were threatened with a frightful fate, say, by being dangled over a vat of boiling oil with the rope unraveling.

     

The Lit Fuse

"Lighting the fuse" is a powerful literary device for creating negative Type 2 Suspense — putting the reader in a state of anxiety or apprehension.

The classic example is that a time-bomb is about to go off and the hero must defuse it in time. But you can light the fuse by putting a sympathetic character in any situation with something terrible about to happen (usually at an appointed time) that the characters must prevent.

Thriller writers are masters of the Lit Fuse device. An example is Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth. He keeps us in suspense for almost the entire novel, hoping that the hero keeps the Jackal, a hired assassin, from killing French President Charles de Gaulle. Another example is The Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett. In it a Nazi tries to reach a radio so he can send Berlin crucial information about the imminent D-Day Invasion. He must be stopped in time.

But thrillers aren't the only stories that use the Lit Fuse device to create powerful suspense. For example, in Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, the damned Yankees are about to burn defenseless Atlanta, and Scarlett must flee. But not till after she delivers a baby.

More on this device later.

     

What Fiction Readers Want

Though a novel is a commercial product, like a drug or the performance of a stage play, it provides a service. So, the writer should think of novel writing as a performing art and a service industry. The key to success in any service business is a keen sense of what the customer wants. What he really wants — which isn't necessarily what he says he wants. For example, a tennis pro knows that his clients want, not just help, but also praise and encouragement. A divorce lawyer knows that his client wants, not just a big settlement, but also to make the ex suffer. Television executives know that in Europe and North America most people watch the news, not for the facts, but rather for "interpretations" of the facts that support their belief that their politics/political party is good and the opposition is bad.

So, you must be as perceptive about your readers as you are about your characters. What is the service a novel performs for the reader? In a word, transportation. Or absorption. James M. Frey, in How to Write a Damn Good Novel II, says,

As a fiction writer, you're expected to transport a reader. Readers are said to be transported when, while they are reading, they feel that they are actually living in the story world and the real world around them evaporates.

In this altered state of consciousness, the reader can become so absorbed that you must shake him to get his attention.

Absorption is probably the better word: the reader is absorbed/transported into the story world. This experience is often called the "Fictive Dream," and that is as good a name for it as any. It's like a daydream, except that the reader isn't its author. It occurs at a subconscious level. Your success as a novelist depends largely on your skill at inducing it.