The weekend was packed full of writing events, rather like last month’s weekend of writing and awesomeness but with less birthday celebrations. Once again, the Creative Writing Group meeting coordinated with other events. This time, however, there were a lot more than two festivals competing for attention!

I managed to get to two of the festivals on offer. These were the Emerging Writers’ Festival – specifically, the Digital Writers’ Conference that was held as part of the EWF – and the Write Around Moreton Bay: Readers and Writers Festival. Big thanks to the lovely Elle, who gifted her Digital Writers’ Conference ticket to me.

Both days were jam-packed, fun, and informative. I had a great time, met interesting people, and caught up with some familiar faces. I also got to hang out with a good friend, so it was all good!

Today, I’ve got pages of notes that I have to write up into coherent blog posts, a Starwalker post to finish (as I was sick last week and didn’t manage to get it up), and some formatting of ebooks to do. Looks like taking the day off work to rest hasn’t led to a lot of resting! But I’m feeling well enough to get started, so might as well get to it. Onwards!

Overall, I would say that the talk was a big disappointment. There was a lot of doom-and-gloom, nay-saying, and general bleakness with regard to the future of writing as a business as text is increasingly delivered digitally. I walked out feeling incredibly negative about the whole thing, which is not the best message to leave an audience with.

I don’t disagree with most of what was said by the speakers, but I don’t believe that the talk was representative of the ‘digital revolution’* or digital writing markets.

Most of the problem with the talk was the selection of the speakers. They were involved in literary publications, publishing, and journalism. In other words, they were involved in the areas of the business most likely to be hit hard by a move towards digital media. There was no representation of fiction writers or indie publishers, or anyone else who might offer a different perspective on this ‘revolution’*.

So, given that the talk was slanted in a particular direction, what did they have to say about the current climate for writers and publishers?

Publishers

The increase of the digital market is hurting publishers – namely, the big ones. According to one statistic given in the talk, traditional publishers are finding that their paper book (cutely known as ‘p-book’, I’m told) sales are going down faster than their ebook sales are going up. This is, naturally, a cause for concern.

Interestingly, however, traditional publishers’ profits are still going up. They are not losing money due to the digital markets or their overall sales going down. And yet the atmosphere among the publishers is one of doom and panic.

This suggests a couple of things to me:

• Traditional publishers do not know how to optimise the digital market yet, and don’t have the appropriate business models in place. Basically, they need to catch up with the times and figure out how to make it work.
• If their profits are going up while their sale volumes are going down, that means that they’re taking a bigger chunk out of the digital sales than they are out of the paper sales. This means that the cost savings of digital over paper books are not being passed on to the authors, and the authors are probably getting crappy royalties. (That’s what it looks like – I’d love to be wrong about this!)

The move from physical to digital media does mean a big change for traditional publishers, and I don’t know how agile they are being in this transition. From the things I’m hearing, their agility is elephantine!

Newspapers and Journalism

Newspapers are moving into the digital world and away from paper publications. The cost of printing newspapers is increasingly being seen as prohibitive, and it is believed that once the baby-boomers die off, the culture of reading newspapers in paper form will go with them.

It’s hard to know if these two things are true. I suspect that the second point is probably right: generations X and Y don’t have the same newspaper-reading habits that the older generations have. The culture is simply not the same, and moving away from it towards instant digital gratification.

The first point is, I believe, a misnomer. There are plenty of papers around who publish at a loss, compared to the money they receive from sales of the paper, and there are many free papers on offer. This is not a new phenomonon. So how do they survive? Pure sales revenue is not how they make their money; advertising revenue is where their profit lives. Like Facebook, they can afford to give their product away for free because their real customers are the advertisers.

The same is true for online content: there are lots of ways to monetise content without charging the reader for it. Newspapers are moving towards this model. However, in the process, there seems to be other changes happening.

A problem that was mentioned several times through the talk is the perceived cheapness of digital content. This perception is across the board; it’s not just readers, but vendors and publishers as well. No-one wants to pay much for it, because it is seen as quick and easy to deliver, and often of a lower quality than paper-published content. (Note: this is a common perception, not my opinion.)

This means that ‘serious journalism’ is at risk. Where (traditional) newspapers have journalists on staff and are willing to pay them for several weeks or even months’ worth of investigation for a particular piece, the belief is that digital newspapers won’t support this. They will pay for the content by the word (or similar length-based currency), not for the time it took to create it. Serious in-depth journalism will be too expensive to support, which means it will become impossible to make a living this way.

That is, without public help. In the talk, analogies were drawn between the digital revolution and the introduction of radio and television. In order to maintain material of quality and ‘cultural value’ in an increasingly commercial landscape, public (government) support was required. Hence, the BBC was born (or ABC, depending on where you are). It was suggested that the same will need to be done for journalism. (Doesn’t the BBC already have a serious news site? Isn’t this already catered-for to a degree? Questions I wish there had been time to ask!)

Whether there is government-funded papers or not, the business of journalism is changing. Digital content writers are already out there making money from this, and they will tell you how much the market is changing every day. One of the speakers at the talk mentioned that making a living from writing (meaning: journalism or non-fiction articles) will become impossible. Serious journalism will move into the hobbyist’s realm, and they’ll all have to get day jobs to put food on the table.

This sounds familiar. That’s because it’s the lot of 90% of fiction writers – only the very biggest sellers can afford to live off what they make from their books alone. It makes me sad to think that other types of writing might be sliding into the ‘hobby’ zone when I’d like to see the opposite become reality.

Literary Magazines

Literary publications in the digital realm have problems with the same cause as journalists: digital content and publication is seen to be cheap and easy, and so no-one is willing to put the same kind of money into it as they are for a paper publication. For literary magazines, which rely largely on donations and grants, this means that funding can be cut if they move online; apparently, they don’t ‘need’ as much money as they did pre-digital! Some publications have already lost funding in this way.

I guess this means that publishers of literary content are being forced to find other revenue streams to support their work. Is this good for the industry? It’s hard to say. It opens up a few questions:

• Is there enough money to pay for quality editing?
• Will literary fiction suffer by being commercialised?
• Will literary publications be forced to close?

The opinions at the talk seemed to be centred on the need for public (that is, government) support for the arts to ensure that quality, culturally-important material is still produced and published for the world to see.

Libraries

This is an interesting subject. Libraries are being forced to change by the move towards digital media, and it will be interesting to see exactly what that means in the long run.

Will the perception of ‘digital=cheap’ hurt them too? Will it lead to a reduction in funding for libraries? I hope not, as in this case, it could be particularly counter-intuitive. For libraries to keep stocks of digital media, they will need servers, archives, back-up systems, IT maintenance, and the power to keep it all running.  Or might libraries become more centralised and ‘virtual’? Is that a good or bad thing?

Quality

One of the concerns that was raised in the talk was about the quality of digital content. The truth is that it is cheap and easy to publish online, especially if you forego professional aspects of writing. Namely: editing, formatting, and design.

In paper publications, editors and publishers are the gatekeepers of quality (and from many of the books I’ve read, they’re not that good at ensuring error-free text, either: I’ve been tempted to take to more than one book with a red pen and send it back to the publisher). In digital publications, there do not have to be any gatekeepers at all; that is both the appeal and drawback of the digital realm. So how is quality ensured?

Honestly, I don’t know the answer to that. I think that writers should take pride in their work and go to the effort to make sure that it is correct and professional, especially if they are charging money for it. I go to pains to edit and proof the work I offer for free, because quality matters to me. I’m also aware that not everyone cares about it as much as I do.

It’s a lot to think about, and going over it again leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t believe that the ‘digital revolution’ is as drastic or doom-laden as some would like to believe. Things are changing and the publishing industry as a whole needs to move with it. Old roles will change, and new ones will open up.

I believe that writers have a lot of opportunities in front of them right now. It’s not easy to find your way through the morass of information and speculation being thrown around, but I don’t think it’s as dire or as shiny as the various parties would like us to believe. There will always be writing; let’s embrace the new ways of delivering it to people and keep pushing forward.

* I put these words in quotes because, while they’re being bandied about at the moment, they always sound melodramatic to me. I haven’t seen anyone launching at paper with digital pitchforks yet. Perhaps that’s next month!

You can find the books on my Author Page, or here are some handy links to the US store versions:

• Book 0: Before the End
• Book 1: End of the Old

Enjoy! And don’t forget to tell all your friends about them!

• Book 0: Before the End – free prequel!
• Book 1: End of the Old – the first of the trilogy, starting when the bomb went off. Now with new and extended content!

I had piles of fun editing through the first book of the Apocalypse Blog, and wound up extending a lot of the posts. A few gaps filled in here, some detail in there.

It feels great to finally have them up now, released into the wild! I have a little bit of work to do on the covers (they’re gorgeous, but the file size needs to be adjusted) before the books can go out to more stores, but it’s all good.

So far, the free Book 0 has had over 50 downloads. In less than 2 days! Wow. :)

For those of you who read this blog, you can get Book 1 for half price by entering this coupon: “ZY43T” Valid this week only!

Next job: edit up Book 2 for release!

 On Friday, my Creative Writing Group met. I decided to do a session on first lines, and took along a list of first lines from novels across a range of genres and periods (many thanks to my friend who helped me to compile the list). Then we discussed them blindly (that is, without knowing what book or author they were from), to see what we thought of them as first lines on their own merits alone.

It was an interesting exercise and prompted a lot of talk. Curiously enough, even though someone didn’t like the first line, they would usually read on to find out the answer to the (annoying) question that was posed. It turns out that grabbing your reader doesn’t have to mean grabbing them in a good way. Boring first lines came out the worst of all, and I think that’s a good rule of thumb: never bore your reader.

After the meeting, there was dinner and bookish chats with my writing-friends. Always good to do that!

Saturday was the day of my RedFest talk, which I have squeeped and babbled about recently. It was my first appearance at an event like that; I’ve done plenty of talks and so on for my CWG, but this was different! And, for the record, I hate public speaking. I’m getting better at it (slowly), but I still got horribly nervous.

Big thanks to my friends for supporting me at the RedFest (you know who you are): helping me set up and giving me tea and sitting through the talk to bulk out the numbers. I didn’t get many attendees (probably about ten in total), but that was fine by me. I hadn’t expected a lot of people to come to the talk; it’s a local fair, and I guessed that most of the people who were seriously interested in writing would be at the Brisbane Writer’s Festival. Why do all of these things have to coincide?

I had some good questions from the audience and managed to cover all the material I had written out for publishing online. Overall, I was happy with how it went, and learned some things to use for next time (should there be one!).

After we had escaped the clutches of the RedFest, I got all dolled up with some friends and headed out for dinner to celebrate my birthday. Had a great time: too much food, cocktails, and ice cream; and much talking and silliness.

Sunday was an early start – we had to be on a train by 8:15 – which was awesome after the night before. Luckily, I was without a hangover (I hadn’t drunk anywhere near enough for one of those, despite pouring Baileys on my ice cream). I was heading to the Brisbane Writer’s Festival, determined to get in at least some of the events before the whole thing was over.

I managed to get to three talks in total, none of which were exactly what I was expecting. They were on the digital revolution in writing, writing about taboo or ‘dangerous’ ideas, and literary vs popular fiction. I was left largely disgruntled with how the talks turned out (apart from the middle one). I plan to write up blog posts about each of them, so I won’t go into detail here – more soon!

In the middle of all of that, I snuck up to the Queensland Writer’s Centre and collared a couple of the lovely, helpful staff. Some more of our NaNoWriMo plans have been sorted out, and the QWC will be supporting us again this year. I’m currently working with them to arrange a write-out in November: writing out on a lawn by the riverside, in shade and sunshine.

I also took part in a writing race at the QWC, captained by the lovely Trent Jamieson. An hour of writing intensively, in a scarily quiet room! I went in with not a clue about what this week’s Starwalker post should be, managed to write almost 2,000 words (!!!), and won the race! Excellent.

I’m still not sure what this week’s Starwalker post will be, but I have a pile of material to massage into something coherent. Whether it will make the post easier or harder to construct has yet to be ascertained.

After such a packed weekend, I took a day’s holiday from work to recover (yesterday). A sleep in, a lazy day on the couch with games and DVDs, and nothing pressing to do was just what the CFS ordered. Then my folks took me out for beautiful slow-cooked steaks (another birthday dinner), and we stuffed ourselves with way too much food.

I’m back at work now and definitely feeling brighter for the break. It’s been crazy but so worth it! Some of the stuff that was talked about over the weekend is ticking at my brain, and once this weeks Starwalker is sorted out, I’ll be turning my attention to capturing those thoughts into posts and sticking them up here. Don’t hold your breath; it might take a while.

Thanks to everyone who made this weekend awesome. Best birthday I’ve had in a long time. Here’s to surviving another year, and to lots more to come!

Let me make one thing clear: I give my writing away for free happily and willingly, and always intend to do so to some extent. In truth, I am reluctant to ask for money on something I am offering for free.

However, there are people who would happily give money if the option was there. For e-book versions, for merchandise, and even just for visiting the website.

The first two of those options involve a lot of work (which is in progress!), but the latter is easy to set up. It’s also the trickiest for me to want to do. It seems cheeky to me! But I’ve come across a few discussions on this topic over the past months and it seems that I’m in the minority in that regard.

It’s not a case of asking for money; it’s giving the option to those who wish to contribute. Some readers like to be able to support the work they enjoy, and some writers like to support their fellow artists. The more I think about it, the more okay I am with that. If I had the funds, I might even do the same myself.

So this week, I bit the bullet and sorted out donations for my websites. It was actually shockingly easy! (Paypal really have made it a painless process – well done you guys!) There’s now a ‘Donate’ button in the sidebar on the Apocalypse Blog, Starwalker, and this site (look right, everyone!). Hopefully unobtrusive and inoffensive.

So, the avenue is now open. I don’t demand or expect anything, and if I’m honest, I’m still a little nervous about the whole thing (will people get annoyed and leave? will they suspect it’s the start of rabid commercialisation?). But let’s see how it goes!

My first step towards making money from the writing I do purely for the joy of it. Next: actually selling things to people! (Uh oh, I feel there’s a slippery slope coming!)

The current plan is to break the AB saga (340,000+ words)  into three books, each of roughly 100,000 words. This fits into three story arcs: the end of the world; the sickness and the shamblers; and trying to find a new future (at some point, they’ll get proper names, but I’m still working on that!).

There will also be a prequel ‘book’, covering the entries that were made before the bomb went off, back when Faith’s world was normal. I wrestled with the idea of splitting this off, because I like the lead-in that this ‘normal’ week gives the story. It sets up Faith’s voice and some of the plot points that come into the story much later on with Matt and Bree.

However, because I am looking at offering the e-books for sale through Smashwords (with other possible venues later), having this week-long prologue on the first AB book might be counter-productive. The previews available on Smashwords always start from the beginning of the book, so prospective readers would have to get past the first 7,000+ words before anything apocalyptic happened. It didn’t seem like a good way to hook new readers, so instead, the prologue section will be Book 0 in the saga, and Book 1 will start with the bomb exploding.

To prepare AB for e-booking, I’m editing the existing posts, mostly tightening up the language and correcting any errors the slipped through the proofing that was done before it was posted. It’s interesting to see how my writing has changed since I started writing AB!

I’m also keeping in mind some of the feedback I received in AB reviews, particularly about glossing over events, and trying to rectify that where I can (where it fits into the story and atmosphere). As a result, many posts have been expanded, and some have had whole sections added in.

Because the e-book format isn’t as limited as the online blog, some events that were split over several posts have been combined into a single, long post. Hopefully they will flow better now! Other than that, the structure of the piece hasn’t been changed.

I’ve just finished the first editing sweep through Book 0 and Book 1. Phew. Final proofing and formatting to go, and the covers to sort out, and they’ll be good to go! I’m planning to get them up on Smashwords as soon as they’re ready (hopefully within the next few weeks), and then move on to Book 2.

Overall, I’m pleased with how the books are coming out. I don’t hate the writing (despite it being two years old now), and I’m still very fond of it! I’ll be proud to get them up and available for others to read. Can’t wait. Wish me luck!

Books vs e-books

First, it might be useful to have a little bit about Kylie Chan. She’s a bestselling author in the Australian fantasy market, with four books published in her Dark Heavens series so far and the fifth one out later this year. She’s published with Harper Collins’ Voyager imprint, who are dragging their feet about publishing her overseas (in the US and UK markets), but she hopes to be released in at least one of those markets by early next year.

She writes modern fantasy (or contemporary fantasy, if you prefer) based in Chinese mythology and set in Hong Kong. It’s interesting stuff – I’ll review the first book of the series if I get the chance.

The meeting was a relaxed affair – we asked her questions and she chatted to us in a very open, honest way. I love it when guests feel comfortable enough to do that, as I generally try to foster a relaxed atmosphere in the group. We wound up running way over time, partly because traffic delayed people getting there and because it was really hard to stop talking! (Eventually, we got hungry enough to break for dinner, and that was it.)

We got lots of interesting and useful information out of the talk. We talked about the different ways to approach writing – ‘planners vs pantsers’, and the middle ground. Personally, I tend towards a ‘stepping stone’ approach, but the group is made up of a variety of planners and discovery writers. Everyone has their own way! It was nice to have a writer encourage us to write however it was best for us.

Kylie also talked about what it’s like to be edited, and was very frank about her experiences with getting and being published, which is better than hedging and trying not to put people off. (To be clear: this is talking about the traditional paper publishing industry, not self- or e-publishing.)

Let’s face it: getting published is hard. And once you’ve crested that hurdle, being published is not all it’s cracked up to be (unless you’re a rare shiny thing like JK Rowling or, heaven forfend, Stephanie Meyer). Startling worldwide success aside, when someone tells you ‘don’t give up your day job’, they are not necessarily insulting your talent; they might just be aware of how hard it is for a writer to earn a living from traditional publication.

Royalties are small and are only paid after they have covered your advance. From what I understand, it’s not uncommon for a book not to earn back its advance, and royalties tend to return little to the author.

There are ways to maximise what you earn from your work. Being published in as many territories as possible is one way, though you won’t get the same percentage from foreign market sales as you do from the book’s home market (which is, I believe, the first market it is published in, not necessarily where the author is). There are other ways, but this topic is what a lot of the talk revolved around.

For an unpublished author, negotiating that first contract can be a losing battle; you don’t have any cards to play, being an unproven risk for the publisher, and you usually don’t know what pitfalls to look for. You’re asked to sign away a lot of your publishing rights. On the plus side, you’re being published and on your way to being a known, successful writer. Future contracts will be easier to negotiate.

For writers in Australia, it’s tricky because while the Australian market is good, it’s not that big, especially when compared to countries like the UK and US. If your Australian publisher has the international rights to your book and chooses not to publish you overseas, then you can’t take advantage of those markets. That’s a lot of revenue to miss out on.

So what can we do about this? The most direct way is to go through an American or UK agent/publisher (there is no reason why you can’t do this) and be published in one of those countries first. It’s quite common for authors to do this, particularly genre or niche writers - I know a British horror writer who got published in the US, because it was so difficult to get horror published in the UK.

Another hurdle for Aussie writers selling overseas is writing about Aussie things. Kylie’s series involves an Australian main character, which is seen as a barrier to publishing in other markets (particularly the US). On the plus side, her books are set in Hong Kong and you don’t have to be Australian to read them (the Australian flavour to the book is subtle and unobtrusive, in my opinion), so hopefully this won’t be a big problem for her. I just hope the publishers agree and take the chance to find out!

Kylie also recommended a couple of books that helped her to prepare her books for publication. They were:

• Self Editing for Fiction Writers – Browne & King
• The First Five Pages – Noah Lukeman

I think I’ve babbled on enough. That doesn’t cover everything we talked about, but no-one wants a blow-by-blow. Right?

Hope you all find it helpful. I know I did!