Happy New Year.
Reply
Tag Archives: book retailing
Kingdom Next Book Update
It is hard to find a place to start.
Shortly the seventh book in the series will be available, and I am delighted with it. I have been on this particular book for two years, which is odd, because I knew before the first page exactly how this one was going to go as it races towards the final conclusion in book eight.
I have been creating threads and clues throughout all the books that would all come together in this particular one, which made for easy writing, but along the way I gained an extra book, as book five became five and Five part two (Book six). That then meant the editing was a more difficult task to keep the books fresh and exciting, so when it came to this one, which has become the seventh book, the dilemma was not so much what to write, but the order in which the story unfolds.
Just to recap.
Robbie has struggled and finally overcome his inner fears, Runestone has finally received her final gift from the White Lord, Sapphire is in all sorts of dilemmas because of her confusion over her mind and heart, and she is also having graphic visions of some elements of the past. Jett with the sword of truth is gone forever, and Una has left on a task set for her by her grandfather many years ago. Opal is charging around in a panic over something she feels was done by the Queen of Fae, Eve has finally gone from the realm and is protecting the Star of the Merle forever, and to cap it all, Morgan has hit at the heart of the Woodland Realm by kidnapping Runestone and the Green Lord, whist springing a deadly trap to capture the Specialists. An awful lot has happened in just book six, and if you add to that all the books prior, there is a great deal to stitch together before the end.
The end of book six presented many facts and asked a huge amount of questions, and yes, very soon the answers will be arriving between the covers of Heirs to the Kingdom part seven, Bridge of Sequana. That was just the start of the notes to include in the book as I began my first draft, and since that day, I have been very carefully weaving together the story in a way that will unfold and hopefully take the readers breath away. There is no doubt this book will stir many emotions, but the one thing I hope is that the book is not predicable, this is a part of the story I have always looked forward to, as I know it will throw a curved ball into the mix, but as with everything that has been written to date, everything has been put there for a very good reason, and I think a little of this book, will have readers reflecting on the previous books, or at least that is my hope.
Halfway through this book I also started to write the final book, so I was working on seven and eight at the same time, mainly due to the fact that after ten years of writing none stop, the published books have caught up with my writing, and in order to build the climax and keep the momentum going, I want eight out on time with no delays.
I am really thrilled with Sequana, it has taken a huge amount of twisting and turning and clever editing, but the story is captivating, well-paced, and very hard to leave alone, I would imagine for those few diehard fans of HTTK (To whom I am so grateful) it will draw them in and hold them there entranced.
I am working now to get the book out asap, which due to the process will be late July onwards, just in time for sitting quietly in the Summer sunshine, and as you all read, I too will be out in the sun, tapping away to finally complete the series and tie up all the threads, (Talk about pressure) and create what is hopefully the best book yet. I am now sensing that feeling of approaching endings, and soon the story will finally be told as I leave the Woodland Realm for new pastures. It has been a thrilling adventure, and happily there is still some more to come before the end.
Enjoy book seven.
Robin.
Behind the Words.
One of the biggest drawbacks to being a writer, is there is this expectation that all writers should court the public to gain more readers, and therefore sales. In an age of public profiles on the internet, and socially sharing the contents of your lunch on Twitter, writers are expected to list every detail of their life, along with endless photos of themselves, with the aim of showing everyone on the planet how swell you are, so people will immediately run out and buy your books.
Every help blog and writers aide is the same, sell, sell, sell yourself or you will never make it as a writer. There appears to be this unwritten rule that the public must see and love a writer, before they are able to understand the stories they like, otherwise how could they ever read your books? If like me you are 80% introvert and just 20% extravert, and a quiet isolated life is your choice, then the thought of any of this instils very deep terrors indeed.
I have been published for a little over five years, I have been writing for most of my adult life, and if I am very honest, I had no intentions whatsoever of publishing Heirs to the Kingdom, I was if anything pushed. You see the thing here is very simply in a nut shell, I am not being rude, but, I don’t want you to know me, I don’t want you to know every detail of my personal life, I have zero intentions of showing the world my life, family or how I choose to live. I hate being photographed, and would rather be alone in the woodland than at the heart of a press conference or in huge crowds. The whole point of writing is that very fact, I write fantasy, not my life, and yet I am constantly pushed to sell my life so it will sell my books.
Call me old fashioned, or introverted, but isn’t the whole point of a book the words? I love John Wyndham, Arthur Conan Doyle, Tolkien and H.G. Wells, never met any of them as they largely lived before my time. I have read a great deal about their lives in their autobiographies, but that was only years after reading and loving the books that they wrote. Their stories sold me at the time of reading, I did not care who they were, it was their words on paper that exploded my imagination and sent me to the library or bookstore to find yet more of their books, and to be honest, I still think that is how it should be.
I like my comfort zone, and to be honest you should too, because if you take me out of it, I simply cannot write. Writing can be intense, I sit alone away from everything, I put on my head phones and play inspiring music, I am surrounded by files that hold the results of my research, which also includes pages filled with pictures of places, clothing, weapons and fantasy art, and I drink endless cups of coffee as I sit with a cigarette (that is usually unlit as I forgot to light it) hanging from my lip, as I reach that zone that allows everything to flow from my mind into the words on the page. It is mentally exhausting and exhilarating at the same time, and the world ceases to exist until I have finished the chapter or piece I am working on. There are times when it takes just an hour, and others where it takes almost all of the day, but the result is the start of what will appear in the next book.
I can tell you now; there is nothing within that process I want to share with the rest of the world. I am scruffy and relaxed, usually unshaven; I have even written naked on hot days, (Honestly you don’t want that picture believe me). I laugh as I make up the funnier sections and feel the tears in my eyes as I rip at my emotions to get those special moments just perfect. I talk to the characters as if they were present, as I try to work out if the conversations are flowing right, and too be quite honest, if you were walk in and film it, most of the world would think I was insane. The one thing I know without any doubt at all is that those moments are private and should remain so.
Ok I get that it is me, I understand that as the writer I impart a lot of myself into the story, after all it is my brain, my imagination and partly my view of the world, but it is also not me, and this is where knowing me is a pointless exercise. To explain it a little simpler, I pretend, yup you got it, I actually try and wear the shoes of another and make them do things I could never do. I do not hunt, actually I am a vegetarian, and have been for 25 years. I do love trees, but I have never killed anyone, (I am actually quite happy about that) and I never would, Mason Knox is very capable, and yes I wrote him, but that does not mean any aspect of him is me.
The words together free from any ideas of who the writer is, allow the reader to judge the story completely free of any bias, and that is the whole point of writing, it is and should be to a certain extent an anonymous act. Modern social networking has decayed one of the most important boundaries of any writer, as it has asked all of us to remove our privacy and reveal everything about who we are, but sadly knowing the writer will not enhance your experience of the book, if anything it will cloud it. Take my word for it, find a book by a writer who you know nothing about and sit quietly and ingest their words, once you have taken the words inside yourself, then let your imagination fly and paint the pictures chapter by chapter, and you will experience reading at its best, because that is the only way we should ever read a book. Who wrote it should be the last thing you think about it, and as to what their eye colour is or what pants they wear on the train, should never be anything other than the Author’s concern.
Sadly the world has taken a shift over the last few decades and we have become preoccupied with Celebrities, a whole industry has grown up around them, and it appears that writers are being dragged screaming into the mix, but the reality of it from a writers point of view, is that we would much prefer not to be. I understand there are those individuals who court the cameras and enjoy the exposure they get, but they are actually a very small number. The world has rolled into 24 hour news, and we have reached a point where media has become the only sales tool of anything creative, and it is a sad fact of modern reality that digging into the private life of any individual appears to be the way books, movies, art and music is sold today. Gone are the days where a news report would project a picture of the author or the book in the background screen, it has to be a live interview that is the feature of the moment, and sadly for the very many introverted and creative people who write, that is more than a little bit uncomfortable.
I use social networks, I have a few accounts across the many, none of them really feature me, I try to focus on just the stories. I do give opinions from the point of view as the one who wrote the books, I also provide insights and alternative theories as to why maybe the stories twist and turn as they do. I love to talk about the characters and what they like, and will do so for as long as people ask, just don’t ask me to tweet my lunch menu, sadly I am incapable of doing so.
It may sound odd, but the only reason I ever published HTTK was simply because I was asked to. It took a great deal on my part to share the story with those very few early readers, writing is a deeply private part of the person I am, and writing comes from the quiet isolated part of my life, it is from my comfort zone. I do not deny I can step out when required to meet and talk with people about the stories I write, but for me that takes a lot of effort and is emotionally draining, I am by nature reclusive, only feeling at ease around small well known individuals, and it is because of these very facts, that I am able to pour emotion into what I write and connect with the readers using words. I know a few creative people, and we all agree that being isolated is the place where our creation comes from, sadly the roar and turmoil of the crowd is not a very creative space to be in, something I am sure my wife who is my only witness during writing can testify to.
I often bring to mind an interview I read with Dan Brown which came out after he had published the Davinci Code, which had become a huge success. He actually told the press that actually his life was very normal and boring, and he had no plans at all to change it. I remember reading it as if a light had flashed inspiration before me, as I completely understood him. It was a wonderful moment of clarity, as he was an A list selling author who admitted he did not want the press intrusion, he did not want to tour the endless streams of press and TV interviews, all he wanted to do was stay at home with his family in his quiet rural home and write, everything else was just another distraction that prevented him writing.
To conclude, I think, I can safely say I am a writer. I write every day, some days it flows, and on others it staggers just a little, but it is a process that I am unable to switch off. I write my books, and endless amounts of short posts that I either blog, or store up on file for later use. I have a Facebook Page, and anyone can message it to ask me something, so in that respect I am always available. There are few days when I am not sat staring into space, putting together the pictures I see in my mind with the right words, and I feel it is very important to do the best I can to make the things I write as interesting as possible. In between those moments of creation (Which I do not control) I do everything else, including update social media and plan other things I feel may be of interest to those who read what I write. The more time I spend talking in the media, the less I write, and I am driven by some inner compulsion to write, so that tends to win over the day.
It makes me happy, and having spent 30 years outdoors in all weathers working in horticulture, I find being warm and dry surrounded by my family, who are a huge part of who I am suits me more and more as I get older. I am dedicated to writing the best story I possibly can, because that is what I feel the reader expects, and knowing out there in the huge world are people who have smiled, or shed a tear having read my words matters a great deal, it matters not if I have ever met them, it is simply wonderful just knowing I helped make their day a little bit better. No amount of media or press will ever change that, because that moment when I write that small piece which warms your day, is far greater than anything else I could ever do in front of a camera, and that for me is what writing is really all about.
The Wonder of Books and Song.
I remember when I was just 7 years old and at school, and I was asked what did I want to be when I grew up?
It makes me smile now, but at the time I got into a huge amount of trouble, because for me it was not a great time being a child. My parents had separated when I was just four years old, and even though I was not aware of it, I was not going to see my father again until I was 35 years old, and at that scared and lonely age of seven, I missed him and wanted desperately to see him again. I hated my childhood years, I was in a school where my grandfather had been one of the most successful headmasters of his time, and was still remembered by all the staff, which had been trained by him. To be honest I never had a chance of living up to the standards expected from the staff of Mr Renwick’s grandson. The headmistress hated me, as she was reminded daily of her shortcomings compared to my grandfather, and went out of her way to make an example of me, my mum was also a dinner lady at the school and my every move was reported to her, so I took the added humiliation of being reprimanded very publicly by her. That resulted in making me an easy target for every bully in the school, and as I withdrew into myself, I was different, and awkward, and that made it hard for me to even be accepted by my brothers at home, life felt hard and was a miserable existence, I was a loner lost in world I felt I did not belong in, so when I was asked what I wanted to be, I replied very honestly, “An orphan.”
I can laugh now, but at the time it was like trying to live through a nuclear holocaust, I guess I was too honest and lacked great tact, something which at times these days I can also be a little guilty of. It wasn’t easy growing into a man without a father’s guidance, yet two things saved my life and restored my sole to happiness and inner calm as I grew older, they became the friends and faithful companions that would take me through the rest of my life, and in time help me come to terms with who I was, and who I was capable of being. I think at the age of 50, which I have arrived at this month (February 2014) I can say with clarity, they saved my life, and those two faithful companions have been my books and my music.
Words hold a great place in my heart, I have learned to live by them, as they have been the things I have held onto in the hard times, and my life has had its times of great sorrow and great happiness. My book case and my very precious vinyl record and CD collection are in many ways like a bar code of the days of my life, each coloured stripe marks a particular moment in time that is relevant to what I was doing and who I am today because of it. Every book on my shelf has the advice I needed to get me through a rough patch, and the lyrics of my vast rock collection guided me through my teenage years and have inspired me to grow and learn more and more about life and living through all of my days.
At the ripe old age of 50, I think through my reading and the endless years of listening to music I have finally learned to be at ease with the world and more importantly myself. I made it out alive, thanks to the hopes and dreams of every author and every crazy love sick or troubled musician, who opened their heart and wrote it down on a lyric sheet. To them I have much indeed to thank them for, I feel sorry for the youth of today, they have switched off from the world of books and music opting for the user friendly computer games console, which to be honest teach you little but how to kill your way out of zombie apocalypse or drive over enough police officers and pedestrians to get away from your crime scot free. Modern day consumer driven business I feel has ripped them off and left them high and dry, which if they read a book or too they would understand. I was enrolled into catering college at 16 (not my choice) and even though it was not a place I wanted to be, at that time I did not actually know what I did want to be, so I read all the books I could, and then took what I learned and turned it into lyrics to match all my favourite songs to revise by. It worked out fine as I silently hummed my way through my exams and walked out of college with all distinctions. I smile every now and again as I hear a track playing and remember a recipe or a particular part of my food science exam.
It was at that point rebellion kicked in big time, and off the rails I went, I was to say the least the last of a wild bunch of hippie radicals dragging out their existence through the 1970’s and I dumped catering and went into horticulture to be at one with the universe, and spend my life surrounded by plants. Again I had my books and music, my botany library is indeed a vast one and I very quickly started to shine as I had the ability to learn and apply massive amounts of information setting me well above most of my colleagues as a fountain of horticultural knowledge. I loved my working life in Horticulture, I learned the true meaning of satisfaction in a job, I never made masses of money, but I lived well and taught myself well beyond the limits of the examining board ending up as a public demonstrator, horticultural teacher, container gardening specialist, houseplant expert, tree expert and last but not least bonsai teacher, instructor and designer, not bad at all I think, and all thanks to my books and my love of music which played endlessly encouraging me in the background.
Words on paper and set to rhythm have dominated my life, and behind the scenes they gave me something greater and deeper to ease my soul and help me make the changes within myself that helped me find the courage to change into what I hope is a better and more at ease person. They helped me to write and express what at the tender age of seven I was unable to. Writing allows me to open up and lay things out in black and white so I can read it back and understand the lessons of life and learn from them, writing has been a great therapy that has aided my growth as a human being. I still smile at the faces of those who I meet and they discover that I have walked away from horticulture and become a full time writer; it was something no one either saw or expected until I did a complete U turn and published a book confounding all my friends. These past seven years sat writing have been the best years of my life, for I believe my precious books have finally brought me round in a complete circle to meet the person I was always meant to be, and he is sat here at this very moment, wearing headphones and playing a wonderful version of Bachman-Turner-Overdrives, You aint seen nothing yet, writing this article.
The important thing here I feel is, that reading and listening to some incredibly well written music lyrics taught me, how to forgive, how to communicate and hold down a good job. I learned how to change and become more social, and the true meaning of courage. I have learned respect for all, and acceptance of the fact that everyone sees the world differently, and I will not always agree with them. It has taught me no one wins a war, as everyone suffers, and how everyone deserves a chance to show they have the ability to learn and progress. I also learned how to build a shelter and grow food; I have learned that the wilderness is like an open store filled with the needs of everyone. I too can kill zombies and fight off vampires, and I know all the best places to bury treasure. Most importantly I learned how to live and be happy and to know when to change things to make me happier, and spot the girl of my dreams, and how to hold on to her as I have and always will.
There is a great deal to learn from my life, I was a kid with no idea of what I wanted to do, I was unhappy and afraid of pretty much everything. I was riddled with self-doubt stumbling on from childhood into an adult life devoid of any direction, but I was never alone, I had the power of those who have been before me laying out their ideas of life in verse or fantasy story to guide me slowly forward. Books hold such a wealth of great advice and truths, as do the living experience of those who can be creative and translate that into song, its like having a vast bank of advisors beside you to guide you, and they can help you make up your mind about something, or bring a smile to your face and even make you weep with delight. The thing is they are there silently sat on a shelf waiting to be requested by you for something to take you through that moment of difficulty or give you a well-earned break from the reality of life. The ability to write has to be the greatest achievement of the human race, and we here in the UK we are in serious danger of throwing it all away.
In this country (UK) today we have less than 1000 indie bookshops, and we are slowly destroying our libraries and closing them down, which from the point of view of myself, a lifelong user, I think it is a massive and dangerous mistake for this country. The recording industry is a good example of what is in store for the book industry if we the people to do not take heed and take back what should be there for everyone who is need of it. The government is slashing budgets left right and centre and raising taxes, and soon like the music shops, all the bookshops will close and there will no longer be local libraries. The music industry once offered us a huge choice as did the book industry, but larger commercial enterprises are taking over and refining our selection, and great works are fading away never to be found again, those indie stores that kept us all in touch with all that was available are becoming less and less each year, and even with the libraries that remain open, thier range and selection have lessened, taking vital knowledge away from the good of all of us, and our future generations.
It is time all of us made it clear, we do not wish to see another generation of our young raised without the wisdom of those who have gone before us at hand. We need to use local bookshops and oppose the closure of libraries. We should see it as our duty to encourage everyone we meet to read and use what they learn in life and in leisure. So many complain about falling standards of education in schools, well are you surprised when for over ten years books have not been actively encouraged as a full and important part of a person’s life. If we lose more local bookshops and libraries, and allow the large corporate companies to rule and dictate the terms of our reading, how we will we ever recover as a nation in the future, if those that follow us, are not capable of reading a good well written and educational story? The music industry has lost any hope of keeping independent musicians thriving, the industry has been destroyed and rebuilt as a corporate money maker, and look at the results, it gave us Justin Bieber to inspire our children. It’s a scary thought indeed, and more fitting for a horror story, let’s not let it happen to our beloved book industry and libraries.
I was told at 16 by my careers officer when I wanted to enter into Journalism, “You don’t have what it takes try something else.” My library, bookstore, and music told me different, and today after years of attempts I am a published author, so let’s start now and protect and preserve what we have, and keep the knowledge and life experiences of every creative force with a pen available for future generations.
The real price of something for nothing.
There is quite the debate going on at the moment about the price of digital books, and the question is being asked why it is that they are being offered for such a low amount of money. I have heard all the arguments, the most quoted being that the consumer has grown use to low prices, and therefore demand cheaper books, and also that it is a cheaper route to publication, and so therefore should be cheaper, but somehow I feel sat here isolated from the rest of the world at my writing desk, that out of all the arguments within the debate, the one thing that appears to be lacking is the point of view of the Authors.
I cannot really speak for other author’s as I have only my own experience of writing, but I can say that for myself it is a very worrying trend and I do feel concerned about the way the larger global companies discount books and offer them at such low prices, often below the price they have paid themselves. Discounting is and has always been a large part of the printed book selling industry, but recent trends in the movement to digital has seen a sharp fall in the sales of printed books, and as more and more people switch over to one of the many digital devices, I fear my time as an author may be coming to an abrupt end, because with digital books selling at lower and lower prices, I find it hard to see how I will earn enough revenue to actually stay afloat.
I have just finished writing the latest in the series of books I have been working on since 2006, (Heirs to the Kingdom) and currently have three of the series out and the fourth is ready for publication. Obviously because this is a detailed series and I had been writing long before I got the first published in 2009, I am at an advanced stage in the writing process, and as you can see I am six years into it. I work every day of the week on the books, and due to the plot and the many layers within the books, I have a constant run of threads weaving through the series that have to be picked up and woven into them. The latest book in the series has taken me just over a year at 14 months to research and write, it has been a long drawn out process checking every step of the way that I have not missed out vital key issues from the previous books, and has also involved a great deal of research and fact finding missions, to ensure that the book comes across as being realistic, even though it is a work of fiction.
The research for the books can consist of Internet searches, book purchasing and reading up, or visiting locations that allow me to take photographs to aid in the process of writing accurately. All of this has a cost that is borne out by myself, I am like so many other writers out there working hard to establish myself in the world of fiction and trying to build a reputation for myself. I have used a self publishing company to get the books out, which not only has a cost for production, it also means I have to fund the costs of promotion, which has many related extra costs. I pay for the web site to remain up and running, and I also have to pay many of the various sites that feature my books, I try wherever possible to use as much free publicity as I can, but that is a shrinking market and so more often than not, a new site to help me promote comes at a cost.
I have spent six years writing almost full time, earning extra income selling jewellery which my wife makes, and purchasing my own books at wholesale to sell at events, its a low income way of living, but with some clever budgeting we survive as a family and push forward. When I first decided to publish this series, I sat for a great deal of time with my wife, and we looked at our prospects, having researched the subject in full, it was never going to be easy, but we have managed and have taken the long term view of slowly building up the reputation and taking it one sale at a time. To date we have invested quite a sum of capital into this project, its pretty much almost everything we had, and we have after three years of hard work, recovered around 5% of what we have spent, it is indeed a very long term investment.
This article is not a complaint, its an honest appraisal of what myself and others have done, for I know that in this I am not alone. I love writing, it has taken me a very long time to pluck up the courage to put my work into print, and now that I have, I can honestly say I am happier than I have ever been, as I have finally found something that I love and adore as a working lifestyle. I do not mind that its taken the last 14 months to put together the latest episode of my series, I have no qualms at all knowing I will now move forward to check the book over and over to ensure it is to the highest possible standard before it goes of to be proof read, a process that will take possibly another six months of constant scrutiny, because at the end of the day I know that there is growing readership of people who will read my words and gain a great deal of enjoyment from them, but I have to ask one very important question.
Why is it when it comes to the world of books and writing, that my efforts have so little value?
My books are not in a digital format yet, and even though this is going to be the future of books, you must agree that to sell what will finally reach 20 months of work for less than the price of a birthday card is somewhat insulting?
I know of no other industry where a man’s life and work have such little value, and yet that is what the digital readers demand, which in my case is a detailed book of over 200 thousand words for less than £4. The mad thing is that is not even my share, as profits have to go to the distributor etc… I think it works out about the total value of a cheap cup of poor coffee per copy sold. I must have drunk over a million whist sat here writing the thing. I suppose the question is… If I offer you a job and pay you the same, would you consider it for more than a millisecond? Of course you wouldn’t, who would?
Publishing is one of very few industries that exploits its most valued asset, the creative source, and no matter what happens in the future that will remain unchanged. All writers know that the odds of making a living that can sustain life are very slender indeed. There are a few very lucky writers who hit at the right moment and they are the 3% that make it as a full time writer reaping the rewards of their labour, the rest of us keep going in hope that one day someone out there will read our work and hopefully recommend it to their friends, which at the end of the day is how books become known, its no different to acting or dancing, all of us are waiting for that all important break, and some of us will never get it, but we live in the slim hope we may if we persevere. We love what we do, and we are happy doing it, but do not insult us beyond that, have the decency to understand how much time and effort goes into the process, and offer us a fair price for it. Digital may appear a cheaper option, but the costs are not really that much different from print for an author, it should be a cheaper version I agree, but lets keep the price a little fairer. It matters not how you read a book, whether its print or digital it has value, because for the reader it an experience that provides joy and excitement, and for the author it is often more than a year of their life.
Hopefully this will shed a little light which I feel enlightens the view, I shall remain a writer no matter what happens, and I shall see where that takes me, one thing I do know is that its going to be an interesting journey.
Will many writers survive Digital?
I often wonder what peoples perception of what a writer actually does is, because when people find out that I write, it appears that they just naturally assume that somehow I am loaded and raking in masses of money, if only that was true.
In 90% of cases a writer barely earns enough to give their family a weekend away, let alone provide them with a luxurious lifestyle, and they have to take on extra jobs just to make ends meet. People really have little idea of how hard it can be to survive on book sales, they really only see the very lucky few who make it up the mid-lists and into that top bracket where life at the top has its privileges.
I was talking recently to a few friends who just naturally assumed I was making well over five English pounds per copy of my book sold. Oh if only that was the case, they were stunned to find out that the average author earns just fifty pence per copy sold, and therefore need massive sales just to cover the costs of living whilst writing, let alone any future plans.
From my own experience of writing, when I look at the amount of money spent on researching, travelling and reading to prepare my books before I even write a word, never mind the costs of a family containing a wife and two children, it is amazing how much money goes in long before you finally get that illusive publishing deal, and that was just to get the book finally printed.
The sad fact is that for most writers money is not the motivation behind the work, for myself it is the joy of preparation, researching and writing, to that point where you sit back and know that you have created something unique and feel satisfied that you have accomplished your goal. It is a wonderful feeling that stirs deep inside and you have a final result that you can look at with pride, knowing you gave it your all, and also knowing that somewhere it will bring a moment of escape and delight to those who read it and live in a world you created, there really isn’t any other feeling like it in the world. It is something that is very easily exploited by those who run the industry.
It is well documented that the publishing industry has used it for years to line their own pockets, stating their costs as justifcation and takeing the lion’s share of the money, leaving the author with the smallest amount of the profits, and I think we are all intelligent enough to understand that it has always been the way of things, and maybe we have all sat back and accepted it when we should have asked for more. The biggest problem with that though is that publishing deals have always been hard to come by, and we are also smart enough to realise that if we push too hard, we could end up out of deal, left high and dry with no contract.
There is no shortage of writers, if anything the numbers have risen steadily for years, so one wrong move and you can very easily be replaced, and that has always been something that has in a way acted as a deterrent to writers rebelling against the system. However things have been changing now for several years, and to be honest one has to question if there is even going to be a future for writers, as the digital age forces rule changes and working methods across the globe. The publishing industry is in a shambles at the moment, I spend most days reading the various Blogs and newsletters emailed to me from inside the trade, and I find it very hard to see how the future of books printed or digital, will survive without some radical changes of thought from not only the industry, but also from the consumers, because lowering prices are squeezing the life out of everyone.
Without readers there is no need for books whether they be on a page or a digital screen, but it looks to me like we are all heading for a very big stalemate, as consumers demand cheaper books, especially digital ones, but as the price falls, so do the royalties paid to the author. I am a bottom list author and believe it or not I am in the largest bracket, as there are many like myself out there all trying to get the word out about their books, and we all know our sales will not be huge. As much as we all dream of that freak moment when we get discovered, we do not have the support of a large company who will spend thousands on us to publicise our work, and most of us promote from home with the help of a few friends using the internet and social networks to try and increase our sales. Our print runs are low or use print on demand, which means the costs of our books is higher than the big names, and although we have publishers, we still only get the nominal royalty, so for us digital is a huge fear.
Its bad enough so much of the price of our books goes to the retailer, wholesaler and publisher, but recent trends show how little value our work has in this modern time, as the price of digital downloads is pushed into the floor. The bigger online retail companies are very aggressive; they list millions of books and are not reliant on massive profits per book to stay afloat, and so they have created an atmosphere of cheaper and cheaper in order to rival their competition, and the book buying public has sold into its practice to such a point that it is becoming impossible for any author to realistically get any return for their effort.
One very large online presence in particular pushes masses of books for just $0.99, and I see it on the screen and feel this must be madness. I am told this is what the consumers of books demand, and they are unlikely to pick your book if it is valued much higher, because digital is cheaper easier and faster, and therefore should be cheaper. I am sorry to disagree with the worlds leading book seller of the moment, but I got no discount when writing it because one day it would be appearing as digital download. My hours of dedication have not lessened because it will eventually be delivered via an inbox rather than a post box. To be honest it is insulting, how would the consumer feel if I asked them to work all week as I have for just $0.99? I am pretty sure they value the jobs they do to earn their living, so why has mine become so worthless? Is it not bad enough that I have to live with an industry that puts my creative ability as its last priority, whilst it makes twenty times more money from my work than I do? Do all writers now have to suffer the ultimate humiliation of being told by the consumer that their efforts rank lower than everyone else’s?
It’s a very sad truth that in the capitalist society we live in writers have no worth at all, and with the onset of digital, and the so called death of the book, the future for writers just became very dark indeed, and one can only wonder how long it will be before the writer has no choice but to stop publishing simply because they can no longer afford to. We could simply leave publishers and go the self publishing route, and upload our books directly, which is starting to happen, especially since publishers today are cutting their lists and courting the already rich and famous for their biographies and cookbooks, but even then, when the retailer takes their cut of the $0.99 there is little left to live on for the author.
Will we reach a time when writers have to write for free and just accept it? Or will we one day see a time when all there is to read is a classic that has gone out of copyright and so is available to download free, it is a very real possibility, because in the scramble to gain control of the digital book reading world, it looks to me like every single area is being scrutinised except the most important one of all, and that is the role of the future author.
I have no choice but to be a spectator at the moment, and I am watching very carefully, as depending on how things go, I may have to make a very difficult decision in my future. Will I stop writing? No, its not possible for me. Will I stop publishing? That is a question I will eventually face, and I am sure there are many out there who like myself will face the very same question. All I can say for now is, I am watching…. I will have to wait and see.