http://ireaderreview.com/2009/08/22/3-kindle-indie-authors-deserving-book-deals/

I’m really glad they feel that way, because it always seems very unfair when authors are affected by factors entirely outside the author’s control.

I’m not saying it’s easy for anyone. Getting the story from head to page is always a lot of work, no matter how prolific a writer is. But having a way with words — which for me, by the way, is the result of much, much rewriting and tweaking and swearing when the thought is there but the words aren’t — isn’t the same as being a storyteller. Which was my point. Alas, stories simply do not pop into my head, begging to be told.

There’s also the constant struggle to find the balance between staying true to your core readership while not repeating yourself…and boy, does that get trickier when you’re on book twenty, or thirty, or more. Granted, some authors might not care. I do. As do most of the authors I know. But common wisdom says taking a break to recharge — unless you’re in the Beloved Author league — can be hazardous to your career.

A slight aside: I didn’t start writing seriously until my early forties, so this isn’t a lifelong thing with me. I have, however, been involved in the arts in one form or another all my life, both in the art studio and on stage. My degree, in fact, is in costume design, although I entered college as a drama major with visions of a Broadway career dancing in my head. But I’ve always known when it was time to switch gears — when I couldn’t live up to my own expectations. If/when that happens with my writing, I will move on with no regrets, as I’ve moved on before. Writing is what I do at the moment, but it doesn’t define me.

So, to answer your question…should a huge chunk of change land in my lap, I’d definitely at least go on hiatus to refill the much depleted well. Whether I’d write for publication again, I don’t know. I’ve proven to myself I can finish a book, nearly forty times over in fifteen years, and I’ve already met my personal goals. But perhaps, given the chance to let my brain lie fallow for a while, a story *would* come to me, perhaps something radically different from anything I’ve done before.

Or perhaps I’d go back to painting, or finally whip my long neglected voice into shape. Or go back on stage. (I couldn’t play Maria any more — either one! — but I could pull off a damn good Auntie Mame, still. ) Because I have many loves, most of which have been neglected while writing all these books. Not that this hasn’t been a terrific, gratifying ride, but if it were to end tomorrow, I would simply say, “That was fun. Next?” and go on.

Would you REALLY?

Everything done at a certain level is hard.
I play in business and at my level, it is hard (18 hour days, 6 day a week hard).
That doesn’t mean I don’t love it.
That doesn’t mean I’d give it up if I won the lottery (if that were the case, being a simple girl and having been given the gift of making money grow, I would have given it up already).

You have a true gift with words, Karen.
Would you really not use that gift because you had a pile of cash?

I am not one of those people. On any of those counts.

The premise comes fairly easily, sometimes. The actual story? Never. Nurturing that story idea from seed to fruition, through umpteen rewrites and sleepless nights?

If I won the lottery tomorrow, I’d give it up in a heartbeat. Because writing is haaaaaard.

However, at present it’s my job; I depend on my writing income to support my family (since I’m not holding my breath about the lottery ). But there’s only so much of me to go around. If I were to suddenly find myself out of contract, and could not quickly sign with another advance-paying publisher, I would have to go find another job. Probably Out There in the Real World. And trust me, if I have to go work full time *and* do the Mom/Wife thing? There’s not going to be anything left for writing. Maybe some people can hack it, but I can’t.

As for e-publishing…I couldn’t afford to switch to a no-advance model and be without that income for however long it took for me to a) write another book and b) that book to be published. Yes, I understand that it takes far less time for royalties to show up after publication for e-books than print, but it’s still not a bada-bing, bada-boom thing.

In any case, until — as Jordan said below — at least half the reading population is buying e-books (which ain’t gonna happen until a LOT of the e-reader/format issues are worked out), I’m simply not seeing e-publishing as a viable alternative for ME. As an adjunct, for a book that hadn’t sold elsewhere, maybe. But not as a substitute for print publishing.

I get the e-publishing model, I understand why it works so well for many authors, and I’m all for any delivery method that gets stories to readers. But for one thing, I do not write nearly fast enough to earn the same amount in e-publishing as I do writing 2-3 series romance titles for Special Edition. For another, the PG to PG-13, “real life” stories I write are — still — not exactly hot sellers as e-books.

I completely agree about the “adapt or die” thing. But for many authors who have to take the financial aspect into consideration, “adapting” to losing their contract might well mean choosing a path that no longer includes writing. Or at least to drastically reducing output, and/or publishing via a delivery method accessible to far fewer readers.

And for most of us schleps, esp. in category, the advances are fairly modest. There is a cap within each line, based on how well the average book in the line earns out. Those advances are generally well below that figure…which is why they’re one of the few still financially strong publishers in the biz.

The other thing about Harlequin is how much they generally support their authors, moving them around between lines and imprints and not dumping an author if one book tanks. They do realize a host of factors influence a book’s numbers, not only the content. While my first Red Dress Ink did very well, my second bombed, for reasons that had nothing to do with me (i.e., they laid down 10K less units than I’d *sold* of the first book). That hardly spelled the end of my career, since I’ve written nearly 15 more books for them since.

There’s definitely an advantage to writing for a company that *is* so diverse: If one line goes belly up, the author is almost always given an opportunity to write for another. Not everyone takes advantage of that, of course, but I know several authors who’ve moved almost effortlessly between several lines during the course of their careers.

How things work for authors who *only* write for MIRA and HQN (the single title imprints), though, I don’t know. But a generally solidly selling category author can weather the occasional blips and dips in her sales record without too much worry.

Head on over to Kindle Boards (kindleboards.com) and look at the Book Bazaar. There are many authors over there who are writing solid midlist titles (RJ Keller, Maureen Miller, Ed Patterson, LK Campbell, Lee Goldberg, Dave Dykema, Stacey Cochran, Kristan Tsetsi, myself, and a hundred more), and they are selling well on the Kindle Store. The most successful of the bunch are eventually scooped up by the legacy publishers (Boyd Morrison, John Rector, etc.).

So . . . the large publishers appear to be developing a model that lets the writers prove themselves in the emarket first (at their own expense and using grassroots marketing).

There will be a mid list, but we’ll have to go online to find it in the future.