Romancing the Blog | Romance Authors and Readers Who Blog

I watch a lot of crime dramas on television. Tonight’s (11/18) episode of Law & Order: SVU featured a storyline revolving around DNA replication. The protagonists of the show, two cops, discovered that it is possible to fabricate DNA evidence that can lead to wrongful convictions. The antagonist laughed and said, “It’s a whole new world. Guess your free ride is over.” and the camera panned away to show the horror on the main characters’ faces. I sympathized with their reaction to abandoning what was considered inviolable and facing an unknown future with changed rules. I knew just how they felt.

A year ago today (11/18/08), I wrote a column here at RTB titled Less is More where I talked about the state of the economy and how it might affect the publishing industry. I have to say, looking back a year later, I have been blindsided by certain developments. I’ve been saddened by the number of friends struggling with their careers, and I have felt pessimistic about the future of career-focused authors. I have heard of print run numbers so low my jaw drops. I’ve watched one writer after another take on new pseudonyms, new genres, new agents… trying to stay published.

Yet despite how downright depressing some of my conversations with writer friends have been, I’m still holding out hope. I have long been one to embrace change. While some people crave stability and hate surprises, I love to try new things. If there’s something better, different, unusual… whatever, I want to check it out. From moving residences to changing genres, I like switching things up. I’m waiting/hoping/praying that the publishing industry finds a viable and sustainable new business model–soon!–that will benefit writers and readers as well as the publisher.

What will publishing look like in six months? A year? How will writers be getting their stories into the hands of readers? Any guesses?

The first of five boxes of books arrived at my house today. They’re the books I picked up in DC at the RWA National Conference. I have to tell you, opening Box #1 was like Christmas morning. I can’t wait until the other boxes arrive. While many of the authors are favorites of mine, the vast majority of titles are ones I’ve wanted to read but haven’t had a chance to.

You see, I went through a period of non-reading that lasted a couple of years and now I’m scrambling to catch up. There are so many awesome premises out there and favorite writers that I’ve lost track of. It’s terrible how I relegated my reading to being a luxury. I’d feel so guilty that I couldn’t get past a few paragraphs before the little voice in my head said, “You don’t have time for this. Go write.”

At the start of this year I made a New Year’s resolution to read at least fifty-two books in 2009. That’s a massive drop from my reading habits of three years ago, but also a massive leap up from last year. I’ve found that there’s a direct correlation between how much I read and how much I write. Authors have to refill the well and that means watching movies, getting out of the house, spending time with family and friends, and losing themselves in another writer’s world for a spell. Now I look at reading as a necessity that happens to feel like a luxury.

How about you? Have you ever gone through a reading dry spell? Did lack of reading affect you negatively in any way? Do you make reading a priority in your life?

Handselling books that is. When it’s done with passion and enthusiasm, a handselling bookseller can move mountains of books.

Recently, a friend and I went to a two-story bookstore (It was heaven, I tell you. I would have moved in if they’d let me). We wandered around and were approached by a bookseller. Forty-five minutes later we were still talking to her. She walked us through her section — Young Adult — from beginning to end, pulling out titles and sharing what she’d loved about them (or why I might want to borrow a particular book first). It was clear that she adored her corner of the bookstore and felt proprietary about it. She read the books on “her” shelves. She knew off the top of her head what an author’s previous releases were and what they had coming out soon. I was captivated by her passion for the stories. It put several books on my list that I’d never heard of before, because her excitement over them sparked my own. Book love is highly contagious and addictive. All readers are looking for that next great book that’s going to rock their world.

Handselling is an easy formula: (1) Bookseller loves a book (2) They recommend it with fervor (3) Reader becomes intrigued and must buy. I heard from a bookseller yesterday who has sold 190 copies of my latest book since it released two weeks ago. Holy cow. That blows me away. But I know it happens all the time. Every day. Right this very minute there’s a bookseller somewhere raving about a book that knocked their socks off and there’s a reader soaking up every word with building interest.

When Borders recently announced that they were “seeking renewal through the timeless art of ‘hand-selling’ books” (By HILLEL ITALIE, Associated Press – Tue May 5) I became really excited. I forwarded the article to friends and cheered. I love Borders. I think Susan Grimshaw is invaluable to the romance genre. I want BGI to stay in business (and hopefully build a big Borders store near me). But I was a little concerned about the caveat that the books to be handsold were not individual staff favorites, but corporate choices. I became even more concerned when comments started popping up here and there claiming that employees could lose their jobs if they didn’t meet sales quotas for the “make” books (and that sometimes they didn’t even like the “make” books). It’s difficult to judge the veracity of anonymous comments, but then again, if my job was at stake I wouldn’t post my identity either. Nothing is private online, as we all know.

What are your thoughts on forced handselling? What’s your reaction to it as a reader, author, or bookseller?

Part of putting out a product for consumption and expecting consumers to pay for it is the need to accept criticism for said product. Once someone pays for something, they own it and have a right to proclaim dissatisfaction with it.

Authors must build a “thick skin” to prevent wounds from negative reviews. I remember my first bad review stinging like particularly nasty paper cut, but since then I’ve had far less trouble with them. I’ve come to find confidence from the knowledge that I wrote the best book I could at the time and I’m proud of the finished product, regardless of whether some find it lacking. There are two sides of the coin after all. Someone’s dislike is another person’s love. Books that a reader says they wasted their money on are the same books that are on another reader’s keeper shelf.

As a reader, I’ve found that bad reviews will sometimes goad me to buy a book. I rarely buy books based on reviews, but I’m pretty sure when I have bought a book because of a review, the review wasn’t positive. I know there are other readers like me who will buy regardless of the review, as well as readers who are wary of books with only positive reviews. We all have our quirks. However, there is a certain type of review that I have trouble being nonchalant about–the Wrong Review, reviews wherein some of the content is just plain wrong.

I’m not talking about perceived misconstructions about something I wrote. I see that as the reader’s experience and they own it; it’s theirs. It’s not my place to say, “I meant it like [insert reason] and you got it wrong,” because they didn’t get it wrong. They had a different experience with my words than I did. I’m talking about stating that something is in the book when it isn’t. Such as saying the hero is an ex-cop, when he isn’t. Or saying the heroine is widowed, when she was never married. Mistakes in relating facts, not perceptions.

It’s actually quite commonplace. I’ve had factual errors in reviews from both major publications and blogs. I’ve seen/read other authors privately bemoaning a review that’s wrong. If a reviewer thinks the heroine is stupid, that’s their right. If the reviewer states that the heroine is stupid because she used to be an FBI agent and should know better, but it was actually her sister who was the agent and the heroine teaches kindergarten… well, it grates. If the reviewer can’t remember the book well enough to know who’s who and what’s what, they really should skip reviewing the book.

Then I remind myself that I don’t think reviews influence sales overmuch, so does it matter? The reviews aren’t always bad when they’re wrong. Maybe it balances out? But no amount of reasoning stops it from mattering to me. Good or bad, I think reviews should be accurate. Despite this, I’ve only once sent a request for a mistake to be fixed (which it never was). It’s just too much stress risking the possibility that the reviewer might get defensive and in turn call me defensive and the whole thing turning into a mess. Much easier to just try and ignore it, and get back to work.

Funny enough, even knowing that there are chances I could be reading erroneous information, I don’t think about that while reading a review. Because of that, I guess it’s fortunate that reviews can lead me to buy a book, but they never make me skip a book.

A bit aside from the topic of errors, but still on topic about reviews is a blog post from the Baltimore Sun talking about reviewers taking heat for their reviews, which I guess makes sense, since posting a review is also putting something out there for public consumption.

Anyway, it’s a holiday weekend and I’m working madly on a deadline. Hopefully this wasn’t too much of a ramble and there’s something for us to chat about.

So the economy sucks. Every month, retailers post their latest losses and caution that it might get worse before it gets better. For a while, I thought if we just made it through the end of this year and the elections, we’d recover. Now, I’m hearing that retailers anticipate these troubled times will spill over into next year. Perhaps even well into next year. Perhaps beyond that.

Simon & Schuster president and CEO Carolyn Reidy called for CEOs to step up and lead during the deep economic slump and warned that possibly worse scenarios may be on the way. “We have to act now, and turn over every stone for possible savings in our operations, in order to be prepared for what’s coming, which is possibly an even worse scenario in six, nine, 12 or even 18 months,” she told the CEO’s.

– By Cindy Crosby, Publisher’s Weekly, 11/11/2008
“Reidy: Worse Publishing Environment May Be On the Way”

Yikes.

Next year I’m scheduled to release six books back-to-back over five months. This led to my having a twelve-month gap between my last release and my next one. I’m so relieved to not have to worry about a new release right now. This year, I’ve watched many friends angst over their releases and smaller-than-expected print runs. I’ve listened to horror stories of booksellers “skipping” titles (placing no order for a particular title so that it’s not available in any of their stores) or placing minuscule orders. It’s a tough time to release books.

Publisher A has cut their staff by ten percent across the board; Publisher B canceled a number of expensive book contracts and is only offering newbie authors single-book deals; Publisher C is hoping that the slower rate of signing new books at most of the big houses will translate to their being able to pick up projects for smaller advances.

– By Nephele Tempest, The Knight Agency blog, 11/17/2008
“It’s the Economy Stupid”

Smaller advances. Really? Dropping proven authors for writers willing to be paid less. That’s a solution?

What might evolve, in [Reidy’s] opinion is publishers “taking a good hard look at returns causes, effects and practices, and coming up with ways to diminish or eliminate them…”

– By Cindy Crosby, Publisher’s Weekly, 11/11/2008
“Reidy: Worse Publishing Environment May Be On the Way”

Taking a good hard look at the causes of returns–now that sounds like a plan to me. As an author, I admit I’m biased, but I think there are other ways to save money than hoping authors will be willing to take less money for their work. Such as cutting slots.

I just don’t understand why the number of books being produced each month hasn’t decreased. I’m not talking about print runs; I’m talking about number of titles. To me, that makes the most sense. All the lines and imprints that doubled the number of releases (i.e. Aphrodisia’s move from 2 to 4 or HQ Presents move from 4 to 8 12 ) when the economy was better… why haven’t they dropped back down to their former smaller number of releases? When less books are being bought, shouldn’t there be less books on the shelves? Instead of decreasing print runs for all books, dropping proven authors for authors willing to take less money, and offering single book deals, why not release fewer titles and give the books better support? Isn’t it a lot cheaper to produce one title than it is to produce two? And with each title getting more attention (in every respect), isn’t that going to lessen the likelihood that they’ll be returned?

We’re facing a crisis in publishing. I can’t help but wonder what other steps are being taken, or considered, to address it.

When this post first goes up, I will still be in bed here in California. But a few hours later, I will be walking barefoot through the airport security checkpoint, getting ready for an all-day, cross country trip to a readers/authors gathering.  It’s my fourth conference trip this year, in addition to trips I’ve made for speaking engagements. I’ve turned down other offers, because I have books to write and a family to spend time with. But I’m already scheduled for two conference trips next year, with a few more invitations under consideration.

Who knew writers could spend so much time on the road?

There are a lot of reasons why I go to these events. Some are to expand my knowledge of my craft. Others are for connecting with the readers who spend their time and money on my books. And some are to share a few of my experiences with other writers. I never regret the effort, because I always come away with something new and valuable. I’ve forged beautiful and supportive frienships during my travels, and spending time with other voracious readers like myself is always a treat.

I love to talk about books (not my own, I don’t know what to say) and hear about the authors who are exciting readers now.  I remember reading somewhere that publishing is the only industry that doesn’t ask its consumers what they want. (I’ve heard that the reason for this is because readers don’t know what’s going to be the next big thing until the editors discover it and put it out there.) So for me, the face-to-face connection with readers helps me see what’s happening now and what they’d like to see more of. It’s certainly not a comprehensive poll, but it is very interesting!

So while I’ll be up before dawn to write before the day begins, I’m still looking forward to the trip and the new friends and memories I will make while I’m gone.

Have you attended any conferences this year? What do you get out of them? If you haven’t been to a conference before but plan to eventually, what do you hope to get out of the experience?

Are you watching the Olympic Games? I’m riveted.

I find the quest for gold to be tremendously inspiring. I get teary when the National anthem plays, and I shout madly as “underdog” athletes race past their favored competitors. I understand how much time they’ve invested in their goal–the long hours and the sacrifice of simple pleasures such as staying up late or eating something they shouldn’t. Michael Phelps says his life is eating, sleeping, and swimming. My admiration is boundless. I cheer from behind my laptop screen, sneaking in peeks at the action between stretches of typing.

As I watch the athletes on the television, I note their joy and sorrow, their feelings of accomplishment and disappointment. Every event is both a dream realized and a hope dashed. Some will go home empty-handed, despite giving years of their life to the pursuit of their goal. But with or without a medal, every athlete in Beijing is a winner just for giving their heart and soul to chasing their dreams. I find that tremendously uplifting. Watching replays of Derek Redmond hobbling toward the finish line brings me to tears. Such beauty of spirit is awesome to witness. As a writer, I try to capture some of that beauty with mere words on a page. As a reader, I treasure the books that succeed in that task.

The uniquely human ability to hope and to dream is what we most love about the novels that adorn our keeper shelves. The characters and their journeys touch and move us, their pain and joy linger long after the last page is turned. The fictional dramas in my favorite books are no less real to me than the ones unfolding on my television screen every night. There is magic on my bookshelves, beloved gifts from my favorite authors to me.

The Olympic Games are more than just a tally of medals won and lost. They are a celebration of the human spirit we all share. I’m inspired both for my own sake and for the sake of the characters I have yet to write.

Are you watching the Olympics? Which Olympic moment, past or present, most inspires you?

I recently attended Book Expo America for the first time. It was an enlightening experience. I could regale you with the wonderful things I saw and learned, but instead I’m focusing on something awful–how many books I saw in the trashcans.

Yes, you heard that right. Brand new, unread books–many of them ARCs–tossed in the trash. Everywhere I turned, there were racks of free (very nicely made and sturdy) tote bags to carry books in… and right next to them were trashcans stuffed with waste and new books.

This practice makes me so frustrated I could scream, because it’s a problem with a solution that benefits everyone involved, yet no one seems to be doing it. Give the books to people who want them–charities, libraries, hospitals, etc. The author gets their books “out there,” landfills have less waste in them, trees aren’t sacrificed for nothing, charities receive much-needed fund raising materials, and readers who will love the books get them.

I blogged about this issue before. With the Romance Writers of America’s National Conference coming up in just a few short weeks (Uh… where did the year go?), I thought it was prime time to remind everyone who plans to attend to think twice about the book situation and see if we can take care of it this year.

The Basics:

1. Don’t take books you’re not absolutely certain you’re willing to pay to ship home or drag on the plane with you.
2. Don’t leave books you receive in your registration bag as “tips” for the maid. They aren’t allowed to keep items left in the room. They will throw them in the trash.
3. Don’t leave books in common areas of the hotel (seating areas, bathrooms, meeting rooms, etc.) in the hopes that someone will walk by and want some of them.

Some ideas:

1. If one or more of your chapters has a chapter party, see if they’ll arrange a “book swap” table.
2. If you live in Northern California, perhaps you’d be willing to contact a few of your local charities/hospitals/libraries to see if they’d like to take some of these unwanted books as donations.
3. If you live elsewhere in the country, perhaps you’d be willing to arrange something similar in your hometown and ship the books home (or directly to the recipient). A flat-rate Priority Mail box from the post office is only $9.80 shipping, no matter how heavy it is. They come folded flat and fit neatly in the bottom of a carry-on sized piece of luggage. You can buy the postage beforehand and leave it with the front desk when you check out.
4. Spread the word when you’re at the conference. So many attendees have no idea the book situation is such a problem.

If you have some added solutions, please share. Let’s not throw away hundreds of books this year.

Have you heard? Sometime late last year or early this year (the exact date appears to be a mystery), Wal-Mart — one of the largest retailers of books in the US — stopped reporting their book sales numbers to the NY Times and the USA Today. This would seem to mean that the lists we’ve come to rely upon as indicators of book sales and bestsellers in this country are markedly different than the same lists we followed this time last year. Authors who sell the majority of their books through Wal-Mart are showing up on the lists lower than authors with much smaller sales numbers who sell predominantly through the struggling chain and independent bookstores.

You might have heard about Wal-Mart’s decision a year or so ago to only carry certain titles. Many books/authors who once enjoyed hefty sales figures at Wal-Mart suddenly found their print runs slashed when their latest book was passed over by Wal-Mart’s book buyers. Simple fact is: Wal-Mart sells a ton of books. Now the lists can’t factor in those figures.

I’ve always thought of the bestseller lists as an indicator of what America is reading now. Is that no longer true? Are they now only an indicator of what half the American population is reading and only a certain demographic — the bookstore shopper? What about the moms shopping for laundry detergent and socks who pick up a book at WalMart as a treat? There sure are a lot of them. I’ve heard Wal-Mart’s market share is as high as fifty percent.

Is this change a good or bad thing? For those authors whose books were passed over at Wal-Mart or those whose trade paperback titles are never considered, does this level the playing field a bit? What are the long-term ramifications for established authors, who might find that the majority of their sales aren’t reported?

As an author, I can understand the thrill of “hitting the lists” for the first time. No matter what, you have to sell a lot of books to make the lists. But I can also picture the flipside — selling more books than ever, but not being recognized for it, which is more than just an ego-stroke. Have you seen those bookshelves in drug, grocery, and airport stores that are numbered (#1, #2, #3) for those books on the NYT list? Imagine if an author would have been #5–if their Wal-Mart sales had been counted–now hitting #16. (Being in the Top Fifteen is hugely important, I’ve heard.) Which might lead to less outlets, less visibility, less sales. Which could then lead to lower print runs, lower advances, etc. (I’m speculating.) Perhaps it wouldn’t be a big deal if Wal-Mart had a low market share, but 50%? Again, that’s a lot. If the authors were losing sales because the quality of their books was diminishing, that’s one thing. But in this case, they would be losing sales only in a figurative sense, but the costs they might pay are very real.

There has been some talk about this on various author loops, but the topic is rife with confusion. Why did Wal-Mart decide to keep their book sales numbers to themselves? How does this affect the viability of the bestseller lists? Can they be seen the same way, knowing how many books they don’t factor in?

What does it mean to you–if anything?

I borrowed this blog post title from a headline that caught my eye in The Library Journal Academic Newswire (Feb. 12, 2008 – At O’Reilly “Tools of Change” Conference, Publishers Look Warily to the Future). It touched on what I’d intended to blog about today — how I’m looking at and wondering about the future of publishing.

In a relatively short period of time, so much has changed in regards to selling books. In the summer of 1996, the wholesale independent distribution business collapsed, leading to a crippling of mass market sales that continues to this day. Independent bookstores struggle to compete with chains. Chains are downsizing and posting losses. Wal-Mart, a major distributor of books sold in the United States, cut back on which titles they stock. E-readers are becoming more user friendly. The number of e-book retailers is increasing. In a separate but related event, the Writers Guild fought long and hard for “new media” rights. In a January 18, 2008 New York Post article on Wal-Mart’s decision to curtail the number of magazines it distributes, the publishing industry is described as “battered.”

Content in the age of the Internet is a “free-for-all,” and the “legacy model” of authors writing, publishers publishing, and readers buying only what booksellers stocked on their shelves has broken down.

– James Lichtenberg, president of Lightspeed, LLC (as quoted in The Library Journal, Feb. 12, 2008)

As a reader, I’ve come to expect that I will definitely find the book I want online. It’s a crapshoot whether I’ll find it in a bookstore, and almost certainly it will not be in my grocers or drugstore, because they only stock the BIG names. Stephen King books from the ’80s are many times more likely to be there than a book that released yesterday.

As a writer, it’s clear that the distribution channels for non-bestseller books are dwindling by the day. In a recent discussion with friends, I suggested that it wouldn’t be much longer before the coveted CALL from NY for a first sale would be for an e-exclusive release. Right now the NY publishers are doing e-exclusives in shorter lengths — epilogues, prologues, erotic quickies. But certainly it won’t stay that way. They’re testing the waters and more e-friendly readers are hopping on the e-train every day. With the overhead for an e-exclusive so much smaller than a print release and the promotional burden resting almost entirely on the author’s shoulders, it makes sense to see a future where debut authors cut their teeth on e-exclusives, especially if a print version would have limited distribution outlets. Why fire up the presses for a book that’s only available on retailer websites? If the author manages to build up an audience with their e-release, maybe they’ll get a print re-release. If that manages to sell well enough, maybe they’ll graduate to a print original.

I’m just speculating, of course, but it’s undeniable that the publishing industry is poised for a massive shift of some sort. Mr. Lichtenberg suggests that “the future business model for book publishing can best be understood as providing a service rather than a commodity.” Makes sense, but how will they do it? As a California native, the present publishing climate feels to me the way the earth does just before a quake hits. It’ll be interesting to see how the industry settles once the shaking has subsided.

***UPDATE***

Related to the discussion about the future of book sales–

From PR Newswire:

Borders Unveils First Concept Store
“…we’ve brought a fresh new look and an exciting interactive dimension to the store with a Digital Center where customers can do everything from mix and make their own custom CDs, download books and music, publish their own books, explore their family history, and create photo books — all without being computer experts because we have trained people there to help every step of the way.”

– George Jones, Borders Group Chief Executive Officer