Monday 28 October 2013

Don't be a rhinovirus

I don't usually do this - write a post that just directs you to go and read something else - but I'll make an exception for this one because anyone who writes

"My field of expertise is complaining, not answers. I know there’s no point in demanding that businesspeople pay artists for their work, any more than there is in politely asking stink bugs or rhinoviruses to quit it already. It’s their job to be rapacious and shameless."

deserves it. Tim Kreider, writing in the New York Times on why writers should (almost) always refuse to write for free. With the added bonus of a template 'No' email you can use to turn down such 'offers of exposure' as the offending people consider them. (Not as shouty as the Harlan Ellison video.)

Wednesday 23 October 2013

You're not my market... (probably)

I wonder if I'm doing this book thing all wrong. I'm at least not doing it the same way as everyone else. This thought was prompted by two things. One was Nicola Morgan's blog post on why she is no longer going to buy postcards to promote books. The other was a little dispute on a Facebook page for a writers' group. Oh, and a question in Book Witch's income survey (which you must look at if you haven't seen it yet) about how many review copies authors send out themselves.

The dispute followed a spate of self-published writers posting buy-my-book spam to the page. I remarked that I don't buy books because the author recommends them, and I don't buy self-published (e or otherwise) children's books at all. The predictable response followed - I'm a snob, I'm behind the times, I'm missing out on lots of good books, we can't believe there are still people like you.... Interesting, isn't it? The assumption is that I don't buy them because I don't expect them to be good, or I'm some kind of Luddite.

But that's not it at all. One reason that I buy and read children's books is because I write them and I need to know the state of the market. I enjoy them too, of course, but my market research reading is well, to research the market. Other reading time I often read books that aren't for children - for variety.

There is no room in my market-research book budget for self-published children's books because I need to know what mainstream publishers are publishing - what has already been done, who is publishing which type of books, and so on. I don't need to know what self-publishers are doing. If anything, their only value in terms of market research is to show me what mainstream publishers are not publishing. (I know not all self-published books have been rejected by mainstream publishers.) If a self-published book is very successful, that shows me what readers are buying. But I'm not selling to readers. I will say that again because you probably don't believe it.

I'm not selling to readers. I'm selling to publishers.

I'm not selling books. I'm selling manuscripts that are the raw material of books that still need input from editors, designers and layout artists. And sometimes illustrators. Publishers and bookshops sell books to readers. I sell manuscripts to publishers. You don't see Rio Tinto selling lumps of metal to the public, do you? No, they sell to - eg - cutlery-makers and those cutlery-makers sell spoons to the public. Selling the books is the publisher's job, not mine. I know a lot of people will disagree with that. So no, I don't send out review copies at my own expense; I don't print cards and bookmarks with my own money; I don't even promote my books on this blog - which was originally anonymous, and so would have been useless as a promotional tool. That's not to say I won't do any promotion at all for my favourite books. But I won't spend money on promotion because - as Nicola Morgan points out - it just doesn't pay.

(I'm not suggesting other writers aren't selling to the public or are doing the wrong thing. This is just my position, and it works for the type of books I write and the type of relationship I have with publishers.)