Plus lucky. And persistent.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703414504575001271351446274.html
For me it's not a matter of if, but when it becomes easier to self-publish, I think more and more wannabes (not to mention the established) writers will jump on board. Like I said elsewhere, someone will buy something from someone somewhere sometime. And if we can cut out the middleman and go as directly from the writer to the reader as is possible, well, you do the math.
Now, of course, if someone is just a bad writer, so what if they bear the cost of self-publishing. To them it may be enough that their family and friends buy their story. But, if the writer is decent to excellent, well he'll generate a fan base -- some large, some small.
As far as I know it's hard enough to break into the business as it is but consider the competition if suddenly everyone would shift to self publishing.
I believe (since I have no hard statistics to prove which way the demographic lies) the second group vastly outnumbers the first. If publishers present that second group with a reliably better quality product, then I don't see the slushpile model changing for first-time authors any time soon.
As an illustration: Yes, I could theoretically read blogs to get my news, but in reality - web or not - I still get my news from professionally edited and published sources.
Silicon Valley has a system of VCs and angels. If we think of VCs as the publishing houses, is there room for angels - people that are willing to take the publishing risk for authors that have developed a marketing plan, people that can work with the authors to improve their marketing and who can collect profit from their risk?
The issue is how you get your work to a potential audience. Publishers and bookstores, in effect, worked together to do this. But if ANYONE could get their work in a bookstore (as, in effect, can be done with Amazon) then the purchaser is simply overwhelmed with possible material (all of which has 5-star reviews, courtesy of the author's family and friends...).
The huge availability of downloadable music hasn't yet led to the end of the big music companies (nor has it hurt the really big artists). I am not at all convinced that electronic distribution will change publishing as much as some people think, or would like.
I will say that it looks as though online music sales will catch up with cd sales this year. I don't think it'll mean the end of big music companies, but it will mean a rethinking of the business model.
Same with the publishing industry. JK Rowling and Stephanie Meyer won't have any problems getting published, but the midlist writer will be getting more and more squeezed. A lot of that has to do with the current economy, but a lot of it also has to do with trying to figure out the new business model.
I think it would take a big name author to get behind an online site, and make it some kind of "clearing house" for online magazines/written work. Kind of like a myspace for writers. I believe there are plenty of sites for authors to peddle their wares (Red Room), but I don't know how well they help writers make money.
I do think, too, that by the time my kids get to college, online reading will be the norm, and the business model will happen organically as demand insists.
Some college students can now download certain textbooks to their e-readers and its only a matter of time before this is more commonplace.
Publishing houses will continue to have control of what ends up on bookshelves, but my post was also meant to elude that one day those, too, will be obsolete. As will music cds. As will dvds. More and more is begin made available online. It is the current wave we're riding.
But seriously, simply doing some e-publishing and putting a link to your myspace page isn't going to cut it for revenue, unless you really don't care if you make money from your writing. You need something bringing eyes to you, something that says your work is worth more time than the millions of other e-published works out there. That's what publishers do. Whatever alternative emerges in the future, if there's an alternative, it has to fulfill the same function of elevating and promoting worthy literature from the rest of the field. Myspace doesn't do that.
Point is publishers need to get a handle on the technology if they want to continue to call the shots, that's all. Of course, gods forbid they develop a program that does the slush reading for them and spits out its latest "jewel" that way. Think there's bad writing now, just wait...
Something more is needed...and that usually breaks down into editors and publishers.
(Actually the website has a dual purpose---(1) to put up some stuff of mine so I can (a) comment on stuff here while (b) directing people to something I've written that (c) wasn't Internet Fan fiction...and, (2) to cybersquat on the website name in case I want to do more with it someday.)
But, hey, at least it amused somebody...
One of the more satisfying things about my foray into Internet Fan Fiction was the reaction I got from readers. Nearly everything I wrote got some kind of response. Late as early last year, I was still getting fan mail on them, long after I'd abandoned the field. I liked the stuff I wrote...now I knew others liked it, too.
I think it kinda spoiled me...now I knew there were people out there who liked what I wrote...and now the editors who rejected my work seemed like they were standing in the way between me and my audience.
Guys, it really is all about persistence. No magic tricks. No rabbits out of hats.
=^)
In the past, several markets did manage more than that---I got a lot of help from the George Scithers era Asimov's (and later Amazing) that way. But the Big Three right now---they don't do it, or if they do they're not doing it for me.
Really, I'd like to write something I could send somewhere else---try my luck in some other field's slush pile---but nothing comes to mind. Never had any luck with coming up with horror...never had even an idea for a western...can't come up with a good whodunit...literary fiction irritates me...good non-fiction needs a lot of time and study and research...political commentary needs a better education than I've got. So right now, it's SF / fantasy or nothing.
Me? It's been 17 years of nothing, and now, poof, two big successes within two months of eachother. Now I could lie and say that my 17 years were 17 years of grueling, constant, arduous effort, or I could be honest and say that much of that 17 years was spent dawdling, diddling, doodling, and pretty much fooling around when I probably should have buckled down much, much sooner, and probably would have started selling much, much sooner.
Also, I think a lot of it had to do with age. I was 18 when I first conjured the notion of being a professional writer. 95% of my stuff up until now is "homework," because I was neither emotionally nor experientially prepared to render characters with sufficient depth. Much of my early stuff is attrocious in that it's clearly the work of a hyperactive child. I believe I've had to "grow into" my newfound success, as a person, so perhaps even if I'd gone balls-to-wall (as I did for two years in my early 20's) it might not have mattered because I still wasn't up to the task of giving my characters the life and depth necessary to reach sufficient emotive impact.
Has your 35 year struggle been constant and unremitting, or have there been long silences and stretches of relative inactivity?
Do you find yourself wrapped around the axle over "rules" or do you get fixated on the "idea" of the story, versus character?
I know for me I've had to just turn off my targetting computer and 'let go' as it were, in regards to many of the rules that get hurled at us all the time as aspirants. I began to explore the idea that emotional response -- on the part of the reader -- was the key to creating stories that people would want to read. They might intellectual like an idea or a concept, but if the characters did not generate sufficient emotion in the reader, then the story was dead before it ever left the table.
Again, not having seen your work I can't diagnose the problem. Suffice to say it sounds like you've been hitting your head against a brick wall for a long time, which tells me it's time for you to seriously re-evaluate your approach, what you're doing, and maybe even why you're doing it?
As for timeframe, from about age fourteen to age twenty-five it was my main interest---after which I had to devote time to making a living at something else, but from twenty-five to right now (I'm forty-eight) I've always been working on something or other, if not at the typewriter or word processor than inside my head.
I think my stuff is "as good" as "some" that's been published---and has been since at least 1992.
And I've seen some much-praised stuff, even award-winning stuff, that I thought was just awful---I know I've written better stories. They might lack that so-called SF-idea quotient (a lot of what I do might be considered telling old ideas my way)---but I'm not willing to tolerate a bad story because of its idea.
I can't say I've followed "rules"---as I've gotten them, I've tended to think through them, internalize them, then forget them.
Also, do you use any critique groups? I can't recall having seen anything from you in the Fragments sections here. Critting is invaluable in getting other eyes to look at your stories, and substitutes somewhat for the lack of feedback from markets (though you need to find the right critters, of course).
(says the newly minted ANALOG author)
;^)
Though I don't, as a rule, put much stock in these voted things. If it happens, it happens. If not... Oh well. Can't control it, it's not something for me to worry about.
I talk about the Big Three because, when I got into this racket, print publication was what I wanted---and print publication is still what I'm aiming for. It's not the money---which isn't much---it's about putting a story in the pages of what were once my favorite magazines. Internet publication just doesn't do it for me. (Realms of Fantasy is there, and I'd submit to it, if my stuff were a little more fantasy and a little less SF; I've written some fantasy in the past.)
*****
I've come to think a Hugo or Nebula isn't very significant. I mentioned above, about award-winning stories I hated. I'll fill in the blanks on one such, names and such.
I've read, admired, and been influenced by the work of Vernor Vinge, ever since encountering his work when I first subscribed to Analog back in the early seventies. A few years ago he put out a collection of his work; I picked up a trade paperback edition once I saw it, delighted with a chance to revisit old friends and maybe make new ones. All the stories were good as I remembered, except one, a lengthy one that I found impenetrable and unintelligible. I figured he had failed to sell it and put it there to pad out the collection.
About a week later, I heard that story won the Hugo.
I tried it again---found it as imnpenetrable and unintelligible as ever. After that, it was impossible for me to take the SF awards seriously.
*****
On critiquing again---anybody who reads my stuff on my website is free to send me a critique if they so choose---though that is not the first-second-or-third reason why they're there. I won't be changing them, they're over and done. I'd be interested in seeing critiques---but be warned, because I might send rebuttals if I disagree. (But don't expect replies right away; I don't check the e-mail account I set up for the site every day.)
I want to take a look.
By the way, they're the ones I bitched about in the "Did You Write" threads all last year.
http://www.robertnowall.com/index.html
...which'll get you there directly. I ordinarily wouldn't put that up here except for the troubles I'm having with my site.
I had a brief look at your website. Your home page mentions how you've failed to get anything published, etc. If a prospective publishers happens to check you online, they may be predisposed to reject you on the basis that you go into some detail describing yourself as a failure. Not suggesting that that's the root of your problem, but I'd be inclined to change that home page to something a little more positive. Just a thought.
*****
After all my ranting and raving about the Big Three and submitting to them, I realized last night---it didn't even occur to me until then---that I needed a qualifier on it all. "The above comments apply only to stories that fall below novel length."
In the past, I have turned out a few novels---nothing lately, though one attempt just a couple of years ago got up to one hundred thousand words. I expect, at some point, to turn out another novel. When I submit that somewhere, it'll be to a whole different kind of market, with a whole different set of problems (and hangups) I'll have to deal with.
Having said that, I e-mailed you commentary on DOGS and PLANT GIRL. Hope that e-mail still works.
My site is a combination of cybersquatting and putting something other than Internet Fan Fiction up to be seen by fellow writers---it's not shameless self-promotion.
quote:
Do you find yourself wrapped around the axle over "rules" I know for me I've had to just turn off my targetting computer and 'let go' as it were, in regards to many of the rules that get hurled at us all the time as aspirants.
I agree with this and concur wholeheartedly and absolutely. I desperately, throbbingly, pulsatingly wish more people would say things like this on here. I think the view of the “rules” as anything other than general guidelines or tools is very likely to hold a writer back rather than help them.
quote:
or do you get fixated on the "idea" of the story, versus character? They might intellectual like an idea or a concept, but if the characters did not generate sufficient emotion in the reader, then the story was dead before it ever left the table.
This is a matter of taste. I know “character focused” is somewhat “in vogue” right now, but even now it isn’t universal. I can and do frequently become just as engaged, emotionally and intellectually, in setting, event and idea based stories as character based ones. Sometimes moreso. Of course, I think I also have an easier time “caring about” characters than a lot of people apparently do. The fact that they are people (of whatever type, kind or species) is usually enough for me.
The author Simon Logan I often mention, much of his fiction and much of why I like his fiction has to do with setting and with mood/atmosphere. And even the ones that are more focused on character…the characters are, I believe, of a sort most folks around here wouldn’t “care about” or connect with.
I’m not trying to attack your opinion or anything. Like I said, I realize character is pretty in fashion right now…to the point where I kind of get tired of all the blogs and articles and stuff that go on about how a story MUST be focused entirely on character change and character conflict to be “good”…again if that’s your taste that’s fine, but other tastes and preferences do exist even in the current market.
And what about the idea that maybe these things are not really all that separate?
I say what I say about this in part because I was kept from writing for a long time by my own fears about whether I’d be able to construct decent plots. Then I discover that professional magazines are regularly publishing stuff that barely even has a plot, as I understand the concept. I wouldn’t want to see any other aspiring authors discouraged because they are unsure about their characterization skills and get bombarded by the idea that that is unequivocally the most important part of a story…
A while ago---must be seven or eight years now---I did read an issue of Asimov's from cover to cover. I realized that three of the stories had exactly the same plot twist. (It was "I know a great secret...but I won't tell.") I thought, "Geez, sloppy editing here, what a mistake doing this, couldn't they have spread these out over several issues?" It was a souring experience, and I don't think I've read an issue of Asimov's from cover to cover since.
The point is, if an editor can make a mistake like that, he can make others. And one of them just might be rejecting someone's story.