Saturday Stuff: More On E-Book Royalties, TwitLonger, Best Of EDF 3, American Grindhouse

Earlier in the week I talked about e-book royalties and what the Authors Guild had to say. Just yesterday they released a new part of their ongoing series, this one aptly titled "The E-Book Royalty Mess: An Interim Fix":

Negotiating a publishing contract is frequently contentious, but authors have long been able to take comfort in this: once the contract is signed, the interests of the author and the publisher are largely aligned. If the publisher works to maximize its revenues, it will necessarily work to maximize the author's royalties. This is the heart of the traditional bargain, whereby the author licenses the publisher long-term, exclusive book rights in the world's largest book market in exchange for an advance and the promise of diligently working to the joint benefit of author and publisher.

Now, for the first time, publishers have strong incentives to work against the author's interests.

As we discussed in our last alert, authors and publishers have traditionally acted as equal partners, splitting the net proceeds from book sales. Most sublicenses, for example, provide for a fifty-fifty split of proceeds, and the standard hardcover trade book royalty -- 15% of the retail price -- represented half of the net proceeds from selling the book when the standard was established. But trade book publishers currently offer e-book royalties at precisely half what the terms of a traditional proceeds-sharing arrangement would dictate -- paying just 25% of net income on e-book sales. That's why the shift from hardcover to e-book sales is a win for publishers, a loss for authors.

The piece goes on. Definitely worth checking out.

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I love Twitter. I don't know why. If I had to choose between Twitter and Facebook, I would take Twitter in a heartbeat. There's just a simplicity to it that I really like. Also I really dig the fact that each tweet can be no more than 140 characters. And I'm not just saying that because I'm the "Hint Fiction guy." I believe it really can help writers work on their word-choice and self-editing. Of course, a few tweeters out there will run on and on, which sorta defeats the purpose. You know what else defeats the purpose? Services like TwitLonger.

On some level I've always known this service to exist but never bothered with it. Why would I, when the simple point of Twitter is to keep your posts nice and short. But recently a new upgrade with TweetDeck (which I use mostly for my desktop tweeting) has this service enabled. Before when I would tweet and go over the 140 character mark, the numbers would turn red and show a negative. Now, however, it just continues, as if encouraging you to keep typing away and not worry about the limit. This is sad and goes against everything Twitter stands for.

My point? That servies like TwitLonger really suck. And if you use them, shame on you. Shame!

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On a brighter note, the table of contents has been announced for the third edition of The Best of Every Day Fiction. It includes online friends Gay Degani, Aaron Polson, Ben Loory, and many, many more. It also include my story "Multiplicity." A big thanks to Jordan Lapp and Camille Gooderham Campbell and the rest of the EDF team for not only publishing my story in the first place, but for now reprinting it. When the book becomes available, I'll be sure to post about it here.

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Everyone have a nice and safe romantic weekend. Tune in Monday for an exciting announcement (at least, I hope it'll be exciting). In the meantime, American Grindhouse!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AndtsMdk2fc

Progress Of The Spindle

It recently came to my attention that Cynthia Reeser has reconsidered some of her ideas regarding the print edition of her journal Prick of the Spindle. From her blog post:

It may be worth a mention that when I set the submission fees for the print edition, I consulted with a marketing expert with more years of experience in his field than I've been alive. My initial thought was $5 across the board, and he balked at this. He urged us to go for $20, but I knew that was too high.

He offered his reasoning for this, which essentially entailed weeding out not-very-dedicated submitters, where the idea was to encourage a higher quality of submissions, and to let people know the print edition should be taken seriously. His line of reasoning is that people realize they get what they pay for, and having a fee on the higher end would provide the image of a higher quality publication.

That last part there about the line of reasoning being "that people realize they get what they pay for, and having a fee on the higher end would provide the image of a higher quality publication" is just, quite frankly, bullshit. But hey, what do I know? I'm no marketing expert.

Thinking about this, I considered the existing identity of the online journal, with an ackowledgement that any print edition would be associated with the online journal right out of the gate. We've always been free, and the only time a fee has been charged was for a competition for which, yes, there was a prize and print publication, with complimentary copies being awarded in tiers, from the Grand Prize winner through honorable mentions. But competitions are different from a standard print issue and therefore are based on a different model.

This is true. Just look at PANK and Annalemma and Monkeybicycle and Hobart. Those are journals that are both online and print. And they all charge reading fees for the print edition.

Wait -- what was that?

They don't?

Are you sure?

Oh, I see ...

Updates that will be posted to the print submission guidelines are:

* That a complimentary issue is provided for all submitters * Adjustment to the fees * Removal of fees for reviews * That published authors will receive compensation, TBD

This looks much better, yes.

I do take issue with Robert Swartwood saying that the business model is a bad decision. I am far from Narrative's greatest fan, but they are essentially doing the same thing. This doesn't make it right, but it doesn't make it wrong, either. Has it worked for them? Obviously, yes. That is neither to say that it would work for me, nor that our fee structure is based off of theirs. The reason I divulged how I came up with the fee structure in the first place was to show that it was not based off anything anyone else was doing, but by consulting with someone who knows what he's talking about, and by taking into consideration the current incarnations of the journal.

This doesn't make it right, but it doesn't make it wrong, either. What the H-E-double-hockey-sticks does that mean?

Has the reading fee structure worked for Narrative? Well considering that recently they've been begging for donations, how well can they possibly be doing?

The reason I divulged how I came up with the fee structure in the first place was to show that it was not based off anything anyone else was doing, but by consulting with someone who knows what he's talking about, and by taking into consideration the current incarnations of the journal.

I just had to repeat this line. It's so great. I mean, a marketing expert! Out of the back of what van does this guy work?

The bottom line is this: if you don't like the fees, don't submit to the journal. Soon they will look a lot friendlier, and then some other schmuck will likely come along and whine that we don't pay enough to our contributors... and the cycle goes on.

Great advice: if you don't like the fees, don't submit to the journal. It's the only thing in the entire post that makes sense.

Well then, it looks like this schmuck's job here is done. You're welcome.

More Than Just A Sitcom

The word community is thrown around a lot, but just what does it mean? The basic definition can be anything from "a group of people living in a particular local area" or "a group of nations having common interests" to simply "common ownership." But what of a writing community? Obviously it's a broad way of saying a large group of writers. But what does it mean?

Sunday's post ruffled a few feathers, as was to be expected. What wasn't expected -- at least by me -- was the sudden outcry from Cynthia Reeser's friends saying just how lovely and caring and warm she is. I even received a few private e-mails basically saying the same thing. And my reply to each was: What does that have to do with anything?

If you read my post, you can see I did not once attack Cynthia Reeser personally. I simply attacked her business model of the insanely high reading fees and advised writers to stay far away. So the fact that she's such a nice person and blah blah blah has nothing to do with anything. The nicest people in the world sometimes make mistakes; does this mean those mistakes should be automatically forgiven because those people are nice?

I wasn't privy to much of the chatter on the Internet these past two days concerning this most recent development, but I did hear about how a few people were going on and on about how this was a community, and how as a community we all need to stick together and defend our friends and blah blah blah.

And, well, that's nice and all, but again: What does that have to do with anything?

Take Cynthia Reeser out of the equation for the moment and insert any Joe Schmo. He has a lot of friends in this community; he makes a not-so-wise business decision; someone calls him out on that business decision, and then suddenly everyone wants to defend Mr. Joe Schmo because he's a nice guy.

Um, seriously?

I appreciate that there are people out there who want to stick up for Cynthia -- a few of my friends came to my defense, too -- but if this is a true writing community, then don't we ultimately want the best for the community? I know I couldn't have been the only one to see those guidelines; I'm sure a few, if not many, of Cynthia's friends saw them too. And don't you think that those friends would be big enough to say something to her? I mean, come on, those reading fees were a ticking time bomb, just waiting for me to come along and set it off.

My point here is this: as a writing community, we want what's best for the community, and while we do want to encourage and support our friends, we should also be willing to call our friends out on a potential problem, diffusing the bomb before it goes off.

Evolution Of E-Books

E-books are just getting bigger and bigger. Last week it was reported that the New York Times will be adding e-books to its bestseller list. How exactly the Times plans to collect this data, I'm not 100% certain, but it'll be interesting to see. What will be even more interesting to see is whether the list will, at some point, include self-published titles. A few days ago The Washington Post did a very short piece by Andrew Schneider on just what it costs for a bestselling e-book. In fact, here's the entire thing:

Contrary to popular belief, the costs of creating an e-book and a hardcover edition are similar. About 10 percent of hardcover costs go to printing, binding and shipping. Publishers set a retail price for an e-book, and selling agents such as Amazon.com and Apple receive a flat percentage of that retail price. These estimates are based on sales of 75,000. Expenses for a book include one-time costs such as editing and marketing. Many e-books lose money for publishers; e-books that sell millions of copies offset losses from less popular books.

COST TO PUBLISHER $9.09

Author royalties $2.27

Editing/digitizing 0.28

Marketing 1.00

Overhead 3.18

Operating profit 2.36

COST TO RETAILER $3.90

Overhead $.50

Digital rights management .10

Pre-tax operating profit 3.30

Price to consumer $12.99

Interesting, no? But if this is the case, then how did Amazon get away with that $9.99 price point for so long? Because Amazon was losing money on every e-book it sold. Why? To sell more Kindles.

Last week the Authors Guild published a piece on e-book royalties for major publishers and what authors earn/lose with hardcover sales and e-book sales. It's definitely worth reading.

Back when Amazon began to offer that 70% royalty on e-books priced between $2.99 and $9.99, I had assumed it was their way of trying to sweeten the deal for major publishers to keep their e-book prices somewhat reasonable. People get upset when a brand new e-book is priced at $12.99, but oftentimes that's practically 50% off the hardcover retail price, so it's strange that they would become so enraged. The reason is because Amazon has drilled it into everybody's head that the standard price for new e-books should be nothing more than $9.99. And with this 70% royalty, then the publisher is making about $7 per unit. And if that's the case, they still think the standard royalty should be 25%! So they must be pretty greedy, right?

Actually, the answer turns out not to be so simple. I'd always assumed the 70% royalties were offered to the major publishers, but from a few conversations I had this past weekend at AWP, that doesn't seem to be the case. Apple's iBookstore offers that to the major publishers (or around that percentage, I think), but not Amazon. I don't know at what level a publisher has to be to not qualify for that 70% royalty. Do small press publishers qualify? Probably. Do self-published authors qualify? Absolutely! After all, it's Amazon's mission to try to steal as many authors away from publishers as it can. And as you've heard countlessly from many writers around the Internet, why not?

So what does this all mean in the end? I don't really know. But obviously things are never what they seem, especially with this evolution of e-books. So self-publish or publish with a traditional publisher -- every case is going to be different. You can't base your decisions on the success (or failure) of others. All you can do in the end is look at all the facts presented and do what you feel is best for you.

Scam Of The Spindle

I just got home from AWP. It was a great and fun time, and I plan to do a more in-depth post later in the week, but first I needed to share something. Actually, before I do, I should mention my love for Narrative Magazine. You know just how close Narrative and I are, right (see here, and here, and here)? So being the smart-ass that I am, as I wandered around the book fair I tweeted:

As it turns out, they were not in attendance at the conference. Why? Who the hell knows. My theory is a) they've come to realize most people dislike them or b) they had no extra money for a table because fewer and fewer authors are submitting or c) they knew I was going to be there. Not sure about anybody else, but I'm leaning toward the third theory ... or the first ... or hell, all of them sound good.

So anyway, Narrative wasn't in attendance, which was just as well, because over the weekend I learned of another publishing faux pas, one that, I think, even outdoes Narrative's ridiculous bullshit. You see, I heard that the web journal Prick of the Spindle had opened submissions for a new print edition. So what do I do, the web-savvy writer that I am? I go online and check out the guidelines of course! And saw this:

Prick of the Spindle is a literary journal that is open to forms in both traditional and experimental modes, with a special bent toward fresh and innovative voices using language in unique ways. We read for issues year-round. If you are interested in being considered for publication in Prick of the Spindle, please take care to read the guidelines for submitting your previously unpublished work.

The online edition of Prick of the Spindle is published quarterly. Online content is also made available for the Kindle magazine incarnation of the journal. The print edition of Prick of the Spindle is published biannually.

There is no reading fee for the online edition, and submissions are accepted year-round (for reading fees for the print edition, please see the end of this page or the submission manager guidelines). We do send a courtesy e-mail notifying authors that we have received their submission; if you do not hear from us with a decision within three months of submitting, please feel free to send a query.

See what they did there? If not, read those three paragraphs again. Go ahead, I'll wait. Back already? Yes, you read that right. There are reading fees for the print edition. And those fees are ...

If you are submitting by mail, please indicate whether you wish to submit to the online or print edition of the journal. Keep in mind that it is free to submit to the online journal (a quarterly publication) but that if you wish to submit to the (biannual) print edition, you must include the appropriate fees. Fees for the print edition are as follows:

Poetry: $15, up to 5 poems Fiction: $15, one story Nonfiction: $10, one story Essays & Articles: $15, one essay or article Reviews: $10, one review Drama: $10 one dramatic work Art: $10, up to 5 pieces

Checks or money orders should be made payable to Prick of the Spindle.

So it's almost as bad as Narrative, right? Actually, I would say no. Because while Narrative charges $20 reading fees, they actually pay their contributors (most of which, I believe, are solicited, and who, I believe, do not pay any reading fees). But this new print edition of Prick of the Spindle? As far as I can tell based on the guidelines, there is no payment. Not even a mention of a contributor's copy or even a free PDF of the finished work.

Yesterday I e-mailed Cynthia Reeser, the journal's editor-in-chief and founder, asking if there would be any payment for accepted pieces for the print edition, but have not heard back yet. And quite honestly, even if it turns out they do pay something, I would say it is in every writer's best interest to stay far away from Prick of the Spindle. Which is sad, because I know a lot of talented people associated with this journal, and a stupid and greedy decision forever tarnishes the entire thing.

EDIT: Reeser says "We are not greedy." Check out how "Ignorance Breeds Contempt" here.