Sri Lankan Hint Fiction

I've gotten a couple emails and messages asking about this call for submissions for a Sri Lankan Anthology of Hint Fiction, so I figured I might as well say something about it here. Yes, I am aware of the project, and no, neither W. W. Norton nor myself are involved. Why? Well, because there's no reason for us to be involved. After all, no one "owns" the idea of Hint Fiction. Norton published the Hint Fiction anthology, yes, but they simply bought the rights to publish that book. If I were inclined to put together another anthology of Hint Fiction, I would be free to take it to any other publisher. Hell, if anyone wanted to put together another anthology of Hint Fiction, they could approach any other publisher. A few years back, when the whole Hint Fiction thing came about, a couple people told me (quite seriously) that I needed to copyright or trademark or whatever the term. Each time I laughed this off. After all, Hint Fiction ... it's just a term, really, nothing more than that. I can't try to lay claim to a genre that's been around forever. That would be silly. Even more, it would be absurd.

I think Hint Fiction has had a nice run. I think it's fizzled out somewhat here in the U.S. Sure, many colleges discuss it in their creative writing classes, which is great, but what more can really be done with the genre? Hint Fiction's "birthday" was a few months back. In past years, I would do a long post about what had taken place in the previous year. In past years, I even hosted a Hint Fiction contest. This year, I decided to do neither. Mostly because during the last Hint Fiction contest I had begun to see a disturbing trend -- nearly all the stories began to seem formulaic. It makes sense, too, when you think about it. Stories in general can be formulaic. And when you have a story so short, it's pretty difficult to hide that formula. When the whole Hint Fiction thing started, nobody really knew what it was yet, me included. So writers were thinking outside the box. They came up with some really new and exciting stuff. But then, once the anthology came out (which really helped to define what Hint Fiction is and what it can be), writers for the most part began to study the form, and once something gets studied, it loses some (if not all) of its pizzazz.

Don't get me wrong -- I don't think Hint Fiction has fully run its course. I think it's still possible to do some new and exciting things with the genre. And I think it's great that it helps some writers get started working on longer works, just as it helps writers learn to cut back on their verboseness. But for the most part, what can be done has been done.

That isn't to say, of course, this Sri Lankan Anthology of Hint Fiction can't be something great. My fingers are crossed that it is. I just hope the writers submitting to it aren't trying to copy what was in the first Hint Fiction anthology, but instead use those initial stories as a stepping stone to something newer and more exciting.

Returns

The Hint Fiction anthology came out in November of 2010. It got some really great reviews and sold very well. In fact, it quickly earned out its advance, which should be noted because not many books actually earn out their advances, or if they do it can take many, many years. In many ways, it was a great novelty gift, and with Christmas right around the corner, the book would make a wonderful stocking stuffer. Unfortunately, a second printing could not make it into the market fast enough, and I remember there being a shortage of copies at Amazon of all places come Christmastime. How many potential sales were lost from that, I haven't a clue, but it seemed when the extra copies became available it was way after the fact. Anyway, when the whole project first came about, it was important to me that the contributors were paid, and if possible paid well for their time and effort. It still seems to be an ongoing trend in the "literary" community that exposure is payment enough for work appearing in journals, but that's because it seems the majority of those in the "literary" community are trying to build their CV for when they go on teaching jobs, and the more writing credits, the better. For the rest of us schlubs, money is so much sweeter.

My agent was able to negotiate a nice advance, though the majority of it went to the authors. Typically in a project like this, an editor receives an advance and splits it 50/50 with the contributors (the editor keeps the 50, then metes out the other 50 among the contributors). From there, if there are any royalties, the editor does the same thing -- retains their 50%, and metes out whatever 50% is left.

I knew from the start that this book was going to have a lot of contributors, and while it wouldn't have hundreds and hundreds like the SMITH six-word essay anthologies (which, from what I understand, only offered a contributor's copy), it would have at least one hundred. Which meant that, if I wanted to do the typical royalty thing, every two years (assuming the anthology even earned out), I would waste a day or two sending out tiny royalty checks to over one hundred people all over the world.

While that sounded like a lot of fun, I decided instead to pay the contributors a lot of money up front as a one-time fee. This way if the book earned out, cool for me. If the book didn't earn out, oh well. The payment worked out to a dollar a word (or more if the tiny story was very short), which is how much The New Yorker pays, baby. It wasn't a lot, but it was something, and nobody seemed to complain. And then, so, the book came out and, like I said, earned out pretty quickly. In fact, from my first statement from the publisher (which went from October 1, 2010 to March 31, 2011, and which I received in September of 2011 -- publishing works slow, in case you didn't know), the anthology sold just over 12,500 copies, with only 780 copies being returned, and 441 digital sales.

Ain't too shabby, though you have to remember that I don't earn any royalties until the advance is earned back.

Now here's the important part: bookstore shelf life is finite. Every week more books are being released, which means the bookstores need to return the old for the new. This is, of course, the publishing business model.

So let's fast-forward another six months to March of 2012. I receive another statement from my agent (who was sent it from the publisher). This statement goes from April 1, 2011 to September 30, 2011. By this time the anthology has been released for practically a year.

And in that time, how many copies did it sell?

About 900.

Sweet!

But wait -- remember how I said shelf life is finite, and the bookstores need to return the old for the new? Well, here's how many returns there were during that six-month period:

Almost 3,000.

So do the math -- if 900 copies were sold, and 3,000 copies were returned, that puts us in the red for 2,100 copies.

Which means even though the anthology had previously earned out its advance and sold 900 additional copies, I get nothing.

But wait again -- there were some ebook sales, too. Not a lot, mind you. This isn't really a book that translates well to digital, and besides, the ebook price is pretty high considering there isn't much wordage in the book. Still, how many digital copies were sold in that six-month period?

121.

And guess what -- no returns.

Which means I actually receive a royalty on those sales!

Except, well, I don't receive that much, since the royalty for digital is only 25%, but still it's something.

And in another six months, how sales will there be then? Even if there are more sales of the print edition, remember how many returns there had been previously. That means it'll be a long time before I start making anything on the print. But the digital, with infinite shelf life and no worry of returns? Sure, I'll keep making some money off that, though it will very minimal.

Or let me put this in a different perspective: the royalty I received off those 121 digital copies in a six-month period?

I made about the same amount yesterday alone on my own.

The Things We Own Tell Stories

Congratulations to Nelson Goforth for winning the Hint Fiction Film Contest this past weekend at the Vail Film Festival for his very short film "The Things We Own Tell Stories," based on Hemingway's six-word story. You can view the winning film below, but be sure to check out the official Hint Fiction Film Contest site as the rest of the finalists will be posted at some point soon.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvi_AV2SvGc

Thursday Linkage

Today over at Maclean's there's a piece called "The Incredible Shrinking Short Story" which mentions -- can you guess? -- hint fiction. Here's the first part:

At some point, if you work them right, words eventually become stories. Fragments and sentences turn into paragraphs, and paragraphs, if you’re lucky, become something whole. But the exact moment that change takes place can be hard to pinpoint. It’s not always clear what’s a narrative and what’s something less. That’s especially true in the field of very short fiction, which is enjoying a moment right now.

Writers have long played with prose forms that are shorter than traditional short stories. Franz Kafka and Jorge Luis Borges wrote slices and sketches that don’t fit the typical model. Hemingway once supposedly penned a story in six words to settle a bet. That piece—“For sale: baby shoes, never worn”—has never been definitively tied to “Papa.” But fans of what’s sometimes known as flash fiction, or very-short prose, often cite it as the ur-text of their form.

Check out the rest of the piece here.

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Over at PandoDaily, Sarah Lacy shares an email from a publishing insider who wishes to go unnamed ... which is smart, as this person basically admits he/she will soon be out of a job:

Long-term there’s no future in printed books. They’ll be like vinyl: pricey and for collectors only. 95% of people will read digitally. Everybody in publishing knows this but most are in denial about it because moving to becoming a digital company means laying off like 40% of our staffs. And the barriers to entry fall, too. We simply don’t want to think about it.

Amazon is thinking about it, though, and they’re targeting the publishers directly.

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On the heels of reading this, I then read all about Apple's big announcement where they talk about getting into the textbook business. Great! I also read about how they are finally opening a platform for writers to publish directly through them. Great? Well, not really. You see, in the app's license agreement, you find this:

Now understand I have no problems granting exclusivity. In fact, I have enrolled several of my e-books in the Kindle Select program, which allows Amazon Prime members to download those e-books for free via their "lending" program, plus I'm able to make my e-books free for up to five days during the ninety day exclusivity period. I tried it out with a few e-books to see how I liked it, and I actually like it quite a bit, so much so that I might enroll all of my books ... which means they would no longer be available via Nook or Sony or iBooks. On the one hand, I don't really like the idea of exclusivity -- I obviously want as many readers to be able to read my work as possible -- but on the other hand I benefit tremendously from it. The bulk of my sales are through Amazon; my sales with every other platform is so minimal it's almost laughable. That's the thing -- Amazon knows how to market and sell e-books (after all, they make apps that can be used on practically any device, so granting exclusivity isn't really a big deal when you think about it). Apple? Well, if they do, they sure haven't proven it yet. Me thinks this is a case of too little, too late. Their app is no doubt nice -- I must admit I do love Apple products -- but if you're looking for a program to create e-books, I highly recommend Scrivener.

Only A Few Days Left ...

To enter the Hint Fiction Film Contest. Hurry!