Tablesaw!

Dear Authors:

I'd like to talk to you about making money now that traditional publishing is dead. First, here's John Scalzi on the subject:

Book publishing is a sinking ship. The former passengers on the ship have given in to their feral instincts and are dismantling the ship board by board. The remaining crew are being wedged further and further back into what little of the ship remains above the waterline. Eventually the whole ship will disappear beneath the waves and all the crew will drown. The thought of possibly jumping off the ship apparently doesn’t occur to the crew; rather, their ambition is simply to be the last person to drown.

Screw ‘em. Let them drown. . . . .

Listen to me now: Writers are not in the publishing industry. The publishing industry exists to handle the output of writers and distribute it in an effective and hopefully profitable way; however it does not necessarily follow that writer’s only option is the publishing industry, especially not now. Congruent to this: Books aren’t the only option. I write books, but you know what? I’m not a book writer, any more than a musician is an LP musician or an MP3 musician. The book is the container. It’s not destiny.

Wait a second. That's Scalzi writing five years ago about Writing in the Age of Piracy.

And, okay, I'll confess, that first paragraph is out of context. The article only supposes the total annihilation of traditional publishing (via piracy, not e-books) as a way to talk about alternate revenue steams. Specifically, he talks about how Penny Arcade has built a media empire by creating things that they gave away totally for free. The big takeaway is:

Multiple revenue streams are a writer’s friend.

That's what's getting to me about the whole Amazon/MacMillan/e-book/print/online/offline mishigoss. Print may not be dead, but there are a lot of other rings, and there's no reason to tie all your hopes onto just one.

Authors, let me tell you, when I buy a traditionally published book, I do not feel like I am supporting you as the author. I am supporting the publisher, and I am supporting the bookseller, but I am not supporting you. There's just too much in between. So when Scalzi calls for readers to support authors, I'm constantly surprised when he suggests that we find a book published and distributed elsewhere. I mean, if you want to support Macmillan, then, yeah buy Macmillan's books. But, I want to support you, not the corporation who licensed your work with a cash consideration and then rebranded it and distributed it nationally.

I think it's even worse when it's badness. When Bloomsbury whitewashed a cover again, there were very appropriate calls for a boycott. Bloomsbury thinks that they can portray non-white characters in their novels as white characters on their covers as a way to increase sales. A boycott will divorce them of this belief.

But authors balked because of the damage it would do to the author. To pull support from the publisher is to pull support from the author, and so we shouldn't boycott.

Authors, are you really that close to your publisher? Perhaps you are, or perhaps you aren't. But why can't I support you, the author, the one I'm a fan of, when I disagree with the company that paid to license your work?

What's more, I don't have a very large budget for buying stories anyway. My reading pace is slower, and I've got bookcases and second-hand shops and libraries all around me. So I've stopped myself from buying most books to keep my finances under control. So if I spring for a new book, it's probably only because I have a gift card. But I do still read. And I read stories online. I read author blogs online. And I listen to Escape Artists podcasts at work. I have a number of authors of whom I am fans.

Authors, I am your fan, but I am not buying books, print or otherwise. How do I give you money outside of using your Amazon link to buy the book that somebody else published?

The traditional publishing model is what it is, and it's clear from that it's still really, really good at taking a novel and sending out to a wide audience. And really, that an end of itself. Those novels get you fans. But you might not have gotten money from the person who read the novel and became a fan. You may never get that money by publishing novels (on your own, or through a corporate publisher). But we're still here, and we still want to support you. Whether we have the money or not, we feel that tug, and how able we are to resist that pull varies with what you're using to tempt us.

Honestly, I think I spend more money on T-shirts than new books now, because the LA library does not allow me to borrow T-shirts. And a number of those shirts refer to movies, TV shows, and videogames. And I don't have a lot of wiggle room in my budget for Paypal tipjars, but I still contribute more to them than to my out-of-pocket print fiction budget.

Authors, why can't I buy a shirt, a shirt with a jaunty quote of your devising?

Publishing may be in trouble. It's not just that there are all those middlepeople, but those middlepeople may also be turn out to be idiots, and then your link to the Amazon page of your book isn't going to be a great option. You don't have to switch everything. You don't need too many Girl Who Navigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Makings, because you'll always have that one there, waiting for fans.

Authors, listen to time-delay Scalzi. You are not in the publishing industry. You can escape the not really sinking ship and also still probably leave all your stuff on the ship, 'cause it's not really sinking, and then you've got like a resort vacation on the island without having to move all your stuff and still getting access to the nice galley (which may now have fresher fruit from the shore anyway). There's no reason to only stay on the ship. There are other places to meet your fans (and get our money into your pocket). Use all of them.

Edited to Add: As often happens when I write a post from three different locations (go cloud computing), I deleted a chunk and forgot to compensate it. It's created some confusion, so let me just put back in the chunk I forgot to deal with, which is a portion of text from the Scalzi quote:

Because here’s the thing about that “sinking ship:” Even if we grant it is sinking (which we should not), and that the passengers are scurvy pirates (which we ought not), this ship is sinking in about five feet of water and the shore is fifty yards away. And if you haven’t the wit to make it to shore, then by God, you deserve to die.

To see how much I thought I'd addressed that, look at how I referenced it in the last paragraph.

Anyway, what's "dying" about the publishing industry isn't the industry itself, it's the author's ability to make money from it, which has generally been decreasing as the money for buying books has been diverted elsewhere. Hypothetically and hyperbolically, it could get to the point where an author might be able to get a novel prepared for print and distributed, but not be able to make any money from it (which is the point at which we join Scalzi's hypotehtical and hyperbolic essay).

What then? Do you take out the middlepeople and publsh the novel by yourself so that you can get the money that results from selling directly to a smaller audience? Or do you have the publisher prepare, print, and sell the novel; draw a wider audience; and earn money by encouraging the audience to do things other than buying the books?

Most likely, it'll be a combination. But you can still make money licensing novels to be printed traditionally, you can still make additional money right now.

So, again, sell me a T-shirt.

I'll admit that I'm not all that comfortable with sales gimmmicks of the "buy this and I'll donate the proceeds to charity" variety. But this is something else:

DriveThruRPG announced a major incentive to the roleplaying gamer community today to incite donations to aid in rescue and recovery in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Called the "Gamers Helping Haiti Bundle," the product includes over a hundred products totaling over $1000.00 in retail value. For a simple donation of $20 - all of which goes to Doctors Without Borders to support their post-earthquake Haiti relief efforts - RPG fans can have this once-in-a-lifetime collection of gaming products.

DriveThruRPG already had opportunities to donate up and running within a day of the disaster. When publishers began asking how they could support the cause, the bundle was created to be an all-inclusive shared effort.

The total retail value of the $20 charity bundle is $1481.31.

For a $20 donation.

$1481.31

The bundle has over a hundred products, which seems to include components, resources, adventures, self-contained systems, and other gaming-related stuff for download. Fred Hicks has the full list.

You can also make a donation to Doctors Without Borders that DTRPG will match.

If you know a gamer who is a humanitarian or if you know a gamer who is a cruel, greedy troll, they will want to hear about this. Spread the word.

It's been busy all over.

12/29: ojouchan and I watch The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus with pbchris. It's fun, and is upfront about its refusal to have a story, as opposed to a series of things that happen and then eventually end. We all liked it. Before that, we went to Kabuki for happy hour, and we liked it quite a bit. But afterward, Ojou didn't feel well, so Chris and I went off to finish the evening, seeing some improv comedy at IO West. We were underwhelmed.

12/30: ojouchan and I sleep in and go shopping for 1920s-ish clothes for New Year's Eve. I also get a haircut. It's a bit shorter than we'd intended, but it's okay. I also get a meticulous shave trimming my beard short and trying out a new shape. (Beards weren't big in the American 20s, but I wasn't going to shave it all off.

12/31: We go out to New Year's Eve at Malediction with Chris, which turns out to be less 1920s than advertised. But that just means we look better than everyone else. Ojou's vintage furs and Josephine Baker curls were particularly amazing. Afterward, we eat a meal at Denny's between 2 and 4 a.m. That was an adventure too, but mostly an adventure in being hungry and tired and waiting for food at a slammed Denny's.

1/1: After waffling on what to do, we end up going over to our friend J's apartment, where we lay around, drink alcohol, and play boardgames. Monopoly was, inevitably, massively unbalanced by the Ojou and J's insistence on having a kitty on Free Parking. While playing Monopoly, we watched bad reality TV on the Playboy Channel. We then switched to playing Zombies, which I hadn't played for a while. The game started out very slow because we had an awkward tile draw, but the moment the Helipad came out, the endgame was awesome.

1/2: Nothing, of note, I think.

1/3-1/8: I go back to work, and agree to work Thursday and Friday (covering for my manager) in exchange for Saturday and Sunday off (my birthday weekend). My experience working on Thursday and Friday causes me to seriously reconsider pushing for a Monday-Friday workweek.

1/8: I head over to cramerica's apartment after work (which I got out of late). We have a simple pasta meal and play a game of Agricola. The game is fun, but it ended up taking way too long.

1/9: Ojou and I started out thinking we'd go all over LA on the Metro, but I woke up really late due to Agricola. So we just went to Chinatown. We've been short on tea, so we bought a whole bunch. Ojou got a wide variety in small sizes, and I got a quarter pound of a few standards (an oolong, a white, genmaicha, and lapsang souchong). So work will go back to being tea central for me. Afterward, we went to a restaurant for what we thought was dim sum, but turned out not to be. It was very confusing, and we ordered too much food, but some of it was fantastic.

Later that evening, we met up with wjukknibs and K at Chili's. Unfortunately, Ojou and I were still full from not dim sum, so we just had some appetizers. From there, we went to see Sherlock Holmes at the Arclight. I enjoyed it, and I enjoyed Downey's Holmes more than the trailers led me to think I would, but the movie as a whole didn't quite work for me.

1/10: My birthday! The parents, the sister, and the brother-in-law met Ojou and me for brunch at The Waffle. It's actually a nice little place, and is probably a better alternative than Denny's for late-night stuff. Also, soy bacon is not really any good.

Now, I'm chilling on the couch. Ojou's baking a massive birthday cake. After posting, I'm going to play Bioshock, which I got for my birthday from my sister and brother-in-law. Later on, we're meeting up with J and her boyfriend at The Hungry Cat.

Back to work tomorrow, but at least it's only for three days.

And now, you're caught up!

Woo. It's been a busy few days, and it still is. Shopping and parties and work work work—I won't really get a chance to relax until Tuesday, when my New Year's break starts (five-day weekend!).

The executive summary of gifts received is: lots of nice clothes, two fantastick backpacks, and an Xbox 360 for ojouchan and I from my nuclear family.

As I mentioned earlier, I ran a trivia game based on Wits and Wagers. If you've never played it, I describe it as a combination of Balderdash, The Price Is Right, and Vegas betting. Everyone gets asked a trivia question with a number for an answer. Your goal is to be the closest without going over. Everybody turns in their answers, and they're lined up in order on the betting board. Odds are assigned according to the order of guesses, and you get to bet on which one was the closest without going over.

So, in the poll below, I've reproduced the questions, my family's guesses, and the odds that were assigned to them. Your job is to see if you can be better bettors than they were.

For each question you can pick either one or two guesses. If you check two boxes, you'll split your bet, placing one "chip" on each, and receiving the basic return if that bet is right (if the odds say 3:1, you'll get 3 points). If you check only one box, you double your bet on one option, and the rewards are doubled as well if you're right (if the odds say 3:1, you'll get 6 points).

Poll #1987 Christmas Wits and Wagers
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 7

In the song "Feliz Navidad," how many times does Jose Feliciano say "Feliz Navidad"?

According to the free edition available online from Project Gutenberg, how many words are in the main text of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, from "Marley was dead: to begin with" to "God bless us, every one"?

Across both their entire twelve-game seasons, how many points did the USC and UCLA football teams score combined?

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, in what year was the first Nativity creche made?

According to the Shulchan Aruch, a codification of Jewish law, what is the maximum height for the lights of a menorah, in cubits?

In a Gallup poll conducted between December 11 and 13, what was the average amount that American adults predicted they would spend on Christmas gifts in 2009?

What was the total precipitation in downtown Los Angeles, from January 1 through December 25 2009, measured in inches?

According to the U.S. Naval Observatory, how did daytime last in Anchorage, Alaska on December 21, from sunrise to sunset?

According to a poll conducted in Canada, what was Santa Claus's approval rating in December 2008?

According to Walt Disney Studios, how many "fully animated Disney features" have been made from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves to The Princess and the Frog?

Obviously, no internet research is allowed. Also, the poll is set to display everyone's guesses once you've entered yours, but try not to let it effect your responses.

When my family played, the best team got 28 points from betting. Can you do better?

We're already in a countdown to Christmas. Various things like ojouchan's new job and some annoyingness with banks have meant we got a really late start. And it was only yesterday that I fully realized that I wasn't going to have any more free days before Christmas Eve. (Thursday and Friday are my days off, so my last pre-Christmas weekend just finished.)

But yesterday, Ojou and I cleared up some of the bank stuff, then we went with twilightsyren to Downtown Burbank. I got a lot of stuff done; I've pared down my budget this year, and I'm doing pretty good with it. I think I can get everything else done pretty quickly; my biggest regret is that I'm not likely to get to my regular used bookstore unless they've got expanded hours, or I make a rush to get there on the 23rd.

Still, since I've been thinking more about it, I thought I'd expand the Holiday/Birthday lists:

• Puzzle Books.I mentioned Mutant Sudoku last time, but there's a lot of other good stuff out there.
  • Nikoli Books. A few years ago, cramerica got me Penpa Mixes 1-3, which were loads of fun. They were especially useful once I dropped my nikoli.com membership. I still really love the puzzles, but having them in book form means I can forget about them easily. I'd love to see Penpa, Fillomino, Slitherlink, Masyu, Nurikabe, and Heyawake. (Obviously, they won't get here in time for Christmas, but whatever.
  • Nikoli by Sterling. Sterling Publishing puts out some real quality stuff, and recently they've been publishing Nikoli puzzles in books mixed with Sudoku. I've already got Slitherlink (which I've finished), Masyu, and Nurikabe, but I'd still like to get my hands on the other varieties listed above.
  
  
  • Crosswords. Also from Sterling, Frank Longo's Vowelless Crosswords looks good, as do Patrick Berry's Crossword masterpieces.
• Tea. Specifically looseleaf tea, not bagged/packaged. Our tea reserves are dreadfully low, and we haven't had time to restock. I like most kinds, black, green, white, oolong, herbal infusions, etc. I'd avoid Teavana and Lupicia because they're overpriced. We usually shop at specialteas.com or dragonwater.com online, and when we want something in person, we go to Wing Hop Fung in Chinatown, which stocks birdpick.com. (It looks like they have a store in Pasadena too.)
• One-Time Maid Service. Ojou and I are way behind on cleaning, and a burst of professional help would go a long way, especially now that we rarely have a full day off together.
• New Year's Eve Plans. I'm working most of the Christmas weekend, and as a result, I've got a nice five-day weekend from December 29 to January 2. Ojou's got a sexy, sexy Foxy Brown outfit to wear . . . and a lot of our friends are going to be out of town. We need something to do, something big. Scrabble with Ellen isn't going to cut it this year.

And that's the end of my proactive gift list.

Title Context

My firm has a thing. On Fridays, around closing time, they invite everyone up to the dining room and serve appetizers and drinks, including an open bar.

I've never really gone to one, because I've never been working at a time anywhere near Friday afternoons. While on the graveyard shift, it would have meant waking up god-awful early. And now, it means going in on my day off.

So, no office party.

Now, this used to be a weekly thing. But as the economy tanked, it shrank down to biweekly. It might even be every three or four weeks now. Like I said, I don't much pay attention because of the Friday thing.

But also along with the economy, the holiday party has shrunk. Two years ago, they hired Berlin to play at the House of Blues. Now, they've got new hires doing a skit before they fire up a karaoke machine in the dining room. Also, it's on a Wednesday.

Now, ojouchan and I were already planning to go out tonight (Princess and the Frog at the Arclight), and we weren't entirely inspired by the office party idea, so we were mostly going to skip it.

But today was a rough day. Really rough. I barely scraped out a lunch, and two horrible things happened during it that I then had to deal with.

My plan, then, was to make a quick stop into the party on my way out. I would say hi to the one person that I really like, then head home. And since I'm going home on the subway, I can get a drink too.

Dear reader, my overlords have many flaws, but they are generous with the booze.

I didn't do anything at the party except go to the bar (where my friend already was, which tells you something) and get a drink. I ordered a rum and coke and said something that I'd only ever heard said: "Make it a double."

This seemed appropriate. Normally, I prefer strong mixers, but I'd be leaving forthwith; no time for a second glass.

The bartender looked at the bottle of Bacardi and decided that the best thing to do was just dump everything into a plastic cup. The result was something of a triple and a half.

Hooray for not driving to work.

On the ride home, because I am a true geek, I took out a large easy crossword and recklessly speedsolved it.



But now I really see why the firm does it; why they probably wish they could still do it weekly. I had a really crappy day. Normally, I'd be home fuming. But instead, they paid for an artificial state of happiness. And lord help me, I am feeling really good about the place I work because of it. My instinct now is to think, "Well, it all balanced out."

It doesn't balance out. It was still a crappy day; I had to deal with impossible requests with impossible deadlines. The stress left me angry and unable to focus during my lunch break. And an employer shouldn't rely on mood-altering substances to make its employees feel better.

But that doesn't mean it doesn't goddamn work to some degree. I can imagine what it would be like if this happened after the end of every hard week of work. It'd probably work most of the time.

But now I'm off to eat Peruvian food and watch a movie with the woman that I love. A large glass of decent alcohol can do nothing but blanch at the thought of being compared to that.

Dollhouse: Blame it on FOX, blame it on Joss, but for whatever reason, this show has always been a season behind. Last night's episode brought the show to more or less where I thought it would need to be at the end of season 1.

White Collar: WHUT!? I mean . . . WHUT!?

House: The writing's been a bit uneven with Clean!House, but Laurie's acting hasn't been. It's always there and always enlightening. It's actually giving me insight into his performances in previous seasons by contrast. And with House letting go of his own egocentrism, there's finally a space for episodes like "Wilson."

Grey's Anatomy: I'm watching Grey's new shows and old shows, as ABC is rerunning first season episodes on Saturday nights. It's pretty interesting comparing the two. When the show started, it was mostly comedic. Now it's almost completely dramatic. (The soap-operacity in between is best left unremarked on.)

Mercy: I'm still really loving this show, which seems committed to remaining comedic, and is far funnier than Grey's ever was.

MST3K: ... is on Hulu. Joel episodes! I'm watching The Giant Gila Monster right now.

Tuner Classic Movies: Is now available on HD in LA, so I've been keeping an eye on movies. Yesterday, I watched D.O.A., which is a movie about how you will die if you leave the suburbs to go to a jive club in the city.

SatNYTX: 15.

Some things wanted this gifting season:

• A new backpack. I love my trusty Jansport, but at some point, the stuff that's supposed to keep the weight off my shoulders melted on the left side. And recently, It's been leaking out red goo if I try to wear it other than one-shouldered.
• Tablesaw. ojouchan wants some new furniture. We've been talking about getting a new coffee table from IKEA for ages, and she'd like to replace our big dining room table with something more functional. We're probably goign to swing by St. Vincent de Paul, but I guess IKEA gift cards would make us pretty happy.
• Untables. Speaking of new tables, we'd like to get rid of our old ones. The coffee table is nice. We'll entertain all offers, and I'll drop it off pretty much anywher in the LA area you'd like. The dining-room table is nice too, but I'm not sure if it fits in the car. Pictures soon, I think.
• XBox 360 Ojou's been eying it seriously, and now that we have the HD TV, we're ready for it. The system's about five years old, which means we've got a backlog of things we can get used (though Ojou's got her eye on Dragon Age). This may wait until birthday, though.
• Mutant Sudoku. I've been looking forward to motris and onigame's book of sudoku variations for a while. I usually find sudoku boring, but these two are able to bring out some amazing things out of the structure. It came out a little while ago, but I thought I'd leave it for giftability.
• Clothes I hate buying clothes, so come December I always need new ones. I had some bad luck with pants recently, and I could do with some new shirts too.

And that's really it. Once again, we're going to try to get rid of stuffs and clean house, as well as trying to sock away some money for the wedding. And as usual, I prefer most gifts to be used whenever possible, especially when it comes to things like music, books, games, and DVDs.

Over the holiday, I had the urge to reread A Lesson Is Learned, but the Damage is Irreversible. It's a brief but gorgeous webcomic that ran in 2004 and 2006.

And I decided to make some icons out of them, as you do.



( All 10+1 icons beneath the cut )

The icon for this post is my new Christmas icon, just in time.

I am thankful for my family, the one I was born into and the one I'm marrying into.

Things to remember:

Deconstructing the Myth of the First Thanksgiving, and a number of good links at The Angry Black Woman Blog

The Mumbai Attacks, One Year Later (via deepad)