tablesaw | Dear Authors: Sell Me a T-Shirt

Entry tags:

Dear Authors: Sell Me a T-Shirt

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

but authors get a lot more out of their relationships with their publishers then just paper and glue. They get editing, copyediting, marketing, sales -- we don't just know about Scalzi because the sheer power of his awesome introduced his books to us, after all. Until somebody else is providing those extremely low profit-margin products to the authors, they can't cut off their relationships with their publishers.

You could argue that they can do away with marketing and sales if they meet their fans in other ways, although I would argue that you are wrong. Not all authors are going to be entertaining bloggers, and I know at least one author who started off as a blogger for marketing reasons and then realized that, what with blogging, there was no longer any time or energy to focus on writing.there is a reason that people are hired to do marketing and sales -- it's that they are full-time jobs.

But even leaving that out, editing and copyediting are huge jobs. Every author I know who is happy has a great relationship with an editor and thinks their editor improves their books. Sometimes I know they think their editors also weaken their books because of market research, or fears of politics, and maybe it would be nice if that went away. But even so, they wouldn't keep working with the editors they work with if they didn't think the editors improved their books. So until somebody else meets those business needs, publishers are the ones doing it for authors.

That seems unrelated to his point: I don't think Tablesaw was saying "writers should self-publish their books", but just "it's not hard for writers to get a second, related but non-book, stream of income that doesn't require all the publisher infrastructure".

Of course if writers did this, what would the webcomics authors do???

I read the post as more saying "that sinking ship of publishing has nothing to do with you because you can get your income from somewhere else," which is what I disagree with. If instead it is "set up some other way for me to give you money, such as T-shirts, to make up for the fact that I buy your books used or get them at the library," that I agree with. Heck, I've been wishing for years I could support my favorite bands without giving money to their production houses.

Updated to restore text that helps make the "sinking ship" metaphor more clear.

Thank you! That's much more clear, and now I understand.

And yes, now I am thinking about the band metaphor again. Maybe the professionally produced CD is a sinking ship, but can you make money from concert tours, from house parties, from taking money from your fans in return for mentioning them by name on the liner notes, from T-shirts, from bumper stickers? If bands do it, why can't authors?

Performing, like in a concert, is what musicians like to do. It's not what most authors like to do.

That was me, houseboatonstyx.

And for those who think it's just uncool old fogies who want to stay home and write instead of giving live concerts, Neil Gaiman recently complained about having to do a publicity tour signing autographs and how that was okay for musicians who even on publicity tour were doing what they liked, ie playing music -- for him as a writer it was just lost time and stress because it WASN'T writing.

And the webcomic authors self-publish, first on the web, then in printed collections. Don't they know how horrible their books are!?

/houseboatonstyx here/

Good thought, an author putting up even one self-published story on a web page page with a tip jar so that readers who liked zir other books have a place to donate directly to zim.

But why bring in t-shirts and mugs? If most of what I pay is going for material objects and shipping, might as well order the paperback (from some vendor who isn't acting badly at the moment).

Btw, CIRCUMNAVIGATED FAIRYLAND might be a good poster project for your (very good imo) idea, except that its author has just made a heated blog entry ... which I won't attempt to summarize.

And yet she still regularly self-publishes pieces of short fiction on a subscription basis.

There's a big difference between self-publishing a novel and self-publishing short fiction, but I'd like to see some of these authors consider that Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day is often a big happy exercise in self-publishing too.

I had to go away from this and come back, because my first reaction was incandescent rage. Calmer now.

I don't want to sell t-shirts. I don't know how to design a t-shirt and I don't want to learn how. I don't want to learn how to negotiate merchandising deals and t-shirt distribution; I don't want to have to deal with trademarks so that no one steals my shirt idea; I don't want to deal with the hassle if the t-shirt becomes popular and the business grows. I want to write.

I shouldn't have to put out a tipjar. It's humiliating to beg for money when I think of myself as a professional and I want to work like a professional. There may come a day when I have to do it; fine. I'll do it then. But I don't want to do it as a constant sideline. I want to write.

I'm also kind of glad that authors no longer have to function on the patronage model, too, because I'm not good at sucking up to people. I just want to fucking write.

Look, I get that you don't like supporting corporations. I get that you want to support authors directly. But y'know what? That helps me in the short term, and completely screws me up in the long term. These days a writer's success can be judged by several factors, of which money is only one. If readers skipped buying my book in whatever way and sent me donations of cash, they would ruin my career. I'd never be able to get another book deal, because my sales would be shit. I would then be forced into self-publishing, which is a route that I don't want to go. Most self-published authors make a lot less money than traditionally published authors, and they work a shitload harder for that pittance. You would be limiting my options, cutting my income, and oh yeah, destroying my time and ability to write.

Do you know why Scalzi is encouraging people to buy books now? Because he's more experienced now and he understands better how to be a working writer. He's right in that multiple income streams are the way to go -- that's actually a good idea for any professional, in any industry. And he demonstrates this himself; he writes for AMC, gets advertising money thanks to the hits on his blog, consults for Stargate whicheveritis. But those are all options available to writers who build their careers to a sufficient point -- by selling books. That's how we get access to those other streams of money that have been diverted away from books -- by selling books, and using those sales as a springboard into other areas of media. If I don't sell books, I don't get to have those other income streams. No one will know or care who I am until the established channels that convey legitimacy -- bestseller lists, award organizations, the media, whatever -- have recognized me, and that will happen only if I sell books.

(Including ebooks, sure. Though since ebook sales are a miniscule part of the market at the moment, they don't really matter to me, or anyone else except ebook readers.)

Again, I get that you want to help, and somehow stick it to The Man, or something. But IMO, what you're proposing is an even more outdated model than the traditional publishing route; you're proposing the bard model. You're asking authors to try and get paid directly by their audience, and survive on that. (OK, we could use the modern term for it: crowdsourcing. But I'm using bardship because I want to make a point.) But that model didn't work out too well for most bards -- especially the ones who weren't lucky enough to get corporate sponsorship from some rich king or nobleman. Most bards as I understand it starved to death.

Or here's a better question. If something like that could work for longterm success, don't you think we'd be doing it already?

Note that Cat Valente now says she could never repeat the Fairyland experiment, because a) it succeeded only thanks to a fluke of timing, and b) it produced a poorer-quality product than it would have with professional publishing (see her point about being a crappy copyeditor).

If you truly believe yourself to be a fan of a particular author, then it's true you don't have to buy their books. Get them from the library; the libraries will at least buy a few copies if it's a popular request. Give the author some free advertising in the form of an online review, or ask your local convention to bring her in as a guest of honor, or whatever. There are all sorts of ways you can help an author that won't sabotage his/her career. But the methods you're proposing? No. Those just don't make sense.

I'm going to reply after some errands, but since you've clearly spent a lot of time on this response (for which I thank you), I want to make sure you've seen the ETA to the main post. I think it might address some of the concerns you're sharing, and if leaving it out caused you some stress, I apologize.

No stress, and I'm not angry anymore, though I still feel strongly about this which is why I'm being more blunt and less diplomatic than usual. I saw the ETA. But it doesn't change anything. You're still telling me that you don't want to buy my books (which would support me, though also support a publisher), but you do want me to make a t-shirt for you to buy instead (which would destroy my career).

I'm interested in alternatives; I like innovation. I'm just saying that what you're suggesting is useless to me. Give me some income alternatives that are non-harmful and don't force me to learn another profession on top of the two I'm juggling now, and then your argument might work.

Bluntness is always welcome and appreciated!

If something's going to destroy your career, don't do it, please. But please do something. T-shirts were a nice metaphor because there's a real gap in the geek market for them, but they're not going to be good for everyone. Josh has detailed information why below, but I do think that occasional targeted bursts of merch could help, if there's a way to organize it quickly. It's something to do between books, and it gives fans another way to invest in your writing (in multiple sense of the word).

I mentioned above why I think the tipjar is a good idea (in concept, at least, you may want to rebrand it). Low return, but low effort, and it's something to catch the extra goodwill for your writing.

I don't believe in sticking it to The Publisher for its own sake. Yes, I do believe that publisher boycotts shouldn't be verboten, but that's a very small case. (First also, I believe that boycotts should have specific goals that the company can meet, so that if they change a cover, then boycott ends immediately. The jump back up should also send a message. Second also, like I said, I'm not a book buyer, so that's not a huge risk.)

You're asking authors to try and get paid directly by their audience, and survive on that.

Was I? I didn't think so, so let me try again.

The people Scalzi's telling to buy books are, I assume, the people who buy books. There are still lots of those, though they are fewer, and they spend less. But what about the folks who don't. Or the folks who've already bought the book?

Publishers only track sales because that's all they need to care about. You as a writer need to track readers and fans over all sources (novel, short fiction, and blog at least). People like me aren't on publishers' radar, but we should be on yours. Not all of us will buy willing or able to buy your book; what are you doing to get money from us? If your answer is only, "trying to get you to buy the book," you're leaving money on the table. And it's money that you can reach as an author that the publisher cannot. There's no point when that becomes available to be exploited; it just keeps growing, and you can start now.

Don't want T-shirts? Fine. Don't feel comfortable directly asking for money from people who already want to give you money? Fine. But don't leave that money on the table. It may be a little, or it may be a lot, and you certainly will want to consider how much effort you put into getting it, but don't leave it out there. The tip jar isn't charity, it's a way for your fans to give you money they think you deserve. It might not be a lot, but it's low maintenance, and it's more than nothing.

I can't think of anything along these lines that's going to keep book buyers from buying your book. That's not how book buyers work, they will buy your book first. But they might still chip in more. And folks who buy the book might be willing to purchase other merchandise

* * *

I think

yuki_onna is being to modest when she says the success of Fairyland was a fluke, but I notice that in the conditions for her fluke, she lists "financial crisis." I don't know if that's a factor for her success, but it's certainly a factor for changing her business perspective such that, for a limited time, self-publishing a serialized novel for donations became a far more profitable option than trying to publish a novel traditionally. She needed the money on her schedule, and that was more important than the amount of money she might have gotten rewriting it or selling a different novel. Her cabin in the not quite sinking ship momentarily sank below sea-level, and she had to either get on shore or drown.

As she says, it's her choice whether she'll do it again. And while she doesn't want to, I'm fairly certain that if the things turn that bad again, she will, because that's what she'd have to do to keep writing.

I pray that neither she, nor you, nor any other writer whose work I admire (and still most of the ones that I don't really care for) ever end up in that situation. But if it comes up, I'd rather that everyone consider the brand of the author over the brand of the corporate publisher.

And, of course, Valente also self-publishes short fiction under a subscription model, which makes a direct contribution to her monthly income. Again, the value of that is most likely less about the dollar values as it is about the ability to control the schedule, rather than having to wait for acceptance/contract from a magazine.

Self-publishing on multiple scales is going to continue to be employed by authors trying to catch the money where they can, when they need it. And it does bug me when "self-published" gets used to mean "things that are crap," when more and more people are producing good work, and more and more people will do so in the future. Novels will still probably be rare, for the reasons abundantly stated elsewhere, but novels aren't the only game in town (in terms of books and in terms of fiction).

Yes, I do believe that publisher boycotts shouldn't be verboten, but that's a very small case. (First also, I believe that boycotts should have specific goals that the company can meet, so that if they change a cover, then boycott ends immediately. The jump back up should also send a message. Second also, like I said, I'm not a book buyer, so that's not a huge risk.)

I'm confused here. First by your wording -- what does "jump back up" mean, and what message are you talking about? Second -- OK, you're not a book buyer, so why are you talking about things that are of concern to book buyers? That's like me offering an opinion on football, when all I've ever done is glance at a game and start up Civilization because football bores me to tears. Obviously I'm free to say what I want, but nobody's going to pay any attention to me, because people who watch the game avidly are going to understand it better, and people who actually play it are going to understand it better still. I'm just some loudmouthed yahoo off in a corner that doesn't know what she's talking about.

This is not to say you shouldn't offer your opinion; of course you can say whatever you want. But what angered me about your OP was that it so clearly seemed to be an example of yet another person who doesn't know how this business works, nevertheless gleefully recommending a course of action and getting friends on board with the idea, apparently oblivious to the fact that this course of action represents an active threat to everything I or any professional author has worked for. (There have been a lot of people doing this in the whole Amazon vs. publishers debate, not just you, but I saw yours because it quoted my article, and I decided to respond because I recognized your username from other convos about race, etc., and respected you enough to engage.) What's become clear to me over the past week is that there are several distinct levels of understanding involved in this discussion, and by declaring that you don't buy books, you've placed yourself in the category of people least likely to understand what's going on. There are things I understand now as a published writer about how the book business works that I did not understand in 30+ years of being an avid book buyer. There will be things I understand even more clearly once I've been through the publication/royalties cycle all the way (which is why I haven't commented on this debate; I don't know enough to do so, yet). And for people who don't buy books at all, who -- like you -- keep comparing the book business to other businesses like music, it's clear they don't understand any of it, as keeps becoming apparent in this debate.

Side-note: I think boycotts shouldn't be verboten either -- as long as you're clear on who you're targeting. The point of my post was that a publisher is an amalgamated creature; when you think "publisher" you should really think "publisherandauthors", because the authors are inextricable. (In your OP you asked whether authors were really that close to their publishers. The answer is yes. It's not a personal, emotional thing; it's just business. But yes.) If you want to target the authors, a boycott is a great way to go. If you're angry at the publisher? A boycott is next to useless. Publishers are all part of globe-spanning, multimedia empires these days; it's virtually impossible to cut their income stream enough for them to even notice, much less care. You would have to convince every school to stop purchasing that parent company's textbooks (and that would hurt them, since it's where the bulk of the book business sits these days); every Food Network star to stop shilling cookbooks; every library to stop buying their books (good luck with that); and so on. Straight-up fiction consumers are probably the smallest part of these companies' business. So a boycott wouldn't even be noticed, beyond the publicity it would generate; if it impacted any particular author's sales, the company would simply drop the problem author. If that outcome is your goal, then go for it.

But back to the discussion of author income. You're still not suggesting anything useful. I don't want to sell merchandise. I'm a writer. I don't want to beg for money, however you rebrand the begging; I'm a writer. I don't want to do anything but write, and sell my writing, period.

Again, what you're suggesting isn't something new, but something very old: patronage versus professionalism. I'm a professional and I want to be paid for the work I do -- no more, no less. Yes, that does mean I leave some money on the table; you're right in that I'm not getting everything I can out of my readers. But y'know what? I don't want everything I can get out of my readers. Because that would make them patrons, and I don't want patrons. Patrons get some degree of control over the product. If I'm asking people for monetary support outside of the product I'm generating, then they have a right to dictate how I use my time, and what I produce with it. (Which is why some readers drive George R. R. Martin batshit -- they act as though they have this control when they really don't.) This sort of thing is why authors got away from the patronage model centuries ago, and moved to the professional (publisher) model. As professionals, we have more artistic control. That's worth leaving a little money on the table, IMO.

Here's what I don't think you understand. The thing that is most valuable to me is time, not money. Time allows me to write. Money is what buys that time, by paying my rent and health insurance and so on, but money is only useful to me insofar as it's buying time. The things you're suggesting -- merchandising, self-publishing -- eat up incredible amounts of time. So while they might (and that's an extremely emphatic might) generate more cash, they'll cost far more in time than the cash difference can account for. There's no net gain for me; probably some net loss, in fact. And for a writer, lost time = lost writing, which = end of career.

Quality discussions aside, many self-published authors have chosen that route because they're focused on making a profit from one particular product. One story, regardless of its "container" (book, ebook, whatever). So they're willing to put in the time it takes to do their own marketing and copyediting and typesetting and distribution and so on, because they aren't really planning to write more books, or at least no time soon. Or they're only going to commit more time if that first product does well, and thus affords them more time. Great. That works fine for them. But it does not work well for me, or most authors who've chosen to do this as professionals. In the time that The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms has been in production, because that's being handled by professionals other than me and my time has been paid for, I've been able to write almost 250,000 new words. (Finished book 2 at 125,000 words and have written 100,000+ words towards book 3 -- a good many of which have been scrapped, but that's part of the writing process for me.) It usually takes me 2 years to write one book, but since the book deal with my publisher I've written close to 2 books in 1 year.

Find a way for me to make money that can earn me as much time as this, and I'll try it. But until you can offer suggestions that don't threaten my time, none of this can work.

I'm confused here. First by your wording -- what does "jump back up" mean, and what message are you talking about? Second -- OK, you're not a book buyer, so why are you talking about things that are of concern to book buyers? That's like me offering an opinion on football, when all I've ever done is glance at a game and start up Civilization because football bores me to tears. Obviously I'm free to say what I want, but nobody's going to pay any attention to me, because people who watch the game avidly are going to understand it better, and people who actually play it are going to understand it better still. I'm just some loudmouthed yahoo off in a corner that doesn't know what she's talking about.

Ok, so, I'll talk about boycotts, because the use of the word has broadened over the years. When I talk about a boycott, I mean an action, targeted at a business entity, to achieve a specific end. The protoypical example is "We won't buy your products until you negotiate with the union." It isn't, "You've done X, and I'll never buy from you again." The first is trying to get the business to change, and part of that means being willing to forgive the business when it does things right. The second is writing off a company completely for one's own reasons, possibly with the hope that you've helped, in a small way, to hasten its death.

So a boycott of a pubisher goes, "I am a buyer of books, I would normally buy your books, but I won't buy your books until you've done X. Once you have, I'll start buying those books I've been holding off on." There's a stick and a carrot, and it makes the financial ramifications of the company's actions clear, not just in terms of money lost, but in terms of money that could be gained. With this comes the implicit notion (which you've mentioned) that the trouble caused and money lost by the boycott is more than, or at least roughly equal to the change demanded.

And part of boycotting/strike is helping the employees affected by it in the meantime, which is where alternate revenue comes in.

But many people use "boycott" in a general sense of "reasons not to buy X." My problem with that is that there are lots of reasons not to buy X, and they're different for everybody, and they have different values for everybody. An author being a horrible person or doing horrible things is a reason not to buy their books, but so is being a horrible writer who writes horrible fiction. "Boycotting" an author until they stop being an asshole online is about the same as boycotting an author until they write a book you want to read.

This is why I'm generally against boycotts of authors, because they have so little control over the books, and where they do, the change that's desired is often unachievable or nebulous. I can't boycott John Ringo until he unwrites or unpublishes Ghost, because he can't. And if the goal is too ambiguous ("I'm not buying your books until you stop being an asshole online!"), the author (or a company) has no way of knowing how to meet it. So they don't.

So when the local supermarket union was striking, I boycotted their employers, and often shopped at Whole Foods. When the strike was over, I went back to the 24-hour supermarket. Now that Whole Foods has been making horrible statements, political contributions, and internal policies based on healthcare, health, and fatness, I don't ever see myself going into them again. That's not a boycott, that's just my opinion.

Too busy at work to address part 2 yet. . .

OK, holding off on replying 'til your part 2.

If I'm asking people for monetary support outside of the product I'm generating, then they have a right to dictate how I use my time, and what I produce with it.

I think this is false. My personal experience is that when I put money in an author tipjar, it's in response to product that they've already generated, and which they've often already sold through traditional channels previously or decided not to sell (or initially sell) through traditional channels (released under CC or pure blogging). It's just another way for an author to get that money, letting readers support after having read, rather than supporting before (or during, for advertising). Unless you specifically ask for donations/preorders to support a future product, I don't expect anyone will be contributing except in response to something they've already read.

My understanding is that the people driving Martin to distraction (counterproductively) are generally people who did nothing more than buy his writing. The extra investment comes from time spent reading those books (they're kind of long), reading them again (I've probably read each book twice), and anticipating what might come next (O the theories I have!). That alone is enough to warp the thinking of a person (I have those entitlement issues with SoI&F, but I check them quickly, because they are, obviously, ridiculous).

Sidenote: In 2005 (the same year the last SoI&F book was released), videogame programmer Cliff Johnson declared his long awaited sequel "almost finished" and opened preorders. Johnson's game has been as delayed as Martin's novel, and yet Johnson's fans who have already paid for the game exhibit far less ire than Martin's who haven't put any money into it. Perhaps it's because Johnson's able to refund money when somebody gets mad. Martin can't refund the time (and, yes, has no obligation to).

Anyway, a reader feels the most goodwill toward the author right after reading something (novel, story, essay/blog) they like. They're filled with that joy; they see your name; it drives them to your website. Then what? Hopefully, they buy the book. But what if they already have the book? What if your next book is still in production? What if they don't want to read a novel, becauase they were reading your blog or short fiction? What then?

There are readers (not tons yet, but some), who will come to your website, flush with your words, thinking, "That was great, now what can I do for her?" I have done this, not hypothetically. I have gone to your bibliography page, before this conversation, and asked myself, "Where's the paypal button?" Offering more options captures more of that goodwill.

What's more (and this may sound creepy, especially if you're concerned about entitlement and overinvestment), allowing your fans to do things you tell them to is good for your business. It increases their identification with you, which increases the goodwill in your name brand, which makes people more likely to buy read and recommend your work. "I read her story, and I liked it, and I sent in a few bucks" is stronger than "I read her story, and I liked it."

So, suggestions tailored to you. Lemme review your website. Doot doot doot.

You're offering a tuckerization, which looks like a mild form of patronage (somebody's paying money to influence your future work, under limited circumstances), but the money is being offered to charity. You've also very recently reprinted (preprinted?) a novelette with specific instructions to donate to Haiti. A theme.

A lot of the short fiction in your bibliography has been published by groups that maintain open archives. I gather, from your stance here on novel publihsers, that you're also very heavily invested in maintaining these groups as paying concerns. So add direct links to their support pages. Yes, I know they have their own on your story, but it makes a difference that you're saying it as the author. And you've probably said it in, say, the blog post where you announced the story was printed and elsewhere, but that doesn't mean it'll be seen, or possibly remembered, at the critical moment.

Several of the stories are linked to Transcriptase, which directs support to the Carl Brandon Society and the Triptree Award, so you might want to link to and direct support there too. The other short fiction you reprint is offered under CC license. For that one, maybe link to and direct support to the SLF?

Also, having a general statement on the sidebar regarding support and linking to and directing support to one, several, or rotating charities would help catch the people who just come by your blog posts.

So that's opening the revenue streams, just not directing them to you. I don't think it makes a great difference to the reader how that money gets where (though it does to the IRS), and I don't think you're shielding yourself from any dangers that might be posed by fans who want to give you money. But charity's a luxury for most of us, and finding a way to support that luxury, even indirectly, is also valuable.

Finally, and, hopefully obviously, if the time comes when you can't write (in the sense of, you can't write what you feel you're supposed to write, or you feel you need to do or write something else), don't keep that off the table either. The fuckwads may be upset at Martin for help produce a GoT pilot for HBO, but, dude, Sean Bean as Eddard Stark? I'm all over that. And so's a new audience of non–book buyers.

I think this is false. My personal experience is that when I put money in an author tipjar, it's in response to product that they've already generated, and which they've often already sold through traditional channels previously or decided not to sell (or initially sell) through traditional channels (released under CC or pure blogging). It's just another way for an author to get that money, letting readers support after having read, rather than supporting before (or during, for advertising). Unless you specifically ask for donations/preorders to support a future product, I don't expect anyone will be contributing except in response to something they've already read.

I think this is naive. As both of us have pointed out, people already feel entitled to control Martin's time when all they've done is buy his book. And you think that asking people for more won't trigger even bigger feelings of entitlement? I'm sorry, but I just don't believe that. In our (speaking US here) capitalist society, there's a word for people who pay for a person's room/board/lifestyle while they work on a product: employer. Or patron, or client; same thing, really. Throughout history, the person who pays for the professional's upkeep has been the person that dictates -- or tries to dictate -- the work that professional produces. This is no different with a publisher, really, except that publishers only contract with artists who are already working on what the publisher wants. They ignore authors, even good authors, who aren't producing something of immediate value. For those who are, they offer support -- but naturally with a measure of control attached. In my case, my publisher changed the title of my book (I liked the new one better), picked the cover art (though I was happy with it), and even dictated some changes to the plot (which I agreed to, and wrote). This is standard for any publisher-author relationship. Since you're essentially suggesting that authors turn to readers to offer the same support that a publisher currently offers, why wouldn't those readers then expect the same degree of control? It would be irrational for them not to.

But while I'm willing to offer that control to a group of professionals (the editor/marketing person/art director/etc. at my publishing house) whose work I've seen elsewhere and respect, and whose judgment I trust... I am not willing to offer control over my work to a bunch of random people who happen to have spare cash. Book writing by committee -- especially when that committee consists of a bunch of people who don't know what they're doing -- is never a good idea.

So I think you're overestimating the goodwill of readers. Only some of these contributors (employers) will offer support based on my past projects alone; many will offer support because they want to see more work from me in the future. And some of those will decide that I should be working on something they want to see.

You do raise a good point about me specifically making a plea for readers to buy (or donate to, in the case of Strange Horizons) the magazines where my work is published. When I get some time, I'll add a paragraph on my biblio page about that. (I don't think it's a good idea to add a second link to the list of stories, note. Partly in the interest of good website design, and partly because I think over-begging can actually be detrimental to the altruistic impulse; there is such a thing as asking too much.)

But back to the main point of your OP. You still haven't offered any solutions to the problem of time support that I referred to in my last comment. Everything, everything you've suggested in this thread takes more time away from my writing, and for very minimal and uncertain returns. (I can't be sure, since not everyone tells me if they donate, but the "donate money if you like this story" links on my website have gotten very, very little in the way of actual donations. Nowhere near enough to pay my rent, or even my heating bill, for a month.) And since you're not willing to buy my novels, or even request them from the library -- which would help give me time support in the form of good sales numbers, which would lead to future publishers who'd be willing to buy my future novels for a good advance -- then you're still not saying anything that would help a working writer. You're still proposing a course of action that's actively harmful to me.

It's clear that's not what you intend, so like I said, I'm not angry about it anymore... but seriously, honestly, I don't think you really understand how this business works. Which is why I think your proposed solutions do more harm than good.

A belated comment brought me back to this post. I tried for a long time to respond to this comment, and failed. I wasn't able to find a context that made your view of publishers versus readers make sense to me. I have no idea how a lot of this will sound because I'm not sure how to approach your position, so I apologize in advance for my inabilities.

[P]ublishers only contract with artists who are already working on what the publisher wants. They ignore authors, even good authors, who aren't producing something of immediate value.

But publishers don't themselves want the texts they license. They want to sell it to the readers. Publishers aren't looking for what they want; they have an identified audience, and they're looking to get money from they audience by providing what those readers want.

The support is always coming from the readers. Unless you actually have a patronage situation where a publisher is publishing purely for their own edification, the support that the publisher provides is the same support that the readers provide. Or rather, a portion of that support, since the publisher takes its cut.

Take the example of publishing a subscription-based magazine. There, an editor not only has an established audience, they literally know where that audience lives. The value that a story has is the value the story has to the magazine's readers, and the changes that an editor requests (or makes outright) are ones designed to preemptively satisfy the demands of those readers.

Since you're essentially suggesting that authors turn to readers to offer the same support that a publisher currently offers, why wouldn't those readers then expect the same degree of control? It would be irrational for them not to.

I've had a harder time getting my head around what you mean in terms of rational/irrational. Is it rational in the sense that any given reader will be able to have their demands met? Clearly not, if only because it doesn't happen. The reason is clear, each reader only wields power equal to 1/N the total market value of any given text (where N is likely to be a relatively high number, and 1/N is likely to be a relatively modest number).

Is it rational in the sense that it may be a low cost for a reader to make such a demand, but a very high return if the demand succeeds, even if the probability of success is low? Perhaps. But in cases like this, it's usually more often that the demand or complaint itself provides value to the reader. Does the guy being an asshole on the internet demanding that Martin finish the next SoI&F book really believe that his assholery is making the book come out faster? I doubt it. But the act of venting his rage provides enough value to him that his irrational action is rational for him. In that sense, because the reader's motivation is completely divorced from the economics of the situation (and really, from you as a creator in actuality) there's nothing you can do to either foster or prevent this kind of idiocy.

If you rationally want to take control of the text, you need to command more of the value. That's what a publisher does; they "buy out" all the contributions of prospective readers so that they can wield that power directly. In doing so, they give voice not to the actively pressed demands of individual readers, but to the desires of large groups of readers, which are more generally passive. That's why a publisher will always wield more control over any individual reader, because publisher represent themselves as all readers.

So what does a rational individual do to influence a writer's product? They increase their share of the market by offering enough money that they can represent themselves as a direct client. At the point where a reader goes from offering $5-$10 and starts offering $250-$500 dollars, well, they start becoming prospective employers. And that's the point of Mamatas's Fast Money vs. Good Money (which took a long while to find, since his journal isn't indexed). That with enough money—and not even that much money—up front, a reader can become an employer without much problem, and that in this regard, almost any professional writer is available for hire.

On the other hand, Mamatas wrote term papers on demand as part of being a professional writer. His argument there is that being paid upfront to spend very little time to anonymously write very simple essays is a potential source of aid to someone who wants to make a living by writing. There's definitely a slope, but since you as the author always retain control, it's not a slippery one. You can draw the line at any point, and maneuver it capriciously around points according to your whims and needs. Now, there's the personal value involved that "subsidizes" something like writing a novel when, looking purely at numbers, the time would be better spent writing another thousand words on Jane Eyre for a legacy admission.

To reiterate the basic argument of trad. vs. self-publishing: in one sense, the value that a publisher provides will always be less than what the direct audience can provide, since the publisher pulls from the same audience and takes a cut. But various other factors (discounted production and editing, the amount of cash involved, the schedule of payment, etc.) will make traditional publishing more or less useful to an author than self-publishing in a given instance.

Everything, everything you've suggested in this thread takes more time away from my writing, and for very minimal and uncertain returns. (I can't be sure, since not everyone tells me if they donate, but the "donate money if you like this story" links on my website have gotten very, very little in the way of actual donations. Nowhere near enough to pay my rent, or even my heating bill, for a month.)

I guess what I don't see in this example is how much time or energy the tip jar was taking from you. I'm not saying that it didn't; it's just not apparent to me. I know that the stress I feel from having a book on the shelf, unread and for which I paid full price, is a cost in buying books that's not apparent to others. But from my perspective, the small amount of time setting up a tip jar, which can then slowly collect contributions over a long period of time wouldn't be a drain on my time.

And since you're not willing to buy my novels, or even request them from the library.

I did request from LAPL in response to this last month, though it hasn't shown up in the collection yet.

So here's the thing about selling teeshirts: overhead. You need art (even if it's taking a simple quote and doing some type design with it). You need a way for people to pay you, whether that's paypal or google checkout or spreadshirt or cafe press. You need a way to actually make the teeshirts. You need warehousing to store the teeshirts. And teeshirts have the added headache that, not only do you need to keep them in stock, but you need to keep them in stock in the right size (or you could go with POD teeshirts, which will slash your profit margin to nearly nothing). I have tried selling teeshirts for my books; it was a complete waste of time and money. I've heard reports from a handful of other self-publishers who have had identical experiences.

Not at all ironically, all of the above applies equally to books. You have to get art and layout. You need to print them. You need to store them. You need to find and manage some sort of payment gateway. And all that takes money and time — time which authors would probably prefer to spend writing. And what a publishing house offers authors is the ability to not spend time on all the ancillary garbage and focus on writing.

Before I weigh in too heavily on the side of publishing houses, let me qualify from my experience as an editor and publisher. The business of a publishing house is, as with every other commercial enterprise, to buy cheap and sell dear. The vast majority of editors see authors as uncooperative content-piñatas whose only value is in their ability to churn out words, and who will only do so when pestered. Most editors do not consider their writers as artists, and only care the authors' concerns insofar as those concerns can be used to leverage more content out of them faster. There are, of course, exceptions, but by and large it is a terrible, exploitative industry.

But it is an industry with uses. A publishing house can get your book to more readers than you can — and not 'twice as more' or even 'ten times as many" — more like a thousand times more. Which makes it palatable that you make a fraction as much per book, because your audience increases by a three or four orders of magnitude. All you have to do is navigate your way around or simply stomach being "managed" by a publishing team.

Actually, you live in LA, Tony, so consider this analogy: selling a manuscript to a publishing house is like selling a script to a production company. Folks don't really want to buy and read scripts; they want to watch movies. And while there are more similarities between a manuscript and a book than with a script and a movie, there are a lot of important development and production steps in between. People want to read books which have been edited, laid out, and marketed. They want to get those books from reputable vendors so they'll be pretty sure what they're getting isn't utter drek, and they want the process of buying the book to be dirt-simple. Authors use publishing houses to make that happen.

There are big pros and big cons to partnering with a big publishing house. Right now I'm not, and Rooksbridge isn't exactly flourishing under my solo guidance — and it still wouldn't were I making Rooksbridge teeshirts. However, it's relatively reasonable to assume that authors who are using a publishing house have considered the pros and cons before leaping in. They have chosen to make their living by selling manuscripts to publishing houses. The fact that there is an audience of people reading their work is, in financial terms, secondary to selling manuscripts. Is a more direct relationship between audience and artist preferable? For me, yes — but not for the authors who have chosen that route.

It occurs to me, when you mention that selling a T-shirt is a lot like publishing a book, that the publishing model has actually been invading the "monetize your webcomic by selling T-shirts" business. The main example, Topatoco, has over 30 very popular webcomics creators in its stable. It's also the case that T-shirts are a standard part of webcomics culture at this point, which is not the case with books, except perhaps for books that have become blockbuster movies.

Webcomics already have the art, lucky bastards. ;)

Yeah, for a smaller author the only real T-shirt model would be:

Aim for a con.
Gauge interest.
Get pre-orders.
Do a limited run.
Hand out most at the start of the con.
Let your minions publicize you instead of Firefly for the rest of the weekend.

Have you already read Charles Stross's FAQ: Why is there no tipjar? (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/03/reminder-why-theres-no-tipjar.html) The key paragraph:

"If I [Stross] put a Paypal tipjar on this blog, to take conscience money from folks who've downloaded a (cough) unauthorized ebook or two, the money would come to me, not to the publisher. And without the publisher those books wouldn't exist: wouldn't have been commissioned, wouldn't have been edited, wouldn't have been corrected and marketed and sold in whatever form filtered onto the unauthorized ebook market."

Many authors regard their publishers as partners, and don't want to take revenue from them.

No, but I had read Why the commercial ebook market is broken. It's interesting that Stross holds the same odd mix of antagonism and respect for lenders and resellers as he does for digital pirates.

My own response most closely approximates Cat Dancer's asking for the author (maybe even in connection with the publisher), to provide alternative products for me to consume as identity purchases. For me, books as products are almost completely out in terms of social or identity purchases.

HELLO, THIS POST MAKES ME WANT TO JUMP UP AND DOWN. I have been saying all of this, much less articularly, for years, to anyone who will listen. And I am absolutely amazed at the number of people who don't want to listen. TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING IS NOT THE BE-ALL/END-ALL REVENUE SOURCE FOR A WRITER.

eta: oooooh, reading Jemisin's comments above, I have a lot to think about. thanks for the discussion. :D

Edited 2010-03-29 17:03 (UTC)

Heh, thanks.

This jogs the memory that a new response to Jemison never got finished, and languishes on my hard drive somewhere. I guess I should make a stab at it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Dear Authors: Sell Me a T-Shirt

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject