Amazon single-handedly made ebooks the ubiquitous force they are today. Others helped it along, of course, but Amazon made it happen in the timeframe we’ve seen. They’ve opened up the playing field to let indie authors and small presses compete realistically with the Big Six. They’ve made books and other items readily available and affordable to millions of people who may have had trouble accessing those things before. I don’t like everything about the Kindle model – exclusive file format, etc., but it’s very good overall. Amazon are very good overall.

There’s no question that I would rather have Amazon around than not. Although, on a slight digression, when the hell are we getting an amazon.com.au? Seriously, Amazon, why do you hate Australia?

But there are changes happening at Amazon that I don’t like. I’ve never been able to ignore a bully and I don’t like monopolies. They’re bad for everyone except the person in control of said monopoly. And while Amazon are still doing many good things, they’re starting to do many questionable things as well.

The major problems are these:

- Setting up as a publisher, not just a retailer;
- Starting the KDP Select program;
- Cutting publishers out of control;
- Propogating the cheap and free model.

Why are these things bad? Let’s look at them one by one.

Setting up as a publisher:

This is not a bad thing per se – another opportunity for writers to get published is a good thing, right? Well, not if it restricts the writer’s ability to sell their work. Whenever Amazon set up a service, they make it exclusive to themselves. For example, their CreateSpace POD printing venture means stock is only available through Amazon.com – not even the other Amazon branches internationally. As a result of in-fighting, Barnes & Noble have said they won’t stock any Amazon published books. This is a direct result of B&N’s problems with previous Amazon exclusivity policies, and I can’t really blame them. But it means that writers being published by Amazon have a greatly restricted range of outlets for their work. And Amazon encourages that in order to gain monopoly share.

Starting the KDP Select program:

This is a program where authors can make their Kindle ebooks available free for 5 days out of every 90. The idea is that it will greatly enhance their profile, drag more readers to their work and they’ll see greater sales in the long tail. Amazon have a pool of cash and for every author with a free book, Amazon distributes a share of that pool based on how many free downloads that book saw. Sounds great, but it’s not. That distribution pool is already getting smaller, the vast majority of people involved will only ever see a tiny fraction of it and, worst of all, those books can only be included if they’re exclusive to Amazon. No iBooks, no Smashwords, no Nook, etc. That means that once again, Amazon are forcing exclusivity and using sweet, sweet cookies to lure authors into snubbing every other retailer. Then you find out that the cookie is made of mud and dog crap.

Cutting publishers out of control:

It’s getting harder and harder for publishers to manage their stock at Amazon. My novels are published by Gryphonwood Press. They recently commissioned new cover art for both books and tried to get Amazon to update the art. Nothing happened. No responses, no changes, nothing but huge frustrations. Eventually, after talking to my publisher, I went to my Amazon Author Central page and requested the changes myself. The update was made inside 24 hours. This is Amazon responding to authors, not publishers. That means they’re actively cutting publishers out, which actively encourages authors to do their own thing. That’s not an author’s job. It’s their publisher’s job. But this strikes me as an underhand way of getting authors to distrust their publishers or decide they can do without them and go the indie route, which is better for Amazon.

Propogating the cheap and free model:

So many novels are on Amazon for 99c. I’ve already talked about the free option on the KDP Select program. This is a big problem. For one, many readers are starting to undervalue work. They decide to wait until something is free or reduced to 99c before buying it and that’s bad for authors. This is our job – we’re trying to make a livng here and there’s a lot of work in writing a novel. It’s worth more than a single dollar. But Amazon don’t care. They’ve got something set up where anyone can upload an ebook, charge a buck for it and think they’re on the author gravy train. 99.9% of those people are unlikely to sell more than a handful of books. But that’s all right with Amazon. After all, if they make 75c for every book sold, they don’t need to sell millions of every book. They just need to sell a few copies of millions of books. Each author is making fuck all, but Amazon are raking it in. And those authors who stick exclusively with Amazon are told they’ll do even better, with no guarantee that that is actually the case.

You can see how all these things are set up to benefit Amazon, at the expense of everyone else – authors, publishers and readers. It’s better for all of those people if price points reflect the effort involved in making the work being sold; if product is available through a range of outlets for a range of devices to give readers a choice and therefore give authors a greater chance at more exposure and sales, leading to a stronger career. The only beneficiary of the models described above is Amazon.

Now I don’t mind Amazon doing well for itself, but not by monopolising an industry and not at the expense of authors and readers. That’s where I have to step in between the bully and bullied and say, “Wait a fucking minute, here, what do you think you’re doing?”

What can you do about it? Lots of things.

If you’re a writer or publisher:

Don’t make your work exclusively available in one place. It benefits everyone to have it available in as many places, for as many devices as you can.

Don’t price your work ridiculously low and devalue it. Equally, don’t price it stupidly high and drive all the readers to pirate sites instead.

Don’t saturate the work with DRM, inconveniencing readers who can’t read a book they paid for on seperate devices.

Stand up against monopolising policies wherever you can.

If you’re a reader:

Check various venues for the availability of the work you want and don’t always buy in one place.

Try to buy non-DRM versions in order to encourage greater openess in the future. DRM is not the way to fight piracy.

Don’t go for pirated work. If you respect the authors you’re reading, pay them for their work.

Don’t only read free books and those you can get for 99c. At the very least, you’re cutting yourself off from some really good stuff out there and only encouraging the lowest common denominator.

Chime in with a comment below if you have an opinion or an idea about this. Or if you completely disagree with me – I’d love to hear why.

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Twenty-nine all new science fiction stories of humanity’s adventures out there, anywhere but Earth. Featuring original works by Margo Lanagan, Sean McMullen, Richard Harland and Kim Westwood among a galaxy of new and established Australian and overseas speculative fiction authors.

‘Keith Stevenson has done it again. Sit down, buckle up, you’re heading off world now – trust me, it’s going to hurt, but you won’t regret it.’
Trent Jamieson, award-winning author of the Death Works and The Nightbound Land series.

Contents
Calie Voorhis ‘Murmer’, Cat Sparks ‘Beautiful’, Simon Petrie ‘Hatchway’, Lee Battersby ‘At the End There Was a Man’, Alan Baxter ‘Unexpected Launch’, Richard Harland ‘An Exhibition of the Plague’, Robert N Stephenson ‘Rains of la Strange’, Liz Argall ‘Maia Blue is Going Home’, Chris McMahon ‘Memories of Mars’, CJ Paget ‘Pink Ice in the Jovian Rings’, Penelope Love ‘SIBO’, Donna Maree Hanson ‘Beneath the Floating City’, Erin E Stocks ‘Lisse’, William RD Wood ‘Deuteronomy’, Robert Hood ‘Desert Madonna’, Steve de Beer ‘Psi World’, Damon Shaw ‘Continuity’, Wendy Waring ‘Alien Tears’, Patty Jansen ‘Poor Man’s Travel’, Jason Fischer ‘Eating Gnashdal’, Kim Westwood ‘By Any Other Name’, Brendan Duffy ‘Space Girl Blues’, TF Davenport ‘Oak with the Left Hand’, Sean McMullen ‘Spacebook’, Margo Lanagan ‘Yon Horned Moon’, Mark Rossiter ‘The Caretaker’, Jason Nahrung ‘Messiah on the Rock’, Angela Ambroz ‘Pyaar Kiya’, Steve Cameron ‘So Sad, the Lighthouse Keeper’

B format 728 pages

ISBN 9780987158703 – printed book

ISBN 9780987158710 – ebook

The book has landed here on Earth and is available now in print and multi-format ebook. The official launch will be happening at the New South Wales Writers Centre Speculative Fiction Festival on Saturday, November 5th. Several of the contributing authors will be there, including myself. As part of the launch, Richard Harland, Margo Lanagan and I will be reading excerpts from our stories. Of course, all the attending authors will also be happy to sign your copy at the launch. There’s so much else going on that day – if you’re anywhere near Sydney, don’t miss it!

In the meantime, all the purchase details for this awesome anthology can be found here. Go get some!

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The Masterclass package contains the full ninety minute seminar in podcast and slide video format. You can learn more about it and get your copy here, via The Creative Penn (click the pic):

Enjoy!

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Piracy and Free Content
by Foz Meadows

Neil Gaiman tried the free giveaway experiment a little while back – the readers of his blog voted which novel of his they most wanted to recommend to friends (it ended up being American Gods), and then he made it freely downloadable for a month, after and during which time his publishers monitored his sales to see what happened. Similar to Cory Doctorow’s experience, sales of ALL his books (and not just American Gods) went way, way up, which I think Gaiman compared to something of a library/lending effect, i.e.: most people discover new authors because someone, be it a friend or a library, loans them a copy of the book, thereby encouraging them to buy that author’s works in the future but without the initial risk of paying money for a product they might not like.

What I took away from the whole endeavour (apart from the fact that, when it comes to any experimental sort of book sale process, it is very helpful to already be a megastar) is that it seems to work best for writers who already have a published back-catalog. Putting up one book for free, for a limited time, draws attention to all your works together; and if people like the free product, then they’re more inclined to pay for your other stuff, because you are now one of Their Authors. Which could work as a promotion for a second book if done right, I think – but the call is yours.

Regarding people who download, I do think there’s something to the argument that the majority (or at least, a significant proportion) of DLs don’t actually constitute a lost sale, per se, so much as a parallel form of consumption. Allowing for the 10% of assholes who will always rather steal than pay even when they can afford it, I know there have been myriad reported instances where people who already own physical copies of books have sought out illegal digital versions because of region control issues in the legal versions, such as someone from Australia not being able to buy an ebook version of a novel they already own because it’s only published in America.

There’s a whole argument about poverty, too: that some people who would love to get books from libraries, but have no access to a decent catalog or even to reliable library services, use pirate copies because otherwise they couldn’t afford to read such stories at all. And then, as per the Gaiman instance, there’s people who are being judicious: who want to try something new, but don’t want to risk losing 17 bucks on a book they might hate. For my money, the only time a sale is properly ‘stolen’ by an illegal DL is when someone with money was willing to spend it on a readily-accessible product right up until they realised they could have it for free- what we might call the Asshole’s Choice. People who never had the money, the willingness and/or the access in the first place, though, are something a bit different.

There’s two related points I think are relevant here. One is the webcomic economy, where a large number of webcomic artists – despite putting their entire product archive online, for free, forever – still make enough money to exist doing just that. Admittedly, there’s the additional site traffic/advertising revenues to bolster them in that instance, along with sales of related merchandise like t-shirts and bags (point of inquiry: do any authors go down a similar line?), but many nonetheless sell their comics in physical form, too – and successfully.

Glancing at my own bookshelves, I count 9 volumes of webcomics purchased either online or physically in comic stores. But the point of mentioning this is less that they’ve made money doing something that started out free and more that people were willing to subsidise the creation of a free product either by buying merchandise or, in many instances, donating straight to the author, just because they liked what they saw – which I think is a worthwhile case study of human nature re free content in the DL debate.

The second point is second-hand bookstores, which for years were the only way I could afford to acquire new books. As a teenager, I might not have had the $15 necessary to pony up for a new release YA, but I always had five or so to spend on a second-hand paperback, and in almost every instance, buying books secondhand eventually lead to me buying that author’s later works firsthand, either as a treat, through parental channels, or because now, as an adult, it would be unthinkable not to.

Recently, a girl left a question on my blog asking what I thought about second hand books – whether I was for or against them as a concept, seeing as how authors don’t get any money from the process. Until she asked, I honestly hadn’t considered that any writer would object to them: the books have already been bought once, after all, and even if the publishers and authors get no more revenue beyond that point, dozens of other people might end up reading the story through the beneficence of a parallel economy who otherwise would never have been able to afford it. Seanan McGuire had a fantastic post about the value of second-hand books re poverty and the digital divide recently (http://seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com/390067.html), but the point is this: in instances where people have been re-selling copies of legitimately-purchased ebooks online for cheap (for instance), are we better off condemning it as piracy or asking ourselves if secondhanding can translate to the digital realm, too?

I’d like to thank Foz for this great post. Weigh in with your thoughts. Is Foz right? And should authors consider the secondary income stream of related merchandise? I know I’ve often thought about it, but have yet to do anything. Also, Asshole’s Choice is now firmly in the lexicon of the modern age. Go forth and spread the concept.

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Crowdfunding is something that’s not really new, but something that’s gained massive traction in the internet age. Essentially it works like this: Someone comes up with an idea that needs funding. They ask “the people” if they would support said idea by pledging cash. If enough cash is pledged to pay for the idea, the people are charged and the idea goes ahead. If not enough moolah is pledged, no one is charged and the idea sinks like a lead turd, never to be spoken of again.

It’s not unlike general arts funding, except everyday folk are approached for the cash. And the internet makes it especially easy with sites like Kickstarter and Pozible streamlining the whole process. People pledging money tend to get something out of it too. They can chip in a small amount just for the warm feelings of contributing to something worthwhile, or they can pledge more and get something tangible if the idea goes ahead. For example, if it’s an event being crowdfunded a pledge of a certain amount could include a ticket to the event. A higher pledge might include a VIP pass. Higher still and you get a VIP pass and a t-shirt. And so on. There are all kinds of incentives. And it’s becoming de rigeur for arts funding. Which is, on the one hand, great – it helps to get arts things funded. On the other hand, it’s fucked – arts things should be government funded anyway, but the sad reality is that they’re not. And they get funded less and less all the time. But I’m going to avoid a political tirade here and just talk about the concept of crowdfunding.

My first direct experience of it was with a Kickstarter project where film-maker Christopher Salmon was asking for funds to make a short film of Neil Gaiman’s short story, The Price. For a fully-realised animated feature he needed $150,000 of funding. Neil Gaiman himself endorsed the idea (which is how I heard about it via Twitter) and the thing went viral. The funding has hit $161,774 and the short film is being made. I kicked in and my contribution will result in me receiving a DVD of the film when it’s made. The Price is one of my favourite Gaiman shorts, so I’m dead chuffed about that.

I’m now directly involved in another crowdfunded project. The Emerging Writers Festival wants to run a digital publishing event up in Brisbane and they asked me to be involved with one of the panels. I was happy to oblige, but the whole thing can only go ahead if it gets funding from the people, as the government are so tight they eat coal and shit diamonds. The project has hit its goal. Sweet – I’m going to Brisbane. Here it is.

These are examples of great ideas becoming real because the people behind the ideas asked the public if they would be interested, and the public responded by making it happen. Kinda awesome, no?

But it’s gone beyond that. I’ve noticed several “name” authors using Kickstarter or something similar to finance a new novel. They’re completely skipping the publisher and using ebook and Print On Demand technology, essentially self-publishing so they don’t need a publisher. But, and this is important, they’re recognising the need for professionals in editing, proofing, layout, cover design and so on. All of which costs money. Plus, they want to be paid for their efforts. I know! Authors expecting to be paid! Are they mad? Yes – mad as a hessian sack full of Hatters in Wonderland. But then again, we all know writers are mad. We wouldn’t be writers if we weren’t stark raving bonkers. So these authors have asked the fans to kick in if they want to see the book.

This is truly the most democratic path to publishing you can imagine, as only those people who want to read the book will contribute. Therefore, if the total requested is raised, the book will happen. (If only trad publishers had anything like that assurance when putting out a new book.)

However, and here’s the real rub, those authors need a fan base in the first place. I’m quite okay with self-publishing and indie publishing, as regular readers here well know. I’ve had a varied path to publication myself and have dabbled like a mischievous sorcerer in a variety of methods. Any path that leads where you’re going is the right path.

Yet I know that some newbies in the writing game – and other areas of the arts for that matter – see crowdfunding as a way to get a start without having to work so hard. The trouble is, someone with no real following, without any proven track record or an existing fan base, will have a hell of a job getting any cash at all through a crowdfunded project. Like those self-publishers really nailing the market, especially with ebooks, who are actually trading on their past publishing success, only established artists are likely to get any crowdfunded money. The Amanda Hockings of this world are most certainly the exceptions not the rules, as I discussed at length here. People trying to start out will still be struggling along like tiny minnows against the flooding tide of existing artists.

Of course, you’re always going to get those who buck the trends and emerge out of obscurity like a lucky butterfly made of cash, but they’re going to be very rare. I guess it’s fair in some ways – we all need to work hard to get successful. I think there’s something fundamentally damaging about success that comes too easily. Then again, I work like a son-of-a-bitch and success is a slow burn for me. So maybe I’m just bitter. But people expecting a handout without proving themselves are unlikely to get one, and that’s where this is different from panhandling. After all, it’s far easier to ignore a beggar on the internet who wants you to fund their desire to write than it is to ignore someone on the street who’s really doing it tough and simply trying to eat. The truly destitute in society need our compassion and assistance. Would-be writers crying out online, pleading with people to pay their rent and grocery bills while they try to make a go of writing, do not. They need to do something to earn our attention, then maybe we’d be more inclined to throw a few shekels their way and see if they can climb a rung or two of the ladder.

It sounds harsh and I don’t want to be accused of ignoring the struggle of emerging talent, or stepping on people trying to get a start in this game. Thor knows, I’ve struggled hard enough myself, and still do. But I’ve mentioned it before, determination and hard bloody work are as important as talent in this game. If you can wrangle a few bucks out of people without proving yourself first, more power to you. I wish anyone trying it the best of luck. But don’t get shitty when you post a Kickstarter saying you want five grand to try to finish your first novel and get pretty much sweet fuck all. We’d all have loved five grand to finish our first novels, but none of us got it and we went ahead and did the work anyway. Of course, a few people do get actual arts grants for this stuff but, like the established writers making a go of crowdfunding their next books, those arts grant recipients had some history to prove themselves worthy of receiving said grant.

So I guess my opinion really is this – I see the whole new trend in crowdfunding to be an extremely exciting thing. Let the voice of the people be heard. It’s a great way to finance things which might otherwise slip under the radar and never happen. But I don’t think it’s a way for unknown names – in any field of endeavour – to suddenly circumvent that harsh crucible of slaving away at their art like a motherfucker while also scraping a living, engaging personal relationships and generally being a human person. Which is a shame, but I guess these things aren’t easy for a reason. I compare it often to my life as a martial artist, and like I often tell my students, “Kung Fu is seriously hard work. After all, if it was easy, everyone would do it.”

I’m certainly interested in your comments on the subject, so do chime in below.

And maybe I’ll see you in Brisbane!

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Here are the new covers:

Pretty freaking sweet, I reckon.

Click on the images below if you want to see higher res versions of the full wraparound covers that will now grace the print editions of the books.

What do you think? I’m very interested to hear what people think of the new art, so even if you don’t like it, please leave a comment and tell me why. Amazon are being a pain and not updating the pages for the print editions, even though the Kindle editions, Books In Print and every other fucker on the planet has updated the images. But I’m sure they’ll get there in the end. Gryphonwood are on the case.

The other news that has me Snoopy dancing around the place is that Gryphonwood have negotiated audio rights to both books, and the audiobook edition of both will be available soon. RealmShift is slated to be ready in time for Xmas, with MageSign close behind. This is awesome news, as it marks a new stage in the life of these stories. And these are stories which really mean a lot to me.

The audiobooks will be read by Matt “Bentley” Allegre, a well versed voice actor who has done narration, character voices and impressions for radio, video and websites for the last ten years. I’ve heard samples and the opening pages of chapter one and I’m very excited. This guy has a great voice, with a really dark edge that suits the books perfectly. He’s American, which may bother my Australian and UK readers, but we’re all used to American accents anyway, right? It’s also worth remembering that Gryphonwood are an American publisher and the big market for books in any format is really the US. Regardless, Matt has a brilliant voice that suits the books perfectly. I can’t wait to hear the finished products.

So that’s my news, and I’m right bloody chuffed about it. I’ll let you know when the audiobooks are available.

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There are several theories on how ebooks will fit into the mainstream. Firstly, it’s important to remember that it’s not either/or. You don’t have to choose. I love all books. I love print books and ebooks. The vast majority of new books I buy these days are ebooks, but if I really like something I’ll get a hard copy to go on the shelf. Or if a book is a particular piece of art, I’ll get it. I love getting contributor’s copies of books I have stories in, because I’m a vain fucker and like to point to the brag shelf and say to people, “Yes, I have work in all those anthologies. And those are my novels. Ahaha.” Shut up, I need validation.

I see the general breakdown of production settling into something along these lines: All new titles will be ebooks, some, especially from smaller publishers, being only ebooks. Alongside that I see a lot of publishers using Print On Demand technology to make paperbacks available to those who like them. And then a short run of actual printed stock, possibly limited edition hardbacks for collectors. That makes three primary delivery systems of stories – electronic, mass-market (though probably POD) and artefact. This is my prediction, but it’s not particularly relevant to this post. I’m looking here at ebook pricing based on the fact that ebooks will become mainstream and will eventually be everyone’s primary method of consuming stories. Don’t get upset, there’s nothing you can do about it. Have you seen Star Trek? How many real books do you ever see? Yeah, it’s gonna be like that. You can’t hold back the future any more than you can hold back the tide with a broom.

So, how should we price ebooks? I ran this question by the straw poll that is my Twitter and Facebook tribe and got some really interesting answers. Firstly, I’ll give my personal opinion.

An ebook should always be cheaper than the print book, by a fair factor. If most paperbacks are $9.99 or less, then ebooks of those titles should be $7 at most. If a book is really popular and in demand, like the new George R R Martin book, it can be more. The Kindle of that one is $17, which is fine, because the only other option is a $40 hardcover. At least, that’s true for Australia. On Amazon, the book is listed at $35 but on special at $18.81. Add postage to Australia and it’s close to $40 again. However, once the paperback edition comes out, that ebook puppy better drop to less than the paperback price or the publisher is taking the piss.

So, for the purposes of simplicity, let’s look at standard paperback vs ebook pricing. If the print edition is $10 or less, the ebook needs to be at most two thirds of that price. There’s no production cost once the e-edition is set up and ready. There’s no distribution cost. And there’s no physical artefact for the reader. Sure, we’re buying the story and that deserves to be paid for, but the item itself is also a factor.

“What about the poor starving author?” you cry. I am one, so don’t come crying to me. Of course the author needs to be paid and we need to value his or her product. But let’s not get all high and mighty without the facts, ma’am. Ebooks generate a massive royalty compared to print. If the author has signed a good contract – and they should be getting a new agent if they haven’t – they should be getting a royalty model on ebooks different to print.

My novels are $9.99 in paperback and $3.99 in ebook. (So reasonable I’ll wait here a moment while you go and buy them… got ‘em? Good. You’ll love them.) I make a bigger royalty on ebooks than I do on print, even though the retail is less than half. That’s because the margin on print production to retail is very slim and I get a slim cut of that. The margin on ebook to retail is far bigger, often up to 70%, and I get a far bigger slice of that pie. Mmm, virtual pie.

So authors can actually do better selling ebooks for far less than print books. Right now, if I sold 10,000 copies of RealmShift this year, I’d much prefer to shift 10,000 ebooks than print ones, as that would pay me far more handsomely. And I do like a handsome paycheque. I would also love to sell 10,000 copies of anything this year, please tell your friends.

Personally, I’m against the popular 99c price point for ebook novels. As an introduction, or a special offer, it’s a good idea. But for novels I think it generally undermines the value of the product. In my experience, most avid readers will view a 99c novel with suspicion and expect it to be shit. They’ll often be right in that assumption. It’s important for authors and publishers to not devalue their content. As one author said, “If people think my novels are only worth 99c, I don’t want them as fans.” That’s a bit extreme, but he has a very valid point. If people aren’t prepared to pay the equivalent of a cup of coffee for your months of hard work, well, fuck ‘em.

I have a novella available for 99c, which is deliberately priced low for several reasons: It’s only around 30,000 words, it’s available for free right here on this website and it’s a teaser, to help people notice me. I also self-published it, so I keep all the royalties, such as they are. Sure, I think it’s worth more than 99c, but I also think it’s fair to charge that and hope to get more readers that way.

So my thinking is that the sweet spot for ebooks is the $3 to $7 price range, with exceptions made for very special items. Authors will make at least as much, if not more, than they would from paperback sales and consumers get to read more and still value the work of the people they like to read. Given that paperbacks here in Australia are usually around $20, I’m actually happy to pay anything up to $15 for an ebook, but I really stop and think twice if it’s over $10.

I won’t name names, because I didn’t ask permission to use the comments, but here’s what some of the people on my social networks had to say on the subject:

I’ve paid up to $9.99 for a book a really wanted, but insofar as most genre fiction the price range generally is settled between $4.99-$7.99. A lot of indies sell their books at 99 cent, but I personally think that is a mistake because all it does is get the value shoppers and it rarely builds a loyal following. At least at the $4.99 range you have wiggle room to offer periodic sales and such.

I’ll pay up to $15, but only for something I really want to read. Generally $7-10. I tend to steer clear of anything at 99 cents simply because it’s so ingrained in my mind that anything priced so cheap can’t be good.

I’d pay up to $15 though the most I’ve yet paid was half of that. I love that you can get classics and foreign books, many that are not available in print here in Australia, for free or very cheap.

I think 10 bucks is reasonable.

I usually pay around the $10 mark – give or take $2-$3. Like others, I get twitchy if it’s only 99c or so, unless I know the author.

$2.99. Can’t borrow ‘em out. Can’t resell them. No physical formatting. No shipping. No distribution.

I get uncomfortable with anything over the $10 mark, but have no real basis for that limit. Will pay more for favourite authors just as I was and am willing to pay for hardcover rather than wait for paperbacks for same.

$5 its a new technology.

I generally won’t pay more than $5 depending on restrictions. If it’s only a license to read (a la Kindle) I pay less

up to $10 is ‘buy without thinking twice’ & up to $15 is ‘buy at once if I *really* want it. Anything higher, I hesitate.

$6-7? Like to compensate author/editor for the work, but don’t want to pay non-existent print/delivery etc costs.

So from that selection of comments it seems there are certainly a number of things people still take into consideration and DRM is a big factor. But the general consensus is ten bucks or less overall, with a couple stretching out to a maximum of $15. Interesting times, indeed.

You’ve read my thoughts and heard a few others. What do you think? How much will you pay? And how much or how little do you think is unreasonable?

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It’s well known that most of us don’t get paid anything like what we’re really worth as writers. Yet those of us who persevere should see a slow increase in how much we can make for our writing, as our skills improve and our reputation becomes estbalished. A lot of writers get their first publication credits in FTL publications. (That’s For The Love, not Faster Than Light. Althought Faster Than Light Publications is not bad name for an SF press, but I digress.) I got my own early publications in places that paid nothing but exposure. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. Most of those places will say something like, “We’d love to pay our authors but we can’t afford to offer anything but exposure at this stage.” They’re honest and there is a place for that, especially with online zines. And authors know exactly what they’re getting.

Some writers are happy to put stuff out through those venues indefinitely, but the majority of people will slowly graduate to better, paid gigs. For this reason, those FTL markets almost always comprise up and coming writers and no recognised names, but that’s kinda their purpose.

The next level up from writing for nothing but “exposure” (and I use quotes, because, let’s be honest, not many people read those places) is getting paid a flat rate and/or contributor copies. Often a market, expecially online fiction markets, will pay a token rate. Even $3 or something like that through PayPal. It’s next to nothing, but it’s something and it’s honest. The author knows what they’re getting.

Along with, or instead of, a token amount is a contributor copy payment. Let’s assume the market is paying nothing but contrib copies. That’s fair enough if they’re clear about that. Something like, “We can’t afford to pay writers for their stories, but each contributor will receive a copy of the issue(or book) their story appears in.” The reason this is important, and it really is important, is because they know authors want copies of anything their work appears in. It’s understandable – when a writer gets published, they want to show off their success. They want hard evidence of their hard work.

Personally, I think all print markets should, at the very least, send a contributor copy to all the authors, even if they don’t pay anything. Far better than paying a token amount and not sending copies, as the author will probably end up down on the deal as they buy their own copy of the book or magazine, which likely costs more than any token payment.

Now the ideal situation is to be paid and get a contributor’s copy. Even if the payment is as low as just a few dollars, plus a contrib copy, the author is getting something for their hard work. Well below anything like a viable wage, but something. The best of all worlds is to be paid well and get at least one contributor copy.

Paid well means by the word. Even 1 cent/word is usually better than a flat rate and once you hit the heady heights [/sarcasm] of 5 cents/word and above, you’re doing damn well by today’s fiction standards (oh, how I dream of 5c/word!) I have a personal policy that my work is worth a certain amount. I won’t submit anywhere that doesn’t pay my base requirement. Of course, that’s my decision based on my experience, my previous publication history and what I think my work is worth. I expect to regularly revise that policy and I hope to always revise it upwards! But, as I said, I got my start in FTL markets like so many others and that’s good. And I’ll still contribute to lower paid markets if I like the concept, respect the publisher, get invited, and so on. No rules are hard and fast. But I always know what I’m getting.

So why are royalty-only markets exploiting writers? Because they promise something, but will almost certainly pay nothing. It’s all about respect for a writer. The primary reason for publishers paying royalties only is because it removes the outlay of buying stories up front, yet still reserves the hope of paying the contributors. That’s fundamentally a good idea, but it’s usually a problem – if that publisher has faith in their ability to edit together a good book and sell it, they should be prepared to pay for the work they include. If they can’t afford an outlay and want to pay by royalty, they should at least send out contributor copies. If the book is not very successful and doesn’t sell, at least the writers got a book out of it. But there’s a reason they don’t.

The exploitation of royalty-only is in publishers knowing that writers will want a copy of the book their story appears in. So will their family and friends, probably. So the publisher promises royalties, knowing the authors may never make a cent, but they, the pubisher, will at least make their money back because all the contributors will buy copies for themselves. Let’s look at the numbers.

“Payment” of royalty-only is usually something like 60% for ebook and 20% for print (if I’m generous), shared among contributors. The rest is kept by the publisher. To keep it simple, let’s look at the ebook and say it retails for $5.

For every ebook sold, the publisher gets $2 and the contributors get $3, shared among them.

Let’s say there are twenty stories in the book. That’s $3 shared among 20 people, or 15 cents for each author for each book sold. That’s a best case example, by the way!

If the book sells 100 copies, that’s still a poor payment for a story. If it sells 1,000 copies, it’s starting to get pretty good. But it won’t sell 1,000. No way. If the publisher could sell 1,000 copies of a book, they’d be paying for quality stories, because that’s how you sell a lot of books. See the issue?

It’s the sad truth that the majority of these anthologies – and there are thousands of them – don’t sell at all. After all, there are thousands of them. Not one book beyond the contributors buying their own copies. So the contribs might make enough at 15c a time to cover their outlay for a copy of the print edition, though probably not. Meanwhile, the publisher makes $2 for every book sold. The net result is effectively the writers paying the publisher to have copies of a book featuring their work, that no one else will ever buy or read. Harsh? Maybe, but it’s true.

It’s exploitation because writers are misled into thinking they might score some income. After all, if the book only sells a couple of hundred copies, they’ll at least make something right? Wrong. For one, it almost certainly won’t sell more than a couple of dozen copies and there’s one more part to consider. A lot of these publishers stipulate in the contract that royalties are paid after expenses are recouped. Let’s say they put a production cost as low as $100 on getting the book out there. The chances of making back that $100 are pretty slim. Those publishers will probably pay more like $50 to get the book out there, rack up their $2 every time a contributor buys a copy, and sit back with a small profit of somewhere between nothing and $50.

Why do they do it? Well, I’m sure they’re hoping to land a success and start shifting lots of books. They’ll make a heap of cash and they can pay their authors well-deserved royalties. It’s all very noble. But it’s not going to happen. Still, at least the publisher should break even, right? Or possibly make a few quid without ever having to pay the authors a cent.

Now, a good publisher, who actively promotes their work and pushes their catalogue and sells books and has every intention of making themselves and their authors money might have more success and shift a lot more books. But by a lot we’re talking a couple of hundred. Maybe. The money coming back to the authors is still pocket change. At least if the publisher sent out contributor copies, the authors would have pocket change and a book, but that would be too much expense for the publisher, and destroy their own primary income stream. These are publishers who refuse to carry any risk.

I’ve sold stories where there’s a basic payment of X cents a word, plus a contributor copy, plus royalties after X costs recovered. That means I got paid for my work, I got a book and, if the book is really successful, I make even more. After all, my work is, presumably, one of the reasons it’s doing so well. That’s how a royalty system should work.

I’m sure a lot of these folks using the royalty-only system are full of good intentions. They really want to sell books and pay authors, but they’re not going to take any risk in doing so. It’s almost certainly not going to work and they’re giving new writers a false sense of hope. These publishers should at least have the faith in their own work to pay by contributor copy and royalty, thereby removing the perception that they’re out to make money from the authors they’re publishing. Those same writers could send their work to online FTL markets, after all, where they’ll still get nothing, but might at least get read by someone.

For The Love markets are one thing. Token payment markets are fair enough. Exposure only plus a contributor copy is fair enough. All these things are clear in what they’re offering and the author knows what they’re getting and how they may end up out of pocket if they buy a copy of the book. A lot of these places will offer authors copies of the book at a 40% discount, which is wholesale rather than retail. You’ll find a lot of these royalty-only markets don’t even offer that. Because they want authors to buy copies of the book they made, at full retail, as that’s how the publisher plans to recoup their costs and maybe make some money for themselves. If they can break even from contributors, there’s no incentive to promote the book to recover their costs. They just move on to the next one and the next one, racking up a catalogue of books no one will ever buy except the people who wrote them.

It’s easy to be a publisher these days. It’s great that there are so many small presses cropping up doing all kinds of interesting stuff. It’s trememdous that there are so many opportunites now for writers to get their work out there. But publishers should at the very least be honest about what writers can expect, even if that’s nothing, and not make back their costs back from the writers sweating blood for them.

I know this is a personal bugbear of mine and plenty of writers are happy to give royalty-only markets a stab. I know a lot of publishers genuinely want to succeed. But I think a contributor copy should be the bare minimum of payment for a print market. What about you? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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I found this via Chuck Wendig’s Tumblr, and I love it so much I want to punch it in the face.

So, the problem, if you can call it that, with the last Harry Potter film is that it’s all the last cup. It’s all resolution, action-packed climax. But that’s okay. Because seven previous films have done all the work of the first two acts.

Say what you will about J K Rowling and the Harry Potter stories, there’s something truly amazing about the achievement. Sure, the stories may be derivative, distillations of so much fantasy that’s gone before. But everything is informed by something. Sure, Rowling may not be the greatest writer on the planet, but she does spin a yarn that keeps you reading, and what more do we really want than that? These aren’t wanky literary explorations of language and word form. They’re rollicking yarns, aimed mainly at young people. And Rowling does have a dab hand at naming things. She comes up with the best names.

I was a bit of a critic at first, especially of the first couple of books. Poorly written, derivative stories that insult the genre, blah, blah, blah. Yes, I’m blah, blah, blahing myself. It’s true to some extent, but Rowling kept going, she created a remarkable world and truly interesting characters. Well, mostly. Ginny Weasley, for example, was always a bit of a glyph. But Rowling got young people excited about books again, and for that she deserves a knighthood or a statue or something. We can forgive the small things in the face of the big achievement.

And that achievement is seven books that sell better than the Bible. A merchandising empire that makes nation states weep. Rowling is worth an estimated £500 million. That’s pounds sterling. That’s a mental amount of money from writing about a boy wizard. On top of that, we’ve got the films.

Never has a film franchise like this happened before. Sure, there have been film series’, though none with a single story that runs to eight full-length episodes. There have been characters who have cropped up way more than seven times, like James Bond. But each of those is a seperate story, and there have been many actors playing Bond. To have a story like Harry Potter extend over eight films, over ten years, with the same cast literally growing up as their characters is something we may never see again.

Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint (Harry, Hermione and Ron) from the first film and the last.

It would be fantastic if some other great book series’ received the same kind of treatment, but it’s unlikely. Not often does a prospect like Potter come along. Very few stories will guarantee a return on investment like Harry Potter does. It’s beyond mainstream; it’s ubiquitous. Producers and financers knew they could pretty much spend carte blanche on Harry Potter films and guarantee getting their money back several times over. Nothing is a safe bet like that in this world. Rowling created that – a guaranteed massive return investment. And you thought her magic was all fiction. This last installment shattered box office records worldwide, with US$169.2 million in US and Canadian ticket sales over the opening weekend. The opening weekend! And they’ve yet to truly milk it, with the rest of its cinema run, then DVDs, then special edition DVDs, then 8 film boxed sets. Not to mention all the associated merchandising.

Then there’s Pottermore to keep the whole thing monetised. Then there’s always the possibility of more books. The whole 19 Years Later thing at the end of the story is there as some kind of cap, but there are loads of ways around that if Rowling chooses to write more.

Of course, the real test of Rowling’s skill will be to write something else. Amazing as the Potter success is, she’ll always be measured against it and may not be able to write any other stories. I hope not. I hope she comes up with something all new, completely unrelated to Harry Potter and his world of wizards and witches, though I doubt she will.

So, for now at least, it’s over. It really is the end of an era. Children started reading books with the success of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. They grew up alongside their favourite characters while film stars grew up playing those characters. I’m glad to have seen it through. There’s a good sense of closure now and the books and films will stand as one of the greatest storytelling achievements of all time.

I’m still left with one question unanswered. Why does Harry Potter, or any other witch or wizard, wear glasses? They can regrow bones, for goodness sake. Surely they can fix a spot of myopia. Then again, perhaps it’s good to be left with some questions. Well done J K Rowling, and well done Harry, Hermione and Ron. You all did good.

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For all writers, this is a really interesting fifteen minute podcast. Go. Listen.

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