The publisher backlash against the Wylie Agency creation of Odyssey Editions and the exclusive, two-year ebook deal with Amazon is neither surprising in its vehemence nor its lack of understanding of the ebook market. Random House immediately went for the throat. They suspended contract negotiations with the Wylie Agency and have told Amazon that they’re disputing the validity of the deal, since it involves titles “subject to active Random House publishing agreements.”

Mind you, every time publishers have made this claim in court to preserve rights that were not specified in a contract, they have lost.

John Sargent, the US head of Macmillan, posted to his blog a statement that, when read coldly, is so weak, so full of fear, and so full of misinformation, it’s achingly funny. He notes:

But it is an extraordinarily bad deal for writers, illustrators, publishers, other booksellers, and for anyone who believes that books should be as widely available as possible.

As I noted yesterday, this deal is anything but bad for writers. At the very least, it will encourage publishers to offer writers a larger royalty on ebooks. But more important than being a good deal for writers, its a great deal for consumers. Mr. Sargent has apparently missed the fact that if a device has a screen, there is a Kindle app that will run on it. This deal won’t make these books harder to find. Anyone who has a smart phone, iPod Touch, iPad, computer or Android powered device will have access to these books. And because early reports indicate the books will be priced at the $9.99 price point, readers will be saving a lot of money.

And Sargent goes furthers:

This move further empowers the dominant player in the market to the detriment of their competitors and creates an unbalanced retail marketplace.
In short, the exclusive-to-Kindle aspect of this deal has no strategic value at all for authors and publishers. Given the advantage for Amazon, I’m sure the deal has been financially attractive for Andrew Wylie’s new venture. In the long run, though, making literature exclusively available digitally to a single retailer will be damaging to the whole book community: authors, agents, publishers, and readers.

Again, he lumps authors with publishers, but this deal is all about the fact that authors and publishers are not in the same boat. Author and publisher interests have long since diverged in the digital market. How anyone can consider a deal that makes authors more money and gets it to them faster, while making their work available worldwide, is beyond comprehension.

He’s crying crocodile tears. If Macmillan came up with a technology that would allow them to dominate the market to the detriment to everyone else, would Mr. Sargent refuse to deploy it? Of course not. That’s capitalism. That’s what he’s required to do if he is going to be responsible to his stockholders. Here he’s just saying that Macmillan missed the boat, so he’ll just sit on the dock and weep.

I hope that works for him. Traditional publishing, it must be remembered, has had several bites at this digital apple. Apple’s Newton device, back in the late 1980s, was designed, in part, as an ebook reader. The Rocket e-book device came on shortly thereafter, and locked up publishing deals with most major publishers. At the same time, Palm’s devices had ebook reading software available. Publishing again flirted with digital marketplaces when Amazon rose up, launching their websites, trying to emulate what Amazon was doing without alienating their retailers. They took half-steps in both situations, and failed to progress. No surprise. Then they sat on the sidelines while the digital revolution savaged the record and video components of their entertainment conglomerates. They again hesitated to act, and now they are paying the price.

Here’s the wake-up call: If agents are going to become publishers and collude with retailers, why don’t the publishers go ahead and become ebook retailers and cut certain retailers off? Why don’t they beef up their ability to sell books electronically? And why don’t they actually use technology to sell books in whichever format they want.

Macmillan, for example, sells a lot of anthologies. I have stories in many of them. And yet, if you go to their website and do a search on my name, you’ll only find a couple of them. Why? Because whoever puts together the webpage doesn’t actually list—either in copy or metatags—all of the authors in the book. All they do is cut and past text from a print catalogue and don’t bother to expand “and others” into a complete list. By being lazy, they obviate one of the great benefits of the net: the ability of folks to use search functions to find things they want to buy.

As I’ve noted recently, I think traditional publishing has a month, perhaps two, to get its act together to salvage anything out of the ruins of their business. What they need to do, in short order, is this:

1) Immediately install a system for converting books into ebooks, for creating omnibus editions and for retailing same directly from their websites, capturing the majority of the profit from sales.

2) Offer authors a realistic split of money. Roll percentages back to the pre-2009 50% of electronic revenue.

3) Invest in POD technology and storefronts so publishers will have a presence after the collapse of the big-box stores.

I don’t expect that to happen. I do expect to see more author coalitions and agents following the Wylie lead. And while it will pain me to see big bookstores go away, and I’ll remember fondly the halcyon days of big publishing, I’ll console myself by counting my money and figuring out as many ways as possible to profit in the digital age.

Monday’s news that ebooks were outselling hardbacks at Amazon came as a big shock. It looked to be the death knell for traditional publishing. It wasn’t.

New on Thursday that Andrew Wylie’s agency has struck a deal for exclusive ebook distribution with Amazon of his client’s literary works is. In the deal, Wylie’s imprint, Odyssey Editions, grants Amazon a two-year exclusive to publish works by Philip Roth, Saul Bellow and others.

This deal is important for several reasons.

First, it shows that agents are not content to let the publishing ship sink beneath them. If authors start going direct to ebook, agents are relegated to cutting deals with dying or small houses for paper-rights only, which means their income drops off significantly. Agents, being thus motivated, will pull their clients into the 21st Century. One way or another authors will retain control of their ebook rights.

Second, and of critical importance, it underscores the extreme vulnerability traditional publishers face. It wasn’t until 1996 that publishers in SF/Fantasy began asking for electronic rights to books. That demand was made in other genres much later. That means that traditional publishers have a 15 year window of work for which they can sell electronic books. While they are now offering incredibly shoddy deals to try to scoop up backlist books for which they don’t own the rights, authors and agents are now seeing the foolishness of accepting such deals. And as the ebook market grows, talent (writers) can push for more favorable terms on ebook sales precisely because they, in conjunction with their agents or by themselves, don’t need the publishers for those sales.

Third, you’ll note that the deal was for two years, which means two things. First, because it is exclusive, you know Wylie got better than the 70% Amazon is offering everyone else. (If I remember correctly, 75% was what Amazon.UK was offering for exclusivity.) Second, Wylie is assuming that the marketplace is changing so quickly that in two years he can strike an even more lucrative deal with whichever other players are out there. Most likely candidates are Apple or Google, but Sony, Sharp and B&N might try to get into the fight. This means there is competition for ebook rights, and that is never a bad thing for authors.

My only real concern with this deal would be how the percentages get split between author and agent. If the agent is taking 15 points out of whatever is offered the author, he’s going to be getting more than he would if he just took 15% of the revenues that come in. (The difference between the first case and second would be 37.5 cents on a $10 book, which might not seem significant, but it does add up—assuming Amazon is offering 75% for the exclusivity.) This is not to suggest the agent wouldn’t earn the money by bringing in folks to create the ebook editions, but I’d hope that authors go into such deals with their eyes open.

It will also be interesting to see how quickly the contract calls for the agent to pass the money on to the clients, with faster being preferential, of course. Since Amazon pays 60 days after sales, traditional publishers might have to speed up their accounting (bringing it, at least, into the 20th Century).

A second front has opened in the assault on Publishing-as-we-know-it. It’s going to make for fun times unless, of course, you’re a publisher.

A number of very nice people have asked if I will be attending the Star Wars Celebration V (August 12-15 in Orlando). In the past I’ve heard rumors that I’ve been spotted at other Celebrations, or that I was going to be the guest of honor at some group or other’s party. Having attended conventions I know exactly how those sorts of rumors get started. While I’m confident they are quite innocent, what starts as a “wouldn’t it be cool if…” conversation between a couple of folks becomes a fact overheard by others, and a disappointment in the minds of yet others. That sort of disappointment, when translated to blogs, turns into, “And then there was the author who was too full of himself to actually show up at this party where he’d promised to be…”

In short, I won’t be at Celebration V.

There are a number of reason for this.

1) I’ve never been invited to any of the Celebrations. I don’t say this in any sort of snit or fit of pique. The Celebrations—wonderful events by all accounts—are a business venture. Lucasfilm brings in their guests, publishers bring in their guests, others bring in their guests. While I’d love to attend, it’s kind of silly for anyone to bring me into the show when I don’t have any new Star Wars related projects in the works.

2) It’s been suggested that I could go “just as a fan.” While I’m certainly a fan of Star Wars, I really couldn’t go to the Celebration as just a fan because I’m not just a fan. I’m sure I’d have a great time, but I’m also sure that some well-meaning bloggers would protest, on my behalf, about how it wasn’t right that I was being treated as “just a fan” by the Celebration. That would embarrass me, Lucasfilm and likely create some hard feelings where none need to be created.

3) My travel schedule has already been set for a while, and is very intensive during the summer. (I live in Phoenix, so getting out of town during the hot, muggy monsoon season is not a virtue, it’s a survival strategy.) I’ll be at Gencon the week before Celebration V, and at DragonCon over Labor Day. Squeezing another convention in there would guarantee I got no work done in August. On top of that, I’d be out of pocket at least $1K to attend and my boss (me) doesn’t let me accrue vacation days. The conventions I attend are not vacations, they are work, and by teaching writing classes at them, I actually make money—or, at least, break even.

4) I am likewise certain I’d see lots of friends at Celebration V, but I see most of them at a variety of other conventions. Anyone who was hoping I’d be at Celebration V so they could get a book signed, you have two options. First, you can find me at local shows (I do a lot of conventions each year) or hit this link and learn how to send me a book/card/comic to get it signed.

One point I want to be very clear about: I’m not asking, hinting, suggesting, scheming or otherwise angling to get an invite to Celebration VI or such down the road. The folks who run the show know how to reach me if they feel having me attend would serve their purposes. I fully understand, as I said above, business considerations are how the decisions are made. Heck, if I were running the show, I’d not be asking me to attend. Looking at it in terms of profit and loss, my being there makes no sense at all.

I know everyone who attends will have a wonderful time. That’s very cool. But, when you’re there, if you hear rumors of me being spotted, understand them for what they are: wishful thinking; and have fun without me.

A number of people pointed me to the New York Times article in which Amazon reports that Kindle sales of titles have outstripped hardcover sales. Many folks have jumped on this report as the canary in the coal mine. It’s the death knell of publishing as we know it. It’s the vindication of a lot of what I’ve been saying—both here in this blog, and in my Digital Career Guide.

Or is it?

If you read the article, there are a couple of things that become very clear. First off, they’re selling 148 ebooks for every 100 hardcovers, and most recently that’s jumped to 180 to 100. That’s almost 2 for 1. And while the Amazon ebook numbers reportedly do not include free ebooks, they most certainly include things selling for anywhere from .99 cents to $9.99 for the most part.

My point being this: would we at all be surprised if there’d been a headline like “Amazon Says Paperback Sales Outstrip Hardbacks?” No. The story does not say, very specifically, that ebook sales are outstripping sales of the same titles in hardback. Had that been happening across the board—and Amazon did report when ebook preorders of Dan Brown’s latest exceeded those of the hardcover orders—the press release certainly would have touted that fact. (That’s a report we’ll get 23 months or less from now.)

So, what’s really being said here is that, given a choice between a cheap ebook and a pricier hardback, readers who already have made the hardware investment in an ebook reader are buying ebooks. This is news?

The buried lede in this story is one that you have to ferret out from between the lines. The fact that the New York Times felt this story was newsworthy means that the “ebook reader” meme has gained a serious foothold. As I’ve mentioned before, when folks talk to me about ebooks, they’re discussing the merits of the readers—not asking what the heck one of the devices is. Half the folks asking me about the iPad want to know how well it serves as a book-reader. The fact that that particular question is on their list shows how much traction the idea of ebooks has gotten in the mind of the public. Ebooks and their utility are accepted in society, and folks are now concerned about how best to make them part of their lives.

Another news and speculation trend I’ve been seeing is authors wondering/lamenting what ebooks and their proliferation will do to the art of writing. I talk a very great deal about that in the Digital Career Guide. In short, the digital marketplace will force writers to get better. We have to please our audiences, not an editor who is going to acquire our books. Writers are suddenly working without a net as we dance on the high-wire. We don’t have an editor insulating us from the public—though that’s an illusion that vanished when the first book commentary blog hit the net. As of yesterday, we’d better be turning out good work that our readers want to read, or we’ll be slinging fries at McDonalds.

The business changes are also huge. The whole experiment I’m trying with the Talion: Revenant 10,000 ebook challenge will turn the entire system of financing novels on its head. Instead of mortgaging the future for whatever a publisher thinks they’ll be able to sell 2-6 years down the line, I can have readers vote with their dollars for what I should be doing. I can write for my audience, and if a publisher later comes along and wants to turn out a physical copy of the book, that’s great. They’ll be doing it on my terms, however, because they’ll need me more than I’ll need them.

The New York Times article isn’t the canary in the coal mine. It’s the look on the faces of the miners when they realize the canary’s dead. The revolution is already in full swing. It’s racing forward, and this article is just an after-the-action report on a battle that’s long since over. If traditional publishing hopes to make a stand, they’ve got a month, maybe two, to make it. If not, well, I’m sure the Buggy-whip Manufacturers’ Hall of Fame still has some empty space. They’ll fit right in.

Monday and Tuesday (July 26-27) Aaron Allston and I will be at Dragon’s Lair Comics and Fantasy in Austin, TX to hold two days of writing seminars. Dragon’s Lair has posted the full schedule of events for your edification. We’re putting on ten hours of seminars, including my 21 Days to a Novel and Aaron’s brilliant Plot Analysis seminars. A cursory glance at the schedule makes very apparent the fact that these seminars will cover everything you want to know about writing. You’ll develop and strengthen your skills set, as well as learn about the business.

Aaron and I have taught seminars together in the past, most notably at DragonCon and Origins. We’ll do so again at DragonCon this year, expanding the above program to include four more hours of new content not available in last year’s seminar sessions. When I sit in on Aaron’s seminars, I am very impressed by not only the depth and wisdom of his analysis, but the very effective methods he’s developed for teaching others.

This has always been my problem with writing seminars in the past: Great writers aren’t always great teachers. It doesn’t matter how good a writer is if he can’t communicate to others what he actually does. There are a number of reasons for this lack. First off, it could be that the writer isn’t analytical enough about his own process to actually know what it is he does. You’d be surprised how many authors fly on auto-pilot and never identify the tricks of the trade that make them so effective. Aaron and I have done that, and are willing to provide our students with that information.

Second, some writers know what they do, but don’t want to share for fear of training up the competition. Speaking for myself on that point, I’m not worried about competition. First off, if any student gets better than I am, it’s because I’ve gotten lazy. In that case, I deserve to be shoved out of the market. Second off, I’m not training competition for me, I’m training the writers who will end the careers of lazy writers who are taking up my shelf-space in stores. Third, and perhaps most important in the shifting world of publishing today, there is going to be less and less competition for shelf-space, since virtual shelves accommodate everyone. So, in offering these seminars, Aaron and I get to train up a generation of writers who will turn out the sorts of stories that we like to read.

Third, teaching requires an entirely different skills-set than writing. In college I was trained to be a teacher. I’ve been teaching writing seminars since the early 1990s at Gencon. I’ve expanded to other conventions and other venues, including university conferences. Part of being a teacher is understanding that different students learn in different ways. Great teachers shape their lessons and hone their approaches to provide multiple vectors on making a point clear. In short, they figure out the ways to get the message across to you, so that you can make the most of it.

Some folks will think that $10 an hour for writing seminars is kind of pricy, especially in this economic climate. If you’re committed to becoming the best writer you can be, that’s a tiny investment in your career. The first story you sell to a professional market after these seminars would more than pay for the entire course. When else are you going have a chance to learn the craft of writing from a pair of New York Times Bestselling authors at such sensible prices? (And I would note that lots of people have paid a lot more for some of these very seminars in different venues.)

I’m looking forward to meeting folks at Dragon’s Lair. There’s an incomparable joy in seeing eyes brighten and smiles grow as someone hears a solution to a problem that’s been vexing them for a long time. I really love helping others achieve the dream that I’ve been lucky enough to have come true. Hopefully you’ll be one of them.

In surfing around the Internet I chanced across the latest viral craze site: I Write Like…. It’s a site where you supply a sample of your writing, and the site reveals which famous author you write like. It’s a fun idea and I was kind of wondering if I’d get tagged as writing as myself. (It might seem a bit arrogant to believe I’d be considered a famous writer, but I have hit the Bestseller list numerous times, have forty books out, bunches of short stories and articles, and my very own Wikipedia page, so a couple more folks than just my mom know of me.)

The first sample I tried was a chunk of At the Queen’s Command The result:

I write like
J. R. R. Tolkien

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

That one makes a certain amount of sense. The dialogue is a bit older, so I can see where it could get broken down as Tolkienesque. It is an epic fantasy, after all, but not medieval, and I did give the website 20,000 words to chew on. (Got to love Cut and Paste.)

Still, I’ve always thought that I had multiple styles—I shift gears depending on what the job demands. So next I tried one of the Trick Molloy stories, Little Girl Lost. I figured it would be a match for Raymond Chandler or Dash Hammett or Mickey Spillane. The result:

I write like
Dan Brown

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I guess I really can’t complain too much about being compared to Dan Brown. I sincerely hope all of his fans find out about the comparison. If they want to come and snag some of my stories while waiting for his next book, well, um, gosh, I can afford to replace the server such orders would burn out.

But this story got me thinking in the vein of detective stories, so I pulled up a copy of The Silver Knife. That story is very strongly Arthur Conan Doyle, right down to being tied into the Holmes Mythos. This one had to be a slam-dunk, right?

Well, I got Mythos, just not the Mythos I was thinking about:

I write like
H. P. Lovecraft

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Lovecraft? Well, I guess so. Fog, blood, demons, silver, polite folks speaking politely, all written in the first person. I guess I can see that. So I decided to give the site a story that I thought was rather Lovecraftian. Yes, I know, it didn’t work with Doyle, but what the heck. I fed it Covenant.

I got back:

I write like
James Joyce

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

James Joyce? Holy cats. I’ve tried to read Ulysses twice. I got three pages once, one and a half the next time. Covenant is hardly ambitious or obscure; it’s a pretty straight-up story. It doesn’t even approach literature. I wrote it to be read aloud, so that ranking completely baffled me.

I decided to take one last shot. I pulled out The Adventure of the Ghost Watch. I wrote it as a YA story, simple and clean, and of a grade level that meant that fifth and sixth graders (11-12 year olds) could read it easily. That’s not to say I dumbed it down at all. I just made the sentences a bit shorter, and simplified the vocabulary—using the kinds of words my protagonists would. (For example, they’d not say protagonist, they’d say hero.) I figured I’d get Franklin Dixon (Hardy Boys), or maybe R. L. Stine.

Instead I got:

I write like
Cory Doctorow

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Seriously?

It strikes me as odd that my work is likened to an author who is younger than me. I suppose that’s kind of a good thing, since it would indicate that I can produce a style which is relevant for up and coming audiences. Still, it is rather curious.

I have no idea how many authors they have to compare against, or if they are adding more every day. It’s definitely good to know that I can appear to be many different writers. I suspect that such flexibility will be a good survival trait for the coming times.

Though it does leave open one question, however: Is there a me I actually write like?

A week ago I attended the Origins Game Fair in Columbus, Ohio. It’s one of the two big game conventions in North America and I think I’ve missed it twice in the last 31 years. It’s always a lot of fun, with over 10,000 people trooping through over the four and a half days of convention, buying and playing games. I’ve watched the show grow from the days when there were only 2,000 people there, with three of them being female.

Gaming has come a long way.

Seven years ago I joined the Game Manufacturers Association’s Board of Directors, so I help run the show. This gives me a whole different view of it. It doesn’t really cut into the fun, just shifts my responsibilities. Generally I get used as a utility infielder. If there is a problem that needs a cool and clever head to smooth over, I get the call. This year things went pretty well, so that duty wasn’t too bad; and with new programs slipping into place and our attendance up, things look really good for next year, too.

On Monday, as I was preparing to leave Columbus, I returned to my hotel to pick up my luggage. The convention had a car making a final run to the airport and I was scheduled to be in it. As I got up to the front desk, the assistant manager, Joel, was speaking with a cabbie of East-Asian descent. I heard Joel say, “There’s nothing we can do about it. It’s between you and him.”

The cabbie, dissatisfied, turned away and Joel got my luggage. He asked where I was heading for and when I said the airport, he suggested I might be able to help another guest who was also headed there. He indicated one of our senior volunteers who I’d previously spoken with about getting a lift to the airport. As I walked over to some comfy chairs to wait, the volunteer (who is at least ten years older than I am), commented, “The cabbie is not happy.”

I didn’t say anything. It was the end of a convention. I was pretty much talked out. Having to endure fifteen minutes of waiting with someone who wanted to chat was slightly less desirable, in my eyes, than having a lobotomy performed with a dull butter knife and a power drill. I hoped, if I said nothing, he would not continue talking.

No. Such. Luck.

Our volunteer went on to say, “Yeah, I had him bring me back from the airport because I forgot my knapsack and computer in the business office. He wanted too much for the trip, so I didn’t pay him.”

It took me about twenty seconds to parse all that. I looked outside, saw the cabbie in his cab talking on the radio, then looked back at the volunteer. He just sat there, as if nothing in the world was wrong. Then the cabbie left his cab and walked over to talk to a hotel security guard.

I walked outside and asked the cabbie, “How much did he stiff you for?”

The cabbie explained that the full fare was $60, but he’d chopped $15 off. I repeated my question, and he said, “Nine dollars.”

I handed him a ten.

Then I went back into the hotel and spoke with the assistant manager. I told Joel that I’d taken care of the cabbie. He looked relieved, which was good. The convention does a lot of business with that hotel, and it really doesn’t look good for one of our volunteers to be stiffing cabbies—or doing anything else which is stupid.

Then I approached the volunteer. “You know what you did was wrong, right?”

He looked up at me, surprised. “I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t agree.”

Over the course of the five minute conversation we had, the guy never once accepted responsibility for his action. His reasons for refusing to pay ran the gamut:

•”I told him to pick up a return fare since I wasn’t going to pay him.” (Cabs have to exit the airport and get into line to get fares, so this was a non-starter.)

•I pointed out that if that cabbie had not been there, he would have had to pay another cab full fare to get to the hotel. He replied, “I would have taken the bus.” “But you didn’t,” said I, “you had a contract with the driver and you failed to live up to it.”

•I pointed out that the cabbie would have to pay his boss for the charges on the meter, and that by stiffing him, our volunteer was taking money straight out of his pocket. “This is how he makes a living,” I added. His reply, “He makes a better living than I do.”

He buttressed all of his arguments with the refrain, “I hear what you are saying, but I don’t agree.”

Then the convention car arrived for the airport run. They had room for one passenger, so I told them to take the volunteer, who claimed to have given the cabbie all his money. He had an hour to catch his flight. I told the driver I’d catch a cab, and they were off.

What the stiffer didn’t want to understand is that he was a thief. What he did was the same as a dine-and-dash—running out of a restaurant without paying. For those of you who don’t know, when you do that, your waiter or waitress often has the cost of the meal deducted from that week’s paycheck. You also might not know that aside from making $2.15 an hour as a wage, they have to split tips with busboys and bartenders. If you tip nothing, it comes out of their pockets, so they literally pay others for the privilege of serving you. It would not surprise me if cab drivers likewise have to split tips with dispatchers or others at the office.

Maybe I’m just naive, but I don’t remember a time when it was okay to cheat someone. It’s petty, coarse, crude and stupid. It makes the world a nastier place. Now maybe I can’t plug leaking wells in the Gulf, or stop wars in far away places, but I can sure as hell treat other people ethically and fairly.

I don’t reckon I’ll ever see that $10, but I consider it well spent. It’s little enough to pay for a reminder that being nice to folks really is priceless.

Talion: Revenant has been on sale electronically for three months now, so it’s time for an update on numbers. When I released the book I said that when I’d sold 10,000 copies, I’d write the sequel: Talion: Nemesis. I’m banking the money as it comes in, and your purchases will become my advance for writing that new novel.

Since the book went on sale we’ve sold 210 copies, which is much higher than I expected at this point. (I don’t have an accounting yet for the copies sold through the Appstore/iBookstore, but I’d guess that would be an added 40 copies or so at best.) So, in three months, we’re 2.5% of the way to the goal. If you want to look at the fact that another 9,750 need to sell before I start working, that could be a bit depressing, but I’m enthused by the results.

One aspect is momentum. Sales have been increasing, and that’s very promising. Through Amazon, the T:R sales have been smoking the sales of A Gathering Evil, which I’ve left at $2. I could draw some conclusions about price sensitivity for ebooks from this. It would appear to me that as long as the price is reasonable, readers are willing to buy. And one should remember, most of the folks who are purchasing the book already owned at least one paperback copy, so these sales are largely a down-payment on getting the sequel.

Digital publication and marketing are a brand new field. I’m feeling my way through it the same as everyone else. I know, for example, this update will spur some more sales. It will prompt folks to blog more about the project, and that will bring more sales. As we move forward, I’ll look at selling some more Talion fiction and tossing that money into the kitty, too. As I hit conventions over the summer, I’ll talk about the book and encourage folks to buy. I will also look at the efficacy of purchasing advertising on the net to see if that spurs things onward.

The power of the Internet can’t be denied. If everyone who already purchased were to convince just two friends to buy a copy, and those folks convinced two friends to buy, and so on; we’d sell that 10,000 copies by December and you’d likely have the new book by summer of 2011. Even if you don’t want to buy a copy, you can talk friends into buying copies, introducing the book to folks who haven’t read it, and you’ll get the sequel that much faster.

What I’m really enthused about is the number of folks who actually get it. This whole challenge isn’t just about getting enough money fto write a sequel. It’s about making a fundamental change in the way publishing is done. Instead of getting paid by publishers for what they guess I might sell in the future, I can work on the basis of being paid for work I’ve already done. The advantage there is incredible because it buys me the freedom to turn out the kind of work that I want to write and which, rather obviously, my patrons (that would be you) want to read. With this cycle ramping up, I’d be in a position to ask you what you want to see next from me, be it more DragonCrown War material, more stories in the Age of Discovery world, long work, short work, new and experimental work. (I will, however, draw the line at writing Fluffy Cat or Sparkly Vampire stories.)

Right now, we’re off to a good start. I’ll do more to keep awareness of the project out there. I appreciate your help in all this by Tweeting and Facebooking and posting reviews on Amazon and linking back to the store. This project really can turn publishing on its head. Thanks for joining me in the revolution.

Jack Card sat in a big leather chair in the corner of the Wanderers’ Club quiet room. He did his best not to fidget. That would get him noticed, and in the room full of adults—especially these people—that was the last thing he wanted.

Rogers, the Club’s major domo, appeared and placed a highball glass on the small table next to him. “Your Roy Rogers, Master Card.”

“Thank you.” Jack’s words came in a hushed whisper. He nodded toward a man. “Is that really Sir Ashton-Moore?”

“Quite so, sir.” Rogers, a man so cadaverously slender that he nearly vanished when he turned sideways, smiled. “He seems calm after unburdening himself of his tale, Gentlemanly Horrors of Mine Alone. I believe he is going out to hunt down some dinner.”

“That story didn’t leave me very hungry.” Jack kept his voice low. Listening to the story had almost let him forget his nervousness.

Rogers nodded back in Jack’s direction. “It should not be too long now, sir. The scholarship committee is just finishing up with another candidate. I will come for you when it is time to present your paper.”

Jack looked down at the report resting on his lap. The Adventure of The Ghost Watch. He’d titled it that because, well, in sixth grade it made it sound good. But here, in the Wanderers’ Club, it was nothing compared to the adventures the members had on a regular basis.

“Thank you, Mr. Rogers.”

“Just Rogers, Master Jack.” The servant bowed, then spun about to attend to a member’s shouted request from across the room.

Jack took a deep breath and forced it out. Then he sipped his drink, but resisted eating the cherry. He wasn’t sure he could keep it down.

Which is kind of silly, Jack, he told himself. After all, you weren’t afraid that night at the Shippington Mansion. He smiled. That was true, but then again, that day, when the doorbell rang, he’d really not known what he was getting into…

Jack Card put his book down and answered the door.

A smiling man in a red uniform held up an envelope. “I have a message here for Master John Card. Is that you?”

“Yes, sir.” Jack opened the door and signed for the ivory color envelope. He took it, then looked up. “I’m sorry, I don’t have any money. I can ask my mom…”

The messenger held a hand up. “It’s been taken care of, son. Enjoy your afternoon.”

Jack smiled and closed the door. The envelope had no postmark and no address. His name had been written in a flowing, elegant hand. Each letter stood out clearly.

He carried it into the kitchen. “Mom, Aunt Flora sent me an invitation.”

Jack’s mom glanced up. She was elbow deep in making lasagna. “Have you opened it?”

“Nope.” He smiled. “Aunt Flora wouldn’t have sent it if she’d not already asked you if I could go. Is it another one of her escapades?”

His mother blew a lock of brown hair back out of her face. “You’ll go, and you’ll be respectful. She depends on you, you know.”

The brown-eyed boy slid a thumb under the flap and gently tore the envelope open. The notecard within matched the envelope’s color. The initials FW stood out at the top, embossed as they were in gold. He scanned the note, then read it aloud to his mother.

Dear Master John,

I request the pleasure of your company this evening, for a midnight tour of the Shippington Mansion. Doctor E. Everett Everson of the Everson Institute of Ectoplasmic Investigation is going to show us a ghost.

Yours sincerely,

Miss Flora Williams

A ghost! Jack’s heart skipped a beat. He knew there was no such thing as ghosts, but everyone in town knew the Shippington Mansion was haunted. Jack had shivered whenever biking past it after dark. Even on a dare, he wouldn’t go near the place on Halloween.

The fear passed. The idea of seeing a ghost thrilled him. Jack loved reading about history and science and archeology, but being only twelve, he’d not gotten to do anything he could call field research. Well, maybe a few of the other outings with Aunt Flora would count, but this would be the first real expedition into the unknown.

“Is this for real, mom?”

Mina Card smiled indulgently. “Aunt Flora was determined to go. Doctor Everson is hoping she’ll help fund more research. I tried to talk her out of it, but she just said I was too set in my ways to see the possibilities in the world. She suggested you would be suitable company.”

Jack nodded. He loved Aunt Flora—really his Great Grand-aunt Flora. She drifted through life, being very lucky—though his father thought she was very shrewd and just pretended to be daffy. She’d made a lot of money down through the years investing with people she trusted—like that “awkward Gates boy” as she described Microsoft’s founder.

“You want me to look out for her, right?”

His mother nodded. “You’re a big boy now, Jack, and a pretty smart one.”

“I’m not smart, mom, I just remember things.”

“Well, remember this: your aunt is generous to a fault. People will take advantage of her. She’ll listen to you. Don’t let this Doctor Everson talk her into writing a check.”

“Got it, mom.”

“Your father and I will be waiting up for you.”

“Thanks, mom.” Jack slipped the note back into the envelope. “I better go get ready.”

“Sounds like you’ll be packing for an expedition to the Amazon.”

“Not quite.” He headed for his room. “But if I’m going to meet a ghost, I don’t want to go unprepared.”

As it turned out Jack didn’t have any ghost hunting gear. He ransacked his desk. Nothing. He went through the shoe boxes tucked under his bed. He came up empty there, too. His best effort produced a compass, a pocket knife and a wind-up flashlight.

He sat on his bed. The compass, pocket knife and flashlight weren’t bad adventuring equipment, but he wasn’t sure they’d help him in catching ghost. All the TV shows had guys with fancy detectors and expensive cameras. They had the sort of equipment Dr. Everson would have.

Then it dawned on Jack. Even with all that fancy gear, none of them had ever caught a ghost.

Another thought came to him. He wasn’t really going along to catch a ghost. He was going along to see if Doctor Everson was telling the truth. Given that Doctor Everson was a doctor, he had to be pretty smart. And because he did research, he had to know his stuff on ghosts. Or on tricking people into believing there were ghosts.

If he was lying, it wouldn’t be easy to catch him. Jack filled his pockets with his tools as his mom called him for dinner. Still, if that’s what it took to protect Aunt Flora, Jack would find a way to do it.

Even though the summer’s heat kept the night warm, Aunt Flora wore a coat and dark slacks. She’d always said Jack got his skinniness from her side of the family, and teased him that some day his brown hair would be as white as hers. Slender though she was, the hand gripping his shoulder had strength, and her blue eyes still flashed with mischief.

Several other families gathered on the sidewalk in front of the Shippington Mansion. Jack recognized an Asian kid from the swimming pool at the YMCA. Harry Lee was his name. He was there with his parents. Harry had just moved to town, so Jack didn’t know him more than to nod at him. Harry had earphones in and was looking at an iPod Touch, concentrating seriously on something.

The Shippington Mansion was one of the oldest buildings in town. It brooded, all dark, at the top of the hill. A wrought-iron fence surrounded it. Six gables rose from the roof and a porch ran three-quarters of the way around the building. Jack had seen old pictures, back when the house had been kept up. He felt sad seeing it having been neglected. Still the mansion had fared far better than the decrepit outbuildings in the overgrown back yard.

Doctor E. Everett Everson emerged from the dark building and strode boldly down to the gate. A plump man, he wore a dark wool suit with a bright red vest beneath and a monocle over his right eye. It popped out when he saw Aunt Flora. He greeted her happily and kissed her hand. She giggled.

“And this must be your nephew, John.” The man ruffled Jack’s hair, which he hated. “Welcome to the Mansion, son.”

“Thank you.”

Doctor Everson greeted the others just as profusely. At least Harry didn’t get his hair messed up. The doctor waved everyone through the gate and stopped them on the porch.

“Before we go in, it’s important to sort fact from fiction. Many of you have grown up here, others of you are new, yet you’ve all heard the stories. Let me tell you what we truly know about the tragedy that unfolded here, this very night, July 15^th, in 1882.” As Everson spoke he hooked his thumbs in his vest’s pockets. “Hugh Shippington was a very wealthy man, with homes from New York to California. This building was his newest and best loved. Workmen had finished it a month before, and he stopped in it for the first time this very day in 1882. He so loved it that he immediately sent a telegram to his family in New York, telling them to come at once. He sent that telegram at noon.

“Ten that evening he got a telegram from New York. His house in the city had burned down and his family had all been killed. He tried to get a train back east immediately, but the next locomotive would not be coming through until the following morning. So he spent his first night in his new home in mourning and, at midnight, he died of a broken heart.”

Aunt Flora clutched Jack’s shoulder. “That is so sad.”

“True, Miss Williams, but here is the odd part. His family, upon receipt of his telegram, had not even bothered to pack. They headed here immediately. They arrived the following afternoon to learn the bad news—double bad news, since they’d not known their home had burned. The family moved in and remained a year before the anniversary of Hugh’s death.” Everson looked straight at Jack. “Can you imagine what happened then?”

Jack didn’t need to imagine. He knew the stories. “The ghost of Hugh Shippington chased them all out since he was waiting for his family to join him.”

“Exactly.”

The other guests gasped, save for Harry. He gave Jack a disgusted look.

Jack shrugged. “It’s not like I believe.”

“Good lad,” shouted the doctor, believing Jack had been speaking to him. “In science we don’t go by belief, we only accept proof. In my researches I’ve used the finest equipment and most sensitive devices to amass evidence. That evidence is overwhelming. Ghosts exist, ladies and gentlemen. Tonight you’ll see a ghost with your own eyes.”

Doctor Everson pulled an antique pocket watch from his vest pocket. He showed both sides, including the ornate scrollwork and monogram HS. “This was Hugh Shippington’s own watch. It lay on his nightside table as he died. Hugh Shippington will appear to us when his own watch strikes midnight.”

Again more gasps.

The doctor held a hand up. “We have, my associates and I, thoroughly gone through the house. All power is off—a safety precaution since electricity was installed in the 1920s and last maintained in the 1940s. I’d ask you all to turn off any cell phones and you, young man, that music thing. No recording devices, please. We don’t need electromagnetic pulses interfering with ectoplasmic transference.”

The adults all nodded, but Jack and Harry exchanged glances. Jack wasn’t 100% sure what “ectoplasmic transference” was. It sounded like hokum and nonsense.

As they filtered into the mansion, Harry fell in line behind him. “Techno-babble.”

Jack smiled, keeping his voice low. “Worse than Star Trek.”

Harry snorted, then they separated as the group entered the living room. Two rows of folding chairs had been set up in a semi-circle facing the fireplace. Jack sat next to Aunt Flora in the front row, all the way over on the left side, and Harry opposite him on the right. The others filled in toward the middle. Most folks tried to look unimpressed. Little shivers here and there revealed their true feelings.

Doctor Everson wound the Shippington watch, then placed it in a bell jar on the center of the mantle. Candles burned in rows on either side of it, providing all of the room’s illumination. The flickering flames made shadows dance. Combined with the musty scent, faded wallpaper and dirty tin ceiling, the wavering candlelight made things spookier than a Halloween haunted house.

Everson returned his monocle to his eye. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are all rational beings, but what you shall witness tonight will carry you beyond reason. In order to create a more perfect environment for Hugh Shippington, we will douse all of the candles just prior to midnight. This should keep him calm. I will attempt contact with him, but whatever you do, you must not speak, or leave your chairs. This is for your own safety.”

Everson’s emphasis on safety sent a shiver down Jack’s spine. He blushed. He was pretty sure Everson was a better actor than he was a scientist.

The bulbous man went on, pacing before the fireplace. “You may hear things. You may feel things. Many people report feeling a chill. My apologies for not telling you to bring a sweater.” He looked straight at Aunt Flora. “If you require my jacket, Miss Williams, I shall be happy to oblige you.”

“You’re very kind, Doctor Everson, but I shall be fine.”

“Very well.” He glanced at the watch, then took out a dark handkerchief and blotted sweat from his forehead. “Hugh shall be with us very shortly. Please, if you all could join hands. And you, the young gentlemen on the end, if you could reach back to take a hand in the second row. We’ll have a nice little circle. I shall take up my position in the back of the room, to be ready for him.”

Everson worked his way down the line of candles. With each one blown out, darkness seeped into the room. Jack held Aunt Flora slender hand in his left, and extended his right back to a woman in the second row. Both women shivered and Jack almost yelped as something brushed by him in the darkness.

It was Doctor Everson, slipping past. The heavy man’s steps made the floorboards creak. “Very soon now. When the watch chimes we should have our manifestation.”

Jack sat there, the only sounds he could hear being his heart pounding and the squeaks of people shifting in their chairs. He looked for anything, but in the utter darkness he couldn’t even see his aunt.

Then, before he saw anything or heard anything, he felt something. The air stirred. Not much, but just enough. And it became colder. A chill blanketed the room and Aunt Flora began to shiver for real.

Then the watch rang. It sounded with a tiny ding for each hour. Jack thought it was a pretty sound, but somehow it echoed far louder in the room than it should have. The sound grew and lingered. The echoes remained long after the watched stopped pealing.

In their wake came a scraping sound. Definitely shoe-leather on wood. It became louder, as if a man was approaching from a great distance. And a voice began. A whisper, nothing more.

“Who is here in my house?”

Jack wasn’t sure he’d heard it the first time. Even the second he didn’t catch all the words, but the third, well. The third time the ghost spoke more clearly and loudly. “Who is in my house?”

Everson’s voice boomed confidently from the back of the room. “Mr. Shippington, I am Doctor E. Everett Everson.”

“Doctor Everson? Do I know you, sir?”

“No, sir, you do not, yet.”

The ghost’s voice came from the center of the room, right inside their midst. “Do you know how to cure a broken heart, Doctor Everson? Do you know my family lies dead in New York? Have you any idea the pain of separation, sir?”

Everson kept his voice calm. “I have some understanding of the matter, sir. I hope, though my work, to be able to assist you.”

“Assist me?” The ghost laughed and fear trickled down Jack’s spine. “My family is dead. I shall never rest until I rend the veil between life and death and look up on them again. This I shall do, doctor, mark my words. Nothing you can do will ease my pain! Begone from my house.”

Aunt Flora clutched Jack’s hand with all her strength.

The ghost shrieked. “Begone, all of you, and damn you to Hell!”

Hugh Shippington’s curse rang in their ears, then silence fell. Jack strained to hear anything, but short of old-house creaks and pops, he got nothing until Everson returned to the front of the room. The man struck a wooden match.

The doctor’s expression betrayed nervousness in the light of that match. “Ladies and gentlemen, never, in all my years, have I faced so strong a presence.”

He turned and lit the candles again, then tossed the match into the fireplace to die. “As you can see, as you doubtless felt, when Hugh Shippington answered the call of midnight on his watch, the Shippington Mansion is a deep well of ectoplasmic activity. I dare say—mere speculation, of course—that this location may mark a thinning of the barrier between life and death. It is the perfect place for my researches to continue. However, in the Mansion’s current state…”

The woman behind Aunt Flora raised a hand. “How much money do you need to continue, Doctor Everson?”

The large man blinked. “You anticipate me. I had more words to say, but if you wish to cut to the point.”

“Your work is very important, Doctor. I see no reason any of us would wish to waste your valuable time.” The woman looked around. Others, including Aunt Flora, nodded. “I can write you a check for twenty-thousand right now, Doctor. Will that help?”

“Oh my, yes, very generous. That would keep us going for several months.” Everson wiped his monocle on his jacket’s lapel. “If any of the rest of you were to see it within your powers to contribute.”

Aunt Flora smiled. “How much to endow the project in its entirety?”

“Miss Williams, it would be a million dollars, but I fear I could not impose on your generosity so mightily.”

Jack’s aunt laughed, her hand rising to her throat. “Doctor Everson, it is merely money. I should be glad to write the check this instant, with one tiny provision.”

Everson nodded. “Yes?”

“Provided my nephew, John, thinks I should write it.”

Everson smiled. “Well, John. You look to be a smart lad. What say you? Shall we let your aunt fund the work that will bring peace to tormented souls like Hugh Shippington.”

Everyone turned to look at Jack.

He swallowed hard. “I guess that sort of work would be very important. It would probably be worth every penny spent on it.”

“Quite so, lad, thank you.”

Jack held a hand up. “The problem is, you’re lying about the ghost.”

Everson’s eyes grew large. “How dare you?”

Aunt Flora turned to Jack. “That’s a serious charge, John.”

“I know.” Jack drew confidence from the pride on his Aunt’s face. “You said the ghost would come at midnight on the day he died. You set his watch to chime at midnight.”

Everson turned and waved a hand at the watch. “You all saw. It’s fifteen past, now.”

“Yes, fifteen past midnight, Daylight Savings Time.” Jack shrugged. “The United States didn’t start observing Daylight Savings Time until 1918. If Hugh Shippington was going to show up, he would have done it at eleven in the evening, because that was his midnight!”

The woman who had offered the first pledge sputtered. “But the ghost came to the watch. We felt the chill, we heard him speak. You’re too young to understand.”

“You’re changing things. That’s not what Doctor Everson told us.” Jack gasped. She wouldn’t let herself see the lie. Others nodded in agreement with her.

Then Harry stood up, brandishing his iPod. “He lied about no electricity, too. He has a wifi network up in the house.”

“But the chill…” Aunt Flora looked at Harry. “Why did we feel cold?”

“I don’t know for sure but I bet he has an air conditioner in one of the shacks out back. He ran conduit in and it came down through the holes in the tin ceiling. He could control that, and the sounds, from an iPhone or iPod.”

Jack nodded. “Which is why he stood in the back, so we couldn’t see the light. And he covered it with his handkerchief to hide it more.”

Everson puffed himself up. “This is preposterous. I have never been so insulted. To have two brats interrupt serious work…”

Harry’s mother got up and a pair of handcuff appeared from her purse. “One of these brats happens to be my son, Doctor Everson, and I happen to be a detective with the fraud squad. I hope you have good answers for all the questions we’re going to be asking you.

Harry’s mother called for back-up. Forensic experts arrived with uniformed policemen. They swept the mansion and found not only the wifi network Harry had discovered, but wireless speakers for making the noise, and a heavy-duty air conditioner with generator out in the old smokehouse.

Pretty much everyone else cleared out, save for the woman who had been the first to pledge. Harry’s mom brought her in for questioning, too. It turned out that she was in cahoots with Everson, encouraging others to invest.

Aunt Flora allowed Jack to stick around and watch the police work for a while, then thanked Harry. “You saved me a great deal of money, the both of you. You make quite a team.”

Jack smiled and offered Harry his hand. “I guess I’ll see you at the Y. We can eat lunch together, if you want.”

“That’s cool. Thank you.” Harry watched as the squad car carrying Everson headed off. “He’ll be convicted, right? He’s not going to get off.”

“Him, being found innocent?” Jack shook his head. “Not a ghost of a chance.”

Jack stood and straightened his blazer as Rogers returned. “Are they ready?”

“They are. Don’t be nervous.” The major domo waved him toward the door. “Just go in there and tell your story. Nothing better they like here, than a good story.”

The Chain Story

A WIRED story coming out of Book Expo America once again reveals the gap between reality and what some of the leaders in publishing think.

Susan Petersen Kennedy, president of Penguin Group USA, said publishers will not make the same mistakes as the music industry, which had an epic struggle over electronic distribution and piracy and lost huge market share.

“It’s always treated as if the publishers are the Luddites,” she told Reuters in an interview. “The devices have not caught up with the content. Contrary to popular opinion, the book is actually so far more flexible.”

[Emphasis mine.]

Take a look at that last pair of sentences. What do they mean? Let’s break that first one down: The devices have not caught up with the content. The two readers I have (Sony Touch and iPad) allow me to read, to adjust the type size, to highlight passages, to make notes and to double-tap a word, immediately bringing up a dictionary to tell me what that word means. In addition, if the device is hooked into the internet, hotlinks become live, so I can immediately go to the net and purchase the next volume, or learn more about the book. So, the way I see it, the devices do everything a print book does, and more.

The second sentence, however, is the one that I find even more puzzling. What does she mean by flexible? Moreover, is flexibility even a quality that makes any difference in this battle? I don’t think so. Print books are heavy and bulky. In the space of a single thin paperback or less (a smart phone or iPod Touch) a reader can carry thousands of books. And, sure, print books won’t run out of power, but battery life is a silly measurement. After all, it’s not how long your battery will last, it’s how long are you going to be between chances to recharge your device? In the last three years of hauling a iPod Touch around, that’s been absolutely never for me.

Right now, the only edge your mass market paperback has over an ebook reader is that you can’t use it between the ground and 10,000 feet on a flight. Might be the longest 20 minutes of your life going up and down, but that’s what the inflight magazines are for.

Jim Lowder pointed me to another article coming out of BEA that illustrates more problems with publishers and the way they address ebooks.

Dominique Raccah, of Sourcebooks, agreed that the new technology was a great way to connect authors with readers. However, she refuted Defiore’s argument that eBooks made life easier for publishers. Through a series of slides, Raccah stressed that making digital books is complicated for publishers because formatting them is so complicated. “We have thirty new steps to format the book to be an eBook and that is before production and meta-data,” she said.

[Emphasis mine.]

Thirty steps? I wish I had seen the slides. When I went from text file to ebook for Talion: Revenant it took exactly seven steps:

1) Get a cover made.
2) Get a spacer illo made
3) Insert Bookmark breaks (insert a line at each chapter head and four other places: a search operation for 30 lines)
4) Insert spacer illo tags (insert a line at each 3 line break: a search operation for two dozen lines)
5) Insert hotlinks (cut and paste from a file)
6) Gather illos and text file into a folder
7) Run Michael Zapp’s Legend Maker software to create the epub and Kindle file.

Total time for those seven steps less than two hours. In a week or so, I’ll be taking my novel Eyes of Silver and prepping it from scan to epub. I’ll track my time and let you know how long it took. The real question is that if I can do things in less time and with fewer steps than traditional publishers, what’s going on in New York? While Susan Petersen Kennedy protests that publishers are not Luddites, their understanding of technology and their use of it really casts that statement in doubt. And the usual retort of “Well, Mike, you understand this stuff and are comfortable with it,” just doesn’t wash. If you and your staff are not comfortable with things, hire someone who is!

And here’s the real dark side of things for traditional publishers. They’re looking at their ebook sales and using their growth to calculate how much time they have to get their ebook business squared away. But they’re not the only folks selling ebooks. In the last two months I’ve sold more copies of Talion: Revenant as an ebook than Bantam has sold of The Grand Crusade as an ebook since 2003. Sure those numbers show the surge of ebook sales that has been growing sharply, and TR sales benefit from it, no doubt at all. But traditional publishers are not tracking data on my sales, or on the sales of any other self-published electronic publication. Traditional publishers numbers are as reliable as the data on tomato sales a farmer gathers when he only counts the sales from his roadside stand. The numbers do not measure supply or demand, so are good only in relation to other numbers he’s gathered.

While my ebook sales may not amount to much in the world of traditional publishing, they’re important for two reasons. First, someone buying a book from me isn’t buying a book from them. Second, since I don’t have their overhead, I can sell for less. This means I am shaping what folks see as a reasonable price for ebooks. This means my sales, and the sales of other authors who are offering books for $5 or less are shaping perceptions that traditional publishers are going to have to deal with.

Ultimately it’s not a question of publishers being Luddites or not. It’s a question of their being in touch with reality. Right now, not looking very good on that front. As far as they’re concerned, it’s not raining where they are, just up in the mountains. So there shouldn’t be a problem pitching a tent in that dry river bed, should there?