Money Can't Buy Me Love

I've largely left the publishing industry behind because it is only marginally my industry. My industry is Scott Nicholson (and it's cool to refer to myself in third person, though I need an LLC or Inc. to be even cooler).

But when Publisher's Weekly, the publishing industry flagship, starts selling its last shred of respectability under the guise of serving books, it's a clearer sign than ever the publishing industry is dying, or at least evolving beyond all recognizable form and tradition. You likely could care less unless you are a writer or work in the publishing industry, but PW is charging $149 for a segregated listing in a supplement, with a slim chance that you might actually get reviewed. Even the press release is smug and demeaning--because this is about putting indies in their place and highlighting the fact that "You are not one of us but you can drink at the water fountain if you pay plenty for the privilege."

PW is an industry magazine, so even if an indie (or any author) paid to be in it, all you are doing is getting seen by a handful of agents and editors and assorted hangers-on. Those are people who should be sharpening their own resumes or building their own individual industries. They are not going to be flipping through to discover new writers. They should be looking at the want ads, not the writer lists. They don't need any more writers. They had way too many already.

IndieReader has started a similar pay-to-play review policy, and the formerly esteemed Kirkus also sold its soul a few years back. These people want your money. The publishing industry is the least efficient way to sell your book right now. Putting it in a bookstore is going to cost you most of your profit and you still have to do all the work of building the audience, so why share that with dozens or hundreds of people who add little to the actual product, which is your words?

Look. Give them money and you are hurting your business. Whatever emotional tug you feel at joining their exclusive club, if you pay them, you are added to a list that at best will be ignored and at worst will be ridiculed. You're basically paying to be on a blacklist.

Maybe someday enough writers will figure out this is a business of writing. The rest is just smoke and mirrors and corporations.

###

Roundabouts and quick bits

More Scott babble about the ebook era at Darlyn & Books

The venerable Publishers Weekly turns into vanity press while segregating indie writers and letting them pay dearly

I am formatting the new release As I Die Lying--which is quite possibly the WORST novel ever written! Launching soon.

And co-writing a novel with J.R. Rain, he's good, check him out.

September is full for the Kindle Giveaway Blog Tour--you'll find guest posts here on my blog while I am away.

Authors who want in the Pandora's Box can check out the page for details

Kindle Giveaway and new releases

Dark Eva says it better than I can--the tour is about to get underway. Three (or four) ways to win. I'm already putting together the posts and prepping a couple of more titles--Forever Never Ends (formerly The Harvest), the crime thriller Disintegration, and the metafictional thriller As I Die Lying for release during the tour, as well as the mystery story collection Gateway Drug. Join us!

Kindle Giveaway ramp-up

The Pandora's Box of prizes is growing with the addition of M.J. Rose, Zoe Winters, Vicki Tyley, Debbi Mack, and more, and I will be adding the "bonus Kindle 3" if any of my books break the Top 100 in the US or UK Kindle store.

If you are interested in how the tour came together, I posted at the writer/industry blog Buzz, Balls, and Hype. Help spread the word--the bigger it gets, the better your chances of winning, because thee will be more to give away!

TWO kindles for giveaway!

Thanks to generous support from sponsors (Amazon, Kindle Nation Daily, and Dellaster Design), I now have TWO kindles to give away as part of the Kindle Giveaway Blog Tour.

A Kindle DX will be given away through the participating blogs--simply visit the blogs and comment at one or more of my guest posts. You can only enter once per post, but you can increase your odds by stopping at all 90 posts. Winner will be randomly selected at the Watauga County (NC) Library in early December.

Another way to win a Kindle 3 is to subscribe to my Inner Circle newsletter at scottsinnercircle-subscribe@yahoogroups.com to get tour updates and a link to each day's stops--do both and double your chances!

And if that's not enough, sign up to follow my Twitter account at www.twitter.com/hauntedcomputer and be eligible for another prize package of ebooks and signed books.

Skull Ring Audio--ScotTalk

Audio of the opening to psychological thriller The Skull Ring. Listen here (mp3, 5 minutes)

Defining Success: Sometimes it's just survival

A writing friend of mine was wondering what he was doing "wrong" in not selling as many books as he'd like, and I shared this little story:

I just watched Ralph Stanley, old timey music legend, in a concert, and he did his thing pretty much the same all his life, lots of shows and albums, and while he was always known in his niche, and respected by musicians, it wasn't until O Brother Where Art Thou that anyone outside that regional musical circle heard of him. He was about 76 then (he's the KKK guy who sings "Oh Death" in the movie). When he sang that in the concert, 1,700 people were stone silent--even the little kids. You could feel the transcendent chill sweep over the audience. That was what you call a "moment," the phenomenon to which most artists aspire and which are precious and rare--the three-pointer at the buzzer, the essential stone in a chimney, the orchid of a hothouse gardener.

I bought a CD after the show just because Ralph Stanley joked that if we bought from him, he'd get all of the profit. He is amazed by his current success at 83 and he's enjoying it and grateful for it.

Hopefully we won't all have to wait that long for our own success, whatever that looks like. But you just never know when your time is right or when the world is ready for you. Do your thing and let the world catch up. Better to have potential than have peaked. You still have 6.5 billion people yet to discover you.

I was on a BBC radio show Wednesday and it reaches 40 million people and I am not sure I even got a single sale from it. One person emailed me and said they'd heard it. It was fun. I went to a comics convention yesterday, sat all day, maybe made $30. But an old friend from my radio days came by and agreed to do some audio of my work. And I met writer James Robert Smith, whose career is getting a big boost with a movie deal for his thriller The Flock. Maybe that was the reason for the "wasted" day.


You just never know which is the right thing, so do the things that feel right. I'd been active on the forums but now they have no conversation, just ads. I'd been tweeting a lot about the problems of the publishing industry, but honestly, nobody cares much except a handful of people in the industry. Readers sure don't. And even if it sold books, I am not sure I'd want that to be my "job." Running the indie books blog is one of my favorite things, and I am not sure it gives me any attention, but at least it adds something to the world.

I looked at my web visitor patterns yesterday--they come for the FBI profiler article, the Appalachian legend articles, the paranormal articles. So I know I need to work on those instead of more writing advice if I want to communicate and offer something to my visitors. I don't know anything about writing anyway, except sitting down and typing.

My approach is foundation building. Sure, I get a mild panic when my rankings slip, but this is like stocks--they rise and fall but they're always paying dividends. The worst thing you can do is not be ready when your time comes. When I had my most "success" in paperback, I was an alcoholic getting divorced. I was drunk when I wrote half my books and I made mistakes that probably prevented me from having an ordinary career, where you write a book a year and slowly build an audience--I was checking out at the time I should have been growing, because I didn't want to deal with people.

I don't know if those were related but I sure do know what I don't want out of a career. If I had been a bestseller I'd probably be dead. But that's just my story. I guess I'm just grateful if I can reach even one reader today.

###