Trent Jamieson Roils the Business of Death

Trent Jamieson is having a big month in September. He is releasing two novels thereby proving his literary ambidexterity.  

The Business of Death is the third and final instalment of his Death Works novels (which began with Death Most Definite, continued with Managing Death). I interviewed Trent about his debut trilogy last year and he has gone from strength to strength since I first met him as a Clarion South tutor in 2009.

His second book, Roil, is a new story and as good as all his book covers are, this one is particularly attractive. Here is the blurb for it: 

Shale is in trouble. A vast, chaotic, monster-bearing storm known only as the Roil is expanding, consuming the land.

Where once there were twelve great cities, now only four remain, and their borders are being threatened by the growing cloud of darkness. The last humans are fighting back with ever more bizarre new machines. But one by one the defences are failing. And the Roil continues to grow.

With the land in turmoil, it’s up to a decadent wastrel, a four thousand year-old man, and a young woman intent on revenge to try to save their city – and the world.

It is being published by Angry Robot and they have a nifty little in-page app that lets you read a sample chapter: http://issuu.com/angryrobot/docs/roil-samplechapter

I asked Trent for his take on the changes occurring across the publishing world at the moment and he was kind enough to share these thoughts:

1. Regarding self-publishing and e-publishing, what is your impression of the changing advice given, or information available, to emerging writers?

There's a flood of it at the moment, and a lot of it looks less like advice than anecdotal material, which is fine, except, like in every business, every writer is going to have a different experience and different outcomes. There are so many different tools and pathways open to a writer now, and what's right for one may not be right for another. Which is really me just saying, I don't know. And I tend to be a bit suspicious of people that say they do.

2. Would you advocate traditional approaches to publishing over self-publishing? Why? Why not?

Honestly, you don't want my advice on that! But I have loved working with the editorial team at Orbit, and am enjoying working with Angry Robot. I thrive on editorial input, and I worry when I don't get it. But not everyone is like that, and some people write extremely clean prose. Me I like a good editorial kicking. And there's all sorts of things that publishers do in getting your work out there, that is much, much harder when you do it alone.  Still some people like a challenge.

Either way, what it comes down to is finding a way to say, 'Hey, here's my stories.' and, hopefully, finding an audience, that's the hardest part, and it's only going to get harder. You don't engage people then you don't make a living, but, still, the first person you have to engage is yourself, or you're waisting your time (and any potential audience's time) and even then your audience is more likely than not going to be small.

It's still important to separate the writing from the business of writing, and it's still important to write regardless of the approach you use.

 

3. Fast forward five years. Using your speculative fiction mega-skills, what do you think the publishing / writing industry will look like?

Firstly we'll all drive flying cars, and all editing will be done by creatures that look like those harvesting robots in the Matrix.

I'm sure there'll still be publishers, and bookstores, and writers. I actually think publishers are adapting better than people give them credit for - there's an awful lot of resentment to publishers that blinds people to just what they're capable of. I think books will be cheaper and margins tighter, but the potential audience may actually be about to hit a growth spurt - that's my gut feeling anyway. And, if the next few years don't kill them, Indie bookstores are going to become real hubs of the community, and we may even see a few more of them spring up.

Print books will become increasingly sidelined, without ever going away completely, and e-books will grow (a lot of them read by those Matrix robot things) as will enhanced e-books (books with all manner of multi-media trappings). So you'll see print stories that run the spectrum from purely print to something that is a hybrid (so things that are more and less bookish), though I think those hybrids are going to be relatively rare until people can make video that doesn't just look like second-rate amateur film.
 
Authors will still be chasing the dream and there will be plenty more of them. Standing out in the crowd is going to be even harder than it is right now, but some people will. I think the real money makers in the industry will be those who've set themselves up as e-publishing consultants, or book cover designers.

Hell, I really don't know what I'm talking about, and I'm rambling. But, ultimately in five years time I'm sure there's still going to be a publishing and a writing industry, I'm less sure that anyone really knows what it'll be like.

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Trent's own website is here.

A bookseller's view of self-publishing

Steph Moriarty (Clarion South attendee and long-time industry employee) gives her thoughts on self-publishing, particularly with regards to print publishing.

A boy I used to date once asked me, “What do you think of South African accents?”

To which my response was, “What kind of question is that?”

“It’s not a rascist thing. It’s just personal experience. Every South African person I’ve encountered at work has treated me like crap. Now whenever I hear the accent, I cringe. It’s like a Pavlovian response.”

As a bookseller, my Pavlovian response to self-publishing is somewhat analogous. I don’t hate self-published writers on principle, but in my experience, most of them have been awful to deal with.

The thing is – and this may sound obvious, but bear with me – when you self-publish, you’re taking on the role and duties and responsibilities that would traditionally belong to your publisher. The impression I get is that too many writers, not just the ones who self-publish, don’t understand and don’t take the time to try to understand, what exactly publishers do. Publishing companies are not hungry monsters who eat Word documents and spit out bound and finished books. They’re not just there to make sure all the words are in the right order and slap a pretty cover on the front. They also do complex and mundane things like sales research and find markets and organise publicity and marketing campaigns and, perhaps most difficult and mundane of all, fatten up (metaphorically speaking) the sales team with reasons your book is great but, more importantly, reasons people might by your book, and then send them off to clash with the retail buyers. These are the parts that self-published writers don’t tend to do as well, partly because they don’t know they have to do them, or don’t know how to do them, or are not qualified to do them, and partly because it’s hard to do a company’s work when you’re just one person. Which is not to say it can’t be done. But it is not easy to do well.

When publishers take on a book, they do so because they think it will sell. They may also think it’s a work of literary and creative genius, but the tipping point will always be if it has selling potential. When writers self-publish, the motivation should be the same: they should believe that they can sell it – and by “believe” I mean, have years’ worth of business and industry knowledge, preferably with the figures to back it up, to be able to make a rational, unbiased and qualified assertion that this venture is going to turn profit. Or, at least, you need to be able to talk convincingly about why people might want to buy the book. One writer I encountered in the bookselling trenches of not that long ago came to the shop unsolicited to hawk his expose on freemasons because, in his words, “Father’s Day is coming up”. Presumably his book contained new insights into contemporary freemason society, but not only were we not that kind of bookstore (we specialised in cooking, lifestyle and kids books), I remained doubtful as to whether I could imagine myself giving that book away to someone, let alone buying it myself. It also had an awful (though thankfully minimalist) amateur cover, which did not help. This is another aspect of self-publishing that people tend to think is easy to get right. Good book design is expensive, because good designers who know what they’re doing and who know their genres, and who have the time and good will to read books and come up with ideas, and absorb other people’s ideas, are in demand. Mainstream publishing does not always get covers right by any means, and they may very well not give your book the cover that you had in mind, but they will give you something that many people have looked at and worked on and thought hard about. It is, after all, not in any publisher’s interest to see your book not sell (unless you have been rude to them). Obviously. They want it to do well as much, if not more, than you do, because they are as invested – if not more – as you.

I’m going to try to keep the sales and marketing rant short because it’s pretty common knowledge that every writer these days should be doing at least some self-promotion if they want to see success. Marketing is hard, but fun. Sales is harder. Retail buyers are the gatekeepers of bookshop inventory, and they can be mean, lean and, more relevantly, on an annual budget that is both. Understand that no bookshop can stock every book or every kind of book. Understand that the buyers love books as much as you (hopefully) do, but that the first rule of poker is “leave emotion at the door”. Be prepared to leave a reading copy, at the very least, and don’t expect to get it back. Ever. This does not mean that the longer you leave it with them, the likelier it is you’ll get it back. The inverse is true. The longer you leave a thing in a bookshop – whether on the shop floor or in the back room – the less likely it will ever be found again.

Don’t try to guilt buyers or booksellers into taking your book. It’s this kind of behaviour that makes them hard-hearted. Don’t ring every few days to see how sales are doing and to offer to replenish stock. It’s annoying, and booksellers are busy, and they’ll think you’re desperate. If they need more copies, they’ll contact you. And DON’T rearrange shelves to put your book in a more prominent position. If you think it’s a reasonable request – ie. the bookseller has taken a significant number of copies – ask an assistant. Always be courteous. Whether you get the outcome you want or not, be professional and thank them for your time. This goes for all authors, not just self-published ones. And even if you do get your book on shelves, don’t expect them to miraculously fly off on your own.

Thought your job was done when you wrote the damn thing? You wish.