Print cover

Something of a learning curve, but I now have a print version of Exiles of the Bhel Sea in the works, with the full spread 6"x9" paperback cover shown here. I also have ePub versions of the ebook available through Smashwords linked over on the right and through the Order Books page. It'll appear in the individual ereader book stores soon.

Exiles of the Bhel Sea

Well this one took me a while. With a huge sigh of relief, I can now say that my fourth book is available. This is the first novel I have published electronically (Kindle version available now, other formats later this week), and while I will do a print version, it isn't the main focus.

And so, Exiles of the Bhel Sea is ready!

$5.99 for the full book, while of course one fantastic advantage of ebooks is that you can sample the novel for free and test-drive it.

Special thanks to my artist, Kentaro Kanamoto, my editor Amanda Le Bas du Plumetot, my cartographer-extraordinaire Matthew French, and my beta readers Amanda Le Bas du Plumetot, Steven Turner, Aidan Doyle and Alex Hong. Much appreciated.

Thanks of course to my long-suffering wife, Kristy, and my kids, Sophie and Phoebe. The main reason for the time this book has taken is the arrival of my daughters and that goes with raising children, and I hope that one day they read and enjoy this book.

It's a long one - about the same length as my Runes trilogy combined - but then epic fantasy novels are called "epic" for a reason!

Branding

Branding is something every writer deals with in some form. From the style of writing, to the typical settings or types of stories a particular writer might use more often than others, and then on to the look of a series of novels, the illustrations, cover design and even the publisher’s imprint. These are all important ways for readers to identify a writer, to find more of his/her works, and to feel comfortable with a genre choice.

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The Bhel Sea - update

Example of Kentaro Kanamoto's work (not my cover)Inching closer to my next publication, still tentatively titled "The Bhel Sea". After feedback from my editor which echoed my own concerns, I may change the title, or amend it, to something that doesn't conjure such a link with a naval / pirate / swash-buckling adventure... which this book isn't. There are three main (actually four, for those books with reviewer quotes featuring on the cover) hooks for grabbing a browsing reader's attention and interest, those being the cover, the title and the blurb (and to me, in that order of importance).

I have commissioned the fantastic services of an illustrator, Kentaro Kanamoto, an example of whose work you see in this post. He is almost finished with the design, that of a wrecked ship on a dark, storm-wracked beach beneath a looming keep. This is a pivotal early scene in the novel and one which I have always had in my head when I thought of a potential cover. The cover itself I will reveal hopefully very soon upon its completion, but I have been blown away by Kentaro's skill to now.

The blurb is yet to be written, and here I have licence to grab the essence of the book, and steer the reader hopefully away from the rocky misdirection of a book about ships and piracy.

And finally the title. This is a tricky one, as the book is mainly about the Bhel Sea, a dangerous, contested expanse of water where anything goes. And while there are the equivalent of pirates, or more specifically an organised mob of raiders known as the Korsar, more than half of the novel does not take place there, but rather inland, well away from any significant river, lake or sea. I am considering splitting the hefty tome into two parts for e-book publication, and a single volume for print, and perhaps using different sub-titles under a Bhel Sea Saga brand.

Watch this space.

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.

e-Books, starting somewhere

So what do you do now if you have a manuscript (or several) to sell? Traditional publishing (agents, publishers, slush piles, querying) or the untamed frontier of self e-publishing? The question seemed pretty clear not too long ago, particularly if you were serious about your writing, were persistent, were willing to make contacts and put your work out there. Traditional publishing, normal publishing was where all the cool kids were.

I'm not sure that's the case anymore.

Moving forward, it seems to be fairly clear that the answer will be different for every writer, but that almost certainly writers will utilise a combination of institutional publishing and their own efforts. Many already are.

What will I do? I don't know.

I’m a published writer but am yet to publish enough or works significant enough to make a living from writing. I say “yet” because I will get there. It is not a dream. It’s a goal I am working to achieving.

Essentially, I’m a beginning or emerging writer, or whatever other epithet you care to use to describe a non-professional, but serious writer.

And because of who I am and what I am, I am in the middle of the e-books and e-publishing quandary. I don’t have the new opportunity of releasing my back-list of published works dating to 1970 in e-book format to take advantage of these new methods of distribution. I don’t have the ready-made audience of an experienced and veteran writer. I don’t have the industry contacts or past relationships with publishers, agents and editors. I have grown up hearing of and dreaming of the traditional mode of publishing: slush-pile, agent, network, persistence. But I have not lived it to any great extent.

In other words, I am not particularly beholden to any model of publishing. My natural caution is sceptical of the promises being thrown out there by advocates of e-publishing and particularly self-publishing, but my interest is of course piqued by the tempting thought of being able to bypass a lot of the gate-keeping in traditional publishing. Skip the agent, skip the slush-pile, distribute your work directly to the reader.

The corollary to this of making thousands of dollars proclaimed by self-proclaimed self-publishing gurus seems like the promise of a pyramid marketing scheme. Or the promise of a dodgy real estate scheme.

I’d like to believe it, I’d like to think there is a possibility I could promote and market my novels to such a readership that would get me to that goal of part-time income for writing, but it does seem too good to be true.

Whether it is or not, the fact is e-books are here to stay and are likely to challenge paper books for supremacy if not completely obliterate their dominance. As such, my excuse to stay on the sideline for now, concentrate on writing and more writing, seems naive. I want to know, I want to try, I want to get out there and see what could happen. If nothing else, I’ll learn about it more than I would otherwise.

Borders without customers, Part II

Myth number 3: Book prices are expensive in Australia because publishers are evil money-grabbing, faceless conglomerates who want to take over the world.

This is a complicated one to unpack. Firstly, there’s the issue that a lot of book prices are left over from a twenty year-old economy where the Australian dollar was 40 or 50 cents to the American greenback. The book industry is also one of those rare, strange beasts where the identical product that was released twenty years ago is still being made and put out into the market, and the truth which everyone knows but few people have been willing to articulate is, well, things never really ever get cheaper. Which leads me to my second point: things have never really been cheap in Australia. We’re isolated, so we have to factor freight costs onto everything we import, and our population is tiny, which means we can’t produce in bulk and get the same wholesale discounts as the other bigger consumers. Our food, rent, and wages are all three times, if not more, than the dollar-equivalent in the US, another as a relic of that 1990s economy, though I’ve heard time and again the comment that the quality of things here is better, which could all be placebo effect, but the quality – the physical quality – of books certainly is. So many of my imported books are either printed on clumsy, public toilet paper-esque pages, or the thinnest Bible paper. I understand this may not factor in for a lot of people – they’re not buying a book for the paper stock, after all, but for the words and ideas contained therein – but it’s definitely a factor as to why locally produced and printed books cost more.

Thirdly, we are one of the only countries in the world to tax our books. The GST, that deceptaively doe-eyed 10%, knocked the wind out of the bookselling industry for years. Yeah, I know, anticlimax, but people never seem to factor this in either.

Remember when there was this whole movement about buying Australian products because even though they might be a more expensive, you were supporting local industry and jobs and your own economy, yadda yadda yadda? I must be getting old …

Myth number 4: The music industry went digital, survived piracy and hasn’t completely died, so what the fuck are you guys afraid of?

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Borders without customers

Steph Moriarty was a flat-mate and fellow Clarion South attendee in 2009. With a razor-sharp critiquing knife and a look that can freeze you in place in terror, she's also worked for years at the coal-face in the book-selling business. She knows her stuff.

In two parts, below is her response to the many opinion pieces and speculation about the Borders / Angus&Robertson debacle in Australia.

I’m pretty deeply vested in every facet of the book industries, so it’s particularly frustrating to see so many people hypothesising about why things are the way they are, and how Borders and Angus & Robertson had it coming, etc. with only a speculative understanding and no insight into how things actually are.

I have worked as a bookseller for seven years, with experience in chain stores as well as independents. I am a professional writer who reads not nearly as much as some people I know, but I would venture a reasonable amount. Which means I buy a reasonable amount of books from wherever I can get them: big bookstores, franchises, indies, second-hand bookstores, and yes, because I’m frequently poor, online. This is my explanation (and occasional angry digression) on a few popular misconceptions on recent book industry events.

Myth number 1: REDgroup went bankrupt because of rising ebook sales/internet book sales.

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Ten reasons you won't get published

From Chuck Wendig:

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2011/01/10/why-your-novel-wont-get-published/

raison d'ecrire

I’ve finished my first (and second and third) draft of my novel. The first draft took me about 3 years, the next two a few months, and I know I’m not there yet, I’m not at that finished product that I would feel confident in submitting. In fact, I may not be able to get there at all.

I’ve written YA novels before and found that, right or wrong at the time, I didn’t need to redraft a lot. I wrote them, I sent them off soon after, worked with an editor and they were done. Short, sharp, satisfying. For a while. Now, I look back and wonder if I spent enough time on them, if I couldn’t have worked harder on redrafting to a standard that will keep me content to look back at those books and be happy with them. Or is that a pipe dream? Am I always going to look back and see the errors, inconsistencies and literary solecisms in my work ?

This time around, with a manuscript the same length as my previous three novels combined, redrafting is essential. Quite frankly, I’ve overwritten the beginning and underwritten the ending in my rush to finish it. I know what the problems are, I’ve had some feedback from readers that ranges the gamut from compelling mastery (yes, that was from family) to finding it difficult to read (someone more objective). The problem is, and will always be, resisting that intense urge to finish it, wrap it up in a bow and send it off right now. Common advice publishers, agents and established authors give aspiring writers is to rewrite more; you’ve spent all that time writing the first draft, so why not spend a little bit more and polish it up?

So, looking down the barrel of three years of working on a single project, I start to wonder if it’s even of a standard that will be acceptable in a professional market, even after the rewrites. What if it isn’t? Can I accept that it was something that I used to further hone my skills? Can it be a stepping stone to (fingers crossed) future success? To be honest, that’s bloody hard to accept. I don’t have that many books in me and this one took a lot out. To think that all those hours won’t result in a shiny new novel in my hands is very hard to take. And I’m not talking about money (not only). I’m talking about the recognition and reinforcement and validation that comes from having your work accepted by other professionals. It’s easy to say that I write for writing’s sake, for the story, for the act of creation, for the achievement, but I don’t. I write to create stories that others will enjoy. Money may follow, but it hasn’t yet, and may never, so I can dream of it, but I think I have proven to myself that I’m not writing for money.

These are common themes for authors, I would guess. And for artists of all kinds. They are the core of why writing novels can be so demanding. It’s easy to see the final version of a story and be in awe of an author being able to write something so good. In reality, he or she probably didn’t. It was built up, a layer cake of work that resulted in the final version.

So, on that note, in an attempt to aspire to a certain level of quality, I redraft.