For Those Who Love Truth- Interview with Lee C. McIntyre- with update

Yes, we've been doing a lot of interviews here, because there are so many cool writers doing great work! Here's one that's a bit different, as Lee is publishing so far in the non-fiction world.
But we'll be talking about fiction- specifically why so many people believe in things that aren't true, even when shown the truth.
Disclaimer- those who are offended by facts, and prefer their opinions over verified science and reality should not read further. They are likely to have some beliefs challenged by a rational thinker. 

Bio:
Lee McIntyre is a Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University and an Instructor in Ethics at Harvard Extension School. He holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor). He has taught philosophy at Colgate University, Boston University, Simmons College, Tufts Experimental College, and Harvard Extension School.

His most recent book is Respecting Truth:Willful Ignorance in the Internet Age (Routledge, 2015)

in which he explores the problem of why people sometimes refuse to believe something even when they have good evidence that it is true. In a forthcoming book, Post-Truth – which will be part of the “essential knowledge” series at MIT Press – he explores the recent attack on facts and truth since the 2016 Presidential election.

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Q. Lee, you wrote this book well before the current climate of a mass disbelief in facts. Did you see all this coming? Please tell us a bit about the origin.

A. I wouldn’t say I “saw it coming” because I had hoped it wouldn’t get to this point, but the idea of “denialism” was certainly out there and I was fighting against it. One of the most maddening things is that the tactics which were successfully used to obfuscate the truth about things like evolution, climate change, and vaccines have now made the jump to ALL factual topics. It used to be that political ideology was keeping people from believing the truth about science. Now it’s about things like whether it rained during Trump’s inauguration or whether the murder rate is going up. This is distressing because we’re moving in the wrong direction. 

Q. For some of us, it's frightening and impossible to understand how millions of people can just choose not to believe in reality, and still function. Tell us how this comes about.

A. It’s pretty frightening to me too, even though I’m trying to understand it better. In my new book Post-Truth, I’m examining some psychological research that has explored the question of disbelief in the face of evidence. What they’ve found is that we are wired with cognitive biases that can smooth the path toward irrationality. I don’t think anyone can really explain how evolution allows this (what’s the reward for disbelieving in truth?) but it is there, at the neural level. Of course, we’ve known for years that emotion, desire, and motivation can color our beliefs. Way  back in the 1950s Solomon Asch was doing work that showed that if you put someone in a room with others, and they all gave the wrong answer to a factual question, he’d do it too. These were situations where it was easy to tell that the answer was wrong, but there is a strong human desire to conform. Unfortunately, this is exacerbated by getting positive feedback for your mistakes, so when people hunker down in a news silo or a chat room where they are believing in wild things but everyone around them is too, they don’t get the kind of negative feedback that is necessary to change their beliefs. Belief becomes tribal. More recent psychological work has shown that once we get to this level, it is very hard to convince someone to change their mind, even when the facts are in their face. They just don’t see it. It’s not that they are being stubborn: they literally can’t see the truth anymore.

Q. Can you give an example?

A. Sure. During the 2016 election, conservative voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin were targeted with a deluge of fake news in their Facebook feeds. This was a coordinated attack by Russia, where they hired thousands of hackers to produce ridiculously false and horrible stories about Hillary Clinton. You’d hope that people would be able to apply some critical reasoning skills and know that these weren’t true, but when your friends are passing the same stories back and forth, one might begin to wonder: “Does Hillary have a brain tumor?” “Did she organize a child sex slave ring out of a Washington DC pizza restaurant?” This sounds absurd, but in politics you ignore absurd stories at your peril. Remember the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” during the 2004 election, who were trying to make the case that John Kerry was a coward in Vietnam? He didn’t want to “dignify” it with a comment for two weeks. By then it was too late. When people hear false stories over and over again, and their friends are talking about them, they are more likely to believe it.

Q. What do you feel is the main reason people believe something obviously untrue?

A. It’s called motivated reasoning. In short, they want to believe it. If someone wants to believe something then there is an easy pathway in their brain to try to make it true. Daniel Kahneman talks about this in his wonderful book Thinking Fast and Slow. When we hear something that we want to be true, we engage in something called “confirmation bias,” which is when we go out and look for reasons to think that the belief is right. But the problem is that if you’re on the hunt for reasons to believe something you’re probably going to find it, even if the belief is wrong. This is why science has so much invested in testing a hypothesis – in trying to disconfirm a theory. You don’t learn much by examining evidence that one of your beliefs is true, you learn by trying to find evidence that it’s not. But who is going to take the time to do this? When we all got our news from the same media sources, there was more opportunity to work from the same set of facts. Now a lot of the alternative media are simply making things up, and no one can tell what the facts are anymore.

Q. Why is this mindset dangerous?

A. The main reason is that it’s so easy. Like I said, it’s wired in. Whether we’re liberal or conservative, our brains are set up to engage in a process that feels a lot like thinking, but it really isn’t. In the past, it may have felt safe to dismiss the kind of people who believed in conspiracy theories about climate change or government surveillance. Now those people are running the White House. And it’s dangerous at a general societal level too. Remember that fake news story about Hillary Clinton running a child sex slave ring?  A deranged man read the story and showed up at the pizza restaurant where it was allegedly taking place and fired off a few rounds from his shotgun. An even better example occurred a few weeks later when the Pakistani Defense minister read a fake news story that said that Israel would nuke Pakistan if they sent any ground troops to Syria. He immediately threatened nuclear retaliation against Israel. Fake news can get people killed.

Q. When public officials go on record with "alternate facts," do they know they're lying, or are they blinded by their ideology?

A. That’s a good question and it’s hard to know. There is a long tradition in American politics of “spinning,” which is putting the most favorable face on a set of facts. But I think we’re way beyond that now. It’s not necessarily that they know they’re lying, but maybe they’re not really sure what’s a lie and what’s the truth anymore. When you watch Kellyanne Conway , I think that most of the time she’s lying and she knows it. She’s too good at what she does to avoid the truth so assiduously. It must be a deliberate campaign of obfuscation. That said, some have argued that the best way to deceive others is to deceive yourself first. We saw this back on election night in 2008. Remember when Karl Rove was doing the color commentary for FOX News and he just wouldn’t accept that Obama had won the election? Even though FOX had already called it, he kept insisting that the numbers were wrong and that when a few more counties came in from Ohio, Romney would win “in a landslide.” That is delusion. That is someone who is so deep into their ideology that they can’t see the facts anymore. The goal is to stop people from getting to that point. Every lie has an audience. Even if you can’t convince the liar, what about the people who are listening? If we can stop someone before they make that slide from ignorance to “willful ignorance” to full blown denialism (or delusion), then we’ve done a good thing. But Karl Rove? I think he’s a lost cause. Kellyanne Conway too, because even if she’s aware of what she’s doing, she’ll never admit it.

Q. Tell us what rational, thinking people can do to counter this mass hysteria.

A. Fight back. Don’t let a lie go unchallenged. Keep relentlessly pushing the truth. The problem occurs when people are only hearing one side of the narrative. Propagandists have known this since Joseph Goebbels and probably before. It’s called the “reiteration effect.” If you hear something over and over you are more likely to believe it’s true. There is also something called “source amnesia,” which is when you remember the message, but forget whether it came from a reliable source. People who want to get others to believe their lies capitalize on this and they have to be fought. One of the most encouraging things I’ve read recently comes out of some of psychological research which shows that  if you just keep hammering people “right between the eyes” with the facts, eventually is has an effect. At first they resist and it may even backfire, but you can also break through. Also, remember that if someone hears the same facts from more than one source it will help them to believe it. The reiteration effect works both ways. Truth is a powerful weapon. And remember: all of these “irrational” people don’t think that they’re being irrational. In their mind, they’re looking for the truth too. (We know this from fiction right? The villain is the hero of his own narrative). We can capitalize on this. Give them some facts that challenge the narrative of lies they’re being fed by the ideologues and the propagandists.

Q. Is there anything we can do to keep this from happening in the first place?

A. Teach critical thinking! And teach it early. I just read about a 5th grade teacher in California who was teaching his students how to spot fake news. He made a game out of it. He gave them a rubric such as “look for copyright” and “look for a date on the story.” Simple things. Things a fifth grader could do. And they LOVED it. He said he can’t get them to go out for recess now until they play “the fake news game.” That is the right track. Also we forget that the expectation of objectivity in a news source is a fairly recent luxury. The concept of objectivity didn’t even exist for American news until about the 1830s and didn’t really catch on until the scourge of “yellow journalism” in the 1890s. People need to learn how to be skeptical of what they are reading again. We need to engage our brains and expect to question things. And if we want more objective, fact-checked, double-sourced, investigative journalism we should darn well be prepared to pay for it. I bought a subscription to both the New York Times and the Washington Post just after the election. I hear a lot of other people had the same idea.

Q. If someone came to you for advice on how to deal with the current political situation, how would you help?

A. This is a tough one, because I’m a philosopher and not a political activist. But the one thing I’d say is don’t give up. Stand up for what you believe in and make sure your elected representatives know how you feel. Truth matters. Facts matter. But your voice matters too. If you don’t make a statement about your beliefs they will get drowned out.

Q. Give us a bit of hope, some good news about all this.

A. It may seem that we have given up on truth, but that is not true. Even when people are going to be personally hurt by something that is true, they are reluctant to destroy it. Nixon kept the Watergate tapes. Criminals keep souvenirs. Why do we do this? Because I think that at some level people have a deep desire to know that the truth exists, even if they want to ignore it for a while. It’s like taking a kayak out into the ocean. It’s fun and exhilarating, but you want to make sure to keep the shoreline in sight.

Q. When you wrote Respecting Truth, did you map a good deal out in your head (or even outline) before crafting, or did you piece together ideas until a form came about?

A. I had been working on the issue of science denial for quite some time, so a lot of the outline was already there. But then I had to really dig into the examples and figure out how to make them accessible for a general audience. Another challenge was to figure out how to write a book where I was offering some perspective on the topic, while still telling a story. Philosophy is so argument oriented that we sometimes forget people are more convinced by an example or a story than a syllogism. I always outline. I can’t help it. But when I sit down to write it’s an act of pure serendipity. I’ve got all of these sources and pieces of things I want to say and I just draw on them and put them together. I guess it’s sort of like quilting (though I’ve never done that). You have the pieces but you have to be ready for snags and surprises along the way.

Q. What would you want a reader to take away from reading this book?

A. That it is possible to understand why science denial is happening and that we can do something about it. My goal in writing these days is to engage the general reader. I still write some technical philosophy that’s primarily for my professional colleagues, but I enjoy the challenge of trying to reach a wider audience as well. In Respecting Truth, I want to think clearly about issues that are important to all of us, and draw the public into debates that might have seemed closed off. Truth and reason have been the subject of philosophy for the past 2400 years. All of a sudden they’re sexy topics. I think we need to embrace that.

Q. Who should we be reading and listening to now? Are there writers with similar themes to yours? Who are your influences (can be writers, or even artists, musicians, or others) and what is it about their work that attracts you?

A. Everyone who is interested in the story of how we came to be at a point where facts and truth are in question should read Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway’s book Merchants of Doubt. It is a devastating history of how denialism over scientific topics (like smoking, acid rain, ozone, and climate change) has been manufactured by those who had money at stake. Ideology often has deep roots in economic interests. I don’t write about that aspect of it myself, but this book is great background for anyone who thinks it is all ideology. One of the most profoundly important books I’ve read in recent years is Robert Trivers’s The Folly of Fools, which talks about the role of deception and self-deception in human behavior. Trivers is a biologist, but he writes like a dream, and his insights are marvelous. In philosophy, I enjoy the work of Michael Lynch, Noretta Koertge, and Alex Rosenberg. In social science, there’s been some stunning work done by Sheena Iyengar, Brendan Nyhan, Jason Reifler, Daniel Kahneman, and Cass Sunstein. Some of my favorite “general audience” writers about similar topics are Robert Wright and Michael Shermer.

Q. Any goals you've set for yourself, professionally or personally? What's the next step in your writing world?

A. In addition to Post-Truth, I’m currently working on a book about scientific reasoning. At heart, I’m a philosopher of science and I have a theory of what’s so special about scientific reasoning. That’s not quite a general audience issue, but I’m writing it as clearly as possible, because I think that these days especially it’s an important issue for all of us. Post-Truth is a book that I’m really excited about. It’s short, pointed, and goes right to the heart of what I think is the main threat to our society today. But it’s also much more political than anything I’ve ever written. I’ve joked with my wife that if they ever start having political prisoners in the USA, they’ll have a cell waiting for me. I’m also an aspiring novelist. I love to read Joe Finder, Harlan Coben, and Linwood Barclay. I remember sitting on a beach one day reading John Grisham saying “I’ll bet I could do that…how hard can it be?” That was in 2004.

Q. Tell us a fun fact about yourself.

A. I once sat in the cockpit of an F-15 Eagle and got a perfect score on the Secret Service test to detect counterfeit money (not on the same day). I’ve also had a painting rejected by the Museum of Bad Art (not because it was too good, I can assure you).

Addendum: Lee now has a piece that has been accepted into the the permanent collection of the Museum of Bad Art.
Congratulations! Keep after your dreams to make them happen!

Q. Any other information you'd like to impart?

A. I believe that reading is our strongest weapon against tyranny.

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Web page: leemcintyrebooks.com/

Where to buy:  https://www.amazon.com/Respecting-Truth-Willful-Ignorance-Internet/dp/1138888818/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492098049&sr=8-1&keywords=lee+mcintyre

It's a Wonderful Life- in Publishing

Saw an online discussion recently that made me think of a comparison, of how publishing is a bit like the movie It's A Wonderful Life.

Say what? Well, let's take a look. The Big Five traditional publishing companies often act like a group of Mr. Potters, the richest, greediest, and meanest men in town. Note that this whole comparison thing is a generalization, and not all of the people and groups are exactly representative, but as a whole, group efforts certainly do invite the comparison.

The Big Five sit on an excess of wealth, while many authors are scrabbling for enough money to pay a few bills. The Big Five engage in "sharp practice," refuse to pay all but a few authors a fair wage, and have an arrogance and a sneering contempt for the riff-raff and "garlic eaters" (authors and readers). For a prime example, look at Don Maass' public remarks about publishers "culling the prize cattle from the herd" (http://writerunboxed.com/2014/02/05/the-new-class-system/). There are many other utterances from people in the publishing industry expressing similar derision and scorn for writers, who are the very people that supply them with a comfortable living.

For a long time, crawling to the Potters was the only practical way to get published and read. Then along comes George Bailey, in the form of Jeff Bezos. He creates Amazon, which serves as the Bailey Building and Loan. It allowed authors to get published, distributed, and read, at such low cost all can afford it. And the world changed. Like owning your own home in Bailey Park, you can now publish your own book and forego being subservient to the Potters and whatever scraps they decide to toss your way. The Potters of the industry want the suckers to continue paying them rent forever, but many of the riff-raff authors have wised up, and are flocking to the Bailey Building and Loan, to strike out on their own. Maybe they won't have the biggest mansion in town, but they'll have something good- which most didn't have a chance at before.

And it drives the Potters absolutely insane. The Big Five and their cohorts publish hundreds of screechy, non-factual articles trashing Amazon for one thing or another, to the point where people amusedly call it "Amazon Derangement Syndrome," or ADS for short. There's one particular lapdog of the Potters at the New York Times who suffers from ADS in the extreme, and who writes a non-stop series of shrill screeds against Amazon, enough so that his name on a piece is enough to induce chuckles in those who follow industry news, because they know all the false arguments that will follow. No fact-checking or true journalism required- apparently, hating the most successful retailer and writing hit pieces on them is enough to get one a nice gig at the NYT.

If you ask the Potters why authors cannot get paid a little more equitably, say like 50% on ebook revenue instead of the measly 25% they now receive, you get a song-and-dance about how they're suffering. Oh, the poor Potters with their plush Manhattan offices, expense accounts, bonuses, and six-figure salaries are enduring such misery because they're dedicated to Art. Meanwhile, the Bailey Building and Loan gives authors 70%, and still makes money. You'd think there's a lesson there, but it's one the Potters don't want to learn, even though they're losing customers in droves.

I had an online discussion with one of the Potters, and he insisted they couldn't pay authors more, because everyone else in the publishing industry had to get paid, and did I want all those other people to go without? I told him that authors were not responsible for the salary of everyone else but themselves, and he might not want to keep saying that the only people that shouldn't get fairly paid are the content providers, without who, no one else in that field would be getting paid anything. It's a weird, inverted-pyramid style of thinking.

The Potters got rich because they had no competition for many years but each other. With the rise of ebooks and Amazon and other media, they now have a rapidly-shrinking market share, and it scares the daylights out of them. Then successful independent author (Bailey customer) Hugh Howey comes along, and with the help of a data guru, puts out quarterly reports that show most people would be better off with the Bailey Building and Loan route than with the Potters. And the Potters go bananas, calling the reports a pack of filthy lies, even though the reports painstakingly show how the data is gathered. To date, no one has offered better data- the Potters simply insist it cannot be true, because they don't want it to be.

The Potters say that authors shouldn't support the Bailey Building and Loan, because someday the BB&L will turn on its loyal customers, and give them less money. Well, that may be (or more likely not), but for now, all those authors are getting their books published and getting paid something for them. Some are even doing rather well.

The Potters are greedy, and so they charge too much for their ebooks in many cases, driving people to the Baileys in greater numbers. The Potter authors themselves know they'd sell more if the prices were lower, but the Potters don't care about stuff like that.

And with the Bailey Building and Loan, an author doesn't need a Potter contract, a devilish device designed to put most authors at a major disadvantage in publishing. And an author can get the cover they want, because many Potter authors get stuck with crappy stock art, or a cover that has nothing to do with the contents of the book.

Some people want to deal with the Potters, thinking it makes them better. Less than five years ago, I got an account with the Bailey Building and Loan, and have been doing great since. I'm happy about not having to deal with any Potters. I just don't care for their business methods, and their snotty attitude toward writers. I'm publishing and selling quality books in all formats and platforms, and gaining new fans all the time.

So just like the movie, It's a Wonderful Life- in Publishing. Thanks, George. Maybe, like Clarence, you'll get your wings.

What a Year So Far

Well, of the things that could have started the year off, most of us didn't expect the spate of mortality among the arts. The loss of a number of iconic musicians and actors within a hideously short time frame has come as a shock to many. People are reeling and wondering who might be next. The mood of the new year is somber.

And this holiday today is a reminder of what happened to one who was working to make a profound difference.

Few of us know the number of our days. We should try to make the most of each one of them, enjoy, and live well.

Some have asked why I work so hard to produce books and stories so quickly. I fear being cut off before I can get these tales told, and I have so many to tell. So I'm pushing like a freight train, racing time to produce what I can while I'm here.

Books are a time machine, and I'm trying to speak to people that may not have even been born yet. If I can communicate to them in meaningful words, then my time here was well spent.

I approach the craft with a will to make it good, make it right. This quote captures it:

So live well. And do something meaningful. Make your time here count in some way.

The New Cinderellas- A Modern Fairy Tale of Writing and Publishing

Let me tell you of a kingdom that possessed many small magical items of bound paper. These items contained stories, and had been produced for hundreds of years, and there were more of them than a person could look over in a lifetime. Some items could be used for knowledge, some for entertainment. Not everyone used the magical items, but those who did and used them wisely enjoyed them and had their lives enriched.

These items were created by men and women who crafted the items and tried to sell them for gold so they could have more time to create even more magical items. And though people could get many of these magical items for free, still they paid for some. 

For many years, the sale of magical items was done mostly to shops throughout the land, and was controlled by the city of Kroywen. The shops would then sell to those who wanted the items. There were many factions in Kroywen directing the lives and careers of those who produced the magical paper items. Many of these controllers cared about well-crafted items and the folk who produced them.

Then came The Time of Consolidation, when factions rose and fell, until there remained only five large factions of controllers. Though most were owned by foreign kingdoms, these factions built ornate palaces in Kroywen, and entertained themselves with rich banquets and lavish lifestyles. They had huge staffs to support the controlling of items. But they began to care more about the gold the items brought in than the items themselves, the ones who made them, or the ones who bought them. They made great sums of gold from tales of sparkly, blood-drinking, romantic, creatures, or tales about creepy, rich, older men tying up and seducing young women, but all the while they insisted that they were the arbiters of taste. They grew haughty and proud, and no longer wished to have those who made the items to approach them directly.

So they determined that item-makers must use Fairy Godmothers, who would screen all magical items, and only send a small portion of those to the palaces for perusal and possible purchase. The Fairy Godmothers would now be the deal-brokers-- and by default, the judges of what would sell. For this, they would take a goodly share of the gold that the items sold for. Some Fairy Godmothers had worked in the palaces and could bargain well in an item sale, and procured a larger share of gold for the item-makers. But anyone could set up as a Fairy Godmother, and some made horrible deals that cost the item-makers much gold, and even careers.

To sell an item, a maker had to send a carefully-written scroll to the Fairy Godmothers, describing the item. Then the maker must wait for long periods of time, in hopes that the Fairy Godmothers might read the scroll and ask to see the item. Those the Fairy Godmothers deemed that had potential to make much gold they passed on to the palaces, and there was rejoicing when items were sold, and all shared in the gold. After another long period of time, the items went to the shops, where the people of the land might come and buy.

The item-makers whose items sold well were elevated as princes and princesses by those who lived in the palaces. The top makers were exalted and showered with honors and riches, and were said to be anointed and above the common folk, true nobles of worth. For their items provided those in the palaces with fine lives.

Many item-makers throughout the kingdom dreamed of making an item of true worth, and being noticed by the palace people, and maybe even becoming a prince or princess. They were Cinderellas, waiting for a Fairy Godmother to come pretty them up and stamp them with approval to prepare them to meet a rich, powerful, noble of the palace who would snatch them from a life of drudgery. So they made items and wrote scroll after scroll to the Fairy Godmothers, who had such a backlog of scrolls to read, they sometimes never responded to many of the petitions. And thousands of fine magic items went unbought by the palaces, and unsold to folk who would delight in them.

For hundreds of years, the magic items were made of paper. But then the koobe was created, and magic paperless items could be sold to everyone, even to those who lived in faraway huts, without access to a shop that sold magic items. It was a thunderous change, and caused a great turmoil in the land. Still, the old ways were best, and continued much as they had. Those who lived in the palaces sneered at the new way, and knew their grip on paper items was eternal. And since the shops that sold magical items refused to sell items not blessed by the palace seals of approval, it seemed true.

But a wizard named Sozeb opened a shop that sold magic items, both of paper and of the new way. He called it Nozama, and would sell any magic item from any maker, to all parts of the kingdom, a shop that was always open to all. He would even have the item delivered: without paper, one could use it instantly, and even the paper items were brought to one's door in mere days. And many of these items sold for far less than palace prices. The folk of the land embraced this new way, and much gold flowed to Nozama, causing the palace folk to wail and gnash their teeth and rant against the wizard Sozeb and his creation. For each piece of gold that went to him for items was one that did not go into the coffers of the palaces. Yet though they cursed him and his shop, the palaces still sent him their items to sell, a curious thing.

With the popularity of Nozama and other shops like it, the item-makers realized they now had a way to sell magic items to people without great expense. They no longer needed the palaces, whose doors were mostly closed to them anyway. Nor did they need the Fairy Godmothers, and the long wait to get one. They took joy in this new way, for Sozeb and his shop paid them more for each item sold than even the palaces did. They did not care to deal with the palace people, many of whom looked down upon item-makers as cattle of the field. The palace people scorned the small amounts of gold earned by independent item-makers, not understanding that to these Cinderellas, some gold was far better than no gold.

Some independent item-makers even grew rich and told many others of the new way. A maker called Htarnok even said that paper items were not as important as the koobe, that his wealth came from Nozama and the new paperless items. He taunted the people of the palaces, who issued many foolish proclamations.

Those who had been treated well by the palace people refused to consider the new ways. They enjoyed being royalty, and saw no reason to change. A famous Prince, Izlacs by name, proclaimed that he was being offered a mountain of gold for ten years of service and thirteen magic items. This was wonderful news for him and for all item-makers, but some said that if Izlacs had left the palaces, he could have made two mountains of gold if he had done as they counseled. They said he should not be happy with a mere mountain of gold. Izlacs, who had won the palace game, laughed all the way to the counting house.

But even some princes and princesses who had lived long in the palaces were troubled. The new palace model was to go big, or go away. There was far less gold being paid for each item, and many makers were banished from the palaces because their items had not earned enough. They craved the boon of staying to rub elbows with the glittering palace nobles, but now they would have to go to the markets and hawk their items, just like the independent makers. Many of the lesser princes and princesses were being offered so little for their items, they found that astonishing numbers of the village makers earned more gold. And they were stunned to find that they themselves might make more gold away from the palaces. This was magic indeed.

In the village marketplace, the item-makers had no servants, just temporary helpers they would hire to assist them in making and selling magic items. Many helped each other, and saw the way of mongering as cooperative, not competitive. They found new ways to sell their wares, and shared this information with other sellers. And some prospered. Most found it worth their while to keep making and selling items, which was better than before, when they could sell nothing.

Some did not do well, of course, with items of poor quality and worse selling techniques, and these were the ones the palaces seized upon as examples and denounced as typical of non-palace goods and sellers. The palaces and their sycophants paid heralds to cry out against the new ways, the independent item-makers, and most of all, the wizard Sozeb and his successful shop. But it was like shouting against the incoming tide. Villagers would pay for good magic items and did not care where the item was made, or which noble of which palace had blessed it with approval. Without a palace to support, the independent makers could sell their items for less than the palaces charged, which meant people could buy more of them. And this made everyone but the palace nobles happy.

Don't you just love a happy ending?

How to Save Big Publishing- Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Have a safe and enjoyable holiday.

In the spirit of giving, here's a plan to save Big Publishing. How's that for generosity!

These days, traditional publishing in the U.S. is controlled by five multinational companies, with offices in Manhattan. Because they are profit-driven, they want big-selling books, and don't want to bother with the ones that don't sell much. Oh, they'll tell you how they're still the Guardians of Culture, but any look at their catalog shows their devotion to the bottom line.

And they say they're hurting, despite larger profits from the sale of ebooks. Because with ebooks, one doesn't need to mess about with printing, shipping, storage, or returns. So in many cases, they're actually making more. But they say it isn't enough, they want more.

A big part of the problem is that they want sure winners, all-blockbusters. But it's near impossible to accurately predict the big sellers, unless it's a Stephen King book. So their business plan is based on gambling- putting out enough big sellers every year to offset the losses from the books that didn't sell as well.

And they're notoriously bad at picking which books to publish. Part of this is that some years ago the publishing houses decided they didn't want to read submissions anymore, they'd let agents do the screening for them. An agent is supposedly someone who knows the book business and can help an author connect a manuscript with a publisher. They advise the author on the arcane publishing contracts- despite, in most cases, having no law experience. One does not need any sort of licensing or qualification to be called an agent, they can just stick up a shingle and begin business.

So the Big houses want good books to publish, but they're using a faulty system to find candidates. Here's a plan that will help them, and maybe save them bundles of money so they can keep their Manhattan offices. Hey, maybe they could even pay authors more!

In the Indie publishing world, authors are putting books out and letting readers decide if they want to buy it or not. They go direct to the readers, unlike Big Publishing, who deals with bookstores, not readers.

Follow this plan- crowdsource potential manuscripts. Get an x number of screeners, who would be happy to volunteer their opinion (see Goodreads). Manuscripts go out to the screeners electronically, who then vote to publish or not. Most of the cost is collating the data. Track the reader choices: reward the ones who consistently select better-selling books, and drop the ones with higher failure rates.

This way, a publishing house could screen a vast number of potential books for minimal cost, and have a better record of hits for the better ones. It's not one agent or one editor doing the screening, it's several hundred power-readers, who'll do a much better job.

So there's the plan- simple, easy, inexpensive, and win-win for everybody. How about it, New York? Then you can stop complaining about Amazon.

Amazon vs. Big Pub vs.Writers- Who's David, Who's Goliath?

Malcolm Gladwell’s book, David and Goliath, made me think about the whole Amazon/Hachette spat as a parable. Hugh Howey started talking about David and Goliath again.

Because the big media companies continue to distribute falsehoods attacking Amazon, I've looked at this issue before:
Is Amazon Evil, With a Plan to Destroy the Universe?

Amazon and Hachette- Godzilla vs. Mothra

Up until recently, the Big 5’s control of commercial book distribution was near-monopolistic. So say they represent 5 Goliaths with a huge support system, the Philistine Army. They controlled what was sold, how it was sold, and prices. They stomped around and said that nothing was of value unless it went through them, and they took their massive cut for middle-manning. They justified this, because supplying such a huge empire and army was expensive.

Thousands of lyrical shepherds wished to sell their stories and songs, but few could effectively challenge so powerful an army. Some select and lucky shepherds who went begging to the Philistines got paid off with the chance to get their stories in places where others could discover them, so that they might be sold.

One day a caravan named for a river arrived and changed everything. They travelled to all ends of the earth, selling stories for any shepherd, for much more than the Philistines paid. No more begging was involved, and they even handed each shepherd a sling. And many shepherds sold stories which the people craved.

Since the shepherds didn’t have grand armies to support, they could live by selling fewer stories, so many didn’t bother getting permission from the Philistines, who raged at losing control and their cut of profits. The Philistines demanded battle, and lumbered to the field with heavy armor and weapons.

What happened was extraordinary. Whizzing stones peppered the Goliaths, as an army of speedy, lightly-clad Davids fired back in response. No slow Goliath could catch any of the nimble shepherds, they could only rail against the unfairness of it all. “That’s not how battles are fought!”

The shepherds don’t need the Philistines around anymore, they just want to sell stories however they can. But the dismayed Philistines need to support their huge army, and keep demanding battle, saying the caravan that sells is evil, and will someday hurt the shepherds.

The shepherds shrug and figure they’ll find another caravan if that happens. In the meantime, they’re doing rather well without any Philistine involvement.

Is Amazon Evil, With a Plan to Destroy the Universe?

Elizabeth K. Burton commented on a previous post.
http://daletphillips.blogspot.com/2014/05/amazon-and-hachette-godzilla-vs-mothra.html
Thank you for weighing in- good food for thought, because authors really need to think this through.
 
It's truly a battle of mega-monsters, who will no doubt trample a lot of us little folk underfoot, whoever wins. And it may well result in the outcome Elizabeth brings up.
There's some pretty big stakes for us all here- future selling capability. There's a few more places to check out for commentary, the wonderful Hugh Howey and the irascible Chuck Wendig. Different slants here, but good to get a broad picture, and fair input from pretty savvy people with skin in the game.
http://www.hughhowey.com/
http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2014/06/03/amazon-hachette-and-giant-stompy-corporations/

My words in the last post were inadequate to the whole picture. And Elizabeth caught me mixing my metaphors, when I should have explained in more detail. Let's explore some more.

The previous title reflects the real battle-- between two giant corporations, rather than big old bully Amazon is picking on a poor little Mom-and-Pop shop, as has been the slant in a number of pieces by media apologists for Hachette's side. The big publishing house and their parent corporation have an immense amount of resources at their call, and have been pushing for hearts and minds in the media.

The weakling vs the sumo image comes in when we see Hachette try to push Amazon into doing things the Hachette way, instead of how Amazon wants to do it.

Big Publishing has had at least five years to adjust to the new world, but it seems all they can do is keep blaming Amazon for unfairly taking away their divine right of massive profits. They keep making it too damn easy for Amazon to beat them senseless, and hand Bezos ever-bigger clubs to do it with.

Amazon is just way better at this game, much more versatile, and craftier, thinking long-game, while the Big Pub moves seem clumsy, short-sighted, and ill-intentioned. See how Amazon completely and easily disemboweled the argument about hurting individual writers with their offer of loss compensation to be matched by Hachette.  Hachette grumpily refused (at least seemed to), in typical, ham-handed fashion. Low-hanging fruit with a huge PR win, and all Big Pub does is reload and shoot their other foot.

First, let's accept one thing- any extra money Hachette gets from any deal is not likely to go into author pockets, but rather to Hachette profits. Ditto for higher book prices. Many commentators are rightly pointing out that Hachette, as part of the Big Publishing conglomerates, is currently taking unfair advantage of authors. Heck, we have the public confession by several of their writers that working for that cartel is like grubbing for change, and if the current author Hachette book doesn’t sell properly, they’re screwed, no matter how successful they’ve been in the past.
Ouch. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for a business partner…

Okay, it’s not a holy war, it’s not the Fellowship against Mordor, it’s big monsters contending for how much pie they’ll eat in the future. But one group is doing bad stuff RIGHT NOW, and the other side is… currently treating us pretty decently…

Amazon has made it possible for hundreds, or thousands of authors to get paid (at much higher wages) for their work on their terms. We are approaching a time (if we haven’t made it there already) when more authors can make a living outside of Big Pub than inside.

And that, my friends, is what has Big Pub scared shirtless. They have to fight this idea tooth and nail. Because when the smart authors figure out they can make more money over the long run and be treated better by NOT rushing to Big Pub, Big Pub not only loses profits, but is in grave danger. That’s why they froth over the Author Earnings reports from Hugh Howey and Data Guy, who are extrapolating the data, and showing that now there are two very viable options, and one has much higher odds of success.
http://authorearnings.com/updates/

But, as many have counseled- diversify! Don’t put all your author eggs into any one basket, Big Pub or Amazon. Use multiple outlets to distribute and sell books. Mark Coker of Smashwords must be loving this dust-up, because he’s going to be a clear winner, as many authors realize he offers a terrific place to sell ebooks.

As for Barnes and Noble, why is it so hard for them to get decent customer service and a website that doesn’t suck? With millions at stake, they look like they just don’t care. Maybe they’ve just given up, which would be a shame. It’s good to have market alternatives.

So suppose Amazon gains even bigger control of the market, and pulls off their mask to reveal the Face of Evil underneath. Suppose they give a giant F-U to the writing and reading world. Could they get away with reducing author ebook share to 50-50, or even less, if they were the only game in town? Maybe. Note that it would still be more than Big Pub! But you’d hear thundering hooves as many left the fold. They reduced the author share on ACX by a few percent, and the resulting firestorm would have made you think they ate babies. Many would continue with them, but alternatives would spring up fast, and people would split as soon as it was viable.
Not saying it may not happen, just not happening today.

Neither company is your friend. Neither is a religion. As a writer today, you view distributors and publishers as business partners who are temporary, as long as they benefit you. Last night, someone at the writing group was asking who to publish with. We told them “depends on the contract terms.” Right now, Amazon is treating authors as more of a partner, while Hachette is treating authors as serfs.

You have a choice on who to deal with. Make yours wisely, and plan for today and the future.

Amazon and Hachette- Godzilla vs. Mothra

With so much stupid in the world and on the Internet- even more so lately- it's tough to pick out just one thing to comment on. But here goes.
It's a long one, because The Stupid, like The Force, is strong in this one.

Many folks are up in arms because a Big Publisher (Hachette) is engaged in a business struggle with Amazon. Two multibillion-dollar corporate giants duking it out to see who gets a bigger piece of future pie. So what? You might say.

Well, their struggle is affecting others, most notably the writers who signed contracts with Hachette. These voluntary indentured servants are now screaming that Amazon is evil and mean, and the poor writers won't be able to pay their mortgage anymore, and the world will perish in flames.

Well, maybe not all of that last part. But pretty close to it.

And the media hops on the Amazon-bashing bandwagon, with more stories echoing the lies and distortions. And people who get paid big bucks by the huge publishing conglomerates speak out against Amazon with ever-greater hyperbole and mouth-frothing, which also gets echoed, since the big publishing corporations have big media mouthpieces. They shriek that Amazon is killing literature, culture, and democracy, Jeff Bezos is running the Death Star, and we're all going to die, because Amazon kills books (and possibly writers)!

The stupid... it burns!!!

Not exaggerating much here. Go ahead and Google Amazon- Hachette and start reading. Site links at bottom, just as a starting point, where you can find further links and commentary.
But bring plenty of popcorn, because it's a dumbfight of epic proportions.

Much of this stems from a malady called Amazon Derangement Syndrome (ADS), in which the sufferer feels their livelihood is threatened by a popular e-commerce site open to all. So they go a wee bit crazy denouncing the evil Zon and everything they do (like giving convenience, lower prices and a chance for publication to many).

So let's explore the current situation. Hachette and the other Big Publishers failed in a previous attempt to force Amazon to raise their prices-- the Department of Justice took a dim view of that little failed collaborative coup. Search on DOJ- Agency model.

Hachette is now trying a new tactic, kind of like a 98-pounder trying to out-muscle a Sumo wrestler. We don't know all the details, but Amazon responded by removing the pre-order buttons from some listed Hachette books. And set the online price of some Hachette books to the actual price on that book! Heavens!

Cry Havoc, and let slip the dogs of war...

Some Hachette authors went publicly bananas. Because with the Big Publishing model, an author only has a few weeks to make a splash with a new book. A pre-order (popularized by Amazon, how about that) is thought by some to be an important tool to garner sales velocity for a new release. So they thought their book was impacted. And since the model of Big Publishing is to pay for a book based on sales on the last book by that author, these authors rightly figured they'd get paid less for future work.

Paid less by their publisher, for something that was the publisher's fault... but they're blaming Amazon. Huh?

It gets worse. A couple of them even went so far as to say their living was imperiled, and one implied he wouldn't be able to produce any more books. Sniff...

Yet between two of the most vocal Hachette advocates, they've got over 70 published books.
Over 30 books each, and they won't be able to pay the mortgage? WTF?

Welcome to the world of Big Publishing, who give nothing but peanuts to most of their signed authors. If either of these two authors went Indie and had even half of that published list under their control, they'd be laughing from atop their yacht.

Instead, they would rather work as fearful indentured servants who can be cut loose at any time if their latest book doesn't sell enough, for whatever reasons.
And one missing button can sink their career!

Normally, I'm on the side of authors, but not when they scream and do stupid stuff...

So is Amazon hurting authors? Their response was to make a huge, generous offer. Figure out the author losses, and Amazon would pay half, if Hachette would pony up the other half. Few million bucks worth of goodwill. Since Hachette doesn't really give a crap if their authors make money, they issued a weasel-worded release that pretty much indicated they weren't interested.

Are their authors publicly mad at them for refusing author money?
Nope, somehow Amazon is still the bad guy.

Someone likened this type of behavior to Stockholm Syndrome, where a kidnapped victim overly empathizes with their captors to the point of madness, refusing rescue and saying the captors are in the right.

So a lot of Big Publishing shills and spokespeople have gone public with blood-and-thunder speeches that remind one of Old Testament prophets. Trouble is, they're talking out of their ass. And even when corrected, they ignore the reality and spout their nonsense in the hopes that The People will rise up and fight for Big Publishing profits. The mighty mouth James Patterson, who puts his name on books written by other people, has taken to the pulpit once again to protest for Real Important Literature.

Q: When did ghost-written formula become Real Important Literature?

We get it- if Big Pub puts food on your table (no matter how rich or meager the fare), you hate and fear Amazon, which is the current market reality.

But to the rest of the world, your ranting is silly.
And if you really feel they are truly EVIL, put your money where your big mouth is and pull your damn books from Amazon- you don't have to do business with them, you know.
I don't support companies I feel are evil- why do you? Does sound a bit hypocritical of you...

How can you keep saying that when Amazon sells a book at lower prices, they're evil, but when they raise the price on that book, they're still evil? Seriously?

So-- let's blow up a few of these Big Pub talking points, shall we?

Big Pub dumb point #1- Fight the Amazon monopoly, they say.

In the words of Inigo Montoya, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
For the millionth time, dumbasses, Amazon is NOT a monopoly. Look it up, if you have to.
Just stop using that word, and that argument.

Big Pub dumb point #2- Sure, Big Pub abuses the hell out of authors and readers now, but that's okay, and you should instead be afraid that at some point in the future, Amazon may get worse!

Wow- the Stupid meter goes off the scale on this one. Fear what might happen, rather than what IS happening right now...

Say you walk a route to school, but a bully beats you up every day and takes your lunch money.

One day, someone offers you a different route for a small price, and lets you keep enough for lunch, without the beatings.
But the bully insists that you should stick with the beatings route, because you never know what the other guy might do...
And it's not fair if you take the bully's source of income away...

Big Pub dumb point #3- Higher-priced books are better for Big Pub, and therefore the way to go.

Yeah, we all know you charge too much for an ebook file, because you hate the competition for print books. You overcharge libraries especially, and you love your profits.
But we readers like lower prices, and you know who makes that possible?
Yeah, the one you keep calling the bad guy.

Big Pub dumb point #4- Big Pub are the Guardians of Culture and Literature, and only they should be allowed to judge what is worth reading. Because they're all about quality, and anything that doesn't go through them is nothing but swill.

In recent years, we've seen ever-worse examples of embarrassing, popular best-sellers put out by Big Pub that made them a ton of money. The books were horribly-written crap, that could have been made better with even a minimum of editing. Whereas there are countless examples of good books NOT getting published because they weren't thought commercial enough.
With limited exceptions, Big Pub relies on junk formula and imitative knockoffs.
And some self-published and Indie-published work is quite good, despite the snobbish sniffs from the self-appointed tastemakers. Can't find it if you don't look, however.
And there are thousands of books now making decent to great money that were refused publication by the Guardians. So I guess readers want what they want, huh? Go figure...

Big Pub dumb point #5- Amazon is killing bookstores! No it's not.

Bookstores are making a comeback. But back in the 90's Barnes and Noble helped to kill many independent bookstores with megastores and deep-discount pricing. Oh, look, now B&N is the darling of Big Publication! Because when B&N goes under, Big Pub won't be far behind.

And anybody remember when B&N was having their little tiff with Simon and Schuster, hurting author sales, very much like what is happening now with Hachette and Amazon?

So now B&N are the good guys? How very Orwellian...

Big Pub dumb point #6- Amazon just doesn't play fair! And that costs us money!

Your crappy, stupid business practices lose you money. You've had years to adjust, and you've done nothing but react badly and blame others for your lost market share.
Amazon is constantly adapting. They're smarter, more flexible, and treat readers and writers like customers they want to keep. You treat writers like a red-headed stepchild who should be grateful for the whippings you give them, because it shows you care.
And you act like you're entitled to forever massive profits for doing nothing.
You are a failing business model, so stop complaining that business isn't fair.

Darwin and Spencer made it pretty plain. Adapt or die off.

And please, stop whining.

Great sites talking about this- and read the comments!:

http://www.thepassivevoice.com/ (a number of posts on this and related)

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/

http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2014/05/26/amazon-v-hachette-dont-believe-the-spin/

Business and Writing

Many modern businesses run a particular model of short-term thinking. They deal with investors and stock, and play a game where they predict a dollar amount of how much business they'll do in a 90-day timeframe. The stock price will go up or down depending on how close the actual numbers match the prediction. If things look dicey, a common occurence is to game the system by juggling the numbers to make sure they line up more or less according to prediction.

This is all a silly game. The economy goes up and down, and huge deals involving millions of dollars can take months to sign, and hundreds, if not thousands of people are involved. So many factors, and everyone tries to maintain an illusion of control over events.

Many bad decisions have happened to force things into a particular timeframe. Products get released before they're fully tested, corners get cut, mistakes are made in haste.

Something similar can happen in the modern world of publishing, too. Writers push a work out the door before it's ready, or expect certain earnings and sales within a short timeframe. They obsessively check their "stock price" (sales) every day, sometimes hourly. If books are not flying off the virtual shelves, some writers despair.

Again, a silly game. Many good books take time to garner word-of-mouth and to rise to the top of to-be-read piles. Writing and publishing now should take the long view- and some people think a 5-year window is too long. They want instant success, instant riches. That's not what this game is about. Sure, some have done it, and some of those with inferior products.

Just keep writing and publishing quality works, do what promotion you can, and don't worry about the sales in the short term. You want your business around for a long time, so don't cut corners. Take the time to make the work good. More than good. Make it memorable. Make it to last, not to make a quick buck off the fad of the moment.

The Big Publishing Kerfluffle

There is a revolution going on in publishing, where, for the first time in history, writers can choose how to control their career. Some believe there are only two choices- the traditional model of submitting to big New York publishers- that was the only real way until about 4 years ago, or self-publishing. So some folks pick a side and fight, viewing it as an ideological struggle, or even a religious war, Tradpubs vs. Selfpubs. The battles are waged on internet sites and in the media.

Each side claims dominance in the publishing field, saying they are the better path for a writer. Each points to numbers supporting their opinion, and bitterly attacks any who even hint that they might be wrong.

The well-reasoned voices say that there is no war, only personal choice, and that a writer should self-educate. But whatever they say gets twisted and savaged by one side or the other. For the record, I believe in choice, even when the data and real-life experience shows that one path is truly better for a greater number of writers than the other.

Note that outstanding success with any path of writing and publishing is a matter of luck. Hard work and persistence will improve your chances, but there are no guarantees of success. The trouble is, when a person has succeeded in publishing, they want to attribute the success to their choices, hard work, and persistence. So they naturally tell others "do it my way to succeed!" Any success stories from the other perspective are dismissed as "outliers," statistical anomalies that do not correlate to any other person's chances. They are somewhat correct, but it's not a full picture. Good data is required, but sadly lacking.

In recent events of note, important figures in the Tradpub world have gone public with views on this issue, how they are the True Path of Quality and Success. More often than not, they have come across as uninformed, arrogant, one-percenters who view all self-publishers as unwashed masses who produce nothing but Crap that Will Never Sell, hinting that most Selfpubs deserve a miserable fate of failure and justified poverty. It's really laughable, except when they reveal their true face and insult Selfpubs and others- one noted power-agent referred to writers as cattle. Yup, he did, and most in his world seem to share his views. In all their arguments of what is best, the writer and reader are supposed to be at the bottom of the pyramid, with them on top, culling the herd for the prize cattle to make themselves rich.

Ouch. As you can guess, this showing of true beliefs didn't sit well, even with people not in the fight. So the response got pretty heated, as most people don't like being insulted, even (especially) writers.

:-)

This resulted in a series of public takedowns, where the spouters got shredded, sometimes refuted line by line, for their words and views. Their response was mostly shock. For one, they don't seem to understand this whole Internet thingie. And they shook their heads and said how sad it is that the Selfpubs are so angry, when Tradpubs were always so reasonable. Sigh. For the record, writers do not wish to be taken advantage of for someone else's profit, do not wish to be lied to and manipulated, or cheated, or even insulted. A few Tradpub bigwigs shot off a series of steaming piles of pony poop, and got called on it. They weren't happy, and mostly scuttled back to their castles to calm themselves by counting their profits earned from writers. The peasants were revolting! Forgive the snark, but you really have to read for yourself how they responded when their idiotic posts were attacked. They dug themselves in deeper and pulled the dirt in after. It's as if they hate and despise the writers who make them rich. Odd.

So Tradpub got a boost from a "survey" that showed Tradpub writers overall do better financially than Selfpub writers. (See the Digital Book World postings) HAH! Take that, Selfpubs, we win! And the survey creators wanted almost $300 a pop for this golden data. Except that it was another less-than-useless pile of pony poop, comparing apples to office furniture. Their survey apparently included a large amount "data" from people that hadn't even published a book yet! Just focus on that, and you get the picture. Of course they hadn't made money yet! It also compared Tradpub winners to ALL Selfpubs. Dumbest thing ever, but Tradpub apologists used this as evidence to support their views, once again looking really clueless. More snickers and heated response from the other side. Much Sturm und Drang.

The real bombshell hit last week. Hugh Howey, successful author, spent his time, energy, and money to pair with a data-cruncher, and they scraped some Amazon numbers and published them (for free), along with a list of caveats. The numbers indicated that a larger number of self-published works were doing way better than the Traditional Publishing Industry wants to believe, pointing toward the concept that a new writer might be better off Selfpubbing. Hugh was honest and said that these numbers are just a start, pointed toward the raw data, and said to pull it part and discuss.

Well, you can guess what happened. The world had turned upside down, and the pub posting world went completely batshit. Tradpub defenders turned on the Giant Crap Machines and tried to bury the report in another mountain of pony poop, lies, and distortions. But a lot of them don't seem to have read the whole report, or be able to understand simple math, or maybe just don't want to believe it. Understandable, because it shows better numbers than Tradpub has ever produced (why's that?), and only shows a portion of the big picture. But what it does show is that Tradpub is in Very Big Trouble- something a lot of folks have been saying for the last few years. Tradpub wants to protect the vanished world, to do business as they've always done it, and refuses to accept the fact of the Revolution. Their hysteria was evident.

Sadly, even reasoned voices who took their side to crap on the report got severely bloodied. Mike Shatzkin is a Tradpub industry consultant, and he's often got a keen, perceptive view of what's happening. On this issue, he publicly shot himself in the foot, reloaded, shot the other foot, and kept alternating. It wasn't pretty when Joe Konrath blew him out of the water.

And one of my writing heroes, Chuck Wendig, waded into the fray with his Mega Balls of Steel. He does nothing but help other writers, and is a source of wisdom, motivation, and good feelings for writers. Even his rhino-hide got mauled, and he ran from the fight after firing one more cannon blast into the discussion. Hope it's okay to continue to worship your heroes, when they're dead wrong on an issue.

There were Trolls on both sides of the holy war. But we should all get along- we're writers!

Writer Michael Bunker had a post which puts brilliant perspective on what the numbers indicate. Forgive the paraphrasing, but here's a thought experiment, with my additions. These numbers are probably an indication of how things would go, given the last 4 years, except that a huge number of folks on the Tradpub path would abandon it and finally find another path after years of rejection, But we won't count those here.

Take 2000 genre writers with a novel or two done and ready.

1000 begin the the querying process to Tradpub.

1000 begin the self-publishing process.

*Let's assume that Barnes and Noble and Amazon (or someone like them) remain with their current market share and writer-profitability.

One year later- 0% of the Tradpub group has a book published. As a group, a thousand of them have been rejected in toto, some several times. Ah, but think of that golden future!

The self-pub group has a 100% publication rate. Most, if not all, have sold copies. They can all have print versions of their work in hand. Many have published more books already. Of course, this is not "success" by Tradpub standards, because it has earned Tradpub not a penny, and is only further competition for their offerings.

Year 2- for the Tradpub group, outstanding success! 10 people have received acceptance offers (yeah, this is a fantasy). 3 of those actually had the business sense to have their contracts vetted by an outside IP attorney, and realized they'd be better off not signing. For the other 7, the dream is happening- they've been accepted, they're on their way.

Still not a single book of the 1000 writers is up for sale yet, but just you wait!
"Success" rate of 1%, meaning "they were considered for the Golden Fold."

Meanwhile, the Selfpub group has over 3000 books up for sale. 3000 vs zero for the other team. As per the fears of the wannabe gatekeepers, many of these books are crap. Say 90%, following Sturgeon's Law, meaning "only" 300 or so okay ones or better are out. Oddly, though, even some of the crap ones are selling. Most writers have made some profit.

Year 3, Tradpub. Outstanding! 5, count them, 5 writers now have a single book out!

PW, Kirkus reviews for one of them, for another, a nomination for an award! One signed a 3-book deal! (More best-case fantasy) And those still submitting are still smilingly determined to join their golden brothers and sisters in the magical land.
And their advances- $500 for one, $1500 for another, $3000-5000 for two more, and a whopping $10,000 to the lucky 3-book winner! Now that's real money! Even when divided by 3 years, right?

Year 3, Selfpub. Over 5000 books published. 500 writers have made over $1000.

5 have made over $10,000.
Ouch. It just gets worse...

By Year 10, there is one Tradpub author who makes a living writing books. One.

5 others have made 5-figure deals. There have been 100 books published, 20 are ok or better (since Tradpub really knows quality).
900 of those who started are no longer trying to create new stories for publication.
Success rate: Less than 1%.

Year 10, Selfpub. Over 15,000 books published, over 1500 of those are good or better, since so many writers continue to practice their craft and get paid for it.

500 writers still produce stories for publication, and over half of those are making 5 figures or better per year. Because they kept publishing, got better, got their name out year after year, there are that many writers doing well.

Like I said, just a thought experiment. Fiddle the numbers how you wish, but Tradpub is a lottery that may never pay off a penny, let alone a living wage, and the time scale is atrocious. You may never get your book in front of a reader. But you have a 1-in-many-million shot to win an award, and you may get a Pat on the Head from the Anointed Ones.

Selfpub gives you success the day you hold your novel, or the day of your first sale.

If you took any professional care in the content, cover, price, and promotion, you will make some money from it and the others to follow. You have won. You will write more, and one day have a real shot at bigger things, if readers like you.

By all means, investigate for yourself and see what you think. Choose your own path.

R.I.P. Pete Seeger

We lost a great light when Pete Seeger left this life. His music and work resonates across this country, and the world. He was the cultural heir to Woody Guthrie and the songs of America's people.

If you don't know much about his work, Check out the Wikipedia listing.

For decades he fought the good fight for peace and social justice. He did it with music and deeds, and made this world a better place. He is missed. We have no one like him- he was the Original.

Sing a song and remember a man who brought people together with the gift of the harmony of the spheres.

Big Pub Enters the Arena- and Gets Served

It seems the tide is turning. Corporate bigwigs from the traditonal publishing houses are starting to emerge from their bunkers to talk to the sweaty peasants about publishing.
Here are a set of posts you MUST read if you're a writer interested at all in the publishing business.

For the first, Joe Konrath hosts Questions From Steve  Zacharius, CEO and President of Kensington Publishing.
I commented on this one, saying the CEO had done the equivalent of entering a boxing ring blindfolded and with his hands tied behind his back. Yeah, he got clobbered, mostly because he had chance after chance to respond to direct questions, and kept dodging, ducking, and diving.

Even worse was the other one who foolishly took on Barry Eisler, whose debate skills are even better, and who surgically removed the man's ass and handed it to him.
Barry Eisler, Authors Deserve Better

Of course, the bigwigs of traditional publishing are still not getting it, having business practices from the 1980's and accounting practices from the 1960's, but hey, they're talking now. Which tells you something. Like, they're running scared. Really scared. They know that unless they make radical changes, their business days are numbered.


And they blame it all on Amazon, in what is called Amazon Derangement Syndrome. They say it's better for authors to get screwed by BigPub for real in the here and now, because someday in the future Amazon might screw them. Nothing about how they refuse to listen to the people trying to help them survive by giving them great advice on how to make money, keep authors, and get more good ones signed on. See the Hugh Howey posts on how to do this.

You know, if there was a coaching company who helped people reach championship levels, they could justly charge for that in relation to what they were doing. If a publishing company built an author up through ever-increasing sales to stardom, that would be something (and it used to happen).

But their new strategy is to hang out at the finish lines, waiting for the front runners to come charging to the tape, then leaping out, grabbing hold as the finish line is crossed, and claiming that the winner owed it all to them. They want to crowd onto the medal stand. Thus do they wait until self-publishers have sold thousands of books, and only then offering a BigPub contract. After the person has already shown they don't need BigPub to create and sell a good book.

And they still say that nobody can win unless they sign with BigPub. Even though more winners emerge every month.

It's a business strategy based on the hope there will be enough future writing suckers who don't understand math or business. And on the hope that the one giant bookstore chain left stays completely healthy.

Not the smartest plan. It's a revolution, and they're clinging to the old ways. They're pushing themselves into the dustbin of history!

Great Advice From Unexpected Sources

Good advice for your writing career can come from unexpected sources.
Two important places for you to check out- though the people involved have written books, they are less known as "writers" than other things- Seth Godin is a business/marketing guru, and Scott Adams is a well-known cartoonist who draws Dilbert.

Seth has so much terrific advice for the modern "authorpreneur." One of his recent blogs is crucial for your understanding of the modern book market.

He says that your biggest problem isn't 'awareness' (or the buzzword 'discoverability' for writers). It's not that you should shout all over social media about your work so that more people will hear about you, it's about creating such a value proposition that people tell other people about you. He persuades you that it's better to produce something remarkable.

On social media, I skip over all self-promotion- they're shouting in hopes that someone, anyone, will follow the link. But when someone else recommends a work, and tells me why, I'm much more inclined to check it out. So when you write something so good that other people push it, that's the key.

The second thing to check out (see there, I found great value and am passing it along) is the book by Scott Adams, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big.


He hits on a number of points to absorb, the first that perseverance matters over temporary setbacks. He got lucky by constantly working hard to put himself in positions to get lucky. Like Edison with the light bulb, he "failed" at many things, which all taught him something, and which he accepted as moving him closer to his plan for success.

The takeaway for me is that he shows how to decide what you truly want and set up a system for long-term success, not just set goals. A goal may be met, or not, and then you've either failed- or have to start over with new goals. It's paradoxical for us as humans- shortly after we meet a goal, we're dissatisfied, and seek something else. We work so hard, and the satisfaction is temporary.
Creating a system means you're always in progress. It's strategic thinking rather than tactical, and is a better indicator of eventual success.

He has many other life lessons here, also stressing the importance of knowledge and learning.
If you take a bit of time and study the book and the post, you will have a better understanding of what you need to do to continue a writing career for the long term.

Bookstores- Good, Bad, and in Need

As a writer, I love bookstores, especially the non-chain ones, which are accomplishing somewhat of a resurgence, as the big chains suffer and die off in the new world of book distribution.

An independent bookstore is not a money-making proposition-- there's not a lot of profit in books-- the owners do it because they love books.

It's such a tough business that if they are to survive, they must adapt. They must find ways to bring in customers, who can buy books online cheaper and easier. They must be the connection point between writers and bookbuyers. Author signings and events must be part of their plan.

An author signing can fill a bookstore with book-hungry customers. It costs the store nothing (or very little, when properly done), and gets them a great deal of publicity, so it's a win-win scenario.
And yet, there are some who don't do this well. They don't want the extra customers and sales for some reason... They'd rather go out of business than have writers in their stores selling books and talking to buyers.

Sad, but true. I had one who told me, "Come back for a signing when you're famous."
Yeah, sure-- you didn't want me before, you didn't help, but I should take the time and effort to help you anyway, after I've done the hard work? What planet are you living on? Planet-soon-to-be-closed, most likely.

And I heard of another outrage recently. there's a well-known bookstore in Concord, MA, that's been around for awhile. Apparently, they believe this gives them a license to rip off writers, who don't make a lot to begin with. A writer I know went in to see about getting his books in on consignment (which means no cost to the store, and they get a cut of everything that sells-- free money). But that wasn't enough for the greedy bastards. They want writers to pay $100 just for the privilege of having their books on the precious shelves, along with the other thousands.
Had I been there, I'd have asked the proprietor if they were on crack.

In what world do you get to shit on people like that? Who is so desperate they have to put up money just to get in to your bloody store?

Nah. I'd rather send people to Amazon, and laugh at your closing sale. Stores who don't help writers are the first to complain about having fewer customers, and about the evil online seller that has books for less.

See, the thing is, I love books more than I love bookstores. And if stores don't want to help writers sell books and meet customers, they're destined for the dustbin of history. Writers are your content providers, so it's a lousy business model to refuse to do business with them.

But hey, your call. I can send buyers to your store, or to your competition.
But stop whining about how you're making less money. It's because you don't know your business.

*****

Two ways you can help the little guy. Give up a Starbucks latte or two and throw a few bucks to these worthy places who are crowdfunding their ventures.

Books and Boos, in Colchester, CT, run by Jason and Stacey Longo Harris. They bust their butt to help writers-- they have several signings a week, and they're a tiny store. They'd love to have more room for bigger events, but that takes money. So they've started a campaign to raise the funds to move to a larger space.

Another bookstore in Portland, Letterpress Books, would like to open, and needs some help raising the startup costs.

And a shoutout to the following small retailers who've been added to the list of where you can find my books for sale:

Second Hand Prose in Groton, MA, a new location for a little used bookstore.

Annie's Bookstop in Worcester, MA.

Mainely Murders in Kennebunk, ME.

Killing Writing Careers

Kristine Kathryn Rusch has a post about writing careers, and how the crap of the industry almost did her in at one point. But she found a way to persevere, and is now glad she did. This is a must read for anyone who wants to be a pro writer today.

I admire her telling her story, and could have been one of the crushed writers she speaks of. I felt so strongly, I commented on the blog. Here's my thoughts:

Kris, thank you for telling your story, which needs to be part of a writer's basic education. A mere three years ago, I would have signed any ridiculous publishing contract to get my mystery series started. I believed in the traditional path, had an agent who had industry pros agree the book was good, etc. And I would have likely had a soul-crushing experience as well. The series would be dead by now, and I would be wondering why I'd bothered.

But I was always learning. I read your blog, and Dean's and Konrath's, and many, many others.I talked to writers, who'd had terrible publishing experiences. Locked into contracts, with shrinking returns, and unable to put out anything else under their own name. Books that never got sold or delivered when people begged to buy them. Even best-selling books had been rejected over 50 times, on average. I started doing the math, and figured I'd be dead before I could get anything going-- and I'd still have to win the lottery, since over 96% of books don't sell more than a couple of thousand copies.

So I found a small publisher who would do it my way, and launched. Instead of a boulevard of broken dreams, my third series novel just came out, plus I've put out 6 story collections by myself, in different genres, and I continue to write and publish short stories. I do public signings (self-scheduled), and people tell me how much they've liked something I wrote. The freedom to do what I want is a heady thing, and I feel great about being a writer on my own terms, with the covers I want, and the content approval I desire.

Awhile back, I went on a supposed writer's help forum because some people were asking questions about my publisher (though some were just mindlessly bashing them while getting their facts wrong). I tried to clear things up by explaining how I'd reached my decision, that writers now had options, and how we should look at them, etc, and each choose their own path. You can guess the result. People who were chained like galley slaves to the Old Path blasted me as the worst kind of heretic, disparaged any evidence I offered, and repeated untruths as if they were gospel. I was told that bigger publishers were always better, would always make you more money, and always lovingly take your book to the best possible place it could be. I tried to offer contrary evidence, and point them to some data that disproved these assertions, but more of them kept piling on in the echo chamber. So I bade them well, and signed off, but wonder how many other authors they doomed to go the heartbreak route.

Notes From the War- Writing, Publishing Advice

Now that writers have a number of options in ways to publish, some of them espouse one particular way above all others. They're adamant that their way is the best. If pressed, they'll provide ancedotes about why their method is superior. Some wag called this "Anecdata," a term I like.

If someone points to successful people who triumphed using a particular method, they may be using "survivor bias," which is when you pick only the successful examples to show how succesful something is. Here's a great article on it, also called "Why 90% of the advice about writing is bullshit."

There is no one way, but some people treat the differences like a holy war. Some traditionally published people won't even talk to people who didn't travel the same path to publication, no matter the reason. They see all self-published works as worthless. And a lot of selfers rant about the evils of big publishing, as if it was signing a deal with the devil. Hey, I've done a fair share of Big Pub bashing here on this blog, calling out the wrongs when I see them. Doesn't mean I'm totally against it-- it's right for some people-- I'm even counseling a writer I know to go that path with her manuscript.

This post has a great chart to understand the differences in publishing.

So let's all agree that choice is good, and everyone gets to pick their own path.

To lighten the mood, here's a funny piece: 10 Reason Not to be a Writer.

And I love this short piece by Walter Mosely on The Magic Of Pulp Fiction.

The Truth Hurts

Noted best-selling author Barry Eisler gave an address (On Digital Denial) at the Pike's Peak Writers Convention. You can read all about the fallout here on Joe Konrath's site.

The gist of it is, Barry once more told a few truths that sent Big Publishers and agents harumphing over the Internet, saying all kinds of crap.

The buggy-whip salespeople really hate it when people get the truth. They piss and moan on their social media sites, but they do not engage Barry in actual debate, though he and others invite it.

They won't, because he's right. He tells the truth, and they bloody well know it, but they don't want anyone hearing it.

Come on, industry apologists, if you think he's full of pony poop, have the stones to come out and engage in a discussion and debate.

You don't dare, because he'll shred you with the truth.

Irony and Comment

Ironic story seen today. On The Passive Guy site, a great place for publishing news and links, had a story about a former opponent of self-publishing who finally got tired of the gatekeeper game a couple of weeks ago.

He got a cover, formatted his book, and posted it for sale. Guess what? It's become a breakaway hit, and he's making sales and money hand-over-fist.

Boy, he's sure changed his tune!

And as a companion piece, read the excellent post by Kristine Kathryn Rusch- The Logic Behind Self Publishing.

Information like this is why I laugh when some folks spout off that the only real way to succeed in writing is to have a big publisher do it all for you.

Warring With Trolls

My last post was on encountering trolls on the Internet, and it proved to be timely. Writer John Scalzi has been in the news recently, with his response to a multi-year battle with a particularly odious online troll and his minions. You can read baout the epic battle in the Guardian and Salon, among other places, as Scalzi's response is the proper way to deal with such ugly hate. When life gave him lemons, he made a tasty lemon chiffon pie, and shared the goodness with everyone.

This troll and his ilk are those arrogant, self-proclaimed alpha males, who get off on insulting anyone who isn't like them, or agree with them. They seek to engage in flame wars (vitriolic arguments on blogs), and spend their time spewing hate and vast amounts of stupid.

People are funny, except when they're mean and nasty. Then they need the loving mallet of correction, and a donation to charities that promote good things.

With natural disasters like superstorm Nemo to worry about, can't we just be a bit nicer to each other?

Editors: Needing, Wanting, Getting

Writers need editors, good ones, to make the work better. Too often in this day and age, editing is not giving the pre-eminence it deserves.

The big traditonal houses cut many of their long-term in-house editors (and thereby their own throats), which may one of the reasons so much coming out of the big houses is absolute crap.

BUT-- you say, those books are on the (voice of awe) New York Times Best Seller List.
Well, big whoop. Doesn't mean they're good, just that someone said they sold a certain amount in a brief period of time, in what may well be a rigged game.

I point out that fast-food places sell a lot of pink-slime burgers laced with ammonia, but few would claim they're haute cusiine.

It's getting to the point where if a book claims to be a best-seller, it's got a good chance of being a steaming pile of pony poop. I continually see stuff that wouldn't pass my local critique group, yet it's touted as "quality" from a curated system.

Where are the story editors, the line editors? Heck, some books even lack the basic copyediting.

Why is this so? Because editors, especially good ones, cost money, and the big houses are about profit. So they skimp now, and it shows. They'll squawk about the poor editing of self-publishing-- and they're right-- but they should clean up their own backyard as well.

So the question keeps getting asked- how do you hire a good editor, and what kind of one do you need?

The answer lies in the post of Kristine Kathryn Rusch in The Business Rusch: Hiring Editors.

Says it all. Go read, and learn. She is the wise one.