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.

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.

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.

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!

First Audio Fiction-Fables and Fantasies- Free Deal

Finally got the first story collection out on audio- Fables and Fantasies- a 5 Story Collection.

Sounds utterly fantastic- narrated by the talented Fred Wolinsky.

And check it out- on the Audible SciFi & Fantasy page listing, I'm shown with works by Tolkien, Scalzi, and Card.

Pretty damn good company!

Listen to the sample. And if you like it, and want to get it for free, just click the Free button for a 30-day free trial membership for Audible.

 

Stuff to Read- and Young National Poetry Champion

From Dean Wesley Smith: wonderful 3-part post by Judith Tarr:
Escape from Stockholm: An Epic Publishing Saga. Read ALL THREE PARTS. Worth it.
http://mizkit.com/escaping-stockholm-part-1/

Shows the real story behind the changes in what publishing has become. I've got friends who still are determined to be a writer by going that traditional publishing route, and I wish them well.

I just don't feel it's a viable path for mid-listers, people who have good genre novels, but not bestsellers, which is what the big trad publishers are focusing on. With Indie and self publishers, a modern writer can at least get the work out to readers while improving the writing and creating a greater volume of work.

But the great thng is, we have choice now. So choose wisely, after doing your homework. This 3-part essay is part of the homework.

*****

My teenage daughter entered the Spoken Word poetry contest put on by the National Forensic League by making a YouTube video of her performing her original poetry-- and won!!!
http://www.nationalforensicleague.org/Spoken-Word

She'll be one of 4 performing at the National Speech & Debate Tournament in Birmingham, Alabama. Sometimes, you enter contests and manage to do something so well you win. Cool.

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.

Help on Selling Books- and Recommended Book

Here's a bit of help for struggling authors.
How To Sell Loads of Books - My Approach by Russell Blake

This 27-point piece gives much good advice on just what it says. While Your Mileage May Vary, it still has something for most writers looking to sell their books online. Some of it is good, hard-nosed business advice that will cause some folks consternation (you mean we have to work? And think?). There are points of argument, but overall a great list that should be studied.

While waiting for copies of my latest Zack Taylor mystery A Shadow on the Wall to arrive, I'm currently listed on the Sisters in Crime website, with a cover of the previous Zack Taylor mystery, A Fall From Grace as part of their display. Very cool to get this up.

A friend of mine, Chris Bernard, has his new non-fiction book out: Chasing Alaska: A Portrait of the Last Frontier Then and Now. It's received a lot of critical praise already, and my copy just arrived today. Chris went to Alaska and discovered some long-forgotten roots in the guise of an ancestor who went Alaska exploring years before. So you get a feel for our largest state in the past and in the present.

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.

Views From the Top

A couple of great perspectives here on modern publishing, both in one day!

First is Hugh Howey. Who's he? Merely a guy who was writing his books and working for wage just over a year ago, and who struck gold with his writing, and signed a monster, 7-figure deal with a big publisher-- for the print rights only-- he keeps the ebook profits!
Holy crap! This is a sea change in how business is done in the publishing world.
Yet better is that Howey seems like a really nice guy who wants to help other writers. And he has a great piece out on Salon today, which is a response to another of Salon's self-publishing-bashing pieces from a few days ago, where an idiot whined in public about being a failure at self-publishing-- and condemned it-- because he did it wrong, was incredibly stupid, and had unrealistic expectations.
So read Self-publishing is the future — and great for writers.

Then go for the perspective of a long-time pro in the writng biz. Kristine Kathryn Rusch posted
The Business Rusch: Four Years on what a revolution there has been in a mere four years.

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.

Rising of the Trolls

To live is to war with trolls-- Ibsen

They have a cave troll-- Boromir, The Fellowship of the Ring

In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as a forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. The noun troll may also refer to the provocative message itself, as in: "That was an excellent troll you posted."
 -- Wikipedia

I don't understand the desperate need of some people to comb websites looking for places to take a dump on someone. But they're out there, waiting to pounce. I found some.

When I was starting out in getting published, just over a year and a half ago, questions were raised on a writer-help website, Absolute Write, about the new publishing company Briona Glen, the one I'd agreed to publish with to get their business started. Legitimate questions were raised about an unknown, but got added to with a lot of unfounded conjecture, and assumptions. So I signed on, to post my experience, provide information, and hopefully clear things up.

What I found was the Internet equivalent of the Fox channel, where you go on, and everyone on the show tells you you're wrong if you don't agree with them, none of your experience is deemed relevant, and they denigrate and deny any evidence you provide. You espouse a multitude of approaches, and are accused of partisanship, while they refute things you never said.

Since I have no problem with a healthy debate, I laid out my reasons for the path I'd taken, saying that here was another method. You'd have thought I told them their children were ugly.

I tried to be civil and informative, really I did. But the responses went from snarky superiority to downright rude, to outright falsehoods. My loving mallet of correction (thank you, John Scalzi) went unheeded, as the discussion went further afield. Every word I put up was pulled apart, twisted, and flung back at me, while laughably incorrect statements on their part went completely unremarked upon, sliding through like a greased weasel. The one-sidedness was soon apparent.

It was as thought they couldn't parse simple paragraphs, and I got tired of making corrections. I realized I was in an echo chamber, where the whole intent was to bash a viewpoint they didn't agree with (while accusing me of being intractable and dogmatic). So I signed off, wishing them all well, and bade them adieu.

So what prompted this screed, after all this time? The publisher has undergone changes and changed their name, and the bored, under-employed trolls emerged from their caves to bash the long-dead horse yet again.

And one particularly odious, over-self-promoting twerp couldn't help taking a few swipes at me, giggling in their glee that I hadn't stuck around to be their pinata.

Well here's the lowdown, Sparky-- I have better things to do. Like write and publish.
Here's my priority list-- family, day job, writing, promotion.
You and your ilk of eternal argumenters don't even make the scale.
Most of those spending an inordinate amount time to tell me I didn't know what I was doing had posted thousands of times, on that site alone. Thousands.
The time they spent in their self-congratulating circle-jerk could have been spent writing ten books or more-- but they'd rather tell real writers why they're on the wrong path.
Yeah, way to prove your point.

Suppose they're right-- say I didn't know what I was doing, took the wrong path, and have ruined my writing career.
Then look at my publicity page: http://www.daletphillips.com/publicity.html
And this year: acceptance into prestigious anthologies, including a "Best of."
A regular radio guest spot talking about writing (and do any of these turkeys have the sand to call in and tell me on air I don't know what I'm doing? Oh, please do. Heh-heh.)
Multiple signings and talks and shows featuring my published works.
Interviews on television, radio, newspaper, and Internet.
Voted as "One of 50 Great Authors You Should Be Reading."
And my professional brochure that I hand to bookstores, libraries, readers, with my 8 published books, really shows at a glance what a failure I've been.

Maybe they're right-- maybe I should have foregone all the cool stuff and publication and positive reader feedback, so I could have gone their path, and instead waited for my publishing lottery ticket to win, where the magical pub fairy would have descended from the heavens with a gentle anointment of popularity and wealth.

Nah. I live in the real world. They sneer at my path, but I believe I already have more published works than any of them. As the water on thier sinking ship wets them ever higher, I row by in my homemade boat, laughing my ass off. Whatever floats your boat.

It's fine if you researched a path and made a choice that benefitted you. But to tell other people they don't know what they're doing if they take another path is wrong, and that's what they did.
And no, I don't have time to go back on and engage in endless, meaningless debate with people of a locked mindset who won't listen.

They can post another five thousand remarks, while I publish another 5-10 books in the time they took to say why that wouldn't work.

For those who want to be tortured, here's the link-- and really, if you read the whole thing and tell me I was a complete, unschooled dick, please back it up with evidence, and I'll listen.
-- http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=209813

Mystery Writers Unite!

I'm now a proud member of the national organization Sisters In Crime, who are dedicated to helping mystery writers. Sure, their primary interest is women mystery writers, but they're very welcoming to the menfolk.

Am looking forward to promoting even more good authors in the coming year.

New Year, New Goals

Happy End of 2012.  

Well, we survived the Apocalypse, and all the trials and tribulations of the last 12 months. Whew!

A year ago, I set a set of insane writing and production goals for 2012. I was prompted, in part, by the advice of long-term professional writer Dean Wesley Smith, who also had set himself impossible production goals.

At the time, I knew it was a stretch (well, impossible really), but I wanted to challenge myself and do more than I'd done in all the years before.

And I did. Although I fell far short of my stated goals, I accomplished and published more in one year than some writers do in their entire careers.

First goal- produce a book a month, 12 in all.
This included novels and story collections. I had a backlog of many stories, and learned how to put these into collections and sell them as books, producing both ebooks and print versions.
7 of these story collections got published, and my second novel, for a total of 8 books. Short of the 12 goal, but still a great output. Am I happy to have met "only" two-thirds of an impossible stretch goal? You bet.

Second goal- produce a story a week for sale in ebook format, 52 total.
I quickly found that the time and resources to do this was at a level that could not be sustained. You need careful editing, a good cover image, formatting, descriptions, and adding the links everywhere.
I did the first four stories, and stopped, realizing it was more important to produce new material. So I really fell far short on this goal. Am I happy to have abandoned this goal? Nope. Would love to have over 50 stories up for sale, but it'll have to wait.

Along with all that came other writing milestones.

I wrote new stories, and had modest success, with sales and publications.

I finished writing most of the third Zack Taylor mystery novel "A Shadow on the Wall." That'll be out soon.

One past story was selected by Every Day Fiction to be in their upcoming "Best of" anthology.

One new story appeared in the charity anthology Nightfalls, where I'm in with some pretty good new writers.

I was selected as one of "50 Great Writers You Should be Reading" by the national radio program The Author Show.

I'm a weekly guest on WUML (91.5) radio, speaking with host David Tierney about writing.

I've had numerous talks and signings, attended shows, and made many new contacts in the writing world.

All this-- plus publicity-- has to be done when not at my day job.
So no excuses for not writing!

For the coming year of 2013, here are my new writing goals.

Again, from the advice of Dean Wesley Smith, I'm going to shoot for an average of 5000 new words a week, for a grand total of a quarter-million by year's end.

That's the equivalent of four good novels, and 4 is the number of books I plan on publishing in 2013. Still pretty ambitious.

So what are your goals (writing or otherwise) for the coming year?

Happy Guy Fawkes Day-Vote tomorrow and today

Remember, remember, the fifth of November,
Gunpowder, treason, and plot.

Happy Guy Fawkes Day, everyone.
If you're not sure of what I'm talking about, it's a piece of history-- and made wonderfully relevant in the movie (and graphic novel) V for Vendetta.

Tomorrow we have a chance to pick which plutocrat will be in charge of our emergency services and economy for the next four years.

One guy says we're on our own when disaster hits-- we saw that recently-- and the other guy reaches out a hand to help and make things better.

Or you can vote for someone else if you don't like either of them. I'm independent, belonging to neither party (gang).

People have a decided aversion to voting independently of the two gangs, and I'm really at a loss to explain why. They say it doesn't count. It sure does count when you tell them neither of their choices are your choice. Vote for the Libertarian, Green, Independent, or other alternative candidate and show them their agenda isn't for you. It's not throwing your vote away to tell them NO!

+++++

If you'd like to vote today, I'm asking for your quick help, please-- as a finalist in the contest
"50 Great Writers You Should Be Reading" on The Authors Show,
http://www.wnbnetworkwest.com/WnbAuthorsShow50Writers2012-VotePage.html

I'd appreciate your clicking the link and voting for me:
"Please click here to vote for your favorite author"

One of my recent stories is up on Fiction and Verse: http://www.fictionandverse.com/mistakes/

Thank you--

Barry Eisler and Me at CrimeBake

Well it sure is an interesting time. I added up all the writing tasks and items from this last week, and there were about 30. So I've been a busy little bee.

Just to show you I how I hang out with the cool kids, here's a picture from last Crime Bake
(photo courtesy Crime Bake photographer Maureen "Mo" Walsh):

Wow! You say. That's Dale with none other than Barry Eisler, the best-selling writer who turned down a half-million dollar, two-book deal to take another path.

Yeah-- the guy that fired the shot at the Big Pub sweatshops, not across the bow, but right amidships.

He's my freaking hero.
Half a million bucks, they said-- and he said "Piss off, I can do better."
And he did.
Cojones, my friends.
Talk about the New World of Publishing!

His thriller series, featuring assassin John Rain, is superb. And I don't like a lot of best-seller series.

My series character, Zack Taylor, is a genuine tough guy who's good at martial arts, and would kick the crap out of most other series character heroes.
Except for Eisler's John Rain.
And in an elevator fight, I could take a good many mystery/thriller writers.
But not Barry, who's got more expertise.

So okay, if I was going to have a Man-crush, he'd be a contender.

Check out his blog, The Heart of the Matter. Lots of food for thought.

But who's the guy on the right, you say?
That's Mike Johnson, a music teacher and author from Dracut, MA, who has penned the mystery "Lawless in Brazil."

 

 

 

 

Do It Yourself Artistic Career

There was a great article in Sunday's Boston Globe about new artists going the do-it-yourself route for launching and maintaining their artistic careers. This applies to many endeavors: writers, musicians, painters, cartoonists. anyone who produces art for consumption by others.

They profiled Louis C.K., a comedian who is doing all the work of posting his material online and booking his shows, including ticket sales. A lot of work.

And Amanda Palmer, a musician, who raised over a million dollars with a crowdsourcing Kickstart venture, the first musician to do so. How cool is that!

There are many others as well. This is an incredible time, to be able to do this, and have complete control over your career, and not have to rely on "being discovered" by the major distributors. Many musicians have been ruined by their label, who insisted on a particular sound, when the band wanted a different direction. Many a writer was constrained by contract to keep producing a similar book, year after year.

The problem with being owned by a large corporation is that they want to make money from the artist, and will often control the output. But art should happen at the whim of the one creating the content, not by some suit in a boardroom looking at a poll or chart of what they think will sell that month.

It's a great time to be a content creator. You can now reach an audience over the Internet, instead of relying on corporate-owned distribution and selling channels. Viva la revolution! You get to go direct, and cut out all middlemen, if you so desire.

The Sky is Falling (Again)

We constantly hear the cries from Big Traditional Publishing (BTP), telling how whatever new thingie means the End of Books As We Know It.

"Nobody's buying books these days!"--- Uh, yeah, they are, and lots of them. Sure, in these tough times there many be fewer people plunking down thirty bucks for a new formula hardcover, but overall, books are doing quite well.
BUT-- folks who want a good story need not support a big company with $29, while the producer of the work (the writer) gets $1, there are other options.
Writers can now deliver a good book for under $10, and keep a chunk of that for doing the real work.

"Amazon is killing us by being unfair!"--- People don't just use the online retailer for lower prices and convenience, they return for the great customer experience. Amazon has changed the game, no doubt about it. But the lumbering old companies want the clock rolled back to their distribution monopoly.

Writers put up books at Amazon and have enormous distribution and exposure. In many cases, the writer can make more money via that route than going to BTP. And get a book up for sale a hell of a lot quicker than BTP ever can. The way BTP is mistreating so many writers means more work-producers are leaving BTP every day.

"Ebooks are killing us by flooding the market with cheap crap!"--- BTP has tradtionally been in the business of pushing expensive stories on paper, with high costs for printing, shipping, and storage.
With ebooks, those costs have gone away, and a writer can get a book out for a few hundred dollars.

Of course, an easy delivery method has opened the floodgates to many new books, so yes, there's a lot of crap. But there's a lot of very good work as well, that would never have seen the light of day under BTP.  A writer can get editing for a good story, put on a good cover, and compete with the best.

It's the reader, the buyer who decides if the book is crap or not. I've read a great deal of BTP professionally-produced garbage, including NY Times Best-Sellers, so that's no guarantee of quality whatsoever.

And guess what? On Smashwords and Amazon, you can preview sections of the book to check the quality for yourself. You need not pay for crap when you can screen it out in a minute or two of sampling.

As a historical note, this isn't the first time we've heard the shrill cry that a new thingie will flood the market with cheap crap. Remember paperbacks? And yet, all these years later, we still have the sky where it is. Check out this article posted on The Passive Voice.

And for those who think writers won't make any money in the new world of publishing, a good writer now has a better chance of making money than any other time in history.

Why should we, who have spent many years learning craft give away our time and expertise?
Harlan Ellison said it best: "Pay the Writer!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj5IV23g-fE