In Which J.F. Gonzalez And I Talk About Publishing

“I really do wish this self-publishing ebook market would implode. It’s loaded to the gills with idiots, fools, and just by-Jove lousy writing. The purveyors of this monstrosity are, quite frankly, a bunch of jerks. I hope they all get ass-cancer and die horrible, painful deaths.”

Let’s say … 8:00 pm EST.

If you don’t have a Google+ profile, you can easily sign up for one. I’ll post more instructions to our specific hangout next week.

Sound good?

I figured if I was going to do this whole podcasting thing, I might as well try to do it right. Still working on some other technically stuff, but I think the investment in this mic is definitely a step in the right direction.

Now, in case you didn’t know, every Friday I’m reading a new chapter from The Inner Circle up until whenever it’s finally released. You can listen to the first week here, and the second week here. Now enjoy chapter three, and have a great weekend.

The Inner Circle Chapter 3

My friend Blake Crouch has released a new ebook along with his brother Jordan. It’s a horror novel, as you can probably guess from the great cover designed by Jeroen ten Berge. Here’s what it’s about:

From newcomer Jordan Crouch and Blake Crouch, author of the runaway bestseller Run, comes Eerie, a chilling, gothic thriller in the classic tradition of The Shining and The Sixth Sense.

TRAPPED INSIDE A HOUSE

On a crisp autumn evening in 1980, seven-year-old Grant Moreton and his five-year-old sister Paige were nearly killed in a mysterious accident in the Cascade Mountains that left them orphans.

WITH A FRIGHTENING POWER

It’s been thirty years since that night. Grant is now a detective with the Seattle Police Department and long estranged from his sister. But his investigation into the bloody past of a high-class prostitute has led right to Paige’s door, and what awaits inside is beyond his wildest imagining.

OVER ANYONE WHO ENTERS

His only hope of survival and saving his sister will be to confront the terror that inhabits its walls, but he is completely unprepared to face the truth of what haunts his sister’s brownstone.

Eerie will be available exclusively on NOOK until June 12, when it will be available on all other electronic platforms.

What’s notable about this is that it was my last ebook title that was a Kindle exclusive. My experience with the Kindle Select Program was mixed. I had some great results and some not so great results. It can definitely help breath new life into a book that is lagging, but it can also do nothing for the book at all except tie it up on Amazon exclusively for three months. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing — the bulk of the my sales are through Amazon, but the truth is if the book isn’t selling well to begin with, then there won’t be many units borrowed, so you have to wonder if the cost of keeping it on only one platform is worth it. Again, the only reason I think it is worth it is the ability to make a title for free for up to five days, though I have begun to worry that this is training a select number of readers to simply wait for when an author makes the book free. Is this a bad thing? Well, that depends on your point of view. I never have a problem giving away my work, but in exchange I’d at least like the reader to help spread the word or review the book. But to give your work away for the sake of giving your work away? That doesn’t interest me much. Does this mean I’m completely done with the Kindle Select Program? I wouldn’t say that, because, again, if I need to help breath new life into a lagging book, I might give it a try. But it’s a gamble, just like everything else. For now, I want to make my work available on as many platforms as possible, even if for right now most of my sales come from Amazon.

Also, going back to The Man on the Bench, I should note that my experiment of pricing it at $2.99 is having great results. You see, I didn’t think 99 cents was a fair price, and while $1.99 might be better, I would still only be making 70 cents per unit sold. So I figured, what difference is there really between $1.99 and $2.99? Not much, so I decided to price the novella at $2.99 (earning me two bucks per unit sold), and guess what — it’s selling pretty well. In fact, it outsells the rest of my 99 cent short stories and novellas, and it’s making me a hell of a lot more money than them too. Not only that, readers seem to really like the story, which is even better. I’d worried that because it was a novella, some would balk at the price point, but so far so good. Now, of course, having just said that, I no doubt jinxed myself, but what are you going to do?

As e-books continue to capture more readers that had read mass market paperbacks, Simon & Schuster is re-launching its Pocket Star mass market line as an e-book only imprint. According to the company, “Pocket Star will continue to feature bestselling and debut authors in popular genres including women’s fiction, romance, thrillers, urban fantasy, and mystery.” The revised imprint will feature a mix of new and old title, with the majority being new.

Louise Burke, executive v-p and publisher of Pocket, was clear that she expects the e-book Pocket Star imprint to serve in much the same way the mass market version did in the book ecosystem. “Similar to how mass market has served as a platform to develop future hardcover authors, it is our mission to use Pocket Star’s new digital-only format to establish new voices in the marketplace. An eBook imprint is flexible, cost-effective, cutting-edge and makes sense in today’s marketplace. Under the Pocket Star banner we will publish original works including full-length novels and novellas from some of our most popular authors,” Burke said. Price points will vary according to the work.

And this, my friends, is only the beginning. Soon the rest of the major publishers will create strictly digital imprints. Hell, Dutton has already started doing just that.

Now let the unanimous cry begin: But what about the bookstores???

Well, what about them? Publishers don’t care about bookstores, not when those bookstores aren’t making them money. If publishers can make even more money going strictly digital, then they’re going to go strictly digital. It’s an unpopular opinion, I know, but writers need to look out for themselves. Meaning yes, we all want to support bookstores, but quite honestly, do the bookstores really give a shit about you? Some do, sure — some have great relationships with authors and do what they can to help promote those authors, and that’s great. But the majority are looking at the bottom line, and that bottom line is all that matters. So if your book doesn’t sell, well then it’s goodbye, see you never, no hard feelings.

What I would be most interested to see in regards to today’s announcement is just what terms these Pocket Star ebook authors will get. I’m assuming (or halfheartedly hoping) that the terms are better than the standard 25%. But something tells me that might not be the case. After all, it’s a proven fact that publishers will try to get away with as much as they can to screw over authors.

But let’s assume Pocket Star is offering at least 50% royalties. Okay, that’s not bad, even after the agent gets his 15%. You could get 70% doing it on your own, but again, 50% isn’t bad if you don’t have to worry about editing and formatting and cover art. But is it worth signing all your rights away? Is it worth giving up all your creative control? It is worth knowing the ebook will most likely be overpriced and won’t sell nearly as much as it could if it were competitively priced?

For some authors, the answer will be yes, yes, yes. Some authors shouldn’t have any input in their creative control, because let’s be honest — just because you can write doesn’t mean you know what good cover art looks like, even if it slapped you across the face. And let’s face it — many authors still want that validation of having their work “vetted” by a major publisher. They don’t care that they could make more money doing it themselves by reaching the same amount of readers. They just want to be able to impress their friends. And you know what? That’s their decision. There’s nothing wrong with it. Me, well, you know how I feel about it, but that’s beside the point. The point here is that Pocket Star going strictly digital is just the beginning. I can’t wait to see who joins the bandwagon next.

The Inner Circle Chapter 2

Well? Why are you still reading?

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Becoming That Author