Category Archives: Books

A New Definition of Writing Success

More on the “ebook apocalypse” front, and the self-publishing revolution, this time from writer James Scott Bell.

Here’s a bit (link at the bottom):

We all know the traditional model is shrinking. Advances on new contracts are at historic lows. With physical shelf-space disappearing, print revenues are down. While digital income is up for the publishers, the slice of that pie given to authors remains stagnated at 25% of net (or roughly 17.5% of retail). And new writers are finding publishers increasingly risk averse regarding debut authors.

Still, many writers remain focused on [getting published]. It represents some sort of “validation” even though it could very well mean less income…and fewer readers.

But now a new model of writing success has appeared. Writers, for the first time since the troubadour era (when you could go out on your own and make up stories in song and take in some coin), have it within their power to get their writing out there without a middleman (the fancy term is “disintermediation”).

And further, unlike self-published authors of yore, they actually have a chance to make real dough. Every day we are hearing more accounts of self-published writers who are earning significant income as independents.

Yet income alone is not the main draw of this new model, which looks like this:

Freedom is the invaluable commodity here. To be able to write what you truly want to write, and know that you can get it into the marketplace, is tremendously liberating. It is, in fact, the engine of happiness for a writer. It’s exhilarating to write for yourself, see what you’ve written, fix it, and keep on writing—and be assured that it will have a place in the stream of commerce, for as long as you live.

From The Kill Zone: A New Definition of Writing Success

Oh, Conan, Conan, Wherefore Art Thou…?

Conan the Barbarian is nowhere near as good as Conan the Barbarian, though Conan the Barbarian is better than Conan the Barbarian at being Conan the Barbarian.

Got that?

Let me further break it down for you. Continue reading →

Book Biz

Some supplementary info for anyone who was interested in my “Ebook Apocalypse” post…

  • Since 2002, about 500 independent bookstores have gone out of business, nearly 20% of them.
  • Independent bookstores currently account for less than 10% of book sales.
  • When Borders folded they closed nearly 650 stores.
  • There are around 700 Barnes & Noble stores, all drastically reducing the number of  books they actually stock.
  • Barnes & Noble is projecting huge losses in revenue for 2012.
  • Amazon holds 75% of the market for printed books online.
  • Roughly 90% of all ebook sales go through Amazon (60%) and Barnes & Noble (30%).
  • Ebook sales on Amazon outnumber printed book sales by roughly 50% and the ratio is growing sharper all the time.
  • According to Publishers Weekly, publishing insiders predict that within five years  ebooks will account for half of all book sales.

Clearly there’s a lot of change going on, and as I wrote earlier, I think it’s good for readers, writers, and independent booksellers (who have a better chance of holding their own in local markets with the crumbling of the big chains). The changes may be more dire for big publishing concerns, however, as more writers realize they can make more money and better handle their own careers by publishing themselves and as book prices fall, bringing less money in to pay for fancy Manhattan office space. Their edge as necessary distributors gets slimmer with each drop in physical stock made by hundreds of  Barnes & Nobles stores, every bookshop that closes, and each ebook that sells.

Writers need to seriously consider self-publishing, focusing mainly on the digital market, with hard copy books as an additional option they make available. And, at least for the foreseeable future, they’re going to reach the vast majority of the available market by dealing with Amazon and B&N, though there is much to gain by working with independent bookstores on a personal level.

Jon Mertz: “Ebooks ARE a Game Changer”

Even as I was posting my post about the “ebook apocalypse”  just now, author Jon Mertz posted his own, about his experiences self-publishing versus his experiences publishing with big publishing companies. Here’s a bit:

I’ve been writing since 1994; I’ve been a traditionally published author since 2002. In the ten years I tried to play the game by New York’s rules, I’ve seen so much ridiculousness, it amazes me the publishing industry has lasted as long as it has. Midlist writers (that is to say those who are not gifted with million-dollar advances and groomed for the supposed bestseller lists) are treated like indentured servants: crummy advances that New York insists are “livable,” crappy royalty rates, contract clauses that are meant to provide steady income for the publisher not the writer, and an accounting system woefully behind-the-times and deliberately complicated so as to render auditing it both costly and intimidating for the average writer.In the year since I’ve been publishing as an indie, I’ve made more money than at any other point in my writing career. I’ve sold more books than at any other point in my writing career (over 20,000 copies of my Lawson adventures JUST on the Amazon US marketplace). And I’ve been able to engage and meet more fans than at any other point in my writing career. And I’m not even as succesful as other indie ebook authors – some of them are making thousands of dollars every single DAY.

Traditional publishing loves to claim that they do a ton of stuff for writers – hence the low pay and royalty rates.

It’s BS.

He breaks things down in good detail, and if you’re interested in these matters, you should check it out.

Ebooks ARE A Game Changer

Ebook Apocalypse!!!

The night is coming. The night that will never end.

Board the windows. Lock the doors and push our beautiful, heavy bookshelves against them. Hopefully we prepared enough, we stocked up on canned peas and sacks of potatoes and stacks of mass market paperbacks and hardbacks, some of them used and old and bound in cloth rather than shitty cheap crappy cardboard.

Outside, the wind howls like a cliched banshee scream.

They are coming, and we fear it will not matter how well we prepared, for they come on silent wings, their numbers are legion, and they don’t use doors, or windows. Like dire fairies of data they come through the walls, through the very air itself, at the speed of light.

And they want to eat. “BOOOOOOKS….” they moan. Because they want to eat our books, all our beautiful books.

The ebooks have escaped the labs. OH. MY. GOD. Continue reading →

Books and Wonderful (You MUST See This)

As a devoted fan of Buster Keaton, books, and the amazing William Joyce, I have to say The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore may just be the most wonderful short film I have ever seen. It’s currently up for an Academy Award.

You need to see this, probably over and over…

Well, Blow Me Down!!!

Here in the Byrdcave, we’re old fans of Popeye. Not only did I watch the old cartoons countless times growing up, my son and I have each given Popeye gifts to each other. He gave me Warner Brothers’ awesome remastered collections of the classic Fleischer cartoons of the 1930s (which are wonderful, and far better than the later productions which kinda sucked); I have been giving him Fantagraphics’ gorgeous hardbacks collecting the original E.C. Segar comic strips as they come out.

Wilco, in cooperation with King Features Syndicate, has brought us the first hand-drawn Popeye cartoon in over three decades:

I hope Popeye rebounds by hooking up with Betty Boop.

If you never saw them, or need a reminder, or it’s just been too long, here’s one of the Fleischer classics, from 1936, in amazing quality:

And for bonus giggles, here’s a commercial featuring Popeye and Bluto that drove right wingers crazy when it aired:

UPDATE: Of course, now that I think about it, if we watch the Fleischer first, then the Wilco, then the Minute Maid cartoon, maybe we’re actually getting the full story of Popeye’s romantic life…

I’m Reading DC’s “New 52″ Comics (Part 2)

Thousands of readers haven’t battered me with messages asking what happened to my reviews of DC Comics’s “New 52″ which I launched here. For those thousands, and the millions who also didn’t mention it, I figured an update was the least I could do.

Frankly, I burned out quickly. Writing even capsule reviews of all these comics proved a more tedious task than anticipated, especially as I started trying to read some of the bad ones. The first I read that I didn’t even remotely enjoy was Men of War, which was half a pound of machismo in a hundred pound box of don’t-know-what-manhood-is. It also tried to embrace the heroism of the military at the same time as it told us the best soldiers aren’t soldiers at all but bold individuals who ignore orders and thus always save the day. Crap.

But it wasn’t until I tried to read Legion Lost that I couldn’t even finish one of the comics. It wasn’t really bad, it was just there. Nothing about the thing, neither story nor art, was remotely compelling. It was basic, serviceable superhero fare, and I described it to a friend as “what people who have no respect for comics expect comics to be at their best.”

I lack the fortitude to force my way through all these books and bother saying anything about them. If you’re interested in reviews, though, the net is full of ‘em. I’ve been enjoying Erik Mona’s thoughtful reviews which put my paltry earlier offerings to shame (even though he enjoyed the war comic). You can find them at his blog.

Now don’t get me wrong, the New 52 isn’t a failure, either creatively or financially (as a publicity stunt, it boosted DC’s sales a great deal). There are a lot of problems with it, from really shaky chronological consistency to some really egregious institutionalized misogyny. Also, Rob Liefeld.

But there are some good ideas too, and I particularly enjoyed the treatment of the big three, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Each of their titles starts off strong, and I’ll be staying with those and a few others in the months ahead.

If Adventure Has A Name… (My Latest IMJ Pulp Column)

He knows.

My latest column on pulp adventure is up at Inveterate Media Junkies. This month I’m discussing pulp movies.

If Adventure Has A Name (Pulp On The Big Screen)

And if you missed the earlier columns:

Column 1: I Am Doc Savage

Column 2: I Am Not Doc Savage

I’m Reading DC’s “New 52″ Comics (Part 1)

As you may or may not know, this month DC Comics relaunched its entire line of superhero titles with a batch of 52 comics all starting at issue #1.

They’re doing this in a bid to increase their readership and market share in a time when comic sales are declining. They’re also fully embracing the digital market for the first time (something neither they nor Marvel have done previously), with every title available digitally on the day of release.

Creatively, they’ve decided to reset the timeline of the stories. The characters are (mostly) younger now, operating earlier in their careers. Some of the previous canon of events are still considered to have occurred (Barbara “Batgirl” Gordon was shot by the Joker, paralyzing her; Superman died and came back in that ludicrous Doomsday storyline used in a previous desperate bid for publicity), some did not (Superman hasn’t married Lois Lane). The mish-mash of what officially happened and didn’t happen, and when, is implicitly perilous to the goal of solid continuity for the DC universe, and could easily spin out of control as everything is juggled by the many creators involved.

The first batch of titles is out, and I’ve read them. Here are my impressions: Continue reading →

The Hard Life of the Spoiled eReader…

Anyone who has ever waited tables will recognize the dynamics of the following conversation. This is why I’m glad I don’t work in customer service any more:

 J.A. Konrath

Konrath & Crouch discuss the future of ebooks, and a new sales idea for authors. http://t.co/nqX8cXo

12 hours ago via TweetPo.st ·
  • 5 people like this.

    •  Katie Hardin If you want to keep a reader like me you need to keep the middleman, because books not purchased through Amazon cannot be transferred to the Kindle App on the iPod or iPhone.
      7 hours ago ·

    • Tim Byrd Actually the Kindle apps will open any file in the proper format.

      5 hours ago ·

    • Tim Byrd Additionally, if you’re using an iPod/iPhone/iPad, you can use other apps like Stanza or iBooks.

      5 hours ago ·

    •  Katie Hardin maybe the newest upgrade does, but this time last year with the Kindle version of the Dracula ARC Amazon confirmed that titles not downloaded from Amazon would not transfer to the kindle app.
      2 hours ago ·

    • Tim Byrd All I know is I have books on my iPad that I didn’t get from Amazon but are in Kindle format, I read them using the Kindle app, and they show up in my Kindle menu.

      2 hours ago ·

    •  Katie Hardin yes and the iPad is a tablet i.e. more computer than a e-reader. I can read titles in the Kindle for PC app on my computer that have not been gotten from Amazon, but i cannot transfer them to my device.
      2 hours ago ·

    • Tim Byrd OK, I see.

      I think the way i do it is to email the file to myself, or put it in my Dropbox, then click on it on the iPad. It gives you the option of opening it in Kindle, and once you have, it’s in the menu.

      Let me make sure that’s the way…I’ll post an update.

      2 hours ago ·

    •  Katie Hardin As a reader I want to read on the app I prefer. If an author wants to make that harder for me by only offering their books from their website and in effect forcing me to use an app such as Stanza rather than the one I prefer to read on…there are plenty of other authors to read
      2 hours ago ·

    •  Katie Hardin I love reading Joe’s books. Unfortunately as a reader I wasn’t willing to pay the same price for an e-Book as a print version costs…so I missed the last one. Guess I’ll be missing more titles by him if that .54¢ is more important to him than a loyal reader
      2 hours ago ·

    • Tim Byrd 

      Okay, I just sent a mobi file (the Kindle format) to myself, then clicked to open it on my iPad. I got a pop-up menu that gave me the option of opening it in Kindle. I clicked, it downloaded it in a few seconds, and opened properly. Now it’s in my Kindle library.

      I’d say you’re being unfair to the authors, who are in this scenario simply trying to make a living with their work as well as they can, except many people won’t want to be bothered with taking an extra step or two, or using a different app, so your concern isn’t one to dismiss.

      Also, it remains true that the Kindle will only read its dedicated format, not one of the open formats like epub that can be used more broadly. Hopefully Amazon will stop being so stridently controlling and shift to epub down the line.

      2 hours ago ·

    •  Katie Hardin I’m just saying having to get someone to send me a referral to Dropbox, having to set my iPod up to get email, then having to email that file, and transfer it to the app I want is too much of a hassle when there are so many other one click buys I could open much faster.
      2 hours ago ·

    • Tim Byrd Anyway, if the author makes the book available on his website in mobi format, you can put it on your device.

      2 hours ago ·

    •  Katie Hardin And in the case of Rowling…too little too late. I’m betting those 7 books aren’t going to be priced under $3
      about an hour ago ·

    • Tim Byrd I hope she manages to sell a few anyway. Hate to see her have to go back on the dole.

      about an hour ago ·

    •  Katie Hardin and that is the whole underlying layer to this. Greed. When authors suddenly don’t care how much more work the reader has to do just so the author can cut out the middleman and make .54¢ more for this reader it goes to far and those negative feelings effect my enjoyment of reading that title.
      about an hour ago ·

    • Tim Byrd It took me less effort to transfer and open that file in Kindle than it has to type my comments here.

      about an hour ago ·

    •  Katie Hardin sorry you’re right my opinion as a reader is obviously not valid. I must be over exaggerating the difference between typing on a 2 inch wide touch screen keyboard and an iPad keyboard
      about an hour ago ·

    • Tim Byrd 

      My point wasn’t that your opinion isn’t valid. My point was that the amount of effort it takes to actually perform the vexing task of getting a book you presumably want to read onto your device is negligible. Making a sandwich is a more taxing task. If that slight effort is enough to keep you from reading a book, then you didn’t really want to read that book.

      Also, though it should be obvious, I’m not speaking in any way for Mr. Konrath. I was trying to help you.

      about an hour ago ·

    •  Katie Hardin 
      so my not wanting to be required to perform a “vexing task” (which since you do not use an iPod to read you have no idea how vexing it is) implies I am lazy and that readers should be expected to work if they want to read a certain title, because it is more important that an author increase the money they are paid by 37% rather than remain loyal to readers and a distribution system that developed & opened up better opportunities for them
      7 minutes ago ·

    • Tim Byrd You may not be lazy, but you’re certainly possessed of a highly developed sense of entitlement. Would you like Joe to come turn the pages for you?

      2 minutes ago ·

Laughing My Ass Off: A Hilarious Review of a WTF Batman Story

Whoever you are, whether you’re a Batman fan or not, whether you’re a comic book fan or not, if you like to laugh, you should read the review of Batman: Odyssey at Comics Alliance.

Today, Editor-in-Chief Laura Hudson and contributor David Wolkin sit down and attempt the nigh-impossible task of figuring out exactly what happens in Odyssey, a book that has both challenged and redefined our notions of Batman, comics, and our tenuous grasp on sanity…

Neal Adams is one of the all-time great comic book artists, the man who truly defined the cool modern Batman. For many years as a kid, I had a huge poster of this Adams image on my wall:

Unfortunately, as is sometimes the case in comic publishing, someone at DC thought, “Hey, the man can draw, I bet that means he can write too!” Because after all, writing is easy, right? And they gave Neal no telling how much money to do a twelve issue epic series about Batman. The result seems to be one of the most completely batshit crazy comic book stories in history.

You need to read the review. Honestly. I laughed till I couldn’t breathe while I read it. I had to take breaks so I wouldn’t asphyxiate myself. It’s comedy gold, and I say that as someone who hasn’t even seen the comic book in question.

Deconstructing the Complete and Utter Insanity of Batman: Odyssey

My Pulp Pit Column at IMJ Returns! Pulp Pit #2: “I Am Not Doc Savage”

After many travails, my second column at Inveterate Media Junkies is now finally online:

I AM NOT DOC SAVAGE

Spiders Are Wonderful (An Even Better Wack Kids’ Book)

Everyone is all abuzz about Go The Fuck To Sleep, which is pretty funny, especially as read by Nick Fury of SHIELD.

But over on his blog, Dennis Detwiller offers up an even better “alternative children’s book,” Spiders Are Wonderful by Toby Vok. As Dennis rightly puts it, “If I had to describe it, I would perhaps call it a children’s book of existential horror. Toby Vok is a twisted, wonderful man.”

You can read it in its entirety by clicking the image below. Toward the bottom of the page, Vok also graciously offers it up for free in both PDF and epub formats.

Great Sex

The gifted and award-winning novelist Nicola Griffith posted an interesting blog entry about a year ago on the topic of how sex is depicted in fiction. It’s very worth reading. Here’s a bit:

A few years ago I was on a panel with two or three other writers and the talk turned to sex in literature. It turned out everyone on the panel (except me) thought all fictional depictions of people having good sex were ridiculous because sex was never, ever super-awesome and mind blowing. No, they said, sex was comical and self-conscious; sex was fumbling and clumsy; sex was embarrassing. Sex, everyone (except me) agreed, never went right the first time, so why did writers insist on writing as though it did?

I didn’t say much on that panel because I was shocked by the notion that so many people thought and felt this way. I’m older now. I’ve heard this supposition many times. I’m tired of it.

In my experience, sex really is super-awesome and mind blowing. It really is astonishing, transporting, and ecstatic. It really is the closest thing on this earth that we’ll come to swimming in a tide of light and magic. If it’s not that way for you, maybe you’re doing it wrong.

I have to say, my experience reflects Nicola’s; the worst sex I ever had was still fantastic.  But I understand not everyone is so fortunate, and some just aren’t that interested.

Hop over and check out her piece, and read through the comments. There’s some interesting discussion.

“Threshold” (A Poem)

Planks solid underfoot

then

storm and waves and
wind bash and batter
splintering
that on which I stand.

I drift
looking at stars for guidance.

The dark god
has struck
is trying to keep me from
landfall
I have yearned toward.

My heart is strong.
I swim like a bastard.

Estuary.
River mouth roaring turbulence
and it seems I’m lost
just as I am saved.

I pray the god of this river
for sanctuary:

O great flowing god
god of life and motion
and change; 

O great god,
I ask your mercy
I am on my knees
your suppliant

and I see that in your flow
is wisdom gained
and strength born
if only I swim, and look,
and realize.

Grant me, o god,
sanctuary and
sanctity;
safe harbor;
calm shores to salve
my wounds…

and spirits to guide me.

And then were the waters
calmed;
then, the sky grew blue;
then, the bright sun
burned away darkness,
leaving shadow, plain to see,
but woven into the world of light,
unhidden
undangerous.

Landfall.
And I am alive.

And living.