Yeah, I Was in a Bad Mood

OK, so I have bitched about antiquated and at-this-point inexcusably unprofessional business practices among book publishers. Now it is only fair to balance that assessment with this one: the answer to why we put up with it is that unlike in most industries, publishers absorb essentially all the risk in the publishing world.

Let's look at the supply chain for books. It starts with the author. In traditional publishing, the author invests no money in the per-unit cost of production. She pays for her wordprocessing/internet/postage and other "R&D", but her primary investment is time. The same goes for the agent. Like the author, the agent is risking intangibles such as reputation and opportunity costs for time spent not selling something else, but essentially the agent risks no cash. It's the publisher who pays both the author and agent AND their own editors and designers and artists and printers and sales force and PR and marketing and legal/accounting to create and track a gazillion different contracts. Then there are the distributors, who get paid in any case. Then there are the booksellers who can return unsold books or keep them and sell them on clearance. Sure, there are costs associated with inventory and risk that they are giving too much shelf space to the wrong books, but again, the real cash risk lies with the publisher.

THIS is why we let publishers have their eccentricities.

But there has to be a better way.

Maybe I'm Just in a Bad Mood

*Sigh*

OK, here I go. I'm gonna do the one thing a writer is really really really not supposed to do on her blog: I'm gonna bitch about publishers for a second.

Let me be clear up front about what I'm not doing: I'm not whining about mistreatment. I've never submitted anything to a book publisher, nor do I even have any off-line friends who have had bad experiences with publishers, and I'm not here to bitch about editors' taste or how they wreck dreams or whatever.

My problem with publishers, based on information from agents' blogs, is this: they are so very precious that they can't be bothered to run their businesses like professionals. Ubiquitous errors on royalty statements, the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing, inability and/or unwillingness to communicate any status to authors who have provided work at their request. These represent the kinds of basic organizational skills that companies of every size in every other industry have to keep current just to remain solvent. Why do we continue to excuse publishers for sloppiness we wouldn't tolerate in any other business partnership? They are like the Hollywood starlet who shows up five hours late for a photo shoot and then lets her dog pee on the $8000 designer gown, and everyone whose day she's ruined THANKS HER PROFUSELY FOR THE HONOR. Rather, they thank her people, because she can't be bothered to speak to anyone outside her circle.

OK, it's true that I'm bitching about something I've no firsthand knowledge of. But all these anecdotes I hear bug me because I care - I want this industry to survive. But just like a bunch of alcoholic starlets, this brave new world will eat them unless they get their shit together and take some responsibility for themselves.

High Altitude

First thing's first: Congratulations to all the NaNoWriMo winners out there! I hope you enjoyed your first day of rest. Speaking of which...

Greetings from Salt Lake City, Utah, USA!

Altitude: 4700ft
Temperature: 20's and lower
Humidity: negligible outside and lower indoors with the heat blasting

The mountains are beautiful and the city and surrounds are very nice, but I haven't acclimated enough to enjoy it - or do anything beyond work/eat/sleep. I haven't needed this much sleep since I was pregnant!

Luckily I'll be home Friday night. See you all then.

Fantasy

You know the time turner that Dumbledore gives Hermione so she can take extra classes? I soooo want one of those! I wish that in every 24 hours, I had 8 hours to work, 8 hours to write, 8 hours to play, and 16 hours to relax and sleep. Is this too much to ask?

This is an especially fervent wish during the holidays. In the past decade, I've hardly ever been able to take time off during November and December. I've worked more Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Days than not. For some extremely stupid reason (considering I've never worked retail), work stuff always seems to get extra-super busy at the end of the year. For once, this year, I was hoping to take the holidays off to relax, write, and spend time with family. Isn't that supposed to be a perk of self-employment?

Alas, no. It turns out that self-employment means doing what you have to, and signing a contract for a new project the day before Thanksgiving augurs poorly for holiday free time. The ink wasn't even dry before my client asked if I could work this weekend, and my first business trip is already booked for Monday.

I'M NOT COMPLAINING, I SWEAR.

I'm just saying I wish there was more time in a day.

Foiled

OK, NaNo failure is now a forgone conclusion. I just landed a very excellent contract that will take my business to the next level (that's the universe rewarding me for having the balls to turn down that job last week), the crazy-busy holidays are upon us, and stress management is key just now. And in truth, I love this story too much to just spew it out.

Songs from Childhood

Why yes, J.J. deBenedictis and FairyHedgeHog, there was a song in my childhood that always made me happy. Unfortunately, it really hasn't aged well. Your choices made better classics.

Investing in the Future

If you've never checked out Miss Snark's First Victim, you should. It's a wonderful writing community / crit group / agent exposure vehicle. Authoress runs it out of pure love, and I cannot even imagine the amount of time she puts into it. She has finally and reasonably put up a Donate link. I chipped in a few bucks because I want her to still be around by the time I have a submission-ready novel!

What Janet Said

Janet Reid has a nice post today about writing what you know, and how if you are an average person, that's probably the recipe for boring.

I had just started this post when, as if to illustrate her point, the phone rang.

"This is Kate."

"Hi, this is Sarah, from Major Internet Company You Used To Work For."

Oy.

Long story short: They offered me a job, which I'm going to decline.

Like the plot of pretty much any story, it can be boiled down to that one sentence. In fact, this is approximately the sentence I'll use to describe the situation should it ever come up in conversation.

Of course there is waaaay more to the story than this, including the staple dramatic features of political maneuvering, subtext-laden dialog, soul searching, etc. But that's the problem: it's all staple. The story is utterly unremarkable in the collective experience of your average readership.

*Sigh* Janet's further point is to write what you are passionate about. Clearly this is easier said than done - what is passion anyway? But maybe the first step is to let go of the distracting sturm und drang of the ordinary. Free our eyes to see the extraordinary.

Or some bullshit like that. I need a bleeping drink.

Quick NaNo Update

Well, I kind of dicked around for a while and actually got started very late. I'm way the hell behind, but still have time to win if I stay motivated.

Cue motivation...

A Scene Study

As I half-heartedly work through NaNoWriMo, I'm being a little bit conscious of scene structure. The Text-to-Movie tool at www.xtranormal.com is an interesting way to play with scenes. Here's one I just generated.