Turning Points

This title isn’t meant to be an oblique and very ‘in’ joke referring to my friend Jack Eason’s novel in progress. Rather it refers to something real happening to me and my co-owned company, IFWG Publishing. It amazes me how often when something important happens, or not happens, it seems to clump together with other things following the same pattern. I suppose one could call these punctuated moments on someone’s time line, as being a turning point.

Over the last week some ugly things happened in my day job (‘day jobbe" as Jay Lake would call it), but not in terms of job security, more in terms of forces majeur affecting professional outcomes. I was assigned a six month job with an engineering firm to put their house in order, but unfortunately internal politics will probably unravel all of my work. We will see ( 🙂 )

I didn’t get short listed in the Text YA Writing Contest. This was disappointing, but hey, am used to it. It is a long journey to get regular acceptances – have to deal with it. I will, of course, now actively try to get Guardian of the Sky Realms published, or actively represented.

In terms of my company (my night jobbe), had a big breakthrough yesterday – Paul Goat Allen, an excellent and respected spec fic blogger-reviewer, actually reviewed Jack Eason’s Onet’s Tale, and provided good words, a mix of positive and constructive statements. This also reflects on the company, and this is all very good for all of us. I am hoping we have an ongoing relationship with Paul.

Finally, the company has matured sufficiently where we had to make decisions about the scope of our work. We chose to narrow our genre focus to non-fiction, children/YA stories, and spec fic – with some narrowing in that field as well. Of course, we are, and will continue to, support those authors we have committed to who are outside of this new scope.

So…a lot happened and I guess I could last week a turning point.

A crying shame

Just had a twitter conversation with someone who viewed IFWG Publishing‘s website and came up with some wacky conclusions. And statements. This exchange is hardly worth repeating, or for that matter, thinking about for more than five minutes, but it does symbolically represent the state of the publishing industry. Wacky.

It seems to me that there is so much disruption and confusion, and misinformation (deliberate and unintentional), how does the average Joe Bloggs have a hope to have a decent idea of the state of play. And if Joe Bloggs wants to be a professional author, or even a small press publisher, then we have a serious set of obstacles in the way.

I don’t want to state the truth about publishing here – there are very good bloggists who can help you – Jay Lake, JAKonrath, Doctorow, Don Linn, etc, and following them you will get a much better idea of the state of play. However, with their help or not, for me the real issue is being able to tap into the correct intention, the morally correct.

While this person who twittered with me wanted to argue every point, this person also doesn’t know that my effort in my company is first and foremost to make the authors successful. Can’t easily prove that in a fledgling small press. Just have to watch this space.

Just to make sure the message has gelled with commentators, the following are facts:

IFWG Publishing is a traditional small press. Nothing more or less. Authors don’t pay a cent to submit, and we take 100% financial risk to publish. As per usual.
We believe in epublishing and its growth, and its value for new writers. All our publications simultaneously publish in print and eprint.
We are generous with royalties for the author.
We publish speculative fiction, but are happy to publish almost any genre if its good.
We also publish magazines – a company has to make money, heh?
We run a biannual short story and illustration contest called Story Quest. This year, we offer a leg up with a novel publication.
We have a biannual magazine where it touches on our authors etc, but which also provides good short stories and articles in any genre.
We enjoy doing this!!!!

Just for the record, folks.

Watershed Day

For months I have been wondering if running the self publishing wing of IFWG is worth it. Randy questioned it today and we agreed to cease it.

This is goodness of immense proportions.

As you may have read in earlier posts, and in other forums, we chose a ‘hybrid’ model of publishing that basically meant we published traditionally as well as self-publish-assisted, but on the proviso that the quality had to be of a certain standard, and we would provide strong support/assistance post publication. We still believe in it, but unfortunately this sent confusing signals to the writing public, and it can’t compete with self-publishing companies that simply publish any shit for a price.

For me, the dilemma was in the area of editing/proofing. If a book did make the grade, it nevertheless had to be edited and proofed, and the model basically said that the author had to pay for those two elements as well. This just doesn’t feature in the minds of writers – the result is stalemate with regard to publishing.

Our move to pure traditional publishing fixes this. Completely; and this is why it is goodness.

We have a long road ahead of us, but it is minus the dilemmas.

A Simplified Analytical Model Describing the Differences Between Traditional and Self-Publishing

This is a copy of a blog post I placed today in the IFWG Publishing site.

I have been involved in many discussions of late, on the differences between Self Publishing using (Print On Demand technology) and traditional publishing, and I have read so many commentaries on the topic on the Internet, that my own views have solidified somewhat, and I feel an urge to discuss them.

I also want to dispel some myths.

I don’t want to dwell on self-publishing efforts by authors who do much of the logistics by themselves, but I believe that this analysis does largely cover the same challenges and opportunities as companies that provide self-publishing services.

A good focus point for this discussion is to try to think of publishing, for an author, as a simplified linear equation:

Title Success refers to the end goal – to have a title that sells well and contributes to the success of an author;

Quality of Title is self-evident – the better the creative work, the better chance it will sell well. This is not a given though, as it is my belief that many excellent titles just take too long to be recognised, if at all.

Quality of Publisher. This factor represents several elements – it refers to the publisher’s requirements to ensure polish of text, printing, cover art, etc. There needs to be an expectation in the industry that a given publisher delivers.

Publisher Marketing Effort. This refers to the extent to which the publisher will support marketing the title to the industry and reading public.

Author Marketing Effort. This refers to the extent to which the author makes an individual effort in marketing the title, both in terms of assisting the publisher, as well as pure individual effort.

There are other influences, but they collectively cannot match any of the factors represented above. Luck is one, and there is little point in discussing it. The best example is the alignment of some titles, and their coincidental exposure, with a world fad – the Dan Browns, the Harry Potters. If it happens, then it happens. Winning lottery happens too.

Each of these factors that collectively contributes to Title Success behaves differently between traditional and POD publisher effort. The following table discusses them:

Success Factor	Traditional Publishing	Self Publishing
Quality of Title	Publishers are generally conservative & will only publish titles from “tried and true” authors and celebrities. It is notoriously difficult for new authors to get a notable publisher to publish them. While dependent on the publisher, titles are generally of high quality, in line with the conservative model.	Most publishers have no interest at all in the quality of the title. They will publish anything the author wants, as long as it is paid for. Authors are in the difficult situation of having to judge the quality of their own work, and unfortunately most of them are seriously biased due to lack of professional help or experience.
Quality of Publisher	Leading publishing houses have professionals who will polish titles to an excellent standard, and provide artwork, including covers, of high grade. There are also notable exceptions to this, depending on the maturity of a given company, as well as their target readers.	Publishers vary in quality, and many should not be in business. Because most work on an authors-pay basis, they have little, if any, interest in polish. There are countless examples of titles that are self-published with appalling typeset, grammar, spelling errors, and artwork.
Publisher Marketing Effort	Publishers tend to spend minimally on new titles, and rely on their sample effort to determine if further spending is required. Often, this initial effort does little to further the title’s progress. The author is stuck with the publisher’s effort because the title is under complete control of the publisher.	Publishers will only market if they are paid to do so, in most cases. Even then, it is relatively minor and they tend not to have the market penetration of traditional publishers. In most cases, however, the title is not bound to the self-publishing effort – the author still has control.
Author Marketing Effort	Good publishers will work with the author, but at a minimal level. There is an expectation that the author will work hard to market the title and it is in fact in the author’s interest to do this, as it may assist in getting the sales needed to attract publisher interest to continue with it.	Publishing companies will make it clear to the author that marketing is generally up to them, and that success will be determined by that effort. This locks the author into a great deal of time commitment, and perhaps money. This does not bode well for authors who have little aptitude for this discipline.

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As you can see in the table above, most categories, be they traditional or using the self-publishing paradigm, have negative features. Few have positive. The industry is geared toward business, not the author. This is obscene, and it has been like this from the very start.

However, I think the industry is changing – mainly due to technological innovation, where some of the negative factors are being undermined, re-evaluated, if you will. For example, self-publishing started off as vanity presses, where the author would have to cough up a great deal of money in order for print-runs and binding to take place. This was the only way printing could take place back then. These businesses worked with models where only a small number of customers were needed. Then came the Internet, digital printing, just-in-time printing technologies. Suddenly it was a lot cheaper and faster to publish a book with high grade printing, paper and binding. This is goodness. This phenomenon, along with others, doesn’t per se improve the authors’ lot, but it enabled the industry to be flexible enough to allow for the possibility of better deals for authors.

From the perspective of traditional publishing, there is a proliferation of new small publishers who genuinely want to publish new titles from new authors and are willing to find them. They work hard and don’t necessarily make a lot of money, but they are able to publish, because it is cheaper to do so. I respect these companies to no end. My own company, IFWG Publishing, intends to go down that road with a new imprint within a year.

With completely different dynamics, there is a small subset of the POD/self-publishing industry that is also looking to provide a better deal for authors. I call it hybrid publishing. This is where the publisher chooses to make policy decisions that provide a stronger emphasis on authors’ interests. In the case of my company, IFWG Publishing, this entails:

Not accepting just any title for publishing. It has to have a minimum standard. The philosophy is really very simple: authors can only grow if they can lift their standard to a publishable level; and our company will have better market penetration for titles if all the titles have a reputation of quality. Symbiosis.
Minimum marketing. Our company must provide a reasonable level of marketing support, even if it only entails good working relationships with authors and the provision of good advice. We can and do more than that.
Decent pricing. We simply believe that if we have highly competitive pricing, then we will attract more authors, and more authors will be able to afford to publish their work.
The company authors are authors themselves. We want to help authors grow and we know their motivations. This adds support to the growth of author careers.

I really don’t know where the industry is going to settle, if it will ever settle. What I do know is that the two classic models of publishing, which have existed in one form or another for many years, are not working for authors. This seems incredibly stupid to me because it is clear that readers (whether they be e-readers or print readers) are insatiable and love good new work. It’s what makes writers write, and many publishers publish. If tapped, it can also make publishers run successful businesses. I believe in my company, in part because I we can contribute to changing this injustice.

Publishing and Author Help

I have something in common with a lot of people out there in the world – we want to be full time writers. Not necessarily successful, not necessarily filthy rich (both of these are desirable but optional), but we all want to do what we love, as a profession. Some of us have what it takes, some of us don’t. I am not here writing about those who don’t – that is a very personal journey, and we should all at least have a chance at getting properly assessed, and have the appropriate experience and perhaps training, to come to a definitive decision.

I am writing this blog to you, the person in my situation, and I am assuming you have what it takes.

About a year and a half ago I made a fair number of friends of people like you, and several of them have become as close a friend as you can get while not being on the same continent. We spent a lot of time coaching each other and participated in short story challenges – all of this has become invaluable in improving our mastery of the craft, and we all had/have other projects. Then, not sure how long ago, we explored POD and other publishing concepts, and one of us actually published his first novel, via POD, and learned much from the exercise. While none of us have published through traditional publishing houses, we all have much to share with others.

So, we created a Guild, based on a more confined Guild we were previous members of, and we call ourselves the International Fantasy Writers Guild – because fantasy is the prime genre among us. We are, however, equally comfortable with Science Fiction, and any number of genres and subgenres in that space. The purpose of the Guild is twofold – to supply the usual shared community networking that sites like that provide, but with two important differences – firstly, with membership regions so that work can be discussed without ruining "first publishing rights" which can occur in open Internet sites; and secondly, we will form a POD group that will specialise in the genres aforementioned, and which will be particularly generous to author interests. We also will not compromise quality.

I have blogged this now as we are actually ramping up our activities and will in fact start publishing over the next coming weeks, perhaps few months.

We are still getting our proverbials together, but our intentions are clear, and we are able to publish ebooks, kindle, and softcover books now, if we want to.

I invite you to join us, or at least check us out. If you want to go the traditional path, be my guest – hey, even with this stuff happening, I would like that break myself, but I also believe there is a place here for those who want to publish, and also to learn by sharing with others.

This is the place to go, but it is still a bit rough. Email me and I can give you more information if you have any questions.