Congratulations to Jeff Ford

It appears that the phenomenally talented Jeffrey Ford just had his novel The Girl in the Glass win an Edgar Award for best paperback novel. Thanks to Gwenda for pointing this out to me.

In other Jeff Ford news, the aforementioned novel will be featured in a week-long discussion on the Lit Blog Co-Op. The LBC is a very cool place to learn about all sorts of books. I always like finding places to recommend books to me, particularly books that I may miss because I so often have my noce buried in the science fiction/fantasy world.

And if you read this blog and have no idea who Jeffrey Ford is...shame on you!

The Mysteries of Publishing

I've mentioned her before, but if you're not reading Anna Louise (Tor editor extraordinaire) on LiveJournal, you're missing out on a lot of great information about publishing. Recently, ALG posted about a P&L for a paperback book. A P&L stands Profit and Loss or Profitability and Liability. It's a spreadsheet that a publisher/editor puts together for every book they want to buy to see if it makes sense for the publishing house to buy the book and put it on bookshelves.

As ALG points out, many publishers make a P&L that only costs the physical costs of the book--printing, marketing, advertising, production costs like proofreaders--and not the costs of the editor's time, the marketing assistant's time, etc. I could say more, but ALG says everything more eloquently than I would, and it's silly to redo her exhaustive work.

Here's a longish snip from the end of Anna's article (you really need to read the first part to get to this, so this is my reverse teaser; you know the end and have to know how you got there):

Out of 25,400, Crichton is an Idiot sells 8,400.

On the initial profitability and liability statement, the excited, committed editor theorized it would print at least 50,000 and sell at least 30,000, and paid the author an advance of $12,500. She didn't want to go all the way up to $16,000, just in case she was slightly off the mark -- and normally a first time author would get something like $5,000 (just in case! and also leaving room to grow!), but this was out with four other houses, and the agent had a $10,000 offer from NAL, and, damn it all, the editor really wanted it, so her publisher let her pay an exorbitant amount.

Oops.

The author makes $4,697.28 in royalties. This means that she does not make back her advance. You may think this means she owes the publishing company $7802.72. You would be wrong! It's in the contract -- she doesn't have to pay that back. However, she can't get another book deal to save her life. (A couple of years later, though, she starts writing Blaze novels under a pseud., hits a bunch of in-store bestseller lists, and revitalizes her career.)

Out of the 8,400, 2,500 copies sold through direct, making $10,475, and the rest (5,900) sell through other outlets, making $16,496.40.

$26,971.40 is the net total this book earns for the publishing company. You have lost your company:

$12,500 +
$36,000 -
$26,971.40 =
$21,528.60

And this is totally normal. This is an average book! Okay, it's a slightly cynical look at the average mass original, but you won't find too many editors who don't have a couple of these on their list.

In a related post, SFBC senior editor Andy Wheeler adds his own comments about how/why publishers might take on a book that loses them money. Here's the snip:

[C]ompanies buy books because they will cover a reasonable share of overhead for that month -- really, to be blunt, publishers buy books because they're the best books they can find at that moment. Every editor has to acquire enough books to justify his continued employment -- and to, at the same time, try to make sure few enough of those books are such utter dogs as to put that employment in jeopardy.

When I worked for Tor, this is how you could justify new authors. You did need to keep putting books out, and there was always the chance that a new author would write a book that would go on to win a bunch of awards. But that's rarer than you'd like. And sometimes you pick up an author who just sells well for a publisher. And that's even rarer.

VELLUM by Hal Duncan

In case you didn't know already, but the freaking amazing novel VELLUM by Hal Duncan is out on the shelves today in the US for purchase. At Amazon this will set you back less than $10.

How good is the book? I think this is the most powerful fiction debut I've read since I first encountered Clive Barker's fiction back in the 1980s.

It's that good people. Go get a copy.

Looking for some assistance

I need a few able-bodied proofreaders for issue #10 of Electric Velocipede. I'm looking for people who have proofreading experience and can receive a 3MB PDF in their e-mail. You won't get paid, but you can read the next issue before anyone else.

If you're an author reading this, don't worry. You'll be getting your proof pages soon.

John Klima

Lest I Forget to Mention This Again

I find myself gainfully employed--in a full-time manner--as the teen librarian/systems administrator for the Franklin Township Public Library. I have been working at FTPL since December, but only part-time. One of the full-time staff members is leaving, and I will be replacing her.

What does this mean? Well, a lot and not a lot. I'm really excited to work here full time. This also means we can start looking for a home and get settled a little bit. It's some great experience in two important (but very different) areas of a library. There's a lot in my background to help with me both jobs, but little actual experience in a library doing either at this point.

Now, instead of spending most of my time at the reference desk I will be spending time learning about the YA collection (and science fiction, travel, health, parenting, and computers) and figuring out what people like, what we should have, what I need to order.... I'm also in charge of creating all the programming for the teens in our library. I have a lot of exciting ideas, but I won't mention them here...yet. This means things like Summer Reading (for teens) fall under my umbrella. I have a lot to learn.

I'll also spend time maintaining patron and staff accounts, running reports, making sure the system gets updated if we create a new collection (i.e. we decide to have all the home and garden books in their own section), etc. When the library's renovation is finished, there will be a TON of work to get our books in storage back into the system.

So that's what's changed. What hasn't changed is I'm still living in NJ. The address for the zine is not changing. The zine isn't going anywhere (except to bigger and better heights that is!). Shai will return to teaching in the Fall. I'm continuing to work at a place I've been at since December so there's no new drive to learn, no new faces to learn.

While many things have changed, there's a lot that's the same.

Just like always.

John Klima

A Comment on Comments

So, it looks like I had turned on moderating for comments. Which means I need to approve every comment before it appears on the blog. Why the heck would I want to do that? Sheesh. I've switched it back so that comments should just appear on the blog now.

And here I am sitting here the past few weeks wondering why I never get any comments. Turns out, I do! Truly sorry about that folks.

So, if some people can try the commenting out for me and I can make sure to check that they're working that would be great.

I saw a recent link to this blog calling it a SF author group blog. Do people think it's worth the time making a post giving some background about me and the blog?

Also, I changed the title and description of the blog, what do people think?

JK

Anthology Update

A quick update (or two) to yesterday's post. First, my announcement was picked up and mentioned by several people, such as Jay Lake, Hal Duncan,
Gwenda Bond, and Tim Pratt.

Second, as several people noted, the author list consists of people who are writing something for the anthology. The stories will still come to me on submission, and I will need to accept them before the list is finalized. But, I suspect that these writers will provide me with more than adequate material. In truth, I expect that these writers will all surprise and delight me with their stories.

I'm excited about this project and I can't wait for the submissions to start coming in.

Anthology Announcement

I'm proud to announce that I have sold an anthology to Bantam editor Juliet Ulman. The anthology is stories based on words that have won spelling bees. You can read examples of what I'm talking about here (Hal Duncan's "The Chiaroscurist") and here (Neil Williamson's "The Euonymist"). Both of those stories were published in Electric Velocipede #9 and will be reprinted in the anthology.

The working title for the anthology is LOGORRHEA: GOOD WORDS MAKE GOOD STORIES. Thanks to Hal Duncan for the subtitle. We are planning on having the book available in late May/early June of 2007 to coincide with the National Spelling Bee.

I'm really excited to be working on this book and to be working with Juliet. She's published a host of writers I like, such as Jeff VanderMeer, KJ Bishop, Tim Pratt, Tim Lebbon, Barth Anderson, and many others. She's got a great eye for talent and is always publishing interesting projects.

The following authors are working hard on stories for this collection:

Daniel Abraham
Paolo Bacigalupi
Jay Caselberg
Clare Dudman
Hal Duncan
Theodora Goss
Liz Hand
Alex Irvine
Jay Lake
Kelly Link
Michael Moorcock
Tim Pratt
David Prill
Michelle Richmond
Lucius Shepard
Anna Tambour
Jeff VanderMeer
Leslie What
Liz Williams
Neil Williamson
Marly Youmans

I'll post more here and everywhere as more information becomes available. There may be some new authors being added to the list as we finalize the book.

John Klima

To Be a Writer

Here are two posts, made independently, that both speak to the tasks that a writer faces in becoming successful. First, Jennifer Pelland gives a five-point list of "How to Build a Writing Career." Snipped from her website:

1. Be good
2. Be persistent
3. Be knowledgeable
4. Be professional
5. Be social

Then Jennifer goes on to elaborate on each point. She has a lot of good insight here. Number 4 has become a bane of my existence lately for two reasons.

First, I've gotten a number of submissions where the person either e-mails the story in the body of the e-mail, but no introductory note, no name, just the e-mail and the story text. Explain to me why I should bother to read this?

Second, I get the story as an attachment, but the attachment has no name, address, e-mail, etc. by way of contact information for the author. Now, let's say--thinking crazy and out of the box, not pointing at a real example or anything--my laptop gets stolen, but I had printed the story out. Now I have your story, but I don't know who wrote it. Brilliant. Should I bother to read it? I don't know who to try and contact should I like the story (and I suspect if you don't know enough to put, oh, YOUR NAME, on the story you've sent to me, it's probably not very good, but who knows?). That story goes in the trash.

Point number 5 from Jennifer is also a good one. I'm posting a snippet here that I want people to read and think about when you see me at a convention and I ask you what your story is about:

this is when you launch into a very short pitch. Do not offer to hand them the manuscript on the spot (I've been assured this is a very bad thing), do not go into a 10-minute speech, do not stutter and blush and freeze up (although this is the best option of the three). Keep it short and sweet. You might get lucky and they might ask to see it (again, don't pull it out of your backpack on the spot), but if they don't, that means they're not interested, and you should stop your pitch. Crazy authors don't attract editors. Remember, if they sign you, they have to work with you. Editors would much rather work with someone who understands and respects boundaries.

When in doubt, send the story in. Don't ask if you should send it, just send it.

And put your name on it for God's sake.

Then, the lovely Justine Larbalestier has a post that sprung Athena-like from a previous post about authors and self-promotion. She posts a short comment from Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Manager of SF at Tor and former boss of mine, who says:

My only quibble is with this: “Promoting your books is part of a writer’s job.” No it’s not.

Writing is a writer’s job. The rest of it is optional and depends on your personality, aptitude, and energy.

Like Justine, I have to take umbrage with that statement.

True, there are writers who are more introverted and the thought of promoting their work scares them to death. But, these are not writers you've ever heard of. These are typically writers who fail. I'm sure there are very shy people who are famously wealthy and/or successful authors.

And true, if you write some sort of Dan Brown/Tom Clancy/John Grisham/Danielle Steel popular trite material, you may succeed without doing much work yourself. Not to make this blog the Dan Brown show, but Mr. Brown works very hard promoting his books. It doesn't happen by magic.

And also true, any successful publisher has a publicity and/or marketing department who are better than most writers in promotion (and who most likely have contacts into arenas that writers do not have). But, the author also knows the work better and more passionately than the marketing person does. And, if you happen to write something that's not in an already existing market (let's say you're Jeff VanderMeer or Lucius Shepard) it can be tough for the existing departments at a publisher to know how to get the word out on your work. Yes, the editor should be working with these departments, but sometimes the author is the best source for information.

It would be great if all the writer had to do was to work on their craft. Just like it would be great if all an editor had to do was work on their editorial accumen. However, these days editors have to know about marketing and promotion (and design doesn't hurt either) to be successful.

Justine gives a great list of things an author may do in the course of his/her writing career:

research
writing
rewriting
more rewriting
checking copy edits, proofs, final copies (of hardcover, paperback, and various other editions)
negotiating deals (though, thank Elvis, you can get your agent to do this)
checking contracts (again all praise to your agent)
checking royalties (agent)
publicising your books (if you can afford it—and seriously how many writers can?—you can hire a PR person, but tragically they tend to just come up with more stuff that you have to do, you could hire an actor to do said stuff, but sadly actors are notorious for not reading, and not being that bright)
answering fan mail and etc.
blurbing other writers

This list, while lengthy, may not cover everything you need to do. And, I also agree with Justine that the primary duty of the author is to write, but there is much, much more to it than that.

The Dan Brown Ruling

From Andy Wheeler and Chris Roberson and Sci Fi Wire. Thankfully, the case was thrown out of court. As the judge says:

"'It would be quite wrong if fictional writers were to have their writings pored over in the way The Da Vinci Code has been pored over in this case by authors of pretend historical books to make an allegation of infringement of copyright,' Smith said in his 71-page ruling, the trade paper reported. "

Why is this important? Well, often when writers work, they need to do research. This leads the writer to work that is already published, for instance, newspapers, or magazines. Sometimes, the writer reads a book on his or her own and gets inspired to write a story about it.

Like what, you ask?

Like any piece of writing that Howard Waldrop has ever done. Haven't read Howard? Why not?

OK, how about...Hamlet, or King Lear, or Julius Caesar, or Othello, or Macbeth, or...ok, I'm beating Shakespeare up a little. But, the only original play that Shakespeare ever wrote was The Tempest. All the other plays were based on historical figures or events. Of course, Shakespeare wrote a lot of original dialogue, but the major events and plot points that happen in the play come from real events.

For a more modern example, you can look at Scott Westerfeld's novel PEEPS. Scott had read a number of books and articles about viruses and this lead him to the concept of the book PEEPS.

This is a phenomenal piece of writing, based on nonfiction work that someone else did. However, Scott did all the work of taking that research and putting it into a fictional world. That process of creating the world that the novel PEEPS lives in was unique to Scott's brain when he wrote it, and therefore, none of the people who wrote a book or an article about viruses that Scott used for his novel have any claim to money/fame that Scott earned/earns from PEEPS.

To be completely clear, I'm not trying to give any sort of props to Dan Brown. This was a case that was bigger than Dan Brown. The last thing we need is for some yahoo who is upset that someone made a lot of money writing a book by expanding/working with an idea that the yahoo put forth initially and that yahoo getting a court to say, yes, they stole your idea.

There are virtually no completely original ideas. Most writers take pieces of the world around them and weave them into stories. This is how readers relate to the writing of an author. If an author created a wholly original piece of work not tied into any piece of reality, it would be very tough for an audience to get behind the story. They would have no touchstones for the piece. However, if the story is set in the reader's hometown, or somewhere the reader visitied, or read about, or is about an event the reader has heard of...the reader can use that connection as an in-road into the writer's world.

This is a good thing. Trust me.

Oh the places I've seen!

Via Andy Wheeler (senior editor extraordinaire at the SFBC), a visual map of the states I've been to:



create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

Looks like I've mostly been in the midwest and the east coast; which makes sense as those are the two places I've lived. I've been to Los Angeles once, so coloring in all of California seems like a cheat. As does my time in San Antonio/Corpus Christi to color in all of Texas. Oh well.

The Katrina Project

A few days ago, Leslie Burger (ALA president elect) posted about the Katrina Project. This is a project where Powell's bookstore (Portland, OR's amazing bookstore) and some enterprising students at Princeton University are working together to help rebuild the New Orleans Public Library.

Burger explains in her post:

The Katrina Project is building a Levee made out of books in front of Firestone Library on the [Princeton] University Campus. If you are interested in donating to the Katrina Project New Orleans Public Library system rebuilding project you can purchase “book bricks” for $8.95 each at www.powells.com/katrina.

You can suggest a book for the collection at check-out time (home-improvement books are very popular among patrons right now), or you can let the organization chose one on their own.

If you are interested in helping, go here.

Tags: Katrina, Katrina Project, Leslie Burger, libraries, Powell's, levee