The Yin and the Yang

by Libby Hellmann

I’m going through that peculiar period before my next book comes out. There are still several months to go -- it will be released in December. It’s a thriller that goes back, in part, to the late Sixties in Chicago, and yes, I’ll talk more about it later. Now, though, my publisher and I are in the process of sending out Advanced Reading Copies, or ARCs, to reviewers, bookstores, and bloggers. Btw, President Obama, I’m happy to send you one. You can read it after you finish your Jonathan Franzen ARC.

Usually, I love this period. No reviews have come in yet, and everything is still all possibility. Maybe I’ll get starred reviews. Maybe it will sell 100,000 copies. Maybe it will break me out. Maybe (gasp) it will end up on the New York Times best seller list. Maybe it will even be made into a film. This period is seductive, exciting, and enjoyable and I’d like to stay here forever. I’m in a dreamer’s paradise. I can even feel proud of my accomplishment — this will be my seventh novel, and for someone who never thought they’d be published, that’s not bad.

But you know where this is going, right?

Yup. I’m already bouncing from the rosy glow of the Yin to the dark abyss of the Yang. My friend Diane calls it “Imposter Syndrome”. I call it the “Who Do You Think You Are” disorder. It’s the feeling that the entire manuscript is drivel, that everyone will see what a fraud I am. That I’m just fooling myself to think I can write at all. Everything is black and toxic and gloomy, and I creep around the house feeling the weight of the world on my back. I don’t want the book to come out; I don’t want read what will clearly be pans by reviewers. I just want to go into a corner and disappear.

You’d think that after seven books, I’d know how to cope with both ends of the spectrum. That I’d learn to control the manic part, ignore the depressive. But it doesn’t get any easier. Even though I’m knee-deep into the next book and going through the same process -- Hmm, I never realized how cyclical these feelings are. Maybe I should see someone. Oh that’s right. I did. It didn’t take.

So, I ask you, blog readers and writers. How many of you have felt the same duality? What do you do about it?

P.S.

Earllier this sumer, reviewer Nina Sankovitch said this on Huffington Post:

“Short stories are a good way to ease your way back into the art of relaxed reading after a cold and intense winter. Start with these great shorts and just see where this summer can take you.”

While I wish she’d been talking about my collection of short stories (she wasn’t), in that spirit, I’m running an End-Of-Summer-It’s-Not-Too-Late special. My e-collection of short stories, NICE GIRL DOES NOIR, (all previously published), is free until September 1 on Smashwords. Just use the following coupons.

Vol. 1 #VC26Y
Vol. 2 #NL43X

Enjoy.

Customer satisfaction...

by Michael Dymmoch

...for a change.

In the last few months I've spent a lot of time listening to writers who've put their out-of-print books on Kindle and Smashwords. Some have even gone to self-publishing their dropped series as e-books. You can check out Joe Konrath's bog, A Newbie's Guide To Publishing, if you're interested in pursuing the subject.

My reason for bringing it up is that my first book, The Man Who Understood Cats, came out so long ago that my current computer couldn't read the electronic copy. I don't even have a drive that could handle the floppy disks. I tried having two different computer gurus scan them for me and got back files of gibberish. (Something like this: Sunseô waó onlù á reprieve¬ ninå houró tï rest¬ tï recover¬ � buô onlù á temporarù postponemneô oæ thå momenô mù opponenô � woulä deliveò thå coup®.)

You have to have a clean, recent-release-version-of-Word copy or an HTML version of your novel to publish electronically. And I wasn't up for retyping a 244 page novel. So I started asking around for a company to scan the novel for me. Found Blue Leaf Book Scanning. The company offers "a non-destructive scanning process [that] converts virtually any size book or document to any file format, including searchable PDF, eBook (Kindle, Nook, Sony...), audiobook (mp3), and editable text-based formats such as Word, RTF, and TXT." If you're willing to sacrifice a copy of the book to be scanned, they charge less.

On June 20 I paid on line (through PayPal) to have Blue Leaf scan my book. I got an email receipt immediately.

June 21, I sent a (3rd printing) copy of the novel (media mail with tracking) to Blue Leaf.

On July 7, I received a Zip file containing: copies of the novel in Kindle format, HTML, PDF, and formatted (for commercial printers) and unformatted Word versions. All for under fifty bucks!

Another scanning company I contacted quoted $199 for fewer formats.

That makes me a very satisfied customer.

On another note...

I'm a world class procrastinator. Which is why I'm just getting around to mentioning a great (for crime writers) website I first heard about in January. Carolyn Friedman blogs on The Forensic Science Technician. Besides her own article, 8 Body Parts Forensic Scientists Use to ID a Body, the site contains links to other intriguing topics:

• About The Skully Wannabe Blog
• Top 50 Homeland Security Blogs
• Getting to the Bare Bones of the Gormogon Killer
• Top 50 Forensic Scientist Blogs
• It ain’t CSI: What It’s Really Like to Be a Forensic Scientist
• The 50 Best Safety and Security Blogs
• The Top 50 Self Defense Blogs
• 100 Online Brainstorming Tools to Help You Think Outside the Box
• 50 Fascinating Online Psychology Tests
• DIY CSI: 20 Awesome Forensics Gizmos and Gadgets You Can Buy
• Top 20 Free Tools to ‘Hacker Proof’ Your Inbox
• Six Files the US Government Keeps on You, and How to Obtain a Copy
• 8 Body Parts Forensic Scientists Use to ID a Body
• 50 Germiest Places in the World
• 30 Scary Food facts you need to Know
• Top 100 Blogs for NFL Fans
• 50 Fascinating Documentaries for Forensics Science Junkies
• 15 Ingredients in Cosmetics you should Know About
• 100 Fun Twitter Feeds for Serious SciFi Geeks
• 100 Best Websites for Science Teachers
• 100 Blogs Every Science Student Should Subscribe To
• 50 Best Ecology Blogs

Check it out.

To E or Not to E

by Libby Hellmann

That seems to be the question. The answers to who should e-publish, who should retain rights, and how much ebooks should cost has dominated the conversation in the publishing industry for over a year now. Moreover, the spin-off issues that have evolved threaten to shake up the way authors and publishers do business. Not surprisingly, in some quarters the conversation has turned shrill. Even misleading, as friend-of-the-Outfit and uber-Kindler Joe Konrath discovered.


What isn’t misleading, though, is the effect ebooks are having. In 10 years it’s estimated that over 30% of all books sold will be in digital formats. That’s a lot of books. For authors, it presents an unprecedented opportunity to take our work directly to readers without spending a lot of money or time. No middle men, no publishers, no limitations. If you have the rights to your backlist, going-e is a terrific way to give those titles new life. And if you (or your agent) can manage to keep those rights as you continue to publish, you'll find that royalties accrue instantly, with nothing held in reserve.

Not bad... But...

Unfortunately, I’m a proponent of the “other shoe theory of life.” So following is kind of a reality check, at least on ebooks. Don’t get me wrong. All of my novels and other work are on Kindle and some are on Smashwords (more about that in another post), and I will continue to make them available.

But it’s important to note that your mileage may vary. In several ways.

First, the money. You’ve no doubt heard the six-figure income Joe’s on tap to reap from publishing his books on Kindle. But Joe is an anomaly. My books sell, but nowhere near his level. Joe has “broken through” the e-universe, and deservedly so. There is no one who has worked harder to promote himself and his “platform” although he disagrees. (I hate the word "platform," btw.) Remember the 500 bookstore tour? The library promotion? His My Space page? He has thousands of followers. He has reach. He’s versatile, and he tells a great story. But what about the rest of us? I’m not so sure.

Second, and this is more a theory than fact, it seems to me that a significant chunk of Kindlers and ebookers are younger, hipper, i-Phone-ish readers whose attention spans are –um— just a tad imperfect. Is what I write going to be of interest to them? Will they stick with it? I don’t know. Notwithstanding Harry Potter and Twilight, the number of fiction readers keeps declining, so the challenge becomes one of appeal. The ebook authors who can stay relevant to hipper, more wired readers will have more success. Unfortunately, that won't be all of us.

But here’s my biggest concern. If you’ve been paying attention, you already know that B&N, and now Apple ,among others, have created divisions for self-publishing ebooks. The floodgates are about to open, and the ebook market is going to be a vast sea of self-published work.

Theoretically, we midlist authors who have been previously published should have an advantage. We have been vetted. We have been edited. Publishers stand behind us. But how are we going to get that message out? What kind of filters will be in place to differentiate our work from work that hasn’t been vetted? Will anyone pay any attention? I don’t know.

Those are my worries. But there's good news too.

Despite the fact that publishing is contracting and going digital, there are several emerging trends that are positive for midlist authors. One of them is described in this article about the collaboration between a midlist author and a small publisher. Whether you’re publishing in print or ebook or both, I thought this was a clever way for both author and publisher to survive in today’s market. There are other MOs out there, as described here that new authors are using to get their work out.

I hope we’ll see more of these innovations. It's clear the industry is changing, and that's good. It will force authors to become better businesspeople, give us more control over their careers, and hopefully make publishers more accountable.


OK. Enough from me. What do you think?