Great conversation and right on time, too.

I just spent the weekend up here in Vancouver speaking to the British Columbia Booksellers Association about social media, blogging, other technologies for community building, outreach, engaging their customers wherever they may be.

I gave them explicit instructions to follow this blog and your posts on twitter and this entry here – which is the first one that many of them will read – is perfect. Timing is everything.

One hat that I’d like to throw into the ring is that the silo’d/overly compartmentalized world of the publishing industry needs to change for any mid-list writer to increase their chances for success.

Everybody – editors, publicists, booksellers, writers, et al. – is overworked, short on time and challenged by ongoing change. The temptation is to rely on tried and true traditional methods to get the job done which increasingly doesn’t work the way that it used to if at all and only adds to the sense of frustration.

Deep breath time. Look out the window, push everything off your desk and go for a walk in the sunshine time.

Answers, I don’t have. Better questions? Maybe occasionally.

But I think that publishing has always been about patience, investing time and ingenuity into a project, luck and integrity. Publishers, booksellers, writers all need to use their time creatively, they need to use the technologies available to them to build communities, to support each other and help to guide each other with ideas that work.

All points in the above posts are well made but let’s not lose sight of the fact that everybody must roll up their sleeves and experiment and turn what used to be the most de rigeur tasks into opportunities to explore new ways.

If we don’t do it now, someone else will and no amount of hand wringing is going to prevent that.

The Still, Quiet Place is real. It is. (Author rocks, hands over ears…)

As for the co-op, Ozymandias is on hiatus–I found I couldn’t focus on both the 7th century (i.e. my novel) and the 21st (i.e. the biz of community/co-op building) without the book suffering. But it’s an idea I have not abandoned.

As readers, we barely have time to keep up with our reading piles. There are far more books we *want* to read than we can read, and the constant influx of new doesn’t help — even the most diligent list-maker will have things slipping through the cracks because of the next bright and shiny book.
Ah, here’s where we’re different (sadly). I can’t find enough books, not good ones. Oh, there are lots (way too many) that are okay, but none that are edged with brilliance, none that set me afire. Why? Too many authors thinking with their fingers and not spending enough time in the SQP…

Even if an author goes the self-publishing route, keeping all profits for himself, there are great costs (from printing to distribution to marketing), but, if the book hits (and we know it’s happened), there can be big gains. But those early risks are tough going and, again, rising above the noise is hard.

This is why I’ve been thinking long and hard about small press for the past few years. Again, risks versus opportunities. I’ve also been thinking more about regional distribution. I think about all the ways possible to connect readers and books. There is no single good answer. We know the business is changing, we know aspects are shrinking, we know aspects are growing. To what extent the growth will make up for the losses, that’s an unknown. The music industry is still reeling (ha!) from the disparity between lost CD sales and digital sales. I have my own theories on this (first being, the huge CD numbers were, partially, due more to additive sales than new sales as people replaced their vinyl/cassettes; this wholesale library turnover isn’t happening as CDs are already digital).

Knowing that big publisher slots will decrease, knowing the physical retail space is shrinking, knowing that advance dollars (rarely if ever a livable wage) are growing smaller, what does an author do? Sit back and wring his hands or try new things? These past few years, I’ve watched a trio of authors (Scott Sigler, Seth Harwood, and JC Hutchins) make their own success via podcasting their books. I’ve watched authors who couldn’t get published in New York turn to digital publishers, finding the kind of readership that had NY houses knocking on their doors. I’ve seen some self-published authors find and develop their niches with reasonable success. These are not routes for every author, but they are examples of authors seeing opportunity and going for it.

In this perfect world, authors make enough money to pay the mortgage/rent, eat regularly, enjoy heating and cooling, and more. The actual economics of the publishing business mean only a few (out of the entire population of authors) enjoy this luxury without holding down some sort of day job. I think this has been true since the dawn of writing, even for those who benefited from the patronage system. Ah, there’s a system that needs to come back in fashion.

(I am far less opposed to lottery tickets than I should be. If only I worked them better).

But the how, that is the question (and I will note that due to my own recent leap into this business via Quartet Press, I have a specific bias here). In my perfect world there are some elements: first, getting books to more readers by increasing ways for those readers to get books. I am thinking of an English-language reader in Singapore who, for the decade or so I’ve known her, has paid top dollar to have books shipped to her. She buys in bulk when she travels. She cannot get books easily because of where she lives. Opportunity for authors comes when they take active steps to make sure people can *buy* books easily. The current system doesn’t readily support this ease of purchase outside the United States (I am also reminded of a tweet from a Canadian reader who, upon hearing good things about a book, said, “Wanted to buy xx-title, but not available in Canada, paper or digital. Lost sale.”

Making sure the author royalty is more in line with the author contribution — writing a book is damn hard work and while the publishing house puts skin in the game, there is a seeming disparity. In the print world, margins are thin and I’m not sure how to increase author compensation there. On the digital side of things, there is a definite growth trend (with the noted sales mix). There are definite cost savings for publishers. There are also definite costs (editorial and marketing, for example, don’t go away). From my perspective, the biggest investment for the publisher is infrastructure. It’s not easy changing how you do business. Authors are, for better or worse, helping to fund this investment by accepting the print royalty in the digital realm. I won’t say if that’s the right move (because there are good arguments for and against), but I’ve long thought that playing hardball with digital rights (to the point of taking them elsewhere) is a good thing.

Okay, that’s looking at it from publisher perspective. From the author perspective, the idea of a co-operative (which I know you’re already exploring) is viable. Figuring out how to ensure everyone in the community gets something back (and that’s not necessarily a financial thing, but it does need to offer some sort of value to each member. There is much to be said about the sense of ownership and satisfaction a person receives from participating in a community endeavor). There is the shares concepts. Heck (and I’m probably only being half-facetious) there is the itinerant worker concept.

Opportunity comes from markets that are opening, new readers coming into the mix, and using technology to tell stories in a mix of ways. For some, sticking with the traditional approach is both safe and practical. It’s a good way to survive. For others, taking a risk is the way to go. For some, it’s a mix of traditional and risk (call it the Cory Doctorow model).

Writing a good novel (the kind readers like to reread, not only for comfort but the intellectual challenge, the visceral thrill, the sense of living another life) requires enormous focus. Yes, a novelist can do it once or twice while holding down a Real Job–if they’re really lucky, and very talented, and have a lot of support, and boundless energy–but more than that will suck them dry. Really good novels come from full-time writers.

This means writing full-time. Not writing for an hour and then blogging/Tweeting/Facebooking/conferencing/mailing out ARCs/giving interviews for two hours and then fretting over the receivables spreadsheet for an afternoon.

In a perfect world, the writer gets to write. When they’ve finished the book, yes, they can spend a few months doing the social networking and commercial rounds–but then they have to withdraw and find the Still, Quiet Place–the wellspring of good books. I have never been able to find the SQP while dropping comments on blogs and doing five readings in a week. (Or writing introductions for other people’s novels, or essays on provocative topics, or any of the other signposting activities midlist novelists must engage in to maintain name recognition.)

Right now, I’m not seeing a golden age of opportunity. I’m seeing a rock and a hard place (and lottery tickets). I’d love–love love love–to be proved wrong, though.

So how can we do this?