Self Publishing

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Doubleheader Now you can get both of my acclaimed "Charlie Willis" crime novels — MY GUN HAS BULLETS and DEAD SPACE —  combined together in DOUBLE HEADER for just $4.99. That's two books, complete and uncut, for the price of one. 

MY GUN HAS BULLETS

When Beverly Hills Police Officer Charlie Willis pulls over a speeding Rolls Royce hell-bent for Neiman Marcus, he's surprised to see Esther Radcliffe, the geriatric star of the TV series "Miss Agatha," behind the wheel. He's even more surprised when she guns him down and keeps on driving. A few hours later, he wakes up in the intensive care unit…to find a William Morris agent, a network president, and the head of Pinnacle Studios standing at the foot of his bed. They have a proposal for him: in exchange for conveniently forgetting who shot him, they'll make him the star of his own series, "My Gun Has Bullets." So Charlie trades in his real badge for a fake one…and so begins an uproarious but deadly romp through the wonderful world of TV make-believe…with real bullets. 

"It will make you cackle like a sitcom laugh track. Goldberg keeps the gags coming right up to the end."-Entertainment Weekly

"A very funny novel…a pinch of Carl Hiaasen, a dash of Donald Westlake, and a heaping portion of avarice and inanity Hollywood Style. It's boffo!"– Booklist

DEAD SPACE

Ex-cop Charlie Willis handles "special security" at Pinnacle Pictures. His job: to protect the studio and its stars, to stop scandals before they explode, to keep the peace in the land of make-believe. When Pinnacle revives the cult, 1960s TV series "Beyond the Beyond" as the cornerstone of a fourth network, two powerful forces fight for control of the show-a talent agency that uses blackmail, torture, and murder to keep its clients on the A-list, and a homicidal legion of rabid fans led by an insane actor who thinks he's in outer space.

"[It] reads like a modern-day Alice in Wonderland set against the venal world of the TV industry. It's wonderfully revealing and uncannily accurate," Vancouver Sun (Canada)

"The novel's satiric slant is strong enough to have an effigy of Goldberg beamed into outer space at the next Star Trek convention," Los Angeles Times

"This sharp roman a clef goes where no Hollywood satire has gone before…it's a stingingly funny novel." -Entertainment Weekly 

BONUS MATERIAL: This special Kindle edition includes a sample chapter from  THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE.

I'm doing this as an experiment. THE JURY SERIES compilation of my four vigilante novels widely outsells the books individually. So I figured that since MY GUN HAS BULLETS, one of my best-selling books, sells far better than DEAD SPACE, its sequel, this might be the perfect way to maximizes sales of both. I'll let you know how it goes.

The Fall of the Paper Curtain

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Mba1 This week marked an astonishing turning point in the publishing industry. USA Today published it's usual list of the top 150 bestselling books…but for the first time, they included self-published work in their calculations. Kindle Nation founder Stephen Windwalker calls it the "fall of the Paper Curtain." As if that wasn't amazing enough on its own, it wasn't just that a self-published author cracked the list…but that the same author managed to get seven titles on it. Self-published author Amanda Hocking's books placed 16, 24, 31, 81, 133, and 146 on the list, outselling authors like Stephen King and Nora Roberts. Here's what Windwalker predicts will be happening very soon: 

  • One way or another, the fact that USA Today has opened its "bestseller list" gates to the great unwashed population of ebook and self-published authors will force the New York Times to do the same, lest its bestseller list be rendered irrelevant.
  • Once the Times and other rags allow self-published books on their bestseller lists, they will have to start publishing reviews of self-published books.
  • The prediction made here just a few weeks ago, that an indie author would be inducted by early 2012 into the "Kindle Million Club" alongside James Patterson, Stieg Larsson, and Nora Roberts, will prove to have been ridiculously conservative. Regardless of when Amazon makes the announcement, Hocking will pass the million-copy mark in Kindle books sold by the first day of Spring this year, and she will be joined by another dozen indie authors before the arrival of Spring in 2012.

 

Getting Dirty On Her Own

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The-dirty-girls-social-club Author Alisa Valdes-Rodriquez is walking away from St. Martin's Press and self-publishing the third book in her hugely successful DIRTY GIRLS SOCIAL CLUB series in both e-book and print formats. She say, in part:

The Dirty Girls Social Club was published through St. Martin’s Press and sold more than half a million copies. The second Dirty Girls book, Dirty Girls on Top, also with St. Martin’s, came in just under that. When I did the math, I realized I’d only have to sell 100,000 copies on my own to earn what I’d made for six times the sales with a major publishing house. If I sold the same number of Dirty Girls books as I’d sold in the past, meanwhile, I’d be…a goddamned millionaire. A goddamned millionaire in control of her own career and destiny.[…]While I will continue to go with big publishers for my young adult books (I am under contract with Harper Collins for three books right now) I am very curious to see how the Dirty Girls experiment goes for me. I suspect it will go well enough to merit a national tour, which makes me think I should probably start taking pilot lessons now.

I predict her experiment will be a big success…because she's clearly shrewd, determined, enthusiastic and has a strong, pre-existing platform that she worked hard to build. Even if she sells only a tiny percentage of what she did with St. Martins on her first two Dirty Girls books, she will still make a fortune.  But even if it doesn't work out, which I doubt, she's wisely keeping one foot in the professional publishing world with her YA novels. This is one very smart lady.

Valdes-Rodriquez and Terrill Lee Lankford  are just the first in what I am certain will be a wave of professional authors opting to self-publish rather than accept the 25/75 e-royalty split or a pitiful mid-list advance (for which they will be essentially giving up rights to their books forever).

Spinetingling Interview

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Spinetingler Magazine has a long interview with me today on e-publishing. My thoughts on the subject have changed a bit since I did the interview but probably aren’t new to any of you who’ve read my blog, but even so, here’s a taste:

But have publishers been slow to adapt? Absolutely. Are they pricing ebooks too high? In some cases yes, but I don’t necessarily believe that the arbitrary $9.99 figure set by Amazon makes financial sense for publishers or authors…not while there are still hardcovers and paperbacks being published. The $2.99 price point makes a lot of sense for self-published authors like Joe and me…but does it make sense for Michael Connelly’s latest book from Little Brown? I don’t think so.

There’s no question that publishers should definitely be giving their authors a much bigger ebook royalties…and they will. It’s inevitable. But right now, publishers are in a state of total confusion and terror. They don’t know what to do…Borders is on the verge of collapse, Barnes & Noble is closing stores, ebook sales are exploding… it’s akin to what radio was facing when television came along. So they are trying to cut costs, pruning the midlist, firing editors, hunkering down and waiting out the storm. How they will emerge afterwards is anybody’s guess at this point.

It’s naive to think, though, that James Patterson or Janet Evanovich or authors in their stratosphere are going to be walking away from traditional publishing any time soon…they benefit enormously from the infrastructure and reach those companies provide. You can’t compare what A-list writers get from traditional publishing to what mid-list writers are experiencing. They are different universes. And it’s naive to think that big publishers, or printed books, are going to disappear. I’m sure the ebook world will, like the print world, continue to be dominated by the big publishers and the big authors (the big players in radio became the dominant players in TV, too). But there is more opportunity now for individual authors to take charge of their own careers. That said, it would not surprise me if Amazon, and eretailers like them, eventually institute some kind of filtering system to deal with the deluge of self-published work that they are being hit with. The slush pile has gone digital…and it’s going to be overwhelming, for Amazon and for readers, to wade through it all.

Just Say No

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Author Terrill Lee Lankford announced on his blog that he has just walked away from a big advance from a major publisher on his next book over the outrageous 75/25 e-book royalty split…and is going to self-publish instead. He says, in part: 

What this “sizable advance” now looks like to me is a very expensive loan. I have been watching the e-book revolution carefully for the last two years and it is clear to me that by 2012 everything we have thought about traditional publishing will be history. The bookstores know this. The publishers know this. And some of the writers know this. But I have a feeling not everyone has gotten the memo yet.

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So I have no choice but to go full indie here. You heard me. I am walking away from a potential traditional publishing deal and joining the ranks of the self-published.[…]
This is a huge gamble for someone in my position. I am not prolific. My habit has been to publish two books every seven years or so. That time was approaching and I was hoping that I had found a new home with this editor and publishing house. But I can’t sign away my financial legacy to my children in this fashion, however small it may be.

He also has a warning for mid-list authors who are seeing new publisher interest in their dormant backlist…

In the meantime a lot of the little folks who just want to see print again are probably going to be seduced by new interest from publishers. I have a feeling there is going to be a tidal wave of cheap purchases by the publishers hoping to tie up as much material as possible at these usury rates. And then how much will your “platform” be worth? If you are just another name in a list of hundreds fighting for attention on a giant slate of titles you will have handed in your work cheap, with no way of getting it returned to you. Yes, that’s right. E-books don’t go out of print, so if you don’t fight for time limits, your work will be lost to you. Permanently.

I think we are going to see more and more authors, those who haven’t become household names, doing the math and making the same decision that he has.

Knee-Jerk Defensiveness

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There's a very narrow range of acceptable opinions in the "indie" world of self-published authors. And here they are, in no particular order:

1. the "traditional" publishing system is evil, unfair, and inept. Oh, and it's doomed. It will collapse by next Tuesday.
2. "traditional" publishers are terrified by the talent and imagination of self-published authors. 
3. bestselling authors like Meyer/Rowling/Grisham etc are miserable hacks who owe their success entirely to marketing.
4. any 99 cent indie book by an amateur is going to be as good, if not better, than any "traditionally" published book. 
5. published authors are elitists who fear the democratization of publishing because it offers more choice to readers and threatens their sense of entitlement. 
6. readers can't tell the difference between self-published books and "traditionally" published books because there really is no difference.
7. any published author who criticizes any aspect of self-publishing is criticizing YOU personally and YOUR book. 
8. "beta readers," no matter who they are, are really the best judges of your work, not any editor or agent.
9. there's really no need for experienced editors or copyeditors, since "traditionally" published books often have errors in them.
10. there's no such thing as a bad self-published book.
11. there's no such thing as a bad self-published book cover
12. always encourage "indie" work and never criticize it, no matter how awful it might be.

Any deviation from those accepted attitudes is seen as condescending, destructive, and treasonous. That's not to say there isn't some truth to them, but God forbid anyone in the "indie" ranks should ever acknowledge that: 

1. the stigma associated with self-published work is often well-deserved
2. the stigma, if anything, might endure and even become stronger as more unreadable swill is put out there.
3. failing to acknowledge the stigma doesn't make it go away, it only reinforces the negative stereotype that self-published authors have blinders-on and can't tell good writing from slop.
4. self-published work should be judged by the same high creative and editorial standards as "traditionally" published books. (Yes, there are standards, and we all know it).
5. readers *can* tell the difference between amateur, self-published work and professionally-written, "traditionally" published books. Most of the time, there *is* a difference.
6. there are a lot of awful self-published books.
7. there are a lot of awful self-published book covers…and yes, it matters.
8. self-published work could benefit from, and often desperately needs, professional editing, copyediting, and art design (regardless of whether you found a typo in Michael Connelly's last book).
9. relying on inexperienced "beta readers" can often be a case of the blind leading the blind
10. the reason Meyer/Rowling/Grisham etc. are bestselling authors is because they had great ideas for books and wrote them very well…and they might actually be more creative, and better writers, than most of us (it wasn't just luck).
11. it's okay to be critical of self-published work (and when someone is, that doesn't mean they are talking about YOU and YOUR book).

Gumming up the Plumbing with Your Old Underpants

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Charlie Wendig has written a hilarious… and genuinely insightful…post about the justifiable stigma attached to self-publishing and how to avoid it. Here's a taste:

I (and I’m sure other capable writers) have noticed and noted that self-publishing bears a certain stigma. With the term comes the distinct aroma of flopsweat born out of the desperation of Amateur Hour — it reeks of late night Karaoke, of meth-addled Venice Beach ukelele players, of middle-aged men who play basketball and still clutch some secret dream of “going pro” despite having a gut that looks like they ate a basketball rather than learned to play with one.

Self-publishing just can’t get no respect. This is, of course, in contrast to other DIY endeavors.[…]This is in part because it’s a lot harder to put an album or a film out into the world. You don’t just vomit it forth. Some modicum of talent and skill must be present to even contemplate such an endeavor and to attain any kind of distribution. The self-publishing community has no such restriction. It is blissfully easy to be self-published. I could take this blog post, put it up on the Amazon Kindle store and in 24 hours you could download it for ninety-nine cents. It’s like being allowed to make my own clothing line out of burlap and pubic hair and being allowed to hang it on the racks at J.C. Penney.

That last line just killed me. And it's not even the funniest bit in his post. What's great is that he doesn't just take cheap shots at bad, self-published writers the way, say, I would.  By using strong examples, he clearly and hilariously illustrates the many cringe-inducing mistakes made by aspiring writers and, at the same time, offers solid advice on how to avoid "gumming up the plumbing with your old underpants."  It's a very entertaining read, whether you're a writer or not.

Paperback Parade

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Mygunhasbulletspod_2-001 My two "Charlie Willis" novels, MY GUN HAS BULLETS and DEAD SPACE, are now both available as trade paperbacks. These are the best-looking print editions of those two books yet, thanks to cover artist Carl Graves and designer Steven Booth.

 MY GUN HAS BULLETS, in particular, really looks nice...and it's about time. It was published back in the 1990s in hardcover by St. Martin's Press and I've never been satisfied with any printing of the book until now.

Those two books join THE WALK, THREE WAYS TO DIE and MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE, which are also available now in trade paperback editions.

You Can Become a Kindle Millionaire, Part 21

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The_Walk_FINAL This was, far and away, my best month ever for sales of my out-of-print backlist on the Kindle.

I sold 3075 books and earned $6624.40 in royalties.  My biggest seller was THE WALK, which sold 1083 copies and earned $2230.98.  

I also did nicely on Createspace with the trade paperback editions of my books, earning $483.94 but not-so-well on the Nook, earning  just $211.46 (though I am told B&N was having accounting problems this month and may be adjusting those numbers upwards, as they did in December).

The grand total in royalties for January, not including Smashwords (Apple, Diesel, Kobo, Sony) or Amazon UK sales, is $7319.80.

By comparison, in January 2010, I sold 536 copies and earned $775 in royalties.

Unbelievable.

(My poorest selling books are the four JURY titles, formerly known as the .357 VIGILANTE series. I blame that, in part, on the negative reviews they've received due to sloppy proofreading. No matter how many times I've gone through the books, errors still seem to slip past me. So the books are now in the hands of a professional copyeditor…when she gets them back to me I will relaunch the books, give way free copies for fresh reviews, and update the product descriptions). 

Announcing Top Suspense

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Here's the press release announcing TopSuspense, which just went out to media outlets this week.

Navigating the Sea of E-Books

Nine top suspense authors join forces to promote quality e-books www.TopSuspenseGroup.com

 The e-book market is exploding. With over 700,000 e-books currently available and hundreds more added every week, it’s growing increasingly difficult to distinguish quality books from those that are unedited and written by inexperienced authors.

That’s why nine established, professional authors have formed Top Suspense Group, a site where readers are guaranteed to find top-notch, award-winning authors in multiple genres who deliver a great e-reading experience in their dozens of highly-acclaimed books.

"Readers can count on us," acclaimed author Max Allan Collins explains. "Every member of our group has already made his or her mark on genre fiction, whether it's noir, crime, mystery, thriller, horror or Westerns, and in some cases, several of these genres."

Top Suspense authors have each:

  • Published multiple novels with traditional publishers
  • Won or have been nominated for major literary awards
  • Been internationally published
  • Received critical acclaim from national publications

Many of the authors have graced the national bestseller lists and have had their work produced or optioned for film (the Oscar winning “Road to Perdition”) and television (the Emmy winning “Monk”). Our authors include:

 Max Allan Collins · Bill Crider · Lee Goldberg · Joel Goldman · Ed Gorman · Vicki Hendricks

Paul Levine · Harry Shannon · Dave Zeltserman

 This unique site provides a one-stop-shop of quality suspense fiction. As the e-book market continues to flood and overwhelm readers, Top Suspense will remain a succinct guide to quality, professional e-books written by today’s leading authors.