Tag: small press authors

Dear Reader: If you buy books like widgets, I don’t want you

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn authors, books5 Comments

“We get on social media, we try different kinds of events, we create interesting displays, we sell the hell out of the books we love, but none of that reaches the boardrooms where the big decisions are made. If I could get one wish from the ghost of Sylvia Beach, it’s that she, or someone who cares about the inherent value of books, gets a seat in those boardrooms to advocate for readers not consumers, for books as a pillar of culture not as a unit of sales, and for bookstores as community centers not retail outlets and merchandise showrooms.” – Josh Cook of Porter Square Books, Cambridge, Mass

We hear stories from time to time about artists, jewelers, furniture makers and other stubborn souls who, after perfecting the art and the craft of their work for nearly a lifetime, refuse to sell their work to customers whom they believe won’t appreciate the work for its inherent beauty and artistry or who try to prostitute themselves, the art and the artists by acquiring the perfect bentwood rocker, diamond ring or sonnet at a rock bottom price.

Amazon, the Internet and parents who rear children to believe they (the children) are the center of the universe are conspiring like planets in trine to create a book buying atmosphere in which many (but thankfully, not all) prospective readers feel entitled to free, or almost-free books. This attitude is strengthened by the unfortunate, but popular, mindset that anyone selling or making anything is corrupt, cheating at taxes, and trying to rip off customers one way or the other. Therefore, like every other false right people are claiming to have these days, cheap books have become a component of the public’s feelings of entitlement and a way to get back at those who are purportedly stealing us blind.

If you listen to Amazon and to those who believe Amazon has done more for authors and readers than anyone since Gutenberg, then you are hearing that an e-book is just a file.  That means that neither the publisher nor the author is paying printers to print it, nor warehouses to store it.  Those who buy books as units or widgets or just files, see no value in the product other than the momentary gratification of reading them. They not only do not see the inherent artistry in the storytelling, nor the expenses an author incurs in creating that file which might include: (a) a year or two of full-time work, (2) hiring at editor, (3) paying for cover art, (4) travel and other research, (5) promotional efforts including mailing off free review copies, maintaining a website, traveling to book signings, purchasing bookmarks and fliers.

Some authors who have become household names by selling their books through large publishers, can take their fame—as well as their talents—off into the self-publishing world and earn a living selling books for a dollar or two on Amazon. They will lead you to believe that any author or publisher who asks you to pay, say, $5.00 for an e-book is ripping you off because (after all) the book is just a file.

According to the Census Bureau, the current poverty income level in the United States is $8,959. Looking at this simplistically, if I take a year to write an 80,000 word novel, I would have to sell at least 8,959 copies of that book on Amazon at the $1 price to break even at the poverty level. If I had any expenses in creating the book, I’d be under the poverty level.

In spite of the success stories we read about from time to time, most self-published books sell less than a hundred copies. Small-press authors are lucky if they sell 1,500 copies. In both cases, the authors are under the poverty level.

My great hope is that my readers will be happy with my books and will feel that a near-lifetime of art and craft has gone into them. I’m just an everyday, journeyman writer, so I do not feel like a “Hemingway in the making” or a “not-yet-discovered” Pat Conroy or John Grisham. Nonetheless, I do work very hard to tell exciting stories, with three-dimensional characters, pitch-perfect descriptions and themes that provide food for thought. Yet, and I tell you this without vanity or guile, if you want to purchase any of my novels at rock-bottom prices to you and to others like you, don’t bother.

If you think my e-book is just a file rather than the words and the work within the file, I don’t want you buying any of my books because, while we might have to agree to disagree about this, I don’t think you will appreciate them for their value as art/craft/culture. And, if you are earning an income above the poverty level, my strong belief is that if you want me to live below the poverty level selling my books with a rock-bottom, Amazon-style price, then you’re not the kind of person who will appreciate me as an author.

Based on the comments I’ve received on this blog, either directly, or when I post the links on Twitter or Facebook, I know that my regular visitors agree with the Josh Cook quotation I used to set the stage for this essay. I’m not talking to you because that would be rather like preaching to the choir. I’m talking to the people who will find this post via search engines with search words like “rock bottom prices” and “Amazon.” If you are one of those people and if you came here hoping I can “get it for you wholesale” or give it away for nothing, then I don’t want you.

For everyone else out there who respects books for their stories, words fail me in telling you how much I appreciate you.

Malcolm

Summer Reading…as the LA Times Sees It

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books3 Comments

Can you hear the bandwagon, the buzz and the hype? All that sound and fury is the mad rush of newspapers, magazines and blogs to trot out their lists of the hottest, sexiest, and scariest summer reads for beach, boudoir and ballpark. Yes, there’s a lot to like. I have already found some “must reads” on the lists, including The Final Storm by Jeff Shaara and The Chieu Hoi Saloon by Michael Harris.

Yet, from my perspective, the LA Times doesn’t “get it.” Neither do most of the other summer reading lists bring disseminated by the older, well-established newspapers and magazines. What we have here is “old media” promoting “old media.” By that, I mean the traditional big boys in the fading world of print are promoting large, old media publishers as though the congomerates are the only game in town.

It’s been an elite club for years. Look at the names of the publishers on the LA Times’ list. You’ll be hard-pressed to find an independent and/or small press publisher in the group. You’ll find Scribner, W. W. Norton, Penguin, Random House, Knopf and William Morrow.

I’ll stipulate that even in a world where many old-line publishers are in trouble, where book stores are failing, and where e-books are overtaking print books in sales, most of the buzz and the books sold are still coming from the old-media conglomerate publishers. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to reading opportunities.

Depending on those estimate you like, there are about 300 medium sized pubishers in the U.S. Most of them, much less the small publishers, never appear on the summer reads or the Christmas reads lists. (I was happily surprised to see a McSweeney’s book on the LA Times list.) But otherwise, what a shame, ignoring most of the publishers in the country.

New Pages features a fine list of Independent Publishers and University Presses here. The majority of the reading public either doesn’t know those publishers exist or inaccurately presumes the books coming from them are filled with footnotes and niche-market symbolism and weird experimental stuff. But take a look. See what you’ve been missing.

Alternative Selections

A Heaven of Others by Joshua Cohen from Dzanc Books.

Knuckleheads by Jeff Hass from Dzanc Books.

Bogmeadow’s Wish by Terry Kay from Mercer University Press.

The Coffins of Little Hope by Timothy Schaffert from Unbridled Books.

Scorpion Bay by Michael Murphy from Second Wind Publishing.

Light Bringer by Pat Bertram from Second Wind Publishing.

Hyphema by Chelle Cordero from Vanilla Heart Publishing.

Maze in Blue by Debra H. Goldstein from Chalet Publishers.

These books ought to be enough to get you started this summer.

—Malcolm

Jock Talks…The Collection combines four e-books in one for only $3.99.

Jock Stewart, who refutes charges that he was raised either by alligators or hyenas, believes that modern-day journalism would be going to hell in a hand basket if hand baskets were still readily available. He has chosen to make his stand for old-fashioned reporting at the Junction City Star-Gazer, a newspaper that—while run by fools and buffoons—knows the difference between real news and “stuff that sounds like real news.”

Why I review the books I review

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books, reviews4 Comments

Truth be told, if my name were James Patterson and/or if I worked for the New York Times, a fair number of readers might be waiting to see what I (or my newspaper) had to say about “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest” or “Frankenstein: Lost Souls.”

But I’m not and I don’t.

I’ll probably read “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest” because I enjoyed the late Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” I probably won’t review it, though, because by the time I get around to reading it adding one more review to a slough of them on Amazon or GoodReads just isn’t going to matter.

More importantly, though, is the fact that Stieg Larsson’s books don’t need any help, nor do they need any cautionary words or warnings. But small-press and self-published authors do need publicity, so I’m going to focus on novels from those sources when I find books I like.

I have no delusions of grandeur about this. My review isn’t going to catapult an unknown author onto the New York Times bestseller list. The book world runs on publicity. The trouble is, those who don’t need it keep getting more of it. Those who do need it get very little of it because they’re not already famous.

This is one of those paradoxes that drives authors nuts. “Why,” they ask, “is there a million dollar marketing budget for a book that’s going to become a bestseller with no marketing at all?” And, “Why are a hundred reviewers lining up to review the last James Patterson book when, really, everything that could be said about it has already been said?”

Mob instinct, I would say.

I would much rather offer my humble opinion about a book you might not hear about at all unless you chance upon my blog review or my GoodReads review. Perhaps you will find a title you like and you’ll buy a copy. After you read it, you might tell your friends about it.

The authors of the books I review may have worked for a year or two writing their books. In some cases, they struggled with their manuscripts off and on for decades. I think they deserve a chance to be read. That’s why I review them.

—Malcolm