I went to Tauranga on the weekend – but I didn’t take these pictures. While my partner gallivanted around the beaches and cafes of the pretty Bay of Plenty town, I sat in a conference room at the Kickstart conference organized by OceanBooks and TheStoryBridge.
Yeah I know – I’m never at home! Last month Sydney, this month Tauranga – and in both cases I got the prize (which BOTH conference organisers have forgotten to deposit in my bank account), for “attendee from furthest away”. It’s a deliberate strategy though. I feel that I straddle the world of writers and marketers. Although I’ve never really considered myself a writer I’ve probably earned more from my writing than many self-titled authors. Even though in general my grammar sucks my spelling is worse, and my proof-reading random. (I installed the AfterTheDeadline plugin, have you grammar-Nazis seen an improvement?). So I’m trying to learn more about this weird author world, particularly the off-line part.
Marketers Need To Understand The Value of Good Books
The fatuous nonsense spouted by the pedlars of programs like Fast Kindle Cash don’t just scam the naive, lazy and gullible who join them, they also devalue the authenticity of the written narrative (oops the writer thing is rubbing off).
The marketing crowd is lazy – and scared of writing, and too cheap to pay for good writing
NEWSFLASH: Books require decent writing – End. Of. Story. Do it or hire the talent.
Authors Need To Grow Up Too
On the other hand I am quite simply stunned that authors have been happy to turn over all control for not just their career but even their creativity (did you know that traditional publishers control a book’s cover, title and blurb???) to publishers in return for what? Ten percent? Glory? Dunno about you – I can’t live on glory. All on top of being treated as demanding scum by publishers, just because they ask a publisher to read their book within a time frame of weeks not months (and while it’s with one publisher you can’t give it to another!). Who has the resources to put their business on hold for 6 months for someone else’s timetable?
Some authors have a book be accepted, only to have the publisher go bust before publication, and then have no other publisher willing to buy the rights because the book is “tainted” by having been previously contracted to someone else!!!
Well writer types, there, as they say, some good news and some bad new.
The good news is – that the gatekeepers are gone – indeed your chances of being published in New Zealand with a traditional publisher is now ZERO (rather than almost zero in 2012) – James George
The bad news: you need to take control of your work, your career, and your business. If you “just want to write”, that’s cool – just don’t expect to sell books.
You’ll need to finish your book, get your book edited, get your book formatted, and get your book in both print and electronic formats. You will then need to introduce your book to your potential buyers (aka marketing).
New Zealand Writers: The Future Is Here, and It’s Awesome
A few weeks ago I received the first 2013 edition of the New Zealand Author a paper(!) newsletter of NZSA. On the last page there was a long opinion piece titled: “Less Choice for Authors” by Geoff Walker (if Geoff had a website I’d link to it). It ended with:
Less choice for authors, less publisher diversity – for writers this isn’t good news.
In my opinion he couldn’t be more wrong – indeed this is singularly the BEST time to be a writer since the invention of the printing press. It is however a terrible time to rely on traditional publishers for a job. I think that New Zealand authors and writers actually have the best opportunity to get their books “out there” to their audience, because the gatekeepers have gone away.
Geoff posed the questions “my friend is a first-time novelist…[that] is now ready to be submitted to a publisher. So who should she go to?”
The answer is simple. No one. She should get a cover design for around US$50-US$200, she should get the book formatted for print and eBook (under US$200), she should publish via Createspace, Amazon and Smashwords. She should promote her book. If she starts to get traction and is in future approached by a publisher – she should be very careful considering, what, if anything, a publisher can do better than she can do herself.
Sounds far-fetched and outrageous? It has already happened – Hugh Howey indie self-publisher who already makes 5 figures ((US) a month, has recently signed with Simon & Schuster for the print only rights (Howey’s story here).
The future is amazing for writers. The future is amazing for books. But the future is different from the past, thank God.