Writing Up A Storm

Hi Guys,

Just to keep you up to date on where things are at with me. First, Madness and Magic is still with the editor. But progress is being made and I hope it'll be out in the next month or two.

And while that's being edited I've been working on two other books.

One of them, possibly to be called Callum or Chase - since that's the hero's name - has finished it's first draft and is now in the sitting around phase, waiting for me to mull it over a bit. I'm not completely convinced with the ending and some of the language needs sharpening up a little. It's the tale of a hedge (wizard) caught up in a war he wants no part of, between true wizards and the fae. I don't know if that will go the self publishing route or be farmed out around agents and publishers yet.

The other book - I want to call it Wings, but the name is already taken by the tv series and trademarked - is the corollary to the Arcanist. In essence it starts out with an identical protagonist - a third son of a noble family blessed (or cursed in this case) with magic, and technological skills. But everything departs from the first tale because of one small change in the world build. In his world, magic and technology undermine one another. So spells weaken and damage technology around them, while technological items weaken enchantments etc and make spell casting problematic. Our hero lives in a technological city (think steampunk) and when he discovers his magic is forced to flee the city and head to the magical lands to the west.

This book, I'm thinking will go initially to Baen Books, given that they have an open submission system and like works to be focused on magical systems. I just hope that they don't read Madness and Magic, since the hero in it is called Baen and has a book store called Baen's Books!

Ah well, such is life!

Cheers, Greg.

Even The Penguins Are Freezing!

Hi Guys.

 

 

Haven't posted anything for a while as usual – this time mostly because I haven't had much to say. But just at the moment I feel inspired.

It may have something to do with the polar blast that seems to be streaming up the country at the moment. The big chill certainly doesn't inspire me to head out of the house any more than absolutely necessary, which leaves me stuck in front of the computer more often. That would be good except that I'm also sure my fingers have frozen to to the bone which makes typing difficult! Fortunately my cat has selflessly volunteered to take over the writing duties by sleeping on the keyboard at every opportunity. Unfortunately I have no idea at all what she's been typing. I just don't read cat!

Then again it could be because of the latest news in the world of writing which is a disgruntled author who has apparently been turned down three hundred and nineteen times by agents and decided to have a bit of whine about it. Unfortunately not about being rejected so many times, just about the latest agent to do so and her appearance, dress sense, and motives for not paying him the attention he so richly deserves. I won't mention his name or give a link – because I'm just cynical enough to suspect he may have written such an offensive piece simply to gain publicity and if so I don't want to help him. It'll be easy enough to find his blog and the endless scathing reviews of it if you just google “how to get yourself blacklisted” since it's gone viral.

But in the meantime to said author – dude a few words of advice;

First, agents are people too. Yes I know it's hard to believe, but personal attacks will not endear you to them. And yes, the rest of the writing community is largely unimpressed by your rant too. So you probably have got yourself blacklisted. Congrats!

Second, despite your rant, you actually know her motivations. She wants clients with books that are going to sell and make her lots of money. Was that not perfectly obvious from the start? So why did you even bother going to see her if you weren't prepared to sell her your book on that basis?

And third and probably most critically – three hundred and nineteen submissions?! Did you get dropped on your head at some stage?! It's time to go indie and let the readers decide whether your book's any good. Though I'd probably put it out under a pen name if I were you. Readers also read blogs, and most I suspect won't be any more impressed by your rant than I was.

However, to switch to a more positive note my latest space opera “Spaced” has now completed two full edits with Tickety Boo Press and I believe they're just finishing up now as they prepare to publish. So really looking forward to that. It's been a challenging process, using different editors with different styles and an emphasis on different aspects of the writing, but I think well worth it. So I'm hoping you'll all agree and it sells well and I can afford some new winter thermals!

Anyway, must get back to freezing to death! But looking forwards to the news in the next few days. Selena Gomez is coming to town for a concert, and I'm expecting records to be set. One in particular. Most concert goers ever to come down with hypothermia in one go! Also her new single which is really quite good may well be retitled after the event – Killing them with Frostbite!

Stay warm guys!

 

Cheers, Greg.

New Space Opera In The Works.

Hi Guys,

 

Just thought I'd give you an update of what I'm doing - if only so you don't think I'm simply sitting on my backside all day! (I am - but I don't want you to think that!)

 

My next book a space opera called "Spaced" has just come back from the editors last night, and I'm currently going a little blind going through the revisions. But it's all in a good cause and with a little luck Spaced should be published within the next month or so. I should also say I'm enjoying the experience of having it published by Tickety Boo Press - you guys should check out some of their other authors. They do a lot of space opera and fantasy. And as you can see above, their cover art is pretty cool too!

 

And just to wet your appetites here's a first draft of the blurb:

 

Spaced.

 

 

The Translation Drive. The wonder of the ages. And the drive that opened up the universe to exploration. But the drive has a down side. With the push of a button you could be anywhere in the universe. But you could also be eternally lost – Spaced.

 

 

This is the fate that befalls Doctor Carmichael Simons. Returning to Aquaria after a successful mineral survey he finds himself named as a terrorist and bomber. With the police trying to kill him and the navy closing in, he does the unthinkable. He jumps wild, in effect spacing himself. Now he can never get home and clear his name – but that won't stop him trying.

 

 

Back on Aquaria Detective Annalisse Samara, given the task of investigating the bombing and finding out why a respected scientist would blow up a hydroponics reserve, begins work. But what she uncovers may well turn the Commonwealth on its head and get her killed.

 

 

In the end they may both be spaced.

 

Cheers, Greg.

 

 

2016 And Beyond

Hi guys,

Hope you all had a great Christmas and are enjoying the new year. I thought I'd start this year off by making some predictions for what's coming in the literary world in 2016 and beyond. Feel free to agree with them or not.

1) In store on demand printing – espresso book machine.

I think this is an idea whose time has come. In 2007 the espresso book machine was developed –essentially a portable small scale printery / bindery which can be set up in a back room. It has made some inroads into the world of books, mostly being taken up by large public libraries as it allows their customers to simply print any one of the millions of publicly available books, many of them no longer in print, and walk out a couple of minutes later with the book under their arm. The EBM though was an idea that the world wasn't ready for. It was expensive –one hundred and some thousand green backs, which has held things back a little. Never the less it is out there and slowly becoming more common.

But now I think, we sit on the cusp of its arrival. Look at the market forces at work in the industry at present. Booksellers are being squeezed. Ebooks are now a significant segment of the market and booksellers don't sell them. (You wondered why your corner book shops were closing down?) At the same time the big five (used to be six) have sort of cornered the market as far as what booksellers can sell. They essentially have arrangements that say they will supply the shops with their goods, provided that the store doesn't stock competitors. This means indies. (You wondered why your book stores often don't sell indie books? That's one reason. Another is of course the perceived quality issues and the issue of unsold returns making each indie book they stock a risk.) And the cost of EBMs? Coming down. There are now even second hand machines available.

This is heading for a perfect storm of economic factors, and my prediction is that over the next few years the uptake of this technology will explode.

Soon customers will simply wander down to their local bookseller with either a name of an out of print public domain book, or a file and walk out with their book. Any book. Not just the ones on the shelves.

There are no copyright issues for the bookseller, since the work is either public domain or the files were provided by the customer, and in any case they did not “sell”the book – they printed it. Suddenly they have a whole new bunch of customers in store, those who want books in the physical format, but don't want to have to wait for them to be delivered in the mail, pay freight etc, or be limited to what's on the shelves.

Expect the big five to start squawking though.
 

2) Kindle Unlimited 2 is here to stay.

Around the middle of 2015 Amazon changed the algorithms of Select and came up with KU2 as it's called. The new Kindle Unlimited. Under the original algorithm authors were paid a flat rate for every book downloaded by customers regardless. This meant those who wrote short stories got the same fee whatever length it was or how much the book sold for. This in turn led to a strange market distortion on KU where novelists were less encouraged to use it and more encouraged to go non Select and sell through other channels. The monies from borrows were often less, even much less than they were getting from sales and novelists don't write as many books a year as others. Meanwhile short story writers were over the moon as an author could price a book at 99c get 35c commission every time he sold a copy, but get a couple of bucks every time someone borrowed it. In extreme cases they were actually getting paid for borrows of books that were free!

KU2 has corrected these issues and now authors get paid by the number of pages read. This means a short story writer who was making a killing on KU1 as he could write a book a week, now only gets paid according to the number of pages Select customers read of each story. So bad for them I'm afraid. But novelists who could perhaps only put out a few books a year by comparison, now also get paid according to the pages read. And whereas a short story might only have ten pages, a novel might have five hundred. Suddenly the economics swing to them in a big way.

And add to that the fact that KU2 is boosting recognition of their books / names and providing a significant revenue boost for many, and it becomes a godsend.

For Amazon of course this means that Select is slowly being stocked with novels as those who write longer works suddenly see the value in it over selling through other channels. Naturally there will be a migration to Select by them. And the economics for Amazon are telling too as Select now becomes a tool whereby it can increase its market share over the big five etc.

So I see this model staying no matter that many short story writers are unhappy. Speaking as a novelist – I certainly hope so! (Also speaking from a purely selfish and probably somewhat judgement impaired point of view, there is something incredibly satisfying about seeing your monthly balance sheet from Amazon with figures in the millions on it! Even knowing it's pages read and not books sold it looks so damned good!)

Expect to hear the big five squawking some more though.

3) Increased uptake of successful indies to dark side (oops – I meant trade publishing!)

This is a trend that has been going on for some time. Agents and publishers have been perusing the shelves of Amazon and others looking for indie authors who seem to be doing well, and making offers. After all it looks like a win win to them. If an indie with limited resources for covers, printing, marketing etc, is hitting the mark, imagine how much better they could do with a professional team and industry contacts behind them?! And for the agent why should he waste so much time with submissions from writers who've never been tested when he can go straight to a ready made crop of authors who have been tested and achieved some success, and start harvesting?!

I expect this trend to continue over the coming years and grow until ultimately (and somewhat ironically) the best way for an author to get an agent will actually be to self-publish.

Of course there will be winners and losers as always. If this is good for indies it's bad for those just starting out and desperate to go to the dark side (Damn – did it again! I keep meaning to write trade publishing and my fingers slip on the keys!). It will become even harder to get an agent and a contract, and contracts as we all know, are becoming smaller.

The big five may actually coo a little bit here – very quietly – if it means they get more successful authors and hence more sales.

 

4 Greater acceptance of self publishing as a legitimate career choice.

This isn't so much a prediction for 2016 as it is an ongoing trend. But I think as ebooks start to dominate the market and self publishing becomes the norm, the potential for us indies to make a living writing grows. Granted I don't mean all self publishers. Most of those who do self publish will have problems; poor editing, poor covers, weak plots etc etc and they will naturally enough fall by the way. There's no way around that. But for those who are willing to put in the hard yards, hire editors and cover designers, school themselves in the business of writing and publishing, the prospects of making more money going indie than dark side (naughty fingers!) improve.

In the old days those who weren't willing to do this would simply never have got an agent and so would have made nothing. Now they can get their work out there, but still probably won't make a lot. However, for those who are willing to invest the time and effort, the economics of indie publishing are undeniable. You get better commissions on each sale, you can put out more books per year than a dark side author (I'm trying to stop it – really!) and you have far greater artistic control of your work. You don't have to write the gazillionth version of sparkly vampires or whatever trend is out there that your publisher wants to see.

In 2015 we saw another writers organization start accepting indies as members – the SFWA. (Too little too late in my view but that's another matter.) We've seen surveys showing that indies are becoming ever greater segments of the ebook market. We've heard ever more indie success stories. And some of the old stereotypes are being washed away.

In the old days the advice given to aspiring authors was always – “never self publish”. Then people went sort of quiet with that advice. And now I think the advice would be– “yes, self publish – it's your best chance of making a go of writing – but do it well!” And these days that would be my advice too.

I'm damned sure it won't be the advice of the big five or agents though!

Anyway, that's my guess as to where things are heading in 2016 and beyond.

Have a great year all.

Cheers, Greg.

Greg's Pustulating Necrosis of the Gut!

Hi guys,

 

 

 

Bit of an odd post this time. A few days ago I ate something that disagreed with me – (no, it wasn't a critic!) – and ever since then have been living in a land of pain and toilets that no amount of imodium and erythromycin can seem to hold. And then the night before last, just as I was thinking things were finally on the mend, they instead took a sudden about turn and I became convinced somewhere in the early hours of the morning that death wasn't such a bad thing. Dying is of course a different matter! Naturally I'd feel sorrow for those I left behind. For my family. For my cat who'd have to find someone else to look down upon with disdain – though to be fair she's a cat and so has the entire world to look down upon! For the coroner who might have to wear multiple gas masks to do his work and then still be decontaminated! But really as the clock struck three in the morning and the porcelain was begging for mercy, it still didn't seem so bad.

Somewhere after that though, a strange thought took hold of me – the understanding that whatever I was suffering from couldn't be natural. It had to be new and improved. A whole new class of diarrhoea. Something that would make the medical texts. I could have a brand new disease named after me!

But then I realised there are diseases and then there are diseases. I mean who wouldn't want some cool disease named after them? Greg's Lycanthroposis for example would be quite cool. Not a bad way to be remembered. Or some sort of hyper mania perhaps. Greg died while trying to hurl a bus at police and was later found to have over four hundred bullets in him! Greg's Hyper Rage! Now that would be undeniably cool! By contrast I can only imagine that Gerhard Hansen was infinitely glad that Hansen's Disease was never popularly known by that name but rather simply as leprosy. Still even against that infamous horror Greg's Pustulating Necrosis of the Gut would be a far less welcome memoriam. And when the symptoms of GPNG are listed as the sufferer's choice of death either by his insides suddenly deciding they wanted to become his outsides or alternatively asphyxiating on his own flatulence, I can't imagine anyone ever wanting to be associated with the condition. Least of all me.

Writing I think, has a little in common with this. (There! You see? You knew there would be some return to my more normal topics at some point since no one could talk about diarrhoea forever! Not even me!)

My point is that as authors we write books that people read, and will hopefully enjoy and remember. And in a very real way some of these books may in fact become a memoriam to us. More so now in this digital age where nothing is lost unlike paper books which have vanished over the previous years and centuries.

Which leads me to the rationale behind this post. (Yes there is one!) We all talk about the need for quality in our work. For making sure that whatever we put out there is the best that we can do. That it's beta read and edited to death. And that certainly is important to us as authors; indie and trade, living and dead. But before anyone pushes that publish button it occurs to me that there's another question that we need to ask ourselves. Is this a work that I want to be forever associated with me? In five years, ten years, twenty am I still going to be proud to have published this work? Or am I going to be living down the shame of having put it out there? Is this going to be a work that will forever shine a glorious light upon me? Or will it be like those nude pictures you took as an overweight teenager which eternally follow you around from job interview to job interview? It needs to be considered.

Sure I may hate (insert name of political movement or religion here) now, but in a decade am I going to want to be remembered as the man who wrote the book accusing them of promoting indecent acts? I may despise (insert persons name here) but in twenty years time am I going to want to be known as the man who in public accused them of various crimes? Especially if they're later shown to be innocent? Yes I may support certain political ideologies but in twenty years when movements based on my writings have caused immeasurable harm to the world, will I want to be associated with them? Even recognised as their inspiration?

You think I'm joking? Perhaps driven mad by the long nights spent curled up on a toilet seat, gassing myself in the smallest room in the house? Sadly actually I'm not. Many authors have ended up regretting their works and trying to have them pulled from the shelves and for all sorts of reasons.

The list starts with Stephen King who in 1997 tried to get his 1977 book Rage pulled when a copy of it was found in the locker of a boy who went on a shooting spree in a school. His fear was that the book inspired the act.

At the more minor end of the spectrum Octavia Butler tried to have Survivor pulled for a completely different reason. Though it was well written, edited and professional and indeed readers loved the book, to her it was clichéd and trope ridden.

And of course you would have to wonder how Nietzsche would have felt had he lived to see the rise of the Nazi's. He had a vision of his ubermen as modern equivalents of ancient Greek gods striding across the world. To see instead the reality of death camps, genocide, unbridled ambition and a world in flames all inspired by his work would probably have had him spinning in his grave.

Which brings me back to my point. We live in a digital age. Whatever we publish will be with us potentially forever – or at least for the rest of our lives. And once you push that button there's no way to unpush it. So take a moment. Give it a little thought. Have a cuppa or two before doing what you can't undo. And ask yourself that vital question:

Is this going to be your hyper rage? Or your pustulating necrosis of the gut?

 

Cheers, Greg.

So You've written A book - Trade or Indie?

Hi guys,

 

First up, apologies as usual for not having posted for so long. Unfortunately my muse kidnapped me – it does that sometimes – and said “head down, bum up, you've got a book to write boy!” Oh to be a plotter and not a pantster! One day I'll make that switch. Not this month though.

 

The upshot is that on the fifth of August having finally got The Arcanist published and thinking I should enjoy a bit of a break, I started Spaced. And last night just before the witching hour I sent the completed first draft of the space opera off. 157K in a month and six days! Maybe this year I finally should enter Nanowrimo!

 

Anyway, that's been my life for the last month or so, which is why I haven't done a hell of a lot else. But now that I've regained my freedom and the use of my poor, overworked fingers, I thought I'd turn my attention to other things. And first up, before I start editing the third Wizard at Law book which returned from my editor last month as well and got pushed to one side, I thought I'd answer a question that keeps coming up among new writers. So you've written your book – do you go Indie or Trade?

 

This is obviously not an easy question to answer. In fact there is no right answer. It's going to depend completely on who you are as a writer and who you want to be as an author. And strangely even the premise – that you've written a book – is going to change depending on the answer. So to begin.

 

First you've written a book. This means I assume that you've done everything you possibly can to get that book in the best possible shape. You've drafted and redrafted it. Hunted for mistakes and plot holes. It is as close to error free as you can possibly get it. But the one thing that you haven't done is send it away to an editor.

 

This is actually the next step in your journey – if you go indie. If you instead try to get a trade deal – it isn't. The guts of it is simple, and it comes down to that most base of all motivations – filthy lucre. If you decide to try and pursue a trade deal with an agent or a publisher then your work should not be edited. The reason is that most new authors getting signed get very small advances – less than five thousand dollars and then at least half of them never earn out their advance. (Sorry to shatter any dreams of wealth you may have but writers are by and large very poorly paid whichever route they take.)

 

(Which brings up another pet peeve – pirates. Grief I get sick of hearing from those who support piracy that all books should be free. It is practically a mantra for the criminally insane. These people believe they are doing some sort of Robin Hood type thing. They aren't. In fact they are doing the exact opposite. They're stealing from the poor and giving to those who have more than enough money to spend on a book. So well done guys!)

 

Anyway I've wandered down that path enough for the moment. Back to the main thread and the point I was making. If you submit to agents and get a trade deal, the chances of striking gold – which really you've already struck by getting your deal – are small. But the one thing every agent / publisher will provide for free to their writers – is writing services. That means editing and book covering etc. So the last thing you want to be doing is paying hundreds or thousands of dollars for an edit which you'll get for free if you get a deal.

 

If on the other hand you decide to go indie – bad luck guys. Every book needs to be edited and the bill is yours. So your first guideline in making this decision is a simple one – do you have the money to pay for editing and cover design etc? If yes then you can go either route. If no, then trade is your only option.

 

Okay, so next up in your decision tree as you sit there with your book should be your skills in other areas. Do you understand things like cover design, marketing, formatting and how to do publishing? If not are you willing to learn? Because make no mistake, going indie is a decision that will necessitate you knowing all of these things. Anyone as they say can self-publish. But doing it well is far harder. To be a successfully indie involves a very steep learning curve.

 

So here comes your next question in your decision tree. Do you have these skills? Are you willing to learn them? If yes, then you can take either route. If no, then again trade is your only possible route.

 

Next on our list, you need to consider commercialism – yes I know – more filthy lucre. But here it's not actually about the money. It's about the selling. And you need to consider this one question before you make your decision – will people buy it?

 

Yeah I know, it's a difficult thing to guess. But there are some things that will help guide you. First think of the genre. There are some genres that sell better than others – paranormal romance for example is hot these days. Bead work from the 1900's is not. There's also the question of how original it is. Yes everyone says they're looking for the next fresh idea. But they aren't. If you want your best chance to sell you want to stick closely to something that's already out there with just a few tweaks. So maybe your sparkly vampires have a silver sheen instead of gold? But they aren't born literally legless and forced to spend their lives in wheelchairs!

 

So take a step back from your work and ask yourself, how original is it? And how important is it to you that it's original? If this is something that's wildly new – and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the five people who bought The Man Who Wasn't Anders Voss!!! – indie is really your only option. Almost no agents and no publishers are going to pick it up. They're there to make money and that means selling.

 

Yes I know – you're all going to yell Fifty Shades at me, and it is true. There are a few exceptions to this rule. But they are just that – exceptions.

 

Next on the decision tree is what Hollywood likes to call creative control. You've written a book. You're proud of it. It's your baby. Are you willing to let other people mangle it? Yes I know they won't actually mangle it – mostly. But what I consider mangling and what you consider mangling are likely to be very different things. And what I can accept in terms of changes and what you can accept are equally likely to be very different.

 

There's an old story – not sure if it's true – that Disney once hired a consultant to advise them on Donald's nephews. And the consultants came back and said well you can save money by removing a button on their shirts which will be quicker to draw. Disney said yes. Then the consultants said – does he really need three nephews? Two would be easier to draw. At which point they were sacked.

 

That in a nut shell is the question you need to ask. How much can you compromise on your artistic vision? If the answer is no more than a few typo's corrected, indie is your choice. If on the other hand it's “hell yes, let it rip – I didn't need to have that character anyway”, then trade may well be a better option for you. I'm not saying that that's what they will do, just that compromise is far more important for someone going the trade route than it is for an indie.

 

Last of course on our decision tree, we come back to that age old conundrum – filthy lucre. You've written your book. You're proud of it. You want to sell it and make some money. (Let's leave the dreams of castles and jets to one side here and think about things like paying the rent.) Which option is more likely to achieve your objective of keeping a roof over your head?

 

The truth of the matter is that no one really knows. The surveys of author income all show that trade published authors do better on annual income – though no one really does well. But the surveys are also wrong because they compare apples to oranges. They forget that people don't choose to go trade. They choose to try and go trade. And there is absolutely nothing you can do to make an agent or a publisher pick up your book. For every author who submits to agents and publishers and gets a trade deal there are probably hundreds who submit and get nothing – not even a reply. When you factor that into your calculations suddenly the likely income favours the indie in a big way.

 

But then comes the next big shovel in the face – and this ones for indies. Surveys all show that the vast majority of self published books don't sell. They get released, no one buys them and they fall to the bottom of the slush pile. There are any number of reasons for this – I've discussed a few here – but the biggest one by far is that an incredible number of writers simply get to the end of their book – think to themselves “this is genius” – slap a cover photo on it and think they're done. They don't do the hard yards of editing and format, cover design, blurb work, beta reading and marketing. And then they no doubt wonder why their book doesn't sell. Obviously the world just wasn't ready for their brilliance!

 

Yeah right!!!

 

Anyway, to get back to the point. If you aren't willing to do all those hard yards – indie is not for you. I don't know that any agent would pick up your work either but you are fairly much guaranteed to fail as an indie.

 

And to the other point – filthy lucre and keeping your roof over your head – my own thought is that for the average author who is willing to put in all that extra effort to get their books beyond the standard poorly written self published novel indie is the better financial option these days.

 

Having said that, both are viable options and you should carefully consider all the pros and cons before deciding what's right for you.

 

But one last thing. For those who decide to try and get a trade deal – set yourself a cut off. So many unsuccessful submissions sent. So many months or “shudder!” years spent on the agent-go-round. Then go indie.

 

You're a writer. Writing is a communicative art. If you're not communicating, you're failing yourself. You actually need to publish however you can, to complete your journey as a writer.

 

Anyway, enough from me. I need sleep!

 

Cheers, Greg.

Cyber Bullying and Reviews

Hi Guys,

New topic this time, and one that veers a little from my previous posts about handling reviews. This one concerns cyber bullying, a scourge on the web, and a crime in my view that has been engaged in by one writer / reviewer according to sources.

A couple of days ago Laura J Mixon posted the results of her investigation into the activities of sci fi writer Benjanun Sriduangkaew who has been posting reviews of other authors' works under a variety of pseudonyms including; Requires Hate, Winterfox, pyrofennec, acrackedmoon and others. Reviews that if she is correct, have amounted to a campaign of cyber bullying, including insults, harassment and exortions of violence.

Now I have no knowledge of this author or any of the avatars mentioned. Nor have I personally been aware of any of these attacks. If you want details I would suggest (strongly) that you go to the source: http://laurajmixon.com/2014/11/a-report-on-damage-done-by-one-individual-under-several-names/

However this post is not about these incidents in particular, disgraceful as they are and shameful to the entire science fiction and fantasy community. It is about the more general issue of bullying, and in particular on line bullying.

Now as published authors we all are subject to receiving reviews that are not particularly flattering of our work. And that can be hurtful. I speak from experience. But it is not bullying and it is simply part and parcel of having put our work out there to be judged. It is the right of everyone who reads your work to have an opinion about it and publish that opinion. And it is the responsibility of authors to develop a thick skin as they say, and deal with it.

However there are lines which should not be crossed, and which when they are crossed should be responded to. And here I do not mean by engaging with the reviewer. That is still a no win situation at best, and in the case where cyber bullying has occurred, probably a lose, lose situation. (A basic rule of bullying of all forms is that the bullies get a kick out of seeing your fear. Ignore them and they usually go away.)

So what are those lines?

First, when the reviewer moves on from the review of the work to attacking the author personally, through insults etc. This may be serious or not. It may be taken to heart by those receiving the review or not. Everyone is different in how they will react to these sorts of things.

My general response will be to remember the golden rule. An insult reflects more upon the person giving it than the one receiving it. And my response to it will vary. Mostly it will be nothing - because lets be honest these things are usually minor and wasting a single second of my time worrying about someone who cannot control their fingers is basically wasting my time. I don't care about such people and I have more important things to waste my time on. But at the other end if the insults are particularly egregious, I may refer them to the moderators of whatever forum it's in and ask for the posts to be removed. I will not engage directly with the reviewer because I have no wish to reward him or her in any way.

For those worried about the effect that such posts / reviews will have on their sales, my thought is that I trust most readers to be unswayed by such things. Readers are not stupid.

However, there comes a point where another line is crossed, and that is where threats are made. And here I cannot say this strongly enough, NO ONE HAS THE RIGHT TO THREATEN YOU!

In this case should it happen, my policy - and I would hope everyone else's policy - will be to report the poster to the police. I am an adult. I assume the poster is an adult. And every adult should know that threats of violence are both unacceptable and a crime. And the number one reason that people get away with crimes is that others don't report them. Bullies on line or in the real world, should not be allowed to get away with their behaviour.

But more than this, bullying is a scourge on society that should be wiped out. If I and everyone else in the on line community, stands behind this simple set of rules, cyber bullying will be if not wiped out then at least cut back.

The one thing I can say with certainty from having read Laura's blog, is that this particular cyber bully would have been stopped long ago if people had acted instead of doing nothing.

Because bullies are capable of learning. And the lesson they should be learning is that their behaviour will not be tolerated. They will get no emotional pay off for their actions. And if they go too far they will find themselves in trouble with the law. No reward, punishment for bad behaviour - this is classical operant conditioning at work. And if pigeons can learn from this sort of conditioning, so can bullies.

One last comment - and I know that some who have received this sort of abuse and threatening behaviour will find it hard to accept. Cyber bullies are toothless for the most part. They can threaten anything. But most of them can do nothing to back up their threats. So though it may be hard to do, stand up for yourselves. Laugh at them - not on line of course - and think of them instead of as being big and scary, as pathetic.

And report them.

In conclusion I'd also like to commend Laura J Mixon for carrying out this investigation and reporting it.

Cheers, Greg.

Authors Behaving Badly

Hi Guys,

OK this one tickled my funny bone a little. The story of an author so incensed by a bad review that she started stalking the reviewer! And the article is well written and suitably funny in places (by said author), which makes it a good read and lends sympathy to the author's point of view even when she agrees she's done wrong. But she has most definitely done wrong.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/18/am-i-being-catfished-an-author-confronts-her-number-one-online-critic

However my post here is not about this case specifically. It's more about the nature of reviews and how as authors we should deal with them.

Now first I wholeheartedly agree with the phrase that as an author "your book is your baby". It is. Speaking personally you as an author put everything you have into your work. You love it, agonise over it, hate it at times. And what you come out with at the end is absolutely your creation. It is impossible for most of us I would guess, not to feel a little emotional when you finally have that book in your hand. Not to feel a little like a parent who has just suffered through a difficult birth.

There's nothing wrong with that. It's natural and completely understandable. And as any new mother would tell you, you insult her baby you can expect a reaction. But in the case of authors and their books, that reaction is a problem. Here's why.

 

1 It's Not Your Review:

First, and this cannot be repeated often enough, reviews are not done for you the author. I know. It's your book, you feel possessive, but the reviewer was not writing to you. He was not writing to tell you how good or bad your book was. He's writing to other readers. Offering them his opinion. Whether his opinion is good or bad, it's not for you.

 

2 Publishing Is Not Writing:

In this sense a book is not at all like a baby. When a mother has a baby she does it for any number of reasons - but they are her own personal reasons. The same as when an author writes a book. He loves the story, he wants to enjoy the creation of it etc. But when you publish a book, you do it for an entirely different reason. You put it out there for others - readers - to read. Mothers do not publish their babies. (Of course I could say something here about those mothers who put their babies into pageants at such a young age - but that would be another story entirely.)

The point is that you - you sad sad fool - published it! You put it out there to be read. You might have wanted everyone who read it to love it, but that's not possible. Every book no matter how good, will be hated by some. And every author assuming they sell their book, must expect some bad reviews. And you put it out there. You said please read this. And then when someone comes back having read it and deciding that they don't like it says as much, you think you can truly get upset?

 

Bottom line. If you didn't want to face the danger / hurt of bad reviews, you wouldn't have published it. If you published it well you just have to suck it up.

 

3 It's Opinion:

Yes I know it's hurtful. But the reality is that everyone has their own opinions and some are not flattering. I personally hate peanut butter. I consider it once step removed from sewage. So if someone produces a new peanut butter and asks for my opinion of it, my opinion will be that it's awful. I don't even need to taste it to know that. Does that make my opinion right? Only for me. But the important thing is that it's an honest opinion. You can't get upset with me for honestly hating something can you? The sad fact is that I'm entitled to my opinion and so is everyone else.

 

4 You Aren't Going To Win:

This is the often overlooked in anger and pain rule of life. Very few authors are ever going to win by responding to their reviewers. A reviewer loves or hates your book. It doesn't matter whether the review was unfair or not. You aren't going to change his mind. What you are going to do if you respond to a negative review, is create hostility. And there are very few cases where hostility will help. What you may well do is give other readers reason to dislike you as an author, and colour their view of your work.

 

5 It's Not The End Of The World:

A bad review may hurt your sales or not. It may make you feel miserable. But if you believe in your work then you have to believe the good reviews that will come in, will more than make up for the few bad ones. And strangely, sometimes a bad review can help your sales.

 

Decried as one of the world's worst authors, Amanda McKittrick Ros (1860 - 1939) was lampooned by critics and other authors alike. The Oxford Literary group the Inklings, used to hold contests to see who could read her work the longest without cracking up. One described her work as literary diarrhoea. And her work did not sell in huge volumes.

 

Yet here we are, over a hundred years after some of her books were published, discussing them and even holding retrospectives of them, while her works are held in the Belfast Public Library and one of her books is still in print. Why? Because of the negative reviews.

 

So bottom line when someone gives your precious baby a bad review - Do Not Engage!

 

Cheers, Greg

 

 

 

Self-confidence, Fear and Writers

Hi Guys,

 

 

Bit of a delay between my last post and this one - apologies for that, but I simply didn't really have much to write about.

 

However, yesterday I was responding to a post on a writing forum and realised that I did have something to blog about. The importance of self-confidence to writers, and particularly writers who haven't yet published.

 

You will recall that I have previously talked how important it is to a writer to actually publish. It is what will turn a writer not just into an author, but also a better writer. And a lack of confidence is what will turn a writer into a never was. Sorry for the harshness of that - but I believe it to be true. As a writer these days, the single biggest barrier to becoming a better writer you face in these days of self publishing, is yourself.

 

Too many authors - and a lot of you will recall that I have previously harped on about the lies author's tell themselves as they go through the submissions process - allow themselves to be held back by insecurity. All those lies writers tell themselves about why their work was never picked up by an agent, are a form of insecurity. And they are destructive to a writing career - even more so than rejection.

 

You can get over rejection. You can survive bad reviews. You can improve your writing by receiving harsh criticism. And in fact these things are all in their own way, a part of growth of an author. But if you can't get past the fear of these things, you are doomed. You will never become the writer you could be. And it is fear that I believe holds so many back.

 

Fear comes in many forms. It lives in doubt - about you, your writing ability, the quality of your work. It lives in the trade publishing world of submissions to agents and publishers. And it absolutely thrives in the self criticism authors constantly subject their own work to. And while yes - it can be a valuable tool in improving your work - if you let it become your master it will destroy any chance you have of becoming an author.

 

This is why I say the trade publishing route to writing success is so limited. It's not just in the lies writers tell themselves about why they never heard back from an agent. It's in the process itself. It is a trap for so many. An endless trap. A cycle of fear and inadequacy that will cripple many. And the cycle runs like this:

 

You write your book, you submit it, you hear nothing back, and you assume that you heard nothing back because the work was not up to standard. So then you rewrite, you improve out of sight so you believe, and you submit again, and you hear nothing back. Which means that your work is not up to standard. So you rewrite and submit. Endlessly. And then some day, five years, ten years down the track, you just give up.

 

This is what's called a vicious cycle, and each repeat of it destroys self-confidence. But worse than that it's also a strangely comforting process. A rut a writer can find a place to call home in. Because in going through this cycle a writer learns that - yes - he can survive not hearing back from agents. Yes, he can survive getting the occasional rejection letter. But he never has to expose himself to the even harsher world of publishing and reviews etc. You can learn to like your rut.

 

This is why I say to all of you who have yet to publish - you must publish. You can choose to self publish, or you can throw your hat into the ring and hope to be picked up by an agent. But in the latter case you must set yourself a deadline. It may be a period of time - say a year. Or a set number of submissions to agents. But whatever it is, stick to it. And then at the end if you have not been picked up, bite the bullet and publish your work yourself.

 

Yes it's scary, and it's hard. Yes there is a lot to learn. Yes it can be brutal. Yes you will make mistakes and be picked up on them. And yes those first few one star reviews will make you wish you'd chopped your fingers off instead of letting them touch a keyboard. But if you do it, you will discover that you can get through this. And you can write. And you can become an author. And you can become the best writer you can be.

 

Cheers, Greg.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amazon versus Hachette - I Don't Have a Pony in This Fight!

Hi Guys,

 

 

 

Well the big news today - at least for us indies on KDP, is that Amazon sent us an email asking us to get involved in their dispute with Hachette - if only by sending the CEO a letter.

 

I have to admit that when I saw the email from Amazon I was shocked. It was something completely out of the blue, and equally unlike anything they've sent before. For a while I did actually wonder if it was a hack. However, after reading fourteen pages of comments about this same letter on Kindle Boards from other KDP authors, and also having waited a day without a retraction from Amazon, I have to assume that it is genuine.

 

So here it is in all its unvarnished glory:

 

Dear KDP Author,

Just ahead of World War II, there was a radical invention that shook the foundations of book publishing. It was the paperback book. This was a time when movie tickets cost 10 or 20 cents, and books cost $2.50. The new paperback cost 25 cents – it was ten times cheaper. Readers loved the paperback and millions of copies were sold in just the first year.

With it being so inexpensive and with so many more people able to afford to buy and read books, you would think the literary establishment of the day would have celebrated the invention of the paperback, yes? Nope. Instead, they dug in and circled the wagons. They believed low cost paperbacks would destroy literary culture and harm the industry (not to mention their own bank accounts). Many bookstores refused to stock them, and the early paperback publishers had to use unconventional methods of distribution – places like newsstands and drugstores. The famous author George Orwell came out publicly and said about the new paperback format, if “publishers had any sense, they would combine against them and suppress them.” Yes, George Orwell was suggesting collusion.

Well… history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

Fast forward to today, and it’s the e-book’s turn to be opposed by the literary establishment. Amazon and Hachette – a big US publisher and part of a $10 billion media conglomerate – are in the middle of a business dispute about e-books. We want lower e-book prices. Hachette does not. Many e-books are being released at $14.99 and even $19.99.. That is unjustifiably high for an e-book. With an e-book, there’s no printing, no over-printing, no need to forecast, no returns, no lost sales due to out of stock, no warehousing costs, no transportation costs, and there is no secondary market – e-books cannot be resold as used books. E-books can and should be less expensive.

Perhaps channeling Orwell’s decades old suggestion, Hachette has already been caught illegally colluding with its competitors to raise e-book prices. So far those parties have paid $166 million in penalties and restitution. Colluding with its competitors to raise prices wasn’t only illegal, it was also highly disrespectful to Hachette’s readers.

The fact is many established incumbents in the industry have taken the position that lower e-book prices will “devalue books” and hurt “Arts and Letters.” They’re wrong. Just as paperbacks did not destroy book culture despite being ten times cheaper, neither will e-books. On the contrary, paperbacks ended up rejuvenating the book industry and making it stronger. The same will happen with e-books.

Many inside the echo-chamber of the industry often draw the box too small. They think books only compete against books. But in reality, books compete against mobile games, television, movies, Facebook, blogs, free news sites and more. If we want a healthy reading culture, we have to work hard to be sure books actually are competitive against these other media types, and a big part of that is working hard to make books less expensive.

Moreover, e-books are highly price elastic. This means that when the price goes down, customers buy much more. We've quantified the price elasticity of e-books from repeated measurements across many titles. For every copy an e-book would sell at $14.99, it would sell 1.74 copies if priced at $9.99. So, for example, if customers would buy 100,000 copies of a particular e-book at $14.99, then customers would buy 174,000 copies of that same e-book at $9.99. Total revenue at $14.99 would be $1,499,000. Total revenue at $9.99 is $1,738,000. The important thing to note here is that the lower price is good for all parties involved: the customer is paying 33% less and the author is getting a royalty check 16% larger and being read by an audience that’s 74% larger. The pie is simply bigger.

But when a thing has been done a certain way for a long time, resisting change can be a reflexive instinct, and the powerful interests of the status quo are hard to move. It was never in George Orwell’s interest to suppress paperback books – he was wrong about that.

And despite what some would have you believe, authors are not united on this issue. When the Authors Guild recently wrote on this, they titled their post: “Amazon-Hachette Debate Yields Diverse Opinions Among Authors” (the comments to this post are worth a read). A petition started by another group of authors and aimed at Hachette, titled “Stop Fighting Low Prices and Fair Wages,” garnered over 7,600 signatures. And there are myriad articles and posts, by authors and readers alike, supporting us in our effort to keep prices low and build a healthy reading culture. Author David Gaughran’s recent interview is another piece worth reading.

We recognize that writers reasonably want to be left out of a dispute between large companies. Some have suggested that we “just talk.” We tried that. Hachette spent three months stonewalling and only grudgingly began to even acknowledge our concerns when we took action to reduce sales of their titles in our store. Since then Amazon has made three separate offers to Hachette to take authors out of the middle. We first suggested that we (Amazon and Hachette) jointly make author royalties whole during the term of the dispute. Then we suggested that authors receive 100% of all sales of their titles until this dispute is resolved. Then we suggested that we would return to normal business operations if Amazon and Hachette’s normal share of revenue went to a literacy charity. But Hachette, and their parent company Lagardere, have quickly and repeatedly dismissed these offers even though e-books represent 1% of their revenues and they could easily agree to do so. They believe they get leverage from keeping their authors in the middle.

We will never give up our fight for reasonable e-book prices. We know making books more affordable is good for book culture. We’d like your help. Please email Hachette and copy us.

Hachette CEO, Michael Pietsch: Michael.Pietsch@hbgusa.com

Copy us at: readers-united@amazon.com

Please consider including these points:

- We have noted your illegal collusion. Please stop working so hard to overcharge for ebooks. They can and should be less expensive.
- Lowering e-book prices will help – not hurt – the reading culture, just like paperbacks did.
- Stop using your authors as leverage and accept one of Amazon’s offers to take them out of the middle.
- Especially if you’re an author yourself: Remind them that authors are not united on this issue.

Thanks for your support.

The Amazon Books Team

 

Sorry for the lengthy cut and paste but I didn't want to be unfair to anyone by cherry picking sections.

 

And my response? I will not be sending an email to Hachette CEO Michael Pietsch.

 

It's not that I don't agree with Amazon's stand on the issue. I actually do for the most part. It's that as the title says - I don't have a dog in this race or a pony in this fight.

 

Look, my view is that I am both an author and a publisher - indie of course. And as such I am deeply grateful for what Amazon has done for me in making it possible for me to publish and sell my work. I owe them for that. But at the same time I recognise that this was not done out of charity. It was a business decision and Amazon expects to make money out of it too.

 

As an author I naturally feel some sympathy for some of the other trade published authors being given poor returns through their work. However, I remind myself that they signed the contracts, and they accepted upfront lower royalties in return for other services such as marketing and exposure. It may have been a good deal or a poor one for them, I don't know. But it is their choice.

 

I also have some annoyance at being used in this way. Especially when one of the things Amazon asks for from Hachette is for them to stop using their authors as leverage and to leave them out of the dispute, and then does exactly the same thing.

 

I'm also a reader, and as a reader maybe I do have a dog in this race - a small terrier perhaps. Certainly not a big dog! As a reader I would like to see lower prices on some of the books I love. And it seems unreasonable to charge such high prices for ebooks. But at the same time as a competing publisher I have another terrier - running the opposite way. It's good for me as a publisher that some companies do appear to be over-charging since it makes the market less competitive for me.

 

So perhaps I do have two small dogs in this race, running in opposite directions. And as any student of modern math knows, two dogs running, one positive and one negative, adds up to one very confused hamster running around in his wheel going nowhere fast!

 

Which leads me to my position. I have no vested interest in this battle. I think on balance I prefer Amazon's side from a principled perspective. But at the same time I don't think it's right for Amazon to try and force publisher's prices down through coercive tactics. It is a free market after all, and if Hachette thinks they can sell lots of books at higher prices, that's their business decision.

 

So I will not be writing a letter to anyone on this matter - just blogging about it ad nauseum! My advice to other authors and indies is to do the same (plus or minus the blogging!).

 

Cheers, Greg.

 

 

 

 

Is This Wrong?

Hi Guys,

Well yes - this absolutely is! But it amused me and I'm told popes are quite forgiving people and maybe a few Hail Mary's could keep my toes out of the lakes of burning fire!

 

But more to the point I was thinking about questions that keep being asked on some of the writing fora about the do's and don'ts of writing these days. Can I do this? Or not? And it occurred to me once more, how drastically the writing scene has changed these past ten years. And how the rules have changed.

 

Six or seven days ago I published a new book - The Session - a short story about the devil going into therapy (I sense more Hail Mary's in my future!) and it struck me that what I was doing in publishing that story was a radical departure of what I could have done a decade ago. And it's not just because of the advent of self publishing. It's because of the rise of the e-book as well. I published a short story on its own - not as part of a collection or a magazine. Ten years ago that would have been impossible. It would also have been wrong. Because printers could not have been set up to produce 6k novels. The option of e-books makes this possible.

 

And as those of you who have read my books - especially the print editions - will know, my paragraph formating is not traditional either. I use either block formating - a clear line between one paragraph and the next, or sometimes block formating with a small indent as well. I also generally use a twelve point font. My reasoning is that it looks damned good (oh no - more Hail Mary's coming) on a page and it's clear. Maybe my eyes aren't quite as sharp as they once were - I don't know - but I value being able to read a book easily over saving a little bit of paper by producing a wall of indented text.

 

In one of my fora perhaps a month or so ago a poster asked if she could use vertical lettering in places and swapping fonts occasionally and so forth. And my answer to her was that if it adds to the book then yes. I can't imagine many traditional publishers going for this option, but we're no longer in the era of traditional publishing. We're in the era of self publishing and e-books.

 

So the thrust of my post is this:

 

If you're self publishing it's time to stop asking the questions - can I do something? Is it right? Because the answers are yes you can and right and wrong don't work the same way any more. There are no hard and fast rules about writing.

 

So instead of asking these questions the indie author should instead ask another question entirely: Does this work?

 

Remember as an indie you are the artist in charge. You write the book. You edit and format it. You decide on cover design and what have you. The power is in your hands. And the only people who can judge you are your readers. And that's how things should be in a free market.

 

Cheers, Greg.

 

(Off now to find out just what exactly is involved in saying a Hail Mary!)

 

 

Yes! The SFWA Wants Us! - Oh Wait A Minute Should That Be No?

Hi Guys,

 

Well the big news this week - the SFWA wants us! Well wants may be a strong word. They'd consider letting a few of us indies in the door if we can meet whatever standards they deem appropriate.

Now I don't want to sound bitter, and if they do eventually decide to allow some self publishers in and assuming I have sufficient sales or what have you to meet their standards, I will give the option serious thought. But it occurs to me that this is 2014, and they are a few years too late for many indies. Worse than that of course for them the indies who will I assume make the grade by selling however many tens of thousands of books, will probably be wondering the same thing I am - what's in it for me?

The prestige of belonging to an internationally known writers association? Well much as I hate to say it as of last year the SFWA found itself embroiled in a bitter controversy over sexism - and some of that prestige has gone, no matter which side of the debate you find yourself on.

The connection to other well known trade published writers and other industry big wigs? Maybe, but at the same time it must be considered that many of the more successful indies already have those connections. And lets face it, if they can sell well as indies what exactly is the attraction of trade? Less money?

Legal advice? Yes, absolutely. But you still have to pay for it whether you're a member or not. So maybe on reflection that's actually a no. But the Grievance Committee sounds like it might be useful.

The emergency medical fund? It's not really on my radar at present and if one day I have to fly to the middle of nowhere and then become ill while there I'm sure I'll have arranged appropriate travel insurance first.

Their private discussion forums? Hmm? Since they're private I can't really comment as to what's on them. The secrets to the publishing universe perhaps? Their favourite chicken soup recipes? But there's an awful lot of public fora I can join and get I would guess, most of what's on them.

Look, at the end of the day I can't really advise anyone who's an indie sci fi / fantasy author which way to jump. That has to be up to each and every one of us. All I can do is say please do take a look at the site and be informed on the issue. Also leave a comment on their site. Let them at least know your thoughts.

http://www.sfwa.org/

And of course one other thing. Before jumping one way or the other ask yourself this question. What's in it for me? My view, four or five years ago there would have been a lot. Now, not so much. I think the ship has sailed and they've been left standing on the dock.

Cheers, and as always - be good or don't get caught!

Greg.

Indie Books and The Mark of Quality - The Golden Quill.

Hi Guys,

Ok, this is something that comes up again and again in writing fora. The demarcation line between indie books and trade published books. The question of quality.

Over and over again we hear the same tired cries from those invested in the world of trade publishing - Indie books are substandard. Poorly edited, bad plots, bad formatting, rough covers etc etc. And to be fair there are a great many indie books put out by indie authors that simply aren't up to standard. Books that would not be published by a trade publishing concern.

And naturally the cry goes up from indies - including myself - this doesn't apply to all indie books. It probably doesn't apply to the great majority at all.

So the problem becomes, how to separate the properly edited etc indie books from the rest. And as usual there is a cry for some sort of quality mark. But as I've said previously, while I think the industry does need and want this, there are simply too many hurdles in the way for it to happen. If a private book assessment process was put in place, who would run it? Who would be neutral? Who would have the sufficient prestige for their sign to mean anything? How would it be paid for? And if authors paid would it be trustworthy or accepted? Would authors pay for it if it was too dear? And perhaps the number one problem, there are I think close to two million books on Amazon's Kindle. How the heck could anyone even do more than a few?

However, it occurs to me that there is another way. Another system, which while nowhere near as advanced or comprehensive as the aforementioned system, is achievable now with very minor effort, and at almost no cost. What's more it's a system that's already in use in the music industry. The gold record.

With gold records, artists receive them when they sell a certain number of albums. And maybe it's just a silly decoration to stick on the wall, but it's also a mark of quality. Not necessarily a good one. But as any free marketeer will tell you part of the reason things sell is because of quality. Poor quality products generally don't sell well. There are exceptions. Price points are an issue, and sometimes cheap overrides quality. (One huge argument against the practise of free books.) But at least it's something.

So my thought is that books could have the equivalent of a golden record system - a Golden Quill. Maybe in fact a quill system with bronze, silver, gold and platinum. So a book - trade or indie - might get a bronze quill for a thousand sales. A silver quill for five thousand sales. A gold quill for twenty five thousand sales. And platinum quills for a hundred thousand sales.

Naturally this would only be a system that Amazon could implement since they're the big boys on the block as far as indies and ebooks go. But it wouldn't cost them much to do since they already are counting sales for purposes of royalty payments, and I assume keep those records digitally for years for tax purposes. So one IT guy could spend a few hours adding a new column to the sales spreadsheet. A graphic designer could come up with a logo. And hey presto it's done!

Now each book when it sells one thousand copies after returns are subtracted, gets a bronze quill on its book pages. And each author page would presumably include the appropriate quills beside the appropriate books.

Now this system is good for indie authors. Or those indie authors who do work hard at writing good books and editing them professionally etc. Even if sales are lacklustre perhaps because they're in an unpopular genre, they should be able to hit bronze. And a bronze will hopefully help distinguish them from those who haven't reached this level of sales, perhaps because their work is not up to standard.

It's good for readers because they see the quill and can immediately know that another thousand readers have purchased the same book (note that this could never apply to freebies) and not returned it. That means that the book may not be the read of their dreams but it's probably not going to be a poorly edited mess for the slush pile.

It's good for Amazon too. They get to separate their books and authors into different piles. And when they find the ones they like because they sell, they can push them a bit harder, while those that never sell can be forgotten. And as any salesman will tell you you get better results from pushing things that already sell then you do from trying to push the unsaleable. They already do this from their sales ranks. Books that have higher sales ranks get more pushing than others.

Now Amazon already has sales ranks. But the problem of course with sales ranks is that they go up and down. So for the reader when they see a book with a poor sales rank, they don't know whether that was because this is a newly released book that hasn't yet had any exposure, it's an older book that's had its day, or because it really wasn't very good. The quill remains as a cumulative sales rank reassuring readers.

Amazon also has a review system, and I do support this. However reviews in my case come once every hundred and fifty or so paid sales, and can be remarkably fickle. A quill is just a number in the end.

Anyway that's my idea. The closest I think the industry can come to a quality mark at this stage. And if you like it, I suggest you suggest it to Amazon. I already have.

Cheers, Greg.