Last night I thought about posting another link to The PASSIVE VOICE who uses excerpts from Kris' post to talk about "Don't Sign Dumb Contracts". This thread seems like a good place for it.

He pretty much says what Kris says but in a different way.

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Unless something changes drastically in New York, I foresee self-publishing in my future. The nice thing about that is that I can guarantee that when my piece is ready, it will see publication. That's actually a nice bit of motivation in itself. It also ups the ante on wanting to make sure it's really good.

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I was one of the biggest anti-self publishing person when I got into writing. But, I am starting to see where a lot of people are coming from on that subject.

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I think part of this is that self publishing has changed so much, thanks to E-pub.

It used to be vanity press or hiring a printing company. I looked into the last after I wrote my first novel. That 320,00 words monster I have referenced. That would have meant 500 to 1,000 copies for a two to five thousand dollars I think. Some people did do that but not usually for fiction. Plus I would have to have some place to store them until I could sell them probably years later.

My Father-in-Law helped a guy do that with a poetry book, they never did sell all the books. Or that is last time I heard they hadn't. My father-in-Law gave all the books he had left to the guy a couple of years ago. I have no idea what happened to them after that.

Right now New York seems to be making all the wrong decisions, in response. They're getting more tight-fisted with contracts, trying to assume even more control, offering less on advances, making it harder for editors alone to control purchasing, etc.

These are the responses of an outdated mindset that is used to being the sole POWER in publishing. New York has NEVER had to ask itself, "What value-added to we provide writers so that we're still attractive to them as an avenue to the consumer?"

Now, almost every other company or business in the country has to ask this question. If you provide a service to other companies or customers, then VALUE-ADDED is your #1 concern because if people can't get any from you, or can get better elsewhere, you will eventually go out of business.

Since New York has enjoyed a monopoly for a long time, it's essentially forgotten about asking itself if it's providing good "customer service" to its content providers. "We're the only game in town, kid," has been the response from the cigar-chompers at the top.

Well, now they're not the only game in town. In fact, their position is being eroded rather rapidly by a radically alternative approach to the entire arena of fiction publishing.

I think either New York wrenches itself out of its current (backward) cycle of responses to shrinking sales and expanding e-readership, or New York will hit a point of no return and most, maybe all, of the big novel houses, will collapse. Or be bought out by other companies which desire assets, and reorganization.

I'm with Dean Wesley Smith in that I think it's still smart for writers to do the hard chore of reaching at LEAST the 500,000 word mark, AND getting personalized responses from editors -- book or magazine -- before considering e-publishing. If you're very, very brand new, and haven't logged the requisite 10,000 hours on your craft, your craft level might not be there. You'll still be able to e-publish, but without the craft, you won't be able to hold or keep readers.

You won't be providing "value-added" to your customers.

Sound familiar?

I deliberately chose to NOT e-publish anything until I'd sold enough in the traditional magazine markets to be sure that my craft is more or less up to snuff with existing professional standards.

And I'm *still* selling through the traditional magazines, as well as looking at selling to a select few novel publishers like Baen. But what I'm not doing is running directly into the arms of agents (middle-men) nor am I fixated exclusively on the old model such that I'll sign any old (badly-termed) piece of paper they put in front of me. If a contract has crappy language, I will change it, delete it, or refuse to sign.

I just did this with a Hollywood shopping agreement on my award-winner from Analog. Made the dickering process harder, but I felt like it was in my best interest to change or delete language that would pose me problems, potentially. And in the end, the Hollywood guy agreed. So it's not like writers have zero control or power.

You just have to be willing to stand up for yourself. Ergo, grow a pair, as Dean Smith said to Kris during their prep conversations.

[This message has been edited by Brad R Torgersen (edited May 08, 2011).]

Look at Napster and the birth of file-sharing. Instead of seeing that its immediate success indicated a vast untapped market, record companies wasted millions of dollars in useless lawsuits trying to stop it. They could have posted a legitimate store that offered more safety and reliability and won over most of the customers they were suing.

Then there's Hulu. Because online viewing is becoming so popular TV networks have been forcing Hulu to delay for eight days to a month before they can stream episodes, in the hopes that people will be forced to watch them on TV. This is restrictive and clunky and is causing most people to go to illegal sources instead. TV networks should be capitalizing on a growing market, but instead they're trying to squelch it and force people to keep watching TV.

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I foresee self-publishing in my future. The nice thing about that is that I can guarantee that when my piece is ready, it will see publication. That's actually a nice bit of motivation in itself. It also ups the ante on wanting to make sure it's really good.

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My thoughts exactly.

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Right now New York seems to be making all the wrong decisions, in response. They're getting more tight-fisted with contracts, trying to assume even more control, offering less on advances, making it harder for editors alone to control purchasing, etc.

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I think this happens to every old powerhouse, be it political or financial. The old regime just doesn't know or doesn't want to know it's been outdated. All it has is the reputation and the ego. But that alone won't give them much mileage. A big ship takes time to stop but once it does, it stops with a bang.

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I think either New York wrenches itself out of its current (backward) cycle of responses to shrinking sales and expanding e-readership, or New York will hit a point of no return and most, maybe all, of the big novel houses, will collapse. Or be bought out by other companies which desire assets, and reorganization.

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Hell, let's just wait and see what happens.

As an unpublished author with little to no experience with contracts, agents, and publishing except for what I've read on how the whole ball of wax works, it seems to me that leaves folks like me with no place to go if we want to see our books in print on a bookstore shelf and earn a living at it (or a decent return at least). Agents are supposed to be the ones that understand contract language that might slip by the author.

And that's something else; if the agent's pay comes from an author's book sales, why would they go against that interest and side with the publishing house? Wouldn't that be like shooting themselves in the foot?

I was going to try and hire an agent. Now I don't know which way to turn if I want to have a book in print the old fashioned way.

Ebooks may be booming right now, but I think everyone is trying it out like any new product that comes on the market. The trend could keep steamrolling, but it could just as easily slow down and level off. I'm not saying it will dry up. Far from it. But right now it's the newest rage, and I'm always leery of new trends until they've gone the milage.

To say I'm confused and wondering how to submit my first book without getting taken to the cleaners is an understatement. Sure makes me wonder if it's even worth it to try, though I definitely don't want to throw in the towel.

I have one plus on my side, I am familiar with contracts. The business I used run required me to write, modify, and sign contract. None of those were publishing contracts, but it gave me some idea of the leagalize put into contracts.

I always assumed I could get an agent to help me.