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October 2001:
Publishers Weekly series of articles on electronic books
March 2001:
Small Press Month
London Book Fair
Paris Book Fair
Frankfurt Book Fair
http://www.publishersweekly.com/articles/20000904_89863.asp
Rocket eBook Successor to Be Unveiled at N.Y. Book
Fair
Next generation e-book devices will be officially introduced.
he next generation of Gemstar's portable e-book devices will
be officially introduced at the New York Is Book Country book
fair in Manhattan set for September 20-24, announced the
consumer electronics giant Thomson Multimedia.
http://www.publishersweekly.com/articles/20000904_90004.asp
News from the Electronic Publishing World Stiff Competition on the publishing front News from the BEA It was a thrilling week at the BEA this year, with more courses and ever before, fabulous presentations by Microsoft, and the all-new Spanish-medium Pavilion and CookBook Expo. Here is some further information on the BEA E Publishing Panel a Sell-Out http://www.publishersweekly.com/articles/20000605_87105.asp News from the Electronic Publishing World Time Warner’s announcement that they will be opening their own web-based e book business was another boost to the growing e publishing industry. Iwrite, Ilearn, and Ipublish will be the three strands of this new enterprise. I publish will begin my producing all of Time Warner’s product, both front and backlist, in e format, with a projected completion date of the end of the year. As for author seeking to have their new mss published with the company, they do not expect it to be fully operation until early 2001. They have partnered with such companies as Microsoft, AOL, bn.com, Amazon, netlibrary, Ingram, and Fatbrain to support their new endeavor. Senior v-p Greg Voynow will be in charge of the project, with Claire Zion, editorial director, Hilary Lofton, director of e business development, and dev. Roger Cooper in charge of editorial strategic alliances. Iwrite will be for authors interested in developing their craft, and ilearn will be a gathering place for published authors and editors to share their knowledge of this burgeoning industry. Rocket Statistics Thinking that paper books are on their way out? That the old traditional publishers are dead and buried? Thinking about publishing an e book yourself? Well, think again: Martin Eberhard, CEO of Nuvomedia, who has brought us the ground-breaking Rocket e Book, has some fascinating statistics: 75% of titles for the Rocket e Book come from pure e pubs, but 66% of Rocket edition sales have come from titles by traditional paper-based publishers. 20% of these titles are midlist books, with 45% of sales coming from that category. So there is hope for the lesser-known novelists out there, but don’t bank on being discovered overnight just by sticking your novel up at a website. Other seminal articles on e –publishing http://www.publishersweekly.com/articles/20000605_86878.asp Stiff Competition on the publishing front 50,000 new titles are produced in the USA alone every year. That number looks set to increase, but the number of editors available has declined in the past five years, whilst the number of books each editor is required to handle has gone up substantially. Several editors from major publishing houses have given their figures at 20-25 books per year, which if you take out vacation time, means they have only two weeks or less to spend on each book which is finally selected for publication. If you take into account the fact that these editors also have to screen the slush piles or vet mss from agents, this two weeks or less is bitten into even further. The new technologies may have created the illusion that everything is up for grabs, and new authors can have more of a chance than ever before to get their books into print, but the constraints of time and money are not to be ignored. Over the next year or so, nearly everyone is going to be hearing a lot more about Digital Rights Management, or DMR for short. Now that Stephen King has blown the lid off of e books, and other authors and publishers want to follow suit, there will be a flurry of people all scrambling to get their content directly to consumers as rapidly as possible. It can be as basic as the book which is downloaded and sent to a customer via e mail, but as the Stephen King example has also taught us, security is always something or which we must be cognizant. Within only a few short weeks, the encryption on the e book Riding the Book was cracked, and the book was circulating for free on the net. But let’s face it, even with the most sophisticated security systems in the world, if there is someone determined enough, they will steal whatever product they think is valuable enough to be worth stealing. In point of fact, the book was actually being given away for free initially, not even sold, so the point regarding theft per se is a bit hazy. The real issue with DMR is not simply security and ease of use, so that the person who is entitled to view the content can actually get at it without having to enter a million security codes and mortgage their first born child. It is really an issue raised by King: that he should receive fair payment for his intellectual property. Digital Rights Management models like the one at reciprocal.com and lightningsource.com will ensure that publishers are paid for the books consumers purchase on line using a turn key system, and these publishers in turn will be able to pay the earned royalties to Mr King, Mr Crichton, et. al. The fact of the matter is that whatever nonsense you have heard about six-figure sums being earned by some authors on the net, it ain’t happening-at least not yet. And certainly not with fiction. Non-fiction has always been and continues to be the major bestsellers in the book industry, though of course fiction gets far more than its market share in terms of the glamour. But when digital consumption by readers starts to become more of an acceptable method of reading a book than dead tree pulp between two pieces of cardboard, everyone is going to want to make sure that they get theirs. These logging systems will be able to track the downloads of the books at online and offline booksellers such as Barnes and Noble. But even more interesting, is what these digital files can be used for: Barnes and Noble is now giving its new on-demand printing presses a trial run in Memphis, and predicts that within five years, this technology will be available in its stores. Galaxy Library too is creating a complete turnkey system whereby a digital file is stored, and the consumer can then choose to buy permanent on line access to that book through GL’s web portal. Even better, they can "Check out" whatever format they like: Rocket, Glass, Soft, Every, Microsoft Reader, or the handy little dedicated desktop compatible one they have invented themselves, or even an audio version for the visually impaired. Even more amazing: they can have the book printed on demand, with their ordering going directly to the printer, and the book appearing in the mail within 48 hours. One final point about digital rights management is granularity. Simply put, what if there is a one thousand page textbook a college student has been referred to by his professor, but all the library copies have been checked out, and it is essential reading for his exam next week? Galaxy Library’s books will be marked up in such a way that individual chapters can be purchased, with the appropriate revenues going to the publisher and author/s. it will be up to the publishers to decide, of course; topic per topics, page per page will even be possible with DMR. Publisher will of course have to make decisions about how their book is to be marked up, and how to set a fair MRP for not only the books itself but its saleable components, but DMR presents brand new revenue opportunities, and perhaps even promotional opportunities never before imagined. As more and more people turn to the net for shopping because of is ease of use and its instant gratification, e book and information delivery at the speed of your modem or T1 will be key. It will also be a valuable marketing tool; everyone in the online industry agrees, the more you replicate the bookstore experience for the consumer at the website, the more likely it is that you will boost sales. Allowing readers a timed browse of the content, as GL does, will enable consumers to make more educated and informed choices about what they want to buy, and e believe that that in turn will determine future decisions as to which books get published in e format, (or indeed get published at all), and which will go the way of all flesh. Simply put, e publishing is producing a book, either fiction or non-fiction, in a form readable on a computer or other electronic device. The most common form of e publishing is on disk for PC or Mac, but there are also CD ROM books, downloads, which can be sent to people down their e mail box, or downloaded from a website. There are also new formats specially created for the new e book readers currently on the market, such as the Everybook, Softbook, Glassbook, and the Rocketbook. More readers are being invented all the time, even as this book is being written. We will discuss all of the formats available in more detail later on in the book, but for now we will simply assume that electronic publishing is the author getting his work "published", or viewed by a wider readership, directly from a digital file as opposed to paper. The author might compose his work on a word processor/computer, or might have typescripts which can be scanned in, or might have out of print books which could also be scanned into a computer system in order to produce a file which can then be edited and manipulated into various formats, which can then be made available to a wider readership. With the advent of digital printing, electronic files can become so much more than simply a download or book on a disk or CD; the file becomes the sole means of generating a paper book. This is the technology we use at Domhan in order to make the most of the new technology, and ensure that it does not take the average of two years that it would with traditional print publishers for our author’s works to be appearing on bookstore shelves and at online bookstores. Why Do Authors turn to Electronic Publishers? Contrary to popular belief, it is not because they are crazy, desperate, or "selling out." Becoming e published makes good professional sense for a number of reasons. Electronic publishing is not just becoming an alternative to paper publishing. It is becoming compatible with it, side by side, with parallel editions turning up all over the place, although Stephen Kin'gs Success with Riding the Bullet and his plans to repeat this phenomenon in July 2000 have certainly put e books on the map. But apart from the hype, producing an e book is really no different from producing an audio version as well as a hard cover and a paperback edition. Paper printing is expensive. E publishing is not, or should not be unless the company is setting absurdly high prices for their books. The consumer will win if they are getting good quality books at a reasonable price, and the authors will win, because they will make money from a manuscript which might otherwise be lining the cat litter tray if all of the traditional publishers rejected it on the grounds that it was too "risky". Furthermore, with the new dedicated e book readers, consumers can have a lot more choice in the sense of bringing ten or more books with them in one handy little gadget, rather than weighing themselves down with their holiday reading. But you do not have to own the gadget-you can read the new ebooks very comfortable right on our desktop with the new and often free software which has been produced by Rocket, Glassbook and Microsoft. Authors who have been traditionally published are starting to catch on that this is a way of boosting their sales, and also a way of ensuring the work never goes out of print unless they actually want it to. Publishers are happy because their backlist can be kept in play for a lot longer at virtually no cost to themselves. Sales figures even in these early days show that the initial period of selling a book, within the first 8 weeks of its release, as not been a promising as in the past, but the sales are more steady over a longer period of time. For other authors, they are turning to e publishing because they have been dropped from their existing publisher, and need to find a quick way of getting an audience for the novels they have worked so hard to write. I am also surprised meeting people who have been working as writers for years, say in poetry or in short stories, who have publishing credits everywhere, and yet still do not get paper published, because traditional publishers can't be bothered with anthologies. E publishers do not shy away from them at all. Another reason for turning to e publishing which I hear all the time from fellow writers is this problem with category publishing. It is like sticking the square peg in the round hole. Rather than getting any constructive criticism and help from the editors that might make the book 'saleable,' you get the thanks but no thanks standard response, or a "tip sheet" which basically sends the message, "Do it this way or else forget being published." The secret handshake is also another problem in this industry; there is no denying that an author who knows the right people, editors, agents and so on, is going to be in a good position to get their book looked at, while new comers especially, stand little chance of getting their manuscript in print. This is especially true because of the marvelous new technology which makes e books possible, but also enables many more people to aspire to become published authors. The more authors and mss, the greater the workload in a traditional publishing house, but with prestigious companies having cut staff from 150 down to 25 in less than a year in one instance that I personally know of, this means that fewer editors have to deal with more mss in a short amount of time than ever before. If you consider that a large publishing house editor has to promote on average 20-25 books per year, that gives them less than two weeks per book, and that is only when any decision has actually been taken as to whether or not the mss will be accepted. If you are a new writer, chances are you have no agent, because agents are actually even harder to get than a publisher, and also unwilling to take a chance on a new author iven the state of play which we have just described above in the traditional print-based publishing houses. And of course a lot of publishers do not accept unagented submissions. So you are in a Catch-22 situation. Sometimes even established authors have trouble. Piers Anthony has resorted to self-publishing through the on-demand publishing establishment Xlibris because he feels that his current publishing house is too slow in getting his work out. Another reason is that some of his more graphic works were not deemed suitable, or too 'risky.' Or even risque. It is of course pure vanity publishing, since in most cases these operations so readily available on the net do nothing to actively promote the books in their system, and indeed in some cases do not even have any sort of distribution network other than the net. Self-publishing is of course a big commitment in terms of time, money, know how and expertise, never mind in terms of your own promotion, review copies, interviews, books signings, and so on. Exposure on the net with an e book is at least 24 hours and 7 days a week, and there is a whole book culture out there to be tapped into. Plus there is no commitment to the cost of a paper book, which can be very expensive depending upon the self-publishing company you use. E publishing does have costs in terms of setting up-the computer, a proper printer, labels, discs, CD roms and so on, but the e publisher is promoting dozens of books (if they are a large company), and with other authors all working together spreading the word about their books, it means more visitors to the site, and hopefully more sales. So e publishing at a recognised and reputable site will get you exposure. And in some cases, if the e publisher is a successful one and the book does well, an offer for paper publication will follow, as in the case of M. J Rose's Lip Service. As a whole host of other writers agree, it is better to have one's novels out there and being read, than stuffed in a drawer where no one can enjoy them. Talking to the Editor at Domhan Books at http://www.domhanbooks.com, so far the record of stockpiled manuscripts is eighteen unpublished but fully completed manuscripts. That surely has to show a lot of commitment and dedication on the part of the writer, which is never taken into account by traditional publishers, which will rarely even sniff you if you haven't got a famous name. All of these problems and more have been faced by authors in print, but with the new technology, including on demand technology in the printing industry, the e books can be produced quickly, cheaply, attractively, and marketed all over the world. In those senses, electronic books have a lot of positive advantages over a paper book. Sorcha MacMurrough's first novel The Sea of Love would have taken over three years from the time of acceptance to the time it appeared on the shelf, and then the print run would have been so tiny that it would hardly have been worth it. There was no international exposure or sales. But since the publisher had accepted it, and several other publishers wanted her work, she knew they were good novels, good enough not to just hand over to anyone who would hand her back five or six percent and tell her she should be grateful for getting that. The speed and immediacy is also one of the thrills of e publishing. Once several of the big named New York City and London publishing houses decided not to go with James G. Clary's The Last True Story of Titanic, it was on the shelves within two months thanks to Domhan Books and the new technology. If it had not been for some problems with the cover art on Mac rather than PC, it would have been done even sooner. This book was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction, which surely must be an indication that electronic books are not of an inferior quality. Traditional publishers are just that--traditional, and thus unwilling to take risks on new authors, or challenging books which might cause a furore. With e publishing, gone are the days of having to wait three years and have your hopes raised and dashed repeatedly before finally getting the ultimate rejection, and having to look for another publisher all over again. There is also no more having to slavishly follow trends and tip sheets, since anything goes in e publishing. For those of you who have been rejected because the book was too long, too short, spicy, not spicy enough and so on, you can throw all those rules out of the window. Good writing is good writing, no matter how people try to cram it into a mold to suit their commercial ambitions. And publishing should be about talent, and not commercialism. I am not saying that people will not make money e-publishing. They will. But all of the really serious writers I have spoken to place being READ above earning the money. As Angela Adair of Booklocker says, no one is making a fortune for e book fiction yet, though non-fiction sales are doing very well. . excerpted from: On Writing Historical Fiction Jacinta Carey Sorcha MacMurrough Domhan Books In this book these popular authors take beginning writers through all the phases of crafting an historical novel. For authors who have already started a manuscript, they give invaluable advice about writing synopses and query letters, finding the right markets, using the internet, dealing with publishers, and agents, and a whole lot more. There is even a handy grammar section for authors who need to check their work before sending it out to publishers. Packed full of examples from real published writers, plus in-depth interviews, this is an essential reference book for anyone interested in writing historical fiction successfully. Also by the authors Jacinta Carey The Wildest Heart Dream of the West Writing Historical Romance (with S MacMurrough) Sorcha MacMurrough Contemporary romance Heart's Desire Star Attraction Thriller Romance Ghost from the Past Historical Romance Hunger for Love The Hungry Heart The Hart and the Harp Scars upon Her Heart The Faithful Heart The Sea of Love Call Home the Heart The Fire's Centre Journeys End Writing Contemporary Romance (with E Trimborn) C 1999 the authors All rights reserved Dedication: To our families, always long suffering Acknowledgements: JC: Many thanks to the whole team! It was fun! I learnt so much myself as well! SM: Ditto what Jacinta has said, and also, many thanks to all of my teaching colleagues for their generous support, criticism, and donation of time, worksheets, and advice in the grammar section, and to my fellow writers for sharing their experiences over the years, as well as their materials. Thanks for the team work and encouragement! Domhan Books Millennium E book edition ISBN: 1-58345-336-9 9511 Shore Road Suite 514 Brooklyn, NY 11209 A Writer's Guide to Historical Fiction Jacinta Carey Sorcha MacMurrough Introduction We have been writing historical fiction a little over three years now, and with over one dozen titles later between us, we feel it is time we shared the benefits of our experience with others, particularly aspiring writers who are suddenly attracted to the genre. We are not saying it is easy; far from it. We are not saying it is impossible; it isn't. But there are some things which are particular to the genre, and other points about writing and getting published generally which all writers would due to be reminded of, including the need for good editing, and making that manuscript so impressive in terms of presentation and professionalism that you might just be lucky enough to get your foot in the door. We will start with the basics: What is Historical Fiction, and Why write it. Then we will move on to Getting started, continuing on to make an exciting read for your audience though character, plot, setting, suspense, hooks, dialogue, and then talk about grammar, mechanics, and the fine art of query letters, manuscript presentation, and hopefully working up to that first sale. Along the way we will be giving real examples from published writers and from our own personal experiences as a published authors. Let me just say before we start that these are our experiences, and the tricks of the trade we have picked up. Everyone is different, so do not feel you are a complete failure if you don't do any of the things we mention. Alternately, you do not need to follow our lead slavishly either. Just try to remember that all writing is subjective-one man's meat is another man's poison. So too with books that come across editors' desks, the ones you buy in the shop thinking they are going to be great, only to be disappointed, and so on. But hopefully this book will leave you a whole lot wiser about what editors and readers are looking for, and how you can either start as a writer or tighten up that manuscript you have been slaving over for years. We hope you find the information useful, and enjoy the journey into the world of writing historical fiction. Why write Historical Fiction? Why write Historical Fiction? A lot of people think that it is easy to writ historical fiction: great clothes, damsels in distress, knights in shining armor? It can be all that and more (though not in the same book!), though how to get it down on the page and interest the reader is a real skill. Have you done enough research, or not enough? Are your characters consistent with the time period in which you have placed them, or are they too modern? You will have all these things to think about and more if you undertaken an historical. Historicals Defined: For years we have been hearing of the demise of the historical novel; my first rejection slip came from an agent who said it never sold. Since it was all I ever bought in the shops myself, I ignored her and went on to have my book Sea of Love accepted by a publisher almost immediately. Historical fiction is understood to refer to any novel whose subject matter deals with real, identifiable historical situations and/or personalities. The period and culture described in a historical novel are assumed to be different from and prior to that of the novel's author. Some publishing houses specify the cut off point as the turn of the century (nineteenth to twentieth, we can assume here!0 whilst others accept books up to the World War II period. Historical fiction and historical novel are used synonymously, although there is a view that historical fiction is a wider concept than historical novel. Non-novel media such as short stories, TV series and movies can be described as being historical fiction. I just saw the PBS adaptation of Frenchman's Creek by Daphne du Maurier on the TV the other night--romance, intrigue, historical crisis point, it had the lot. But it was not totally faithful to the book, so was it the book, or the screenplay? Think also of the Sharpe, Poldark, Scarlet Pimpernel, or Hornblower TV adaptations which have been on recently. One thing is for sure, costume dramas are selling like hot cakes. As 'novel' is a relatively recent form of literature, most books discussed here have been written in the last two centuries. Historical fiction combines our curiosity toward history with the story-telling. A good historical novel must be true to the past as well as be a well-written literature. Neither historical accuracy nor enjoyable story-telling should be the sole criterion when judging a book. A good historical novel invariably succeeds in satisfying both requirements. It has broadened out in recent years as well as a result of science fiction, for example, which uses 'what-if' scenarios: what if Hitler had won World War II or other similar turning points in history. For example, Joan Aiken's The Wolves of Willoughby Chase is a children's book, but it is thoroughly enjoyable for adults as well, and has a very peculiar late seventeenth early eighteenth century England ruled by a King James III. (sic) The mysteries set in historical periods, and the broad sweeping family sagas which cover generations and time periods also have historical content, some more so than others. Oddly enough, some of the earliest fiction ever produced is historical in nature, in the sense of harking back to the past: The Last of the Mohicans James Fenimore Cooper 1930 (French and Indian War 1750s) The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorn, 19th c. author describing 17th c. period The Journal of the Plague Year Daniel Defoe Late 17th century, written in 18th century And so on. But many novels are called historical romances for no apparent reason. There is a view that all historical novels are romances. Many historical novels in the nineteenth century were 'romantic' novels, which is not to say that they were novels of love. But many in the late nineteenth century were romance novels as "bodice-rippers" (how about a "codpice ripper," I say!) and other derogatory terms were used to classify them. Historical fiction as a genre lost some of its reputation due to wilful disregard of historical truth in these novels. Granted that there were some rotten apples in the barrel, but that does not necessarily spoil the whole lot. Forever Amber does have its place in the annals of the history of writing. And not every book about history has to be a textbook study. There is such a thing as pure enjoyment, so long as that enjoyment is not spoilt with real howlers like people wearing Regency gowns in the 1860s, or playing with door knobs two hundred years before they were invented. But what has been unjust about the critiques of historical fiction is that the whole class of historical novels is attacked undeservedly because of the mistakes and howlers of a few. Even today, many scholars and 'learned' people proudly dismiss historical novels as unworthy literature: "I don't read romance novels!" But if love is one of the essential components in life and literature, what on earth is wrong with romance? Isn't The English Patient a romance, as well as an historical novel? It certainly expresses universal human truths. Conversely, I once saw a romance from a crit group which was so heavily researched you would have needed the history book the author had obviously used right by your side whilst reading it, it was so unintelligible even to me, who did classics at university. Every single historical detail was nearly right (though there were still some real howlers) but the details bogged down everything so much that the characters faded into the background. There are two difficult demands on historical novels. On the one hand, they are to be well-researched in historical facts; nothing less than good scholarship will do. On the other hand, historical novels are for general consumption. Unlike those classics of literature I have mentioned above, historical novels are actually read, and handed down to the next generation who in turn re-discover and read them. They have to be a smashing story to be read by ordinary people. Failing on the first demand brings condemnation, while succeeding on the second demand will make the book as one of popular culture which is seen as unworthy of literary analysis and admiration. Intellectuals deny that there is any fictionalized history worth reading; artists and elite consider historical novels scandalous and shallow. But many historical novels have met both of these demands: well-researched facts as well as great stories. In terms of human welfare, historical novels have helped us enjoy our life more than anything else, and certainly more than dry, dull and pedantic textbooks, by educating or informing, whilst at the same time entertaining. Certainly a good historical can pique your curiosity about a time period, and encourage you to read and learn more. Sorcha is fascinated by Napoleon as a result of reading Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe novels, and the book which really got Jacinta started writing historical fiction was one a friend lent me called The Corn King and the Spring Queen by Scottish writer Naomi Mitchison, (written in the 1930s) a most romantic and moving book about pre-history. It is very long, but if you have never read it, you are in for a treat. One general rule which we have always abided by, both as authors and editors, is that people buy books because they are interested in the people in them. Make your characters vivid and interesting, and you have won half the battle.
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