In less than ten years, starting when he was 25, he built a whole publishing eco-system ranging from fiction and non-fiction to licensing rights
Tom Chalmers is young, perhaps the youngest UK publisher in a generation. In 2005, he was just 25 when he started Legend Press, a fiction publishing house. This was soon followed by a series of publishing companies, one for business (Legend Business), one for non-fiction (Paperbooks Publishing), one for self-publishing (New Generation Publishing) and one for writer events (Write-Connections) – all of them brought together in 2011 in the Legend Times Group while a licensing platform (IPR License) created in 2012, remains completely separate.
All these endeavors run the whole gamut of publishing and cover both traditional publishing sectors and the more technologically advanced digital areas like e-books and self-publishing. IPR License that uses the Internet to reach out to clients is perhaps the most original, and certainly, in terms of travel for the staff, the most demanding.
Mr. Chalmers is a very private individual, when I asked him for a personal picture as Impakter does not use promotional pictures, he said he didn’t have any personal pics to hand and suggested to use the one where he is speaking in China. He is the kind of person who goes at it alone, doing everything pretty much on his own.
In short, a cool, collected and determined entrepreneur. He kindly agreed to answer a few questions for Impakter and here are highlights of a long and fruitful interview.
Another article of mine on Impakter magazine, an interview of best-selling author Elizabeth Jennings who also founded the Women’s Fiction Festival in Matera eleven years ago. I attended this year’s Festival and had a chance to interview her – she is married to an Italian and lives in Matera (see photo below, she is presiding one of the discussion panels, surrounded by writers, from left, self-pubbed American authors Debra Holland, Tina Folsom and Bella André).
Elizabeth Jennings (in red) on the Festival’s podium presiding a panel
Elizabeth Jennings has many namesakes. If you search for her on Google, you’ll find a deceased English poet, an African-American activist and more, but there is only one Elizabeth Jennings, the bestselling romantic suspense writer who lives in Italy and created the most successful writers’ conference on the European continent, the Women’s Fiction Festival held every year in Matera, Italy, since 2004.
How come such a difficult-to-reach, small town like Matera hosts such a well-known cultural event?
Matera, with a baroque center like so many in Southern Italy, became known in 1993 when it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its “Sassi” district, one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements on earth, a spectacular series of dwellings hewn in the rock forty thousand years ago.
But the Sassi are not the answer, though they no doubt make the stay in Matera something to remember. And neither is the fact that Matera has just been nominated “Cultural Capital of Europe for 2019”, beating Lecce, Siena, Ravenna, Cagliari and Perugia to the honor. Indeed, one of the elements that moved the European Commission to choose Matera over its rivals was the Women’s Fiction Festival itself and its enduring success.
So the explanation for the Fiction Festival is to be found elsewhere – in Elizabeth Jennings herself, her dynamism and extraordinary entrepreneurship.
First, the reviewer, Marcel Theroux is someone worth listening to. He is a successful broadcaster and author in his own right. The son of American traveler and writer Paul Theroux, he works in television (for example, in 2004, he presented on Channel 4 The End of the World as We Know It, part of the War on Terra television series about climate change). His fifth novel, Strange Bodies, won the the 2014 John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Not unsurprisingly, this is a speculative novel that explores identity and what it means to be truly human.
Two, this is not Michel Faber’s first book, but his eighth – he has written in many genres, and his brilliant debut novel, Under the Skin, that also happens to be sci-fi like this latest one, was shortlisted for the Whitbread when it came out (in 2000). Under the Skin inspired a fascinating movie that came out in 2014, directed by Jonathan Glazer and starring Scarlett Johansson. Here’s a video clip that highlights how profoundly different this movie is from the usual sci-fi run:
It is basically, a search for identity, and yes, you “don’t want to wake up dead!”
Reading Marcel Theroux’ s review of The Book of Strange New Things, you can tell he was knocked off his feet. For those who don’t like sci-fi, Theroux says, “give it 10 pages, it doesn’t start with aliens, it’s about a man going on a long journey to a planet light years away and saying good-bye to his beloved wife.”
Indeed. Here are the first lines from Chapter 1, Forty Minutes later he was up in the sky:
‘I was going to say something,’ he said.
‘So say it,’ she said.
He was quiet, keeping his eyes on the road. In the darkness of the city’s outskirts, there was nothing to see except the tail-lights of other cars in the distance, the endless unfurling roll of tarmac, the giant utilitarian fixtures of the motorway.
‘God may be disappointed in me for even thinking it,’ he said.
‘Well,’ she sighed, ‘He knows already, so you may as well tell me.’
It is so real, so human! Isn’t that just the sort of thing you say to your loved one as you go off on a trip? This sort of fiction is linked to the here and now, as we live it, with our anxieties and doubts, our loves and regrets.
The key descriptors here are “possible” and “plausible”. That very plausibility is what turns this kind of sci-fi thriller into emotion-laden explorations into the human condition. Our Earth is recognizable but it’s much worse, battered by climate change and geo-political instability. And in that sense, this book links up with the basic tenets of climate fiction, a rapidly rising genre, ever since Dan Bloom coined the term in 2008 (and he’s a vocal part of the debate in that New York Times piece, Room for Debate, published in July 2014).
Theroux in concluding his review of The Book of Strange New Things reveals how he really feels about it and let me quote him:
Since the critical and commercial triumph of Hilary Mantel, the historical novel is newly respectable. One hopes that Michel Faber can do something similar for speculative writing. Defiantly unclassifiable, “The Book of Strange New Things” is, among other things, a rebuke to the credo of literary seriousness for which there is no higher art than a Norwegian man taking pains to describe his breakfast cereal. As well as the literature of authenticity, Faber reminds us, there is a literature of enchantment, which invites the reader to participate in the not-real in order to wake from a dream of reality to the ineffability, strangeness and brevity of life on Earth.
This amounts to a major recognition of the speculative dimension of science fiction that has been often ignored, as millions of readers have become entranced with Star Wars and Ender’s Game. However, the escapist, irrealistic aspect of this kind of sci-fi has also turned off just as many people. Result? Sci-fi has become classified as a commercial “genre”: pure entertainment and nothing else.
Will Faber, with his book, help to make sci-fi “respectable”, repeating what Hilary Mantel did for the historical novel?
I believe he could, because, in fact, Faber is not alone in doing this. Other major writers are doing it too, in particular Margaret Atwood (MaddAddam Trilogy, inter alia) and Barbara Kingsolver (Flight Behavior). Of course,both writers are also considered climate fiction authors, but Margaret Atwood for one has always argued that her fiction is “speculative”.
In my view, regardless of terminology, this is speculative writing of the highest order – it ties back to the founding masters of the speculative sci-fi genre, George Orwell (1984) and Aldous Huxley (Brave New World) who always started from highly plausible premises. And that’s why their books fascinated and scared a whole generation that was feeling under the threat of totalitarian communism.
Today, we are under the threat of global warming with big corporations that won’t do anything about it (because they profit from fossil fuels); we witness increasing geopolitical chaos, especially in the Middle East but other places too as Islamic Jihad spreads; we watch helplessly as income inequality takes hold everywhere, including in places like the United States, where chances for the young to “make it” are growing slimmer by the day unless they were born into “big money”.
Speculative authors (like myself) take this world of ours as the starting point for our fiction. And we try to look into the future to figure out what awaits us and our children.
Given current trends, where are we going?
Such questions need to be asked. And as our world continues to unravel, they will become evermore urgent.
That is why speculative fiction is going to be the Next Big Trend in Publishing.
Just one sad last note: Michel Faber has told the press (see here) that he won’t write another novel, he’s been shaken by the loss of his wife Eva who died of cancer as he was putting the last touches to The Book of Strange New Things. I sincerely hope he will change his mind, it would be a terrible loss to literature.
Post Scriptum: If you’re curious about this kind of fiction, my own speculative novel (just published) is free for 5 days, starting today November 4, don’t miss the chance, I’m not going to do it again! Click here to grab your copy before it’s over. We mortals dream of immortality. What if there was another option? The power of money could make the difference. A few win, the great majority loses, but humanity is saved, or is it?
Excerpt from reviews:
– A prophetic view of our future. Compelling from start to finish (Lit Amri)
– A cast of characters that range from fascinating to despicable (Marsha Roberts)
– A very plausible future, scarily plausible (Bob Rector)
Published May 31, 2014. 326 pages.
UPDATE ON FREE CAMPAIGN:
On Day One (November 4): 264 units were downloaded and that shot the book up to:
Major author and playwright Bob Rector (who reviewed the book, see here) just posted the following on his Facebook page:
Great opportunity to grab one of my favorite books for free. If you like storytelling at its very best, I urge you not to pass this up.
Thanks, Bob, I hope many will follow you and read the book. And I know you love Alice, the protagonist of whom I made a portrait, so I am including it here:
Here’s another article just published on Impakter under my real name, Claude Forthomme – memories of the days when I worked at the United Nations, traveling to developing countries, to inspect and evaluate aid projects, trying to sort out problems:
Diary of a UN Official #3: When Women Make the Difference
Guinea-Bissau, October 1990, I don’t remember which day. But I remember how it was that morning when I woke up. Hot, very hot, the way it is in the tropics, damp and cloying, with a low sky of dark clouds, like a lid. I got out of my room, with just a bathrobe on, and ran to the nearest mango tree – the hotel I was staying at was very simple, just a handful of bungalows of two rooms each, set in a large, unkempt garden, no flowers, a lot of mud. But so many mangoes, greenish yellow, with a juicy, golden flesh, the perfect breakfast. I went into the bathroom to carve out my mango with a multi-bladed Swiss knife I always carried with me (back then you could taken them aboard planes). The sweet juice dripped all over the sink. I reflected how in Bissau, there are mango trees everywhere, heavy with fruit; all one has to do is look up and grab one, they’re free – a little like living in paradise.
But Guinea-Bissau back then (and even today) is no paradise. It is one of the poorest countries on earth, more than two thirds of the population lives below the poverty line on less than two dollars a day. If Guinea-Bissau threatens these days to become a narco-state, this is no surprise. Guess what, even when I was there, most people, some 80 percent, earned whatever living they could scrape from agriculture, mostly rice (to feed their families) and cashew and ground nuts (for export).
I knew all about this, before coming, I had done my “due diligence” to prepare myself for my evaluation mission. Little did I know that in a few hours I would live through the most extraordinary and unforgettable experience in my life as FAO Evaluation Officer. The project was ending, the question I had to answer was, should it continue, a standard question at the end of a project cycle. I had read about the country’s problems after it became independent from Portugal, how the Portuguese Colonial War had led to a rapid exodus of the Portuguese civilian and military authorities, and like any war, had wrought considerable damage to the country’s economic and social infrastructure. With continuing political instability, the standard of living had collapsed and while Guinea Bissau had been a net exporter of rice in colonial times, now it was a net importer. And for years there had been no vegetables or fruit (except for mangoes) in the capital – a small town of some 150,000 people (more than double that number today). That had changed with the project I was meant to evaluate. A horticulture project, started a couple of years before, it was meant to provide the town with vegetables. It was a very small project, less than one hundred thousand dollars of expenses in two years. Peanuts. Compared to the big problems the country faced, what was the point of it? How could it help? Was another extension really needed? But I was beginning to revise my opinion.
For the rest, link to Impakter. Expect a very surprising end to that story!
The Nobel jury seems to be able to discover new writers you’ve never heard of, coming from countries that have a literature you have never read, like China, Egypt or Turkey and everytime, it’s a real pleasure to discover something totally new. So when the Nobel this year went to a Frenchman I had never read – and I do read regularly French literature – I was totally floored and rushed to buy one of his books. In French, of course.
I got “Rue des Boutiques Obscures” because I thought it was a take on the Rome address of the old Italian Communist Party (now PD, Partito Democratico). As everyone in Italy knows, it’s “via delle botteghe scure”. But no, this book has nothing to do with the Communist Party or any party for that matter.
Patrick Modiano is not interested in politics, he’s into the past, and a particular past at that, all the dark years around and during World War II, and most of his stories are set in Paris. In short, a very local, circumscribed author.
Yet, in spite of that, the themes he predilects are universal, they focus on the question of identity and self. This book, which came out in 1978, the year he won the prestigious Prix Goncourt, was quickly translated into English by Daniel Weissbort, under the title “Missing Person” – actually one of the few books he wrote that got translated. It is published in the United States by a small indie press owned by David R. Godine and of course it is available on Amazon (see here). That’s where I got it – but I was able to find the Kindle version of the French original, to pass onto my 100 year-old mother who still reads a novel per week on her Kindle; incidentally, she was very happy to get it, she likes to keep abreast of the latest literary news…This said, I’m a little surprised that Amazon, ever so efficient, hasn’t got a digital version of the English translation all ready for the American public. Quite clearly, both Mr. Godine and Amazon were taken by surprise by the Nobel jury!
He wrote some 20 books in a career that spanned nearly 45 years (he was born in 1945). As I am now writing this blog post, I just learned from an article in the Washington Post (here), that “Missing Person” is the book Peter Englund, a historian and the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, recommends to readers unfamiliar with Patrick Modiano. “It’s a fun book,” Englund said. “He’s playing with the genre.”
And the genre he is playing with is mysteries. A detective, suffering from amnesia, sets out to recover his identity, following a variety of strange leads. As described on the Godine site:
In this strange, elegant novel, winner of France’s premier literary prize, Patrick Modiano portrays a man in pursuit of the identity he lost in the murky days of the Paris Occupation, the black hole of French memory.
For ten years Guy Roland has lived without a past. His current life and name were given to him by his recently retired boss, Hutte, who welcomed him, a onetime client, into his detective agency. Guy makes full use of Hutte’s files – directories, yearbooks, and papers of all kinds going back half a century – but his leads are few. Could he really be the person in that photograph, a young man remembered by some as a South American attaché? Or was he someone else, perhaps the disappeared scion of a prominent local family? He interviews strangers and is tantalized by half-clues until, at last, he grasps a thread that leads him through the maze of his own repressed experience.
On one level Missing Person is a detective thriller, a 1950s film noir mix of smoky cafés, illegal passports, and insubstantial figures crossing bridges in the fog. On another level, it is also a haunting meditation on the nature of the self. Modiano’s sparce, hypnotic prose, superbly translated by Daniel Weissbort, draws his readers into the intoxication of a rare literary experience.
I’d like to recall here a very astute comment made sometime back by Anne Korkokeakivi, writing for THE MILLIONS, where she noted that French novels tend to be “… dark, searching, philosophical, autobiographical, self-reflective, and/or poetic (without being overwritten).” Patrick Modiano’s “Missing Person” precisely fits this description. It is all these things, dark, searching, self-reflective and yes, poetic.
Consider the first lines: “I am nothing. Nothing but a pale shape, silhouetted that evening against the café terrace, waiting for the rain to stop; the shower had started when Hutte left me.”
Amazing, isn’t it? The opening sentence is just three words, but how they resound. I am nothing. That is of course the whole theme of the book. What comes next is a poetic evocation of someone barely there, uncertainly watching the rain. And the last part of the sentence immediately makes you want to know who is this Hutte – someone with a strange name if there ever was one.
Yes, that is how a master storyteller starts a novel, and I guarantee that you will be turning the pages as fast as you can. And you will be wondering as the main character follows clues that turn out to be non-clues, and you will find yourself perplexed as he attempts to start conversations with people who take him for…who? Really him or someone else? This is done very subtly, especially at the level of dialogues, the kind one carries on with people one barely knows. But can one ever really know the other and oneself? So yes, the book is presented as a mystery, but the mystery is the main character…
And to answer my own question: How good is Patrick Modiano? Very good, five stars, I highly recommend it. And I think you’ll be happily surprised what a short read it is too, featherweight, a little over 200 pages. A small perfection…
This morning it happened to me and I wanted to share this joy with you. It concerns my latest book, Forever Young, my climate fiction set in the near-future – well, not so near, 200 years from now because that’s the time I figure it will take for mankind to face extinction on Earth. Contrary to most science fiction and climate fiction that set environmental and societal catastrophe at some 40 to 50 years ahead, I wanted to give my novel a chance to be plausible: I really believe this final disaster will require about 200 years to mature…
So here is what Australian author Alana Woods wrote (that’s her picture – not me!):
“Some time ago I read Nougat’s short story compilation Death on Facebook, Short Stories for the Digital Age and was impressed with the range of stories and the skill with which they were presented. One that caught my imagination was I will not leave you behind, the futuristic story of a 122 year old woman who is part of an elite program that keeps you young until you die. In FOREVER YOUNG Nougat has taken that short story and woven its premise into a four-part series of short novels I enjoyed reading very much.
The over-arching theme is the approaching doom of Earth from climate change. The story is set 200 years into the future and what becomes apparent very quickly is that humankind never did learn the lessons of what it would take to save the planet. Everyone, including big business, is still only concerned with the present and what they can get out of it for themselves. People are still divided into the have’s and have not’s, only now the have’s—called the OnePercenters—can afford to have old-age and illness permanently eliminated right up until death, whereas the have not’s—the 99PerCenters—continue to struggle as we struggle in this day and age.
The story and struggle is told through three characters who all aspire to be a OnePercenter, highlighting the fact that even in Earth’s extremis we’re still only concerned with what advantages we can garner for ourselves.
You can come away from reading this series feeling a great despair for where we’re heading. The alternatives that the author presents, that of leaving Earth to inhabit a new planet and starting again, or remaining and hoping Earth regenerates itself, are stark contrasts.
A thought-provoking, confronting read.”
The review came as a total surprise and most welcome after I had received an awful review sarcastically titled “the future isn’t futuristic”. For this reviewer, my book “didn’t work at all” because “many of the same technologies that we use today are still prevalent. How many things popular 200 years ago, even 30 years ago are still in use today? It was not a forward-thinking, imaginative conception of the future and I just didn’t buy it.”
Not a “forward-thinking” conception of the future? I was crushed, I felt totally misunderstood. How could this reviewer not see that this was the whole point of my book? The “future” she yearns for does come in Forever Young for the ultra rich but only for them because they are the only ones who can afford the advances of science. Alas, it does not come for the rest of mankind, no one can afford the technological innovations the rich are enjoying!
Is that so unrealistic? I don’t think so. Consider further the argument she makes that many things “popular 200 years ago” are no longer in use today. Quite frankly, that argument doesn’t hold water. Anyone who has travelled in the Third World knows how the poor live, in conditions that are barely better than those prevailing in medieval times, no electricity, no running water, no public transport and only wood or dung to cook. And billions of people live that way, nearly half of the world’s population lives on less than $2.50 a day, and according to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty.
Collecting millet in Darfur (this woman has 5 children) UN photo library
This is why Alana Woods’ review was so welcome, she “got” it, that social difference between the poor majority and the rich minority – a trend that I think will only be exacerbated if we continue on the road of income inequality on which we have embarked (and I’m not the one saying it, Thomas Piketty is, in his Capital in the 21st Century – I highly recommend reading it).
What fundamentally differentiates Alana Woods’ review from the other one is this:it’s not a customer review that simply states “likes” and “dislikes” (unsubstantiated phrases like “I didn’t buy it”)but a carefully thought-out review that examines the book’s premise and follows how it was developed, critically analyzing it.
I also deeply appreciate Alana’s review for another reason: she is a demanding critic and, as she puts it on Amazon, “I like to choose the books I review.” In this case, she certainly chose my book, I was surprised when she told me she was reading it (she’d picked up the first book in the series for 99 cents) – I was surprised and pleased. Because she is truly a professional writer who knows the art of writing. She is the author of a guide to writing good fiction, chock-full of good advice:
Jason Mathews considers it “the best guide for indies” and hosted her on his site to discuss it with two other authors, Lisa Grace and Samantha Fury:
Alana Woods is not only an excellent literary critic but a remarkable writer in her own right, “the queen of intrigue”. Three of her books are currently available on Amazon, two award-winning literary suspense novels and an intriguing collection of short stories:
If you are wondering why she hasn’t published more books, that’s because she is very demanding of herself. As she puts it: “I’m a storyteller from way back but not a prolific producer like other authors. It can take me years to be satisfied with the quality of a story and my telling of it.”
Right.
To take years to be satisfied with one’s manuscript is the mark of a careful, professional writer but also of one who respects her readers. It think that’s remarkable and I believe more indie authors should take Alana as an example and think twice before publishing. There are times when I wish I hadn’t rushed into self-publishing and waited for my books to “ripen” until they were ready.
Good writing takes time, and now (I think) I have learned my lesson and no longer publish too soon. How about you? Has it ever happened to you to publish a book only to discover six months later that it could have been better? Have you ever had the urge to revise it and upload a new, better edition? I plead guilty to having done that and would love to know whether you’ve done it too!
Amazon and its 3.4 Million E-Books: the End of Culture?
For a long while now, people have debated how many e-books Amazon carried it in its Kindle Store, because Amazon has never divulged the data. Some daringly ventured the figure of 1.5 million. Wrong! The real figure is close to 3.4 million and I found it by chance, as I was navigating Amazon’s website for Amazon Associates which provides links, banners and widgets you can upload to your blog to help advertise Amazon products.
Here it is in a screen shot I took on August 19, 2014:
Look at what the red arrow points to: “Results from Amazon Kindle Store…3,376,174“. Three days later that figure had grown by over 9,000 units and stood at 3,385,243, climbing ever closer to 3.4 million. This means that everyday over 3,000 titles are added, that’s over one million books per year – and probably growing at an exponential rate that I cannot calculate for the moment; I haven’t got the data though Amazon does (I wonder whether they are as scared as I am).
Or to put it another way: It takes one hour to add 12 books, one new title every five minutes.
You can bet that in 10 years time the number of titles in the Kindle Store could be anywhere between 20 and 40 million books.
This is as many books as Google is said to have scanned globally, drawing from all the world’s libraries (the latest reported figure dates to last year and was 33 million books).
Surprised? I’m not, not really. Internet guru Jaron Lanier, in his fascinating book “Who Owns the Future” suggests that we should eventually expect as many writers online as there are readers. If he’s right (and there’s not reason to believe him wrong), we still have some way to go. But it will surely happen, and probably sooner than you think.
When that happens, what will the e-book market look like? Lanier reminds us that this is what happened to music already.
Are books like music? Not quite, books are a more complete codification of ideas, they can play on emotions the way music does (for example, a romance novel or lines of poetry) but they also encapsulate ideas and ideology (from Hegel to Marx to contemporary thought gurus, like Lanier himself).
So can we expect our culture to get crushed under the numbers?
Again, Lanier tells us how he sees the future. Books will be increasingly linked to devices – think of how the rise of e-books was linked to the Kindle. When that happens, says Lanier: “some good books from otherwise obscure authors will come into being. These will usually come to light as part of the rapid-growth phase, or “free rise” of a new channel or device for delivering the book experience.” He doesn’t say it, but of course Amanda Hocking and John Locke‘s sudden rise to fame immediately comes to mind. They enjoyed a “heightened visibility” on the Kindle, as they were “uniquely available early on on that device.” And Lanier to conclude: “In this way, an interesting author with just the right timing will occasionally get a big boost from a tech transition”.
Is that good for authors? No, says Lanier, “the total money flowing to authors in the system will decline to a fraction of what it was before digital networks.” The future reserved to authors is exactly the same as what musicians are facing today: “Most authors will make most of their book-related money in real time, from traveling, live appearances or consulting instead of book sales.”
Authors in future will be a vastly different lot from what they are today, no more hiding in the ivory tower as “independent scholars”
I finally found where Amazon reveals a hidden (and juicy) statistic: the number of ebooks available in the Kindle Store. If you’re an Amazon Associate, you can easily find it too but to make it simple I took a screen shot of the page where it shows, this one dated August 16, 2014:
Look at what the red arrow points to: “Results from Amazon Kindle Store…3,376,174 results”. That’s how many ebooks are stocked in the Kindle Store as of now: 3.4 million.
And by the time I had finished writing this blog post (one hour later) that number had climbed to…3,376,186! It took one hour to add 12 books, one new title every five minutes. In 24 hours, the number had climbed to 3,378,960, that’s 2786 more books – let’s say, 2,800 a day, that’s over one million books per year – and probably growing at an exponential rate that I cannot calculate for the moment; I haven’t got the data though Amazon does (I wonder whether they are as scared as I am).
You can bet that in 10 years time the number of titles in the Kindle Store could be anywhere between 20 and 40 million books.
This is as many books as Google is said to have scanned globally, drawing from all the world’s libraries (the latest reported figure dates to last year and was 33 million books).
Surprised? I’m not, not really. Internet guru Jaron Lanier, in his fascinating book “Who Owns the Future” suggests that we should eventually expect as many writers online as there are readers. If he’s right (and there’s not reason to believe him wrong), we still have some way to go. But it will surely happen, and probably sooner than you think.
It’s also very instructive to look at the list of titles provided using the filter “new and popular” (the one I used – but there are other filters too depending on what you’re looking for) and you’ll see that Daniel Silva‘s “The Heist” (the 14th book in the Allon series) comes on top: it was published on 15 July 2014 and already got over 1,200 customer reviews. Not unsuprisingly it is is ranked #51 in “paid Kindle” and #1 in several subcategories including mystery and suspense.
By the way, “The Heist” is published by one of the Big Five (Harper) and priced at an average $14 which is standard for traditionally published books. That price, high in relation to the average price for self-published books (which according to Smashwords is around $3.99), does not seem to have impeded its sales or ranking. This is not to say that traditional publishers can get away with any level of high prices – I would argue that a level beyond $14 is damaging and ensures that some excellent writers, like William T. Volmann, perhaps our times’ major “fabulist”, is not as widely read as he could be. His latest book, Last Stories and Other Stories, is priced at over $22, a price equivalent to the hardcover. That places him well beyond the reach of the average e-book reader, in practice excluding him from any exposure in the Kindle Store. Don’t be surprised if his book is sitting at #42,967 Paid in Kindle Store in spite of the boost it has received in the mainstream media, most recently the New York Times (see here).
Indeed, if anything, books that are priced high and traditionally published seem to occupy the first ranks everywhere on Amazon. And I’m not referring to special cases like John Green’s best-selling “The Fault in our Stars” with over 29,000 customer reviews and a ranking in paid Kindle at #8 for books, although it is noteworthy that its ranking is not the same in the ebook market (it sits at # 3,810). Here I am looking at the Kindle Store only and what pops up in the ranks is often quite different from what emerges in printed books, and why it is so, is a story for another blog post.
In any case, whether looking at the printed or ebook markets, you have to look hard for self-published authors though, undeniably, they are there…Hugh Howey with over 2,000 reviews for his Dust (book 3 of the WOOL trilogy) is sitting at #815 in “paid in Kindle Store”; Bella Andre’s Kiss Me Like This at #642 (it came out in June 2014 and has over 170 reviews); J.A. Konrath’s Whiskey Sour at #1615 (it came out in February 2013 and has nearly 1,200 reviews); Barry Eisler‘s Graveyard of Memories at #5,136 (it came out in February 2014 and already has over 600 reviews) – but Eisler’s book is published by an Amazon imprint, Thomas and Mercer, and he cannot be thought of as a self-published author stricto sensu, though he often sides with indies and famously walked away from a big publisher’s contract a few years ago.
The conclusion? Self-published authors, even the most successful ones, aren’t doing badly of course, but they are certainly not doing as well in terms of exposure as traditionally published authors. Sometimes, a traditionally published author who finds herself retrograded to the “midlist”, with the publisher giving no signs of wishing to renew the contract, may have no choice but to self-publish to survive. This is what Eileen Goudge did and so elegantly explained in a blog post here on Jane Friedman‘s blog, enticingly titled “Self-publish or Perish” (hence the title for my own blog post here).
However, we should remember that if the midlist author’s economic “survival” is ensured, it is largely thanks to the 70% royalty Amazon pays, because it is certainly not remarkable in terms of exposure – I won’t go further in the details and give you yet another ranking, you can check for yourself if you’re curious (here).
Moreover, one must remember that all rankings are ephemeral, they change constantly, and one needs to be Amazon itself (or set up a 24 hour watch for months on end) to figure out which authors have “staying power” and which don’t. So all the rankings I’m quoting here are merely indicative.
Still, some insights can be gleaned. It is particularly interesting to check on the more successful self-published authors and see how they fare today. I checked at random the more famous ones such as Amanda Hocking or John Locke whose amazing success stories (selling “a million copies” in a matter of months) have been instrumental in launching the self-publishing craze.
Well, they are not doing as well today as you might expect. Amanda Hocking has two books going currently for free and her best selling book, My Blood Approves (now traditionally published by St Martin’s) is ranked #34,251 Paid in Kindle Store. John Locke’s Promise You Won’t Tell, with close to 1,200 reviews was going free the last time I checked and his best selling non-free book Casting Call (actually also the most recent, published in February 2014) is priced at $2.99 and ranked #11,195 in paid in Kindle Store. In other words, it’s doing reasonably well but breaking no records.
Why are such famous self-published authors with millions of copies sold – I would say even “iconic” writers – following the free promotion strategy exactly as propounded by self-published author David Gaughran in his excellent guidebook Let’s Get Visible?
I’m sure you can come up with still more striking success stories, and please be sure to highlight them out in the comments, but my point is that the success doesn’t stay on…it waxes and wanes (which is natural) and then falls off a cliff, to use David Gaughran’s striking metaphor. Hence, the authors efforts to revive their books with free promotions. A tough life!
Now if life is tough for the more successful self-published authors, try and imagine what it’s like for the rest of us?
The reason why? Basically the tsunami of books that buries every single newcomer!
No doubt this is another compelling reason why you should follow David Gaughran’s advice. And don’t get discouraged, Amazon has just handed out a candy to self-published authors, making it possible for them for the first time everto access to the “pre-order” functionality on its website (is this a side-effect of the Hachette-Amazon spat? Who knows…) Regardless of Amazon’s reasons for doing this, it is a big gift, because it means that, just like a traditional publisher could do till now, you are able to promote your book on all the sites you navigate for 90 days prior to launching, while pre-orders accumulate on Amazon’s site: on the day of release, all these orders are filled at a single go, ensuring a boost to your book, launching it up Amazon’s rankings!
Because, as David Gaughran points out, in this environment awash with books, you cannot ever stop marketing your titles – and now you have another tool at your disposal to launch your next book…use it!
Couples engaged in the same occupation are rare and don’t always have a happy life together. It may be harder for writers than for other artists to achieve serenity in their life as a couple – perhaps because writers are more given to analyzing their feelings and expressing them into words. That can easily turn into a source of friction as famously happened with Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, when she wrote The Mandarins, a barely concealed critique of Sartre and his group of existentialists whom she felt had cut her out.
…Bob Rector! His recently published book, Unthinkable Consequences, is steadily climbing the ranks of romantic suspense novels, are definitely an exception: I know from reading “Confessions” that they are very close to each other and have always been, including now that they are suddenly finding themselves in the situation of writers married to each other.
Yet, before they met, they had pursued completely different career paths. Bob had been into musical video production, documentaries and script writing. Marsha started as an operating room nurse but quickly became restless for adventure. She began to travel, using part time nursing to support her habit, and met Bob at the end of one of her journeys. He was directing the feature film, “Don’t Change My World” at the time. She immediately became fascinated by the filmmaking process and became Bob’s right-hand-gal for years. She worked herself up to the position of Producer which culminated in the production of Letters from the Front, a most unusual and arresting play written and directed by Bob, which toured the world with great success for 15 years.
Today, I am honored to interview them: Rome calls Chattanooga, choo-choo!
Yes, I live in Rome and they live in America and we have never met anywhere else but on the Net. I see this as a unique opportunity to find out how Marsha and Bob have moved from a situation where he was the artist and she was the business manager to the present one where they are both writers.
Claude: Marsha and Bob, this is a question for both of you: for the first time in your life, you find yourself in the same line of work, writing books. And pardon my curiosity, how do you get along? Do you help each other? Do you avoid each other?
Marsha: I can’t help but laugh when I read this question, Claude! We get along (as Forest Gump said) “Like two peas in a pod.” We are always there for each other and it would never occur to me to avoid Bob. He’s too delightful to avoid!
Bob: We’ve always enjoyed working together. I think we bring out the best in each other. Traditionally, I’ve always been the writer, but Marsha has developed, through our mutual work, keen storytelling skills that I learned to respect. Marsha neglected to point out that for years she was an accomplished film editor and, as one of my blog posts points out, nothing develops story telling abilities like hours spent at the editing table.
Claude: Marsha, you told me that you are producing an audio version of your book. From your own life as a theater producer, you knew actors and I’m sure Bob, with his long experience in video production, could also help. How did that work out?
Marsha: First off, it was a delight to have Della Cole read my book. She starred in Letters from the Front for years and is also a dear friend. She is a top voice talent and she knew many of my stories from first hand experience. She also runs one of the top acting schools in the southeast, YourAct. The tricky part was in post production and, frankly, Bob saved my… well, he saved the project! He is a fantastic editor and finished the audiobook in style. It will be available through Amazon soon and I’m really excited about it!Claude: I’m looking forward to hearing it! Bob, your book came out a couple of years later than Marsha’s and you had ample opportunity to observe her working at book promotion. Were you able to profit from her experience?
Bob: Unthinkable Consequences was a project that simmered on the back burner for a couple of decades. Marsha’s success with publishing and promoting her book was what convinced me to finally finish mine and publish it. By that time Marsha was already plugged into social media and I benefited from her experience.
Claude: I’d like to know how you organize your working life and whether you have advice for other writers: how much time do you devote to creative writing, how much to book promotion?
Marsha: I wish I could say I’ve found all of the answers in how to time manage promotion and writing, but I haven’t. I’m still trying to wrangle the beast of marketing my book without it taking up every minute of every day.
Bob: We have both tried various approaches with e-marketing our books, some with success, and some without. It’s a tedious and sometimes frustrating process because it’s all new. And most of us at this point are making it up as we go along.
Claude:I am asking because book promotion in my own life is interfering with my writing, sometimes much more heavily than I would like. Do you ever feel any frustration, any desire to shut down the Internet?
Bob: I can answer that with two words: hell yes! But Marsha and I are in this for the long haul and we certainly know about long haul projects. Ultimately we’re going to have to develop our own methods for marketing, just as we have in the past. How much the internet will be a part of that is still a question, but I firmly believe you should use all resources that benefit you in achieving your goals.
Marsha: Well said, Bob. I’d like to add that about a year ago I begin a process of trying to discern which activities on the internet were helpful and which were just time wasters. And I’m speaking here about the bottom line: selling books. Social media can give you the impression you are getting a lot done because you are posting and tweeting and sharing and it’s all so busy, busy, busy! At the end of the day, does it sell books? If so, I continue to do it. If not, I move on. But, do I have time for writing? Not much.
Claude: Same here! I’d like to probe a little deeper into your working life as a couple, if I may. Do you discuss book ideas together? Do you read each other’s drafts and critique them? Do you even listen to each other’s advice and act on it (grin)?
Marsha: As Bob mentioned earlier, we enjoy working together and collaborate very well. Yes, we read each other’s drafts and critique them. I can say without hesitation that my Mutinous Boomer book would not have taken the shape and form it did without Bob’s input. We always listen to each other’s advice and usually take that advice because we are working on such a level of trust. However, occasionally one of us will feel passionately about what we’ve written and the author always has the choice to keep it as is.
Bob: From the beginning of our relationship we had to learn to work together as pros first and a couple second. I did not want Marsha branded as ‘the director’s girlfriend’ as the reason she was in the business. So I was very tough on her, tougher than I would have been on an employee, but she understood why and simply upped her game until she became well-respected within the business and us being a couple was no longer an issue. We still work that way and never allow personalities to get in the way. Our goal is to produce the best work we can. And neither of us has much tolerance for people who don’t operate on this professional level.
Claude: I don’t either! And it is natural of course for the two of you to collaborate. But are there things you would neverdo together?
Bob: I won’t eat tofu with her. Marsha won’t join me in spitting, belching and farting, but other than that, we both enjoy football and baseball, the great outdoors, time with our kids (grown!) and consuming adult beverages, preferably in exotic locations.
Marsha: Ha! True that! I’d say the only professional area that we operate separately is that Bob is a whiz with the computer and manages all our tech “stuff” and graphics. But, when it comes to making a call on a potential client or sponsor, it’s me who walks through the door. Bob would hate it just as much as I hate dealing with computers!
Bob: That’s because Marsha is like Sara Lee, nobody doesn’t like her!
Claude: I’d like to knowwhat writers have influenced you the most and why. Marsha, you wrote what is basically a memoir yet with a totally new twist – giving us an extraordinary sense of life seen from an unshakeable optimistic standpoint. Did you believe you were into something entirely different from anything you’d ever read or did you have a model in mind?
Marsha: Thank you, Claude, for those kind words about my book. Besides novels, I’ve always read books that teach about how to grow spiritually, everyone from Dr. Wayne Dyer to Deepak Chopra to the great Granddaddy of them all, Norman Vincent Peale. The Power of Positive Thinking is real and is a real force in my life. However, I had a different and more personal story to tell than a how-to type of book. Mine is very conversational in approach (quite female!) and, no I didn’t really think about doing something entirely different. I was just telling my story as honestly as I could.
Claude: How did the word “parable” end up in the title? Was that your thought from the beginning or was “Confessions” the main idea? And I’m curious, will there be a follow-up to your “Confessions” or something totally different? I expect you still have a lot of confessions up your sleeve!
Marsha: My book started as The Parable of the Tomato Plant and as it grew into something bigger, it just didn’t seem right to remove it from the title. My original idea was a series of vignettes that illustrated how spiritual lessons are part of our daily lives, if we take a moment to see them. When Bob read my first draft, he loved the stories, but he said he thought it would leave the reader frustrated because I had introduced so many interesting characters, but had not completed their stories as I moved on to the next vignette. It was then that the organization of my book took shape and “Confessions” AND “Mutinous” seemed appropriate! And, yes, I do believe I have another Mutinous Boomer book in me, but not just yet…
Claude: Any plans other than writing yourself, like reviving Letters from the Front? I’ve only read it but I’ve enjoyed it immensely, it’s a great play and I’d love to see it produced again. In our world tired of wars, that’s exactly the kind of play that needs to be seen.
Marsha: The reason I said I wasn’t concentrating on writing another book just yet is that we have decided that it is time for Letters from the Front to be out touring military bases again and we intend to make that happen. Our audiences always described it as “from the heart” and “healing” as well as “incredibly entertaining!” With so many of our troops returning home after multiple deployments, they need something as positive and encouraging as Letters from the Front and we intend to be there for them and their families. We miss them and we miss the show.
Claude: Bob, you’re an incredibly versatile artist, from music videos to cartoons that you have drawn yourself – yes , I’ve seen your remarkable and very funny cartoon. I can’t resist inserting it here:
And of course, you’ve done film scripts and theater plays, and now a romance that is also a fantastic page-turner, it’s so fast-paced. The dialogues are superb which is of course what one would expect coming from a talented playwright like you. What writers, or should I say artists, do you consider as models to follow in your widely diverse endeavors?
Bob: The storyteller who has without a doubt had the greatest influence on me is Walt Disney. He understood character and plot construction and the workings of the human heart better than anybody. And of course he was a master showman. As for writing, from books with great scope and adventure I think Hammond Innes is probably the best and certainly influenced writers like Clive Cussler and Ken Follett. In the genre I’ve written in, Dashiell Hammett is the acknowledged master, followed by Earle Stanley Gardner and later by John D. MacDonald, who is my personal favorite.
Claude:I know that you feel like playwriting is not “fully appreciated” in the writing world – though I beg to disagree, I love playwrights and consider some of them as the greatest writers ever, from Shakespeare to Arthur Miller. I’ve been wondering why you feel that way. Have you had a particularly disappointing experience in the theater world and is that why you’re into novel-writing now?
Bob: That’s a complicated question and definitely hits a nerve. As you know, most of my background was in the world of films. So when I stumbled into the world of theatre, I was surprised at how ego driven it was and the amount of snobbery that was prevalent. Particularly towards someone who had not “played by the rules.” But since Marsha and I produced this play ourselves, we could basically tell everybody to go to hell, and did. The fact that our show was so successful only ostracized us further from the theatre establishment. So I was a little put off when I first joined ASMSG that playwrights were not included. As for writing Unthinkable Consequences, it was a project I’d tinkered with for years and finally decided to complete, but not because of my experiences in theatre. I just wanted to finally get it done.
Marsha: I’d like to interject something here, Claude. It would be difficult to describe to someone who hasn’t experienced it the incredible impact that Letters from the Front has on its audiences. Why? Bob Rector. How he walks the audience into the lives and hearts of the characters is no less than genius, and I’m not exaggerating when I use that word. I’ve never been more proud of Bob than when the curtain went up hundreds of times to audiences that could only respond with standing ovations.
Bob: Okay, lets all sing together now: We belong to a mutual admiration society, my baby and me. Before we move on, Claude, I’d like to say something about playwriting that the painter side of you will appreciate. You are familiar with the challenge of painting with a limited palette. Playwriting is very similar in that you virtually have nothing more to work with than dialogue to develop characters and advance the story. I encourage all writers to try writing a play at some point because it will hone their storytelling skills in ways that will only benefit their novel writing.
Claude: I agree, good dialogue is key and writing a play is the way to hone that skill.Do you plan on a sequel to Unthinkable Consequences or are you ready to write something entirely new?
Bob: I have no plans for a sequel and very little interest. I’ve told the story, it’s finished, and so am I. As for other projects spinning around in my mind, I’d have to live to be 500 years old to do them all.
Claude: I know what you mean, but I hope we’ll soon see another one of your projects! Bob and Marsha,there is one thing that brings you together now, the world of indies and self-publishing: you’re both self-published authors. How do you feel about the world of indies, would you do it again or would you seek a traditional publisher for your next book?
Marsha: No question about it, I would self publish again and I will. Why? The big publishers are primarily interested in putting their money and time into established authors. I have seen quite a few indie author friends I’ve grown to know on the internet to get publishing deals. They end up working just as hard as the rest of us, marketing their books and trying to sell them, but splitting the sales with an agent and a publisher who are doing virtually nothing to promote them. This isn’t an easy path. We are on the forefront here – the beginning of the way it will be done from here on. I’m glad to be in on the ground floor.
Bob: Marsha’s right. This is a ground floor opportunity and that makes it both exciting and frustrating. There’s lots of very talented and energetic people involved and I am inspired by them, and have made lots of friends. Who knows how the world of indie publishing will eventually shake out, but I know I want to be a part of it and maybe in some small way, help make the baby grow.
Claude:I’m sure you can help “make the baby grow” but like any parenthood, it is frustrating at times! Thanks so much for responding to all my questions. Just a last one before we close, and I take the inspiration for it from one of the author interviews you did, Bob: if money was no object, what would you do with your life beside write?
Marsha: Money no object? I love that question! I would have a home on Lake Como, be able to travel to wherever I wanted, make sure my sons had what they needed to pursue their dreams and insure that Letters from the Front was entertaining the troops and their families (and veterans!) for a long, long time. Besides that? I’d have clothes designed just for me, I’d have…. I guess you get the picture. I’m ALL about enjoying life!
Bob: We have known so many people who look at life as a contest that must be won. Marsha and I look at life as an adventure that must be lived. So if money was no object, I’d spend as much time as possible with Marsha at Lake Como and we’d make ourselves real nuisances dropping in on you and Giuseppe and drinking up as much of your wine as possible. Other than that, as Marsha said, just enjoy life and spend as much time with our family as possible.
And many thanks to you Claude for your valuable help as a beta reader on Unthinkable Consequences. You definitely helped me shape it into a much better book. We enjoyed doing this interview with you and wish you every success with the launch of your Forever Young series.
Claude: Many thanks to you both, and Giuseppe and I are looking forward to drinking our Lake Trasimeno wine with you next time you come to Europe!
Bob and Marsha in Pompei, looking happy…not yet Lake Como!
Ok, I plead guilty: the original 6-word short story, a.k.a. the six word novel, an extreme form of flash fiction, is Hemingway’s and it’s not about a failed relationship but a dead baby or perhaps an unborn child, precisely this:
For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn.
He dreamt it up in the 1920s in response to a bet with friends. He won the bet and he considered it his best story ever.
The 6-word flash fiction has fascinated people so much over time that today there’s a website entirely dedicated to it, with hundreds of examples, see here.
And now ReadWave, the cool website that draws together readers and writers with short stories (including non-fiction), has come up with a competition inspired by Hemingway’s 6 word story:
Readwave will award $100 to the 6-word story that gets the most “likes” on their site, there are still 12 days to go, but hurry! To submit your story click here.
I submitted a horror story (it was an idea my husband had, surprisingly so, he’s usually not that morbid!) and this is how it looks on the Readwave website:
…hum. If you like it, please go over to the website here, and click the “like” button, thanks!
BIG NEWS (in case you missed it)! All 4 parts of FOREVER YOUNG are now OUT, Part 4, The Longevity Gene ishere
You can start reading Part One for free on Wattpad where I release a new chapter every day – 6 chapters published so far, click here to start reading. And if you like it, please “vote” (that’s how “likes” are expressed on Wattpad) Many thanks!
Claude Forthomme's Blog about Social Issues and Books 