RWA National Conference had a beautiful sunny day for opening day today. Great article in the WSJ today on Eloisa James who will be speaking at the conference. They discussed some of the challenges in balancing two careers- in her case between academic and best-selling romance writer. They also touched on family versus career challenges including her year spent living in Paris, which spawned a new book. Sounds like she is handling all of her challenges fabulously.

I find challenges a daily juggling act (which sometimes lead to reduced blog posts in exchange for, hopefully, great things).

Breaking my longer than intended silence to announce that shortly I will be posting some exciting news. I can at least say that while I have been delinquent in keeping up this blog, I have at least been productive.

Besides my writing life, I am now nearing the end of the first year of my MBA program. It might seem odd for a writer to be going to business school. However, I strongly believe writers should have a solid grounding in good business practices. After all, writing is a business if you intend to make a profit. If you don’t, then you are writing as a hobby, which is also fine in and of itself. But, if your goal is to be widely read, to be known and respected as a writer plus earn a living then you must take the path of professional writer rather than that of the hobbyist.

As a business person, you need to watch many aspects of your business at once. First, profits. Have you set the right price (high enough to cover your variable costs like office supplies as well as your fixed costs, if any, such as rent)? Is your price low enough that a sufficient number of people will pay that price? Your profit essentially is the volume times the price you sell at minus your costs (variable and fixed). Remember- your time is a variable cost. You have to include a salary for yourself to be considered a working professional. If you are giving away your books or charging so little that you’re losing money then you have violated the first rule of business- to make a profit. No company exists for long while losing money. Often I hear writers (and even some readers) tell me- what I (or the writer) really need(s) is readers. The old idea of “build it and they will come”. For writers this translates to “if I give enough away, people will start paying me one day.” Think about this though- have you ever received a give-away that when you didn’t get the item for free you wanted so much that you finally started paying for it? How about most Internet content? When a web site (like say the New York Times) converted to a pay model, did you start paying? Or were you annoyed that now you had to pay so you stopped visiting the site?

“Hey,” you say, “I got a free spoonful of ice cream the other day then I bought a whole cone. That’s free switched to pay.” Actually, you just got a sample, not free product. I agree free samples can encourage purchases. Many products are sold with this approach. Even Amazon allows you to sample books before buying.

I’ve thought a lot about the psychology of the “free to pay” concept. I believe the reason people refuse to pay for things they’ve gotten for free in the past is that they’ve been taught the item has no value. After all, it’s free, right? If it was worth something, the company would charge for it. With capitalism, an item is worth whatever someone will pay for it. Free = worthless in our minds. That doesn’t mean no one wants the item. Think of how you feel on being handed a free pen or free bookmark or balloon for your kid. Right at that moment, you say, “Cool! What a nice ______.” Five minutes later the balloon is popped, the pen broken, the bookmark lost and you don’t give it a further thought. Why should you? You didn’t pay for it anyway.

I believe writers should re-evaluate their approach of giving away their work in hopes that someday they will be paid for it. Free samples, yes. Occasional small free give-aways in combination with a larger size purchase, yes. But not totally free all the time. The only exception to this is if you have electronic works on a web/blog or in print with enough traffic to earn good money from advertising (the favorite tech company model.) Even then, this strategy is risky and often doesn’t work as illustrated by the many failed tech companies.

It’s official, last week e-book sales surpassed those of paper based books for the first time.

The Financial Times (April 15, 2011 by Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson) reported that in February 2011, e-books sales tripled reaching $90.3 million compared with adult paperback book sales of $81.2 million. That means 9.1 million more e-books were sold than paper back books.

The numbers also showed that in January and February, e-book sales increased 169% compared with a decrease of 24.8% in paper based book sales.

The trend looks firmly entrenched especially given the ever increasing types of devices that readers can now use to view e-books including new tablets as well as the Kindle, Nook and others. RIM just announced a new tablet to compete with the iPad and a Sony tablet.

These changes will ripple throughout the publishing industry and all book related organizations. Even libraries are struggling to keep up. My library just sold off their entire CD collection in a move to digital. One wonders if books are next and if so, how will libraries transform?

Any change is sure to be gradual. One road block is that Amazon allows only limited sharing of books on the Kindle. Thus libraries can’t share books for the Kindle currently.

Even if books are eventually primarily digital, I think libraries will survive because they are so much more than book lenders. My library, like many others, is a community hub. Students meet with tutors, citizens come to hear lectures by authors or attend computer training classes, or teens just hang out.

For authors these are roller coaster times. The challenge is to adapt to e-books. Yet still profit. Perhaps e-books can even improve profit for authors. Perhaps authors will simply be lost in a tsunami of content. It seems too early to tell. The exciting part is to be in early on change and hopefully to shape change into a helpful, rather than mischievous sprite.

If you earn money (or try to) as a freelance writer or blogger you may be frustrated by the generally low pay or even total lack of pay. Often writers are told, “You’re just starting out. This is an opportunity to get your name out there,” or “You’re building your platform.” However, the promised pay day never comes- there is no golden pot after months or years of toiling away. If you feel this way you’re not alone. And some of these writers and bloggers are now saying enough is enough and fighting the system.

Here are two news stories where writers are raising awareness of the pay (or lack of it):

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110412/ap_on_hi_te/us_aol_lawsuit

http://yhoo.it/h1z5jx

In the first link, a former Huffington Post blogger is suing the company for pay following the large amount reaped by the company in it’s recent sale. In the second link, a freelance writer started her own company to subcontract out writers at better pay.

If you want to be a professional (career) writer, pay is a must (being part of the base definition). Even the IRS distinguishes professionals from hobbyists by whether they are paid or at least attempt to find paying work. If you intend to write without pay, not only don’t you collect a paycheck to cover the bills but you won’t be able to take tax deductions either since you will be considered to be engaging in a hobby (ie: just messing around for fun).

Great news today! Three of my poems (Lying, Christina’s Reflection, and Troy) have been published at The Lyon Review. It’s always a lot of fun to see your work in “print” (or digital ink) after working so long and hard polishing the words. Just like spring, which arrived today in full force with purple crocus and 75 degree F weather, publication is the rebirth period for writers- the time you can relax for a few moments and say to yourself, “This is what I’ve been working for.” (Paychecks are also welcome, of course.)

The Lyon Review is a newly launched publication. I encourage you to click over to the site (link below) and take a look at the variety and quality of the work they’ve put together ranging from book excerpts to poetry and essays.

The Lyon Review can be enjoyed at: www.thelyonreview.com

That’s it for the pat on the back. (Happiness is fleeting, I know.) Back to work on my novels and other projects….

Yikes! It’s been awhile since I have been able to post, nose to grindstone and all that. Here we are nearly at the end of winter. It’s been a real New England winter this year. Snow so high my mailbox was nearly buried. We may be at the end of it now. Today it’s pouring rain and found myself early in the morning mucking about in boots and a Gortex parka, sloshing through slush and mud to let the water company guy check the meter. He said, “It’s really coming down.” I nearly answered, “Ahyup.” But being in a weird bit of New England that glows with the silver glitz of New York City shining on the horizon, I bit that back and just said, “Sure is.”

I found a great blog post on how rampant e-book theft is. This is a serious concern since e-books are the biggest growth area in publishing. It seems to me that all creative entertainment types need to band together and figure out a way forward (from music to movies to written-word story-tellers- can’t call us book authors much longer, I guess). I’ve been studying up on Intellectual Property law for my other project (working on technology transfer). Copyright law is both robust (anyone qualifies who has created a unique, creative work, no need to actually apply for anything) and weak (it takes money and time to enforce and how many creative types have either of these to spare?) It seems to me that greater protection needs to be worked out somehow so that creators can be fairly compensated for their work. Otherwise, the whole sandcastle crumbles. How many of us can afford to devote our days and nights to work for free for our muse? Sadly, muses don’t pay mortgages or grocery bills and royal patrons have been few and far between for the last several hundred years.

Take a look at this blog for another writer’s take on e-book theft: http://ow.ly/44g9g

Enjoy!

New England was blanketed in a deep snow (around 2 feet here in southern New England) this Christmas holiday- a relatively rare occurrence. It was exciting to watch (from behind a window in a snug warm house). This was a true Yankee blizzard with gale force winds whipping bits of ice through the air, tearing down tree branches and, for once, making the roads go quiet.

The rare sliver of quiet was ideal for baking cookies and for family reading on the couch. Which got me thinking about holiday books. Authors continue to release holiday books, which means they must sell. However, I’ve never been a fan of them. It seems too much like a school assignment, “What did you do over your holiday?” or “How does the holiday make you feel?”

To me, an author’s job is the same no matter what the day. Weave a story from air. The story burns in the dark like a candle. Feeding on oxygen. A delicate thing to be expanded or blown out.

Wishing all a Wondrous New Year!

Studying for an MBA has steeped me in numbers, which at first are slippery and awkward. Gradually as the weeks go by they develop rhythms and tones. Formula’s coalesce naturally, while not being an Albert Einstein, I can tip-toe up to the edge and gaze down into a world where numbers communicate more succinctly, more precisely than words ever could. All of this helps me understand the main character in my forth novel, which is still unraveling toward it’s end. Maybe this is a bit excessive, an extreme length to go to understand someone not even living. Only it’s not just that is it? No, for a linguaphile, for an author addict, it is never just the character. No, it is also about them and how they can shape the clay of letters. And so, a linguaphile floats, immersed in numbers. I can tell you they can’t be misunderstood like words, not by someone who “reads” them, no, only misused. So which is better? Is the reason we love stories rather than calculus texts because we enjoy being deceived? Are we still thrilled by the cottony yellow blanket, eyes appearing above, peek-a-boo so many years later?

I think the answer is yes. Do you?

I have also been studying the peek-a-boo itself. It’s all in the feel and touch of the blanket. One you know so well, you can feel it on your fingers just by looking at it. The tension of the taunt blanket stretched in mid-air by what? Magic? Hiding what? It’s just there if you could reach it, but you can’t. It might crumple down any minute. In the dark behind it might be your neighbor’s pit bull, red-tongued, slavering, breath like rotting meat on your face. It might be your mother, smelling like flour, eyes crinkling, puffing with laughter.  Puffing against the blanket, blowing it in and out slightly. In the still air, the blanket moves, panting.

Cascading down the blanket reveals Steven King, the master blanket maker. If you want to know how to make a blanket, something sweet and baby-yellow, read Steven King. I have now finished Wizard and Glass.

For fun, if you like crime, watch the new Sherlock Holmes on PBS.

Besides making a fabulous story (product), if you are an author, you’ll want to know how to build your products and career. Try reading The Intelligent Entrepreneur by Bill Murphy. It’s a bit heavy on Harvard Business School, but has some good pointers.

Above all, this week give thanks for readers and publishers of alternate realities (fiction, electronic or print). Happy Holiday!

According to a new article by AP writer Jill Lawless, Jane Austen was not a schoolmarmish grammarian. We all know how many of her books have been read and lovingly reread. So for all writers (myself included) whose eyes glaze over at the term “past participle” or who quiver as chalk scratches the blackboard underlining verbs as sentences are diagrammed, you can stop slouching in the back of your writing class and stand tall. You are not a fake. Even Jane Austen loved dialogue more than past participles.

Her story also shows how an editor/writer team can work together to shape a novel and craft a writer’s image. Some may argue that Austen’s original prose was superior to the subsequent polished works. There’s no way to go back and undo history. The books sold. Readers swooned. Years of adoration dubbed them masterpieces. Isn’t that the goal? Who can say which version is better?

Writers, stop biting your pencil tops over whether Owen was sleeping or letting sleeping dogs lie. Only fools trust talking dogs anyway.

Read more about Ms. Austen at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101023/ap_en_ot/eu_britain_jane_austen

Yes, it’s that time of year again…Banned Books Week. The Net is full of festivities. For example, visit the American Library Association for information, activities and souvenirs. http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/bannedbooksweek/index.cfm

However, as a recent Wall St. Journal article reveals, banned books may be the least of our worries. With the slow dissolution of the current system for bringing worthy novels and books to the public’s notice, there may be few books to ban. Books will join the maelstrom of “news”. There is now so much “news” with much of it of dubious origin and veracity that one is overwhelmed and in the end pays little attention to most of it. With the upsurge of e-books, novels and non-fiction are headed in a similar direction. E-books allow for a huge quantity of books (even those posted directly by authors), however, many are likely to be unvetted by professionals and of unknown quality. Even for e-books of excellent quality, breaking through the noise of all these newly available books will be extraordinarily difficult.

That’s the initial view. In the long run, many authors may rethink their dedication to story-crafting when they realize the rewards may be slim to none. According to the WSJ, e-books offer authors half or less of the money they make from hardcover books. At a revenue of only a couple dollars per e-book, with sales of debut authors being only a few thousand copies, it’s easy to see that devoting a few years (say 5,000 to 10,000 hours) to crafting a great story could easily yield anywhere from a dollar or so to pennies on the hour. Federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour so one can see writing, for debut or lesser known authors, could easily fall far below minimum wage.

The best solution is for authors to continue to press for fair prices for their work. Other more inventive solutions include moving to a low cost of living country or, sadly, ceasing to write. There’s the rub- with low wages, all books could essentially become banned as writers can no longer afford to write.