Maureen Ogle has not allowed her Ph.D. in the history of American technology to shackle her life and her work to the academic world.  Having discovered early in her career that writing scholarly works on narrow topics for a small audience of specialists was not going to make her happy, she left academia in the late 1990’s to begin writing histories for a general audience.

By writing about what truly interests her, Maureen has been able to share her enthusiasm with her readers, and her work has thrived.  First with Key West: History of An Island of Dreams and then with Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer, she has found contentment, an audience and more than a few writing and speaking gigs.  Her articles and op-ed pieces have appeared in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, U.S. News & World Report and a host of other publications.  She is a frequent paid speaker and a regular contributor to the Fox Business Network.  Maureen has also appeared in several documentaries, most recently Beer Wars.

Of course, even with respectable advances and a variety of paid secondary services, writing is still one of the most difficult ways to earn a living.  Following Tao Lin and Sarah Wendell, Maureen is the latest writer to answer some of my questions about money and writing.

Interview with Maureen Ogle

David Nygren:  If you’d stayed in academia, achieved tenure and published “scholarly” books and articles, you’d probably not have made much from your writing itself but potentially could have had a reliably comfortable salary.  I know your decision to leave academia was not made for financial reasons, but how would you compare your ability to earn a living as an academic vs. your ability to earn a living as a writer of histories for a general audience?

Maureen Ogle:  Financially, I would be better off in academia. I’d be miserable, but, hey, I’d have money.

The reality of “writing” is that almost no one earns a living from it. Yes, some writers hit the equivalent of the writers’ lottery and make millions.

In fact, I know someone who did, and I was delighted for her. She worked hard to land where she did. (The downside was that various writer-rats crawled out of the sewer, asking her for money. Ugh!)  I have other friends and acquaintances who’ve been able to generate a small but steady income from writing, thanks to print runs of 60-70,000).

I’ve not had anything like that kind of success, so I am painfully aware of how difficult it is to build a financially stable career as a writer.

It takes a long time, longer than most people can hold out without some kind of “financial aid.” (I’m lucky: my husband suggested that I leave academia to write for a general audience, and has supported the process over the past decade with his own paychecks.)

Unfortunately, many writers assume and believe they’ll be the exception; that their book will earn a huge advance and land on the bestseller list. They may be, but I doubt it. (The writer I knew who “won” the jackpot was aware of the role that luck played. Yes, she worked incredibly hard, and she’s ambitious and savvy and smart. But she knew that things could have turned out differently.)

I suspect most writers’ experiences will be more like mine:

I landed a $100,000 advance for the beer book. My agent took 15%; taxes devoured another 35-40 percent. I spent five years writing the book, which came out in the fall of 2006. I’ve not earned out the advance, and I doubt I ever will. Put another way, the advance is all I will likely earn on that book.

Yet agents and publishers alike regard me as a safe bet, safe enough to contract for another book with a slightly larger advance. (Yes, publishing is an exercise in irrationality.)

The public’s lack of awareness doesn’t help. The average reader doesn’t understand that I only earn money from a book from sales of new copies.

If I had a buck for every person who said “Oh, I found a copy for a dollar,” or “Found a used copy at Amazon” or “I borrowed a friend’s copy”  —  well, let’s just say I’d have a fatter bank account than I do.

DN:  When choosing a topic for a book project, what do you do to help determine the topic’s commercial potential?

MO:  I don’t think about commercial potential so much as I think about “readability” and “interestability.”

A project has to hold my interest for the five or so years it takes me to research and write; that’s the interestability.

But it also needs to be something I’d like to read, and, because I’m a typical reader, I believe others will also find the topic interesting.

The “commercial” aspect follows from that: If I think it’s interesting, others will, too. As far as I’m concerned, a “good” book is one that I want to read. (Just as a “good” beer is the one that I like.)

The worst thing any writer can do is try to predict or write for the market. Writers need to write what they want to read, and what interests them. (Agents and publishers, by the way, eye writers’ projects from the same perspective: they buy/acquire books that they themselves find interesting as readers.)

For some writers, that guarantees a big income: Authors of romantic thrillers, for example, know that there’s an enormous audience for their work, and I’m guessing that those authors enjoy reading romantic thrillers as much as they enjoy writing them.

That’s not a criticism of genre writers. Indeed, more power to ‘em. They know what they like; they know what their readers like.

And — isn’t it interesting that publishers cater to and accommodate that genre’s audience by publishing first in inexpensive paperbacks whose price makes them affordable? And, because more affordable, all but guarantees that those writers will make more money than other writers? If only publishers were that savvy about other genres!

DN:  The topics of your books for a general audience have been Key West, beer and now meat with your current project Carnivore Nation: Meat and the Making of Modern America.  Since these subjects are all so different, do you have to build an audience from scratch for each new book?  Or do you think you’re at least partly retaining an audience that appreciates your voice?

MO:  Heh heh. I love that you assume I have an audience. I’m not sure if I do. Michael Pollan, I’m not.

Smart-ass answer aside, I don’t worry about building a new audience from scratch, because in my mind, my books are all about the same subject: The American experience. With each book, I’m exploring the same questions: What does it mean to be an American? How does the fact that I’m an American shape the way I respond to and act in and upon the world around me?

DN:  Do you feel that your very prolific blogging ultimately helps sell your books and your self?

MO:  Good question, and if publishing weren’t such a total exercise in irrationality, murkiness, and swamptitude, I might have an answer. The truth is, I have zero idea if blogging generates sales, although my gut instinct tells me that it’s good for business.

I initially resisted blogging, which I regarded as a waste of time. And because I couldn’t see the point, I couldn’t figure out what to do with a blog.

But early 2008 marked the 75th anniversary of the return of legal beer. I realized I’d be a fool to waste the opportunity to promote my book, so I wrote a series of blog entries that served as a historical countdown to the big day (April 7).

To my surprise, people read them. (I knew that because I got occasional comments, and other bloggers linked to my entries.)

And the halogen bulb finally switched on in my dimly lit brain: blogging is an incredible tool for “marketing” and “promotion.”

It took me another six months or so to figure out what my blog was “about.” The standard wisdom is that blogs should be focused and targeted.

I decided the standard wisdom was wrong. I should blog about whatever interested me; if people wanted to read, great. If not, okay.

I quickly discovered that people will read blogs for the blogger’s “voice,” regardless of content. What’s “focused” and “consistent” about my blog is — me.

Then some of my readers, including you, urged me to try Twitter.

Twitter, dear readers, is THE greatest marketing/promotional tool ever. I use it to comment on whatever, but also to post links to new blog entries. My blog traffic has soared (plus, I’ve “met” a whole bunch of interesting creative people that I otherwise would not have known about).

So I’ve traveled a long road from my “blogging is pointless” stance. It’s time-consuming and requires good time management. But I believe it pays off.

And, of course, ours is a media-saturated world, and it’s difficult to gain anyone’s attention. But blogging/ tweeting/ facebooking (is that a word?) can create an audience. (And, as you’ll read in answer to another question below, it can also pay off.)

DN:  In April of 2007, Hustler magazine selected your book Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer as its book-of-the-month. Were you able to determine whether or not this increased sales?  That is, did an endorsement from a popular yet non-book-focused entity help?

MO:  I used the “honor” as a jumping off point for an essay I wrote about historians’ work, but other than that, I don’t know if it had any impact or not. (Do Hustler readers read the magazine? Or do they just look at the pictures?)

I think too many writers take too limited a view of their own knowledge.

If you’ve written a novel about, say, schizophrenic war veterans, use the knowledge gained from your research and writing to pen op-ed pieces or to blog about the subject. Someone out there will be interested in your perspective.

I know that my skills as a writer and a historian have been honed, exercised, and stretched because of my “outreach” work. I use what I know to inform and communicate with other people who, I remind myself, don’t have that same knowledge.

I also blog about the process of research and writing. Remember, we writers know about that, but the average person does not. (Just as I have no idea what computer programmers and bridge engineers do.)

I also think many writers take a too-limited view of their potential audience. If someone is literate, that someone is a potential reader. The worst thing writers can do, in my opinion, is hang out with other writers.

Ditto for hanging out at sites for “readers.” I’m a devoted reader, and I never spend time at readers’ forums. I hang out with people; they’re where the action is. And with luck, I’ll persuade them to become readers, too. (In some sense, of course, if they’re reading my blog or my tweets, they’re reading.)

DN:  You’ve written on several occasions that you’re not even sure what a book will look like once you’ve finished Carnivore Nation (scheduled to be published in 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).  Are the uncertainty in the publishing industry and the growing popularity of ebooks affecting the way you’re writing in any way?

MO:  I’m a disturbingly optimistic person, so my attitude is: Onward, onward, onward. I suspect that by 2011, my publisher will have been acquired by another house or simply won’t exist (its financial woes mount by the day). But I figure some entity or other will publish the book, in some format or other.

But I regularly ponder (and blog about!) the possibilities for and the future of “the book.”

By the time my next book comes out, it may, for example, contain embedded hyperlinks that can take a reader to more information about one of the topics discussed in the text. So I’ve debated whether I should include urls in the manuscript now so I won’t need to look them up later.

I’ve also thought about ways to weave my research and writing into my blog.

For example, I run an ongoing series call “First Draft Follies,” in which I post material that I edited out of the final manuscript of the beer book, and which would otherwise never see the light. I’ve already acquired material and text that I doubt will end up in the final manuscript of the meat book, so at some point I’ll do the same thing with it.

So I’m constantly thinking about the ways in which I can and should adjust to a digital world, and to make the interface between my three-dimensional desk and my online life as seamless as possible.

Let me add that I arrived at this place only after a struggle. For a long time, I resisted the internet (I’m 55, and I’ve used a PC since the mid-1980s, but I didn’t grow up with a computer or the internet).

Only in the past two years or so have I accepted that life as I knew it in the pre-digital era is over, and I need to adjust accordingly. So the project of meshing my writing life and my digital life is ongoing (which, of course, provides fodder for the blog.)

DN:  Let’s pretend it’s 2011, DRM-free ebooks are equally as popular as print books and Carnivore Nation is about to be released.  Market pressure for a low ebook price point and some moderate piracy have the effect of generating less revenue for ebooks compared to print.  But the availability of the ebook increases the book’s readership and impact.  Is this scenario displeasing to you?  Do you feel that income from other sources (articles, speaking engagements, etc.) could make up for the lost income from book sales?

MO:  I think writers will earn as much, and probably more, once ebooks become “normal.” I’d buy more books if a good e-reader was available (I’m still waiting for a version that worth’s spending $300 on) and the price was, say, $10 a book.

As for the piracy issue, I don’t know how that will be resolved, but as I noted before, used books are already affecting writers’ incomes.

The world’s “content providers” need to educate the public about where the money goes when someone buy a cd, dvd, or book. Most people simply don’t realize that a book or cd is more than just a physical object. Someone creates the content.

I know that sounds obvious, but it’s amazing to me how many people simply don’t get it. As long as the average person doesn’t understand the connection between the writer, the words, and the physical book, frankly, it’s not going to matter whether books are digital or e-version. Writers will still not make much money.

It’s worth noting that the only writers most people know about are ones like J. K. Rowling or Dan Brown, who are obviously the exception to the rule. And so the public makes a leap from Rowling to the rest of us, and assumes that we’re all as successfuland therefore as wealthy. We’re not. But we need to let them know that.

DN:  The number one item in your web site’s FAQ reads “Yes, I love speaking to audiences. (For money, of course.) (I wish I could do it for free, and if I win a lottery, I will).” Do people frequently expect that you will speak for free?  How common are your paid speaking engagements?

MO:  I’m sorry to say that yes, some people think I should show up for free. I had a guy ask me to speak at his beer club. He wanted me to drive 700 miles round trip, stay overnight, etc. — for free.

But again, I think that goes back to the disconnect between what writers do and what the public knows. He clearly thought I had deep pockets and/or that I ought to be thrilled at the idea of speaking to his club, so thrilled that I’d spend tons of money to do so.

The reason I listed that first at my FAQ (none of which, I might add, are frequently asked…) is because I need to advertise my services as a speaker.

For the past two years, speaking provided good money. And then, alas, the stock market collapsed, and bye-bye to paid speaking. I am hoping that will change as/if the economy recovers, but for 2009, for example, I have no paid gigs lined up.

I should add that I’ve spoken at several events this year, but they’ve been local and hosted by groups with little or no money, and I’ve either refused or not asked for a speaking fee. (Had I been asked to speak by some deep-pocketed corporation, of which there are many nearby, yes, I would have wanted money and lots of it.)

My view is that goodwill matters as much as money (well, okay, almost as much), and it’s not going to break my bank to drive 20 miles to speak to a group. (My husband, I should add, thinks I’m a damn fool.)

Another example: a bar owner in Brooklyn asked me if I’d be interested in speaking there sometime and he asked about a fee.

I told him if he wanted to pay my expenses for a trip specifically so I could speak there, great. But I’d be glad to do it for free next time I’m in New York. He can buy me dinner and a beer, and we’ll all have a good time. Again, if I’m already in the city, why not do it? (I have family there, so I visit regularly.)

DN:  Were you paid to appear in the documentary “Beer Wars” and the other documentaries you’ve been in?

MO:  No. Documentary filmmakers don’t pay their “subjects.” If they did, it would like paying for a specific opinion or viewpoint and taint the project. Some filmmakers will pay travel expenses if they want you on a specific location, but otherwise, no, it’s not a source of income. The hope at my end, of course, is that someone who sees the project on television, dvd, or in a theater, will read my books.

DN:  Do you actively pursue assignments writing op-ed pieces and articles?  Has such work become more difficult to obtain recently? How did you get your gig as a contributor to the Fox Business Network?  Have you met/seen/smelled Rupert Murdoch?

MO:  I pursue those projects, but about half the pieces I wrote last year were commissioned; that is, the editor approached me. And Fox Business Network approached me for my contributing gig.

The more important question is: How did they find me? Answer: through my blog.

The op-ed editor at the Washington Post, for example, had read my blog, liked my sardonic humor (or so she said; I hadn’t realized I was being sardonic or funny!), and asked me for a humorous piece about beer for their Fourth of July issue.

So those are cases where blogging created opportunities, many of them paying.

The Fox Business Network gig is great fun; well, okay, anything that gets me in front of an audience is fun. It’s non-paying (as are most television contributing gigs), but my appearances apparently generate buckets of emails, so that’s good for me and them.

And no, I’ve never been anywhere near Murdoch. I’m not sure I’d recognize him if I saw him!  [Ed. Note:  He's the one who smells like sulfur.]

DN:  A final non-money-related question:  what is your favorite American beer?

MO:  My favorite beer is whatever I think will taste best with whatever I’m about to eat (because beer tastes better with food). I’m a malty person, as opposed to a hoppy person, so the stuff in my fridge tends to be the “dark” beers. I will gladly bequeath my share of the world’s Pale Ales to anyone who wants them.

Update: Be sure to read Maureen’s thoughts on this interview here.

In his post reacting to Jason Weaver’s piece on post-punk publishing last week, Mike Cane pointed out that books, along with being inherently more difficult to sample than music, don’t have any true equivalent to the DJ.

“What’s the equivalent of a DJ for a writer or book? A reviewer? Which reviewer and where?”

The growth of electronic publishing will mean that an ever increasing number of people, liberated from the authority of the traditional gatekeepers, will be able to publish their work.  That’s a good thing.  Probably the biggest negative of this phenomenon, however, is that it will become increasingly difficult for readers to discover the good stuff among all the “sludge.”

Book reviewers don’t really do this job.  They write about the book itself but typically offer only small samples.  They usually only look at newly published work and, with some exceptions, only touch books published by established publishing houses.  Plus, I don’t see our current conception of a “book” staying the same for too much longer.  In an e-dominant world, written content will come in a variety of shapes and sizes.

I’ve previously spoken of the possibility of “super readers,” but here I’ve included a bit more detail.  I’m not sure whether any of this would actually work, but it would be interesting if some people tried a little somethin’ like this:

• Just as with traditional music DJ’s, a “word DJ” would have a fairly consistent taste (though not necessarily a niche or genre) and people with a similar taste would follow the word DJ’s who share their own taste and who do the best job of turning them on to new stuff.
• Rather than simply making recommendations, the word DJ gives significantly sized samples of whatever kind of work fits in with the DJ’s specialty.  Fiction or non-fiction.  Samples from books, samples from short stories or articles that might be published only online and even samples from poems (or entire poems).
• The word DJ would most certainly not limit herself to newly published work.  Any work from any period could potentially be included.
• As with music DJ’s, some word DJ’s would have a narrow focus and some would be more ecclectic.
• Also as with music DJ’s, some word DJ’s would focus upon one written work at a time, while others might do “remixes” that cut up and mix together work from various writers and works.
• The true purpose of the word DJ is to take their readers on a journey, not to evaluate written works critically.
• The word DJ does not to tell his readers “Go buy and read this ENTIRE book.”  In many cases, readers will go and buy and read the entire book, but they will often be content to read only the sample.
• Everything that is sampled would have a convenient link to purchase the entire work.  The word DJ’s could even get an affiliate-type commission.
• Word DJ’s would need to sample much larger segments of a work than would normally be permissible under “fair use.”  Wise writers and their publishers (if they have them) would happily go along with this.

There are bookish bloggers doing some of these kinds of things already.  But I wonder if consciously thinking about this person as a “DJ” would change how the DJ works and how others would read the DJ’s aggregations.

I’m sure there is a better term than “word DJ,” too.  Suggestions?

Update: In the Comments, Blissfool correctly points out “If a DJ is a disk jockey, and a VJ is a video jockey then surely a Book DJ would be a BJ?”  Oh, yes!  How could I have missed that?!  This idea may well catch on…

This is not a story of struggle.  This is a story of a labor of love, natural growth, unexpected-but-not-life-altering revenue and, ultimately, contentment.

When Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan started a site called “Smart Bitches who Love Trashy Books” in 2005, they just wanted to have some fun.  They wanted a place where they could throw down some truly critical romance novel reviews, tell some filthy jokes and, most importantly, make each other laugh.

Four years later, they’ve managed to make a lot of other people laugh, too, and what is now called “Smart Bitches, Trashy Books” gets over 4,000 unique visitors a day and is one of the most highly respected and most fun romance novel-focused blogs in the universe.  The site is very prolific (usually between one and three posts per day) and is almost certainly one of the most well-designed blogs anywhere.

Along with picking up more than a few advertisers along the way, Sarah and Candy have also managed to use the site as a springboard to a book deal, and Beyond Heaving Bosoms:  The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels will be published by Fireside (Simon and Schuster) on April 14.  All of this, of course, makes them ideal candidates for the Moriah Jovan/David Nygren series on writers and money.

Sarah Wendell kindly agreed to answer a longer-than-reasonable list of my most challenging, mostly money-related questions, and I didn’t even have to trade her a book for the privilege.  In fact, for any future interview candidate who tries to demand some equivalent to the Tao Lin trade-an-interview-for-a-book model, Sarah wisely counseled that I “keep my pimp hand strong.”  I’m working on on that.

Interview with Sarah Wendell

David Nygren:  I’ve read the story of how you and Candy started Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. But was it simply a labor of love, or was it a labor of love with a profit motive? Even if the profit potential seemed very distant at the start, was the sense of purpose there?

Sarah Wendell: It was definitely a labor of love. We never expected to create the community we did of intelligent women who adore romance and want to discuss it intellectually. And really, that’s the biggest payoff of the site: any time either of us receives an email from someone that says, “I just found your site, I had no idea you existed and I finally have people to talk about romance with who are smart and proud of reading it. Thank you!” That totally makes our day. Hell, our entire year.

We never aimed for profit. In the beginning we had 4 readers and this random person who kept searching for “Dominican bitches” and then kept returning to the site day after day (Hi Dominican Bitches Google person!). We figured we’d never grow much larger than that. There were so many websites, and so many blogs when we started Smart Bitches that starting ours with an eye on revenue - when we were really just trying to crack each other up - didn’t even enter our minds.

DN:  The site now has a very active community, and all of the multi-directional communication that happens really makes the site what it is. How did you help grow this community?

SW:  I don’t have a list of conscious decisions that I’ve made, or that Candy’s made to examine the community in terms of fostering growth. We have a few guidelines that we follow, but we don’t plot the growth of the site or examine it deliberately. The interesting thing about the community that reads our site, and the part of that community I am the most in awe of and most impressed by, is the fact that the people who read and comment value the community as much as we do.

DN: SBTB is one of the better looking blogs out there. To me, the design very clearly conveys what the blog is all about. How important do you feel SBTB’s design is to its success?

SW:  Thank you! The current design was created by Joelle Reeder from Moxie Design Studios, but it’s a version 2.0 of our first design, which was a lot simpler. Both designs use exceptionally bright colors and retro styling to match The Ladies at the top. The original design was done by Candy and her goal was: screaming colors! Hot pink! Holy crap not work safe! We definitely met that goal.

DN:  At what point did you introduce advertisements to the site? What level of traffic do you feel is necessary to make ad sales feasible on a site like yours?

SW:  We introduced advertisements when we received multiple, by which I mean freaking piles, of requests for adspace. We originally had one spot, and it was sold out within a few weeks once we opened it. We didn’t make the decision to host advertisements based on traffic or statistics, but on demand from our readers and authors who wanted to advertise with us.

DN:  It seems you are selling your ad space yourself, rather than using Blogads or some other intermediary. What drove this decision?

SW:  We sell the adspace, and we design a good number of the ads ourselves. We also host and run our own adserver (OpenAds - an open source advertisement management software that is so powerful I’m totally wary of it) and manage the content of the advertising column ourselves. We’re entirely self-sufficient in the advertising department for a couple of reasons. Three, to be specific.

First, we have a No Fug clause. If the ad is fugly, we won’t run it. This can get tricky, since sometimes there’s fug caused by a bad cover, and authors are not in control of their covers. Sometimes the files animate too fast and we have to slow them down. But since we’re running the ad service, we wanted as much control as possible over what the ads look like, and what our site looks like.

Two: services like BlogAds are great, but I don’t always like the way the ads look, or in one case couldn’t figure out WHAT they were for. Not only did we want to control the look of the ads, but we also wanted a say in the content. We were honestly afraid that our penchant for cussing and our topics of discussion would yield some very outlandish and revolting Google Ads as well.

Three: We continue to run the adserver (even though it is a lot of work) because the larger ad brokers we spoke with declined to work with us because in their opinion, “Book sites don’t sell.” I think they are unequivocally wrong on that one, and our traffic and our clickthroughs prove it. Nothing is more motivating than being told it’s not going to work. Screw you, it totally works.

And really, the attitude toward book sites matches the attitude people have toward romance novels. It’s a billion dollar industry written by women for women, yet it’s dismissed and denigrated constantly. WE know there’s an active audience of book shoppers reading our site, and we certainly know that romance fans are devoted to the genre, so to be told that “book sites don’t sell” is just yet another example of the short-sighted attitude that affects romance and literature created and consumed by women. We know better, so we’re doing it ourselves.

DN:  I assume you’ve explored other advertising and affiliate program options. Why do you think your current advertising model is the best one?

SW:  We have explored other options, as I explained above, and the services that were interested didn’t seem to look very good on any of the sites that use those services, and the ones that we were hoping for didn’t want to work with us. Our current model is probably not the best one in terms of efficiency, since it’s a one-woman operation at this point (hi there!) with special backup duty performed by Awesome Hubby if need be. But the current model definitely works for the site because it’s the author and host that advertising authors and publishers are dealing with, and that personal attention, I think, makes a difference. I’m as invested in the success of the site that month as they are.

DN:  Despite SBTB’s mad hits and a soon-to-be big seller, you still have a day job. What is it? Do you hope someday to generate enough income with your writing so that you no longer need the day job?

SW:  I do in fact have a day job, but the most I will say is that I’m an administrative assistant in Manhattan. THAT narrows it down, right? Everyone I work for is aware of SBTB, and for the most part they think it’s hilarious, but I have a very strict rule that I follow. I call it the Mafia Rule: If you’re in the Mafia, you never talk about the job, and you never talk about the family. Same thing with blogging: I don’t talk about my children very often or ever by their real names, and I don’t talk about my job because, frankly, I’d like to keep it!

The troublesome thing about the internet is that it doesn’t come with health care - and I will do anything you want as long as I receive health benefits for me and for my family. Health insurance and a 401(k)? I’m putty in your hands. Alas, I think the days of making a living from one’s blog are way over, and even with ad revenue, our site is largely a labor of much, much love.

DN:  You and Candy have managed to use Smart Bitches as a springboard to a book deal, and Beyond Heaving Bosoms will be published by Fireside (Simon and Schuster) on April 14. What sealed the deal for you with Fireside? What can you tell us about the deal?

SW:  Yet another thing we never expected: a book deal. When we were first approached with the idea of writing a guide to the romance genre by Rose Hilliard from St. Martin’s, we laughed outright. When we started writing the proposal, though, we had a lot of fun because it gave us the chance to explore all the ideas we had about the romance genre that wouldn’t necessarily translate well to a blog format. So our book includes games, puzzles, hell - a coloring page, fiction, literary analysis, illustrations and longer, in depth* examinations of the genre. It was terribly fun to do.
*pun totally intended.

DN:  Your agent is the widely-respected Dan Lazar of Writers House. Did you find him, or did he find you? Has the process of working with an agent taught you anything?

SW:  Dan found us, and holy shit, are we fortunate to work with him. Working with an agent has taught me that it is always helpful to have a sounding board for new ideas, especially one who will be honest with you and answer questions you’re not sure about. That’s one of the best things about Secret Agent Dan: he’s honest and frank, which we love.

DN:  What’s next? Another book? Another web site? Anything that might capitalize on the audience and interest you’ve built with SBTB?

SW:  Another book? Nah, we shot our wad with this one. There’s no sequel to a guide to the romance genre. Another website? Only if we can clone ourselves and therefore have time to run it. Honestly, I’m not so much interested in capitalizing on our audience so much as continuing to interact with the smart folks who stop by every day. So what’s next? More of the same, getting better, I hope.

DN:  Do you ever have any crazy ideas about adding a book publishing division to SBTB?

SW:  Oddly enough, you are not the first person to suggest this to me. And my answer: see above re: cloning. Or, perhaps an extended day with more hours in it? That’d be good, too.

DN:  One non-money-related question: now that your book is about to come out, any butterflies about having it laid bare before the world of foul-mouthed, merciless, lacerating-but very fair-blogger-reviewers?

SW:  Nope. Bring it on! We plan to respond to any and all reviews because, well, why not? I’m very curious what people will have to say about it, and I hope it’s as entertaining and fun for them to read as it was for us to write.

End of Interview

Other Reading:

Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

Marta Acosta Interviews Sarah and Candy

Interview with Sarah and Candy at Writer Unboxed

SBTB Discovers Plagiarism (or something very much like it)

Sarah Wendell Quoted in the New York Post (the smartest words to appear in the paper since Pete Hamill wrote there)

I’m thinking about the place of fiction in the 21st Century.  Might its role in our culture be diminished?  Among all the other distractions available, how likely is it that an individual will discover and choose a novel or short story over some other diversion?  Will most people be willing to invest the time and intellectual energy it takes to get through a longer work of fiction?  Do people still appreciate a story’s resolution, a proper ending (something that doesn’t go to the next “level” or that doesn’t link somewhere else)?  Might the fundamentals of a work of fiction change somehow?

Might it be true that, more and more, potential readers can’t find the BEGINNING, don’t have time for the MIDDLE and don’t want the END?

No, I don’t think things ever change that much.

Despite all the technological changes that are affecting the way people read, despite all the other distractions that are available today, I don’t think we’re seeing the end of Aristotle’s three essential plot elements.  There’s something inherently satisfying about a well-constructed story.  As has always been the case, there will be large portions of the human population who have no time for or no interest in a good, fictitious story.  That’s fine.  But for those in the know, for those attempting to peer a bit deeper into the human experience, there is no substitute for quality fiction.

Of course, writers, publishers and sellers of fiction should not assume that the rest of the world sees fiction’s indispensability as self-evident.  Don’t wait for readers to come to you.  Go to where people are and shove your valuable product in their collective face.  Act like a pharmaceutical company trying to promote a new drug.  Tell people you know they have a problem and that fiction is (part of) the cure.

Just as Seth Godin has dared to imagine a better Kindle and a better Amazon, I’d like to try imagining an altogether better ebook retailer.

Hey, Google (or somebody with money, programming skills and ad sales), create this…

• Online database of all ebook titles, à la Amazon, including tools for discovering content.

• eBooks only.  Only digital inventory and distribution.

• Readers can conveniently purchase books from all participating publishers via the central database.

• Publishers set their own price.

• Publishers get contact info of ebook buyers.

• The Google-ish entity gets a small percentage of the value of each purchased ebook (i.e. something far, far less than Amazon’s 60%) and also displays relevant ads.  Ad sales allow the seller’s royalty to remain low.

• eBook buyers retrieve their ebooks from the Google-ish entity, where they are available and permanently stored in all viable formats, including .html for online reading.  I repeat:  a reader purchases the book once and will permanently have all existing and new ebook formats available for that title.

• Perhaps users of the eBook Warehouse can lend access to the book (or maybe even sell it) to other users.  While loaned, the title is no longer available on the owner’s virtual bookshelf, though it can remain on any device to which it has been downloaded.

• Since the majority of ebook readers will love the eBook Warehouse, the majority of ebook sales go through the Google-ish entity, allowing it to enjoy insane profits while keeping its own royalty percentage very low.

• Publishers, and by extension authors, will know who their readers are, giving them a better chance of drawing each reader into the publisher’s and/or author’s community.

• Authors will get a much larger cut of each book’s revenue than they do either with Amazon’s current ebook model or the standard print model.

• Readers will know that they will own their ebooks perpetually and that they will always be available to them online.  They will have the ability to loan them and to use them on any device.

Build it.

P.S. Increasing publishers’ standard ebook royalty rates can be dealt with separately.

Update: Of course, it would be best if several companies tried to do this.  Barnes & Noble, with its ready-made brand, would be a natural player (and how amusing would it be if the brick and mortar giant become the ebook sales giant?).  Also, publishers could band together to set maximum royalty percentages they will allow a seller to retain.  Any seller trying to increase its cut above this level would get no new ebook titles from the coalition of publishers.

Look at what Muumuu House sent me when I ordered Ellen Kennedy’s book (no, not the kitty):

Maybe the publishing industry as a whole would be doing better if every publisher lovingly wrapped each purchased book in colored paper and sealed it with a sticker of an original, hand-drawn animal thingy saying “thanks.”  Who wouldn’t like that?

Seriously.  Other publishers should not use this exact technique, of course, but a small gesture of caring, a small gesture demonstrating shared taste, a small first step toward community building can go a very long way.

I will likely buy a book from Muumuu House again.

I would not seek out an illegally copied Muumuu House book or ebook.  Almost certainly wouldn’t anyway, but I feel in my gut that I want to support them.

I follow Muumuu House on Twitter and am curious to see how they are doing and how this book is reviewed.

My attitude  is not all a result of this packaging, but the gesture definitely helped.  It didn’t cost them much and didn’t require too much time or effort.  If you want to look at it in cold business terms, they got a pretty damn big return on their marketing dollar (or their marketing penny).

I keep thinking of reasons why publishers, whenever possible, would be better off selling to their readers directly.  There are so many reasons.

Moriah Jovan has published her final entry in our cross-blog series of how writers can get paid for their work.  She’s resolved to hunker down and focus on what’s most important:  writing.

Money quote:

I hang out and comment on a lot of industry blogs: writer, publisher, agent, etc. My name-link in the comments section is an opportunity for someone to click and find me, even though I’m simply participating and not actively selling. But I’m selling. I HATE that.  Every single day, something knocks on the door of my brain and says, “Why are you marketing to writers and industry people? Writers have their own projects and if publishers and agents wanted you, they’d'a said so when you were querying.” Every single day, I have the same epiphany:

Go where the readers are.

Well, where the hell are they?

Readers, go to her!

When Moriah Jovan and I began our cross-blog series on how authors can best get paid for their work, I thought it would be a good idea to interview a few non-blockbuster writers who are successfully making it happen.  One of the first writers to come to mind was Tao Lin.

I was going to wait until we were a bit further into the series to start approaching such writers, but shortly after I started following him on Twitter, I saw a Tweet from Tao Lin stating that he wanted to read Susan Sontag’s diaries and was anyone willing to trade for it. I replied, saying that I would trade him a copy of Reborn for a five-question written interview for this series, or for three of his drawings.

Lin replied with a private message, agreeing to do the below interview in exchange for the book.  I’m very satisfied with this trade.

A poet, novelist, short story writer, blogger and essayist, Tao Lin successfully conquers each of the three not-very-simple steps I believe writers must traverse in order to make money.

1. Make It Good: Tao Lin has found an audience that truly appreciates his unique voice.  He has created his own standard of good-ness, and his fans eagerly eat up whatever he produces.  Some loathe his writing, but they really don’t matter.  No writer can please everybody.  By the standards and tastes of Lin’s readers, he is most definitely good.
2. Be Discovered: Few writers today, especially at the more literary end of the spectrum, promote themselves as effectively as Tao Lin.  Whether he is shoplifting or harassing Gawker writers or possibly pretending to be an applicant to be his own intern or trying to get someone to publish selections from his Twitter account for $50, he seems to operate under the belief that all publicity (that he initiates) is good publicity.  True, most people have not heard of him, but Lin knows how to get his name in front of those who are part of his target audience, and he does so using techniques that will likely appeal to that target audience.
3. Determine the Most Effective Means of Generating Income and Do It: Most famously, Tao Lin successfully sold six “shares” of his as yet unwritten second novel to investors for $2000 per share.  He sells his drawings and other things he has lying around his apartment on eBay (because he can).  And he even sells a fair number of books.  Simply put, he’s doing whatever is necessary to capitalize on his writing and his personal “brand” (somebody please suggest an alternative word).

Lots of people write and talk about using creative techniques to sell books.  Tao Lin actually does them.

Interview with Tao Lin

David Nygren:  No writer wants to have a crummy day job.  It seems you are managing to live without one.  Both in terms of your personal spending and your income, what specifically are you doing to avoid having a crummy day job?

Tao Lin: I have had part-time jobs almost continuously since college (I am 25), I think, except for maybe one year when I shoplifted batteries and Moleskine journals to sell on eBay. I stopped working at my last part-time job last August when I sold 60% of the royalties to my next novel, RICHARD YATES (Melville House, 2010), for $12,000. Since then my money (other than the $12,000) has come from selling pre-orders and lifetime subscriptions to books that a press I started called Muumuu House is publishing; Christmas and Chinese New Year’s money from my parents and brother; and selling drawings, drafts of things, and various “piles of shit” from my room on eBay.

In terms of spending money I feel that I spend recklessly and do not make a strong effort to conserve money. I lose money fatalistically at casinos. I spend maybe an average of $30 a day on food. Maybe I just don’t spend much money on things that aren’t food. For some reason I have almost always felt confident that “I will never run out of money.” In the past when I didn’t have enough money for rent or something I would work hard on selling pre-orders on my blog for whatever book I had coming out next or on drawing things and selling them on eBay, and the amount of money that I wanted to make would be made. On average I probably have spent $14,000 - $26,000 a year the past four years.

I feel that within 2-4 years I will have steady cash flow from royalties from my books, foreign sales of my books, foreign royalties from my books, and other writing-related things. I feel secure financially and maybe have not ever “felt poor” without also feeling in some way that I was “being dramatic.” My parents paid for college and I have no debt. None of the jobs I have had have required college degrees.

DN: What portion of your income is from sources other than book sales/royalties, and what are those sources?

TL: Currently maybe 60% of my money is from non writing-related things including getting like $1000 from my brother and parents for Chinese New Year and my birthday, having a job (prior to last August), and selling art on eBay and pre-orders on my blog. Before that specific part-time job from last August maybe 85% of my income came from shoplifting things and selling them on eBay.

DN:  With your blog (heheheheheheheeheheheehehe.com), you are essentially giving Tao Lin content away for free.  Even if it’s not your reason for doing it, do you believe that the self-promotion that comes from the blog helps earn you money from increased book sales (or in other ways)?

TL: I feel that having a blog increases the amount of abstract space “Tao Lin” takes up in people’s lives. When a person looks at my blog they see my name and the books I have published (the header), causing other information that they “know” to exist less, to a degree, and be replaced by information about me and my oeuvre, which causes them to be more inclined maybe to buy my books or talk about me during awkward silences, when hanging out with people, or when trying to make their emails longer if they can’t think of other things to type to friends or family.

Also I feel that if I did not have a blog some things I “make” would not be seen by anyone, or would be seen by a significantly smaller number of people than current, due to there not being large and receptive venues for them, I think. For example I made graphs in Photoshop and posted them on my blog. I feel it would be difficult, or that I would not be motivated, to get a magazine or some other venue with as many hits as my blog to publish those graphs. When people see that I can make graphs they feel like buying my books. In conclusion I feel that my blog is one of the most powerful tools in my lifelong goal of achieving steady cash flow without a real job.

DN: Do you think the only way for a poet or fiction writer to make serious money with their work is to get media attention?  Is there any other way to make enough money to live on with writing?

TL: A writer can make serious money by getting grants and awards, I think. I don’t know much about grants and awards. I feel like I’ve mostly just “forgotten” to apply for grants and awards (like ethnic awards, I’m thinking) the last four years. I plan on applying for grants this year. I have looked at websites and noted deadlines (in the “drafts” section of my Gmail account).

DN: You’re currently published by the independent Melville House Publishing.  Since you are responsible for much of your own publicity, do you think you could earn more money by self-publishing your books? Or does MHP do enough for you to justify the sharing of profits?  This is not a criticism of MHP or any other publisher.  I’m just trying to address a core question:  with all of the self-publishing options now available, is an established publisher necessary for a writer to make money?

TL: With Melville House I’m not responsible for most of my own publicity. They do publicity. They have a full-time publicist. They send out probably 200 or something review copies, try to get places to review me and write about me, write letters to reviewers and go to book festivals and things like that to promote their books to foreign publishers and various bookstores. They place ads in magazines sometimes and they have a website that has a blog. They have a distributor who sells the books to bookstores (they just acquired distribution from Random House). They make catalogues, something like ten thousand, or one thousand, or something, and mail those to places. They go to meetings with sales people from the distributor to convince them to promote whatever book heavily to whatever venue, then those sales people from the distributor go to meetings with sales people from bookstores and other venues to try to get the bookstores and other stores to order large quantities of whatever book.

I feel a publisher is necessary maybe 99% of the time for a writer to make a comparable amount of money, unless they already have books out, have fans, write readable books, feel able to get media attention, and decide to start their own press, in which case they would be their own publisher.

Based on my experiences so far with my press I feel that currently I can not earn more money self-publishing. But that in 2-4 years I might be in a position, having an amount of influence and media attention and books out, to self-publish and not have a distributor, and either be my own distributor (creating some kind of distribution system or something), or just sell books online, on a blog or something, and make a comparable amount of money.

[Note:  Since I belatedly realized that I could not limit myself to five questions, I told Tao Lin that the next three questions were optional but that answering them would entitle him to two-day shipping for Reborn.  Lin said he would answer the questions but that he did not feel an urgent need for the book so I should not send it with two-day shipping.]

DN:  Some criticize you for your money-making schemes, like selling advance shares of your forthcoming book Richard Yates.  They believe it is a “gimmick” for a writer to make some kind of conscious effort to try to make money.  I know this is a softball question, but do these people make you angry and, if so, what would you like to say to them?

TL: They don’t make me angry. I don’t feel they are wrong or I am right or anything. I think I just don’t think beyond “oh” for many things including things like that. If their shit-talking is funny I feel amused. I don’t have something to say to them. If someone thinks I should die or something, and actually attacks me in concrete reality, I feel like even that is okay, that I should accept my death if someone wants badly enough to kill me.

DN: Do you hope to make money from your literary press, Muumuu House, or is this a labor of love that will only generate revenue insofar as it promotes the sales of your own books?

TL: I feel it is possible for me to make money in the future with Muumuu House, and I feel that I will work hard so that I can make money. However “making money” is “inextricably tied” with “just doing something so that there can be things to do instead of feeling bad,” “trying to have more people know about you so that you can meet new people for various purposes,” “doing things to feel excited,” and “doing really ‘retarded’ things in order to relieve boredom, like buying a large billboard on Houston street and putting a hamster drawing on it (I thought about doing that today).” In conclusion I did not start Muumuu House thinking that its purpose was to make money, however making money with it is not something that I never think about.

DN: You’ve written that you’d like to see your forthcoming book Shoplifting from American Apparel sold at American Apparel.  Are there other non-traditional venues where you think books can and should be sold?

TL: I don’t think anything “should” anything. I think books are probably already being sold at all places they can be sold at with an amount of success.

[Note: I also sent Lin two optional questions unrelated to money, hoping he would answer them but explaining that no additional goods or services would be offered if he did answer.  He answered both.]

DN:  It seems you are vegan. What are your top three favorite restaurants in NYC?

TL: Pure Food & Wine, Bonobo’s, and Lifethyme. Lifethyme is a grocery store, I could not think of an obvious third restaurant.

DN:  How did you meet Ellen Kennedy? Can you tell us a few things about her?  She has nice eyes.

TL: She pre-ordered my first poetry book long ago. Her first poetry book, SOMETIMES MY HEART PUSHES MY RIBS, will be published March, 2008 by Muumuu House. Her favorite graphic novelists include Daniel Clowes and Jeffrey Brown, I think.

End of Interview

There you have it.  A few points in summary (my interpretation, not necessarily Tao Lin’s):

• Even with media attention most writers would kill for, it is still very difficult for a writer to earn enough to live on through book sales alone.
• It’s good to have generous relatives.
• A blog, or some other online vehicle of self-promotion, is essential to keep a writer’s existence in the forefront of his or her readers’ minds and can also serve as a useful outlet for otherwise difficult-to-publish material.
• Writers would be wise to take advantage of all income-generating techniques they have available to them.
• Publishers are still invaluable to writers for a variety of reasons.
• Even if a writer starts his own press, he should not even think about trying to create his own distribution system.
• Writers will last longer if they have thick skins and are willing to accept criticism.
• Don’t ask Tao Lin if anything “should” be anything.
• It is very difficult to avoid the temptation of spending a lot of money on food in New York City.  Pure Food and Wine is an excellent restaurant, but when I once ate there the bill was over $200 for two people.  Lifethyme is a good organic market that also does prepared foods (including a fantastic raw vegan lasagna), but I cut my grocery bills in half when I joined an annoying food co-op.  Although all the stimulation can work wonders on the imagination, all of the expensive culinary temptations in NYC make it a difficult place for a writer to afford to live.  On the other hand, you don’t have to have a car here.
• Sometimes it pays to pre-order books from a little-known writer at the beginning of his career.  He just might get moderately famous, start a publishing house and publish YOUR first book.

Other Reading:

• The Levels of Greatness a Fiction Writer Can Achieve in America (From Lowest to Highest) an essay by Tao Lin (do yourself a favor and read this…please?)
• Recent New York Magazine article and fun photos
• Bookslut Interview with Tao Lin
• Animal Liberation Front Interview with Tao Lin

Podcasting is the focus here, but the real lesson is what can be achieved when authors form a community and help to promote each other’s work.  Of course, for every J.C. Hutchins, there are a thousand authors whose work never finds any kind of significant readership (whether with a publisher or not).  But such cooperation in this case did allow, presumably, the better content to bypass the gatekeepers and go directly to the readers (or in this case, listeners).

In my first post in the Moriah Jovan/The Urban Elitist cross-blog series on how author’s might earn money from their work,  I made the following questionable assertion:

If requiring payment from every reader will limit the potential for a written work to be discovered by a larger audience, then I believe the writer should forgo that revenue. For now. [snip] If I could choose between 100 readers who had paid $10 each, or 1,000 readers who had paid nothing, I would choose the 1,000 readers. Only with a base of readers can a writer expand her readership to the point where she could earn enough to make a difference in her life.

I’d now like to go even further out on a limb and suggest that there are some related lessons authors might learn from the world of scholarly journals.  This might sound like a bit of a stretch, but stick with me for a couple of minutes.

Scholarly publishing, the strange but somewhat profitable sector of the publishing world where I make a living, moved into the electronic age far faster than consumer publishing (hmm…think there’s a connection between profitability and e-publishing?).  This is particularly true for scientific publishing.  For both journals and books, the majority of scientific content is now read in an electronic format, either online or in a downloaded pdf in most cases.

When a brand new journal is launched, many publishers offer the electronic content for free for two or three years in an attempt both to gain readers and to maximize the journal’s potential impact in its field of specialization.  Usually they don’t just put the content online and wait for readers to show up.  Instead, in promoting the new journal, they tell customers (usually academic and corporate libraries) that to get the free content they have to “opt-in.”  That is, they have to take action and sign up for the journal to get the free access.  From the start, the publishers know which customers have an interest in the title.  And because it’s electronic, they can monitor usage and see where it is and isn’t happening.

After those two or three years are up, the publisher looks at the new journal’s number of opt-ins, its usage, the reviews it has received and its impact factor (essentially how often the title has been cited in other journals), and then uses all of this information to set the price for the title.  So the opt-in model not only gives the journal a running head start before it’s priced, but also gives the publisher invaluable market research in the process.

Does it work?  Well, usually the number of opt-in customers that are converted to paid subscribers is in the range of 10-20%.  That doesn’t sound so great, but evidence shows that it’s better than the alternative.  Although data is relatively limited, journals that use the opt-in model seem to do better, and to do better faster, than titles that are never available for free.  (Sorry, nothing online to show as evidence.  Please let me know if you’re aware of anything online that has data on the success rate of the opt-in model.)

Not everyone likes this model.  Scientific societies, who are often responsible for the content of these new titles, sometimes complain that the opt-in model devalues their content.  They believe their content is of such a high quality and has such great contributors that of course customers will be willing to pay from the very first issue.  Why, they think, should they wait several years for those royalties to start pouring in?

Self-published authors, of course, often feel the same way when faced with the decision of whether to try to sell their little known book (and their little known selves).  Its a perfectly legitimate argument.  But, just as with a business strategy, sometimes it makes more sense to take a long-term approach.  Sometimes a short-term financial loss is necessary for longer term financial gains.

In a sense, most authors are like journals.  Their work will probably have a consistent thematic focus from book to book, story to story or article to article.  Their style will remain fairly consistent, as will their quality (though hopefully the quality of an author’s work will improve with each book).  A core audience of readers will return to the author’s work, just as they would return to the journal, because there’s something about it that they need in their lives, whether it be for professional or personal reasons.

If an author does decide to let the electronic version of his book out into the world for free, I think it’s very important to collect whatever contact information he can from those who download it.  Asking for an email address in exchange for a free ebook is perfectly fair.  This can be used not only to announce the next book but also for (occasional) updates on the author’s progress and any other relevant news (published stories, articles, etc.).  Potentially, an author could even survey those who had downloaded the book to find out what they liked and didn’t like about it.  No matter how many beta readers and editors might have previously given feedback, I’d bet an author could learn a great deal from her casual readers.  Maybe the mere fact that these casual readers were asked for feedback will make it more likely that they will want to read the author’s next book.  If they feel like they’re contributing and that the author values their opinions, many will feel like they have a vested interest in the author’s work.

Yes, that first book is out there floating around in the ether for free and, at least in its electronic format, it will always be free.  But assuming that the next book’s content, style and quality are consistent with the first book, the author has ready-made audience (with contact information!) for book number two.  Probably only a fraction of those who downloaded the free first ebook will buy the second.  So be it.  Those people who do buy it will be the start of the author’s core audience.  They are the people who will be the agents of free word-of-mouth publicity.  They are the ones, hopefully, who will come back for the third and fourth book.

Even first-time authors published by a publishing house could potentially benefit from the Cory Doctorow model of letting the ebook out into the world for free and using print sales for revenue generation.  I’ll have more on Doctorow’s modus operandi later in the series.

I know the analogy between journals and authors is not a perfect one.  Just because the evidence seems to indicate that journals using the free opt-in model do better in the long run does not necessarily mean that the same strategy will work for each and every author.  But authors who think such a strategy might work for them should not be ashamed to give their first book (or even their first few books) away for free in an electronic format.  It’s a perfectly legitimate strategy used by companies with hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue.

The key word here is not “free.”  It’s “strategy.”  An author needs to have one.  No matter how many free books are tossed out into the (soon-to-be) million ebook world, fame and fortune will not come looking for him, and neither will a moderate income from writing.  They must be pursued smartly and deliberately.

Note:  As mentioned previously, Moriah Jovan and I are doing a cross-blog series on how writers might be justly paid for what they’ve created.  Mojo explores the issues currently confronting writers in her introductory post.  Below is my introduction. Although the two of us may differ in our approach, we both do agree that the ease of reproduction in the electronic age does not mean that writers need to regard their work as a pro bono offering to the world.  Hard work deserves reward.

I believe that the writer’s path to making money with her work can be summarized in three not-very-simple steps:

1. Make it good.
2. Be discovered.
3. Determine the most effective means of generating income from your writing and do it.  You’ve earned it.

The purpose of this series is to explore that third step, but let me touch on the first two briefly.

Make It Good

This, by far, is the hardest and most important part.  If you’ve not written a damn fine book, nothing else you do will matter (unless you’re a celebrity already).  If you’ve not written a damn fine book, don’t worry about self-publishing options, ebook formats or business models, because hardly anyone will read the thing anyway.  Your book won’t appeal to everyone but it had better have the potential to appeal to your target demographic.  Enough said.

Be Discovered

In the traditional publishing world, this meant being discovered first by an agent, and then by a publisher, and then, if everything went according to plan, by an enthusiastic and grateful reading public.  Now there are many more routes to being discovered by those readers.

As I described in my post on “How to Get Your eBook Read,” I believe we’ll soon live in a world flooded with self-published ebooks, and authors, whether self-published or not, will need to adapt and get creative if their work is to have a chance of standing out.  Gaining a group of devoted readers may lead a writer back to the first step of the traditional path (getting an agent), or it may not.

So is it more important for a writer to gain as many readers as possible, to be discovered, and not worry about getting paid in the early stages of his self promotion?  Or should a writer treat his work as a valuable commodity and demand payment of some sort from every reader?  I can see both sides of the argument.  As Mojo laments, all the information that’s available for free on the internet creates in readers a sense of entitlement to cost-free text and also has the effect of devaluing that same text.  If I could magically change all of this, I would.

But this is the world we now live in.  No solitary writer, or even a gang of angry writers, is going to change it.  If requiring payment from every reader will limit the potential for a written work to be discovered by a larger audience, then I believe the writer should forgo that revenue.  For now.  If, somehow, charging money has no adverse effects on expanding a book’s readership, then by all means charge whatever you can get away with.  But if I could choose between 100 readers who had paid $10 each, or 1,000 readers who had paid nothing, I would choose the 1,000 readers.  Only with a base of readers can a writer expand her readership to the point where she could earn enough to make a difference in her life.  Just as a start-up’s business plan might envision years without a profit as the company attempts to build a customer base, a writer needs to accept that long-term goals may require short-term financial sacrifices.  Of course, giving a book away for free certainly doesn’t mean an author will find readers, but the challenge of finding those readers is a topic for another day.

Those 1,000 readers certainly won’t be enough to allow a writer to quit her day job, but it’s a good start.  The more readers an author has, the easier it will be to get more new readers (even if it’s never easy).  I can’t say at what point a writer will have enough readers to begin generating significant revenue.  That will depend upon the type of writing and the method of monetization.  But even those 1,000 readers, if you can get them to come back for more, will be enough to generate some meaningful income, even if it’s not via the traditional per book unit model.

Get Paid

It has never been easy for most writers to earn money with their work.  Although there is much to be concerned about in the publishing industry as a whole, I don’t believe individual writers are in much worse of a position today than they ever were, despite all of the free content that is available.  As Lev Grossman’s piece in Time points out, literary reading by adults has increased 3.5% since 2002, and writers now have a potential global audience of billions.  It’s confusing for writers, though, because their strength is writing, not revenue generation.  Although the traditional route (write well, get published by a major publisher) of course is still available, and is still the most reliable means of generating at least some income from writing, there are now many other options available to both the self-published and those published by the big boys.  Those numerous options are what I plan to explore in this series.

None of these options will in itself give a writer a life-altering, day-job-replacing revenue stream.  A writer will need to be discovered by a hell of a lot of readers for that to happen, and getting to that level is probably just as much a matter of luck as it is anything a writer can control (see “Make It Good” above).

Despite my tendency to go off on flights of fancy imagining how the publishing world might work in the near future, I’m going to try keeping myself grounded on planet Earth and focus upon methods authors might use to generate income with their work right now, in the world we currently live in.  A few of the topics I may cover (and Mojo may take on some of these herself), are:

• Options for the traditional charge-by-the-book-unit model, for both print books and ebooks.
• Making money through secondary services like paid writing assignments, teaching, lectures, tours, promotions, etc.
• Monetizing a writer’s blog, whether a personal blog or one used for blog fiction.
• Can a writer do it alone? Or does she need, if not a publisher, then at least to be part of a group of writers who work together in some way to help sell each others books?
• Advertising in books.  Although this is not currently an option for most and would probably require a Google-like entity to make it technologically and logistically feasible, I’d still like to explore the possibility since it may well be writers’ best hope for making money in the near future.
• Cory Doctorow, what others might learn from his experience and why most writers could not successfully do what he did/does.
• I’d also like to have some interviews with, or guest posts by, writers who have successfully monetized their writing, especially those who have done so through non-traditional means.  Are you one, or do you know one?  Please get in touch with me!

If anyone has other topics you think would be appropriate, please leave a comment or let me know here.

Consider this open source business development.

I wrote this at 6:30 PM, after not having eaten all day, while standing on the platform at the West 4th Street subway station, three levels underground.  I’ll leave it to you to decide whether these are ideal or disastrous conditions for creating a business model for an ebook only publishing house.

Update: What I’m trying to do here is not flood the world with ebooks so that quality content gets lost among all the bad content.  Rather, I want just the opposite.  I expect ebooks (both self-published and not) to one day be nearly as numerous as blogs are now.  What this model attempts to do is help readers filter out the bad stuff and discover the good stuff.  It would help both readers and quality writers.  (Thanks to Scott Douglas for illuminating the need for this clarification.)

• eBooks only (or mostly).
• The publisher accepts authors, not manuscripts.
• Therefore, authors can publish whatever they feel is necessary: something book-length, something article-length, a short story, a paragraph, a sentence, a poem, a play, a script or a rant.  Fiction or non-fiction.  Finished or not finished.  The idea is not to create and package “books” but rather to create a forum and content delivery system for quality writing that will appeal to a certain type of reader.  Think of it almost like a hybrid book/magazine publisher.
• The publisher focuses on developing content to suit the tastes of readers in that publisher’s market.  Not a niche, necessarily.  Just a shared taste.
• The publisher publishes hundreds or perhaps thousands of writers.
• Most content is free.
• Most revenue is ad-based.  The publisher and the author share revenue from ads on the author’s home page and pages with the author’s content.  If content is downloaded to a reading device, it still has the ads.  Use either a pay-per-click or pay-per-impression model.
• Readers can purchase subscriptions to a publisher or to an author.  When they do, they get ad-free content and perhaps some value-added content (if such a thing exists).  I know, this sounds like Salon.com circa 2004, but just try it and see.
• Update: Readers can also purchase ad-free content by the unit, rather than buy subscription.
• Ads are sold either by the publisher or by a third party (not the author) and will appear in the content for all of that publisher’s authors.
• The publisher provides the technological infrastructure, including the ability to incorporate video, audio, photos and whatever graphics may be appropriate.
• The publisher provides editing to maintain standards.
• Update: As Mike Cane points out, the publisher should also provide ebook designers and cover artists.  Few writers are equipped to do these things well, and they shouldn’t have to be.
• Authors are responsible for their own publicity and marketing, in whatever form it may take.
• The publisher does promote itself collectively, however, as the home of great authors to those in the target demographic.
• If they wish, authors may post works-in-progress and solicit reader feedback.
• All published work may be commented upon by readers.
• Quality pieces (regardless of length) within a publisher’s body of work perhaps can be voted on with a Digg-like system, to draw other readers to quality material.
• It’s not really ebook only.  Readers who want to order print-on-demand cheap paperbacks or beautifully well-made hardcovers can do so and pay properly for the privilege.  If readers want something, the publisher should gladly take their money for it, at a profit (shared with the author).
• Publisher and author must sign a deal for a certain amount of time so that successful authors are not continually fleeing to the highest bidder (or the publishing house that offers the best deal).
• Authors retain all rights to their content.  If an author leaves a publisher, she takes her content with her.
• Update: In case its absence did not make it clear:  no DRM.
• Of course, any writer could still go it alone with his own web site.  What the publisher provides are:
  • validation for readers…they know they’ll be getting content up to a certain standard most of the time (just like now!)
  • a community of readers with a shared taste
  • technological infrastructure
  • quality editing (if it’s not good, readers will go elsewhere)

Details to be worked out later.

Someone is gonna get rich with this, and it ain’t gonna be me.  I prefer writing and coming up with kooky ideas.

Update: This could work even better as a not-for-profit endeavor or as a cooperative of some kind, as long as standards were maintained.

The problem is time.

It’s common for writers to complain that reviewers rarely touch books that haven’t been published by one of the major corporate publishers, in contrast to the music business, where musicians and bands without a major label contract are commonly written about and reviewed.  Of course, listening to a song by someone you’ve never heard of takes only a few minutes.  Reading even a short book by someone you’ve never heard of will take many hours.  Without the validation that comes via presence in a book store, or a review by the mainstream media or some other trusted source, even the most adventurous reader is rarely willing to invest the ever-dwindling hours of her life in an unknown.

As I’ve described in my vision of the future of book publishing, the coming dominance of e-books will hopefully mean that the almost absolute power of the traditional gatekeepers–major publishers and reviewers–will be dispersed among a much wider group of literary-minded people and organizations.  There may be Oprah-like “super readers” with a talent for finding and promoting titles that will appeal to their like-minded followers.  And we will certainly see more niche blogs that will guide their readers to otherwise invisible works of interest.

Of course, the relative ease of publishing an e-book means that there will be many, many more books published than are currently published.  Soon, I bet, there will be an e-book-only self-publishing success story (à la “Clerks” in the independent film world), the last remnants of the self-publishing stigma will evaporate, and we’ll suddenly have many thousands of new e-books on the market.  In order to be read, almost all authors, whether self-published or not, will need to work even harder than they do now to get their books noticed.  So how might they do this, and how might the content, structure and design of their books facilitate this process?

There will always be books that break all the “rules” yet are still successful simply because they’re so damn good.  Most writers, however, will have to make a conscious effort to help their books break out from the pack.  Since I write fiction, these suggestions are slanted in that direction, though most of them would apply to non-fiction, too.  Likewise, many of the suggestions below would serve a print book just as well, but in an e-book dominated marketplace I think they will be essential.

The New But Not So New

• Keep It Short…Or Don’t:  Nobody is going to be impressed with the virtual heft of a 200,000-word e-book.  Few readers are up to the challenge of a super-long book, so unless an author already has a following, there’s no reason to make length yet another obstacle to getting a book read.  Then again, with no printing costs, if a book just has to be 200,000 or 500,000 words and you’re not planning to print it, so be it.  Nothing to stop you.  There’s got to be an e-book-only War and Peace or Infinite Jest out there somewhere in the future.
• Go Global:  Forget foreign rights.  Once an e-book is published, it should immediately be available globally.  If an author writes in English, there’s certainly no reason to limit its appeal to the U.S., Canadian and U.K. markets.  Yes, translators can be hired to target certain non-English-speaking markets, but it’s very likely that a large percentage of potential readers in non-English-speaking markets are already fluent in English.  Take advantage of the English language’s global dominance while it lasts!  Keep these potential readers in mind during the writing process.
• Readings Should Be Global:  Why would an author limit himself to those willing to drag their tired asses to a bookstore for an old school reading?  Those in-person bookstore readings are fine (though very rarely do I have an urge or time to attend one myself), but why force people to leave their homes to hear a reading when you’ve got millions of people already sitting in front of their computers?  Again, make it interesting.  Have yourself videotaped reading your content at a visually dramatic location relevant to your book.  Have a physically attractive actor read for you.  Whatever it takes to get people interested.
• Become a Super Reader:  Why wait for someone else to promote your book?  If the potential market is there for a book but the infrastructure (blog etc.) for your niche does not exist, consider yourself fortunate and create that infrastructure yourself.  You will be the leader and your followers will be your ready-made readers.  Update: As Moriah Jovan points out in the comments, you are probably bigger than a single niche, and your book is, too.  Participate in whatever blogs might have readers to whom your book would appeal.
• Create Compelling Advertisements:  It’s not enough simply to have a YouTube trailer or something like it.  It actually has to be good.  It has to be something that people will want to watch for its own sake.  Not everyone who sees it will read the book, but some of them will.  If a writer does not have the mad skills to create such advertisements herself, she should collaborate with someone who does.
• Serialize:  Perhaps the reason why serialized fiction hasn’t been big since Victorian times is that there hasn’t been a reliable delivery mechanism.  With a mobile device and an RSS feed, the reader will have everything conveniently delivered to one place.  People are very accepting of serialization with their TV viewing, so perhaps serials for written fiction will see a resurgence.  An author doesn’t necessarily have to write as a serial to publish as a serial, though it might be interesting for some writers to experiment with the serial form.
• Use Merchandise the Way Musicians Do:  Quality design should not be limited to your e-book’s virtual cover.  Put that same design on a tee shirt that people will want to wear just because it looks cool.  Let them be your walking advertisements (and let them pay you for the privilege).  Do the same with buttons, iPhone skins, hats, leg warmers or whatever item might appeal to your core audience.  You could even offer a free tee shirt with every e-book purchase (or every donation, if that’s your model).
• Influence the Influential:  For example, if your book has potential among hipster types, hire a midget to wander up and down Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, reading selections of your book aloud while pushing a cart displaying your merchandise, info cards on where to buy the e-book, and maybe even a few print copies if you have them.  Or something like that.  Determine who your core audience is, identify the movers and shakers of that core audience, and then make sure those people know about your book.  Hopefully a few of them will actually read it and pass on the good word to their broad networks.
• Don’t Stop Promoting (read to the tune of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing”): As an e-book, your book no longer has just a few make-or-break months (or weeks) on the bookstore shelves. If at first you don’t succeed, reevaluate your strategy and try again. If you have succeeded, try to keep the book’s momentum going by moving it into new markets. There’s no reason why even a book with moderate success shouldn’t continue to sell and be read years after the initial publication.
• Update: Make It Easy for Those Who Downloaded Your Book to Remember Why They Did:  This excellent idea comes from Moriah Jovan, as well.  She suggests including a brief but descriptive blurb about your book on one of the first pages of the e-book so that people can remember what the damn thing is about (i.e. don’t expect them to read it right away).

The Good Ol’ Fashioned Basics

• A Brilliant and Original Cover Design:  There is no substitute for it.  To paraphrase Zoe Winters, although you will no longer be able to judge a book by its publisher, you will still be able to judge a book by its cover.  You know you do it, and so does everybody else, so writers should consider hiring a quality designer an essential investment.  They shouldn’t depend upon their publisher, if they have one, to do it right.  e-Book technology still has a way to go to find a workable solution to book cover design (the Kindle and Sony Reader don’t do pretty, and the iPhone make-your-book-a-beautifully-designed-app option isn’t a long-term solution), but it will certainly happen.  There is the added but essential challenge of making the cover look good in thumbnail size since that is how most potential readers will first see it, but as Soft Skull Press demonstrates, it most definitely can be done.
• A Sharp and Shiny Hook:  It’s more important now than ever before.  We know that no story will be completely original, but with so much else available, readers will need a reason to choose a given title over the hundreds of thousands of other e-books that will be instantly available, not to mention instantly available movies, video games and countless other diversions.  Writers who have already developed a following will probably be able to get away with a subtler storyline or subject (but don’t count on it).  Everybody else will have to blow the potential reader away with the concept alone and do it with a single sentence.  The rambling jacket copy we’re accustomed to on print books won’t cut it.  In a purely online bookselling environment, one sentence may be all the chance you’ll get.
• A First Sentence that Draws the Reader into the Story:  Many people browsing in a bookstore will flip through the blank pages, the copyright page, the title page, the acknowledgments and the dedication, find the real start of the book, and read a few sentences or paragraphs.  More commonly, they’ll just read the jacket copy.  In an online environment, it’s much easier to get to chapter one, page one, sentence one with a single click.  Therefore, that first sentence may well have a much greater influence over a potential reader’s decision than it currently does.  With everything else a writer has going against him, for crying out loud make that first sentence a really good one.
• A Very Short and Very Gripping First Chapter:  Writers can learn a thing or two from Hollywood’s success.  Get your customer interested and emotionally involved from the get-go, before she even fully comprehends what’s going on in the story.  Make it quick.  No, the first chapter does not have to be a car chase (in fact, please don’t).  But it should be just as emotionally gripping.  Not everyone will read the entire first chapter before deciding to purchase and read an e-book, but many will.  Even those who have purchased and decided to read the e-book will need a reason to keep reading.  It’s far easier to stop reading an uninteresting e-book than an uninteresting print book.  There will be no physical presence to inspire the guilt that forces the reader to return to the book and plow through to the end.  If a low-priced (or free) e-book model comes to dominate, there will be even less reason for a reader to return to a book that is not calling her back.
• Write Anywhere You Can:  Write your own blog.  Guest post on other people’s blogs. Write articles.  Write on the restroom wall of your local dive bar.  Write anywhere a potential reader of your book might be lurking.
• Enrage a Religious Organization:  Or do something that will get your books some free publicity.
• Update: You Can’t Make It Alone:  Writers need other writers.  If they’re smart, writers will band together and form some kind of critical mass to help each other sell their books.  As Maureen Ogle suggests, they might create an online virtual storefront where potential readers can download a sample of each work and then buy the complete edition if they like the sample.  As this piece by Jonathan Baumbach demonstrates, this kind of cooperation by necessity would not be new, even if the format is new.

The Most Important Thing: As always, by far the most essential element is the quality of your book’s content. If, by your target readership’s standards, your book is not good, nothing else you do to promote it will matter. The good news is that in a more democratic e-book publishing world you will be able to go directly to your potential readers without having to convince agents and corporate publishers that your book will be financially successful enough to justify their time and expense.  Success will be measured not merely in financial terms but also in terms of the size of your book’s readership and its impact in your market. Your book’s success, therefore, will be in your hands.

Update: Nope, nothing here about how a writer will actually make money from all those readers.  This topic will be covered in future posts.

Note:  I would like to make this post something of a living document.  If anyone has anything to add (or change, if you think I’m off base somewhere) please get in touch with me or leave a comment, and I’ll add your thoughts to the main body of the post (with full attribution, of course).