I sold another story recently and I’ll give details when something’s official (as in the contract is signed). One side-effect of the sale, oddly enough, was to get me thinking about rejections.
Specifically, how bloody long they often take. The truism is that it “always takes an editor longer to say yes than to say no,” but I’m here to tell you that’s a load of baloney. Continue reading
I am Schrodinger’s Cat. And I’m getting a little sick of it, frankly. Is it too much to ask for the wave function to collapse already? Yeah, I know. At the end of it all I might be dead. I might not. But at least the whole mess will be #$@# settled.
Fine, it’s a metaphor. Or rather, a metaphorical description of an actual situation. (And for anyone who hasn’t a clue what I’m talking about, Google “Schrodinger’s Cat,” and you’ll find more than you ever wanted to know). The point is that I’m trying to be two things at once, and they are mutually exclusive things, so basically I’m at war with myself on a continual basis, and how’s that working out? Not so well. I know I’m not alone in this, in fact I strongly suspect that many of you out there are have the same problem, and this is it in the proverbial nutshell—I want my work to be well known and widely read. I personally do not want to be well known. But achieving one almost always negates the other, unless you’re writing under a pseudonym, and even that’s not a gurantee.
From a practical standpoint, writing is the perfect avocation for someone who doesn’t especially want to be noticed. Continue reading
As the saying goes, there are some things you’re better off not knowing. Like how sausage is made, if you really like sausage. Still, if anyone’s curious (didn’t say you were. said “if”), here’s where the title of my third story collection came from:
In 1905, Lafcadio Hearn published a collection of pieces on Japanese legend called “The Romance of the Milky Way and Other Stories.” Including therein were several tanka written on the legend of the Weaver and Herdsman (also called the Romance of the Milky Way) from an 8th Century Japanese poetry volume, the Manyoushou. Here’s Hearn’s translation of one:
Amanogawa
Ai-muki tachité,
Waga koïshi
Kimi kimasu nari
Himo-toki makéna!
[He is coming, my long-desired lord, whom I have been waiting to meet here, on the banks of the River of Heaven…. The moment of loosening my girdle is nigh!]
When I decided to do my own take on the Weaver and Herdsman legend, choosing a title was the easy part. So credit where credit’s due: Thanks to Mr. Hearn, and the ancient poets of the Manyoushou.
The old guard convention-going SF/F fandom is graying. There are younger readers, but they’re a distinct minority. The meme floating around now is that the established sf/f conventions are set in their ways, insular, almost reactionary in their clinging to the glory of conventions past. There’s much discussion across the interweb tube thingies about how to attract more young readers, how the convention circuit can be more teen friendly, many a cetera. Some of it even makes sense. Most, however…
[Sarcasm mode on.]
The graying of fandom is a problem easily solved—we just turn conventions like ReaderCon into media/anime/comic conventions. Look at DragonCon. It draws 30,000+ without breaking a sweat. ComiCon, 20,000+. What’s a WorldCon go these days, 5 to 6 thousand, if we’re lucky? I mean, it’s a nice, hopeful idea that young sf/f fans are staying away from conventions because they’re not welcome, because their elders are doing something wrong. All the conventions have to offer are the best sf/f writers in the field meeting with fans, autographing, talking to each other and their audiences about their work and the field they love. Who wants to see that?
[Sarcasm mode off]. Now we get serious. Continue reading
Today I’m on again about one of my (least) favorite subjects, the “Long Tail Theory” of online selling. For those blissfully or otherwise unaware, the Long Tail Theory says that the internet will overcome the problem of finding audiences for cutting edge, goofy, or just niche type products such as most books. Since things you can’t find easily in the brick and mortar stores are easily accessible online, such items are no longer at the mercy of the gatekeepers, et many a cetera. The internet, in effect, would level the playing field making publishers much less dependent on blockbusters, and authors less dependent on publishers. Instead both would see fewer sales but of many more titles/items (the “long tail.”) and make up the difference in overall numbers volume (ie write more). Promotion through YouTube or its variants would take care of the no longer existent promotional budget.
That was the theory. In practice, it hasn’t quite worked out that way. Yes, some authors have done really well going outside the traditional publishing paradigm. Some authors do well, period, regardless of the paradigm. That’s the Law of Averages at work. For other Indies, and in the one area where hard data now exists, the result is: not so much. For indie and online music sales, it turns out like this: 80% of the available items sold no copies. At all. Zero. See the trend? All the revenue came from the remaining 20%. Usually bands which already had a following or were otherwise promoted. One could argue that this is music and we’re concerned about books. I know I am. But think about it for a minute—if there was ever a product that should benefit from internet promotion, it’s music. It takes a minute or less to download sample music from a web site or watch the band’s home-made video on YouTube. You can try lots of new and unknown and indie bands in just a few minutes. I’m sure there are people reading this who have found good new music this way. The rest? No, because most people aren’t going to spend hours and hours downloading unfamiliar bands, any more than they’re going to the trouble to sort through all the ebook samples on Amazon. For most bands, even the better ones, the internet just isn’t working, and I think it’s reasonable to argue that it does not and will not work for writers either, at least and until we learn to leverage it properly. Exceptions? Sure, but how many? Which leaves the 80%. Continue reading
Richard Parks 