Michelle Styles:

One of the big questions that has plagued the publishing industry is how large is the ebook market? Will it consume the print market? Will it make bookstores unprofitable?
For example, since the early 1980s, people have predicted the death of the cheque book. The market size for the cheques (ie number of cheques written) is certainly smaller BUT it still exists. The fact that banks still produce cheques means that some company somewhere is making money printing the cheques.

When markets are in flux, lots of things happen. Winners and losers. People can be seduced by great rates of growth without really considering market size. This happened during the early days of the Internet when certain Internet start up ventures were given huge valuations. Bubbles and mania ensued. Some (such as Amazon) have gone on to great things, others have folded.

The rise of Internet bookbuying has had a profound effect on bricks and mortar stores. The economies of scale come into play. What other things drive people to bookstores? Bordedom during lunch? Hours to kill while waiting for children to complete activities? Nobody really knows what is going on and people's predictions keep being blown out of the water.

One of the best places to learn about such things (if you are interested) is Mike Shatzkin's blog. He did a great blog the other day about ebooks tipping points as well as one about the trouble with the industry saying that you *buy* an ebook (you don't, you are licensed to use one -- a problem IF the ebook provider suddenly goes under but that is a whole other concern).  The ebook tipping point blog had my jaw on the floor. I knew they were expecting huge growth rates, but Sourcebooks (a small independent publisher who has recently gone into the romance genre in a big way) had 35% of its incoming dollars in January 11 from ebooks. The slides showing the growth are incredible. The BIG question is does this growth continue or was it an uptick because of Christmas presents. Ebook readers surpassed sales expectations at Christmas. Will people keep using them? And will others buy them at the same rate? How will that effect margins etc? Are more people moving towards buying all their books (print and electronic) online? Is browsing in a bookstore a dying activity? Or merely confined to certain places?

I am very grateful that my publisher Harlequin is ahead of the curve and determined to remain there.
The one thing that will not change is that ebooks like print books merely deliver the content. Authors create the content and  ultimately that comes down to the author's imagination.

One very big reason to go to the RWA National conference is the Published Author Network retreat and workshops. These workshops are not recorded and the only people who can attend are PAN members. The lists of the workshops are in your packet or in the PAN section of the RWA site. PRO members have their own track. The keynote speaker for PRO was Donald Maass so I was a bit miffed that I couldn't go.
For PAN, the keynote speaker was Lou Aronica who served as deputy publisher at Bantam before becoming the publisher at Berkley and Avon. He is now a NYT best seller in his own right and knows the industry.
He basically spoke about an industry in flux. There are real problems for bricks and mortar stores as people choose to buy books more and more online either from online bookstores such as Amazon or as ebooks. This has significantly reduced footfall in stores. It has also led to the large chains not ordering as many copies, but being quicker to reorder should the need arise.
The big problem for publishers is that there is currently no mechanism that allows the consumer to browse in the same way as they can in a bookstore. The consumer can not be caught by a random book on the shelf above the author they were looking for example. Publishers are having to learn to become business to consumer rather than business to business companies. (It was at this point I started to check off his prescriptions against what Harlequin already does and was pleasantly surprised at how much Harlequin was already doing.) Harlequin has been not only a b2b business but a b2c business for a long time. I had to smile when he mentioned that marketing people from P&G do not go to into publishing. Guy Hallowes, the former managing director of HMB was ex-P&G and made a point of hiring people with a small consumer goods background. For example, Mandy Ferguson, the current managing director of HMB has a marketing background in food and is credited with revitalising ryvita. Harlequin also saw the move to digital years ago and has worked hard to support all platforms as well building its own community.
He also pointed out that the move towards digital was accelerating driven by the falling price of e-readers. 8% of total trade is now digital. Romance for comparison is 13% of the total trade market.
Anyway, his big message was that the author must be prepared to do more and that Social Media could help replace some of the browsing experience of a bookstore. Social Media was a theme I heard again and again. Various agents I heard speak mentioned that you should put in your query letters about your Social Media expertise. However, several have cautioned that it is the BOOK that is important.
Aronica pointed out that the industry might be in flux but the romance genre was showing solid returns. I didn't stay for the Q&A as the Harlequin Historical tea was being held.
As with any change, you can either read the sky is falling or see opportunity.

Other PAN workshops I attend were things like what to expect from your agent in the New Age of Publishing with Robert Gottlieb. He really impressed me. And one thing he did say was that your agent (or yourself if unagented) must keep you informed about what is happening in the industry. Education about the business is vital.
However as the Death of the Midlist and Twilight of the Bestseller workshop pointed out -- too much emphasis on doom and gloom may be unwarranted. Both editors from SMP and Battantine/Bantam said that there was no golden age and that they are as eager as ever to grow authors. And they took issue with the title of the workshop. Many authors took several books before they became best sellers. Sometimes as in the case of Dan Brown, it did mean that authors had to be prepared to change publishing house. Ultimately what decided a bestseller was numbers.
Also listed in the PAN bit was the Harlequin Authors Forum which was for Harlequin authors only. Harlequin continued to impress, particularly after I had sat through all these things on social media and the need for authors to be proactive. Harlequin is a business to consumer business and they know their consumer. They are working hard at apps that will simulate more the browing experience in an online bookstore. They are also working hard with bricks and mortar stores to better utilise the power of the Harlequin series consumer. The research about her was very interesting. Basically women who read series read more of everything.

Anyway, I was very impressed with the quality of the workshops and really felt that they were worth attending as they gave me new insight. I had not expected to learn so much in such a short space of time.

In an effort to divert Donna's attention, I have done a contest on Tote Bags. And for Sue, I sent her three chapters. But they both carry mean whips so I am working away, writing this wip.
Actually I am having fun writing.

The Telegraph today (pages 10-11 Review) carries an article about the publishing industry, implying that it is not all doom and gloom. Generally speaking for most people, books are not luxuries but necessities. Yes, second hand booksellers are up but certain types of books are not down as far as one might suppose. The charts editor for The Bookseller apparently discovered his reasonable remarks about the non death of the celebrity memoirs, being edited out in favour of the high profile flops so that more doom and gloom could be spread.

Unfortunately I could not discover the article on the Telegraph's website or I would have linked to it as it is interesting.In fiction, the general thinking is that depressing is out and escapism is in. During the 1970's genres such as romance and fantasy thrived. In the 1930s, Penguin pioneered the paperback and cosy detective fiction was popular. Helen Fraser of Penguin points out that unfortunately the price of paper is going up, but they are hoping to offset with the cost of typesetting going down. She does not see this as heralding the dawn of the e-book though.
I have done a lot of thinking about ebook readers and whether to get one or not. I dislike reading books on the computer. My major problem with them (besides the expense) is the lack of being able to share. My dd and I both read romance. I often have to go and fish the books I thought I was reading out of her room. She may have her nose in one, with another ready to read. With an ebook reader, you can only be reading one book at a time on the reader and you can not share the books between readers. With the mysteries, up to four people in the house may be reading them( My youngest is currently gone on polar exploration. ) So for me and my family, it does not make sense as we share books.
A friend who I was speaking to about this problem also commented that she liked to bump into books -- so she had a book on the go upstairs and one for downstairs. Carrying a reader around seemed somehow premeditated and she would lose that guilty pleasure...
Anyway, the best guess is that e-books will reach the size of the audible book market in about five years time. They are a niche market.

Right, Donna's whip is going to be looming and I have promised chapters, so I shall work.

As I said in my last blog, the very lovely Anne McAllister sent me a copy of The Career Novelist by Donald Maass. The book had been on my I-need-to read-this list ever since I first learnt of its existence.
If you are looking for a how to book on writing, his Writing the Breakout Novel book and workbook are excellent, but this book is primarily aimed at the novelist who is just starting her publishing career. It did not disappoint.

Parts of it are now dated and this is why I suspect that it has been allowed to go out of print. But to the discerning reader, there is still plenty to be gleaned.

It is sort of a question of where to start with his good advice. One piece advice that is applicable to every writer is that the ultimate transaction is with the reader. They are the consumers of your product -- give them good value, bring out your new product regularly to encourage repeat purchases and they will make you successful beyond your wildest dreams. You should remember that ultimately your group of fans is unique to YOU. They are discrete subset of readers who want YOUR settings, YOUR characters and to be immersed in the world of YOUR Story. YOUR readers will know your writing more intimately than probably you do. Thus where you should spend the lion share's of your time is crafting stories that allow your readers in.
It is the most important relationship in the business -- author and reader. By giving her best, the author strives to fulfil her part of the bargain.
If an author is going to write a cross over type novel, she needs to think where her main body of readers will be found. That is her primary market.
Self-promotion does not always work and in order to promote, one must first have a product. Again, trust the reader to respond to your writing.
Some publishers can be career-killing. Authors should study the market and be wary. Rights can be difficult to reobtain in the advent of bankruptcy, despite what contracts say...
Maass makes the point that it takes at least FIVE books to become established and an overnight success. Sometimes, it takes longer. Think Patrick O'Brien. The vast majority of huge best sellers came from mid list authors who broke out or already established best selling authors. It is highly unusual for first time authors to hit the jackpot as it were.
Huge headline advances are not what they seem -- they are a marketing tool so that sub-rights can be more easily sold. If a book does poorly, the author might not get the whole advance. In fact, even if it does well, it might be years before the author sees the whole advance as headline grabbing advances are often multiple book contracts with various provisions.
Authors should not think about quitting the day job until their ROYALTIES can support them -- not their advances but their royalties. The real money in this business is made through the sale of sub-rights -- IE when the book is printed in other languages. A writer can quickly get into trouble if she treats her advance cheque as a pay cheque.
The sales figure you want to know most is the sell-through ratio -- how many books are sold versus number shipped. A high ratio is good. It means the publisher is making money. Huge print runs can place pressure on the sell through ratio. Books can be easily reprinted these days. Every publisher has their own rules about reprints and when they happen. Backlists are important to publishers and to writers alike.


I could go and on. After reading it, I do feel that I have a far better understanding of the industry. My only wish is that Maass would update the book.

Phillipa Astley has a link to the Easter editoion of Open book on her blog and it should be required listening for all writers -- whether they are published or not. The programme deals with how editors, publishers and authors work together. In particular it gives an editorial view of revisions and why they happen. I can't imagine ever working like Rose Tremain who has her editor come and visit. They then go over the book page by page in the course of two days. And I did find it amusing when an editor described how she tried v hard to be diplomatic and postive. One of her authors was then asked how he felt when he got one of her letters -- bruised and battered came back the reply. The morale is: author's egos are fragile. And some times, it does not matter what is said, the author is not going to like it. Personally, I agreed with another author who said he would be upset if the publishing house simply took the novel without any revisons, because he knows how much stronger a professional eye can make the book. There is always something that can be revised.

The part on covers was very interesting as well. How a cover needs to create a mood. This is certainly true of Sold and Seduced and The Roman's Virgin Mistress. And the prototype of Taken by The Viking that I have seen. As Cheryl St John has already recieved her July cover and it is beautiful, I am hoping they will be putting the July covers up soon and then I can put the cover for TRVM up.

The programme is very much geared towards the literary end, but I know that much of what is said is true of HM&B. They do stick with authors. they want to grow authors.they believe in authors. They buy books because they like the authors. I loved how Orion stuck with Ian Rankin for seven years.

The programme takes about a half hour and I enjoyed it. I was also amused that they did not dare state the obvious -- the one publisher who REMAINS a brand -- Harlequin Mills and Boon. M&B readers still wait for the publication day of their favourite series. Something that Penguin readers gave up on awhile ago.