Insert Hope Here

First published in Voiceworks #84 'Pulp', 2011. By Emily Craven

Seeing as I haven't posted in a while I thought I would pull out a little reflective piece I wrote on the e-book revolution last year for Voiceworks. Keep an eye out for my next post where I will be delving into the world of crowd funding and how savvy authors have been using it!

One would think the main lesson to be learnt in a digital publishing seminar is how to self-publish a novel using zero mullah and one internet connection. Or many publishers might say, learning how to satisfy one’s vanity by forcing drivel onto the literary stage. Yet the main lesson I learnt was not how to force a dull book to the top of the bestseller list, or even to rudely extend various dextrous appendages towards the publishing community as my book debuts on Amazon. What I learnt was that young writers have hope. A blind, unyielding faith that their work will be picked up by a publisher, sooner rather than later, and that their words will become famous. This stems from the belief that their work ‘speaks for itself’ and is capable of storming the tightly held gates of the publishing houses with the mere touch of a single word. By ignoring this seductively lofty voice in my head, I discovered that like most of the world’s faithful, young writers were calmly cocking the trigger and shooting themselves in the foot.

My first clue came from the seminar room of the South Australian Writers’ Centre itself. Trickling down the walls like some colourful Matrix code were book covers mounted on plaques, one hundred and ninety-seven in total. Each cover proudly declared the success of a South Australian author. On closer inspection it became clear that many I had never heard of, never seen in a bookstore, never spied in a local library. Only three names jumped out of the covers: Sean Williams of Star Wars, sci-fi and fantasy fame, Gillian Rubinstein (also published under the alias Lian Hearn) and finally Mem Fox, author of the beloved children’s book Possum Magic. These three names had several covers clinging to the beige wall. However the majority of the names appeared only once on the wall and, presumably, only once in the bookstores.

At the time I gave little thought to the limited success of an author. Alone in the large room, the evidence all around me, it should have been clear how few of the lucky get published more than once. Fewer still can afford to drop mundane day jobs and be supported solely by their words.

Bare minutes was all it took for the second clue to turn disinterest into curiosity and finally to understanding. Patrons began slowly to fill the room. The term ‘slowly’ is not used to denote time, but rather to denote age. I was surrounded by a sea of salt and pepper, bowling ball shine and meticulously dyed, shoulder-length locks. Every person who entered that room – short, tall, stout or rake thin – was over forty. Later I would find that at twenty-three I had been the youngest person to attend the seminars (twelve in total around Australia), beating the pants off the next youngest in his early thirties. The audience had been doing the publisher dance for years and by the looks of it they were willing to try something, anything else. This was also my first inkling that as a young writer, if I kept following the norm, I might be in a spot of bother.

Few of the participants knew each other, though muttered hellos passed several lips. A lot of faces looked weary, eyebrows slightly bunched, eyes watchful. Uncertain what to expect but determined to move forward. Others took stock of the young presenters, Kate Eltham, a petite curly-haired brunette and director of the Queensland Writers Centre, and Mark Coker, from the free e-publishing website Smashwords, a tall middle aged American with compelling blue eyes and a small smile continually pulling on the left side of his mouth.

As soon as the call to arms was made the room became silent. Studying the faces around me I found a mood I had missed a moment ago, one of intense anticipation, pens poised so as not to miss a word uttered. Eyes flicked between PowerPoint and speaker, their posture slowly straightening as they became part of the broader conversation. The crowd, individual writers every single one, mulled over the facts and figures presented before them.

Numbers and phrases swirled through my head as my fingers tried to keep up. Ten percent of book sales in the US (2010) were ebook purchases, up from 3% (2009) and 1% (2008). Smashword authors receive 85% of sale price for an ebook rather than 40 cents per book in royalties from publisher. To be successful write a great book, then write another. Readers decide what’s worth reading. When you ship in bits and bytes worldwide distribution is achievable. Book in digital realm, opportunity to change reader’s experience.  Podcasts. Embedded video. Twitter. Facebook. Free tools. Publishing gates shut. Quick and easily applied methods for success flowed.

Slightly behind and to my left I heard dissatisfied noises just under someone’s breath and felt a small breeze shift my hair. A woman, a black storm in an otherwise blue ocean, sported a look of disbelief and sarcasm. The only one present from a publisher she responded to every point, every suggested alternate path, with a low volume mutter and an impatient rap of fingers upon knees. As Mark took over from Kate as speaker the publisher’s face seemed to redden and collapse in on itself. It was odd, for Mark spoke of similar issues to Kate and yet I could see each word he spoke seemed to increase the speed of her tapping fingers, and deepen the lines on her pursed lips. Had the mere sound of his voice incensed her in a way that Kate’s had not? Perhaps it was the broad American twang which had caused the reaction from the woman, for surely the interference of a Yank would not be welcome to some in the Australian publishing industry. The small act of opening one’s mouth is sometimes all it takes for a message not to be heard.

Typically, questions ranged from exploring the best way to be successful in e-publishing to concerns over file sharing and free ebook strategies. It was entertaining seeing the ‘light bulb moment’ expressions appear on the face of each questioner as the answer was carefully considered and delivered eloquently. Delight would infuse their features as their mental hurdle was lowered to trivial heights.

‘What about picture books?’ The aggravated voice snapped out from behind me. ‘Ebooks can’t replace printed children’s books. They do not have the ability to support the rich layout that is possible with print.’

Mark paused for several seconds and studied her, as we all did. The lone publisher’s head was thrust forward aggressively, her expression righteous.

‘This is somewhat true, paper holds its own for some picture books, but we’re still in the early days–’

‘I have had books costed, thousands of dollars to have the format of a print book as an ebook. It’s not feasible. Ebooks cannot replace illustrated, printed books.’

And so it continued, Mark sliding in a sentence here or there as the same sentiment was repeated time and again by the publisher. It was fascinating to see the immovable stance, the closure to possibility, the absolute certainly in the quality of one’s product. 

I have seen many instances where new technology arrives on the scene, full of promise, and full of bugs. It’s easy to identify the shortcomings of a product in its teething stage. As I watched the publisher and presenter grapple with the argument I came to the conclusion that the danger for authors is that if you wait for everything to evolve to utter perfection, the world is going to pass you by. Just as future possibilities had passed this publisher by. Technology is always evolving, whether it’s from my first two-ton computer that took ten minutes to boot, to a small tablet that I can carry in my bag to keep my latest piece of writing on. In my mind, authors should take advantage of what’s out there now and evolve their books over time as the technology and tools evolve. There is no sense simply sitting on your hands waiting for perfection.

‘These presentations have been ridiculously lopsided, and not at all the view of publishing held by Australians.’ The publisher sat back, arms crossed, satisfied with her observation.

This puzzled me, weren’t we all here to soak in the information? The seminars were held to provide information about digital publishing, not to debate the values held by various parties. There was only ever one side the seminar was going to discuss.  Indeed I found out later from Kate that the view solidly held by the Australian Publishers Association was that digital publishers, who allowed any author to publish their ebook, had nothing to say of interest to their members. Twice an offer for a discussion with If:Book Australia – the Australian Institute for the Future of the Book, based in Brisbane - was knocked back. Yet here stood a member of the publishing community lamenting the lack of discussion. Evidently this was a case of the representative body not truly understanding the wishes of its demographic.

An expectant silence fell as questions dried up. Would the publisher bring up another jibe? However none were forthcoming from the now resolutely silent woman. Fortunately the night’s end was upon us and we were released. The room swelled with noise, the restraint at the beginning forgotten and replaced by a feeling of practical optimism. Apart from the small stand-off, the seminar had been far from a forbidding commentary on the encroachment of technology in publishing and our need to convert or perish. The speakers had managed to light an alternative path of possibility. Every few seconds I would hear ‘Australian If:Book’ or ‘Smashwords’ coming from smiling lips. Every person I passed had reached the same point in their career; confidingly they would announce, while swirling milk through their lukewarm tea, that they believed the gates were firmly shut on traditional publishing. Their voices would increase in pitch at the revelation that an author didn’t need to wait for the approval of a publisher for months on end, they could do things to help themselves (even actions as simple as establishing an online platform to promote their work). There are fewer links than ever in the chain between an author and readers, and this could not help but excite us all.

The ideas driving authors to the seminars were simple ones, a desire to reach more readers, to publish in a language other than English, to distribute their work to other countries, to learn how to be more successful at e-publishing then they were at traditional publishing and to learn how technology would impact their strategy.

Others had something more specific in mind. In conversation with a tall man with a snow-white goatee, I discovered that his publisher owned the digital rights to his novel (a common condition in many contracts). He wanted to determine if it was worth negotiating to get the digital rights back before his book was out of print, particularly if the publisher wasn’t going to do anything with them (‘Which they won’t,’ he assured me). His wide smile and incredulous expression told me he had gained more information than he had hoped on the ebook phenomenon.

When I asked another man his story, he glanced from side to side before leaning in furtively. Like others he had tried to land a real publisher for several years ending up with ten solid rejections under his belt. Unusually, his letters were not of the generic ‘thanks but no thanks’ variety, but specifically addressed his manuscript. The novel contained sensitive material and the publishers would not publish the book as it stood. But he was not interested in publishing a censored version of the work. His shining eyes and fervent gestures matched his enthused stance on a quick and anonymous spread of his novel as an ebook.

Interestingly, several months later I met him again in the street. In four months he had released his novel as an ebook under a nom de plume and it had already reached several online bestseller lists. Concerned with being read first and paid later, he is currently giving away his book and has amassed a large number of testimonials which he included on his website (hosted in Panama so as to be untraceable). Because of his slowly developing popularity he has been mentioned on several unrelated sites and has had success in generating readers through his participation in online forums. And though he personally does not like Facebook or Twitter, his alter ego ‘can’t get enough,’ and has been actively trying to create a platform around his work using social networking sites.

When I had first thought of attending these seminars I believed that the other participants were looking for the same information I was, to take advantage of the presence of an online market that a traditional publisher wouldn’t pander to, in my instance a market in gap year travel. It had never occurred to me that some authors would feel the need for secrecy or circumvention of censorship.

Though the specific reasons varied one thing was certain: all the writers present had been battered and ignored by the traditional publishing gatekeepers, they had done the hard slog and gotten nowhere. I don’t want to be that way in ten years, or in twenty. While I still harbour that idiotic, blind arrogance that my writing is worthwhile and publishable (if not this year than in the next five at least, right?) I also want to say that I explored every avenue and platform. Having attended the seminars I think all participants came away with a feeling that ignoring the ebook is pointless. Emerging authors need to use any toe hold they can get. The digital revolution is like a tsunami, you know its coming. Any writer with common sense should be asking themselves: how do I get on this wave?

My recent novel a comedy set in Facebook, The Grand Adventures of Madeline Cain, is available at http://emilycraven.bkclb.co/the-grand-adventures-of-madeline-cain. You can also purchase E-Book Revolution: The Ultimate Guide to E-Book Success at http://emilycraven.bkclb.co/e-book-revolution-the-ultimate-guide-to-e-book-success.