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Wordiness Is Not a Style – Part 2

July 20, 2011 / Lane Diamond / 2 Comments

This article continues an earlier post entitled, Wordiness Is Not a Style – Part 1. If you haven’t yet read the first article, please do so before continuing here.

I focus this post on one of the High Commandments of writing: Make Every Word Count. If you’ve been studying this craft, through creative writing courses or any of the hundreds of books on writing, you’ve already seen this admonition many times. Indeed, ghosts of Writing Instructors Past probably sound the drumbeat in your subconscious every night whilst you dream of cannibals stalking you through the jungle.

Yet for most writers, wordiness remains an anchor on the ship of prose.

Why is “Make Every Word Count” such a critical commandment? It’s simple: words are money. For print publishers, a higher word count equals more printing. For electronic publishers, a higher word count means more server space and/or bandwidth. For readers, a higher word count means more of their precious time is required to complete the piece. Please, Dear Writer, show a little respect for those who support your business.

On top of everything else, wordiness is just plain bad, lazy, dull writing. It typically revolves around what I call “The 3 R’s of Wordiness.”

Redundancy: Not only is this boring and unnecessary, it’s rather insulting. When you tell a reader the exact same thing in two or three different ways, she may respond by saying, “Geez, what is it with this author? Does he think I’m an idiot? I get it, already.”

Repetition: This signals the reader that you’re running out of things to say, so you just say the same thing over and over. Gee whiz, that makes for an exciting read.

Rambling: When you run on and on and on, the reader knows that you’re lazy, at best, disrespectful of her time and energy, or that, at worst… well, that you shouldn’t quit your day job.

We writers often fail to recognize wordiness when we see it. We so focus on this sentence, this word, that we’ve already forgotten the last sentence. Is it any wonder, then, that we fall victim to The 3 R’s? Additionally, our writing tracks with our speech mannerisms. Yikes! When’s the last time you heard someone utter a gem such as this: “Like, have you guys like seen that like totally amazing movie about like androids and robots and stuff? It’s like, you know, so totally awesome that like, whatever, it’s just cool and like totally awesome.”

Okay, so maybe you’re not that bad. The point is that our speech leans heavily toward the lazy, improper, garbled, repetitive and disjointed. Your writing must not. Even if you speak as though you stayed awake in high school English, and you have an IQ over 73, you still allow nagging “errors” to creep into your speech. We all do.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the default voice with which you write is the one with which you speak. To break those chains, you must self-edit at the deepest possible level—every sentence, every word. More than that, you must turn off that natural conversational voice in your head. A funny thing will happen as your writing tightens-up and improves: so will your speech. You will find that happy, comfortable medium. It just takes time.

Finally, you must rely on your editor to bring objectivity and a fresh perspective, to catch what your subconscious mind allows to slip past your blinded self.

HIGH PRAISE for HIGH PROSE

Our quest for this often leads us down the path of wordiness. Writers often seek to elevate their prose, to foment literary bliss, and I applaud the inclination; however, too many confuse quantity for quality. Elevated prose consists not of more words, but of better words better formed. The pithiest way of saying something may well be the most elegant, whereas the complex bag of wind can be absolute torture.

I offer this example from a piece I edited long ago. I shall change the character names and keep confidential the author and title. — The inner glow of warmth and compassion Fred initially believed to live behind Barney’s gray eyes, blazed fiercely with an entirely different meaning for Betty, or so it seemed to Fred, and in Betty’s attachment to Barney, she lost the capability to manifest emotion toward anyone else. — Oh brother! That bogged me down several times, but I found the final segment the most amusing—and by amusing, of course, I mean terrible. That one 47-word sentence should be two sentences totaling 25-30 words. I offer no alternatives because—Good grief!—the writer just needs to go back to the drawing board. “…the capability to manifest emotion toward….” Seriously?

Dear Writer, pith is not your enemy. Pith is your friend. It will not preclude you from writing high prose; indeed, it will aid you in that endeavor. Do not confuse “pith” with “simple.” Use moving, compelling, evocative words and phrases, of course. But get to the point!

I believe examples offer the best method for learning to recognize and destroy wordiness—simple, repetitive exercises. Therefore, I shall focus an upcoming article on actual examples and their preferred alternatives, providing a series of “before” (read “bad”) and “after” (read “better”). It won’t be long—a couple of days, a week at most—so tune in again soon.

‘Til next time, and as always, remember: To write well, you must work hard. To succeed in this tough gig, you mustn’t be lazy (or discouraged).

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Dialogue Tags

July 15, 2011 / Lane Diamond / 0 Comments

I’ve been reviewing early submissions to our Evolved Publishing Short Story Contest. Several issues have jumped out at me—all the usual stuff I deal with as an editor. However, one of the most prevalent problems affecting many of the submissions thus far relates to one of the most important elements of any story: Poor Dialogue Construction.

The primary culprit is the use of heavy, awkward “tags” on the dialogue. A secondary culprit is not knowing how to SHOW a character engaged in dialogue, versus simply TELLING the reader what’s been said.

As I’ve written at some length on this before, I’ll not try to reinvent the wheel here. Instead, I shall point you to two articles I posted on this very subject. Please read them in order:

Dialogue Tags vs. Action Leads/Inserts – Part 1

Dialogue Tags vs. Action Leads/Inserts – Part 2

‘Til next time, and as always, remember: To write well, you must work hard. To succeed in this tough gig, you mustn’t be lazy (or discouraged).

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Wordiness Is Not a Style – Part 1

July 11, 2011 / Lane Diamond / 4 Comments

Many writers fall into the trap of writing as they speak. For 99.943999876984% of us (I rounded it off), this is a bad idea. Why? Just listen to a conversation. I mean really listen.

How disjointed is it? How often do the speakers pause not as a function of proper English, but to gather their thoughts? When they resume, how often do they repeat themselves, drift down another track, or cut the logical thread completely? How many four-letter words do they use? How often do they toss in one of the worst four-letter words of all time: “like?”

Listen to anyone under the age of twenty-five, and you’ll likely hear them throwing around the L-bomb like monkeys in a poop fight. Many people toss in a “you know” every eight words or so, just to make sure that… well, you know. Lazy “fillers” function as bookmarks in speech—we save our spot so that, once our brains catch up with our mouths, we can pick up where we left off. Even then, we often get it “wrong” from a grammatical perspective—some of us more than others.

We also tend to speak in a tight, limited vocabulary—one that belies our knowledge of the language. We rarely stretch ourselves as speakers, yet we must stretch ourselves as writers. We must also not rely, as we do when speaking, on what I call the “3 R’s” of wordiness: rambling, repetition and redundancy.

A strong narrative is a tight narrative. Do not confuse lazy, meandering construction with a conversational style. Keeping it simple is fine… right up until you oversimplify.

This is just a primer for a couple of future posts (not a lot of time today), but I want to set the table because I’ve been seeing a bunch of—and I mean a TON of—wordy construction in my reading material lately.

Even seasoned pros have been guilty. Why? Are their editors afraid of offending their cash cows? Are the publishers taking too much for granted with respect to their superstar authors? I’m an editor, but I’m also a writer, and as a writer, I would want my editors to catch those pesky problems that slip past me. Otherwise, what’s the point of having an editor?

I’ll end for now with this one big hint: If you have a sentence structured like the one below (good grief, I’ve been seeing this a lot), tighten it up. Please.

There was an editor that missed many of the author’s wordy sentences.

Preferred: The author’s editor missed many wordy sentences.

I dropped it from 12 words to 7—a reduction of 42% in a single sentence. Your “TRIGGERS” (search your manuscript for these) are the following phrases: there was, there were, I/he/she/it was, they were. I’ll bet you a quarter to your nickel that a good number of those appear in wordy sentences just begging you to take a scalpel to them. Those that don’t are likely weak and blasé, screaming out for a stronger, evocative verb.

‘Til next time, and as always, remember: To write well, you must work hard. To succeed in this tough gig, you mustn’t be lazy (or discouraged).

And don’t miss these follow-up articles:

Wordiness Is Not a Style – Part 2

Wordiness Is Not a Style – Part 3

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Quality Matters

July 3, 2011 / Lane Diamond / 5 Comments

As we’re kicking off our Evolved Publishing effort, I’ve been interested–and confused, and frustrated, and saddened–by several online discussions about the need for, and efficacy of, independent editing of an author’s manuscript.

As Kristine Rusch so often states (you should be following her KrisWrites blog, by the way), self-published authors need to think more like independent businesspeople—because that’s what we are.

Certain universal rules apply to business, and here’s one of the biggies: VALUE sells. The variable equation for VALUE, assuming a constant need or desire, is a simple Quality:Price ratio. The first variable in that equation is… well, the first part. Fail there, and the second part becomes irrelevant.

No matter how attractive your price, you, Dear Seller, will not persuade most potential buyers if your quality has not met at least minimum standards in a past sale, or if you’ve established a reputation for poor quality.

This applies when you sell a car, a refrigerator, a pair of shoes… or a book.

Sure, you may get customers to buy your product once, but disappoint them on your quality obligation, and those customers will never buy your product again. Authors make a living when they generate positive word-of-mouth and a steady stream of loyal book buyers (repeat customers). Fail to deliver quality, and your business is finished almost before it begins.

Many self-published authors say, “But I just can’t afford an editor.” Most such authors doom themselves to failure. Listen, if you, as an aspiring author, have no money to pay an editor the full fee up front, then work with them on a smaller up-front fee + commission basis, or on a larger, straight commission basis. Get creative, but be prepared to be generous to an editor (or cover artist, or anyone else who assists you on a commission basis) who is willing to assume that risk. And make no mistake: they’re taking a big gamble. If your piece doesn’t sell well, they just worked for nothing.

The evolutionary state of the publishing industry offers many challenges, to be sure, but also many opportunities. Be creative in your approach. Come on, you’re a writer, an artist! Draw on all that creativity when approaching the business aspect of your writing career. Don’t take the easy, cheap, lazy (or all of the above) way out. Don’t doom yourself to failure.

Do you need an editor for your book? Yes. Every writer needs an independent, objective pair of eyes to weed out their nasty little habits, those recurring bugaboos to which we’re psychologically blinded, even if we think we know what we’re doing.

Resist this temptation: “Hey, I’m a good writer. I’ve studied. I’ve learned. I can do it on my own.”

Your book will be the worse for it. I promise.

No business survives for long that does not offer VALUE (Quality:Price). A robust quality assurance program is essential to all businesses, and your business as a writer is not unique, not immune to that requirement.

We at Evolved Publishing are trying to work as a team, to assure first ourselves, and ultimately our readers, that we have produced a high quality, professional product. Perhaps we’re a good fit for you. Perhaps not.

But please… don’t dash your dreams on the rocks by clinging to the stubborn insistence that you can do it all on your own. A well-coordinated team always outperforms the individual. Always.

And quality matters. Always. Especially when you’re competing as a raindrop in a hurricane of options.

www.EvolvedPub.com

‘Til next time, and as always, remember: To write well, you must work hard. To succeed in this tough gig, you mustn’t be lazy (or discouraged).

Self-Publishing – The “Quality” Dilemma

June 18, 2011 / Lane Diamond / 0 Comments

If I were going to offer a sub-title for this post, it would be this: Hire an editor, damn it! Pardon the language, but seriously….

DISCLOSURE: Yes, I am a freelance editor, among other things. HOWEVER: No, I am not accepting new clients for at least the foreseeable future. (I just needed to be clear that this post is not about me pushing my service.)

Self-publishing, traditionally referred to as the Vanity Press, languishes under a long-suffering reputation. For good reason. Most self-published material, at least historically, has been… well… terrible. Anyone with an adequate checking account or credit card could publish their work—no peer review was required, no editorial process, no professional guidelines or standards.

Thus, most self-published books were unworthy of readers’ hard-earned dollars. Not all of them, mind you (one could find an occasional gem in the rough), only 98-99% of them.

Now, with the eBook revolution gaining momentum, even the financial barriers to self-publishing are crumbling. The inevitable result is that poorly written swill, the so-called “white noise,” is flooding the marketplace.

This will make things extremely difficult for serious writers, those who hope to make writing a well-paying career—professional authors—who want to take advantage of these new eSelf-Publishing opportunities. (Is eSelf-Publishing a recognized word? It is now. :D)

Yet one beacon of hope remains, one stubborn truth: Cream rises to the top.

Look, traditional publishing has always been an extraordinarily tough nut to crack, and it’s even more daunting in the current economic and industry climates. eSelf-Publishing offers authors fantastic new possibilities, yet it presents its challenges.

Achieving a fair income-producing level of success will be as difficult, and as simple, as ever: You just have to be better than the rest.

The key driver in the new eBook market has already identified itself. Ladies and gentlemen, please meet Word of Mouth, formerly of Prominent Shelf Space fame. If you want to succeed, you’ll have to rely on readers sending forth Word of Mouth. They must post positive reviews, an easy task in the new online environment. They’ll also need to spread the word everywhere they have a presence, which means not just the traditional real-world, tell-a-friend gossip, but also the new virtual-world, have-you-heard platforms. Social media—not just yours, but theirs—offers you great potential.

How do you coax your readers to participate in your marketing effort? You give them a well-written, professional-grade, enjoyable book. Plain and simple.

If you think you can do that without an editor, you are, if I may be blunt, sadly mistaken. Hey, I’m an editor, and I wouldn’t think of publishing my own book without an independent, objective editor first giving it a once-over.

ALL professional writers use editors; those who don’t remain amateurs. And in this new environment, freelance editors are popping up all over the place. Be creative in your dealings with them. Pay a flat, up-front fee for the service, or pay a commission of sales, or offer some combination of both. Surely, you’ll find someone who will work with you in an affordable, mutually beneficial way. (For more on how to choose between them, see this article: Freelance Editors: A Reemerging Profession.)

Now, as if it’s not bad enough having to compete for readers’ attention with writers who don’t dedicate the time and resources necessary to produce a professional product (the “white noise” generators), we must compete with spammers: Spam clogging Amazon’s Kindle self-publishing.

Dedicate yourself. Be a professional. Then maybe, just maybe, you’ll achieve all your goals.

‘Til next time, and as always, remember: To write well, you must work hard. To succeed in this tough gig, you mustn’t be lazy (or discouraged).

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ePublishing Gatekeepers (for Self-Published eBooks)

June 15, 2011 / Lane Diamond / 0 Comments

One of the things my partner, D.T. Conklin, and I have been talking about as we develop Evolved Publishing, is the need for “gatekeepers” in the eBook realm. Indeed, we have chosen to be, along with our various team members, gatekeepers.

Of whose work? Well, of our team’s work, to start with. However, we can easily imagine going on to offer reviewing services for works outside our core group.

We’ve talked about this before, but the issue is simple: How can a reader be reasonably assured that a particular piece meets professional standards? Well, one will be the appearance somewhere on the book’s cover of these simple words: An Evolved Publishing Recommendation.

And why is that important? For answers, visit Joe Konrath’s website, A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing, and read this article by a writer I’ve long admired: Guest Post by Stephen Leather

‘Til next time, and as always, remember: To write well, you must work hard. To succeed in this tough gig, you mustn’t be lazy (or discouraged).

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I write, therefore I am.

May 31, 2011 / Lane Diamond / 0 Comments

Many people have asked me, “Why do you write?”

Never mind that I’d like to earn my living as an author of fiction. People hear that and think, “Sure, and I want to be the King of Siam.”

Dreams don’t come true in the real world. That’s the line according to most. Sad.

I believe dreams do come true. I’m particularly encouraged by the growth of eBooks for such technological marvels as the Amazon Kindle, the Barnes & Noble Nook, the iPad, the Sony Reader, and even smart phones. For the first time in my lifetime, opportunities for authors are expanding at an extraordinary rate. Our dreams beckon. That we can pursue those dreams with little investment and few roadblocks, quickly and relatively easily… well, that’s just icing on the cake.

Yet what if no one buys my eBooks? What if no one reads them?

I know. That’s crazy! Of course, people will buy them. I mean, come on… seriously.

Nonetheless, in regards to the inevitable follow-up question—”Would you still continue to write?”—my answer is, “What are you, nuts? Yes. Absolutely. Of course, I would still write.”

I must write, even if I’m the only one who reads it. I express myself with words. Writing is the manner by which I release my inner demons, and by which I appeal to my greater angels. Like a hot shower on a cold winter day, writing cleanses my soul, refreshes me, and motivates me to face another day.

I could no more not write than I could not breathe. One is essential to sustain life; the other is necessary to live. Which is which? Exactly.

Aspiring writers should not fear the future; they should embrace it. Nor should they be dissuaded by those self-appointed guardians of the past who determined who would, and who would not, be a published author. I have appointed myself King of My Career as Author, Prince of My Publishing Pursuits, Executive of My eBook Enterprise, and Lord of Dance. Okay, maybe not the last one.

Take charge of yourselves, dear authors and aspiring authors. Venture into the self-publishing eBook realm. But do so with purpose, with intelligence, and with the help of those who share your dreams.

Watch for more on Evolved Publishing. Our website is coming soon. Our futures are right behind it. Our dreams are within our grasp.

‘Til next time, and as always, remember: To write well, you must work hard. To succeed in this tough gig, you mustn’t be lazy (or discouraged).

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Hark! And beware! I must exclaim!

May 28, 2011 / Lane Diamond / 4 Comments

You may have gleamed from the title of this post that I would tackle the use–more specifically, the overuse–of exclamation points. And you would be right.

I believe this occurs when a writer is not confident in his narrative. He feels he must cram the high action and tension, the drama and suspense, even the dialogue volume, down the readers’ throats, lest the readers, whom the writer apparently believes are dullards and idiots, simply don’t get it.

We can insult the intelligence of our readers via many methods, yet few are more irritating than the constant use of exclamation points, as if every other sentence is practically the end of the world.

Please, dear author, show a little confidence that:

1. Your story structure and your narrative voice will properly convey the emotional content.

2. Your readers are intelligent, literate people who will be able to follow your story and cull the emotion from it.

Frankly, if you think you’ve failed at #1 above, tossing in excessive exclamation points will not help. It’s akin to responding to the dying man, who says he’s too weak to stand up, by beating him repeatedly about the head and shoulders and yelling, “Stand up, you weak bastard!”

A general rule of thumb

1. If you have more than 1 exclamation point for every 500 words of text, you PROBABLY have too many.

2. If you have more than 1 exclamation point for every 250 words of text, you ABSOLUTELY have too many.

Once you complete a short piece, or a section of a larger piece, use your word processing program function to find all instances—and provide a tally—of your exclamation points. Apply the guidelines above to determine if you should self-edit before moving on.

Most of the time, if you’re writing effectively, you’ll use more exclamation points in dialogue, which includes a character’s monologue (inner thoughts, expressed by italicized text), than you will in the main narrative, where they should be rare.

Having said that, remember that exclamation points are most effective when they convey not just volume, but emotion. If you wish to make the point that a character is yelling, for example, do so in the dialogue tag or, better yet (I hate heavy dialogue tags), in a lead-in sentence. See the following examples.

Bad: “Jerry, come on down from the roof! We’re heading into town for lunch!” Frank yelled at the top of his lungs.

Good: Frank yelled loud enough for Jerry to hear him up on the roof. “Jerry, come on down. We’re heading into town for lunch.”

REASON: Volume is clearly an issue here, but there is no particular emotion conveyed by Frank. Thus, in the good example, I explain the circumstances prior to the dialogue, in that simple lead-in sentence. Task completed.

Bad: “Tom, get up here on the roof. The bear will get you down there on the ground,” Sue screamed at her husband in absolute terror.

Good: Sue leaned over the edge of the roof and motioned to her husband, who stood on the ground below her. “Tom, get up here! The bear will get you down there!”

REASON: In this case, the exclamation points not only convey the volume, which the reader can easily infer, but they also convey Sue’s obvious emotions. They do so without awkward, heavy-handed dialogue tags. Task completed.

You best utilize exclamation points:

1. In a strong command or curse. curse(kurs) v. To exclaim violently in anger.

2. To convey heightened emotions—fear, anger, anxiety, excitement—that typically imply heightened volume, as well, when used in dialogue.

3. Better yet, to do both #1 and #2.

Finally, if excessive exclamation points are bad for serious fiction (and they are), then doubling or tripling them at a single point is evil incarnate. Don’t do it. Ever! One exclamation point is always enough (at best), and often too much as it is. Two or three or four are ridiculous, the sure sign that an amateur is at work.

The same is true of combining exclamation points with question marks (?!), which is a clear signal that the writer doesn’t know if she’s asking a question or making an exclamation. In her confusion, she does both. Not good. She should build the emotion prior to that moment, so she can simply use the question mark. Editors see this and immediately think, “Geez, another beginner who doesn’t even know the basic rules of punctuation.” They are unlikely to give her work further consideration, other than to reach for the stack of rejection slips at the corner of their desks.

In closing, let me make clear that well-placed exclamation points are a powerful tool for writers. Yet we render them meaningless if we toss them around like monkeys in a poop fight—ineffective, and they really stink after a while. Ironically, writers use exclamation points to drive tension and drama, but when they overuse them, it becomes comical, farcical—the exact opposite of what the writer intended.

Let your language and your story structure do their jobs. Don’t weigh them down with excess baggage.

‘Til next time, and as always, remember: To write well, you must work hard. To succeed in this tough gig, you mustn’t be lazy (or discouraged).

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Rarely Does a Cart Lead the Horse to Good Effect

May 9, 2011 / Lane Diamond / 1 Comment

When I work with my editing clients, I often implore them to adhere to this commandment of effective writing: Keep it strong and direct. In other words: Let the horse lead the cart.

Standard sentence structure is standard for good reason. It works. It relates back to how we all learn to read in the first place. More than that, however, it plays to our innate psychological response to the written word.

Somebody does something, perhaps to someone/something else, possibly in a certain way or in a particular setting. Thus, the standard sentence structure: Subject, Action, Object.

We often dress that up a bit, adding a descriptive or two, character motivation, setting—the how, why, when and where of it. Nonetheless, we typically sandwich the action between the subject committing the act and the object on whom the act is committed—in that order.

We can mix it up on occasion, to break up the rhythm and pace of the prose (preventing the “Lullaby Effect”), or to provide emphasis—a punch—to a particular segment. Yet those exceptions work in large part because they stand out from the rule that guides most of our writing. If those exceptions become the rule of your prose, they lose their effectiveness, their panache. The writing then strikes the reader as a sloppy, choppy, stop-and-start, out-of-order mess.

I offer this example from one of my clients (names changed to protect the not-so-innocent).

ORIGINAL (Bad): Against snow clouds that hid the afternoon sun, Albert saw a gray cliff’s distant summit. A pine forest sprang dark from the foreground. Promising abundance, the forest embraced the nomadic hunters. ver fallen log’s rough bark, slowly turning white, red deer leapt.

REVISED (Good – 1st Alternative): The gray cliff of a distant summit rose against snow clouds that hid the afternoon sun. A pine forest sprang dark from the foreground. The forest embraced the nomadic hunters and promised abundance. Red deer leapt over the rough, whitened bark of a fallen log.

NOTES

1. I reordered the first sentence, placing the horse firmly before the cart.
2. I eliminated the “Albert saw” reference. This is not only TELLING (as opposed to SHOWING), but it is unnecessary given that we’re in Albert’s POV in this segment.
3. I left the second sentence unchanged.
4. I reordered the third sentence. It’s generally bad form to begin a sentence with an Infinite Verb Phrase (“Promising abundance”). Think of it as an act without an actor.
5. I reordered the final sentence.
6. The following alternative also works. It’s a matter of stylistic preference, and of which pace works better at that specific point in the story.

REVISED (Good – 2nd Alternative – slightly different pacing): The gray cliff of a distant summit rose against snow clouds that hid the afternoon sun. A pine forest sprang dark from the foreground, embracing the nomadic hunters and promising abundance. Red deer leapt over the rough, whitened bark of a fallen log.

In the example below, culled from the same story, the author and I agree to violate the rule in the final, underlined segment.

EXCEPTION: Every animal cast its nose upward. They jittered and hesitated, until survival instinct drove them to bolt for safety within the trees to the east. In the forest to the west, and emitting a foul, warning stench, a most deadly predator approached.

This works because of the manner in which the suspense builds throughout the paragraph, and the way in which the final segment reveals the cause of that tension. The author builds the suspense, causes the reader to anticipate with some anxiety the revelation.

Absent a final revelation that packs a punch (the literary device we call “Tension”), this structure would not work. In that case, stick with standard structure. If you try to force it, to create high tension where none exists simply by restructuring your sentences, you will come off as melodramatic, cheesy and amateurish.

‘Til next time, and as always, remember: To write well, you must work hard. To succeed in this tough gig, you mustn’t be lazy (or discouraged).

Is the old brick-and-mortar publishing industry dying?

May 1, 2011 / Lane Diamond / 6 Comments

e-Books continue to dominate the marketplace, and those in the old brick-and-mortar publishing business are sweating bullets.

Many are warning of this trend, and of what it will mean to the business. As an author who’s soon to release his book for the e-Reader market, my question is simple: Who cares?

I don’t mean to be snarky (well, maybe I do), but perhaps if fewer publishers treated authors, the very reason publishers even exist, as a necessary nuisance, the industry would be suffering less. They protest such claims, yet when most authors (those who aren’t already famous and established) can earn so much more by releasing an e-Book, can do so easier (by an unfathomable order of magnitude), can retain their rights for their lifetimes, and must do all their own marketing anyway, why would most authors pay attention to the cries of the old-world publishers?

For too long, in my opinion, publishers have had it precisely backwards. Authors do not exist to support publishers. Publishers exist to support authors. In the end, the work is all that matters—the story/biography/expose/how-to book/etc. The writing is the engine that propels the industry.

It should be a symbiotic relationship, a partnership, a mutually respectful and beneficial arrangement. Yet that often seems to be the case only for established authors, those who’ve already proven themselves a safe bet—beyond risk. I read many blogs and websites that suggest otherwise, that tow the company line, as it were—out of loyalty, or political correctness, or fear.

Part of the reason for the success of e-Books is that many authors and aspiring authors are saying, “Enough is enough.”

Those old-world publishers can fix at least some of their problem, if they would treat budding authors more as partners and less as gambles to which they’re willing to risk little or nothing. Success in any business always involves a fair amount of risk. Every business attempts to minimize it to the greatest extent possible, of course, and well they should. Yet for too many authors, the publisher’s doubts and aversion to risk becomes a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Their sheer incompetence on issues of marketing, alone, makes one wonder if they get it, or if there’s any hope they’ll survive.

They face plenty of challenges, to be sure, and some of those will be daunting, impossible to overcome completely. Yet the sooner they recognize as a group that they no longer own a monopoly, that authors now have options that don’t include them, and therefore no longer need to act as doormats, the sooner those publishers can develop some workable solutions.

Will they do it? Will they dedicate themselves to service and shared rewards? Perhaps. Eventually. After many of them have died off.

It’s a harsh, competitive world out there—as it should be. For the first time in a long time, markets are actually opening up for authors. What a refreshing twist.

If publishers can’t offer authors convenience, service, and value that makes clear they at least recognize the new competitive environment, then many will surely die. And, if that’s the case, then I say, “Good riddance.”

Someone’s taking away the spoiled kids’ silver spoons. Ah shucks.

New opportunities will arise for booklovers and authors alike. If the old fail, the new will step in. That’s the way of the world. Some of those old publishers should go back to school. They seem to have missed a lot the first time around. Or perhaps they got greedy and took too much for granted.

See this online article about the old brick-and-mortar publishers’ continuing demise: Kindle, Nook, Other E-Readers Wrecking Publishing Industry: Report.

‘Til next time, and as always, remember: To write well, you must work hard. To succeed in this tough gig, you mustn’t be lazy (or discouraged).