Michael A. Stackpole's Blog, page 4

I’m not good with death.

I’ve been lucky enough that very few people who I have gotten to know closely have died. None of them have I known for as long or as well as I knew Aaron Allston.

His death hurts. It hurts deeply. I haven’t succeeded in writing about his death before today because the words haven’t been coming. This sort of loss is something I would prefer to deal with privately. Maybe I’d share it with a close circle of friends. And now that circle is missing one of its most supportive members.

Any one memory of Aaron cascades into dozens of memories. Aaron and I met on a cross-country road trip to Origins thirty-two years ago. He sent me a rejection slip thirty-one years ago. Shortly after that, Hero Games hired both of us to design and write Justice, Inc.. Aaron was a friend for the whole of my adult life, and my creative life. There are not enough words—even among writers who have a license to make them up as we go—to encapsulate even a fraction of that.

I’ve read many of the tributes posted online about Aaron. Right about at the time when I feel all teared out, someone new says something else wonderful, something that makes me think, “Yeah, that was Aaron.” Many people have regretted only knowing him through his novels or games. Lots of you have talked about only meeting him once, or hearing him on a couple of panels.

I want you to know that all of you knew Aaron, the real Aaron. Those of us who were lucky enough and honored to log more hours in his company didn’t know him better, we just knew him more. Aaron was the man you meet in his books. He was the man you saw on panels. He was the man who would listen and smile, and listen more.

I’ve seen lots written about his quick wit. He was deadly with a pun. He was deadlier with an insight. He could deliver an ego-piercing comment with a sniper’s skill and the timing that professional comics lust after. Those remarks, as accurate and lethal as they were, never were delivered in a mean-spirited way. He just kept all of us honest and on the rare occasions when we’d needle him back, he took things with philosophical resignation and great, good humor.

Many people have mentioned that Aaron was a fiercely loyal friend. When a friend had been slighted, he’d be the first to offer sympathy, and then a plan for setting things to right. Always with a smile and that sly, devilish twinkle in his eyes. And a pun, usually.

Aaron also had a delightful, impish ability to tackle a problem from a different angle, and his artful delivery of insights about absurdity served him best when he was protecting friends. Two years ago, when preparing the first Origins fiction anthology, I used Amazon’s Create Space to put the book Time Traveled Tales together. We were doing a limited run of 500, which I ordered for the convention. In doing so, I left a box on some webpage unchecked, so our exclusive collection could, if someone was looking for it, be ordered direct from Amazon.

One of the authors in the collection noticed that the book was on sale. Said author was a bit alarmed about “unauthorized sales” and shot an inquiry off to all the authors on the little listserv we’d set up. The message, written in haste, could have been read to suggest that I was going to be pocketing a fortune off these illicit sales. Heck, that’s how I read it, and I was both chagrined and a bit pissed about having my integrity questioned because of an honest mistake.

I immediately looked into the problem, checked the unchecked box to kill further sales, and reported back that the unauthorized sales had netted an entire $18. I apologized for the error to the listserv, then noted I’d be happy, at the convention, to hand each author $1 the second I saw them.

All was quiet on the western front.

Then Aaron weighed in.

I wasn’t there when he read the original message, but I know what his reaction was—his physical reaction. Heel of the hand to his forehead, eyes squeezed shut, and a muttered, “Oh, Good Grief.” Aaron could say those words with the pain of a parent who’s just discovered a crayon mural on the living room wall, and yet with the bemusement of that same parent admitting that at least the artist used a nice palette of colors.

In his reply, Aaron said he didn’t want the $1. He said, instead, he wanted me to write an eighteen word story, then buy it from myself for $1 a word. Aaron explained this was because he, “wanted to know someone who got paid $1 a word for a story.” In that beautiful, short note, he defended my honesty and pointed out the ridiculousness of the whole situation. And did it from an angle that had the rest of us laughing.

I did reply that I’d do him one better. I wrote a four word story, so I’d get $4.50 a word. Here, dedicated to Aaron, is:

Fish Food

Shit. The shark’s back.

I think, were I to rewrite it now, it would be six words:

Oh, Good Grief. The shark’s back.

Though I’d known Aaron for many years, exchanging emails, rooming together at a convention or just hanging out when friends got together at a con; it was in the last decade that our friendship deepened and became stronger. That started when he joined the universe of Star Wars™ writers, then progressed as he and I worked together to create and present a highly successful slate of writing classes at conventions like Origins and DragonCon, at Arizona State University, and at Dragon’s Lair in his home city of Austin. Our goals in teaching were to demystify writing and provide our students with a wealth of tools and strategies that would make writing easier and more effective. We taught writing as its done in the trenches, so new writers could turn out the kinds of stories that they want to tell, and we like to read.

Fairly often we each attended the other’s lectures. Listening to Aaron teach was a pure joy. I always marveled not only at Aaron’s insights, but the wealth of examples he used to illustrate points. He was a well-read man who found a way to simplify the complexities of writing. He never taught from the guru position of, “This is how I do it, so you should too.” Instead he would offer ways it could be done, encouraging the students to be curious and to play.

Those of you who took Aaron’s classes, you were truly fortunate. Aaron was one of the most natural and gifted teachers I’ve ever met. Aaron had no pretension and tolerated no pretension—all he wanted was that you write to the best of your ability, and that you enjoyed what you were doing. And, for all of you, the best way to honor Aaron is to keep writing and keep feeding your dreams.

There were times, before and after classes, when you might have seen Aaron and me huddled at the front of the room, chatting, smiling, even laughing. It was from the pure delight of teaching and watching faces when lightbulbs went off in heads. Every time someone said “I’ve learned more in two hours here than I have in years of taking classes,”—and there were many—it was better than getting the Nobel for Literature. Aaron and I particularly took delight in people returning for a second day who felt compelled to say, “I hate you. Because of you I stayed up all night revising my novel.” And even better were those who said, “Thank you. What you said let me fix the problem in my book.”

Aaron really had a passion for teaching. The last time I saw him was in November, when we taught two days of seminars at Dragon’s Lair in Austin. The previous February he’d come to Arizona State University to teach at the Desert Nights, Rising Stars conference, and had agreed to be one of the writer-mentors in the Your Novel Year program. On my list of things to do was to double-check with him on the program of classes we were going to offer at Origins and DragonCon for 2014. Doing those classes may have been exhausting, but Aaron was at his best teaching them.

Aaron was the best of friends when it came to listening to, plotting and collaborating on wild schemes. Many of our conversations of late covered the changing nature of the publishing industry. He generously helped me refine many of my plans. Some of you even attended the panel at DragonCon last year where Aaron, Timothy Zahn and I talked about collaborating and even began working on the project right there. You saw his genius and how much fun he had in putting together projects that let him work with friends. (I’ve already spoken with Tim, and we will be making that project happen.)

Many people, when they pass, are lauded as having “touched many lives.” Aaron enhanced them. His stories have brought smiles, provided escape and sanctuary, and even life lessons to and for his readers. His teaching has enabled lots of young and new writers to start along that path to attain their dreams. And his good sense and humor and friendship has kept people like me encouraged and sane. That he made my life better is an understatement, and the future will still be powered by his influence.

There will also be a future for Aaron’s work. Before his death he’d completed a full novel. This year’s Origins’ anthology will have one of his stories. His family has determined that his work will remain available. Aaron’s friends are going to do those things which need to be done to make sure the gift of his stories is not lost. Nor the gift of his teachings for writers.

I would have written about Aaron sooner, except that part of me wanted to believe that if I could delay things, for a day or hour or minutes or even a second, somehow he wouldn’t be gone. That’s the kind of thing we get to do in our books—create miracles. It’s pure magic thinking, and I know that. Worse, Aaron would be kidding me for indulging in it.

I’ll face the truth. I’ve lost a very good friend, and I’ll be feeling that loss for the rest of my life. But, I’ll take solace in the fact that when I need to visit Aaron, I can pick up one of his books and find him there. And I can smile knowing that there are plenty of other people who will find him there, too.

And if there is anything that eases my heartache, it’s this: I know that Aaron will be in Heaven, because there’s no way the Devil is going to put up with those puns.

You are sorely missed, my friend, but never forgotten.

Just in time for Super Bowl parties, I thought I would share my recipe for a Garlic Aioli dip. I first had garlic aioli at Delux Burger in Phoenix. They serve it as a dip for sweet potato fries, and it was delicious. I don’t recall ever asking for their recipe, but a server once listed the ingredients. Later, at Tapas Papa Frita, a restaurant in Scottsdale, I ran into another garlic aioli dip, which was also delightful. I decided to reverse-engineer the dip and the results of my experiments has met with rave reviews.

Ingredients:

2 cups mayonaise

1/2 cup sour cream

One garlic bulb, large (or two medium)

One teaspoon of smoked paprika (or regular paprika, but smoked is available in most grocery stores)

salt and pepper to taste

Using a garlic-press, smash the entire bulb worth of garlic cloves into a paste. Put the garlic into a bowl. Add the mayo and sour cream. Using a whisk, throughly mix the ingredients. Add the paprika and continue whisking until it’s all a uniform pinkish-red. Taste, add salt and pepper if needed. It’s ready to eat at this point, but gets better if you refridgerate. I’m not sure how long it will keep. At least a week, but I don’t recall it ever lasting that long.

Serve with chips or bread. Getting a rounded loaf of sour dough or pumpernickel bread and using that to make a serving bowl is a cool way to serve the dip. Just don’t put it into the bread too soon, or the bread will get soggy.

NOTE: You definitely want to get and use a garlic press. I made this once without one. I resorted to using a grater, which worked, but was not easy on the fingers.

I’ve been seeing a lot written about how the rental of ebooks is the next big thing on the digital horizon. Most often the argument is framed as “looking for the Netflix of ebooks.” On the surface, when framed like that, the concept is brilliant. After all, look what Netflix did for Blockbuster. Borders is already gone—surely Barnes & Noble is just waiting for a push. A solid rental system could be that push.

Oysterbooks.com and Scribd.com both offer a great deal: all the ebooks you can devour for $10 or less a month. Oysterbooks will allow you to download up to ten books to read offline. Oyster has over 100,000 titles available, and Scribd is working out deals with self-published authors to make their books available. It seems like rental books are poised to erupt.

I have some problems with this idea that I thought I’d share.

1) I don’t really understand the economic model. From what I’ve read, publishers will be paid per rental read (and how that’s defined depends on the lender, but it’s usually a percentage of the book). They’ll get an amount comparable to what they’d get for a sale. That’s got to be somewhere between 30-50% of cover price for that statement to be true. Or, as with Kindle Direct, a portion of the rental money is pooled, and then is doled out in a weighted, pro-rata share depending on the rental book’s price and any sweetheart price support worked into the licensing deal.

The model works only if a) we go with the pool idea, where the service company will get its cut off the top and/or b) subscribers actually read the average number of books or fewer—the average set based on some research from somewhere. (Where they’d get the data, I’m not sure. Amazon’s not coughing up sales numbers for ebooks, and I can’t imagine any publishers are, either.) In Oyster’s case, if a reader can have 10 books in his queue for $10 a month, the publisher will have to be getting less than a dollar per book read, or Oyster loses money.

From a writer’s standpoint, the pool is a pain since a new Harry Potter book, or the next Dan Brown book, will suck all the money out of the pool. Therefore, one month a rental of one of my books is worth $1, and the next month it’s worth 30 cents, through no fault of my own. A flat fee per read works better, but that model could bleed the renting companies dry if readers exceed their expectations in terms of consumption. The companies up the monthly fee or put a limit on available books, resulting in a drop in subscribers. This makes the company more solvent, but lowers their clout in terms of getting special deals because of the number of subscribers they have using their service.

I’m sure much smarter folks than I have worked all these numbers out, but when I can get 70% of cover price or more selling a book, and would have to take significantly less without any guarantee of making it up in volume, I don’t see what’s in it for me.

2) Why rent when libraries lend for free? Ignoring for the moment that there are tons of ebooks available for free on the net (Gutenberg.org, archive.org), local libraries have been making ebooks available for a long time, for free. Why would you pay money for things you can get for free? (Trick question, I know.)

3) The reason I don’t think a Netflix for ebooks will work is because of the nature of how we consume books. Long before Netflix came along, we’d been trained that media (radio, TV, Movies and sporting events) were transient. Miss them and they’re gone. They’re not keepers. While sales of DVDs and tapes allowed people to buy or record shows, the rental for same reinforced the idea that experiencing them is transient. In Blockbuster’s heyday, you had three days to watch a movie. Now if you rent online, it’s as little as 24 hours. There is an etherial quality to passive entertainment that gives it very little weight. If we miss it, big deal. We’ll catch the rerun or borrow it. How many folks have tons of shows on their DVRs that they delete so they can record other shows? Probably the same number that used to tape over old shows for new on video cassettes.

Books have a permanence to them. I submit that if the Netflix model would have worked with books at all, it would have flourished well before Netflix ever touched movies. In many ways, to return to the point above, that’s exactly the function libraries served—and still do for a segment of the population.

But in the USA, a book borrowed from the library is paired with a dozen or so sales. We just like the idea of owning books. We’ve been trained to like it. We revere the home library. It impresses people. So much knowledge, all there, in paper, available at a moment’s notice. Not every book we read will we keep, mind you, but those we do keep, we love obsessively.

4) I know that rental books seem like an economic bonanza. Imagine, for $10 you can read 10 books a month! You’d not be wrong in asking yourself “Who has the time to read 10 books in a month?” I agree, which goes to a point that I don’t see made very often.

A person’s book budget is not figured in money alone. Each book is a time commitment. Heft a book and you can estimate how long it will take to read. In terms of entertainment value, most paperbacks come out to around $1 an hour or less for entertainment. But books are not meals. They don’t go bad if you don’t consume them all at once. Which is why we all have stacks of books on bedside tables that we’re only part of the way through. We can pick them up any time we want and continue the adventure; and the delay between reading sessions can be minutes, days or even years.

And that’s not counting the books we use as mental comfort food. Those we consume in tiny bits, here and there, over years and years.

My point here is this: books demand a time commitment which ignores the calendar. A rental plan is based on the calendar. There’s a basic disconnect there which, I think, is going to require a couple of generations to restructure—and since I don’t see anyone making a valid effort at restructuring it, the clock on those generations hasn’t started ticking.

5) Unless I’m misreading contracts, I don’t see where publishers have secured the rights to rent my books out. I suspect there will be lawsuits launched in the future to determine how that shakes out. However, that doesn’t mean that writers should decide, right now, what we want to be paid for rental rights to our books. Frankly, we all know that the 25% of ebook income we’re offered in contracts now is ridiculous, even shameful. Since publishers are doing exactly zero work to earn this income, I think a 75% shot to the author (reversing the ebook split) is a good place to start. And we might as well stake our claim now, since publishers won’t decide on what to offer us until after rental books take off, much in the same way they waited for the ebook market to ripen before they came in lockstep to offer us the 25%.

Fact is, I don’t know if rental ebooks will take off or not. I think one hedge authors can do to compete there is to do what I do with my ebooks. Sure, the basic edition of a book is available for rental, but the deluxe or super-deluxe version is purchase only. Heck, one could even put a coupon code for the latter in a rental book so readers come back to your site to make the purchase.

Rental ebooks may have a future. I just don’t think it’s one that any of us have imagined yet.

__________________________

Creating blog posts about the business of writing cuts into my fiction writing time. If you find posts like this useful, and haven’t yet gotten yet snagged my latest novels, please consider purchasing a book. Nice thing about the new age of publishing is that you become a Patron of the Arts, letting writers know what you’d like to see more of simply by voting with a credit card. (Authors charge less when they sell direct, so you save, we make more, and that frees us to write more.)

Tricknomancy is a braided novel. That’s author for a serial story told through a number of shorter pieces that all come together as a novel. Think of it in terms of a television series. This is series one, consisting of seven episodes. The stories feature Trick Molloy, a magick-using, ex-cop who left the force because he was framed for being a dirty cop. He now works as a bouncer in a strip club, helping friends, solving murders and dealing with an insane family, most of whom would like to see him dead or worse. It’s available for the Kindle, and for sale directly off my website for any epub compliant ereaders.

The Gencon contest has produced a winner. The Judges and I had a tough time sorting through all the submissions. The creativity of the contestants really put a smile on our faces—and made me happy for the future of the human race. If the Zombi Apocalypse comes, I’m sure the contestants will be among the survivors. (Or, if by some horrid circumstance they get turned, the rest of us are screwed.)

Our winner is Rex Timbs. He made the whole production effort a family affair, gathering up the components and posing them. The Judges were especially struck with the franchise on franchise violence. Given that I was bouncing back and forth between Star Wars and BattleTech when writing the novels, this image captured various fever dreams I had at the time.

Image ©2013 Rex Timbs

Thank you, Rex.

Rex is being sent two four-day passes to Gencon. I’ll also do my best to get a picture with Rex, and then post it here to prove we had a real winner. (I’m also sending something to the other contestants to thank them for participating in this first contest.)

And I will be doing more contests. This was fun. I have a variety of things piling up here that need a good home, so stay tuned!

As I noted in my previous post, I have been traveling a lot. I’ve been away from home in July more than I’ve been here. Fact is, I love traveling and attending conventions.

And, thanks to the folks at Gencon, you have a chance to travel, too.

Gencon, the “Best Four Days in Gaming,” and the Gencon Writers Symposium are letting me give a talented and creative reader of this blog a chance to win free admission to the convention. You’ll still have to get there and cover your own housing, but you and a friend will get into the show for free. (Plus, and I’m tossing this in just cuz, if you come to any of my writing seminars, you won’t have to pay for them.) This is two FREE 4-day passes to Gencon.

And as an even better added bonus, since 75% of the Writer Symposium seminars are free with a badge, you can get tons of great writing advice from writers for free. You’ll also be able to listen to some great readings by the guest authors.

To determine who wins, we’ll have a contest. Herewith are the rules:

1) To enter you must create a picture of yourself reading one of my books. (Or, if you want, a number of action figures reading or otherwise using the books in some way, shape or form.) If you are reading on an e-reader, some creative photoshopping to show off a cover illustration is permitted.

2) Upload the picture to Facebook or Flickr or some other website, and post a link to the picture in the comment section of this post. I’ll review the entry, then approve the comment so others can see your work.

3) Pictures should all be PG-13, PG or G.

4) Pictures will be judged based on creativity; with points for interesting locations, humor, use of costumes and/or the aforementioned action figures, active-duty military in uniform and anyone who knows what KCCO means. I will use a panel of experts to do the judging.

5) All entries must be posted to the comment section of this post by Midnight, 2 August 2013.

6) For every thirty entries, I’ll come up with some other prizes (Signed books, etc..) to send out.

7) Each person may post one entry to the contest. (If you are doing a group shot, each member of the group could post a separate version of that shot.) The owner of the email address associated with the comment will be the person to whom the passes are awarded. The passes will be mailed to you prior to the show.

Good luck, and let your creativity flow!

The last month and a half have been a whirlwind for me—so much so that I’ve spent more time out of my house than in it. Phoenix ComiCon was very successful, and two weeks after that I was in Columbus, Ohio for the Origins Game Faire. The weekend after that found me in Albuquerque for the Albuquerque Comic Expo, then six days after my return from there, I boarded a plane to Prague and the Fantasy Festival in Chotebor. Since the middle of June I’ve logged about 20,000 air miles, shaken countless hands and have had wonderful conversations with a ton of absolutely fantastic people.

I know I’ve mentioned this before in posts—writing can be rather solitary. It’s only when a writer gets out into the world and talks to readers that he gets any real sense of the fun and joy folks get out of his work. Seeing people dressed up as characters I’ve created, or watching them smile as I talk about a scene here, or answer a question about a book; that’s where the writing becomes the real interaction between readers and me. Sure, authors can use inventory numbers, sales figures and money to keep score, but when you see that your work inspires other people’s creativity, the feeling I get inside is all warm and fuzzy and pretty much takes my breath away.

Thank you, everyone, very much.

Writers say that they’d keep writing even if we weren’t getting paid. (We just don’t say it too loudly around publishers.) We write because something inside us demands to get out. It wants to be shared. The fact that our stories find receptive hearts and minds out there is simply amazing. The fact that you trust me enough to let me hijack your imagination and entertain you for hours is a humbling experience, and one that I will forever treasure.

While I was on the road, two projects launched and I’ve not had a chance to mention them here yet. Time Traveled Tales is a Kickstarter project I’m involved in with eighteen other authors, including Timothy Zahn and Aaron Allston. TTT is a new edition of the Origins Game Faire limited edition anthology, released at the convention in 2012. The project is very special because the authors all entered a profit-sharing agreement. After production costs are met, like paying our artist, the money earned will be split between the authors and an equal share will go to a literacy charity. This model, which I put together along with Silence in the Library, is designed to rewrite the way authors get paid for projects.

TTT launched while we were at Origins, and within a week had reached its initial funding goal. As of this posting the project has raised over $16,000, which means we’ve added more stories, more illustrations and more bonus content. The next stretch goal is at $17,000, and the big one is at $20,000. There’s only four days left to get in on the project. You’ll get some great fiction and literally reshape the future of publishing.

I want to thank everyone who’s already joined us as supporters, and especially those who have shared the project with friends. Turning them on to this deal is a great way to help us hit the stretch goals and create more content for each and every supporter.

The second project is running over at StoryBundle.com. Kevin J. Anderson invited eight very talented authors and publishers to join him in offering DRM-free ebook copies of our novels for a package deal. The trick is this: you pay whatever you want to get seven of them. If you pay more than $10, you get two extra novels. These books are by Kevin J. Anderson, Kristine Kathyrn Rusch, Mike Resnick, B. V. Larson, David Farland, Frank Herbert, Gregory Benford, Lightspeed Magazine and me. That’s a lot of great reading for next to nothing. It’s definitely a deal you don’t want to miss—and lots of folks, so far, are taking full advantage of it.

The changes to publishing have impacted the lives of writers and readers pretty much the same way a meteor hitting Mexico impacted the lives of the dinosaurs. What’s been amazing is how readers have embraced these new programs like Kickstarter and StoryBundle. I’ve talked to a lot of writers this summer, from Phoenix to Prague and points in between. All of us know that the only thing keeping us in the game are readers who are willing to support writers they enjoy. As I’ve told readers, if you keep buying, I’ll keep writing.

I love this job, and I can’t thank you enough for letting me continue doing it day after day.

I’ve been a huge proponent of digital publishing down through the years. In fact, I take great delight at watching other pundits holding forth on discoveries they’ve made, which are identical to things I was saying five years ago. These would be things concerning the pricing of books, the rise in popularity of series fiction and a whole bunch more. Even though I don’t get a lot of credit for that sort of thing, its still fun to see.

One of the cooler aspects of advancing technology is that it’s reducing the cost of printing books. Print on Demand still hasn’t had prices fall to the point where it’s economical to sell into stores, but for limited runs, it really works well. Last year and this, the Origins Game Fair has produced limited edition fiction anthologies with stories by the authors at the show. That’s only possible because of print on demand. (And in this year’s collection, Heroes!, I have a brand new story set in the In Hero Years universe, featuring Puma.)

I’ve gone ahead and produced print on demand editions of three of my digital-only (or hitherto digital-only) books: In Hero Years… I’m Dead, Tricknomancy and Mysterious Ways. In fact, depending upon the conventions you catch me at this summer, I might actually have copies for sale, right there. Because of the cost of shipping books, I’m only printing them in small numbers, but using the links below you can get one printed up for your reading pleasure.

Don’t let it shock you: physical books cost more than digital downloads—at least, in the world of print on demand they do. I’ve priced each of these books at $15.00, though Amazon may discount them now and again. What’s curious is that even though the books cost more than the digital, I actually make less on each sale. I make the best profit when I order in bulk and sell direct; but since we all know how heavy books are, you’ll understand why I’m not going to carry a hefty inventory to each show.

This weekend, at Phoenix Comicon, I’ll have ample copies of each book on hand. Ample, in this case, means 22. Get them fast. As always, at any show, I’ll be happy to sign your books.

The really cool thing about print on demand publishing making physical books available at a reasonable retail price is that we can maintain that wonderful tradition of having a library of books on shelves. While I really enjoy reading on my iPad, I take great delight in having a single room in the house with shelves floor to ceiling, stuffed with books. To me, that’s how it’s supposed to be. Other folks can have their happy place being a beach or a mountain cabin—for me, all I want is a library packed with books. Okay, and having a secret passage in there somewhere is cool, too.

As always, I really appreciate your support in my career. If you’ve passed up reading my digital-only books because they were digital-only, here’s a chance to see what you’ve been missing.

As has been bruited about all over the ‘Net, Skyhorse heavily amended its letter of agreement to authors earlier this week. I’ve finally been sent a copy, got a chance to review it, and have decided I’ll sign.

The agreement isn’t perfect. I still have my royalties cut, but not nearly as drastically as before. The ebooks royalty clause actually includes an escalator—as more books sell, my percentage goes up—which is a good precedent to have set in that realm. Other clauses have been modified or added that make the sort of nightmare scenarios I outlined in last week’s posts unlikely. The audio book and second serial rights clause was changed to include a sunset provision and the pass-through wording I wanted.

While I do have to make some concessions to allow the deal to go through, I’m okay with that. It saves me the time of dealing with a bankruptcy court. It makes sure that authors get paid. Both of those are positive things. And the fact is that in the changing landscape of publishing, even these concessions might not have been enough to make the Skyhorse model function in fiction marketplace. We’ll have to wait and see. As publishers feel themselves getting squeezed, and they turn around and squeeze authors, authors are going to have to make decisions about how they’re approaching the future. Those decisions will doubtlessly accelerate any changes going forward.

By no means is the Night Shade saga over. If Night Shade sells off the assets, then declares bankruptcy, a court could come back in an invalidate the whole deal. Presumably Skyhorse, who has acquired other publishers under similar circumstances, knows how to deal with that possibility. Once the deal is finalized, Skyhorse will have to evaluate the inventory, hire staff, start scheduling production, and see what they really have purchased. That, too, will be an interesting journey.

I really do appreciate Skyhorse and Start for being willing to move to a more equitable solution for authors. I’d also like to thank folks who posted very thoughtful comments about my essays, either here on my site, or in their own blog posts. The fact that so many of the points I raised were addressed in the new letter of agreement means that your drawing attention to my analysis really gave the folks at Skyhorse something to consider. Authors getting together and protesting an unfair deal had an impact, and that’s a lesson that may stand us in good stead in the future.

So, very hopefully and with happiness, I’ll sign on and will let you know what’s next for An Ungrateful Rabble as things move forward.

I’ve had a few more thoughts on the NSB/Skyhorse Publishing deal.

1) Jeremy Lassen, co-owner of Night Shade Books, posted a letter talking about the deal. In it he mentions, straight up, that the folks who are going to purchase Night Shade need “to make back their investment.” This is cited as the basis for asking authors for concessions.

I did some quick, back-of-the-envelope calculations. In the Kindle store alone, there are approximately 150 Night Shade Books titles. The average price is roughly $9.99. If the ebooks sell at a rate of 100 a year, which is the minimum they need to avoid reversion, and if Start will be paying 25% of what they receive to authors, that group of books will generate (((150 x $9.99 x 100) x.5) x.75) approximately $56K and change per year for Start. That’s without Start having to do a thing but cash checks from Amazon, since the ebook conversion is already done.

I don’t know what the overall deal number is, but the above is a rough ballpark of the minimum they’ll be earning each year on ebooks alone. That should go a long way to helping them make their money back.

2) A really unsettling part of this deal is that we’re being asked to sign off without seeing any numbers or having any chance to verify the amounts that we’ve been told we’re owed. Basically, this is a request to trust NSB and Skyhorse that the numbers are right. Assuming they are, the numbers (which were due in the beginning of March by contract anyway) could also allow authors to address another point. (See below.) The fact is that we’re being asked to make a very important decision, and not being given the information upon which we can make an informed choice.

Let’s make no mistake about it: sign the agreement, accept the payment, and the Night Shade slate is wiped clean with no recourse. You’re signing off on a number that you can’t verify. That’s someone who owes you money handing you an envelope, telling you it’s all there, and asking you to agree that the debt is paid before you get a chance to count the cash. And while it’s likely true that folks on the Skyhorse/Smart side are more than willing to talk about what they’ve been told you’re owed, the fact is that such numbers should have been sent to all of the authors for consideration along with the offer.

3) Here’s the really nasty point: What is the real viability of any book or series that’s been caught up in all this? Given the current publishing environment, I’m not terribly optimistic.

Take, for example, my Crown Colony series. My first book, At the Queen’s Command, sold fantastically. Everyone was thrilled with the numbers. The second book, Of Limited Loyalty, tanked. Sales were off over 50% from the previous book. In a conversation with Jason Williams, he said the reason was because NSB failed to let folks know the book was out there. Failure of book promotion is nothing new in the industry. It happens.

The trick is that NSB’s failure has long-term repercussions for me. Bookstores regularly look at the numbers for the last book in a series and order fewer than that for any new volume. This means the preorders for An Ungrateful Rabble might not even be enough for a publisher to print the book. If you don’t think books can be canceled because of a lack of pre-orders, you’ve not been in the business very long.

The transfer of the contracts sets up a new dynamic. Since a publisher who has picked up the contract would owe me the advance for delivery, they could decide to cut their losses and reject the book because until they accept it and put it into production, their cost and risk is zero. They could decide that paying the acceptance advance is just throwing good money after bad.

Authors really need to think about that. With ebook and audiobook sales generating income from the NSB backlist, the only way Skyhorse/Start go further into the hole is by deciding to edit, produce, print and distribute new books. Unless a book is a clear winner—and a book in a series or by an author where the previous book was a sales disaster because of NSB’s failure is not a winner—Skyhorse has no incentive to accept or produce the book. None.

It pains me to write those words, and not because I’m talking about the future of my own book. It’s because I’m talking about every book that hasn’t been delivered yet. Authors complete a book, the publisher rejects the book, and the authors are stuck with an orphan volume that no other publisher is going to touch. And, given how the rights assignments are set up in the contract, Skyhorse could accept it for print publication, sell the audio rights to cover the advance, and use Start to make money off the ebook sales, without ever doing a print edition—unless the ebook took off. They make plenty of money, minimizing the riskiest part of their business, and eventually set it up for POD to establish minimal sales so the book won’t revert, or they let the physical rights revert and still end up ahead of the game.

Skyhorse could also take a page out of professional sports. They refuse to accept a book, and then tell the author, “We ran the numbers. The book doesn’t work at your NSB acceptance advance. But, if you’re willing to take half that, we can do business.” The author, who has spent time completing that volume, is over a barrel—especially so if the book is one in a series. Does he take a lump of cash, or does he start down the road to self-publishing that tome?

4) I goofed badly yesterday when I failed to note that the rights grab for audio and second serial rights clause did not include payment pass-through language. It notes that money gained will be split 50/50 between publisher and author, but said nothing about when authors would be paid. While I don’t like that clause at all, at least including a provision that would pass the money through 30 days from receipt by the publisher would have made it a bit more attractive.

As I said in the previous post, I like Jeremy and Jason and everyone else at NSB. I don’t know the folks at Skyhorse, but I’ll happily assume they’re fine, upstanding people. Just for the sake of argument, we’ll toss the folks behind Start Publishing in that mix, too. As Jeremy’s letter makes clear, they want a return on their investment. I get that. I respect it. I applaud it.

That same desire for a return on investment tells me that authors have to be very careful in analyzing what will make the best business sense for Skyhorse/Start. To me, the plan that makes the most sense is to squeeze the ebook market for all its worth, sell audio rights in bulk for quick cash and then cherry-pick the projects that have a high return potential going forward. Any property that doesn’t, I sell as literary scrap. I don’t know that this is what they are going to do. This is what I would do were I in charge. You know, to get my money back.

When I read Jeremy’s letter, I feel for him. I feel for everyone at NSB. Having been in the gaming industry for ages, and publishing for almost as long, I’ve seen circumstances put dozens of companies down. I very much appreciate the fact that Jeremy and Jason have worked to broker a deal that will let them get out from under, and get their authors some money. I can see that this would be a great relief for them.

But, as a business man, I have to ask, “What’s in it for me?” So far, I don’t see that anything is.

It’s no secret that Night Shade Books has had financial trouble over the last several years. Jason Williams has been quite frank about their difficulties, both in public and in private conversations with me. I sympathize—Night Shade chose to expand their list just as the economy collapsed and as digital books sales became an increasingly important part of bookselling. Borders’ going out of business really dealt NSB a severe blow—one from which they’ve not been able to recover.

NSB recently sent a letter to all of their authors announcing that they were in negotiations with Skyhorse Publishing to complete an “acquisition of assets.” In essence, Skyhorse would pick up all their assets, assume none of their liabilities, but would pay NSB a sum of money which, according to the letter, would pay off outstanding debts to authors. If such a sale cannot be completed, NSB states clearly that they’re broke, and that who knows what a Bankruptcy Court will do with author property in any settlement.

Now, to be paid, authors just have to agree to some slight modifications of their contracts. I’ll go into those modifications below in greater detail. If enough authors do not agree to the new terms, the deal will be off, and the fate of our property is uncertain. SFWA (The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) sent an advisory note to its member authors who are published by NSB, suggesting that this settlement is “likely in the best interest” of members who have NSB contracts.

I disagree with that opinion. I also disagree with the deal as offered. My agent and my lawyer concur.

It is critical for anyone reading this essay to bear in mind that I like the folks at NSB. I don’t know anyone at Skyhorse, but I’ll assume they’re all wonderful folks who love books and SF and fantasy and are thrilled at the idea of rescuing the NSB catalog from future difficulties. I’m sure this is an impression that was passed on to SFWA and informed, in part, the board’s discussions and recommendations. I’m sure the offer is being made in good faith, in hopes that it sees to the best interests of all parties concerned.

That said, I’ve always found it useful to measure any agreement not by what someone tells me they will be doing, but what I imagine their heirs or evil twins could do with the contract terms. Yes, it’s a very cynical way of looking at things. Fact of the matter is, I’ve been and am still embroiled in disputes where one company has been engulfed by another, and that company, in turn, has been devoured by yet another. Net result, I don’t get paid, my lawyer gets ignored and I get a touch cranky.

There are several points in the Night Shade Books letter of agreement (which modifies my contracts) that are ripe for abuse. Again, I’m not saying anyone will abuse the terms, but why sign anything where those terms are in the contract? And, no, I’ve not reached out to Skyhorse to negotiate different terms. That would come later, after NSB’s fate has been decided, and Skyhorse can decide if they really wanted my books, or wanted other books that happened to be in the basket with mine.

1) Old Debts: Authors are told that receipts from the sale would go to paying off all royalties and unpaid advances outstanding. I am given to believe that the money would be paid into an escrow account, with disbursement coming within two months of the deal’s finalization. However, details of the escrow account and payment schedule are not included in the agreement. If they are not there, they’re not enforceable. If that is the way things are going to be handled, the details should be in the agreement.

2) Physical Book Royalties: The agreement requires authors to accept a royalty rate of 10% of Net income. Net is defined as the amount of money the booksellers and distributors pay Skyhorse—usually 50% of cover price. For me this net amount is a 50% reduction in my royalty rate.

More importantly, net income is illusory. Let’s say that Skyhorse, in order to get more of my books into a store, offers a distributor or chain an extra 30% off, on the condition that they buy an extra dozen books. So, 36 copies of a $15 book pays Skyhorse $189, of which I make $18.90 as opposed to the $27 I’d make if all 36 had been sold at a normal price, or the $54 I’d make under the NSB contract. (Extra discounts for promotion happen all the time, and might even rope in my books to promote another author’s work.) Moreover, the accounting to make sure that all the right amounts were paid will be all but impossible without an audit.

Even assuming, as I do, that Skyhorse will be above board and pay me everything I’m owed, I still have a fundamental problem. Why, all of a sudden, are my words worth half what they were before? How does that track? Had I been offered then the terms I’m getting now, I wouldn’t have taken the contract.

3) Ebook Royalties: The agreement requires me to lower my cut of ebook income from 50% to 25%. Skyhorse might have a shred of an argument if they actually had to put money into the production of the ebooks, but they don’t. That’s pure turnkey, so why do I take half of what I was getting before? That makes no sense. There’s no expense to them, so digital income is pure profit.

4) Audio and second serial rights: The agreements stipulates that I’ll grant Skyhorse audio and second serial rights to my books—rights which NSB never purchased. They want these rights for no money up front. Moreover, the clause says that the author will be consulted on the sale of same, but that “approval shall not be unreasonably denied, delayed or withheld.” Income from the sale of these rights will be split 50/50 between Skyhorse and the author.

This can lead us to an interesting situation for which there is ample precedent in the publishing world. The publisher forms a sister corporation to handle audio book production and sales. They sell a property to the sister corporation for a tiny advance and pitiful royalty. The sister company makes the money actually selling the product, and yet the publisher can say that they’re following the letter of the contract because they’re splitting all income half and half. (Harlequin just had a lawsuit dismissed against them for doing a similar thing with ebooks.)

I’m not saying Skyhorse will do this, but someone who buys them out just might. And, it should be noted, that all digital publishing rights are already assigned, in the agreement, to a sister corporation called Start Publishing, LLC. (Start Publishing LLC is a subsidiary of Start Media, a privately held media company with interests in, among other things, feature film production.) Skyhorse and Smart are not buying books here, they’re buying Intellectual Properties, and at a bargain price.

5) Term of Copyright: The agreement is a “term of copyright” agreement which, unless I badly misunderstand SFWA’s complaints about the Random House HYDRA contract, was a sticking point there.

6) Reversion Clauses: Reversion clauses allow an author to request a return of all rights granted if, after two years from the date of publication, the book goes out of print. Out of print is defined as fewer than 100 copies sold per annum for a physical book, and less than 100 copies sold for a digital book in a twelve month period. The publisher has six months to reprint the book, and has 90 days to kick the rights back if they choose not to go to press.

Here’s the problem with this wording in the case of digital books: How do you “reprint” an ebook? You can’t, so applying the print standard to an ebook is complete nonsense. And yet, by keeping the book in print in digital, the publisher still controls the rights to the intellectual property, and shares in any secondary sales, like the audio books mentioned above (or games or TV shows or movies, depending on the contract). To be sure, the publisher’s slice of things like True Blood have been quite valuable, and may have even earned more money than the books themselves.

So, how does a publisher beat the ebook out-of-print criterion? Let’s say a book has sold only 60 copies as we are coming down to the end of the year. It’s an $8 ebook. Publisher nets $4, pays the author $2. The publisher, for doing nothing more than letting Amazon and Apple shoot you some electrons, nets $120 a year. Coming down to the end of the year, the publisher puts the book on sale as a .99 special, hits Twitter, moves 40 copies and kills the sale. They’ve guaranteed not only their share of the secondary rights for another year, they’ve guaranteed $120 in income for the next year, and they’re out zero expense since those digital copies cost them nothing to sell cheap.

You might think that $120 is too little for a publisher to bother with, but Skyhorse boasts a 2,000 book backlist. That’s a quarter of a million dollars in sales on digital books alone following the strategy above. Given that in 2011 Skyhorse reported sales of $17 million, I’d guess they likely made as much as $1.7 million in profit. A quarter of a million is a nice chunk of that.

Sure, the author can get the physical rights back but unless the book is a runaway bestseller (in which case the rights wouldn’t be let go anyway), no other publisher is going to pick up the book for physical sales alone. Those rights might not be worthless, but they aren’t worth much. (Okay, a Kickstarter campaign for a collectable hardcover on sale for die-hard fans might work, but that’s not going to generate ongoing income.)

7) Assignment of Rights: The agreement’s Clause 7 just sets my teeth on edge. It reads:

You agree that Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. and/or Start Publishing, LLC may assign their respective rights to any third party without the author’s consent on the same terms and conditions as agreed to herein.

What I don’t like about this language is simple: it says that Skyhorse/Start can cherry-pick the NSB line, keep those books and contracts they feel are winners, and then can sell the rest of the contracts off to anyone they like. Which means, if your contract isn’t one they want to keep, they could a) give it back to you, or b) sell it back to you or c) sell it to anyone who wants to become a publisher. Worst case, Start keeps your ebook rights forever and Skyhorse sells the print rights to Your Worst Enemy with Big Dreams of being Your Publisher. (Upside there is that you can buy his excess inventory cheaply when he defaults on his storage locker rent.)

Skyhorse and Start need only value these contracts for what they’re paying for them. With steady ebook sales to cover that investment, they can afford to ditch print rights for bargain basement prices. If another book of yours hits from another publisher some time, they’re covered in the ebook realm—a cheap bet will pay off even more handsomely.

As I noted above, I’m not saying or suggesting that Skyhorse Publishing has any intention of doing any of the above. The simple fact is that the letter of agreement would allow them to do all  of the above, without any recourse on my part, and would pay me less than my work was originally contracted for.

This letter of agreement does nothing to incentivize me to sign it. In very real world terms, I’ll be losing money. Taking ebook sales as an example, instead of making $2 per ebook, I’ll make $1. Given ebook sales that I’ve seen so far, in return for just over $500 now, I lose thousands down the road. While some folks think a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, I’ve yet to hear anyone suggest that ebook sales are going to contract in the foreseeable future. For Skyhorse, paying $500 now for thousands later is a heck of an investment; but for me on the back end of that deal, it’s economic suicide.

And to answer another logical question: why not negotiate directly with Skyhorse? This isn’t my deal, this is NSB’s deal. Clearly both NSB and Skyhorse see serious upside for themselves as businesses. There isn’t an upside for me and my business. I’m being asked to make concessions so NSB gets off the hook. I’m sure going along would earn me all sorts of good will with NSB and Skyhorse, but my mortgage company and health insurance companies don’t take good will. This offer isn’t open to negotiation—it’s an all-or-nothing deal, promising that I’ll get nothing if I don’t agree. Either way, the answer to the question “what’s in it for me” is the same: nothing.

I understand that SFWA may be in favor of this settlement because it means that authors will get money. And the vision of books and rights languishing while a bankruptcy court is deciding what to do is horrifying. The reality there is that the books, as assets, could be scooped up by Skyhorse or anyone else at fire sale prices, with the authors getting none of the money they’re owed. At least, in that case, the new owner would be bound by the original terms of the contract, which are decidedly better than these.

I’m putting my thoughts and reasoning out here for everyone because I understand the attraction of the deal. The immediate reward of getting paid royalties and advances is going to make it look really good to lots of folks. Ditto the illusion that under Skyhorse their series will flourish and thrive. This deal could be some serious money for some people. I’m lucky in that what I’m owed, right now, isn’t that much. If I don’t get paid what I’m owed, it’s not going to hurt me.

That means I have the freedom to look a bit further down the line. Having been burned in the past (Game Designers Workshop, FASA, WizKids and TOPPS), I may be a bit more wary than other folks. I see a mountain of loss and risk in this letter of agreement, and very little reward. While I respect any author who comes to a different conclusion, I certainly hope that conclusion is made after study and full understanding of the agreement’s implications.

How all this will affect An Ungrateful Rabble remains to be seen. All I can say right now is that it doesn’t look like it will come out through Night Shade Books, either independently or as an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing. I’ve given a lot of thought to what I can do, and will craft a suitable plan as circumstances unfold.