New Directions in Self-Publishing

I'm going to be speaking in a panel discussion on the topic of NEW DIRECTIONS IN SELF-PUBLISHING on Tuesday March 27, 2018 in Toronto, Ontario.

This short video introduces the topics of what Meghan Behse, Nina Munteanu, Stephanie Fysh and I will be covering.

Here's a little bit about the event.

Self-publishing has come a long way since the first print-on-demand services surfaced in the late 1990s. Driven by technological change, shifting reading habits, and proliferating formats, self-publishing is a constantly evolving space where success can be elusive, but where the odds improve with detailed knowledge of the industry, investments in professional editing and design, and a willingness to adapt to changing conditions.

Tesseracts Sixteen Launch

A while back, I blogged about how I lost my Tesseracts virginity at 16.  I also blogged on the same subject for a guest post at Open Book Toronto.  In a nutshell, I spoke about how, after years of trying to get into the anthology by selling one of the editors a story, I got in big time when I became editor of the most recent edition of the annual series.

What a great way to lose that virginity -- to find and collect some truly spectacular stories and poems that showcase speculative literature with an arts, music, literature and cultural slant.

Sandra reads from "Mathom Measures" (left to right are Rebecca, Sandra, David, Michael, Derwin, Hugh)

And this past weekend, I got to show off some of the amazing content from the book at the Toronto launch at Bakka-Phoenix books.  Hugh A.D. Spencer, Michael Kelly, Derwin Mak, David Clink, Sandra Kasturi and Rebecca Senese.

The readings they gave highlighted the wonderfully dynamic range of material that makes up Tesseracts 16: Parnassus Unbound.

Listening to some of the contributors share their works at Bakka-Phoenix on Saturday filled me with a great sense of pride and accomplishment.  There is truly some incredible writing in Tesseracts Sixteen, and, as I mentioned when I introduced the authors who were able to attend this launch, I am proud and honoured that I get to help share their stories with the world.

Delighted To Announce Tesseracts Sixteen Contributors

I am not only honoured to be the latest editor of the award-winning Tesseracts anthology series, but am absolutely delighted with the line-up of authors who will be featured.

Selecting stories and poems for Tesseracts 16: Parnassus Unbound was not an easy process.  Just ask any of the contributors who patiently waited for me as I struggled to stay on track and on time with this one.  (Or ask the incredibly patient Brian Hades of Edge Publishing, who, miraculously, didn't release bloodhounds to come find me while I kept plugging away in the final throes of manuscript completion)

One of the main reasons it wasn't easy is that there was an incredible amount of phenomenal material submitted.  I had so much great material, in fact, that I could have easily put together two or three volumes.

Alas, I ended up having to reject a lot of really good material -- this was extremely difficult, because I wasn't just looking at great writing, but I was trying to have the pieces all fit together in a way that they either played off one another, acted as contrasting approaches to a similar theme, or merely flowed well back to back.  I also tried to ensure that as many different elements from art, literature, music and culture were represented, so that the pieces themselves created a wondrous mosaic of the talent flowing through the Canadian speculative landscape.

But I am delighted and thrilled with the result.

Tesseracts Sixteen: Parnassus Unbound will include fiction and poetry by:

Neil Peart & Kevin J. Anderson, Robert J. Sawyer, Ryan Oakley, Steve Vernon, Hugh A. D. Spencer, Sandra Kasturi, Michael Kelly, Rebecca Senese, Randy McCharles, Chadwick Ginther, Stephen Kotowych, Carolyn Clink, J. J. Steinfeld, David Clink, Robert H. Beer, Leia Getty, Scott Overton, Sean Costello, Virginia O'Dine, Melissa Yuan-Innes, Derwin Mak, Kimberly Foottit, Matthew Jordan Schmidt, Adria Laycraft, Jeff Hughes.

And, I'm in awe of the absolutely gorgeous cover that Jeff Johnson created.  It perfectly matches the theme of this great collection.

Tesseracts Sixteen: Parnassus Unbound will be released in September of 2012. The paperback will be listed at $15.95 US and the eBook at $9.99.

It is already available for pre-order at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, IndieBound and McNally Robinson.  Of course, you can always request it from your friendly neighbourhood bookstore.  Better yet, request two, so you can buy one for someone you love.

Sign up for my monthly newsletter and I'll share the entire TOC with you.  I'll also reveal some interesting trivial details related to Tesseracts 16 that you might find interesting and you'll have a chance to win a Tesseracts Sixteen 6 X 9 notebook, which are in extremely limited supply.

Turning Points

My article regarding the latest turning point in publishing with respect to print on demand and the Espresso Book Machine appears at The Mark News this morning. It is one of the 5 top featured stories scrolling through the initial landing page.

The article is my commentary on the recent HarperCollins announcement of making a batch of comprehensive backlist titles available through the Espresso Book Machine market and how I feel it marks a positive mindset change from one of the industries larger players.

As always, I'm impressed by the fantastic editing job done on the originally submitted article.

Check out my original post on Sept 24th "First Major Publisher Finally Gets It!" and compare it to the edited post "A Turning Point for the Publishing Industry" printed on The Mark News.

Yes, I believe that I have talent as a writer. I've been writing for almost thirty years now, continually plugging away at stringing words together to tell stories and share ideas. But I'm no fool in believing that my writing doesn't benefit from the fine surgeon-like skill of a good editor's touch. Simply, the editor's touch typically makes my writing shine, allows the things I am expressing to be more crisp and concise.

I believe that, in every writer's journey, there is likely a turning point in which they recognize that as hard as they work, as much as they revise, there's nothing that compares to getting to work with a really good editor. I was fortunate to benefit from learning that early on and have been able to use that knowledge to my advantage rather than get into ego-based fights with those whose goal it is to help refine and polish a raw piece of writing.

Three cheers for great editors!

The Power Of A Good Editor

I've said it before - I'll say it again.

A writer should never underestimate the power of a good editor.

As a writer I have been extremely lucky to have worked with a number of great editors over the years, both in my fiction and non-fiction endeavors. An article posted on The Mark News yesterday is another good example of the way in which an editor's "red pen" and fine-tuning can turn a well-written piece into something even better. Or a beautiful raw mineral into a wonderfully polished gem.

Yes, writers are endowed with more ability than ever before to get their words out there directly, to self-publish, to push their words onto platforms that didn't exist when I first sat down at a manual typewriter and hammered out words, hoping to one day see them in print.

And as much as I admire -- and take advantage of -- the ability to "go direct" in getting my words out there (I've been blogging here since 2005), I am continually reminded of the extreme value of the mostly hidden work that a good editor brings.

This blog, for example, is the perfect example because I rarely ever edit my own writing, never-mind have an editor go through my posts before they're released into the world. My blog is typically a "first draft" attempt to get down some thoughts that are kicking around in my head. It actually started, for me, as a way to "warm up" to my early AM writing sessions They are, thus, mostly raw and unedited pieces of my writing - an online sketchpad or writing journal.

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post called A Smudge of Eink documenting my frustration with an ebook reader that had "died" on me. Believing the article was worthy of being read by a larger audience, I sent it over to an editor at The Mark News where I have written a series of articles related to the book industry. It had been a while since I'd done an article for them and I felt this particular one would fit nicely with my others.

Like before, when the editor sent back the changes made for my approval, I was impressed with the fine polishing done to my raw words; with the expertise in smoothing out some slightly awkward bumps in the prose, with re-arranging words into a finer flow of text.

A couple of examples:

My post title: A Smudge of Eink. I, of course, think that's a cute title, conveying my original discovery and frustration with a technology that I have been enjoying.

The Mark News title: The E-Smudge of Death. This revised title, of course, is a more dramatic statement - it serves to pull the reader in and immediately lands on the initial feeling of shock and terror I felt when discovering my ereader had died.

And next, just a snapshot showing the editorial modifications on a single paragraph.

You can see how these simple yet important edits don't change the intent of the original prose, but neatly refine it into something more readable.

And that's part of the power of what a good editor can do to a piece of writing.

This particular edit is thanks to Emily Burke, Managing Editor and Sarah Murphy, Copy Editor at The Mark News: Two fine members of The Mark News editorial team that I've had the pleasure of working with over the past couple of years.

As I've said, I have been lucky, over the years, to have worked with some great editors. And I look forward to continuing to enjoy the benefits of these silent, mostly hidden-from-view publishing world agents who revise, suggest and work with writers to create much better pieces of writing for readers to enjoy.

HNT - Don't Write Crap And Other Writing Advice

Last Saturday was the first annual DarkLit Fest of Durham, organized by Joel A Sutherland, librarian, author, Renaissance man.

I sat on a panel called Deal or No Deal: How to Sell Your Writing to Publishers & Editors along with Brett Alexander Savory, Sandra Kasturi, Jennifer Hale, Monica S. Kuebler and Michael Kelly (who was also our moderator)

Michael amusingly opened the panel with the basic advice in answer to the panel's question:  Don't write crap!

At which point all panelists agreed it was as simple as that and we decided to retire to the bar.

No, wait, we did talk about the subject for 45 minutes. Part of what we discussed were based on Michael's statement -- such as don't submit every single thing you write -- polish, re-write, realize that, according to Malcolm Gladwell's theory, 10,000 hours of practice makes perfect, so keep working at it and honing your craft; that just because your mom and friends like it doesn't mean it's a great piece of writing; or something as basic as doing your homework and researching the market before you blindly submit your work to an editor/publisher.

 

Me and Brett Alexander Savory (photo by Sephera Giron)

In my own experience, when reading for a sci-fi anthology of short stories with a theme of "stories about art, music and culture" I received a proposal for a series of books about the civil war.  Talk about being completely off base.  Can you imagine what happened to that proposal? Did I recognize the genius of the author and immediate call them and insist on buying their book series (which was nowhere within my power as the editor of a single existing contracted book), or did I toss the proposal into the trash with as much care as the author obviously took in matching up his writing to this particular editor's posted guidelines?  And yes, as is typical the guidelines weren't hard to find or understand.  All one needed to do was read them carefully before submitting.

I was the only one on the panel who wasn't actually a publisher, but, instead, a "freelance" editor with only 3 anthologies under my belt (only two of which have been printed), so obviously the least experienced. So while the other panelists recanted "bad judgement submission" stories, I can only imagine the long list of crazy things they have seen over the years that I can barely imagine.

It's interesting how it comes down to simply paying attention to a few small details to make a world of difference and increase your odds of selling a story or novel.

It was great to sit with the panelists and share some basic advice (and funny stories).  The rest of the day was also interesting, informative and entertaining.

And along with the fun there were pleasant surprises too.  Rio Youers (pictured below) was absolutely hilarious on his panel Dark and Stormy Nights: Writing Horrifying Horror Fiction.  Rio is as funny as he is a brilliant master of the macabre -- and it was neat to learn that our "paths" had already crossed, at least in print, as we'd both had stories which appeared in Northern Haunts, an anthology of short "campfire style stories" edited by Tim Deal.

Kelley Armstrong, me, Rio Youers (photo by Sephera Giron)

In all, this single day event which was NOT in the heart of downtown Toronto was well attended and considered a success by the organizers and the library.  Kudos to Joel for organzing the event as well as to the many authors and panelists who attended and made it a lot of fun (and worth the drive to Oshawa in mild blizzard conditions)

The Value Of An Editor

Last week I wrote a blog post about an interview I recently did with Kelley Armstrong. During the interview, Kelley talked about the great relationship she has with her editor at Random House and how, though when she gets back work with edits there is a slight disappointed that her writing isn't perfect yet, there's also a good feeling to know that it's all part of the process to make her writing, her story even better.

Seeing how flat the publishing world is becoming (and even being a partipant in some of that with the Espresso Book Machine I operate at Titles Bookstore), I think it bears pausing yet again to look at the value an editor plays. I can talk, endlessly, about how often, as a writer, my own work had been made better whenever paired up with a decent editor, but I'd rather look at what some others have recently said about the value of an editor.

The Cite blog recently talked about the value of editors in which they mention an IBM study that showed a 30% marked improvement on a specific call to action related to clickable web links when edited pages were compared to non-edited pages. Dr. Mark Nelson's blog post on this topic suggests that while it's difficult to measure and analyse the value of the editorial process, publishers should contemplate how to present the pivital part they play in the industry much more prominently.

Digital Book World also had an interesting article about How to Measure the Value of Editors. They mention that even if editors don't make changes, just having that second set of eyes being able to offer a different perspective allows writers to relax and create better work. They also go into detail about the same IBM study that attempts to actually measure the value of an editor

But alas, the value of an editor is not something that is easily measured when it comes to something like fiction writing. Perhaps those who recognize the benefit that a good editor can have on their writing should sing their editor's praises, the way Kelley Armstrong does.

Top 10 Quotes From BookCamp Toronto

On Saturday May 15, I had an absolute blast at the 2nd BookCamp Toronto.

The theme for this "unconference" where everyone is welcome (ie, writers, technologists, publishers, readers, editors, designers, book sellers, book buyers, printers, librarians ... anyone who cares about books) was "Book Publishing Is Going Digital, Now What?"

This day long conference, or rather unconference was completely free, but did have a limited number of spaces, requiring pre-registration, and the pre-registration filled up in something like 24 hours if I remember correctly.

The basic premise for an unconference is that all attendees are participants at the event. All points of view, backgrounds, and levels of experience are welcome. Of course it also means all participants are responsible for themselves. While there is a certain amount of mob rule at a BookCamp, attendees are encouraged to vote with their feet, clean up after themselves, and speak-up when they encounter something they don't like -- in other words attendees are generally encouraged to act like adults.

BookCamp Toronto was organized by Alexa Clark, Hugh McGuire, Erin Balser, Mark Bertils and BookNetCanada. Of course, it was also supported by dozens of other friends and volunteers who helped make the day fantastic.

One of the ways I could tell the day was a success was that of the 4 concurrent sessions taking place, I knew I'd want to be in AT LEAST 2 of them at the same time. Now that's a GREAT sign of a phenomenal schedule, and a wonderful problem for a programming line-up to have. I was able to attend the following sessions:

- eBooks in Education & Academic
- Where are you at? Geolocation
- Leaping off the Page: Transmedia Storytelling*
- A Bucket of Cold Water: The Future Is Now
- Building and sustaining a community of readers online

* I had to attend Leaping off the Page, since I was co-leading the session with Jill Golick.


Here's a link to the full schedule, so you can see these were just a small portion of what the day offered. Again, it was one of those fantastic schedules where I truly wanted to be able to be in two or three places at once.

Rather than try to capture the pure essense of the wonderful day, I thought I'd share the top 10 quotes I jotted down during BookCamp Toronto (or #bcto10) as a sort of quick "snapshot" into some of the great discussions that took place that day - I did my very best to properly attribute the people speaking, but must admit I wasn't adept enough to always identify the person speaking.


1) "People will pay for content but not if they feel you're shafting them." Evan Leibovitch from York University, discussing open access content in the eBooks in Education & Academia session.

2) "There's not a single ebook reader that supports tabbed reading . . . having multiple books open at the same time." Evan Leibovitch discussing how academics often use books for research and study.

3) "Please, please, please, no DRM." John Dupuis, York University Library, stated after explaining in great detail how as a librarian he will ALWAYS be willing to pay for content, will never stop paying for content to support his academic institution.

4) "I have a feeling every single panel today is going to devolve into this type of discussion." John Dupuis after listening to yet another merry-go-round discussion of "print books vs ebooks."

5) "The agility of paper and pen." - okay, in all honesty, I missed the first part of this statement, but quite liked the way that Bob Logan of sBook perfectly described the reasoning behind the habit of writers and editors, though heavily using digital media to create their works, often still default to printing and hand-writing notes. Because I'll admit that though I do more work on the screen, I DO still have to print for a better final edit (at least for fiction and not for things I write on this blog - though I regularly do catch nasty typos and errors on this blog).

6) "Did you have an onion on your belt - was it the style at the time?" Ryan Bigge, content strategist and cultural journalist in response to a comment during the "print vs ebook" discussion that suggested new technology would never be as good as the way it has always been done.

7) "We talk about computers and ebook resources as unlimited, but they're not. There is a cost." Unattributed female participant in eBook in Education & Academia session wanting to ensure the discussion considered unseen costs, such as electricity and the huge volumes of "throw-away" trash waste involved in the rapid updates to hand-held devices and other hardware.

8) "Because they're not in Canada." A statement from one of the enthused and engaged Pearson Education editors at the eBooks in Academic session in response to the question John Dupuis posed as to why their bosses, the "big decision" makers weren't there. [Of note, there were about half a dozen folks from Pearson at the discussion, but, as interested as they were in digital strategies they are, and as involved in developing content for the products being discussed, they, are, unfortunately, not the people making the high level decisions that drive the company -- Too often, I see the sad result of the really smart and eager to progress people being held back from bringing a company to success by high level mandates that prevent them moving forward -- okay, Mark's editorial aside is over now]

9) "The only problem with using these great apps on mobile devices where traveling to other countries are the roaming charges, where a Rogers rep pops out and punches you in the face." Ron Nurwisah, The Afterword co-editor, National Post as part of a great discussion on some really cool geolocating apps and projects.

10) "If we can figure out how to get everyone paid properly, we can finally get somewhere." Deanna McFadden, Harper Collins Canada. [Ah, Deanna has a way of saying things that go right after my own heart. I think I'll go watch her BookNet Canada Tech Forum presentation again - I found it truly inspirational]


Okay, this is a tough one as I just realized something. These aren't the Top 10 quotes I jotted down at BookCamp Toronto, these are the first ten quotes I found from the 6 pages of notes I made, and are mostly from the first couple of morning sessions. Once I started typing out this list I realized I was in way over my head. I made more notes than could easily be summed up here in a single post.

So think of these like a "teaser" to the rest of the day, and, if you see an unconference, particularly a BookCamp styled event coming in your area, plan on registering EARLY and getting yourself there quickly.

HNT - Eerie Weekend

I will be attending EerieCon 12 this weekend in Niagara Falls, NY as one of the author guests.

I have attended for the past few years and found this convention celebrating fantasy, horror and science fiction a lot of fun and filled with great people. It's a relatively small convention, which means it has a really friendly feel to it. And each year I get to chat with so many great authors, editors and readers. I quite look forward to it.

Here is my schedule for EerieCon this year.


FRIDAY APRIL 23, 2010

7:00 PM - FREE FOR ALL - Panelists discuss subjects of their audience choice. One of Eeriecon's liveliest panels. Sherman, Clink, Leslie, Gresh, Stephenson, Gardner. Moderator: Frederick

10:00 PM - LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW - James Alan Gardner conducts in depth interviews with guests. Assisted by useless sidekick, Ed McClink. Anderson, Bishop, Sherman, Mak, Gresh, Price, Schweitzer, Leslie.

SATURDAY, APRIL 24, 2010

10:00 AM - WRITING FOR FREE (or almost) - Writing for fanzines and the small press. Do you do it and why? What are the benefits? Leslie, Mak, Price. Mod: van Belkom

11:00 AM - COLLABORATION - Writing as a team might be the way to go. How do you go about it? Give examples of successes and failures. What are the pros and cons? Leslie, Garland, Brahen, Moesta. Mod: Anderson

12:00 NOON - ARE AUTHORS MADE OR BORN? - Does writing have to be born in you or can you make yourself into an author? Give examples. What tips can you give aspiring authors (other than be born with talent?) The men's view. Leslie, Lamberson, Frederick, van Belkom. Mod: Schweitzer

2:00 PM - THE CREATIVE PROCESS - What do you do to stimulate and keep the creative process in motion? How is it initiated? The men's view. Anderson, Frederick, Scheitzer, Leslie. Mod: Giron.

4:00 PM - CAN A BAD NOVEL MAKE A GOOD MOVIE? - The usual routine is a popular, even classic novel gets turned into a trashy movie. Does the opposite ever happen? Can you make a bad novel into a good movie? There has been at least one example recently. Name some of them. Lamberson, Schweitzer, Leslie. Mod: Price

SUNDAY, APRIL 25, 2010

10:00 AM - WRITING IN SOMEONE ELSE'S WORLD - They created it, now you get to follow it up. What are the benefits and pitfalls? Is it difficult or easy to do? Give examples of authors whose worlds have been written of by others. Moesta, Garland, Leslie. Mod: Anderson

Pic from Eeriecon 10: Nancy Kress, Mark Leslie, Sephera Giron, Caro Soles

Another pic from Eeriecon 10: me babbling on about something

Pursued From Out Of The Night

I recently recorded and posted my entire story "From Out of the Night" on my Prelude To A Scream Podcast.

It's a dark humour tale of a panicked woman whose only desire is to save her family from the flesh-eating/blood-thirsty creatures stalking around in the night outside their home.

You can listen to the full story online or download it from the podcast's website here.

Pardon me for taking a few moments to pat myself on the back, but here are a few interesting things about this tale that struck me.

First, there's a phrase I wrote into the tale that I still love after all these years (could it possibly be as long as two decades now) since I first wrote them.

We are pursued from out of the night by dreams of the unknown and visions of the unexplainable.

I quite like that. Not sure why, but it jumps out at me now. Every once in a while something I wrote ages ago does that to me. I'm pretty sure it jumped out at me back then when I decided to use that sentence for the title of the story.

The second in my back-patting exercise is how truly realized the characters in the tale are. And while I'd like to pat myself on the back for that, I know that much of this is thanks to some great suggestions from an editor.

Working with an editor, I managed to take a tale that I had originally crafted in a quick afternoon and polish it into something a little stronger and better. And this was back in the day when editors and writer's main "conversation" wasn't as quick and immediate as a simple email. This was back in the day when good old fashioned letters and manuscripts were exchanged via Canada Post/US Mail.

I had previously sent the story to 6 other markets before it crossed the desk of Stephanie Connolly, editor of The Darker Woods magazine. She wrote back saying she liked the tale and suggested a re-write in which I should expand upon the relationship between the two main characters as well as explore a bit of the "back story" behind Mary's fears. She said if I'd sent the re-write back to her, she'd consider publishing it in her magazine.

I took her advice, dove back into the story, and, using her guidance, questions and suggestions, discovered further buried details about the characters and further strengthened the tale. She accepted the tale and it was published the following year in The Darker Woods #2.

And though, when this story was first published, she decided to "cut" the very final scene from my story, feeling it didn't add to the tale, I put it back in when it was re-printed in One Hand Screaming. Ironically, I put it back in specifically because, in my mind, the actions of the very final paragraph speak to the relationship between the two main characters in a way I believe the editor had intended when offering me the great suggestions she did.

This illustrates, to me, the critical importance of listening to an editor's suggestions in your writing. But also, the fact that, while you should always take what an editor says very seriously, don't completely abandon something that you personally feel rather strongly about. I've had friends who have completely re-written their novels to suit an editor's tastes after a first reading, only to have the same editor completely brush them off after weeks of hard work and revisions. Then, when they've tried the re-written novel with editor 2, that editor makes suggestions that sound more like the author's original work.

Why does this happen? Because every reader, including editors, have their own personal preferences and tastes. What editor 1 loves, editor 2 finds it flat and boring. What editor 1 hates, editor 2 believes is the best thing they've read in years.

In my own experience of writing and working with editors, I've found that it's critically important to listen closely to what an editor is suggesting. And crucial to take everything they suggest quite seriously. Many of my stories have been revised following an editor's suggestion and advice and have come out to be far better than the original. Sometimes it's a simple matter of tweaking one small thing, and other times it's more detailed revisions.

So, an editor's advice is critically important. But it's also critically important that you don't just blindly follow the advice, but rather consider what the advice might mean to your story.

Ultimately, there's no winning if ALL you're trying to do is please a single editor.

Ultimately, you must take the editor's advice and see how it fits (if it fits) in with the "truth" you're trying to get across in your story.

When an editor makes suggestions or offers advice, YOUR key as a writer, is to seriously consider the advice, then re-read your story with that advice or those suggestions in mind. And if you're able to spot ways in which you can incorporate the advice, without losing the original intent of the story, or without losing part of what drove you to create the tale, characters and situation in the first place, then chances are, you'll come out ahead of the game.

The trick is figuring out where exactly to compromise without compromising your integrity as a storyteller. If my goal in writing a tale was to convey the importance of a husband's devotion to his wife, anything I do that takes away from that conveyance doesn't help the tale, nor me as a writer.

Sounds hard?

It is.

Writing is hard, though very satisfying work. This is yet another one of those challenges that a writer must face. Because, when you face it, and it works, you come out much stronger and your writing wins.