The Agency model

I’ve been sorting through all that’s happening with digital books and a term keeps popping up:  The Agency model.  Do you know what it means?

In essence, we’re changing the face of bookselling.

A brick and mortar bookstore is a consignment store.  Publishers pitch books to the bookbuyers for these stores.  They order a certain amount.  Note the key word is order, not buy.  They rack books, prioritizing space according to discounts from the publisher.

When a book sells, then the bookstore pays the publisher.  If the book doesn’t sell, the hardcover is returned (doubling shipping costs, which is on the publisher) and the paperback is recycled.  Not an efficient way to run a business but if you study the history of how this evolved, it was the best that could be developed.  In the 19^th Century.

Also:  while the publisher lists a suggested retail price, the store gets to determine the actual price.  Thus Costco, bringing in pallet loads of books, cuts the price down to a very low profit margin, preferring volume to make up for lower profit.  However, they all pay the publisher the same amount for the book (minus promotional discounts)

The agency model for digital books is very different.  Here, the publisher sets the final cost of the book.  The platform through which the book is sold—Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords, whatever—will take a percentage of the price.

Think about the implications of this.

I’ve heard it said this is similar to the way the military turned cavalry into armor units in the first half of the 20^th Century and as someone with a background in the military. I think it’s an apt metaphor.  The mission is the same:  sells books.  The medium is different.  Faster, more difficult to maintain, and requiring a different type of expertise.

There’s something to remember about armor though: it is never supposed to go into combat alone.  In the same way, I think the fact you have a good book and understanding of the new face of publishing, you need a combined arms team.  You need your tech people, your promoters, your editors, your sales force, etc.  In essence, everything a traditional publisher has always done.  But it’s all happening a LOT faster.

I saw JA Konrath signed a deal direct with Amazon.  Several things to note about that:

1.  He got rejected by every traditional publisher he sent the mss to.  So no matter how much he champions ‘doing it yourself’, he tried traditional first.  PW reports his sales were tanking on his last couple of paperbacks– that’s common when a publisher doesn’t support a series.

2.  His gleeful response is what I consider in poor taste.  First, he was at best, a midlist author in traditional publishing.  I didn’t see him hit any bestseller lists.  Maybe the bottom line is he couldn’t cut it?  So he’s trying something different.  More power to him.  But to denigrate traditional publishing which did give him his start, is burning some bridges.  I almost wonder if part of the rejections from NY was a recognition of his stand that traditional publishing is dead.  If it’s dead, why try it?

3.  We’ve also been wondering how many copies of his own books he bought on Kindle in order to generate his sales rankings that got him started.  This is a dirty little secret in publishing, but there are authors who buy their own books in bulk in order to generate standing on bestseller lists and in order to get linked and promoed.  So full disclosure is an issue.

I still think traditional publishing is the way to go even as we hit 20 titles at Who Dares Wins Publishing.

However, we are in the initial phases of putting together an anthology for Romantic Military fiction for Who Dares Wins publishing.  Shorts, less than 5,000 words.  The key is good writing and the author’s willingness to promote it.  And, big and, all profits will benefit the Special Operations Warrior Foundation which sends the children of Special Operators who die to college.  I’ll be querying some ‘big name’ writers reference this soon, but we’re also open to those have a good short in the genre and can promote on social media.

Also at WDWPUB, we changed the covers on Bodyguard of Lies and Lost Girls to see if they would generate more sales.  Should be interesting.  All of this is so new, you have to try different things.

I’m just about done with my first draft of The Long Gray Line: Duty.  Once that’s in place, I’m focusing on some more original works for WDWPUB.  Exciting times.

Publishing is definitely in the throes of change.  Wild Ride came out several weeks ago, made the NY Times list out the gate, but I also have picked up a vibe of change.  A lot of uncertainty.

The iBookstore is making deals with the larger publishers but it’s uncertain what the parameters for the rest of us is going to be.  The iPad is out to mixed reviews, but overall they seem to be positive.  I sense it’s really a beta test for something coming down the line.

And what is coming down the line?  Michael Wolff who runs Newswer, an aggregate web site—and if you don’t know what that is, it is part of the future—had an article in the recent Vanity Fair about the Internet’s next big thing.  In essence, he boils it down to several paths and I’ll try to boil it down for you, the writer.  Even if you are going traditional publishing, it still affects you both in terms of eBooks and in terms of marketing.

There are several possible next big things:

Platform Theory:  This means someone is going to buy up most of the platforms out there and control the internet.  Ie buy Facebook, Google, etc.  Or those companies will buy each other.  Other players are Apple with the iPad and iPhone.  Up to now, no one has really been able to ‘control’ the net because the technology has been changing.  However, the technology of the Internet itself, is now relatively stable.  So it’s coming down to a war between Google’s control  of web-page-based Search and Facebook’s command of social media.  This concept might not evolve because it’s kind of Cold War.  As if someone could take over the internet.  But what if someone did?

Publishers are latching onto this in order to control the flow of books.  It’s why they are negotiating with Amazon and Apple over pricing and distribution.

Digital behavior theory:  the old way of doing business was hierarchical from creator of media to users.  Now, it’s flat on the internet with cheap production and few barriers between creator and user.  Kindle is a good example of that.  Who Dares Wins Publishing now has 14 books up on Kindle.  Our sales are doubling every month and we are moving onto more and more platforms.  We’ve just started getting our first sales in Europe.

The danger of this path is that no one is really controlling quality—other than users—and people are getting manipulated into working for free.  I know writers who contributed to local ezines and got paid—now they are doing it for free.  Because if they don’t get the byline, someone else will.

Some of this goes to what I mentioned in a post last month:  people are actually more creative when working for the art rather than money.  Which is fine and well, but art can’t feed you.  Think of all the energy people put into some of those Youtbube videos?  Yet, they really don’t get paid for them.  I’ve had over 9,000 hits on my Special Forces video on Youtube, but I’m not sure if it’s done anything for me.  This theory also says web pages are already out of date as they are passive.  The Internet is not a product, a production, etc.  It is our collective expressiveness.

The Pay-As-You-Go theory:  Since the hierarchy is now flat, revenue is also almost flat, so some people want to get back to basics.  They want to get ad costs up and also get sponsors for various media.  Can you see an ad for deodorant inside your next book?  Maybe.  Product placement also might be key here.  Will the NY Times start charging since their internet ads are not producing enough revenue?  I’m seeing more and more ads getting layered onto sites such as NY Times and Sports Illustrated and CNN.  I kind of like what Hulu does– you HAVE to watch the 30 second spots, but it’s only 30 seconds and they time it down for you.  I can live with that.  How can we do ads with books?

The magical machine theory:  Aka the iPhone.  Blackberry isn’t doing too hot lately.  The Kindle is still doing well, but everyone keeps talking about it not being backlit and black and white.  On the flip side, complaints about the iPad are smudges on the pad, etc.  Will there be ONE machine that will be our eReader, cell phone, laptop, media center, etc?  If one machine dominates, start thinking about ATTs deal with Apple over the iPhone.  And Kindle vs. MacMillan.  The maker of the machine might control our media.

And you want to know what’s really going to drive all this?  Sex.  It was the only thing that consistently made money on the Internet and people aren’t going to change.  Think Skype Sex.  What about Facebook buying Skype?  What about cats and dogs living together?  Sorry, couldn’t help it.  But the woman who cuts my hair was telling me about talking to her daughter in Costa Rica on Skype the other day– and she said she’s basically computer illiterate, but was able to download the program, plug in a small camera, etc. all pretty easily.

Will any or all of these theories happen?  Who knows.  But as a writer, you need to look at all four and examine the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Things are changing.  Fast.  3 April the iPad will be launched.  The parameters of the iBookstore are known by only a few.  Kindle will be doubling royalties come the end of June, BUT, only for titles priced under $10.  Fictionwise has gone from requiring ten titles to requiring 25 titles and 5 different authors.

What’s a writer to do?  Well, the way to go is still traditional publishing.  Latest book just came out this past week:  Wild Ride and we just found out yesterday it hit the NY Times list on its first week, which is nice.  But there are other options. So here’s an example of something we created just two months ago from nothing.

What is Who Dares Wins Publishing?

An independent Flex Publishing company specializing in military fiction and non-fiction, and narrative military non-fiction, especially authors who have rights reversion on their backlist. We consider new authors in Special Operations fiction and those interested in writing episodes for one of our series.

We publish Series Special Operations fiction and Military Science Fiction falling under the “season” and “episode” model.  Series fiction premieres with a pilot at approximately 20K word count with each additional episode at 10k word count.  We have established Series Lines and are looking to increase series options for our readers.

We want to give authors the opportunity to publish their backlist in both ebook and POD form without the cost and time intensive of creating and preparing manuscripts for upload and conversions to various ebook formats and ebook readers.  We provide our authors with cover art and will create a Print on Demand book that will be distributed on websites such as Amazon and Barnes and Noble and available via Ingram to brick and mortar bookstores.  Also, the author can purchase trade paperback versions of their book to hand-sell at discount, with us handling the orders and shipping.  We charge no fees and work with you to earn a profit via royalties.  If you don’t make a profit, we don’t.

Flex Publishing:  Authors are the producer of the product.  Readers are the consumer of the product.  Who Dares Wins Publishing offers a non-traditional option for authors to get their work to the readers.  The key is to build synergy in the brand among all the authors, each helping the others.  The bottom line that will make Flex Publishing a success is TEAM-WORK.  Authors who write similar material working together to promote each other.

As the publishing world undergoes some major growing pains, many authors are feeling the crunch and in many cases, being pushed right out of publishing.  Traditional publishers want authors to become a brand in themselves.  Many big names have, but most authors are struggling to even find a single slot on a bookshelf.  The day of the advance is coming to an end for many mid-list authors and nearly impossible for the new author.

Technology has provided readers with new options for enjoying the written word.  However, traditional publishers have not embraced the new technology and while the publishers are trying to figure out how to save their crumbling empire, reader demands are changing and it’s the readers who authors need to reach.

Who Dares Wins Publishing has been created with authors and readers in mind.  Our goal is to connect our author with their readers.  We realize we can’t compete with the Big NY houses as we don’t have their distribution abilities.  However, the distribution channels are quickly changing as well.  More and more readers today are buying their books differently as well as reading them differently.  Amazon is an online store.  There is no Amazon on your street corner, yet Amazon is one of the leaders in both the physical book market and the ebook market.  Barnes and Noble might be in your town, but with the addition of Fictionwise (ebook online store recently purchased by Barnes and Noble) and Barnes and Noble’s new ebook reader The Nook, even their sales are changing, leaning toward online sales.  The introduction of the iPad and Apple’s online digital bookstore will do for publishing what iTunes did for music.

Who Dares Wins Publishing currently cannot get physical books into your local bookstore unless they are ordered via Ingram (Lightning Press- a pull rather than push system).  However, we can get out POD’s to the major on-line bookstores and make ebooks available through major on-line ebook stores and support each ereader.  Ultimately, we want to get our books to our readers.

Anyway.  I predict a lot of similar start-ups in publishing across an area of areas.  I believe military has a better chance at succeeding because we know the value of working as a team.

Also, my new book Warrior Writer: From Writer to Published Author just came out and I’m really happy with it.  I recommend everyone who wants to write, start putting together their own writing book.  Just write down everything you know right now and then keep adding to it.  A similar concept is to write a book using your blog.  We invest a lot of time into blogging, if you can find an interesting topic reference your platform, schedule out the blog like chapters.  Just a thought.

www.WhoDaresWinsPublishing.com

That’s the unofficial motto at the Infantry School at Ft. Benning.  The statue of Iron Mike outside Building 4 is supposed to symbolize that.

It’s also my motto for the current state of publishing.  My mantra lately has been:

Authors produce the product.

Readers consume the product.

Everyone else is either helping or in the way.  So lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way.

This is my first post here so I’ll ramble a bit and I’ll get back to my view of the state of publishing.

First, the military is always a great backdrop for a story because it’s high stakes and people are under extreme pressure.  Want to find out who someone really is?  Put them in a crisis.  That’s the reason Ranger School, Special Forces Qualification Course, Delta Selection, BUDS, all of those schools are so stressful.  They want to find out if you just want to wear a Green Beret or be a Green Beret.  Big difference.

All my books, across a variety of genres, have had a military hero/heroine.  Psst, BTW, the hero in my next collaboration with Jennifer Crusie, WILD RIDE, due out 16 March, is a retired Green Beret, medically discharged with a bullet resting right next to his heart.  So, of course, he ends up in an amusement park that’s a prison for demons.  Can’t catch a break.

If you don’t want to go get shot at, some good resources for the military:

Blackhawk Down.  I knew the Delta CO and the TF-160 CO on that op.  Book and movie both very good.

Inside Delta Force by Eric Haney.  A lot of little ‘real’ touches in there.

The Commandoes.  A good book about training for all the branches Special Ops.

Now, back to publishing.  I really think things are changing much faster than most people anticipate.  Most people are reacting, rather than acting.  A tenet of my Warrior Writer program is to be successful we must act, not react.  As part of that, I started bringing a bunch of my backlist into print.  Mostly military thrillers or military type science fiction. Somehow, that evolved into starting my own company:  Who Dares Win Publishing.  The key to success in the future market is to find a niche and become known as the person who does THAT thing.  The internet is making things narrower rather than broader.  So I’m specializing in military fiction and non-fiction.  Even that’s a little too broad and we’re in the process of narrowing it down.

Publishing is currently working on a business paradigm that is over a century out of date.  If we want to avoid what happened in the music business (grossing 12 Billion 10 years ago– grossing 6 Billion now, even though more people are listening to music than ever before) we need to wise up.  Publishers trying to hold off eBook pub until four months after hardcover are fighting a losing battle.  Saying the eBook market is only 3% is sticking one’s head in the sand.  Things are changing exponentially, not linearly.  Laugh at the iPad.  But remember, it’s only the device.  When Apple opens it’s online bookstore, can we say iTunes for books?

I predict the big 6 in NY will go more toward a Harlequin business model, breaking down their imprints even further to become brands for certain types of book.

I also predict a key tipping point when a major fiction author (Steve Covey, a non-fiction author has already done this) goes direct to Kindle, and all the other ebook platforms, skipping a publisher altogether.  This is happening in England already.

Because in all the furor over MacMillan-Amazon, no one was talking about increasing royalty rates for authors.  In fact, Random House was trying to reduce electronic royalty rates for authors.

Ok– and looking at the categories here, how come SEALs have their own but Special Forces doesn’t?  Hmm.

1.  How did you know you wanted to be a writer?  And at what age?
I never really sat down and decided I wanted to be a writer.  I was a reader.  As a kid I read everything.  I lived in the library.  I used to make up stories in my head.  When I moved to the Orient after getting off active duty in the army to study martial arts, I had some time on my hands and the original 512K Mac.  So I just started writing.

2.  When you started writing how long was it before you sold your first novel?
I didn’t even think of selling my first manuscript.  I was well into my second when someone read my first and said “Hey, this is like a real book.”  The light bulb went on, I peddled my bike down to the local US Army post and got an old copy of the Writers Market in the library.  I then proceeded to do everything wrong.  Also, submitting from the Far East is a little difficult.  It took three years.  And breaking the rules.  I didn’t even know agents existed.  I got so frustrated I sent my query to everyone and got a call from an editor about my novel—except he worked at a non-fiction publisher.  But he liked it and he knew an agent and yada yada yada.

This steep learning curve I’ve experienced as an author over 20 years is a big reason I’m doing my Warrior Writer workshops.  I want to teach writers how to be authors, using the strategies and tactics of the Special Forces and my experiences.  I really see a big gap in the publishing paradigm, where publishers and agents expect a new author to somehow ‘absorb’ what it takes to be successful and Warrior Writer fills that gap.  It also focuses on those psychological and practical blocks that may keep you from being the best writer you could be.  In essence, I focus on the writer during this workshop, not the writing.

3.  Are you a Plotter or a Pantser?
I used to be a plotter. Working with Jennifer Crusie really helped me a lot.  Elizabeth George has been beating me up for years about character—just got an email from her this morning reference that.  And she lives two miles away.  Now, I’m a bit of both, but I think the key to a great book is intriguing characters.  I’m rewriting a manuscript right now and my mantra is to go from “Big plot/little characters” to “Big characters/little plot”.  I’m cutting the hell out of my favorite parts of the book—ie info-dump—and focusing on the characters.  Scaling back the plot tremendously.

4.  What genre do you write?   How did you choose it?  Is there only one you write in? I’ve written in a lot of genres.  Started in military thriller.  Slid into science thriller.  Then science fiction.  Then my own invented genre of techno-myth, mixing technology and mythology.  Non-fiction with Novel Writers Toolkit, Hunting Al Qaeda and Who Dares Wins.  Romantic Suspense with Jennifer.  I’m back to thriller now.

5.  I’m assuming you were an avid reader too.  Is that correct?  What did you like to read?   Was there an author who inspired you?
I think to be a decent writer you have to be a voracious reader.  I remember being very young and finding this hardcover, tattered book in the library titled The Hobbit.  I was so thrilled when I went back and saw there were three more books by the same author.  I read about 50-50 fiction/non-fiction now.  I tend not to read in the genres I write in to avoid subconscious problems.  Off the top of my head:  Richard Russo, Dennis Lehane, Larry McMurtry, Pat Conroy come to mind.  I love watching some TV series and following the writing:  Battlestar Gallactica was brilliant; as was Rome, Deadwood, Sopranos.  The Wire was great over seven seasons.  I search for the subtle stuff—the character development and foreshadowing that most viewers don’t consciously see.

6.  Did you ever start a book – then abandoned it or never finished it?  Why?
I’ve got a completed manuscript sitting in a drawer that I think is great, but it isn’t the right time.  I only stopped halfway through once—Random House wanted a big hardcover to follow my Area 51 series and I started a book titled I, JUDAS.  An Armageddon type story with Judas still alive in the Amazon.  It got rejected on the half-finished version, and well, it’s half-finished.  I will finish it some day.

And just today the work in progress I mentioned above– I took the trusty .45 and shot it.  I wrote it over the course of two years of great grief and the inconsistency of my emotions showed up in the writing.  So that’s another 116,000 words stuffed in a drawer, but you have to put out the best possible material, especially in today’s market.

7.  Do any events or instants from your real life show up in your books?  I mean it may have started that way – but then you’d fictionalize them?
My first manuscript, Dragon Sim-13 was based on a real mission my Special Forces A-Team had conducted.    Because I knew the story, I could focus on writing the book.  A lot of my heroes tend to be ex-Special Forces guys for some reason.  Then there were all the times I was abducted by aliens and was on the mothership– that showed up in my Area 51 series.

8.  What kind of writing schedule do you have?   If you have a set number of pages or words a day – have there been any days you’ve missed the set number? What happened? No.  Elizabeth George does five pages a day.  Every day.  That’s her routine.  Nora Roberts does 8 hours a day, every day.  I used to be  a burst writer.  But I’ve decided that the discipline those writers show is something I am going to emulate.  I think you have to sit down every day and force yourself to do it no matter what you feel.

9.  What advice would you give a beginning writer? Learn the craft.  Too many people want to be artists before they learn the craft.  Be open-minded to learning and to changing what you’re doing.  It isn’t going to write itself.

10.  How long have you been an RWA member? How has the association helped you?  That’s the other piece of advice I would give:  I’ve been in RWA for about six years now and it’s the most professional writing organization out there and I’ve been a member of most.  I didn’t network enough early in my career.  I actually used to boast I’d never my agent or any of my editors face to face.  That’s incredibly stupid looking back on it.  It is a people business.  I’ve been through three agents and am on my fourth.  It’s an emotional relationship as well as a business one.

11.    Tell us something about yourself that would surprise your readers?
I’m not as bad as people think I am.  I’m only drawn that way.

12.    Can you share with us an inspiring story or event that’s helped make you the successful Author you are today?
I think persistence counts a lot.  Many talented people quit and go home.  When my A-Team would be making an overland movement, carrying rucksacks weighing well over a hundred pounds along with our weapons and other gear, I would want to just keep going forever.  My team sergeant had to force me to stop and take five-minute breaks every hour for the rest of the guys.  That determination has defined my writing career and that of many successful authors in RWA:  they’ve failed, picked themselves up, re-invented themselves, and kept going.

And as always: Some Cool Gus.  Except this is studious Gus.