My first publisher told me that it takes 3-5 years to make a name for yourself and become recognized in your niche of the industry. Rather than fall out with discouragement, I sat down and sketched out ideas to help me reach that goal.

Here are two key things that have helped me so far in establishing my writing career:

1. Have a plan
2. Stick to the plan

Sailboat on Blue Water

Don’t worry that you can’t jump in and handle a yacht right away. It’s okay to learn how to sail on a small boat. Spend this time laying out a plan, studying what others do, and making inroads where you can. When you are ready, you’ll have a strong foundation from which to set sail.

When a CIA operative is captured nobody is sent to save him.  Vince Hennessee knew the risks but the only way he could move on with his life with Sarah was to put down Nikolai Federov once and for When a CIA operative is captured nobody is sent to save him.  Seasoned paramilitary operative Vince Hennessee knew the risks but the only way he could move on with the life he had planned with Sarah Stevens was to put down Nikolai Federov once and for all.  What he didn’t expect was that Nikolai’s guys would find him first.  Now it is up to Sarah and the rest of the American Swift team from Task Force 125 to find Nikolai and put together an armed strike force that can take out the Russian and rescue Vince before it is too late.

When I started reading romances, the heroines were always feisty but never really strong enough to get themselves out of the Black Moment.  That was when the hero would ride in on whatever he rode and save the frail, feisty, virgin.

There was just something about that scene I couldn’t swallow. Why couldn’t chicks be strong too?

Then I joined the Air Force, became a Security Specialist, and knew that special love a woman feels for an automatic, belt-fed weapon.  Hell yeah, chicks can be strong.

Don’t believe me?

Say hello to my little friend.

Sarah Stevens used to be the frail thing that would have been a heroine in a 1970s romance.  She couldn’t do anything right.  Then she hit rock bottom and took the Red Pill.  When she came out of the rabbit hole, she was a whole different animal.

She’s bad ass and knows it but she can still rock the little black dress and 4 inch heels.

Times have changed.  We’ve changed.  Our heroines have changed.

Check out Sarah Stevens.  She’s my heroine.

What do you think?  Can women be both tough and feminine?

One commenter will receive a free copy of one of my books so feel free to tell me how your really feel.

Sapphire Blue Publishing

My publisher took a chance on me.  My first manuscript was rough and needed an immense amount of work but they saw something in it and chose to work with me.

Line Editor

My manuscript was assigned a line editor and we did several rounds of edits.  She’d point out issues, I’d either correct the issues ow we’d discuss why I felt they were important to the story.  Together we refined my original manuscript.

Copy Editor

Once line edits were completed to our mutual satisfaction, the manuscript was assigned to a copy editor who graciously pointed out where I started four paragraphs with the same word or scrambled my timeline.  Details like that can ruin the experience for a reader.

Cover Artist

Sapphire Blue Publishing has a specific cover artist who creates all their covers.  Kendra Egert is the woman responsible for my covers and likely a good portion of my sales.  I’ve seen bad covers but never from Kendra.

Reviewers

Reviewers don’t get paid for their work (and they usually buy the books they review) but their service to the publishing industry is invaluable.  Without reviewers, most readers would never hear about our books.  They can make the difference between a book that sells and one that bombs.

Other Authors

For a career that is, for the most part, solitary, we do a great deal of leaning on each other.  Other authors read our books, review them, help us promote them and even allow us to guest blog on their websites.  This level of cooperation is unheard of in other career fields.

The Reader

Like the proverbal tree in the woods, if a novel were published but nobody read it, would it still be a novel?  Writers would be lost without readers and publishers, editors and cover artists wouldn’t work.

So, you see, the writing itself is done as a solitary endeavor but writing for publication is a team sport.

Personally, I am grateful to be on such a fantastic team.

For more information about me and my team, please visit my website at www.LisaPietsch.com.

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.

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.

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.