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Monthly Archives: September 2010
Monthly Archives: September 2010
This trailer is by Michelle Davidson Argyle, my friend, for her recently published literary fantasy, Cinders. Read my interview in an earlier post, if you haven’t had a chance yet. I believe she did it herself. It’s simple, and low-budget, but the pace is good, the stock footage is well-integrated and doesn’t feel like modern pictures just slapped into the trailer of a story sent in a medieval kingdom.
One thing she did which makes this trailer stand out is that you will notice several shots of the title character, in appropriate attire, in different positions. This helps give the whole thing a unified feel. How did she do that? Well, she designed the dress, had it sewn and then took the pictures of the model herself. Michelle is also a photographer.
One question I asked myself is whether video would have worked better. She had the model and the dress — she could have done video easily. But I’m not sure it would have improved it. Unless you have a professional set-up, it’s harder than most people think to make video quality look good. And bad video is worse than good still shots moving across the screen with music. There is enough sense of movement here with the twirly-swirls and the pans to create a sense of action. The teaser lines don’t try to tell you the whole plot, they say just enough to give a feel for the book. And the trailer doesn’t go over one minute.
I am hoping Michelle will talk about making the trailer on The Literary Lab as part of her series on self-publishing.
The comments in the Gizmodo article by FastPencil are quite lively. I’d like to respond to a few of the points brought up:
Banana Fish Today wrote:
Fastpencil is a scam. This is not real publishing. This is a combo vanity publisher/editing service. A real publisher approves only the best writing, then handles the publishing at no cost to the author. Fastpencil here charges $200 to put your book on Amazon. And the link at the bottom of this post is their full pricing page. Cover design starts at $400. Illustrations are $140-$240 apiece. Line editing costs $.029 a word. A novel is generally 80,000 to 140,000 words. So the top-end would run about $4000. And that’s just to fix typos; if you’d like advice on your ideas, just triple that number. They also claim to offer marketing, but they give out quotes for that. I get the feeling the price is pretty steep.
Real publishers do all this for free. A publisher’s business model is “sell books to readers.” They filter the best writing from the slush and spend tons of money on editing, marketing, and distribution in the hopes they’ll sell thousands of copies of the book. But Fastpencil’s business model is “sell services to authors.” They don’t give a shit how bad your book is, they’re not trying to sell it to people, they’re trying to sell shit to you. The author, not the reader, is their customer.
…Publishers are a necessary filter. They spend millions of dollars to ensure the few books they do select can turn a profit. And vanity services aren’t a way out of the slush pile and into the hands of readers either. The pile just moves from an intern’s desk to Amazon’s long tail. …. A handful might end up as success stories. The rest just end up with a book and no one to read it.
I disagree. FastPencil, like Amazon CreateSpace, is not a “scam.” These services do not, like PublishAmerica, pretend to be traditional publishers. It is perfectly clear, to anyone with a brain, that they are selling services to the author and it is the author’s job to sell to the reader. I feel sorry for naive writers taken in by vanity presses like PublishAmerica, which do prey on writers like carnivorous unicorns on sweet young virgins. But I don’t feel sorry for anyone using CreateSpace or FastPencil, and I very glad these services exist now. These services do for books what a service like animoto or xtranormal does for videos. You pay them to help assemble the product.
It’s also important to remember that traditional publishers do not provide their services to authors for “free.” Hello, welcome to capitalism 101, look up the chapter “Free Lunch, Lack Of.”
Facilitated self-publishing, whether POD or ebooks, is simply a different business model. The whole issue about gate-keepers is actually a red herring. Both models throw up hurdles to the aspiring author and neither guarantees success with readers. Here are the differences:
Facilitated self-publishing:
* Author is entrepreneur
* Author purchases service from other providers (editors, artists, publicists, distributors etc.) for a flat fee
* Author must invest capital up frontTraditional publishing:
* Author is a business partner with other service providers (the publishers)
* Author shares royalties from sales with partner/s
* Author does not need up front capital but shares profit dividends (royalties) with partner/s
The main difference is who pays whom when. Nothin’ is free, however. Ya pays yer money and ya takes yer choice. And there’s no question of doing away with gatekeepers. Money is always the gatekeeper. Writing is exactly like another other business. It requires time+work. Which =money. So you either need enough time to both write your book, print it and sell it door to door; or you, the writer, in order to spend most of your time writing, need to hire someone else to do the boring stuff.
In fact, most publishing ventures involve some mix of these options (up front vs dividends). Publishers usually pay artists a flat fee and editors a salary, while agents get a percentage of the royalties. Authors receive only 10-15% from the sales of their product because they pay the rest to their business partners. And just so you know, this is not a scam or a cheat or the exploitation of artists. The services the author is paying for really do eat up that much of the profits.
As far as I have been able to determine, high end service prices look like this (jump in if you know more):
Cover Art – $4000
Editing for 80,000 word novel – $4,000
Printing – not sure
Distribution – I have no effing clue
Publicity – Sky is the Limit, but see the list on my previous post for an idea; for a fancy book trailer, add another $4000; and you can also get a nice website for, oh, let’s just say, $4000. I like that number.
So, self-publishers, at a minimum, $16,000 would be a good figure to invest in your book. And those of you who are trying to interest an agent or traditional publisher in your book, add a minimum of $4000 for your own advance, and realize you are trying to sell you book to someone for $20,000, so they can resell it for more. Someone has to believe your book is worth that much. No wonder it is hard to break into publishing.
I don’t know about you, but I am reluctant to take out a business loan for $16,000.
Of course, you can fall back on doing it yourself or finding someone to do it who is not in the top-quality/high price range.
But suppose you had the money. Would that still not be equivalent to going to a traditional publisher?
Phwoar says:
Being able to select your own editors is dangerous. They’re there to mould your work into something that’s worth reading, that will sell and that will appeal, which is an inherently painful experience for an author. Whether they can take that criticism or not depends on their success, but judging by a large proportion of self-published authors I’ve met who have skins that are millimetres thick, I don’t suspect there are.
There are high-end self-publishing facilitators who will do just about everything for you, even ghost-write the book, if you have the cash. Are these scams? Not if you understand you are making a business investment. The majority of new businesses fail. It’s not surprising that the majority of self-published books fail as well. But is moving the slush pile to Amazon a bad thing? I really don’t think so.
And here’s the best part. Although there’s no such thing as a free lunch, there is such a thing as a new opportunity. When things change quickly, it is an opportunity for smaller mammals to out-evolve the larger dinosaurs. Technology makes some middlemen unnecessary, and some services cheaper. The costs of books are dropping in all areas — art, printing, distribution. Large publishing houses have a harder time than small houses, new companies and authorial entrepreneurs in taking advantage because of the inertia of size. However, the gap won’t last forever. Soon, the big players will enter the arena, or, more likely, new big players (think how fast companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter have popped up out of nothing) will dominate the field. I’m thinking — move fast, or get squashed.
About the only things that are not cheaper are writing and editing the book. I’m still waiting for the iBrain, that device that transcribes the stories directly from my mind, comes out. C’mon, get on it, tech wizards!
For this reason, when I publish my short story anthology, I am going to pay for editing, and do everything else myself, except distribution, which I will do through Amazon. I will pay them by giving them 30% of my profits on each book. Since I won’t have invested $20,000 in the book, I won’t expect it to make $20,000 either. It’s possible that if I take my own time into account, as writer, cover artist and book trailer producer, that at the end of the day, I will make less, per hour, for my work than a factory worker in China. So in that sense, the book might be a “failure.” But hey, at least it won’t be a $16,000 failure; and it might even turn a small profit. I can be an entrepreneur, without risking my mortgage, and still spend most of my time doing the part of the business I love best, the writing.
* * *
Today’s discussion at the Literary Lab is relevant. Michelle invested $1200 worth of capital in her business venture, an order of magnitude less than the high-end minimum, yet she created an extremely beautiful product. Furthermore, she has almost broken even after a mere six weeks. In my opinion, this is very good and I would be happy to do as well as she has.
* * *
As always, most of this blog post consists of OMAFs [Out Of My A$$ Facts] so feel free to jump in if you have actual information.
Gizmodo looks at pupblishing:
Just recently the Association of American Publishers reported that ebook sales have increased by 176 percent in 2009, while print-book sales continues to decrease. The list of benefits for ebook writers is endless, but one major upside is that the authors are taking home more of the book sale profits. Not to mention that the editing process is simplified and that ebooks are produced much, much quicker. It also helps that authors have more control during the entire book production process and access to a whole new audience.
The article is by Michael Ashley (a.k.a. “Mash”) the founder of FastPencil, Inc. “which helps authors connect, write, publish and distribute books with just a few clicks.”
For the other side of the argument (“but this isn’t an argument!”), check out Behler Blog, both her entry and the discussion in the comments.
This is really two book trailers. The first minute is a trailer for a docu-drama on the History Channel. Then, finally, once we are suitably educated in the history of the period, the trailer for the novel begins — and even then, tells more than is necessary.
Now, fortunately for Josh Langston and Barbara Galler-Smith, I LOVE history, so this approach hasn’t completely lost me. I love a well-researched historical novel.
However, this book, from small but prestigious Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, would benefit from a more dynamic trailer. *cough* music *cough* I read both nonfiction and fiction, but I do like to know which I am reading at the time. Anyway, the plot of this novel, once it appeared, sounded good, and of course I am always looking for useful tips on how to deal with the cultural rot which threatens from within.
Meanwhile, back in the world of Big Publishing, “big” is a relative term. Here on this blog, I’ve been highlighting small presses, but remember, no one’s got a sure ticket to selling a blockbuster. A huge PR budget, book tour, big publisher doesn’t guarantee it. Anyway, a lot of these are from big presses, and some are from medium and small publishers.
Here’s what Publisher’s Weekly calls “sleepers” — books that someone, somewhere is apparently hoping will win a Pulitzer Prize. *cough* out of my league *cough* This list is interesting because it gives how many cities are in the tour, the number of books run in the first printing, the prestigious places the author will be reviewed or interviewed.
West of Here, Jonathan Evison, Algonquin
$24.95
50,000 first printing
15-city tour; trade show appearances at six regionals;
4,000 galley printing; 500 deluxe edition boxed galleys;
one of six books selected for the Editors Buzz panel at BEALife with Maxie, Diane Rehm, Gibbs Smith
$12.99
Author tour;
$50,000 advertising;
co-op; interviews on NPR and affiliatesThe Instructions, Adam Levin, McSweeney’s (dist. by PGW)
$29
8,000 first printing
14-city tour; three covers in different colors; excerpt mailing
1,026-page debut novelThe Report, Jessica Francis Kane, Graywolf (dist. by FSG)
$15
12,000 first printing
A Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection;
10-city tour; satellite radio tour;
special promotion with Powells.comSafe from the Sea, Peter Geye, Unbridled
$24.95
10,000 first printingQuiet as They Come, Angie Chau, Ig Publishing (dist. by Consortium)
$15.95
paperback original;
7,000 first printing
9-city tourA Fistful of Rice
Vikram Akula, Harvard Business Press
$26.95
25,000 first printing
Author tour,
Named one of the world’s most influential people by Time magazine in 2006Sleep in Me, Jon Pineda, Univ. of Nebraska Press
$21.95;
5,000 first printing
A Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection;
regional tour in Norfolk, Va.Extraordinary Renditions, Andrew Ervin, Coffee House Press (dist. by Consortium)
$14.95 paperback original;
7,000 first printing
3-city tour;
more than 1,000 galleysRichard Yates, Tao Lin, Melville House (dist. by Random House)
$14.95
50,000 first printing
14-city tour; excerpt on GawkerThe Eden Hunter, Skip Horack, Counterpoint (dist. by PGW)
$15.95
17,000 first printing
September Indie Next pick;
5-city tour;
Hudson News and Baker & Taylor promotions;
1,500 galleysExtra Indians, Eric Gansworth, Milkweed (dist. by PGW)
$16
5,000 first printing
Regional tour supported by a Minnesota State Arts Board GrantZone, Mathias Énard, trans. from the French by Charlotte Mandell, Open Letter (dist. by Longleaf Services)
$16.95 paper
U.S. tour in the spring
This 517-page novel, winner of the Prix du Livre Inter and the Prix Decembre, has an unusual conceit; it’s told in a single sentence. Author and translator Christophe Claro acclaims it as “the novel of the decade, if not the century.” [Srlsy? It’s pretty early in the century to tell, isn’t it? And you haven’t seen my 1,000 word novel written all as one word.]Hiroshima in the Morning, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, Feminist Press at CUNY (dist. by Consortium)
$16.95
4,500 first printing
8-city tourA Novel Bookstore
Laurence Cossé, trans. by Alison Anderson
Europa (dist. by Penguin)
$15 paperback
Winner of a Prix DrouotThe Wilding
Benjamin Percy
Graywolf (dist. by FSG)
$23; 12,000 first printing
10-city tour, including PNBA Author FeastVestments
John Reimringer
Milkweed (dist. by PGW)
Sept., $25; 10,000 first printingThe Still Point
Amy Sackville
Counterpoint (dist. by PGW)
Jan., $25; 8,000 first printing
Longlisted for the Orange PrizeVida
Patricia Engel
Black Cat (dist. by PGW)
$14
9,000 first printing
East Coast tour, including an appearance at SIBAHabit of a Foreign Sky
Xu Xi
$15
Haven Books Publishing (dist. by NBN)
World launch with appearances in Iowa City, Iowa; New York; Singapore; Hong Kong; Beijing; and the Philippines.
Jealous yet? Just remember. If someone did a print run of 50,000 of your books, and you only sold 49,000, you will be considered a failure. Whereas if they only printed 10,000 of your books but you sold 20,000, you’d be a success.
Therefore, all I have to do is sell 10 of my books before I’ve printed any, and I too will be a success! Sign up in the comments section if you’re interested. 😉
This trailer uses standard tours of the book cover and unspecialized stock footage. It’s also too long — in my opinion, one minute or under is best — and throws a bit too many plot points at you. After I watched this once, if you quizzed me, I wouldn’t be able to say much more than “Dragon Hunters have to stop Dragon King’s daughter from destroying world with the magic dohicky. And something about a desert.” So do the other plot points merely detract? Weeeeeeell. I’m not sure. They do convey that there will be a lot of action and adventure and various nere’do’wells. Who is the mysterious woman? The assassin?
The music and pacing are good, moreover, and that is so critical to making a book trailer worth re-watching. The more times I watched it, the more I picked up about the book.