Although perhaps I should put lack of control.

There’s been a lot of discussion lately about geographical restrictions and how frustrating it is to readers.

Now-before I go any further, let me make a couple of things clear-I know it’s frustrating.  It frustrates the hell out of me.  With Ellora’s Cave and Samhain, there are no geographical restrictions and because of my epublishers, it let me build one hell of a reader base across the globe.  I know I have a lot of international readers-it’s why I very, very rarely limit things contests to the US/North America, etc.  The readers who’ve supported me over the years are the reason I’m still able to do this and your location doesn’t matter-your support does.  I know very well you can read my books in English-I know it’s frustrating for you not to be able to get them in the format you prefer.

So… knowing that…I know some readers think that means I should make it happen.  Trust me, if it was as simple as that, I’d make it happen.  But it’s not.

There are reasons for this.

• Digital is still young

One reason is the plain and simple fact that traditional publishing is still struggling to adjust to digital publishing-I know that sounds like a cop-out, but it’s not.  They are still working to move backlist titles into digital, they still haven’t figured out the pricing thing, some of them still haven’t quite figured out that delaying the digital release doesn’t help anything.  Shoot, some publishers still don’t release covers with their ebooks, if I’m not mistaken.  All of this boils down to a need to adjust to digital.  Why are they still trying to adjust?

Because digital is still in its infancy.  Yes, I know that sounds like another cop-out.  It’s not.  Digital publishing has been around on the net since the 90s, sure, but it’s only proven to traditional publishers that it can actually earn money in the past couple of years and publishers are businesses-they have to focus on the money.  This isn’t about greed.  Yes, they want to make money, but if they don’t focus on earning money… they don’t stay in business.  If they don’t make smart business decisions, they go under.  We’ve seen publishers do this.  So publishing moves slow–think iceberg slow.  Until they knew that digital publishing was going to prove to earn out, it probably didn’t seem wise on their part to focus on it.

I was talking this issue over with my agent, asking her if I was really  making it more complicated, if maybe I could have more control than I think I do (FYI-she agrees, I don’t-we need to keep pushing, keep discussing the issue, but I’m likely not yet in a position to change things-doesn’t mean we won’t discuss it with publishers when we are contract, but I don’t expect much).

Anyway, in regards to our conversation, one thing Irene (my agent) said?   “In some ways publishing is still in the 19th century, struggling to get into the 20th, let alone the 21st.”

Yes… very often things in publishing move slow.

• Money

Now it’s proven, well proven, that it can earn.  Some of you are probably thinking, “Oh, it proved that years ago.”

You might think so.

But let me offer a personal example-remember that I’ve got a very well established ereader following-simply from EC & Samhain.  This past year was the first time I’d ever seen any sort of decent money made from my digital sales via traditional publishing.  Now I’m not a major name, not by any means.  And the bigger names were likely earning before this.  But big names will always show money earlier, even on chancy things.

But if publishers are actually going to get serious about something, they need to know it’s going to be the same for the majority of their authors, not just their big names.  Because it’s an investment-yeah, this is one that will pay off and in a big way, but they needed to know that first.

Seeing as how I’ve had digital versions of my print books since Hunters Heart & Soul released in 2007 and I’m just now seeing anything decent on digital sales, I’m not surprised, at all, that publishers are moving slow.  And by decent, I’m not talking 5 or 6 figures.  I’m talking far, far less.   I’ll be very transparent-if I recall correctly, BROKEN barely earned me over $1000 in digital sales and it shocked the hell out of me, too.  All the other books were 15 titles here, 5 there, 30 there.   That’s barely cappuccino money.

• International publishing offices, contracts and all that jazz

Author Courtney Milan has a brilliant post up explaining just how complicated this mess can get-if you’re one of the frustrated ones thinking authors can just wave a wand and change things-or even that all a publisher has to do is wave a wand, please, please, please read it…she hit on a few things that I hadn’t even thought of-namely the fact that a number of publishers have foreign arms/branches and if we just immediately make books available everywhere, (English only), it’s can cause conflict with the foreign arms of publishers, could even violate their internal contracts, and while this doesn’t and shouldn’t concern readers, it does need to concern authors & publishers.

One thing that I keep thinking of-we don’t really want to cut out the foreign arms branches, do we?  I mean, it seems to me, as an author, the best way to do it would be to use them, not cut them out, but many of them don’t even seem to have an ebook presence yet-again, that publishing moves slow thing.  Again, I know that doesn’t mean anything to readers, they shouldn’t and don’t need to care, but authors and publishers do need to take all of that into consideration.  I don’t want to see a mis-move made that could cause a house of cards to topple.

• Publisher’s Ebook Savvy

One argument put to me was that a new author was given a modest advance and asked for worldwide English distribution and received it.  This is wonderful.  However…one publisher is not like another.  Did this publisher already have it in place to distribute worldwide?  Because there are a few publishers that do this–I think Harlequin might be one?  So if it’s already standard practice and this new author asked for it, she wasn’t really given anything.  It was already hers.  She was with a publisher that understand the benefit of having ebooks available for worldwide (English) distribution.  So whether or not the publisher ‘gets’ that aspect has a lot to do with it.

If it’s a publisher that’s still moving slow on that front?  You can ask all day long and it won’t do anything.  Well, unless you’re Nora Roberts, Stephen King, Stephanie Meyer… power names might make more of a difference.  But if it’s a publisher that is ebook resistant?  I don’t know.

• Author Control?

There is often (or it seems) this perception that the author has a great deal of control-that she is ‘selling her product’ direct to the reader.  But by the time the book gets to the reader, it’s not our product anymore.  It’s a team effort-the publisher’s hands are all over it, in marketing, editing, cover art, etc.  We’ve granted the publisher the rights to sell it and by doing that, we do give up a great deal of control.

While we are negotiating contracts, we can work to keep certain rights (like foreign rights to translate, movie rights to try and sell/get a movie deal, merchandise, etc).  None of this works, of course, unless either the author is very savvy or has a very savvy agent and in the end, it boils down to compromise-what the publisher can and is willing to let us keep. The last two contracts I signed were the first time I’d even managed to keep foreign rights which will hopefully make it easier for me to get my works translated faster. (Hopefully).  But before that?  I had no luck keeping them and foreign is a simple thing, really.  Worldwide English digital distribution?  Not so simple.  Which means… if I’d asked before now?  I’d probably have gotten a … no.  If I ask now?  Will most likely get an… We can’t promise that or we aren’t able to do that right now.

Authors can ask for things-we can ask for worldwide English distribution.  Two things can happen.  The overly optimistic one for most publishers right now?  We’re told, Yes! I say overly optimistic because I’m just not convinced there’s even a framework, so to speak, to support worldwide English digital for for all traditional publishers-by framework, I mean everything-including the complexities of foreign arms, etc.

The more realistic answer?  We can’t promise that. And unless it’s in the contract?  Not likely to happen, and we can’t push for it because we have no ground to stand on-the contract is that ground.  If it’s not in the contract?  We got nothing.  At that point, we decide to either accept it or walk.

Most of us?  We’re accepting it.  We fight tooth and nail for every contract we have and if we walk, there’s no guarantee we’ll ever get offered another.  There are hundreds and hundreds (at least) of other authors waiting to take our spot-if we let it go?  It’s probably gone.  (And it may be gone for good.)

We could try to go to another house, but not every book/author is right for every publisher.

Take Harlequin for example.  I believe Harlequin is one of the more digital savvy publishers.  Say I was at contract right now, and Berkley wouldn’t make me a promise of worldwide distribution for ebooks-so I decided to walk and see if I couldn’t sell to Harlequin.  Well, I’ve just made the dumbest mistake of my life, because my books don’t suit Harlequin-they aren’t going to buy them, they don’t fit guidelines, etc, etc, etc.

Some of them could maybe work for Carina, I guess, but then for those that prefer to read in print (and that’s the majority of my readers), I’ve cut them off, I’ve taken a gamble that may not even pay off and there’s no guarantee I’d even sell to Carina-I would have walked away from a firm offer for the hope of something that may never pan out.  Stupid, stupid, stupid-and I don’t even have any idea at sales or numbers, to complicate the problem.

• Choosing one reader over the other

Another argument I saw but didn’t feel like getting involved in was that we’re choosing one reader’s preferences (print) over the other (ebook).  No.  Sorry… this isn’t the case.  It’s a matter of choosing what’s best for my career (and likely what other authors do as well).

I think there’s this assumption that if we pushed and pushed, eventually the publisher would give in, and if they don’t, we should go elsewhere to somebody that will, even if it’s a small press.  I can’t do that.  I have to make the decisions that are going to be the best for my career, what will provide best for my family.

Now if I had a publisher (digital only, print only, both… I don’t care) who was willing to offer me an advance comparable to what my print publishers offer me, and was going to give me worldwide (English) ebook distribution?  Hey, I’d be all over that idea and ya know…if there’s one out there-my agent has this project-email her!

But here’s the thing-my writing is my job.  And I make my decisions based on what is going to be best for my career.  Because I have responsibilities… three of them who take priority, and college is creeping ever closer.

How many people out there are willing to say they’d take a gamble that likely would alter the future of their career?  A gamble that could have a detrimental impact on their ability to provide for their family?  Because for the typical midlist (or lower-and probably even higher) author…that’s what they’d be doing if they decided to walk away from a contract offer because the publisher wouldn’t give them worldwide English digital distribution.  Mega names can take that risk.  But those who aren’t mega names?  We can’t.

In the end, I can control who I sell the book to, but if it’s a choice between the traditional publisher who reaches more readers or the small presses?  I’m going with traditional publisher, because whether people like the idea or not, I reach more readers with traditional publisher.  I’ve got numbers to back that up.

So what do we do…

I’ve said this before on various issues, and I’ll say it again.  Because ebooks/digital publishing is still in its infancy, it’s going through a period of growth and change.  We’re probably looking at the rocky road of tweens and adolescence now more than infancy, actually, rather than infancy.  But digital is still young.  It’s still growing.  When something is growing, and changing, it’s never easy.  There is always a period of catching up and adjusting-hell, if you’re a parent, you know this.

I’m not going to tell anybody to be patient, because I can’t be patient myself.

But… it will level out.   I know this, and I can even say it with relative certainty without asking.  Why?  Well, because there are readers out there.  And where there are readers, there is a demand for books.  And where there is a demand for books?  There is money.  Yep.  It boils down to that.

And that’s not about greed, really.  Publishing has to make money for them to acquire books-you like books, right?  So you want them to be able to put more out for you.  So in convuluted way, you actually want publishers to make money.  So yep, it boils down to money.   Publishers know there is money out there with worldwide distribution.  It’s a matter of figuring out how to work things like foreign arms branches, the intricacies of author contracts involving foreign rights, adjusting (still) to the massive growth with digital.  It’s a matter of moving forward when the industry has kind of stayed in the same place for so long…and it’s moving now…it’s just moving slow.

One other thing international readers can do?  Visit this site-http://lostbooksales.com/ I’ll point it out to my agent and maybe we can all help spread the word-although I suspect publishers are already well aware of the problems.

So there’s my two cents, my understanding, and my take on things… and my explanation on just how little control I do have.

Now, if you got comments or questions, ask away…but please, be respectful.  This is my blog and I work pretty hard to keep a friendly place for everybody-rude/nasty comments go the way of the dodo, as might comments that go along the lines of… ‘well, i can’t buy so i pirate’.

Scratch that-normally, I don’t close comments on anything.

But I’m not going to be around much or up to watching comments.  Bear in mind, I try to keep my blog a  friendly place for my readers and while I rarely have a problem with anything getting out of control, it is my responsibility to keep it a friendly place, and it’s one I take seriously.

However, I’m not up to playing watchdog today.  A friend of mine passed away yesterday and I’ll be at her visitation today, her funeral tomorrow so… nope.

Not doing this, and to head off the question of “well, why did you post this today then…” This post was written sometime late last week.  I batch-write my posts, do three or four (or more) several days in advance, sometimes up to two weeks in advance.  I’m not shuffling days around.   I’ve had a rough few weeks-this is the second loss I’ve suffered in as many weeks and I’m just  not up to playing watchdog, and unless I can be certain things remain cordial…eh, I know I’m not getting a written guarantee… comments closed. Thanks in advance for understanding.