Aside: On the Importance of Backups

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Reason #11 Addendum: You Think You Can Fix Publishing

Disclaimer: I don't work in publishing. I'm not going to pretend that I have a thorough understanding of the business. I'm fairly sure no-one does. I don't think that paying attention to the publishing industry has given me some unique insight. It's not like I work for a government contractor.

There are problems in the publishing industry. Unless you're writing iambs by candlelight with a feather quill from your pet dodo, you probably know what a few of these problems are. Likely, you've also whined, grandstanded, and otherwise complained over these problems in coffeeshops, writing classes and convention after-parties, coming to no conclusion other than that the industry must be run by retards.

It takes a special kind of arrogance to think that you have come up with a solution to the problems that is both a) practical, and b) hasn't already been considered, tested or enacted by someone in a position to make a difference.

Arrogance is okay, though. It takes a special kind of arrogance to believe anyone wants to read your work. But if that arrogance extends to thinking everyone in publishing is stupider than you, and your only contribution is unoriginal, unworkable ideas, then you're just like every other schizophrenic barfly who thinks he's running for President.

The problems in publishing tend to break down into four categories, depending on who they affect:

Readers: Books are more expensive than they used to be, so many to choose from, this book sounds interesting but I don't know if I'll like it enough to buy it new, the new book by Favourite Author sucks compared to their earlier stuff, no-one's writing the books I want to read, these authors are all so rich they don't understand me anymore, I could write a better book by squirting ink out of my ass.

Publishing Industry Professionals: Paper costs rising, reading audience declining, annual profits not rising fast enough, no one buys short story magazines anymore, hard to differentiate new product in crowded marketplace, hard to stay two years ahead of the trends, authors are egomaniacal crybabies who think our job is to print money for them, I should just write a book myself.

Published Writers: Publishers only care about Big Name Author, they won't pay for me to stay in nice hotels while I bitch about doing signings, the Borders in Bumfsck Iowa won't stock my book, NYTBR won't return my calls, I can't feed my 87 cats on this advance, my royalty check seems to be missing a few zeros, I think I could've been a lawyer, what do you mean I have to wait for returns?

Unpublished Writers: Help! I'm drowning in the slushpile! Won't someone please validate me? There must be a way I can bypass actually writing a good book and get into print quickly so I can show all those haters who don't know who the fsck I am.

Unpubs tend to focus on the slushpile, not because it's the worst problem (it isn't), but because it's their interface with publishing, the Iron Gates of Approval that they're desperate to sneak under. Of course the slushpile is broken, if they don't immediately receive a grovelling acceptance engraved into a gold ingot. "Reclaim the slushpile!" they cry. "Asylum doors stand open! Change the system, so that my crap gets in."

Of course the response from the publishing industry is silence. Or a form letter containing a transcription of silence. Because as far as the industry is concerned, the slushpile isn't broken. Good writing stands out like the effervescence of a just-opened Perrier bottle when you're standing in a lake of fermenting pus. (It could happen, and you'll want a Perrier when it does.)

It's possible, even likely, that publishing will change dramatically in the coming years. But the slushpile ain't going away anytime soon, and the other problems really ain't yours to fix.

Imagine for a moment that every problem in publishing was solved. Readership doubled, and doubled again. Improved, targeted marketing allowed every reader to find books they wanted, and those readers bought more books. Sales went through the roof. Advances and royalty payments got sweeter and sweeter. Ten times as many books were published.

There will still be more manuscripts written than there are readers interested in reading them.

Even if no-one else took up the pen, the odds on publication might shorten from 1000-to-1 down to 100-1. That's still 99% rejection. If there was a proportional increase in new writers, agents would needs teams of slush readers to comb through hundreds of thousands of submissions.

Or imagine that magically, writers everywhere start improving. They hone their talent, postponing submission until they're convinced that their work is as good as they can make it. But the market can only support so much product. More rejection slips are handwritten, and the books that make it are great, but ...

The song remains the same.

Really, the "problem" of the slushpile could be halved, overnight, if agencies started insisting that every submission be accompanied by a signed statement reading "I have read and adhered to all the submission guidelines", and trashing any submission that doesn't.

Since that isn't going to happen, you might as well just "write a better book", or get used to disappointment. Or just stop writing, and make a real difference to the slushpile.

If you think you can fix publishing, you need to do a couple of things:

• Come up with an idea - one that is feasible and hasn't been tried before
• Make sure it isn't completely retarded, and would be accepted by the people it's supposed to help
• Figure out how it could be implemented, and how it would benefit the company who pays for it
• And maybe, oh I don't know, allow feedback from people interested enough to comment

If you're not prepared to take these steps, you're just adding more noise to a discussion already choked with a million little whiners.

At least you're not writing. There isn't any problem in publishing bigger than your craptacularity.

Axiom #2: Howe's Law

[Updated, see bottom.]

Howe's Law: Everyone has a scheme that will not work.

It's about time we had another axiom. I was going to work on something else today but this just came up: a post on a blog humbly titled Working Toward the Betterment of Publishing. It's about ... (pause for groan) ... Web 2.0, and solving the problems of the slushpile.

It's so full of wrong-headed ideas, it's funny. Not funny ha-ha, or even funny peculiar, but isn't it funny just how wrong someone can be.

Read it if you want (no, Mr Scalzi, you're not obligated). If not, here are the bullet points:

• Publishers don't do market research
• Readers could tell publishers what books they want, but publishers don't ask
• A book "fails" if it doesn't earn out its advance
• The slushpile could be automated
• Let's Web 2.0-ify the slushpile
• I know it's been tried before but my idea is slightly different

The author tries to counter all possible criticism in advance, and even demonstrates something approaching sarcasm by linking to my dissection of Web 2.0.

I'm posting a rebuttal here, because Mr(s?) Betterment of Publishing is an anonymous coward who doesn't even allow comments. So Web 1.0.

• Publishers don't do market research

Based on? No publisher's market research project has ever asked their opinion. Seriously. Let's move on.

• Readers could tell publishers what books they want, but publishers don't ask

Readers tell publishers what they want every time they buy a fscking book. The problem is not the market research, it's the unpredictable connection between what has sold before and what will sell in two years' time when today's signings hit the shelves.

Market research sucks. People tell market researchers what they think they want to hear, and what they think won't make them look like an asshole. Market research never maps to actual purchase behaviour. Just look at the money wasted by the fast food industry, marketing moderately healthy meals people said they wanted but don't buy.

• A book "fails" if it doesn't earn out its advance

The advance is a fraction of the total cost of publishing a book. It's a pittance paid to placate authors that something is happening during the long journey to publication. It's the low-bid value of your silence. "Earning out" is unusual enough for established authors to joke "If a book earned out the advance, the advance wasn't big enough." A book only "fails" if it doesn't sell enough copies to justify taking the risk on the next one.

• The slushpile could be automated

This is why WTtBoP doesn't have comments.

This idea is just so bad I can't believe a human thought of it. Can you even imagine the uproar amongst the great unedited masses if agents used computer algorithms to screen the slushpile? How would you feel if your rejection slip read "806 instances of: Fragment. consider revising." ?

Natural language processing is still a pipe dream, it's several generations away from being ready for such a "mission-critical" deployment. Software cannot tell the difference between Faulkner and syntactically correct gibberish. How would you define the filters? How many spelling and grammar errors would be permitted? What about experimental fiction?

If you think this idea has any merit, type a few pages from your favourite books into MS Word and turn all the grammar rules on. Until SkyNet becomes self-aware, and starts buying all the e-books on Amazon, and you're writing for the amusement of your artificially intelligent toaster, this idea is the worst kind of stupid.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say No real writer would ever let a computer determine the quality of their work.

• Let's Web 2.0-ify the slushpile

Honestly, if you still give WTtBoP any credence after the last point, you might as well buy the land in Florida too. Let's have a website where 1000-word samples of the slushpile are posted, and readers can vote on the best! Hey, people can even get behind their favourites, and create pre-release buzz!

Oh, and:

• I know it's been tried before but my idea is slightly different

Never mind that we have a system like this in place (called "short fiction magazines") that's already foundering. Never mind that a large portion of the slushpile consists of paranoid egomaniacs who would sue/stalk anybody who ever posts a remotely similar story to theirs. Never mind .. oh, just make up your own reason why you wouldn't want to participate.

These sites fail not because they "haven’t been tried by a major publisher or agent before", but because there's no incentive for ordinary readers to engage in this process. Why would they? Who wants to read unedited, unfiltered garbage? Who could possibly care enough about what gets published ...

Un-fscking-published writers, that's who. This solution only sounds attractive if you're part of the problem.

Please, please, stop bitching about what you think is wrong with publishing. The problems are not going to get solved by a few shitty writers blogging about how it could all be fixed with the magic of programming.

You have three choices:

• Take the money you're wasting on POD and invest in some servers. Buy a book on Web 2.0 programming, and write the website that's going to fix everything. Programming is easier than writing fiction, believe me. Instant feedback. If it works, you can go IPO and get pornstars to light your cigars with C-notes for the rest of your life.
• Write a better book. One that passes all the grammar checks in Word.
• Just shut the fcsk up already.

UPDATE: I have to entertain the small possibility that I've been had, by an apprentice of what an Australian comedian once called "non-laughist humour". Surely, the author of the original post cannot truly believe in his argument, and that it was just "linkbait", as the author claimed in a gutless, abusive email.

See, the whole notion of a Web 2.0 solution hinges on the (unrewarded) efforts of ordinary web users, giving of their time to read and make comment on the thousands of slushdwellers, towards the "betterment of publishing". Yet the author doesn't even allow commenting on their own blog, because they're afraid of what they refer to as "retard farming".

Is there anything of substance left in their post to defend?

Reason #3: You Think Anyone Can Be A Writer

(jb, this one's for you!)

Putting 50,000 words in nonrandom order in 30 days makes you a "writer" in exactly the same sense that changing a hundred lightbulbs makes you an electrician.

This is NaNoWriMo's central conceit - the idea that you're a "writer" if you attempt their arbitrary challenge. They actually boast this in their FAQ. It's all about wearing the costume, the romanticised idea of a writer.

Whatever happened to wearing a cravat, not washing your hair, carrying a notebook full of scribbled haiku's and nursing the same cup of coffee all day? Now I gotta write something?

National No Writing Month

A group of delightfully wrong-headed people have, over the last few years, promoted the fallacy that 'anyone can be a writer' by calling November "National Novel Writing Month". The program encourages anyone with too much free time to write 50,000 words in 30 days, no matter how shitty the end result.

You may have heard it called by the clunky abbreviation NaNoWriMo - ironic considering its core principle of logorrhoea in extremis, but quite befitting the typical quality produced.

101 Reasons stands in defiance of this absurdity, and hereby dedicates the month of November to countering the arguments of anyone who thinks this is a good idea.

(Read all posts on NaNoWriMo.)