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Kristin Feliz

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I had an interesting conversation with a nonfiction author the other day regarding a manuscript about chakras.

The nonfiction author’s viewpoint: It had to be fiction. And most likely fantasy.

My viewpoint: Millions of people believe in chakras as fact. Who says it couldn’t be nonfiction?

Which makes me think there’s a discreet category of work that is not clearly fantasy, not like magic-and-dragons fantasy, but we’re not sure what else to call it because we don’t agree on how “real life” it might be. You don’t have to go as far as ghosts. Think of stories revolving around auras, intuitive or energy healing, reincarnation, remote viewing, etc. —  much of which is the typical stock-in-trade of New Agers (in the Western world) and Most Everyone (in the Eastern world). Whether it’s fiction or nonfiction depends on who you ask. And so does whether it’s fantasy or could fit right into a contemporary story.

The word “paranormal” used to have a definition that fit here pretty well. As in paranormal activity. But I think that, thanks to recent market trends, most people can no longer hear “paranormal” without associating it with 1) vampires, werewolves, or other supernatural creatures and 2) Romance (for teens or adults). I don’t often hear the term used with middle-grade work, and certainly not picture or chapter books.

I started to wonder if “occult” or something like that could work. Then I remembered the knee-jerk reaction that word causes among certain faith communities. (Speaking of which: would the same people consider a story about the devil fantasy? Or not? How about angels?)

Hey, I know — how about “speculative?” But that’s already got a much broader definition, at least here at The Spec. Too broad, maybe.

Is there any other word or characterization that would work? I’d especially be interested in hearing from someone with time in an Eastern culture or background. Or is it goofy to try to distinguish anyhow?

— Joni, who resisted the urge to give non-kidlit examples of “are they fact or aren’t they?” stories ranging from Holocaust denial to conspiracy theories to the lives of the saints. Almost resisted, that is.

1 Comments on Fantasy: fact or fiction?, last added: 3/28/2011

Here’s some of what we posted this week on our Facebook page. Follow our page to get daily news items about science fiction and fantasy books for young readers.

Kristen McLean

Last week I had the great fortune to spend several hours with Kristen McLean, CEO of Bookigee and former executive director of the Association of Booksellers for Children (which recently merged into ABA). Kristen was on the West Coast sharing the results of recent Bowker research with surprising (to me, anyway) results and implications for the future of books and digital media for kids. Basically the same info was presented at Digital Book World in New York in January.

If you get a chance to hear Kristen speak on this topic, you should go. I can’t do it justice here. She’s generously put her presentations on her website, though (see the first two links, .pptx downloads, though others there are great, too). I highly recommend checking these out.

But to share a little, here are a few random highlights that struck me in the results of the research and her comments (admittedly, with my interpretive slant, but you can see the data and put your own slant on it, too). The research focused on households where at least one children’s or YA title was bought in the last year. (Based on the sound logic that it’s way easier and smarter to keep customers you have than chase after those you don’t.)

• Grandparents get press and are supposed to have the cash, but they actually don’t buy a big percentage of books. It’s mostly parents between 18 and 44.

• Reading kids (and their parents) value books highly — really highly, as in more important than any other media, including TV — and are not likely to give them up anytime soon. (Even teens, who text and FB a lot but generally spend less time online than conventional wisdom thinks.) They may *add* digital media, but by and large they’re not replacing paper with digital. Yay!

• That said, households buying kids’ books are somewhat more tech oriented than adult book buyers. So they’re open to digital. But the penetration of ebooks in this market is tiny. Tiny tiny. There’s a strong preference for paper at this point, in part because teens use technology for social networking, and ebooks are less social than paper books, which can be more easily shared.

• The bad news: Books are overwhelmingly impulse purchases. They have to be seen. Even the books that get checked out of the library are often first identified in a store. That means if you don’t get bookstore/retail distribution, and lots of it, you’re, well… screwed fighting an uphill battle.

• Here’s an interesting one, though: teens at least say they’re more influenced to make a purchase based on the jacket blurb than either the cover or the title (though those are moderately important, too). But the single greatest factor is if it’s an author or series they know. (And as usual, this study reinforced the evidence that blurbs are almost pointless, except maybe to make the author feel good.)

• All that time you spend with social media? Or updating your website? Uh… those things have a pretty tiny influence on book purchases compared to readers’ immediate circles: parents, friends, other family members, and then teachers and school librarians. And while your social media may well target teachers or librarians rather than readers or parents, it’s pretty well established that the prime movers for them are reviews. Not anything they see anywhere on
  6 Comments on A glimpse of the e-future. Or not., last added: 3/25/2011
  Display Comments
  Natalie Aguirre said, on 3/23/2011 12:11:00 PM
  

  Thanks for sharing this. It’s always interesting to see what influences parents and kids in deciding what books to buy.

  Claire Merle said, on 3/24/2011 5:44:00 AM
  

  Interesting, thanks. Actually, I’ve never heard the research idea that blurbs are pointless. Personally, I always check out the blurb. Even if a book’s had amazing success if the blurb makes me feel like it’s just not my sort of thing, I might put off getting it. (Mind you, I’m not a teenager!) I was also curious about what was said about impulse buying and how it fitted with WHO was buying for teenagers. It left me wondering, if it’s the parents who are mostly buying for teenage kids, are they the ones supposedly buying on impulse? And if the teenagers want to read what they’ve heard about either by way of friends or because they already know the author, surely their making informed decisions? The facts here didn’t quite fit together for me — I guess I’ll have to check out the links!

  Parker Peevyhouse said, on 3/24/2011 8:17:00 AM
  

  I also often buy books based on blurbs. I’ve found some great new authors that way.

  As for impulse buys, I would think that a teen might want to buy a book on impulse and then the parent would pay for it, not that the parent is picking out the book for the teen. I would also guess that a teen would buy on impulse if they didn’t see anything on the shelf by their favorite authors already. Just my own thinking, though.

  Joni Sensel said, on 3/24/2011 9:14:00 AM
  

  This is why it’s useful to hear the entire research presentation (even more than is in the PPT), not just get outtakes, if you have the chance — so you can hear about the methodology, too. For books for ages 12+, it was primarily the kids doing the buying (or at least the selection) themselves, not the parents, and answering the survey questions. For kids under 12, it was parents answering the questions (and primarily selecting the books, although often because a kid asked for it.)

  Joni Sensel said, on 3/24/2011 9:16:00 AM
  

  Also, having heard of the author or a series was a big factor for teens — but it was still more a matter of being in the bookstore and making the impulse decision then, much more than going to the bookstore with the intent of purchasing that specific book. (Which is why impulse shopping and Amazon browsing/searching raises interesting questions.)

  Elisabeth said, on 3/25/2011 4:43:00 AM
  

  This is fascinating! Thanks for the summary and the links. I’ll definitely check those out.

  I’m quite interested in the last bullet point about extending stories across platforms. I was just talking about that with someone the other night. I think there’s so much that can be done now with the technology we have. There is so much potential for creating rich, immersive experiences for the reader.

  Add a Comment

Chris Eboch has covered the discussion on self-publishing pretty thoroughly, and Joni Sensel has added quite a bit to that, so I’ll close out our series with a few questions I think are most pertinent to a blog about fiction for young readers.

Admittedly, these questions encompass my doubts about self-publishing books for kids and teens. Chris and Joni already made some great arguments for why you might want to self-publish–I’m going to discuss why self-publishing for young readers might not be a great idea.

Will self-published books reach young readers?

Teens are using ereaders (and reading ebooks on other devices) more and more these days, and many adults are happy to read YA ebooks. But can self-published middle grade novels sell? Kids don’t tend to use ereaders, at least not at this point in time, and they’re not likely to browse online for books, which means they’re not going to order your POD book from your website. Kids find books the old-fashioned way–in a bookstore, in the library, at their friends’ houses. All places where self-published books aren’t likely to be. Maybe if a kid has already discovered a series and wants to get the next book but can only find it online, his parents will order for him. But I doubt that a very young reader is going to discover a self-published book otherwise.

Can literary YA ebooks sell as well as commercial YA ebooks do?

YA ebooks are doing well right now–a decent percentage of the Kindle top 100 is devoted to Amanda Hocking and Suzanne Collins (plus I Am Number Four and the self-published The Vampire Journals series). But take a look at the top 100 Kindle books for “children” (which is mainly devoted to YA, not MG–another fact in favor of my argument above) and you’ll find commercial fiction dominating the list (Rick Riordan, James Patterson, Stephanie Meyer, P. C. Cast, Cassandra Clare, etc.). The only literary novels you’ll find as of this writing are The Giver, The Book Thief, and Animal Farm, none of which was written by a debut self-published writer.

Literary fiction usually finds success after receiving good reviews and awards, or after being ordered by libraries and schools. A self-published ebook isn’t going to be covered by major reviewers, isn’t eligible for many awards, and isn’t likely to be ordered by librarians and schools–at least not at this point in time. Which means a literary writer might not want to try to break into the market this way.

Can you be sure of the quality of your ebook as a whole?

Self-publishing your book means f

Okay, one more post on self-publishing and I’ll stop. (I can’t speak for other Spec bloggers.)

I’ve been thinking about points raised by commenters in the last week that essentially get at this: how does an author know the work is “good enough” to self publish? How does an author know that her manuscript isn’t going to be just one more entry in the “aren’t they awful?” morass that represents the vast majority (still) of self-published books?

And why ARE so many self-published books bad, anyway? As someone pointed out, indie film-making and indie bands get respect; the indie publisher doesn’t. At least, not if only one person is involved.

And I think that’s the key. Even the smallest film requires a minor army of actors, camera folk, editors. Even an individual indie musician has a producer, a mixer, maybe a separate songwriter, and probably some audience members somewhere along the line who were encouraging — if not a full band with a vested interest in every member’s quality. True indie presses are usually the efforts of multiple people. But a lot of self-published books are written by one person, with input from maybe a spouse or at most a few other relatives, friends, or other people not in a position to be very objective and who are often as blinded by love as the author is blinded by authorial myopia.

To complicate matters, it really is so subjective. I’ve read a couple of books now by a small but acknowledged, mostly paperback publisher you’ve all heard of that made me think, “Really? Somebody really thought this was good enough to publish? Wow.” And I’ve heard an agent speak disparagingly about this publisher, too, for similar reasons. But obviously at least a handful of people there disagree with us both and were willing to put money behind their opinions.

Still, the more people involved, the more likely a consensus will be reached on marginal books. I think. And personally, I don’t think I’m any more objective about my own work than your average author, and I’m sure I’m less so than some.

So here’s a minor suggestion for authors to consider: If we think that one of the important roles of the publisher is to serve as third-party, objective discriminators who decide what’s really “worth” publishing and what isn’t, but we want to sometimes publish work without the benefit of a publisher, for whatever reason, there’s no reason on earth we can’t play that role for each other. Suppose authors formed in groups of five or six or 10 and agreed to vette each other’s work prior to (self) publication? Even tough critique groups may not pull their punches enough on the details of a critique — and this is a role that would probably be better served by a group of peers who are NOT as familiar with a work as crit partners become, anyway. But if it’s just an up or down decision, not actual feedback, it should be possible for groups to work out a system — with anonymous ballots or some interesting techie solution — where they could essentially say to each other, “you know, I don’t think this one is ready yet, ’cause you’re going to embarrass yourself — and us, too, by implication.” (The latter might be especially effective if the “Sanction Group” is identified on/in the books they give the thumb’s-up to.) Or, “yeah, go for it.” Or even rank it on a scale of 1 to 10 — 10 being “NY is crazy not to pick this up” and anything under, say, a 6 or 7 being a “no, don’t do it!”

That would be an interesting function for an SCBWI region to formulate, for instance. Or a longtime critique group with multiple published members. Or a writing school/class program. Or…?  I’ve talked a little with a couple of different people in the last few months about authors essential

As I get ready to follow Chris’s footsteps with my very first ebook, published by me and not one of my “traditional” publishers, I can look back to the first time I stood on Self-Publishers Row. Lots has changed. Other things haven’t.

Early in, early out

I first dove headlong into self-publishing more than ten years ago. This was early in the industry’s hey-day, before AuthorHouse or PublishAmerica or any of those other names we’ve learned to run screaming from, but after Dan Poynter was already on edition six or seven of his self-publishing “bible.” To make a long story short(er), I poured over a copy of that bible and won a substantial grant to create a small press. One of the two resulting books won a national award, both got attention in PW*, both had national bookstore distribution through IPG, and today, at least five years after one of them went out of print, I still have people regularly begging me to reprint it. Because I had a specific niche, lots of the required skills from my day-job, and a professional product (though I certainly would do some things differently now), I sold roughly the same number of each as I have my first “traditional” novel.

*Random side note: Not one of my four traditionally published novels has ever made PW, though they’ve been reviewed in all the other standard places. I can’t help but wonder if the PW folks later felt like I’d conned them and crossed my name off forever, but maybe that’s “writer blacklist paranoia” talking.

I learned an immense amount from that experience, which was by far and away its greatest value (a lot more than any monetary return. Marketing expenses add up fast, and I intentionally didn’t track how many hours of labor I spent because I sensed early on that the return would be pennies per hour, and it would have been too depressing to know.)

The most important thing I learned was that I didn’t really want to be a publisher. I’d rather write. I also wanted the third-party validation that traditional publishing bestows.

…and soon to be in again

But here I am again, and boy, how self-publishing has changed. I got in, and back out again, before the flood: before attitudes about it were quite so disparaging, before booksellers automatically said “no.” And while the sheer volume of self-published work only keeps growing, lately the disparagement is ebbing again, thanks to the small percentage of stand-out work that’s gone mainstream and to more traditionally published authors who are taking matters into their own hands. Their work is raising the quality average, at least perceptually. (I’m pretty sure there’s still plenty of dreck.)

What hasn’t changed for me is the answer to this question: Do I want to be a publisher? The answer’s still no. But I’ve become convinced that for some objectives, it’s the most logical route for an author to take. (And frankly, traditionally published authors without lead titles are now expected to do such a large percentage of the promotion, including sending around galleys and trying to finagle press coverage and events, that there’s less and less difference between the two roles anyhow.)

More good reasons all the time

I’ve taught workshops on the advantages and disadvantages of self-publishing, and until recently, the best — and most honest — reason I ever heard to self-publish was this: an older woman told me she wanted to self-publish her book because doctors had given her less than six months to live, and she wante

Here are some of the tidbits we’ve recently posted on our Facebook page. Follow us on Facebook to get more news and links like these:

So far this week I’ve covered why people might want to self publish (and when they shouldn’t), and I’ve offered a step-by-step guide to the process. One big question remains—how can you turn a self-published book into a success story?

Since I just released my books, I can’t claim success yet. If you want to follow along with my story, I’ll be reporting updates on my personal blog on Wednesdays.

In the meantime, I can tell you my plan. First though, some comments from experts:

On the Behler Blog, Lynn Price acknowledges changes to the industry, but offers a warning to self-publishers: “The big advance money is drying up and the big guys aren’t buying the kinds of books they did years ago.… [However] It’s one thing to heed the call to the battle cry and chant ‘death to publishers!’ and quite another to actually go out and do it. And be successful.”

Self-pub superstar Amanda Hocking adds her own warning: “Traditional publishing and indie publishing aren’t all that different, and I don’t think people realize that. Some books and authors are best sellers, but most aren’t. It may be easier to self-publish than it is to traditionally publish, but in all honesty, it’s harder to be a best seller self-publishing than it is with a house.”

On the other side, Joe Konrath writes adult mysteries. He started in traditional publishing but has become totally gung ho about self-publishing. He sees no reason why anyone would want a traditional publishing contract today. On the other hand, he fully admits that success takes a big dose of luck. He often features guest authors sharing their success stories. These are primarily adult genre authors, but it’s still interesting to see what people do—and often how little difference a big publicity plan makes.

Along with luck, Joe says you need a well-written book, a great cover, a strong blurb describing it, and a good price point. He considers the e-book ideal $2.99, the lowest price at which you can get Amazon’s 70 percent royalty rate (it drops to 30 percent for cheaper books). You can judge my covers for yourself and check out the description and sample chapters of the writing at my Amazon page. Now let’s run some numbers to figure out that price point.

I can price my work as a $2.99 e-book and make $2 per book with Kindle’s 70 percent royalty rate. My traditionally published books are available on the Kindle, but at $5.99 for each of the Haunted series (the paperback price) and $8.80 for The Well of Sacrifice (hardcover price $16). I don’t get many sales that way, but many people complain that e-books are overpriced. (For an explanation of why, check out this post by former agent Nathan Bransford.) With The Eyes of Pharaoh and Rattled, people may be more likely to try the lower-priced books.

POD copies will be priced higher, because of printing costs. I can price Rattled at $7.99 which earns me $.92 for

Enter our Facebook giveaway to win 3 books: WISHFUL THINKING, CRYER’S CROSS, and MAGICIAN’S MUSE.

I’ve spent the last two days talking about what self-publishing is, plus who might want to self-publish and why. That leaves us with when, where, and how.

For me the answer to when is now. This week, in fact. If you have an appropriate project, why wait? To give you an idea of how long it takes, I started in February and I now have The Eyes of Pharaoh available as an e-book and print on demand. My second self-published novel, an adult romantic suspense called Rattled (written under the name Kris Bock), is going up now and should be available for sale next week. (The books were written and edited before February, of course.)

Wait a minute—traditional publishers typically take at least two years to release a book. How can self-publishing be so much faster and still be any good?

For one thing, publishers have to place your book in a queue of other books. They’ll add lots of extra time at every stage, in case someone misses a deadline. They may need to wait for an illustrator to become available. They have to wait for monthly meetings. They want to get the book into their catalog and send out copies for review in advance. All that takes time (though not always as much time as they use, as proven by hot topics rushed into print in a few months).

To self-publish my books, I needed a few weeks to research what I needed to do, get the manuscripts proofread, and contract for cover art. It’s not hard to set up an account on Barnes & Noble, Amazon, etc. and start publishing. Then it takes one or two days to get the e-book version available and a couple of weeks for print on demand if you want to review a proof copy first.

Let me break down the steps.

I’ll be fairly detailed here, to give you a good idea of the work required.

Write and edit a book. Get feedback to make sure it’s good. This is obviously the hardest and most time-consuming part of the equation. That’s always true, even with traditional publishing, but here you’re putting the work out without an agent or publishing house editor’s guidance, so take extra time to get feedback. Don’t count on family and friends, or even a beloved critique group (unless you have several critique partners who are published writers and skilled editors/teachers). You may want to hire a professional editor. Many of the best editors lost their jobs in the last two years, and some of them now offer freelance editorial services. You’ll also find many of us among the professional writing community who will critique or edit your work for a fee.

Write any front matter: title page, dedication, acknowledgments, “other books by,” “this is a work of fiction” statement, etc. (You can follow the format in other books).

Write any author’s note for the end of the book. You may also want a bio at the back of the book. Include all this front matter and back matter in your document.

Make sure you don’t have two spaces between sentences, spaces at the start of paragraphs, etc. Make sure everything is formatted the same, e.g. all quotes are smart quotes, dashes are em dashes with no space around them, ellipses are spaced consistently and so forth. Word’s “Find and Replace” function is a life-saver here.

Hire a professional copy editor and approve/reject their suggestions.  Prices for a professional copy editor tend to be about .015 cents per word, so $500-$1000 for your average middle grade or YA novel. Don’t skim

In celebration of our new Facebook page, we’re giving away three books to one of our Facebook followers! Anyone who goes to our Facebook page and pushes the “like” button at the top of the page is eligible to enter. Just leave a comment on this post telling us your Facebook user name  so that we can verify that you have indeed “liked” our page. That’s it!

We’ll use a random number generator to choose one of our Facebook followers to win the following books:

Wishful Thinking by Alexandra Bullen

If you could wish for a different life, would you? What if that life changed everything you thought was real?

Adopted as a baby, Hazel Snow has always been alone. She’s never belonged anywhere–and has always yearned to know the truth about where she comes from. So when she receives three stunning, enchanted dresses–each with the power to grant one wish–Hazel wishes to know her mother. Transported to a time and place she couldn’t have imagined, Hazel finds herself living an alternate life–a life with the mother she never knew. Over the course of one amazing, miraculous summer, Hazel finds her home, falls in love, and forms an unexpected friendship. But will her search to uncover her past forever alter her future?

Cryer’s Cross by Lisa McMann

Kendall loves her life in small town Cryer’s Cross, Montana, but she also longs for something more. She knows the chances of going to school in New York are small, but she’s not the type to give up easily. Even though it will mean leaving Nico, the world’s sweetest boyfriend, behind.

But when Cryer’s Cross is rocked by unspeakable tragedy, Kendall shoves her dreams aside and focuses on just one goal: help find her missing friends. Even if it means spending time with the one boy she shouldn’t get close to… the one boy who makes her question everything she feels for Nico.

Determined to help and to stay true to the boy she’s always loved, Kendall keeps up the search–and stumbles upon some frightening local history. She knows she can’t stop digging, but Kendall is about to find out just how far the townspeople will go to keep their secrets buried….

The Seer #6: Magician’s Muse by Linda Joy Singleton

A whisper, too soft to swirl wispy candle smoke, carried across time, beyond life and death—and was heard.

“Our bargain is sealed. My secrets will be yours—when the girl dies.�