I disagree
I’ve written elsewhere how much I love the Australian blog Call My Agent! In fact I dreamed about meeting the blogger last night. But today I have some fightin’ instead of flatterin’ to do. Here’s a question Agent Sydney received, with the first bit of the answer:
There are publishers now who don’t give advances or royalties but share the book’s profits equally with the author. Do you think this would be a better deal for authors?
It’s a different deal for authors, and possibly a better one, but it’s really too early to tell. I think what’s good about some of these contracts is that the profit-sharing arrangement indicates more of a partnership between publisher and author. . .
The rest is here.
Here’s my answer:
No.
Well, okay. Perhaps once in a thousand times the author would benefit*. It’s a very simple equation: in today’s world, most publishers make a loss on most of the books they buy (and survive mainly because of bestsellers). Most books do not earn out their advance (which is based on projected sales from a publisher hoping for the next bestseller).
Therefore, it is not only safer but more profitable to get an advance. Yes, in the above scenario you get paid more per book – but books cost a lot to edit, proofread, print, and distribute. You still won’t get much of the purchase price.
Agent Sydney is not alone in steering wannabe writers towards smaller, less profitable publishers. They certainly have their place, and are not always a scam – usually, they’re just optimists. And writers are optimists. So they join hands and skip away towards the end of the rainbow, and are stunned to never find a pot of gold.
Writing is very rarely profitable at all. Make your choices wisely.
*usually, when people give something a “one in a thousand” chance, it is hyperbole. In this case, it is my actual estimate.
The Hunger Games: Book and Movie
You’ve probably heard SOMETHING about this book (if only that it’s been turned into a movie). I first heard about this book years ago, on a writing blog, when someone was using it as an example of good writing. So I always meant to read it. Then someone described the movie as “How Twilight should have been” – not in plot terms (Twilight is predominantly romance, and The Hunger Games is predominantly a story about war/reality TV) but in taking an introverted heroine with a distinctive voice and turning her into a film heroine.
The book review is at Comfy Chair, where I get paid for it.
The movie:
It was fascinating watching the movie, which has done a good job of sticking close to the book – but even scenes that are line-by-line identical feel quite different when the viewpoint isn’t from inside Katniss’ (understandably suspicious) head. Most of the sympathy for Katniss comes from the horrors of the world she lives in, rather than a closeness to her thoughts – which works VERY well. I really enjoyed watching the worldbuilding play out. It was actually more horrifying than the book (without changing any facts) – the very visual contrast of rich and poor, the pain on people’s faces, etc.
I still don’t particularly like the premise of a deadly reality show. It’s been done on Doctor Who and presumably other places. And surely everyone in the world already knows that reality shows are sick and wrong (I saw a few minutes of “Dancing with the stars” a couple of hours after seeing the movie, and it was truly terrifying). I also don’t like my stories as tragic as this one – but I know that’s a matter of taste.
The movie chose not to use voiceover, and I’m glad. They did open the movie with a little bit of intro simply written on the screen, and they used commentators on the Hunger Games TV show to explain in a rather obvious fashion what was going on in Katniss’ head. But most of the internal information was incorporated seamlessly into the script.
Book and movie share the same problems: Katniss is a rather defensive character, which is narratively weaker than the alternative (but it can’t be easily fixed, because then you’d have a heroine gleefully setting out to kill other children). One of the weakest scenes in both the book and the movie is her TV interview (much like a beauty pageant contestant), in which Katniss finds the strength within herself to finally. . . be just like all the other girls. She’s so scared before the interview, and readers/viewers expect a breakthrough that means a bit more than the ability to smile and twirl (although smiling and twirling is actually crucial to her survival, that sense of desperation doesn’t come across).
I really did like this movie. It’s smart, and involving, and thoughtful, and dark. Despite the darkness not being my cup of tea, I do want to see it again.
Carillon Open Day
The National Carillon is one of my favourite places in Canberra (for those who don’t know, it’s an instrument made of a whole lot of bells, housed in its own building on a purpose-built island). When I first visited it, I declared here that I’d see the inside some day.
So when I saw an ad for an open day, CJ and Louisette and I were THERE.
We were too late; all the tours were full. But I had a frozen yoghurt with riberry (I’ve never heard of it before), cinnamon, and cloves. It was just as subtle and intriguing as the yoghurt stand said. And we listened to some Duntroon Military Band members playing dixie tunes while Louisette attempted to slide off my lap. It really was quite marvellous.
I got you, Babe
Not much to report this week. Louisette is off gaviscon and doing fine (gaviscon seems to have the effect of reminding one’s digestive system which direction food is meant to go). Feeds are both pleasant and short. Since I can feed Louisette and tutor at the same time, I can now have two students in a row (one day a week, at home). Earning $80 in a day feels good. We have set up her high chair and begun getting her a little used to it (although she does tend to slooooowly tip sideways):
Today I realised that I knew a lady from my early parenting class (a group that will be metamorphosing into a playgroup, possibly meeting occasionally at my house which would be SWEET) – we’d met at the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild Masques book launch – she did a lot of the organising, and I helped very slightly while also having a story in the anthology (under my more grownups-oriented pen-name Felicity Bloomfield). So I have a friend who became a first-time mum less than a month before I did, who lives walking distance from me, and who likes speculative fiction. Gold.
Last week I felt oddly anxious and threatened and irritable/angry, and physically I was light-headed and uncoordinated every day (and no, it wasn’t that I was rapidly losing weight – I actually gained weight). Hoping it was just lack of sleep, I had a couple of extra naps with CJ covering me, but that didn’t help.
It looked very much like post-partum anxiety (particularly since my cycle has been wacky for a couple of weeks, so clearly there is chemical stuff not working normally), or possibly my old anxiety disorder coming back. That would mean helplessness, poverty, and possibly having to enlist vast amounts of childcare for Louisette if I was too sick to look after her (which, considering that until she was born I was only able to do up to twelve hours’ work a week, was pretty likely). Also daily misery and pain.
But I seem to be fine now, so I suspect it was a whole lot to do with my cycle being off (PMS twice in a week after an 11-month break), and although I may have more issues until things get regular last week’s badness probably doesn’t mean that the last three months were my last experience of sanity in this life.* As a precaution, I’ll be avoiding grocery shopping with Louisette for the next little while (there’s really no good way to change a nappy, and she needs up to three nappy changes every hour, all of which she announces with crying until the problem is solved), and I’m now only breastfeeding with the first and last bottle of the day (which makes me happier). If I do get mentally ill again, I’ll simplify things more and start self-medicating with chocolate. If that doesn’t work, I’ll go back on zoloft (which causes weight gain and is hard to stop taking, but is otherwise perfectly magical).
CJ’s great aunt gave us (well, Louisette) some money so we bought a jacket and a couple of gloved onesies – the gloves are cleverly designed so they just fold into place when required. The first time we used them, a new nickname was instantly born – Flipper Baby.
She enjoys sucking on her fists and drooling copiously. I presume this is peer pressure, since all babies share similar interests.
She’s also at the stage where she loves staring at her hands.
*Yep, even with the psychotic moments, the public breakdowns, and the hallucinations, the months since Louisette’s birth have been one of the best and sanest of my adult life.
Cold Rock Baby
CJ and I said we’d have Cold Rock Ice Cream when I wasn’t pregnant. . . and I’m not. That’s excuse enough 🙂
You select an ice cream flavour, then select fillings (basically, a wide variety of lollies – mostly mini chocolate bars – and some fruit). The staff member puts them on a cooled slab of rock and bashes them together to combine, like so:
The above is CJ’s choice: Butterscotch ice cream with Turkish Delight, raspberries, and cookie dough.
I have learnt from experience that three fillings is the right amount, and anything bigger than a medium cup is too much. I feel that people have a choice to go either the fruit route or the candy combination, but as it turned out CJ and I both crossed genres today, and both combinations were exquisite.
I had forest berry sorbet with mini M&Ms, a caramello koala, and cookie dough. Here it is as modelled by our associate:
It is delightfully insane to think that in six weeks I could have chosen to share some of it with her.
It is also delightful that this was good for her: seeing us eating colourful food with spoons at a table. One of those rare times when eating ice cream garners positive parental points instead of negative ones. Yay us.
Jump on that Bandwagon: My Kindle Epiphany
There is a whole lot of hoohah about e-readers. Some of it is the usual rhetoric about the demise of traditional publishing, which is an emotionally appealing but fictional tale, to which I roll my eyes. People who use e-readers tend to use paper books as well, and the vast majority of readers, including myself, see the e-reader revolution as yet another big noise about a new technology that really isn’t as exciting as a particular kind of person thinks. Books are great: they’re reusable, lendable, reasonably compact, they don’t run out of batteries, and they’re nice to smell and hold. Perfection!
Or. So. I. Thought.
Last night my dad wanted to show me his kindle. I managed to put him off for a bit with this and that, but eventually I picked the thing up and opened the cover. And that’s when it happened: I looked at the screen, and it felt like a book. Not a computer, a book. But this is a book you can use to buy more books with. It’s a book that doesn’t have that annoying inner margin that makes you constantly bend it out of shape. It’s a book that has only one side, so when you lie down and read you never have that awkward position of holding it half off the pillow. The smaller ones cost around $100.
In short, I now want one.
My dad’s one is a larger-size kindle (about the size of an ipad), and it’s a little too heavy for comfort. Also, the amazingly comfortable screen *isn’t* in the newer models, so I’m going to have to examine and compare screens and sizes (and digital rights, because that’s a whole can of worms) before deciding what I specifically want. For example, the larger screen would be more comfortable to read – but less portable. As someone who loves those times when I leave the house with one of those ridiculously tiny handbags, I think the smaller one will be the one for me (and it’s cheaper) – and I suspect that once I have a tiny, incredibly portable library on me at all times, it is a technology that will change the way I live. Suddenly I’ll always have books with me, instead of making the decision on a daily basis whether I should take a book with me or not.
All in all, I’m sold. In the blink of an e-ink-reading eye.
Google Goggles
For today’s Steampunk Sunday I googled “Steampunk google doodle” and sure enough I found this record of the celebration of Jules Verne’s birthday.
If you click through, you can see several more screen shots, and a bit of background.
Small Press: Hero or Villain?
I’m linking you to Lynn Price at The Behler Blog yet again, because she just keeps making so much sense. This time she discusses how, in the migration of definitions, you can figure out whether your “publisher” deserves the quote marks or not.
This section alone is why the world needs more blogs like this one:
Instead of guessing and pondering with a friend who isn’t well-versed in publishing, you should be asking your prospective publisher who distributes their books. If they say IPG, Perseus, Consortium, NBN, IPS, then you know they are working on all cylinders because they have to have a certain amount of $$ coming in to even qualify. They are a proven quantity.
If they say Ingram and Baker and Taylor, then they do NOT have distribution. These entities are fulfillment warehouses. They don’t have sales teams out there pitching their catalog to buyers.
Temeraire: Crucible of Gold
Sidebar: I have now updated the “What’s Wrong With This Picture?” entry to contain the answer.
The historical society featured in the latest installment of the brilliant “Temeraire” series is the Inca. Their dragons feature brilliant, feather-like plumage, and a completely new take on human-dragon society. The rest of this review is at Comfy Chair, where I get paid for it.
Make Baby Food
After going to an early parenthood class on solid food and finding out that you can puree vegies and keep them in the freezer for three months (two months longer than they need pureed food), I seized the moment and made psychedelic carrot mush (ingredients: carrots, water):
A month or two from now, my little girl will be eating this. After a host of feeding problems, that’s super exciting.
Here’s a photo Bonnie took of Louisette, by the way (keeping to the orange colouring of this entry):
