Marco

[Jude Hardin]

In a former life, I tended bar at a Mexican restaurant. It was a hole-in-the-wall dump of a place, a converted Frisch’s Big Boy with a few colorful blankets and sombreros and piñatas tacked to the walls for “atmosphere.” The food was authentic, though, and we always got good reviews in the newspaper.

I started each shift by cutting dozens of limes into wheels for garnishes, mixing five-gallon tanks of margaritas, and generally prepping the bar for what we called “Fiesta Hour.”

Between 2PM and 7PM, you could buy jumbo margaritas and well drinks for half-price, and you could eat fresh tortilla chips and homemade salsa for free. In theory, the cheap drinks and free snacks were supposed to stimulate customers’ appetites. In theory, they would then order a plate of rellenos or enchiladas or pollo con salsa verde. In practice, however, quite a few patrons regularly came in strictly for the cut-rate tequila buzz and comp munchies.

One of those patrons was a guy named Marco.

Mid-thirties, tall and thin, stringy blond hair, big Adam’s apple, still lived with his parents.

He always ordered multiple margaritas on the rocks (light on the ice; he got more booze that way), multiple baskets of chips, and multiple tubs of hot and mild salsa. He never bought anything off the menu, and he never tipped me a dime.

But those weren't the main reasons I dreaded seeing him.

You see, Marco was a self-proclaimed perfumier. He had a “laboratory” set up in his basement, where he distilled oils and essences, spices and extracts--all sorts of exotic and volatile concoctions designed to titillate the human olfactory nerve. Drop-by-drop, Mad Scientist Marco filled tiny glass vials with these precious potions of his, and then mounted the vials in a briefcase for display. Sometimes he brought the briefcase to the bar with him.

There was only one problem with Marco’s fragrances: they didn’t smell very good. In fact, they stunk.

That’s not just my opinion. Everybody who ever smelled Marco’s products said they stunk. Popping the cork on one of his bottles was like unleashing the hounds of perfume hell. Imagine an elevator full of blue-haired, lipstick-toothed octogenarians, whose senses of smell died sometime during the Carter administration. Add a couple of funeral sprays, some rubbing alcohol, and maybe a dash of Pine Sol. Shake well.

Oh, he occasionally sold one of those vile vials, to a kindly cocktail server or a nearby customer who took pity on him. I even bought a bottle one time, only to pitch it in the dumpster on my way home.

Unfortunately, our patronage only encouraged him. He kept making more of that kerosene cologne, kept trying to hawk it during Fiesta Hour. Eventually, the restaurant owner had a talk with him. Marco didn’t come in very often after that.

Marco’s dream was to be a famous perfume designer. The way I see it, he went about it all wrong.

Shouldn’t you know a little bit about chemistry? Shouldn't you be aware of how various substances might interact with human glandular secretions? Shouldn’t you maybe spend some time in Paris or New York or somewhere studying with masters of the trade? Shouldn’t you analyze popular scents on a molecular level to see just what it is about them that turns people on?

Marco didn’t do any of that. Marco bought some smelly stuff through the mail, pumped it into amateurish-looking containers, tried to sell it from a briefcase at the cantina.

And he wanted to call himself a perfumier.

Sorry, Marco, but you have to earn that title.

Just as, in my opinion, writers have to earn the title of published author.

Anyone who can scratch out words on a page can have those words printed and bound and put up for sale on sites like Amazon. To me, that type of publishing is tantamount to bottling perfume from a basement lab and selling it from a briefcase in a bar.

In other words, it’s very likely that the end product will stink.

I was at a writer’s conference one time, outside smoking a cigarette, when a fellow attendee strolled up and asked for a light.

“What kind of stuff do you write?” he asked.

“Hardboiled. I’m working on a private eye novel.”

“Anything published yet?”

“Not yet. I’m still looking for an agent. How ‘bout you?”

“Yeah, I have a book out.”

“Really? Who’s the publisher?”

He named a certain POD outfit. "Here, let me give you one of my cards...”

He handed me a business card and walked away. He avoided me for the duration of the conference, preferring instead to hang around with other “published authors.” I felt like grabbing him by the collar and shouting you’re not published either, you punk, but of course I didn’t. Anyway, I doubt my harsh words would have penetrated his cloud of arrogance.

There are no shortcuts to becoming a published author. You have to earn the title by landing a contract with a legitimate publisher, and that can take years of hard work.

Some folks would rather throw up a lab in the basement and start hawking product right away (throw up and hawk being the key words there).

That’s their choice, I suppose, but I really don’t see the point.

[I. J. Parker]

I'm no friend of MWA. It sounds as if you and others have reasons to complain about being treated shabbily. I should add that I published first in 1996 with AHMM and got paid, but it took me until 2002 to get them to acknowledge that I was an active member. They did collect the membership fees but refused to list me in their directory. In those days that mattered because I was looking for an agent and a publisher. I'm no longer a member and don't need MWA.

[John Dishon]

I didn't mean to imply that you or anyone intentionally diverted the topic, just that no matter what you think of that issue, it doesn't (or maybe shouldn't is a better word) affect Jude's central point, what is and is not a published author.

[Jude Hardin]

But there is nothing wrong with self-publishing, and good books are sometimes unable to find publishers because the subject matter may not fit the publisher's plans.

I agree, I.J. There are always exceptions.

Self-publishing is useful for writers who just want to have something to hand to family and friends, or for non-fiction writers who want something to sell at seminars or whatever.

A friend of mine published his tennis manual through Lulu, and he's very happy with it. Now he has something he can sell to adult students and parents of young students, something that a traditional publisher never would have picked up because of his lack of platform. Self-publishing can be very useful for those kinds of things.

Fiction? Well, I can't imagine why anyone would want to do it. Out of the thousands of titles self-published every year, I've only heard of a handful that actually made some sort of wave or got picked up by a major. There's The Shack, of course, that actually became a NYT bestseller, so it can happen.

But, like John D. said, just because I can't imagine something doesn't mean there aren't legitimate reasons for it. I would like to hear from some writers who have self-published. Maybe I'll start another thread for them...

[Pate Grantwell]

Self-publishing is ultimately like umpiring your own game. If an official oversees your golf game, you'd have to earn every shot. If you officiate your golf game, you will concede putts to yourself and take free drops. Being published by the mainstream publishing houses gives the author the distinction of having been appraised by unbiased parties and found deserving.

However, the fact that many books published by mainstream houses are poor, means they are not infallible. Which raises the tantalizing possibility that some of the books they rejected, that ended up getting self-published, might just be good books after all.

I think it is easier if we consider the debate in terms of probability, rather than as a black and white issue. Quality books are likely to come from mainstream publishers, but this does not mean that they'll automatically be good while self-published books will inevitably be bad.

[Jude Hardin]

Well said, Pate.

[John McFetridge]

Over the next few years it really looks like a lot of these defintions are going to change and the whole idea of publisher, co-publishing and self-publishing will blend even more than today.

This discussion seems stuck with a clear line between publishing and self-publishing but there are actually quite a few degrees to being "published."

I guess in a crime fiction forum not too many people are interested in experimental fiction or stuff that is too far outside the mainstream. Some of that stuff actually used to be published by what we'd call mainstream publishers but as budgets tighten up risks become fewer. Still, it's often those experimental writers that become the inspirations for more mainstream writers. At Bouchercon I picked up a terrific book called The Lineup, poems on crime, which is printed through Lulu. I doubt many mainstream publishers would have been interested in a book of crime fiction poetry (and probably not many small presses), but I'm very glad the book is still available.

So, right now it's poetry, in the future it could very well be lots more books that don't fit into the mainstream.

I guess all I'm saying is it's probably good to be open-minded. When POD and e-publishing first became available it was used in the same way the old style vanity-presses were, but that's only one use of the new technology. Add to that the shrinking interest that most publishers have in fiction and we have a whole new game.

The main complaint against non-big publishing company books mentioned here seems to be the lack of vetting, the being, "appraised by unbiased parties and found deserving." There are ways for that to happen outside of major publishing houses.

[Jude Hardin]

Good points, John M.

A lot of poetry and experimental fiction might never find a traditional publisher, no matter how good it is.

[Dana King]

I think Pate nailed the essence of this argument.

POD books are not inherently inferior to those traditionally published, but a traditionally published book, even one published by a very small house, has had at least a handful of people other than the author decide the book has enough merit to see the light of day, and they're willing to put up their own (the company's) money to take a chance on the book. The POD publisher accepts no risk: the author pays for everything and may never realize a profit.

[Jude Hardin]

Exactly, Dana.

[Pepper Smith]

I think you might want to make a difference in your thoughts between POD as a printing process and the vanity and self-publishing companies that use it. Even the big publishing houses use POD on occasion when they want to print a smaller number of books than would make a print run feasible.

The very small houses that use POD technology, particularly the more successful ones, actually do screen their submissions. They have a rejection rate that's on par with the big houses (only the top 1-2% are chosen for publication), and those are put through editing and multiple proofreading sessions. My first publisher put books through a final read-through by the executive editor before they were finished. The publisher I've currently got work submitted to put it through two preliminary readings before an editor ever saw it to see if it merited publication (I'm still waiting to hear back). They don't have the deep pockets of the big houses and make their books available through POD and ebook. Their authors include not only debut authors but authors who have been previously published through the big houses. Often the authors who have been traditionally published have stories that don't fit with the categories the big houses look for, and they choose to go with these small publishers to get those stories into print. No, they don't make a lot of money from them, but that's not necessarily the point.

Books from these houses also count as publishing credits when you're looking for an agent, according to agent blogs I've read. An author at the beginning of his or her career who wants to build their skills and a following before approaching an agent or a bigger publishing house isn't necessarily shooting him- or herself in the foot doing this. John M's analogy of the minor league teams is apt. The best authors in the very small houses do get invited to play in the big leagues. The current trend in publishing erotica started in the very small houses, with the bigger houses looking to steal some of those authors for themselves.

These houses also do not charge their authors for publication. Editing, cover art, ISBNs, bar codes, set-up charges with the POD printer (none of this is cheap) are all paid for by the publisher. There are no advances on royalties, and generally no free copies for the author, but the author does get royalties on copies sold. Again, there's not much money in it, but an author who's done the research knows that there won't be.

Personally, I went with one of these publishers because my stories weren't long enough for novels (They are now--my editor asked me to lengthen them), and these smaller publishers are more flexible on length, just as they're more flexible about cross-genre issues.

Jude, this is more or less what I was going to send you privately. I hope this is more coherent than it feels.

[Jude Hardin]

Thanks, Pepper. That makes sense.

[Marc]

This conversation bothers me. Like I said, I work in the publishing industry and I'm reading the same misconceptions about publishing that I have to help re-educate people about all day.

For my own good conscious, I need to post this... please don't take it as personal criticism:

1.) Most of you are very wrong about how the publishing industry works. There are many intricacies that you are missing entirely and truths that you are misconstruing.

2.) The beliefs that I've read here are widespread. I have seen many of these mentalities hold back great authors while they 'played the game' all wrong.

3.) I am personally willing to discuss publishing, printing process, marketing, and iUniverse in particular with any author who have questions. The direct number to my office is [phone].