Originally posted by David Gaughran at his blog. Please spread the word!

The Author Exploitation Business

Writing is a glamorous occupation – at least from the outside. Popular depictions of our profession tend to leave out all the other stuff that comes with the territory: carpal tunnel syndrome, liver failure, penury, and madness.

Okay, okay, I jest. I love being a writer. Sharing stories with the world and getting paid for it is bloody brilliant. It’s a dream job, and like any profession with a horde of neophytes seeking to break in, there are plenty of sharks waiting to chew them to bits.

Publishing is a screwed up business. The often labyrinthine path to success makes it much easier for those with nefarious intentions to scam the unsuspecting. But it doesn’t help that so many organizations who claim to help writers, to respect them, to assist them along the path to publication are actually screwing them over.

Before the digital revolution made self-publishing viable on a wide scale, the dividing lines were easier to spot. Traditional publishers paid you if they wanted to buy the rights to your novel. Self-publishers were people who filled their garages with books and tried to hawk them at events. And vanity presses were the scammers, luring the unsuspecting with false promises and roundly condemned by self-publishers and traditional publishers alike.

Today it’s very different. The scammy vanity presses are owned by traditional publishers who are marketing them as the “easy” way to self-publish – when it’s nothing more than a horrifically expensive and terribly ineffective way to publish your work, guaranteed to kill your book’s chance of success stone dead, while emptying your bank account in the process.

Some of you might think: hey, it’s just business. Caveat emptor and all that. And don’t these people know how to use Google?

That’s easy to say from our position of experience. Do you remember how naive you were at the start? Do you remember just how badly you wanted to get published? Do you remember the crushing grind of the query-go-round?

I’m not surprised people get scammed. When you want something so badly, and you can’t seem to make progress towards that goal – no matter how hard you work – you start to go crazy. You get desperate.

And it’s much harder to tell the scammers from the legitimate organizations when they are owned by the same people.

Take Penguin-owned Author Solutions, one of the worst vanity presses out there. Here’s how they hoodwink inexperienced writers into using their horribly expensive service.

If you Google a term like “find a publisher” the results are littered with sites like FindYourPublisher.com (which I’m not going to link to because that will help their SEO, but you can cut-and-paste that address).

The website purports to be an independent resource, helping to pair you with the most suitable publishing company. Or as they put it:

dedicated to helping both first-time and experienced authors identify the most suitable indie book publishing company for their book. With the information you provide about your book and goals, FYP makes a recommendation as to which indie book publisher has the best publishing package to help you reach your publishing objectives.

Below this message is an online questionnaire asking you about your book. When you have completed that and handed over your phone number, the site makes a recommendation based on your answers.

Except the only companies recommended are Trafford, AuthorHouse, Xlibris, and iUniverse – all of which are scammy vanity presses, all owned by Author Solutions. And, fitting with the rest of the pattern, FindYourPublisher.com is just one of many (many!) such sites owned and operated by Author Solutions, purporting to make independent recommendations, but only recommending Author Solutions companies.

I have sympathy for those hoodwinked by awful companies like Author Solutions. The dividing lines aren’t as obvious as they were. And inexperienced writers naively assume that a company like Penguin has their best interests at heart. Maybe it’s the cuddly logo.

Newsflash: Penguin doesn’t care about writers

When Penguin bought the world’s biggest vanity press for $116m last July, many people in the publishing business gave them a pass. They claimed that Penguin would clean up the cesspool. But instead Author Solutions CEO Kevin Weiss was given a seat on the Penguin board.

A seat on the board!

Emily Suess wrote an excellent guest post here back in February, detailing how the slick Author Solutions scam hadn’t changed one bit since the Penguin takeover.

It’s now almost a year since Penguin bought the company (instead of buying, say, Goodreads, but I digress). It should be clear to everyone now that Penguin has no intention of changing Author Solutions’ scammy approach. In fact, Penguin just announced plans to take the scam global.

Penguin has been looking under the Author Solutions hood for 10 months now. Its conclusion was this: we can make this bigger. We can take this scam on the road and start exploiting writers all over the planet.

And Penguin is still getting a pass for this crap.

The Penguin Omerta

The Publishers Weekly piece on Penguin’s aggressive expansion plans for Author Solutions makes no mention of the company being a universally reviled vanity press that has cheated 150,000 writers out of their savings.

This is something I’ve been noticing for a while, and Publishers Weekly isn’t alone. The pieces in The Bookseller, GalleyCat, and Digital Book World also make no mention of the widespread criticism that Author Solutions has attracted, nor do they mention that the company is currently the subject of a class action suit for their deceptive practices.

More disturbingly, my comment pointing this out appears to have been scrubbed from The Bookseller, is stuck in the moderation queue on Digital Book World’s piece (despite explicitly stating that they had posted it).

The reaction at the London Book Fair was similar. No-one from traditional publishing wanted to talk about Penguin’s ownership of Author Solutions. No-one wants to talk about how a supposedly legitimate publisher now owns the most successful author scamming organization on the planet.

These guys are probably taking their cue from the New York Times, who won’t mention anything remotely critical about Author Solutions, but are happy to spend lots of time showing them in a positive light (like here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).

Writer Beware

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) has done sterling work over the years warning writers away from people like Author Solutions both on their own site, and through their industry watchdog Writer Beware.

However, I would love to see them go one step further.

Remember those awful Random House digital-first imprints? Public pressure forced Random House to change the horribly one-sided terms it was offering writers. That result was achieved after Writer Beware blogged about it, SFWA president John Scalzi followed up, and SFWA itself threatened to de-list Random House as a qualifying market.

What Author Solutions is doing to writers is far, far worse.

Isn’t it time to do something about this? Isn’t it time to threaten to de-list Penguin as a qualifying market if they don’t clean up Author Solutions?

Hands Up If You Don’t Own A Vanity Press

There’s only problem with this approach. Where do you stop? Because you would have to threaten to do the same with all these guys too:

1. Simon & Schuster hired Author Solutions to run their own scammy vanity press – Archway Publishing. If that wasn’t enough, they then offered a bounty to bloggers to lie about the company.

2. Harper Collins-owned Thomas Nelson have their own crappy vanity operation called West Bow Press – also “powered” by Author Solutions.

3. Harlequin, never afraid to turn down a penny, jumped in the game a few years ago. Author Solutions provided the white-label vanity operation for them.

4. Showing that it’s not just the larger publishers, Hay House contracted Author Solutions to set up Balboa Press – another scammy, crappy, overpriced vanity press.

If it was down to me, I would threaten to de-list all these guys until they cleaned house, but Penguin would be a good start, given they (a) it all comes back to Author Solutions, (b) Penguin owns Author Solutions, (c) Penguin has shown no interest in addressing concerns, and (d) Penguin is planning a massive expansion of the Author Solutions scam.

Writers Digest & Lulu

I’m sure Digital Book World’s reluctance to mention the problems with Author Solutions has nothing to do with the fact that they are owned by F+W Media, which also owns yet another crappy vanity press – Abbot Press (which has some of the worst prices out there).

In a refreshing change of pace, this crappy vanity press is not actually powered by Author Solutions. Abbot Press is a division of Writers Digest. Yes, that Writers Digest.

If that catches you by surprise, I’m sorry to say that Writers Digest went over to the dark side a few years back, and now spam their subscribers with crap like this.

I’m sure Author Solutions was disappointed to miss out on that deal but at least they can console themselves with the new partnership they struck with  Lulu last month to provide premium (i.e. overpriced and ineffective) marketing services to Lulu customers.

That’s right. Lulu made a deal with the devil.

How Can We Fight Back?

Penguin think they can continue to ride out the storm, ignoring the criticism and collecting their ill-gotten gains, but if we make enough noise, they will have to respond. That starts with sharing this post, or, even better, blogging about it yourself.

But it also means reaching out to inexperienced writers and trying to steer them away from these crooks. We need to get the message out that self-publishing is not the impossible task it’s painted as. Sarah Woodbury has a helpful post on the basics here, and I have another here. Feel free to point newbies to them, or write your own.

Each time you see an article talking about Author Solutions and not mentioning all the issues, comment underneath and call them on it. Even if the media don’t change their one-eyed approach, readers will see the comments.

If you’re a member of a writers organization like SFWA, RWA, or MWA, ask what they are doing about Penguin. Ask them why they haven’t threatened to de-list Penguin. And keep pressing them! The SFWA (and the RWA) were really strong in response to Random House. We need the same from them again.

150,000 writers have been screwed over already. I think that’s enough. Don’t you?

- by David Gaughran

Fabulous and insightful talk (complete with subtitles in some Nordic? language!), including the ideas that you have to make a time and space for creativity; that you have to be prepared to stick with your work, be prepared to tolerate the discomfort of an unsolved problem; and the importance of humor.
 

I’m starting to see a pattern.

The last few weeks I’ve been feeling out of sorts, at loose ends, purposeless. Tonight I finally remembered that this is how I felt after finishing each of the first two books. Only this time, with the end of the whole series, the feelings are multiplied, intensified.

No more will I think about what twists and turns will befall Ruby, Ed, and the rest. No more do I have to worry about remembering who did what when, and whether they actually did it in the final copy of the book or just in early drafts in scenes that were later cut. No longer do I have to keep track of birthdays and important dates. No longer do I have to figure out how to juggle people’s travels so they have reason to be writing each other. No longer will I be manipulating my little utopia, a puppeteer with my strings.

I could, of course, write more books in the series, but this was my starter series. I know I have a lot more to learn, but I learned so much about writing and publishing, and in many ways I’m glad to have these books behind me so I can move on to what I hope will be better works.

I do know, in case you’re wondering, the two or four of you who will find this page, I do know what happens to all the characters, beyond the end of the third book. I suppose I had to figure it out, just so I know the characters will all be okay. They’ve been in my head for so long. Probably, they always will be. I don’t miss them, because they’re still with me, living out the whole of their lives all at once, the dimension of time in their lives flattened in my mind like so many layers in Photoshop.

Still, there’s this emptiness. This melancholy. Mourning the end.

The grieving can only last so long. There’s a new project ahead. There’s more work to be done.

Yesterday I uploaded all the files for The Tides of Wishing Rock to both CreateSpace and BookBaby, and the conversion process has begun. (And already I have received an email indicating that CreateSpace is second-guessing my cover art – I’m sure with kind intentions, but in second-guessing it, they’re going to mess it up.) “Done” seems so far from the time you finish, sometimes.

How does it feel to publish the third book? I’m starting to see a pattern. Each time I hit “submit” and upload a book, a few hours later I feel: nausea. Intense nausea. I start to think about everything in the book, all the things I maybe wanted to consider longer or reconsider, the small and large things I still might have changed. I become acutely aware of all my book’s imperfections. I literally feel the flush of heat as the blood rises up my neck and face as I think about my book being out in the world. The finality of “submit” is nauseating.

But that’s the way it is. Creativity and Risk are soulmates; where one goes, so goes the other. If you are afraid to fail, if you let that squelch your efforts, you can never create.

Recently I told someone that if my last book is no better than my first, that would be a damn shame. It’s true. But still there’s this part of me that wants to have it perfect now. Not to have to go through the learning curves. Not to have my imperfect efforts out for everyone to see, proof of my failures, large and small. If I didn’t put it out there, though, I could never get to that much better (if not perfect) final book of my life. Every time I write another book, every time I publish another book, every time I go through a part of the process, I learn. As I was getting the files ready for the Final Frontier yesterday, I thought so many times how grateful I was for everything I’ve learned with the past two books that made yesterday easier.

Still, it’s scary. Scary to have it out in the world to be judged. It’s vulnerable, and it makes me want to be standing over everyone’s shoulders as they read so I can explain myself when needed, so I can remind them I’m not just some writer in the cloud but rather a real person who is taking the risks she has to take to reach her dreams and goals.

Sometimes the glory is simply in taking yourself off the sidelines and putting yourself in the game. In being out on the floor, trying your very best to dance.

My trackpad finger is sore a lot these days, and I’ve been getting twitches in the muscles of my right (trackpad) arm. This is all too familiar. This is what happens when I’m on the computer all the time.

I’ve been hitting the marketing pretty hard lately, mostly in ways people wouldn’t even notice. Whether by coincidence, or because of the awards and honors I’ve been given lately, or because of all my marketing efforts, or something else, sales have picked up a good deal in the last week or so. (From past experience, though, I’m reserving excitement until I see it continue for a good while; often I get a small and exciting run of sales, and then sales drop off completely for days or weeks.)

When I noticed this last night, I was excited but I also felt that hot sting of impending tears rising behind my eyes. Why? Because it’s all so hard. The work is so hard and, if you’re trying to truly succeed, it never ends. It never ends. If you let up for a minute, the sales reflect that. You have to keep on keeping on. Never give up. Never a chance to rest.

A few weeks ago, I spoke to my writing group about marketing. If I’m remembering right, everyone in the group is very serious about publishing, and has a work in progress, but none that I can recall had anything published yet.

As people posed questions, I realized: many of these people wanted to know the shortcuts. They wanted the direct path to success. Totally understandable; if someone could give me shortcuts or certain success, you can believe I’d listen! But here’s the thing, and this is very important to realize: there are no shortcuts.

This is what I want to tell anyone who is hoping to publish: You have to be prepared for how hard it is. You have to be prepared to do a ton of work and not see any rewards, for months or years, but still believe that ultimately it will pay off. Certainly there are people who make it right away, who have a book that catches the world’s attention with hardly any work on the author’s part, and for your sake, I hope that’s you. But if you are hoping to publish, please, be prepared to be discouraged. Very discouraged. A lot.

My first book came out in March 2011, so I’ve been at this marketing thing for nearly two years now. Thankfully I can say the moments of despair are much fewer and further between than they used to be. The toil is familiar now; I just dig in and do it. I still expect that it’s all going to pay off in spades one day. I still believe this is my path. I still believe everything I’ve done and continue to do to try to promote my books and my brand is worth it. But there still come those times when the tears start to come and I’m feeling overwhelmed and I think, “Why does it have to be so hard?”

If you’ve chosen the writing path too, good for you! People need stories. Just know now that the writing, believe it or not, is the easy part. The hardest part comes after the book is out there. Prepare yourself. Be determined. Be ready to persevere. The discouragement will come, again and again.

If you want a writing life, you have to want it. I mean WANT IT. That means you have to be ready to try, fail, try, fail, try, fail, and keep going, again and again. You have to be willing to put in the time and energy and effort to learn everything you can to help yourself succeed – and be willing to keep trying, even if the success doesn’t come right away. Or sort of right away. Or for a really long time. If you only want shortcuts and the easy route, you might not be ready. So decide now, before you go any further: do you really, truly want it?

The first draft of the third book in the series is done! I’ve put it aside for a bit so I can come back to it with fresh eyes for editing. In the meantime, I’m re-reading Letters from Wishing Rock and The Wishing Rock Theory of Life to make sure I remember everything that happened, in hopes of having some semblance of consistency! As I go I’m finding some of my favorite quotes … is that totally vain? If you have favorite quotes, let me know!

Book three – tentatively “The Tides of Wishing Rock” – will be released in March or April! Get ready!