Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 1

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karenl

Re: stuckness, or not

I've progressed in my understanding of the problem. (It was the Pollifaxen that helped with this.) The stuckness was caused b/c the tale had reached the point where the initial small problem turns out to be the lead-in to the bigger Problem, the vast suppurating abcess of corruption that the intrepid hero must lance and drain. I had to realize that the larger issue was there. Now I'm putting down the lead-in to the Bad Guy Lean-on scene that gives a clue. As happens the clue and the leaning on are in response to what ought to be a stray item. I can't go fast just now b/c the tree must continue extending its roots first, I'm not sure exactly what the connection between the mess where my guy actually is and where the death took place will be. I just know that it's there.

And yes, I do need to go back over chapters 2 thru 4 and refine their focus.

Uncle Jim, your thread here is a big help. But I think I may have wasted all that typing practice on the Party Chapter in Fellowship of the Ring. <G> Maybe I should be typing out the first chapters in a different style of book.
 

James D Macdonald

Back

Hi, all.

I'm back from the workshop.

Here's the <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/gtrout/43655.html" target="_new">first review</a> by a student.

More when I recover some....

<HR>

Addition: A <a href="http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/groucho760/detail?.dir=ddd9&.dnm=a13b.jpg" target="_new">photo</a> of me. Is this ego, or what?

Addition two: <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/yhlee/156601.html" target="_new">Another Student Report</a>
 

James D Macdonald

Re: History

<a href="http://www.sff.net/archives/newsgroups/sff/workshop/critters-volcano-bar-and-grill/00000068.html" target="_new">Originally posted here</a><HR>

This overview will be so abreviated and simplified that it'll almost count as a parody of the real story, but this is it.

Cast back your mind to those thrilling days of yesteryear. We're looking at the 1930s now, the Great Depression. Books were a luxury item, mostly available in the "book department" of department stores. There were fewer than a hundred bookstores in the USA, located only in major cities. The Book-of-the-Month Club provided reading material to those who subscribed in the heartland. Public
libraries, supported by tax revenue, provided the other source of books that most people could find.

But there was another source of reading material, one which was available in every town. Those were the newspapers and magazines. And the newspapers and magazines were put on newstands, in drug stores, in bus stations, by what were called Independent Distributors, or IDs.

Now the IDs handled time-sensitive material. Yesterday's newspapers are fishwrappers. Last week's copy of Life, you couldn't give away. The IDs would pick up the day's papers from the printing plant, and drive them out along their circuits. They paid the printer for so-many copies. But there's always some left over. You don't want people to come to your drugstore and not find a copy of the Herald and this week's Time, would you? And the IDs didn't want to pay for stock that didn't sell. So they got credit for the unsold copies. To prove that a copy was unsold, they would tear off the front cover of the magazine, or the masthead of the newspaper, and return only that (the rest going into a Dumpster).

The grocery, or drugstore, or bus station, or newsstand, owner wouldn't have to worry about stocking periodicals -- a guy in a truck would show up every morning, or every Monday, pick up the unsold stock from yesterday or last week, and leave today's, or this week's, stock. The store owner only paid the driver for the ones that sold, and didn't have to pay to have stuff on his shelves. Easy source of cash for everyone.

Now, in those days of the late 1930s, there were giants in the earth. And some of them were Max Schuster, Dick Simon, Ian Ballantine, and others who noticed that there was this distribution system already in place. At first the paperbacks were lower-cost reprintings of existing hard covers. Later came paperback originals. But these fellows saw that by making paperbacks available through the ID system, they could make a bundle. And so they did.

This also made paperbacks strippable. Unsold copies would have their covers torn off and returned for credit on the next order of books. They were treating books exactly like magazines. The ID system wasn't set up for returns, and so there were no returns. Those books that didn't sell were stripped and replaced by others that might sell better. Think of a paperback as a funny-looking magazine and you'll get the right idea.

Paperback covers reflected this, too. You were wondering about all the girls with large bosoms and scanty clothing? The covers were being designed to appeal to truck drivers, the guys who were actually choosing which books to put on the racks. (There was also standard advice to paperback writers in those days to show up at the warehouses where the IDs picked up their stock at four in the morning, bearing coffee and donuts, so that the drivers would remember Joe Author as a good guy, and maybe take another carton of his books around. Remember: people don't buy what they don't see.) Books were all the same size to fit the standard wire racks.

These were mass market paperbacks. Mass market, as opposed to "the Trade," that is, the bookstore trade. Trade books were whole-copy returnable. Hardcovers are trade books. Trade paperbacks are whole-copy returnable (they're sent back to the warehouse, restocked, and shipped to other bookstores).

Printing a hundred thousand copies of a paperback brought the per-unit cost of a paperback down so that you could still make money if you threw away half of the books you printed. The IDs provided a way to put a hundred thousand copies in front of potential buyers. The IDs varied in size from some that owned fleets of trucks and covered half a state, to others which were one guy in a stationwagon who covered one side of town. The IDs tended to know their markets pretty well, and knew to stock more romances in the drugstore next to the beauty parlor, more action/adventure in the bus station near the Army base, more science fiction at the news stand by the high school, and so on.

(Please note that for the IDs books were never more than a sideline: They were far more interested in making sure there are multiple copies of TV Guide beside every supermarket cash register in America than selling Jay Random Writer's books -- books were there because the IDs were already sending a truck to these different places, and the truck might have some spare room after the copies of that morning's newspapers were loaded.)

This happy situtation took us through the forties, the fifties, and the sixties. Books went out in great numbers, were sold in great numbers, and everyone was happy, more or less. Yes, the books had shelf-lives that depended on whim of the truck driver, but whaddya want? And there were turf wars, and Mob influences, and much that was less than Kosher, and the books had covers that you wouldn't want your mother to see you reading. But this is America!

Several things started to happen after that -- the rise of the malls brought bookstores right to mid-size towns. You no longer had to look for books at the grocery store. Maybe Waldenbooks wasn't that great, but compared to a wire-rack at the bus stop it was heaven.

The malls made Piers Anthony a best-seller, with the lease-line dumps offering pre-teen porn at lunch-money prices. Their time came, and departed. Now we are seeing the rise of the superstores. We've all heard of Amazon.com, right? All of Amazon's sales equals that of just two Barnes&Noble superstores. Put not your faith in princes, nor yet in on-line sales. If you can get your book into Amazon but can't get it into Barnes&Noble, it's game over.

Then the world changed for the IDs. Out in Seattle, the Safeway corporation was dealing with some forty IDs for various books and periodicals at its various store locations. So one day the Safeway chain said to the IDs, "One month from today, we will begin doing all of our business with only one of you. Start bidding."

"You can't do that!" said the IDs.

"Watch us," said Safeway.

And soon enough, rather than the patchwork of IDs in Seattle, there was only one, the rest bought out or bankrupt. And this wave spread across the nation, so that where there had formerly been hundreds or thousands of IDs, there are now perhaps a score; near bankruptcy from their fight with the other IDs for survival, less profitable because they had to offer deeper discounts to the stores to be the one that would be given the contract. And they didn't know their markets well, and instead of hand-selecting which books went into which slots where, turned to safe and reliable choices -- big name authors, reprints of best sellers -- and the implosion continued. Grocery stores couldn't compete with mall bookstores on books. The grocery stores have been going back to what they do best -- selling groceries. There are not only fewer IDs filling wire-rack spinners, there are fewer spinners for them to fill.

We are now coming out of that period of flux. The mass market paperback has been wounded, some say mortally, but the trade has expanded, so that we're now seeing rack-sized trade paperbacks -- that is to say, they have exactly the same trim size as those paperbacks designed to fit the wire-rack spinners, but are whole-copy returnable. Impossible to tell at a glance from mass market, right
down to the glossy lurid covers.

This story, you may notice, has little to do with techology -- the ability to print many cheaply -- and a great deal to do with distribution. Recall the adage that amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics? It's the same in bookselling. Amateurs talk printing, professionals talk distribution.
 

James D Macdonald

Re: History

Again, orginally posted elsewhere, over two years ago....

<HR>
This story, you may notice, has little to do with techology -- the ability to print many cheaply -- and a great deal to do with distribution. Recall the adage that amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics? It's the same in bookselling. Amateurs talk printing, professionals talk distribution.


And where, you may ask, does this leave vanity/POD books from the majority of vanity/POD publishers?

They're neither strippable for credit nor whole-copy returnable. They don't fit anywhere into the distribution system. Nor do many of them have standard discounts. So ... they're never going to show up on wire-rack spinners, since the IDs don't have a mechanism for ordering. They aren't going to show up on the bookstore shelves since they aren't returnable. And because of that and the fact that they don't have standard discounts, the bookstores that order them would have to set up at least two accounting systems -- one for each vanity/POD publisher, and one for every other book in the store. Small wonder that few bookstores are even willing to order vanity/POD books -- if the customer decides, when the book comes in four to six weeks later, that he doesn't want it, the store's stuck, they've had to do special bookkeeping on it the whole way, and if the customer does take it they've made less money on the whole transaction as a percentage of cover price than they would with any other book -- while costing more in resources. Barnes&Noble, which partly owns iUniverse (though they've been dumping their investment and now own a far smaller part) has a policy of refusing to order iUniverse titles.

This brings us around to Bookstore Economics.

The books on the shelves at your local bookstore didn't cost the bookstore owner a dime. They are on consignment from the publisher. The publisher sends around sales reps, the bookstore decides how many of each title from each publisher's catalog they want to stock, and the publisher ships them.

The bookstore sells some of those books, and reports to the publisher how many were sold. The ones that sell -- with a standard discount of 40%, the bookstore sends in 60% of the cover price, and keeps 40% for themselves. For deep-discounted books (certain best sellers, others being highly promoted) the discount is 60%, so the bookstore keeps 60% of the cover price. That's why you can see bookstores offering New York Times Bestsellers for 50% off, and they're still making money -- 10% of cover price times an Awful Lot of Books adds up to some serious coin.

Publishers can offer these discounts because when you print a lot of books the unit price is very cheap indeed.

Authors with standard royalty deals get their royalty based on the cover price -- never mind if the bookstore sells them for 10% off, or 50% off. That's another place where vanity/POD publishers in general screw authors -- they offer
royalties on "net," the amount that they get from the bookstore, rather than cover price. Since they have to offer a discount of some kind (though few offer the standard discount) the author is making a higher percentage of a smaller number -- often in terms of real money the vanity/POD author is making less per sale than a standard royalty author makes on a book with the same cover price.

Okay, back to the bookstore. After a while, if a book that's on the shelf isn't selling, if it's a trade book the bookstore owner sends it back and gets a new title to put in its place. If it's a mass market book the bookstore owner tears off the cover, sends that back, and orders new books to put in its place. How long this cycle is depends on the store. Superstores tend to have far longer shelf times than mall stores. Independent bookstores are all over the place on this.

Let's see -- publishers also pay the bookstores for placement in the stores -- those books on the table by the front of the store didn't get there by accident, or through some bookstore employee's happy thought. Same for the ones displayed at the ends of the bookshelf, on the endcaps. Why do you think that all the L. Ron Hubbard books have had prominent placement for years? Their publisher is paying the bookstores to keep them on the shelves.

Why do they do this? Because people buy what they see on the shelves. Just being displayed in a bookstore is a major part of getting readers.
 

Yeshanu

Re: stuckness, or not

Thanks for the lowdown on the publishing industry, UJ. Very informative...

I just want to say I bought and devoured Murder by Magic last week (with my last 20 bucks and when I should have been doing homework... :grin ) Well worth it!
 

aka eraser

Re: History

Thanks Jim. Great overview of a side of the business most of us don't know near-enough about.
 

runic 7

Hello, I'm new here . . .

This looks like such a wonderful place to interact and learn :snoopy ! Especially since I've never asked this much of myself before.

I was wondering about two things -- :wha

1) When you use a quote from someone who is dead, do you still have to contact publishers or whomever for permission to use the quote if you go ahead and name the person prior to or after that quote?

2) When something is written based on a true story, no matter how fiction that true story may sound, and the names are all changed to protect those involved, does the author still have to get permission from the individuals?

runic7/Shan
 

Jules Hall

quotes

1) When you use a quote from someone who is dead, do you still have to contact publishers or whomever for permission to use the quote if you go ahead and name the person prior to or after that quote?

If the person died over 70 years ago, then the quote is out of copyright and you can use it however you like. If they didn't, you'll probably need to get permission.
 

James D Macdonald

Re: Hello, I'm new here . . .

1) When you use a quote from someone who is dead, do you still have to contact publishers or whomever for permission to use the quote if you go ahead and name the person prior to or after that quote?

How big a quote, for what purpose, and is it still under copyright?

2) When something is written based on a true story, no matter how fiction that true story may sound, and the names are all changed to protect those involved, does the author still have to get permission from the individuals?

Permission for what? To quote them? To use their story? Are you going to be looking at a libel suit somewhere along the line?

This is where I do my near-famous "I Am Not a Lawyer" dance.

Advice, though? I've got plenty. Tell the best story you can (I assume this is a novel, because I'm talking about novels here). After you've sold it, inform the editor that it's based on a true story. After the editor does the obligatory face palm, perhaps she'll say, "Great! We'll put 'based on a true story' on the cover!" Let the publisher's legal department help you out.

Remember: The words "But it really happened that way!" won't save a novel. Fiction has to be believable. Real life doesn't operate under any such constraints. Change stuff to make it work in terms of a novel.

<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0812519329/ref=nosim/madhousemanor" target="_new">Psycho</a>, <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312195265/ref=nosim/madhousemanor" target="_new">The Silence of the Lambs</a>, and <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000C8ART/ref=nosim/madhousemanor" target="_new">The Texas Chainsaw Massacre</a> were all based on the same real case.
 

James D Macdonald

Another Blog Worth Reading

<a href="http://www.bookslut.com/blog/" target="_new">Bookslut</a>
 

runic 7

Re: Learn Writing with Uncle Jim

Thank ya sir :D

We're talking about two novels, actually the second is probably more at a novella.

Regarding the quote in the first, it's Corrie Tenboom's "There is no pit that He is not deeper still." Within the story line she is acknowledged as the person who said it.

runic7
 

James D Macdonald

Copyright

Corrie Tenboom's "There is no pit that He is not deeper still."

Corrie ten Boom. "There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still."

I don't see a problem with that quote, properly cited.
 

Richard Ernest Rogers

Re: Copyright

I'm struggling my way through more than a years worth of posting and thanking you for each and every every page. I just wanted to announce another lurker in the shadows. When I get caught up on trying out all of the good advice, about Christmas I reckon, I may even feel like stepping out of the shadows occasionally.
 

paritoshuttam

Novel length in pages and words

Hi,

In general, how many words would a conventional-length novel be? For a first-timer.

When I wrote my first draft, it was 100,000 words. Then I realised some (quite a few) shortcomings, and have done a lot of revision. This also involved some merciless hacking away many portions in my original version because I found they really weren't adding anything to the story.

Now I think I will end up in the 70,000-80,000 word range. Is that OK? How many pages would that translate to, in a published book? A rough estimate would do. I was aiming for the 225-250 page length novel.

thanks,
Paritosh.
 

Jules Hall

Novel length

The range 70,000 to 100,000 is frequently quoted, although it does vary by genre. To be honest, you're in the right ballpark, so I wouldn't have thought it would matter much.
 

HConn

Re: Copyright

Paritosh, visit the websites of publishers who publish books similar to the one you're writing. If they have submission guidelines, check the length requirements.
 

macalicious731

Re: Copyright

Also, paritosh, there's a thread running (should still be on the first page) titled "Novel Length." It should be able to help you out.

Edit: Here's the link.
 

James D Macdonald

Re: Novel length in pages and words

Write the book that's the right length for your story. If every word serves its purpose, the right word in the right place, then your book will be its proper length.

Rather than writing to the market, write your book and find its market.
 

James D Macdonald

Google Desktop

Today's Neat New Toy: <a href="http://desktop.google.com/" target="_new">Google Desktop</a>.

Indexing and search on your own personal hard drive, integrated into your Google results.
 

HConn

Quick and Dirty Research For Lazy People

I need some help with research.

Two weeks ago my toddler said something that gave me a great idea for a story. The problem: It would need to be set in the past, in America, in a time period I don't know much about. Post-reconstruction to the turn of the century.

I don't know a lot about how people ate, what they wore, how they crapped, how they worked. And I don't want to spend hours researching a time period for a 4K word short story.

But this story wants to be written. How do I do reliable research quickly and cheaply?
 
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