Sanderson 2014.13 - Publishing

our lecture on publish the publishing industry I'm going to talk about meeting editors and presenting yourself as a business person trying to make some money off of this product with your co-producer then we are going to segue into self-publishing and do some self-publishing lectures [Applause] years ago and then win the whole self publishing revolution happen he was very well and is a big proponent of it and so I've invited him to come on his experience in the real world very well Isaac grabbed up so he grabbed one of my way contracts to grab one of my movie TV deals and he grabbed one of my adults we've all the contracts so you have a little bit of everything up here but you can look at just kind of see how they so when we broke up last week last episode we were talking about I have just turned on the fire hose these are the fire hose lecture where it's just like here you go here's how publishing kind of works and one author's perspective on it and I about the breakdowns on on price and value and you know why you would want to license your books to a publisher at least what you are getting for what you would give up okay the lecture today is going to focus on okay if I am going to go this route how do I actually get published but I wanted you to upfront have all the information about what's going on behind the scenes so the Europe you can think of yourself the right way and the past that would talk about how to publish first and then to do all of this stuff and I think having the context of in mind if you are a business person who has a product which you are looking for someone with whom you partner rather than I am a starving artist who will take two cents in order to see my name on the shelves I think that that change in perspective is going to be very helpful for this context under that right now you are inside by fantasy are actually in a very fortunate position because sci-fi fantasy was a grassroots publishing movement if you go back in time to the 50s then in the 40s there wasn't as much science fiction fantasy a lot of the mainstream publishers didn't really know what to do with it and yes there were some posts of magazines some great writers but what happened is the whole industry came out of people who love science fiction fantasy starting to meet together hot to talk about this weird stuff that no one else wanted to talk about with them and started conventions particularly in the 5450 where they could meet up and talk about these conventions were basically their first with Facebook internets where you haven't proved we got together and and chat about these things and growing up out of these kind of conventions for a lot of fans of the genre who were very interested in it who then became a lot of what we call the Silver Age whatever age you want to talk about the science which of fantasy writers during this era and the editors and publishers a lot of them came up through the con experience um and so that's why you will find stories about Isaac Asimov going to the cons and working on the local fanzi because it's like that's where I came from that's why do you run run into people let my editor moshe my editor moshe who was a super fan collector of i believe it was an along you'll not that we have to ask him one of the big magazines and was missing a few back issues realize that the publisher of that magazine lived somewhere pretty close to him in in new york somewhere and just went to his house and knocked on the door to ask if you get the three back issues he needs there's another seat right up here if someone's looking for what and there is a chair just right here somebody wants it any other open seats publishing lectures are popular so he knocked on the door the editor answered it's like oh yeah I've got those two back your shoes by the way do you want to start reading slush for us my editors like sixteen at a time it's like sure you know it's free but I get read it early and decides that helps I would get to the magazine and so I started doing this he's he's been like every world con that ever existed except for like four or something like that you know he ended up working on the magazine and then getting employed at this place and then getting planted this place would eventually took a job at war because he wanted to be at one of the big science fiction fantasy publishers you meet a lot of people like this in the industry what this means is is sci-fi fantasy is a lot less corporate than a lot of the be publishing genres and there is a nice tight knit community still and the editors tend to be one of us right I don't know a lot about a lot of the other non publishing industries I do know in sci-fi fantasy the editors tend to be prefer people who love science fiction and fantasy and came up through the fan ranks the lot of them are from New York and are part of these communities and so the convention circuit is still a very good way to meet members and by conventions there's really I will highlight three top styles of cons there are what we call our local literary universe and everything which I encouraged me you go to conduit and Salt Lake these are the local community volunteer-run science fiction conventions that focused on being a fan and participating in fandom these are very different from Comic Cons otherwise known as Media Console these are things these are things like comic-con obviously Dragon Con there are things like supernova in Australia that I did there most of the Star Trek conventions and things like this media cons are focused on presenting sort of more than Expo environments okay an expo environment meaning they all have a big dealers hall with people that fit so you can go see all this awesome stuff being sold and they will bring in Superstars and have them do panels and interviews and things like that in order to drive media attention you'll see a lot more movies where you don't see movie stars at these very often and if you do then it's the person who's starred in super and to 30 years ago who I was on TV with once because we did a local affiliate it was really interesting he and the Superman to villain and a bunch of stormtroopers so but yeah these you'll see so if you go to comic-con that's gonna be a very different experience my editor explained this way he's very entrenched in this style he said in here you are expected to be a participant and here you were expected to be a spectator now obviously he loves these a lot I'm sure there's been there's a lot much more than this amazing care of it here you're being marketed to and that's fine there's nothing wrong with that but here you are going out of your love for fandoms and to interact with other fans and so here you are not going to find editors at a spectator con you might find the publishers publicity Department they're running a booth and handing out flyers those are publicists they don't talk to the editors I'm joking but they're they're business people and the editors are very different crowd now at tour the publicist tend to be superfans also because everybody at tour attend to these Superman's these people can buy your book it's always plenty for me to go to one of these things and be hanging out the tour booth and have an aspiring writer come up and try to talk the publicist into taking their book this is a person who's doing that who has not done any research into their field this is what you want to avoid not necessarily that one experience you want to come across as a professional in your business who knows this business if you were someone who was who was selling anything else let's say you're selling widgets whatever your widgets are selling and you go to the person in the shop at the MAC store let's say and you're like you should be using our processors in your Mac's you're going to look like a fool and you're gonna get nowhere that's that's that you laugh at that but it's publishing a lot of people because with our artists we assume that we don't have to have this hat of being a business person my job in these lectures we pop it to the artist for you know 12 weeks and these lectures were talking to the business person and your job is to come across as a professional so on the third type of content you want to mention is we do have also the the sort of more conference writers trumpets sort of things and these are good for practicing your craft usually you will see things like this writer screen readers is one of these Maui's writers conference is famous to an extent things like Clarion which is more run like a school environment are things like this these are where you put a usually premium to get in the door they will bring in lecturers and instructors and they will teach you actively these focus a lot more on the craft but often they will bring in an agent or an editor and give you opportunities with pinch sessions and things like this this is kind of a a pay-to-play sort of environment but it's very structured and it can be very very handy for instance going to on the literary cons which also have not local but national or international goings one of those can probably email you're flying to it you have to pay to get your badge membership they probably are gonna cost you around five hundred bucks would be my guess you didn't get to register on readers I think was four hundred and something and so you know it's local it can be a very good value all right so your job is to think like the professional if you might be professional community mean a couple of things you're going to do your homework in your research you are going to be going to understand that you may have to invest some money into your career imagine that I mean you're here paying for this class so I think you already know it but you may have to go fly to conventions you will have to get out of your comfort zone and be willing to talk to be them many of us in sci-fi/fantasy are somewhat shy you're going to be pitching yourself and your books whatever you can do to practice being able to do this is going to help you there are ways around this you don't necessarily absolutely have to be doing what I'm saying but get in the mindset that you are going to be going and selling your work you are going to be happy to leave your comfort zone and you're going to have to spend some money often to do this ok yeah so yeah of these I would say these are the to be you want to be focusing your time on for writers conference I would choose your writers conference based on the people the guests that they're bringing into lecture and the opportunities you don't have to mean it specific agents and editors okay so if you see one that has an agent going to it that is an agent that you specifically want to work with and you see that on their their their guide that you were going to be able to get a 28-minute or probably a 20 minute a five minute 10 minute pitch session with that agent that specific writers conference then shoots up and value to you even though it's probably gonna be more expensive if you have to apply to it than one one of these these by the way are also one of your best bets in teen and Wyatt because the teen and why a crowd does not have isn't any of these in the same way they have a lot more beasts and there's something kind of like this but not the same there's there's not as much of this so team nya right here or you can try the back roaming in through the keen and white publishers editors at the science fiction and fantasy imprints for instance tor has 14 and starscape which are their mill gradient and and yaa inference which work much more because they're part of Tour like tours and they do like a children's publisher the children's publishers do tend to be more corporate I've noticed us even though they have a very homey familial sort of feel about them the the fact that childrens tends to as an industry trying to explain this the right way children's is a big business children's books children's books are a way bigger business than science fiction and fantasy the average big teen book will sell ten times as much as the average big sci-fi fantasy world so they bring in a lot more money plus if there's this whole structure of book fairs and all of these things which require a lot of extra set up to do direct marketing basically to the the teens and the children that exists and the team and shoulders publishing has been around a lot more long than science fiction fantasy publishing the first real science fiction fantasy improvise leave was ace in the late 60s or early 70s shoulders publishing has been around 72 hundreds because of all these things children's publisher every major big corporate structure or one of the big six high the children different and usually now has like six that they've doubled up usually whereas science fiction fantasy is only something they started gobbling up in the 90s so because of this the children's it's just beginning through the doors in children my experience has been is a lot harder than getting through the door some sci-fi/fantasy be kind of sci-fi fantasy has this whole fandom grassroots yes submit your manuscript on agented and unrequested because you know we love brand-new authors and all of this sort of stuff whereas childrens those doors are a little bit harder to get through this might be because even though writing a good children's book is not easier than writing a good epic fantasy book writing a bad one it's a lot easier if you think about it writing a bad book that is 20,000 words long it's a lot easier than writing a bad book that's two hundred and fifty thousand words long and so their submission piles are a lot higher and things like this and so anyway for your for those of you 18 it is harder I will just tell you that straight up but the potential highs are much higher sales wise you need only compare Diary of a Wimpy Kid to The Wheel of Time when they are both coming out and they're they're announced print runs to find out that Wheel of Time you know the first print run I think they announced like 500,000 and the diary would be Kate coming out the same time was like 4 million or something and so yeah different different realm of existence on some of these team books that really take off in middle grade books you're saying well alright so what do I do these are easy by the way they're expensive but they're easy because we'll have you sent you know sign up for your accession and things like this here there are pitch sessions at a literary convention there is a bunch there are a bunch of thin volunteers putting together something that borders on chaos that allows them to discuss Doctor Who and have parties at night with other nurse excuses to get drunk with your nerd friends and talk about doctor they're also the means by which the old guard and some of the new guard prepare the old guard got together with all their friends that lived across the country from each other periodically to have fun and shout it in ketchup okay on the two big ones that I recommend our world Khan world Khan and roll fantasy world comic book fantasy are the two national or international literary conventions so as a comparison like the biggest real common memory I think was LA Khan anyway they did like a really big world Khan is 10,000 people that's an enormous okay Comic Con is 250,000 all right there are very different styles Worldcon the world science fiction convention where the egos are even out is commonly 5,000 people and these 5,000 people tend to be a lot of publishing industry regulars aspiring writers fans who are very intense and interested in the nature of fandom and they get together and have parties in panels and talk about science fiction fantasy now this is not a silver bullets this is not the only way to do this I want you to make you aware of their existence when I took this class class Page said you are in a position you need to start attending these things in trying to network that is because despite how we would wished it were otherwise networking is very important and basically every industry you're going to go you want to go into most jobs that people get are jobs that you get because you have met someone for it all right and publishing selling a book is a lot easier if you know the person you are selling the boat to da even if they have just met you and as my editor what said you know why do you got back to my book you said you look like a nice person you weren't dressed really weird you weren't defensive and you were just so nice so that's why you kept sitting on my book and waiting to read it and like oh I should reject this because I just don't have the time is like oh he was so nice and so eventually read the book you have to be getting your book read by people who have in a position to buy it the way this works in science fiction fantasy publisher is an editor reads your books the editor likes the book and goes and usually tries to convince marketing other people in house and the publisher who is the business person who runs all of this that this is a book that their imprint should be publishing and asked for permission to make an offer pocket the money people or the publisher depending the place where you are will say yes you're authorized to this amount you have brought in what we call a P&L a profit and loss sheet that shows similar books how many you think you'll print how this will turn a profit that determines how much we can offer on this book you run all those numbers you then can go back to the author and say we are willing to offer $5,000 as an advance against these royalties on this book because I ran these numbers in this P&L they're kind of made-up numbers teachers guessing based on what other books like this have done but it is the way that it happens so you have to get your book into the hands of this editor who can then go do this now part of an editors job is to be looking for new acquisitions they need a constant stream of new books we'll talk about agents in a few minutes I do this all thing with let editors first but then we'll talk about agents you want to be because what the agent is going to do you want to get your books into the hands of the editor and agent get your hands in the book book into the hands of an editor right so you want to get your hands book into the hands of these people now all these people have different tastes all these people are individuals all of these people work at different companies so your job if you want to publish traditionally in science fiction/fantasy particular teen also this will work is to start learning the names of the imprints the editors who work there the books they have acquired in the last couple of years the conventions they commonly attend you're basically going to professionally stuff them okay you're going to figure out this business and know who all of these people are because let's say you send a book tour is a great example that's probably the best example it's a you said a book tutorial go someone go look on Wikipedia see how many editors there aren't or there's something that they list like nine or ten on the Wikipedia article of tour editors all these people a book that David Hartley likes is not necessarily book that match of meals of Haven lights and that is not necessarily a book that Liz grapes delights you want to get your book into the hands of the one this will like purple the most not send it to dear acquisitions editor that's how you get into the wall remember last week where I said you want to get on the desk now to get on the desk do your research find out the names the editors find the books that they have acquired recently and then try to interact with them do not swarm them this is not again a silver bullet I've had in the past I tell you others say wow your students are really aggressive yes they are and now that else won't work on they go try to final the others but this is how the business works this is how you get a leg up now you don't necessarily have to be sworn in editors you definitely don't want to be trying to give them your manuscript right then you want to know who they are you want to go to their panels you want to read the books that they have acquired recently you want to know something about them think about if we just take the Bears simple minimum you are submitting a book to an editor at or and that editor gets two books one of them says dear acquisitions editor here is my book I think you'll like it yet and you say dear Liz karinski I have been reading Cherie priest snuggles and I know you've edits Cherie priest I'm pretty sure she had it series yeah karakov is it Liz well we'll get the answer for you on that one but I've been reading one of your authors specifically and my writing style and I watched you at Brooklyn talked about this aspect of writing I think that my books would be a really good match for you that you would really enjoy them here is the pitch on my novel you don't want to be exactly what the other genders are already publishing by the way you want to share some attributes but you know they already have for instance if they already I'm sure increased doing the zombie steampunk another zombie steampunk may not be the thing that they're looking for but maybe vampire steampunk might match I don't know just say you know like he's ascending to my litter which by the way you probably shouldn't do because he has only ever picked up two authors that I know of me and Dan it's because he's Moshe but if you're saying laughs my under saying I write books with really logical magic systems and I know you publish Brandon Sanderson I think my books might be a match for you give us something intrinsic to the author that they seem to life if you can notice trends and things like this then this will be you imagine if you're the editor getting those two things doing Wow one just said randomly the company the others been reading the books that I had it and is complimenting them and thinks that their book is match I'm gonna see if they're right doing your research knowing these people is going to help you a great deal no matter what's going on even if you can't afford to get through the dimensions even if all you can do is read their blog and see what they're saying if you all you can do is read the books that they are publishing and working on now when you if you you happen to meet them you're what you're getting you're trying to do is see if this is a good match for you you are not desperate to publish with anybody you are looking for a good editorial relationship that will improve your novels and will help you get your book to more people that's why we talked last week okay you always have the self-publishing mechanism to fall back on now so even if you are dead set on traditional publishing a bad traditional publishing relationship is not going to serve you well so your job your going and try to say is this a person that you know their editor of style matches mine is this a good match for my book if yes and you'll be trying to submit to them now ideally at one of these cons you go up and you can chat with them if you find them in a party in a relaxed environment you you ask them what they're working on or something like that and you ask them what author they bought recently and what made a pick up this new author you don't say what are you looking for because what they're looking for a great books you ask some very intelligent sort of question that will get them talking about their business about what they have been working on and what they like and you're going to learn everything and then you're going to if that's a good match against a it sounds like I have a book to be right up your alley do you mind if I submit it to you every time I did that except for two editors every other one said yeah sure here's my card two times it didn't work so it will not work sometimes but often it will work and then you have something you can submit to them you go home from the convention you get a submission packet ready you're right requested material on the cover and you overnight it to them you don't hand it to them right there but you act like it's a big deal that they have they're willing to look at your cur then they'll probably sit on for eight months but this is sort of the way that that now I don't want to say this is going to work for every one of you in fact we will continue the whole point of this is to wait to change the way that you were thinking about publishing rather than I sent it off blindly into the nothing and I wait and see instead you are I have picked specific people that I have sent this to I am in charge of my career I'm a business person who knows what they're doing I am part of this community and a colleague to these people don't be super arrogant but you do want to be confident about what you're doing all right does this make sense are there questions about this sort of thing all right they should have their editing their submission guidelines on their website if they do not then you usually want to submit three chapters and an outline an outline being maybe two or three page explanation of the entire book not actually an outline format it's you know three pages explaining the plot of your novel the characters you want to have that submission packet ready I think it loves were doing it by email now that's very strange to me because when I was doing this to my no emails they don't send an email they were all very print but I think a lot of are doing email these days and so you know then ask one that you talk to them you can do and say great do you want say three chapters and outline do you want the whole novel you probably want to be sending them three chapters in an output rather than the full novel just because there's this whole weird thing called simultaneous emissions which mode some editors don't want you to submit a whole novel to them unless they're the only one considering it they want to they want to get like the chance to pat know they have it and be able to ask for it it's kind of unfair but it is something that someone insurance and published interest rates going away these days but still there and so nobody counts three sample chapters is a simultaneous emission if they worry about simultaneous emissions what you end up doing is you send your three sample chapters to you say six well-chosen editors that you have researched you then and then if glory be two of them get back to you and want the full if you're worried about this what you do is you pick the one that you sit that you think it's most likely you send them the full and right to the other and say it is out on submission the full manuscript to another editor right now I will let you know as soon as I am able to send it to you or you can write well back both and say do you mind simultaneous emissions and neither the mind then you send them the vault my editor doesn't mind that's because he never buys in somebody's books if they only send them together this is because he hates Moshe he is he is quite the character in his awesome past together but doesn't buy anybody books so yeah that sounds a submissions were there any other questions on this now you can do this like I said reading a blog you can do this by googling you can go to the bookstore say what's this this new author who is their editor let me see if I can figure out who their editors be able to find out cherry said it was looks good you able to you know go google and find out if you can't you can eat on the on the offer and say who's your editor how'd you meet them the worst that can happen is they don't reply right so you might as well you can try and start gathering yours a little black book publishing names and professional houses this is actually very important also in children's because like I said most of the big six have gobbled up like six children's publishers and so knowing that's that these are all like Arthur Levine is scholastic as is like this one and this one and this one seven and harborin and things like knowing these inference all belong to the same publishing houses is very helpful to you oftentimes you know you don't want to be submitting to multiple people at the same house but sometimes you can get away with if they're under the same company submitting to two different editors at two different houses if they both want it they probably won't compete against each other for the book but if one rejects it at Arthur Levine I think that's the name the Harry Potter one then somebody else at scholastic may still be willing to look at it because they're different imprints so they kind of work autonomously a lot of times that doesn't isn't always the case if you do your research you'll know that it isn't is it so I'm going to go quickly down the sci-fi fantasy one I do not know the children's ones well enough when I was trying to break in I've got still long so much by children's that I broke in in science fiction and fantasy but I found a lot more welcoming and easy to break into perhaps because I'm naturally more member of that community there are great resources out there for people publishing Childers but I do the Rick Walton and ask him about them he knows a lot more particularly he does a picture books we know the children is i am i broken you children's with an agent so big on the big six we talk about the big things there's actually a big fine now that random house of penguins version let's see if i can name six which they insist on calling penguin Random House but everybody else calls random penguin we have a partner and the one I always forget Simon Schuster okay so under each of these you will find a variety of inference there are also small presses that we'll get to next and there are the legit small presses that you would want to consider some on random penguin under sci-fi fantasy usually it's going to be under the Bantam imprint or the del rey interest so those are the reign of house once bantam is what they published Georgia are Martin under Del Rey was I believe Dan McCaffrey and David Eddings and nowadays is this room man painted man Gregg Leakes those are them and then under the penguin imprint they have ace and rock which actually operate as one even though they have two different imprints along the editorship share so this is a case where if you submit the ace that gets rejected you probably can't fin submit to rock things that's the same people and then they also have kind of a weird relationship with Dom which is part owned autonomously but uses all of their legal department and things so I'm not quite never sure whether da is what God what's up with Dom but their greatness McMillan has what a shut is orbit by fantasy Harper is Voyager mr. Simon hey I told you leave it open I always have trouble remembering I don't know if they have a dedicated sci-fi fantasy imprint that's a small press they might be they might be a list of one that just had a invention quit what's that yeah yeah so Simon & Schuster they have a lot of good shoulders imprint fantasy to do they just published under the name Simon & Schuster imprint what's that well what was probably yeah find out what Lola said there because that was Simon & Schuster I think you're starting all right well he's looking that up we will mention some of the small presses i angry robot fan hire you want to help small presses smaller presses and I missing me I'm sure I'm missing some good ones tachyons yeah you'll just have to find out like there are some decent it's a good there's some very good small presses but I don't know a lot of them I only know a couple of them on you but you want to do your research and find out who has luck reputation I can tell you a little bit about some of these different ones so I'm gonna go just got trying to go down these for you give you a broad overview to give you a jumping point okay to launch off okay we're gonna start right down here Aysen rock Aysen rock is the first sci-fi fantasy imprint the Tom Doherty ran Tom Doherty now owns torque and half owner Bank well I guess you stole tour started the president so this is a sidewalk was the first one that you started that it was for a long time they paperback only publisher which is where science fiction pays you started doing the pulps it grew up so to speak in the 70s and 80s they do do a lot of hard covers though a lot of their pulp roots are still around pulp means short fast-paced action adventure and so their pulp roots are still very strong and so you'll see a lot of that sort of so military science fiction urban fantasy fast paced fun stuff you'll see a lot of that a Sandrock but they will do basically anything I've noticed them you know offering on epic fantasy projects I've noticed them offering on basic on all stuff so they are they'll cut consider anything but my editor considers them or my agent considers them one of the top publishers to work with he really likes working with ace about he's just had good experiences with their editors some of their one of their editors is dy Ukraine and sewers cowards and swords to BYU grad and she works there so there is that very good company they tend to go to a lot of the science fiction fantasy conventions you will find them there you'll even find them occasionally Media cons but you really have to hunt for them so looking up and finding out who their editors are and things like that you're going to be helpful to you doc smaller science fiction fantasy house started by Daniel David something whole line VAW I think in his initials it was I think mostly is still independent like I said but it works with penguin they tend to focus on epic fantasy they do Pat Rothfuss they tattooed life also you know the big big epic fantasies they like to have strong female protagonists also is a big part of das - they were the ones that started Melanie wrong you know doing a lot of her books and things like that and an excellent reputation they do show up in all the conventions they were mine when I was submitting aggressively I was submitting her story only to tour ace and Doc these are the three publishers that I would have considered I started start at the top but I did not want to go anywhere else those were the three that I considered with tour being my top and a send-off also being very acceptable that I was submitting to I really liked all I've interacted with their editors they only have a very few number there's like three I think you guys will have to do research on this I think it might be mr. Will Hines wife or daughter who runs it right now that's the meat is still in charge of it this is why yep please don't close that Isaac just keep you going stuff as I so but yeah they I have some very nice rejection letters for them so so da consider them highly if you write any fantasy bantam del rey I don't know yet really how they share editorial or not they've gone through a lot of transitions they basically ran side by fantasy in the eighties they were the sci-fi fans the imprint until tour kind of took over in the 90s with Robert Orden and Terry Goodkind kind of spearheading their lines I yeah I'm not sure how they share furl they're very still very strong good company every time I tried to submit to them they would not take me without an agent this is one of the two editors that said no to me wasn't that underfur del Rey I don't know if that's still a case cuz that was 15 years ago now so you'll have to do your research I do see them at the conventions they have an exceptional reputation but I'm not sure how to get in with them they will publish anything Random House is a very large publisher I've now worked with them on my team books and they've been wonderful to work with and I would I would think this would be a top choice if you can figure out how to get through those doors which were so hard for me to get through okay and like I said they'll do anything George are Martin is their big author right now so what's that teleport is my publisher that Random House when the children tickets Tork okay yeah anyway I don't want to do it all for you tour credit or it's very unique in that it is run much more loosely than the others it is has a very light Panther McMillan whereas a lot of the others have much more strong and toriel direction from the higher-ups it's basically Tom Doherty hires editor see things are really excited about sci-fi fantasy and then he lets them buy whatever they can convince him is worth buying and they each run like basically little imprints based around that editor that they keep they can do what they want now there is a lot more sharing between them implying there but this is the sense they have so many identical editors and each editors editorial decision making and their their tastes are so different for the others tor can be all across the map on what they'll buy and getting your book in the hands of the right editor very important as I mentioned Lee Modesitt said there's precisely one editor and all of publishing who would ever buy this stuff and he's forcing if you found them in an art buff and David Harper continues to buy and publishes works so tor is one of those ones that is very important to pick your editor sometimes some of the others it's not quite as important like for instance dog dog you kind of pick based on is your Naxos loin right and they only have a couple of end addition they're going to share and toriel addition because they publish the luck you were both spent water to our we'll publish anything if you convince the editor that it's worthwhile publishing and they convinced Tom Doherty to give them money okay so the tour you've really gotta target your yourself well tour my agent described it when I was when I told him I really wanted to be there I'd already gotten off the air he said tour is fantastic but there's no adult supervision okay they are chaotic their editors have a reputation for being slow to get back to people it is because they are because they're run this way their writing by a bunch of nerds who love science fiction fantasy books and a bunch of nerds who run science fiction fantasy books aren't always the best of both teams okay it's rarely malicious it toward that sometimes you get lost yeah I've heard that too that was when anyway there's a buffalo about a certain author who described it that way but I've noticed that it feels a lot like that I think they would want to say we are not separate fly systems some of their sometimes aligned we are all a collective who love science fiction fantasy but each editors distinctive taste is going to directly influence what they buy a lot mortgage orbit is the newest of the main ones up here for years orbit has been tour around the world like in the UK and France and places like this orbit tends to be one of the top publishers of science fiction and fantasy but in the u.s. they hadn't been for many years and so machette said come in and see if you can break into this market and so orbit kind of came in with a bang and bottom a lot of whoops and pushing them a lot Brian McClellan right and so is there lead author as brettly's I believe there are other authors that are selling really well also though some of them might be a big break the labor has new stuff is all in orbits very good reputation lately among the community because of that they kind of felt like they sauntered into the the bar with their guns out and said alright who wants that you want to take us on and they started throwing money at everybody so yeah Hartford Voyager is the one that know the least about they they had walked through a number of imprints in the last 20 years they settle on Voyager which I asked their editor of what they do and she said she really likes urban fantasy law and so urban fantasy would be one of wagers focuses I I do know that Harper publishes Terry Pratchett also and so there is that but I don't think anyone would not publish Terry fresh because these cells above bolts and so you can't really often look at their best-selling because sometimes you know like anyone would publish an author who's selling a lot of books they're gonna climb room for them in their line you want to look at their mid listeners you want to look at what the new authors they're buying and releasing our and that's kind of where your editorial direction is for the first line that superstars the baggage is here writing conference write conferences and she was really nice she was really excited about her lying about divorce and so she seems like she's somebody you could meet and ask question skew she was being very generous with their time to the students at the writing conference and so so there's that and Simon's sister is looking like if they do then that might be an opportunity for you a quick few words over here that we're going to go to Joe the only one about this that I can talk a lot about Bane is a fantastic publisher which kind of falls into the small press line because they're independent they're a big small trust though they publish you know lots of books every year almost all pulp style okay military SF whole fantasy story sorcery high action high adventure paperbacks most of the time they're famous for being started by Jim Bain with some money from poverty and Jim Bay like hated agents he he was famous for like you know paying really low advances but having great relationship with the vaulters who call it up me like I can't make rent and he'd sent the money and they've worked out how we're gonna pay for this later and stuff like that very classic old-school you know sort of thing the bane of advances tend to be small but they're very tight-knit community their royalties are just as good as anyone elses and they tend to be have the other authors month that Larry Correia is one of them you want to track them down to definition and talking about Bain he'll tell you about being with babes all right Jim main sense passed away but the company's in very good hands Jim Mintz is one of their editors for my life a lot ice agreed to bunch of books to him when he was at Fort he's very nice to me he's back to them all their publisher Tony I stopped i sat down to dinner with her on the things like that she's awesome so great company and I was putting up with the big once acceptance independent so included over here Peyer had is a small press that had with a big bang right before or became a bang and I haven't been hearing a lot about them lately and so I don't know what's up with hires you would have to do your research on them they've gotten really quiet the last couple and several differing have actually gone to other publishers July of economy was there their meet alter for a while shot a mountain you know about Shadow Mountain the LDS Church's quote-unquote publishing imprint to it does teen nya it's a subsidiary of desert book which is owned by the church and you can find their editors at local conventions which is why it's up here because you can actually meet them around here Isaac has a book on submission with them how's that Ken okay when I published the book with tachyon which is a small press out of an event per sold the print with them and the thing to say about that is they were willing to buy again I would imagine Christmas land but they were willing to buy print rights only and let me keep ebook rights which was why I might clip them and then they were able to actually get my book into all the Barnes and Nobles and things which was really nice so they got em for assault shelves at Barnes and Nobles and let me keep the Evoque rights so I could self-published those so alright let's let Joe go ahead because when I make sure to get plenty of time for doing do today and if we have to talk about agents next week just out of curiosity common how many of you guys really want some writing how many think this have it all reading so close how many of you and how many of you were kind of on dependency not sure but six years ago I was reading that brings class doesn't need right now [Applause] what happened actually yeah huge but you don't have to be a house with him you don't have to do that so another things that are like what self-publishing is that gives a lot of flexibility we're still publishing you have the flexibility to reinvent yourself you can you can turn on a dime like if you see that something is working industry's changing the certain way you say I was writing a lot of novels when I was in Brandon's class and I started self-publishing those and they were not really selling too much I saw a lot of people written serials like where they were writing like you know the first part or something the second part the third part and I thought you know great you're celebrating full novels thank you start writing you know more development kind of stuff and we'll be late complete slurring themselves but you know I'll be able to write them in that way I can make the first one free eat this it's like a mystery to people you know [Music] but for example was talking about you know what they want you are and you you have no one to blame for your own failures but your successors your successes are completely and that's we have about five minutes I'll just say a few words there we may dig into more of this next week not say that very much more often but I would say four years yeah yeah and we made use some of those they just want to say for years we thought self-publishing just never gonna take out that's never gonna take off never gonna take off it was overnight like I told you guys they like literally I went from nine books I brought my royalty statements to superstars here nine books on one royalty statement sold as an evil - something like 20,000 sold through the next royalty statement next six-month period like overnight it was the 2010 I think we figured out that Christmas 2009 going into 2010 with the man the hockey stuff everything any readers and boom it took off and words brain insolence uh was two-thirds ebook in its opening with so that's an abnormal number still in the industry I will even out and probably 60/40 Prince still probably but maybe closer to 5050 across the life he's a huge success story with publishing he wrote [Music] there are thousands and thousands of people like we mentioned or just partly uploading their books you know building a small fan base Dignan issue cells and and doing really well and making career for themselves and they're not the guys that you're going you're gonna all hear about they're not the ones we're going to like be on the news they're not sensational but in the aggregate there are so many of them that's like they are really big I can remember when I wanted to break in but I kept telling myself this if I could make a living at this then that'd be good I can make a living where I can pay my rent thank you you know I'm having food and things like that then I will I would do that for the rest of my life and this is what makes self-publishing so exciting is there are a lot more people capable of doing this in this industry now than there used to be more people are making a living as writers because of self-publishing would you agree that oh yeah so let's go ahead and do a few questions we don't have a lot of time we've got like three minutes back so maybe one question for Joe and we'll try to talk some more about this next I wanted to ask how do you find the fans that are going to like your ebooks and get it into their hands it's that and then the more stuff they read the more they remember you the more they're interested in finding your next book another way that really works is to have an email basically on your website you have a list we said enter your email appear and I'll email you when I have a new book out and at the end of all your books we say hey you want to hear about my new releases that is also hey we're out of time Joe will probably stay hanging around be one ask questions [Music] [Music]

Channel: zmunk

Views: 1,334

Rating: 4.7647057 out of 5

Keywords: editors, self publishing, brandon sanderson, BYU, creative writing, genres

Id: SXrnce6L96M

Length: 68min 32sec (4112 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 01 2017