Stacia Kane

First, I forgot to mention here (though I have put it on Twitter a few times) that I’m doing a chat at BookSmugglers and it lasts until tomorrow, and when you ask me a question you’re entered to win a complete set of the Demons books. So if you haven’t stopped by already, please do!

Second…well. My last post got considerably more attention that I ever anticipated, so that was quite a surprise. And I have some follow-up questions about it, but those I think will wait until another time. At the moment I just want to address one thing quickly, and another in a bit more detail.

First, as always, when you put things out on the internet and people see it, they’re going to react, just like when you write a book and put it out there people are going to react. And really, part of being a writer is learning to accept that and let the negative stuff roll off your back, or learn from it. It really doesn’t bother me anymore, and the comment I want to discuss didn’t bother me personally, I just find it’s indicative of what the whole point of my post the other day was.

I discovered, quite by accident, that apparently there are some people who feel that Moira and myself, and any other writer who shares our opinions, are simply kissing ass. I find this extremely sad, I have to admit. Is this what the world has come to, that when people see a wrong and speak up about it they’re immediately assumed to have some sort of ulterior motive?

Have we really reached a point where “Writers hate readers” has become the default position, so any writer who claims to actually like readers and want to see them treated well is automatically suspected of just being a big old liar, who probably spends their private, secret hours lurking in bookstores and tripping innocent readers as they pass by, just for fun? Or who runs around various reader blogs and sites leaving anonymous comments along the lines of “You’re all just thieves why don’t you go fuck yourselves you selfish bastards?” Seriously. Am I the only one who finds it really sad that we live in a world where a writer who says “I love readers, and want to please them, and want to see them treated like human beings instead of dogs,” must be an ass kisser, because the person making the accusation apparently can honestly not imagine any other reason why a writer might feel that way and express that feeling?
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I’m in a release day frame of mind lately, what with DEMON POSSESSED being released last week. See, it’s not just that that book was released, it’s also that it means UNHOLY GHOSTS will be out soon. Well, soonish, lol; three months.

And like any other writer with a book coming out, I’m thinking about promo. See, I want you to buy the book(s). I want you to get all of your friends to buy the book(s). I want to sell thousands and thousands and thousands of copies. I want to hit the NYT list, or the USA Today list, or the Publisher’s Weekly list, or Bookscan or whatever. Lists make writers happy, you see. And they make publishers happy, and everybody’s happy. Happiness is good.

And of course, I would hope that you guys, my lovely readers, would want to help me sell books or hit lists or whatever. Because we have something of a symbiotic relationship, you know, you and me. I write books, and you buy them, and when you buy them you encourage me to write more of them, and it’s all very cheering and makes me feel warm and happy inside to think that I’ve given you something you enjoy (I honestly love giving presents; I’m one of those weird people at holidays who gets more excited about the things I’m giving than what I might get).

But here’s the thing. While I would hope that you would want to help, I don’t expect you to. I’m surprised and thrilled and grateful whenever you do, but I don’t expect it. At all. Ever. And I certainly wouldn’t presume to INSIST you do, or berate you for not doing so. Or imply that you’re stupid for not purchasing my books in the exact fashion that I would prefer you to do so.

Sadly, it seems sometimes as if I–okay, I and several of my close friends–are alone in that feeling, that instinctive cringing when we see readers being treated like nothing more than open wallets whose sole purpose is to drive said writer to greater glory.

Do I want to hit a list? Of course, although I would never presume to think I have a real shot at it. Do I think it would be great if readers everywhere held off on buying my books until the day of release? Well, sure, I guess so, but see the aforementioned “I would never presume to think I have a shot at a list anyway so what does it matter,” answer. (Yeah, I know, that wasn’t the full answer, but it’s what I meant.)

Are there things readers can do to help a favorite author hit a list? Yeah, but not as many as you think, really. Sure, waiting until release day–or the day before, since books release on Tuesdays and sales are counted for the entire week, so buying on Monday is okay–helps. That’s a good thing to do, if you’re interested, but really that’s about it. It’s certainly all I would ever think to ask.

See…I work for YOU. I mean, yes, I work for myself, but I DO the work for you. You are my audience. You are not my slaves. You do not exist in order to feed my ego or allow me to add a shiny “List” pin to my vest. It’s not for me to tell you where you’re allowed to buy my books or in what format. I’m just amazed and grateful that you buy them at all.

I’ll be perfectly honest here. There are times when it feels as if the world of readers and the world of writers are at war. Readers want certain things; they have a right to want those things as consumers. But writers/publishers want certain things as well, and we have a right to want those things as content creators and producers. And don’t even get me started on copyright violations/piracy, and some of the justifications for those. Again, to be honest? There are times when I see discussions of it, or come across my books on filesharing sites, and have the sick, deep feeling that I should just give the hell up. I can never “win”–by which I mean earn a decent living consistently, when I’m being stolen from.

And it’s not just the financial theft, it’s the feeling that someone has literally reached into my mind and taken something from me without permission. It feels like I got drunk and told a deep secret to someone I thought was a friend, and that so-called friend turned around and told the world, and they’re all laughing at me. Or like a when a guy you really like sleeps with you and then never calls you again, you know? It makes me feel worthless, and frustrated, and lonely and sad. Sure piracy bothers me because of the money, sure, but really?

Piracy just hurts. It hurts to think someone is using you for entertainment but doesn’t think you deserve any compensation for that. It hurts to think you’re seen as less than human; as some sort of machine which exists for the gratification of others but is not permitted any gratification of its own. It hurts to feel that someone thinks they’re entitled to the fruits of your labor–the expression of the truth as you see it and the worlds and people you created and love–without paying for them. It doesn’t feel like a royalty payment was stolen from you. It feels like a tiny part of your soul was stolen from you.

That shit hurts.

And I imagine it hurts readers, too, when they’re made to feel–from being yelled at, lectured, or treated like they’re stupid–that they exist solely to provide the writer with titles and accolades. That just buying and reading and enjoying and talking about a book isn’t enough, that they now must buy it at certain times, in certain places, in certain formats, at certain phases of the moon, or whatever. Just as writers are not simply typewriters churning out words, readers are not simply notches on that big bestseller belt. They are people.

I’m not really sure where I’m going with this. Just that I think it’s wrong.

Do I want to sell a lot of books? Hell, yes!

But I don’t want to just sell a lot of books. I want to entertain a lot of people. I want to give them something. That’s what this is about, not numbers or lists. It’s about books and writing and reading and the way when we read a book we love we feel connected to that book, and those characters, and that author. And when we discover another fan of those books we have a connection with that person, and books created that connection, and it wouldn’t exist without writers, readers, and publishers.

So do I want to hit a list? Of course. Have I thought of various promotional things to do, fun things, that may help facilitate that? Sure.

Do I want to hit a list at the expense of readers, by berating them or nagging them, by treating them like my minions or like they fucking owe me that goddamn list, so they better get off their fat asses and do what I say?

No.

That’s not worth it to me. I don’t want it that way. It wouldn’t mean anything that way.

I may never hit a list. But I will always be grateful that people have bought my books, and read them and loved them and took the time to tell me. Yes, this is a business, and I want to succeed in it and make money. But not at the expense of readers, and not at the expense of my own soul.

So that’s it. Just some things I’m thinking of, and will continue to think of as we get closer to the summer and the release of the Downside books (finished copyedits on CITY OF GHOSTS last week, and am quite pleased, btw).

So…thanks.

ETA: Moira Rogers, who writes awesome books, has also done a post on this topic, and I highly recommend you check it out too. My response to it? Ditto.

So a number of things have happened in the past few weeks/days that have got me thinking about this blog (No, relax. This is NOT a “I’m not blogging anymore” post). One, my decision to let the set schedule go. I’ve actually enjoyed blogging more lately, and if you notice, I’m still doing about two posts a week. The difference for me is I can now blog when something strikes me, and not hold back until it’s Blog Day or whatever. So I kind of feel rejuvenated as a blogger, if that makes any sense. I’m having fun with it again, and that feels great. So I thought this would be a good time to kind of renew my thoughts on the blog, and what its purpose is, and what I think about it.

I’ve seen a few times online in the last month or two people–people who should fucking know better, IMO–running contests where one of the ways to enter the contest is to post about the contest on blogs or message boards. In other words, don’t just promote the contest on your own blog or Twitter feed, but post about it on various message boards or in comments on other people’s blogs.

This is spam. It is spam, spam, spam. It is tacky and it is rude, and just as a general FYI–although I know none of you would ever do such a thing–it will not be tolerated here. I can ban IPs from this site, and I will do it.

Here’s the thing. This is MY blog. It’s MY website. And while I follow certain rules–which I’ll get to in a minute–the fact remains that at its most basic level, this site and blog are here to promote me and my books. Along with, of course, the books of anyone I mention in posts or invite to come do a guest post here. To “walk” into my blog and start dropping your own promo is the height of rudeness, akin to walking into my home and starting to redecorate without being asked. I don’t care what it’s for. Don’t do it. It’s rude to me and it’s rude to you guys, the readers of this blog, who do not deserve to be treated like rubes or fish in a barrel, just waiting to be led around by the nose.

If you have something to promote–be it a book or a charity–email me about it. There’s a good chance that I’ll invite you to guest post about it, or I’ll mention it. And if I don’t, it’s probably because I don’t think my readers would be that interested in it, frankly. And you know what? That’s up to me. because, again, MY BLOG. MY READERS. I owe them–I owe you guys–the respect of not being treated like some nameless, faceless gaggle of wallets.

Which brings me to the other thing. A long time ago now I did a post about why I don’t blog about politics, and the gist of it was, because I respect you all and think you’re capable of making your own decisions without my input. This is still true. But, as I believe I said in a follow-up post at some point, which I’m too lazy to hunt around for–there’s another reason, too.
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So a discussion began last night, on a forum of which I am a member, about the rinsing of raw meats before cooking, specifically poultry. Some rinse, some don’t. Another member commented that apparently the FDA recommends against rinsing. You know why?

Because the water can splash and land on other things, thus spreading bacteria.

I had to laugh. I love the idea, first of all, that the FDA is recommending against a basic sanitary routine because the people doing it are apparently not capable of cleaning up after themselves. Seriously.

But it got me thinking about one of my biggest, hugest pet peeves ever, which I’m going to share with you.

See, I am anal about raw poultry and/or pork. Seriously. I treat that shit like it’s nitroglycerine. Nitroglycerine which also carries the Ebola virus. And is armed with razor blades.

Here’s what I do:
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(A side note: I was supposed to post Simon Wood’s second guest post yesterday, but the day got away from me. Sorry. It’ll go up Monday. Also, sorry this is so late. I slept until almost one o’clock this afternoon; hubs has been out of town for ten days (he got back last night) and I don’t think I slept more than five hours a night the whole time he was gone, including weekends, so I was totally exhausted). Anyway,

Today is Agent Appreciation Day, in which we writers blog and tweet about how much we love our agents, in an effort to make up for not giving them Christmas presents. (Ha, actually that isn’t true. I sent my agent a present last week, and I’m sure most of us send gifts anyway. But still.)

I talk about my agent a lot here, I know. So I actually debated whether or not I even should post anything today. But then I decided, why not. It’s fun to talk about him, and it’s fun to be involved in something like this.

My agent is Chris Lotts from Ralph Vicinanza Ltd., and we’ve been together (in the working sense, of course) for almost two years, which is kind of weird to think about. I queried Chris with UNHOLY GHOSTS on a Monday, and signed with him two days later on Wednesday, which still amazes me. To be honest, I queried him thinking I didn’t have a chance in hell of even getting a partial request, considering how highly regarded he and the agency are; the idea that he would want to work with me and my creepy little “junkies and ghosts” book seemed like a total impossibility.

But I sent the query anyway, because as I said a while ago, “either you think the book is publishable or you don’t.” I did, and I sent the query, and I have never stopped being thankful that I did. In the almost-two-years we’ve been working together he’s sold UNHOLY GHOSTS to Del Rey (US), HarperVoyager (UK), Egmont Lyx (Germany), Amber Publishing (Poland), and Blackstone Audio (audio rights US). He also handled the contracts for DEMON INSIDE and sold the third Demons book, DEMON POSSESSED, to Juno/Pocket. I think it’s safe to say he’s an awesome and very effective agent.

So, to celebrate this most important of Important Literary Holidays, here are the top five things I love about my agent, Chris Lotts:

1. He’s always there. He always takes my phone calls, on the rare occasions I do call (I prefer email). Not only does he take the calls, he’s actually happy to hear from me! He tells me he’s glad I called. He calls me, too. He emails me, and replies to my emails. I once had a problem pop up on a day he’d taken off work. He still saw my email and got involved.

2. He knows how to talk to me. Okay, this one sounds a little weird, so I better explain. It’s not that I need some sort of special white-gloves treatment or anything; if I did he probably wouldn’t be so happy when I call him. But he knows how to calm me down when something upsets me and I decide my career is over. He knows that when I send him a proposal or an idea for a new project, and he hates it (okay, I can hear him in my head right now saying, “I don’t hate it!”, so read that as “he doesn’t think it’s as marketable as some” or whatever) he can come right out and tell me; he doesn’t have to beat around the bush. He knows I can take a joke and that I’m annoyed by hesitation and wishy-washiness. And when I ask questions, even questions that feel to me like they’re probably kind of stupid questions, he answers them and tells me they’re not stupid questions.

3. He’s willing to step in and handle stuff I don’t wanna handle. He stays on top of things like payments I’m supposed to get. He offers me advice, thoughts and opinions. It’s all very professional and makes me feel well taken care of. Which is nice.

4. The agenting stuff itself. Aside from all the personality things and the warm fuzzies and whatnot, he knows how to sell my work. He knows how to get me the best deal possible. He knows what editors are looking for, and when we talk and brainstorm on the phone (yep, see, there’s that talking thing again!) he has great ideas and advice. It’s very cool. It’s nice to feel that through him I’m connected to the industry, and to learn more about it.

5. In April hubs and I went to the Mai Kai in Ft. Lauderdale (this huge, awesome Polynesian restaurant where we used to go all the time when we lived there). The Mai Kai has a gift shop, and in that gift shop I saw two little Hawaiian/Polynesian dolls; you know, the tacky plastic ones with the really big eyes, where the girl is in a grass skirt and the guy in short or something, and they’re both wearing leis? Anyway. I saw these and purely on impulse bought them for him and sent them up, hoping he would get the joke. He did. Not only did he get the joke, he told me he was putting them on his desk. Seriously, how awesome is that?

Of course there are a lot more reasons. But what it boils down to is I like the man, and I like working with him, and I think he likes working with me. I have compete trust in him, and that’s hugely important.

I know discussions pop up from time to time on the internet about the role of the agent. I know there are discussions about what the relationship should be. I know there are people who feel that the agent works for the writer, and so the process of getting a agent shouldn’t be so hard and agents “shouldn’t have so much power” and blah blah blah.

To me the writer/agent relationship is more of a partnership. When looking for a partner in anything, whether it’s business or a work project or your love life or whatever, you don’t just grab somebody and say, “You’ll do,” and get down to business. You get to know them. You talk. You see how it feels, if you click. You can’t just grab any agent and “hire” them, and if you could I don’t think that would be a good thing. Because the relationship is about so much more than “Here’s my book. Go sell it,” or “Go write this book, and by the way you’re not allowed to do X, Y, or Z.” Chris and I discuss things. We plan things. I tell him how I feel about things and he tells me what his feelings are on it, and I usually take his advice not because I feel like if I don’t he won’t like me anymore but because he’s the one with the experience.

To put it bluntly, I pay him (in commissions) to sell my work, and to give me the benefit of his expertise. Why in the world would I pay him for his advice and then refuse to take it? That’s like hiring, I don’t know, a very famous, very expensive interior decorator, then handing them the paint, wallpaper, and furniture you want him to use and telling him to get to work. You know what I mean? What’s the point in getting an expert if you’re going to ignore everything they say?

This is turning into a longish rant, and I only meant it to be short. Oops. So anyway. My agent. He’s awesome, and I appreciate him.

(For a long list of other writers participating in Agent Appreciation Day, go here.

So Friday night my friend Jackie Kessler and I were invited to discuss the Harlequin Horizons situation on a podcast TV show. We readily agreed. I can’t speak for Jackie’s motives absolutely but knowing her as I do I assume they were the same as mine: to let people know that HWHo was a Bad Deal, that it is misleading, that it serves only to pour money into HQ’s coffers on the backs of aspiring writers.

Joining us were two other commercially published writers, Simon Wood and Paul Clayton, as well as the host and two other self-published writers.

I was excited to have the discussion. I enjoyed it immensely. I felt it was a lovely, civil, and fun conversation, respectful all around, and that we all managed to agree that vanity publishing along the lines of the HQHo model–whereby authors are charged exorbitant amounts of money and fed empty promises in exchange was something writers, whether they are commercially published or self-published, should not countenance or participate in.

Let me make something very clear, because I’m seeing confusion on this issue that frankly astounds me. The HQHo model is NOT a self-publishing model.

I have, as I’ve said here before and as I said on the show Friday night, absolutely nothing against self-publishing. There are some excellent self-published books out there. There are a lot of writers who feel that this is the way they want to go, and is the wave of the future. And that’s fine.

But let’s analyze the differences between what the self-published authors are doing, and what HQHo wants its customers to do. I’m going to use my Strumpet series as an example, because as I’ve said here before, I do have tentative plans to self-publish the thing one of these days.

Were I to do that, I would go to Lulu.com. I would upload the document into their system, choose a format (or more than one; ebook and paperback, for example), and set a price; probably either at cost or maybe a dollar over it. I could remove the file at any time. I would be using my rights as the copyright holder myself. I would be buying an ISBN for it (if I chose to) myself, and would own that ISBN. I would design a cover, if I wanted. I could advertise the book as much or as little as I liked; surely I’d link to it on my blog and site, and when I get emails about it (as I still do) I’d direct those readers to the Lulu page. I’d be solely responsible for the marketing and advertising. I could, for example, choose to pay Kirkus Discoveries a couple of hundred dollars to review it.

For this I would pay nothing. If and when people chose to buy the book, Lulu would earn the cost of producing that copy and I would make whatever amount was paid by the reader over that production cost.

In short: I pay nothing, I control everything, and I keep all the profits. That is self-publishing. (It’s a tad more complicated than that, yes, but I’m trying to strip it down to its essence for the sake of clarity.)

Now, what if I wanted to print the series through HQHo?

First I’d pay anywhere from $600-upwards of $2000 just to get HQHo to agree to print the book. I would sign an agreement with them whereby I agreed to give them that money and at the very least, the rights to publish it. I’d pay more for them to design a cover. More for them to assign it an ISBN, which I would not own. More for them to list the book. More for them to send it to review sites–several hundred dollars over the cost of the review itself, in fact. Heck, if I wanted to, I could pay $20,000 for them to produce a “Hollywood book trailer”–a service other companies will perform for less than 1/4 that cost, and that I could do for free.

If and when a copy of the book sells, I would get 50% of the net monies received; that is, half of the money after whatever expenses HQHo claims, which makes no sense since I have paid all those expenses up front.

Here’s what I don’t understand. All of the self-published authors I’ve ever met are passionate about self-publishing and the benefits they feel they get from it. They want to have complete control over their work. They want to make the largest amount of money they can for that work. That is absolutely their right.

So why, then, are self-published authors not condemning this vanity business model? Why are they not discussing that writers don’t need to pay thousands of dollars to a big corporation like Author Solutions in order to self-publish, that it can be done on their own, and that by doing it on their own they get to keep control and keep all the profits?

I thought, in the discussion we had Friday night, that we were all in agreement that vanity publishing in this fashion was wrong, and that it mislead authors. I thought we were all in agreement that while self-publishing can be beneficial in some circumstances, and there is nothing inherently wrong with self-publishing (save the difficulties in distribution, etc.) vanity publishing simply cost too much and provided too little benefit. I thought we’d had a friendly and respectful conversation.

Apparently I was wrong. Turns out, Jackie, Simon, Paul, and myself are simply scared that self-published books will put us out of business, in addition to being elitists.

I don’t quote or link to that post in order to pick fights. I quote and link to it to demonstrate how incredibly disappointed I am, and how I feel I was lied to and misled.

At this time, my long comment in response to Mr. Cochran’s post has still not been approved. In it I expressed my disappointment, and how had I known the purpose of the show was to debate the validity of self-publishing I would have altered my comments accordingly. I feel as though I was bait-and-switched; i.e. told I was discussing one thing, when really the discussion was about something else, and that I was deliberately misled so that certain conclusions could be drawn from my comments.

Certainly I’m hurt on a personal level that my feelings on the topic of HQHo and its vanity press model, and my sincere desire to help writers, are taken as proof that I’m selfish, greedy, and jealous, and just want to keep those more talented than myself down.

I’m sorry, but I don’t believe at all that NY publishing is so out of touch with real people that they are incapable of choosing books people like to read. The mere presence of NYT bestsellers and literary phenomenons like Twilight belie that statement. Sure, Twilight may not be your cup of tea; you may think it’s a lousy book. But you cannot deny that a NY editor read it, thought, “Readers will like this,” and was correct in that assessment.

Just because YOU don’t like it, doesn’t mean other readers won’t. Publishing is a BUSINESS. That business is SELLING BOOKS TO READERS. Just because YOU do not like those readers’ tastes, doesn’t mean they aren’t entitled to have them or that publishers aren’t entitled to cater to them.

Do great books get passed over every day because of the bottom line? Sure. Does that mean everything that does get published is watered-down same-same crap? No, any more than all self-published books are crap. No, I don’t believe self-publishing is best for everyone; remember, the average self-published book only sells 75 copies or so. But for some it can absolutely work, and I’ve never denied that.

And none of this changes the fact that I would expect someone who has self-published, who has learned about self-publishing and is an advocate of it, to see that HQHo is NOT self-publishing, and to be just as concerned about educating new writers about the difference and how they can truly self-publish and not pay through the nose, as those of us who are commercially published. I would have expected that self-published authors and self-publishing advocates would be just as vocal as we’ve been in trying to educate writers, and not use this as an opportunity to play “You NY writers are hacks running scared from us.”

But I guess that’s just my selfishness talking.

First, not only did Charlaine Harris give me such a great blurb for UNHOLY GHOSTS, she talked it up on her blog the other day:

“I was fortunate enough to get an ARC of Stacia Kane’s forthcoming Unholy Ghosts after I met her at DragonCon. Unfortunately, this novel won’t be out until May. You should put it on your calendars NOW. The world-building is unexpected and complex, the characters are alive, and the protagonist Chess is a treasure. I have a very hard time reading a book with an alcoholic or drug-addicted hero, and in fact I almost closed the book after the first chapter. I’m so glad I didn’t. The characters are complex and indelible, the plot is fascinating, and I can hardly wait for another book, months before this one will be out.”

Second, I got word this morning that Karen Marie Moning, awesome NYT Bestseller that she is, also read and loved all three books in the Dowside series, and said:

“Expect the unexpected. Kane delivers dark, sexy urban fantasy at its finest. I couldn’t put it down!”

Which is totally cool. And was a great way to start my day.

Which is the other thing I want to talk about.
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