There’s no escaping conflict in politics—or in publishing. The new normal in publishing means someone’s mad at Amazon, someone favors print over e-books or vice versa, and book sales are slowing or growing.

 Before we get to the new normal, let’s look at what’s going on with literary agents and agenting

In a blog post last week, Agent Kristin Nelson announced her agency’s launch of a venture to assist clients e-pub their backlists. Read the comments that post elicited, including a link to a post by Courtney Milan, a Nelson Literary client who supports, with caveats, her agency’s new initiative.

Writer’s Digest‘s Chuck Sambuchino issues a new agent alert for Carlie Webber of Jane Rotosen Agency. As Sambuchino reports, Webber is looking for “young adult (any and all genres), horror, mystery, thriller, suspense, contemporary romance, humor, literary fiction, women’s fiction.”

Agent Jill Corcoran discusses what makes books sell. Although Corcoran reps children’s books, her opinions translate to women’s fiction.  

Know whether you’re submitting literary or commercial fiction , says agent Sarah LaPolla of Curtis Brown Ltd. The lines blur, but La Polla offers definitions for both forms.

The Knight Agency’s Lucienne Diver explains why submissions from potential clients must take a backseat to clients’ work.

 At The Green Water Blog, self-published writer Mike Wells engages agent Jenny Bent in a discussion sparked by that old chestnut from rejection letters: “I just didn’t love the story.”  Bent explains reading is subjective.  

 Who’s Mad at ________ (Insert Your Choice) This Week?

The Authors Guild is mad at Amazon. Be sure to read the comments.

Barnes & Noble is mad at Amazon and is depicted as David fighting Goliath in a New York Times article. Notice this paragraph: “Inside the great publishing houses — grand names like Macmillan, Penguin and Random House — there is a sense of unease about the long-term fate of Barnes & Noble, the last major bookstore chain standing. First, the megastores squeezed out the small players. (Think of Tom Hanks’s Fox & Sons Books to Meg Ryan’s Shop Around the Corner in the 1998 comedy, “You’ve Got Mail”.) Then the chains themselves were gobbled up or driven under, as consumers turned to the Web. B. Dalton Bookseller and Crown Books are long gone. Borders collapsed last year.” 

Umm, doesn’t Barnes & Noble belong in the “megastore” category? Shelf Awareness, an e-newsletter about and for indie bookstores, says it does and reminds that B&N bought and shut down B. Dalton. (Scroll down to the third item in the issue.) 

Barnes and Noble is mad at Amazon and won’t stock Amazon’s print books.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire proves popular. You know somebody’s mad about that.

Adult hardcover sales dipped almost 21 percent in November, 2011, according to figures released by the Association of American Publishers. GalleyCat compared AAP’s January through November, 2011 figures with the same from 2010 and put them in chart form, making it easy to see the corresponding 126 percent hike in e-book sales.

Random House will continue to sell its e-books to libraries for lending–but at higher prices.

In an interview with Mediabistro, Jamie Raab, publisher at Grand Central Publishing and senior vice president of Hachette Book Group, discusses the value traditional publishers offer.

Joe Konrath, who has published with Grand Central and is now self-published, questions whether the value publishers add is worth the percentage they take. 

Jonathan Segura calls for an end to e-book versus print book arguments.

How many times have we heard that writing’s a marathon, not a sprint?  Social-media expert Kristen Lamb says the career writer has to prepare for a decathlon rather than a marathon.

If politics and publishing don’t provide enough conflict, there’s always the Superbowl.

May your favorite team win.

This installment of Industry News tackles the Year of the Dragon thanks to social-media expert Kristen Lamb and her Kung Fu Writing post and dragon-beating tips.

It’s never been easy to get a book published, but digital-book expert Mike Shatzkin argues that it used to be easier for publishers to turn a profit. Nowadays, more titles + fewer bookstores = publishers wary to acquire new books. (Cue fire shooting from the dragon’s mouth.) At the same time, backlists offer publishers income without acquisition costs. (Let camera pan over dragon’s shimmery, shiny scales.)  

Speaking of backlists, media professor Jane Friedman investigates whether an author holds e-rights to her traditionally published books.  

Hyperion CEO Ellen Archer says publishers’ business model is broken. Her fixes? She favors trimming advances and foresees a shift to e-books. “Don’t trap yourself in the ‘book’ book.’ It’s wonderful and it’s been wonderful for many years, but the years of printing too many books and taking them back…it’s not really a great business model and we have an opportunity to create a better business model.” Read the whole interview to learn her take on other publishing matters, including whether or not writers should blog.

Stephen Page, chief executive of Great Britain’s Faber & Faber publishers, doesn’t see the industry as broken but believes the current period in publishing and the move toward digital books will bring change as sweeping as that of the eighteenth century, when a monopoly on granting copyrights ended and laws and formats changed. Scroll down through the article to find the skills he believes publishers must have to excel in today’s environment.

E-book pricing is a trial-and-error game, reports author Ruth Harris.  She tries and errs for research purposes and interviews other writers about their pricing strategies. (Thanks to Gene Lempp for the link. )

Dear Author‘s Jane offers generally optimistic predictions for publishing in 2012. There be no dragons here. (Wait for the article to come up.)

Money appears to be flowing toward writers participating in Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing Select program. Carolyn McCray, a writer of paranormal romance novels, historical thrillers and mysteries, reportedly earned $8,250 from the KDP Select fund in December.

Librarian Nancy Pearl, of Book Lust blog fame, has teamed with Amazon to resurrect some of Pearl’s favorite but now out-of-print books. Six titles a year will be offered in print, audio-book and e-book form.

Literary agent news:

Agent Rachelle Gardner has moved to Books & Such Literary Agency, where she’ll represent “fiction of interest to women” geared to either the general or Christian markets.

At Bookends Literary Agency, Lauren Ruth seeks literary-leaning women’s fiction and more.

Kristin Nelson, of Nelson Literary Agency, believes it’s important to specify in a contract the initial format of a book. That way, she ensures that her clients will be published in both hardcover and/or paperback and digital formats. 

May you vanquish all dragons foolish enough to block your path this week. Happy writing.

Happy New Year!

I’ve organized this longer-than-usual post to optimize its usefulness. One section is dubbed “Last Year in Publishing,” another is “The Year Ahead,” and a third, in a shameless rip-off of Oprah, is “Your Best Writing Self.”  You’ll find information about traditional and  indie publishing, links to insiders and to those proud to call themselves outsiders, marketing tips, and new-agent news. In other words, there’s something for everyone.

 Last Year in Publishing

 At paidContent, Laura Hazard Owens summarizes 2011 with numbers. Did you know twenty percent of book sales at Random House and Hachette were digital? 

Here’s another number to crunch: Amazon announced it sold roughly one million Kindle devices per week in December.

Booksellers had a merrier-than-expected holiday season, reports Publishers Weekly. Anecdotal evidence suggests Borders’ closing and the “buy local” trend buoyed sales at brick-and-mortar stores.

This story sheds light on the preceding item. In Michigan, booksellers react to the end of Borders with tactics aimed to lure and hold customers.

 Writers Digest links to its eighteen most popular writing articles of 2011.

The Year Ahead

At The Shatzkin Files, digital-book expert Mike Shatzkin focuses on the important questions the publishing industry faces in 2012 and beyond. 

Author Bob Mayer, whose perspective is that of a writer traditionally published for twenty years and indie published for two, offers  ten predictions for 2012.

Joe Konrath tacks his 2012 writing/publishing resolutions to the bottom of resolution lists dating back to 2006. Scroll through the years to see the evolution in his thinking about traditional- versus self- publishing and other writing matters. 

We associate “friction” with politics and with rubbing two sticks together to make fire, but one publisher uses the word to explain why it won’t make its ebooks available to libraries for lending. “Selling one copy that could be lent out an infinite number of times with no friction is not a sustainable business model for us,” Maja Thomas, a senior vice president of the Hachettte Book Group, told Randall Stross of the New York Times.  

 Your Best Writer Self

Chuck Sambuchino alerts readers to two new literary agents, both of whom represent women’s fiction. Hannah Bowman joined Liza Dawson Associates and is looking for commercial fiction, especially science fiction and fantasy, women’s fiction, cozy mysteries, romance and young adult. Rachael Dugas signed with Talcott Notch Literary and seeks cookbooks and young adult, middle grade, and adult fiction in the contemporary, paranormal, women’s, and romance genres.

If writer Raymond Carver were alive today, would he tweet, blog, and post on Goodreads? Author Christopher Meeks asks the question and decides Carver would do what writers must do today: promote their books.

Writers Digest offers platform-building tips Raymond Carver would follow. Will you?

Some of us have sworn off New Year’s resolutions but acknowledge we have plenty of room for improvement. Author Chuck Wendig reminds us to help other writers.

Here’s another room-for-improvement link: make the most of your Facebook page. 

Media professor Jane Friedman links to the 2011 articles she believes offer the best advice for writers.

Thinking about indie publishing in 2012? Joanna Weiss, author of Milkshake, outlines her stage-by-stage journey. 

Critic and journalist-turned-consultant Porter Anderson, he of the distinctive voice and excellent connections, covers the publishing industry weekly via “Writing on the Ether.” (Uh oh, I may have linked myself out of a job.) 

May 2012 bring you success in writing and life. Big thanks to this chapter’s founders and the outgoing board.  Welcome to the new board.

Special thanks to the RWA-WF eleves who’ve been working behind the scenes on the chapter’s WordPress site.  I’m grateful for easy-to-embed hyperlinks.

Galley Cat reported on Amazon’s hardline reaction to Reader Views. Amazon banned the company, which is dedicated to reviewing books and author publicity, from posting reviews on Amazon that authors have paid for via Reader Views’ publicity services, and took down reviews already posted.

In a follow up, Galley Cat queried reader reactions to paid reviews on Amazon, posting a mixed bag of responses, including a suggestion that Amazon’s ban is an attempt to comply with FTC “truth in advertising” rules regarding financial interest disclosures.

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) posted net sales figures for September 2011 noting changes from last year. Adult mass market paperback sales have declined 54%, while e-book sales have increased 100.9%

Here is Publishers Weekly with a slightly different but similar take on the AAP’s statistical reporting.

More evidence is racking up about the value of libraries to readers, authors AND publishers, even in the digital age.

This month Library Journal released the first issue of a quarterly publication called Patron Profiles. Based on surveys and data collected from library users across the country, the first issue—on libraries and e-book usage—indicates that libraries are a powerful economic engine for the book business.

“There are a lot of assumptions about what library users do,” said LJ executive editor Rebecca Miller. “We wanted to dispel the assumptions and fill in the gaps in data. We wanted to get a realistic picture of the digital transition, so we thought a national trending survey that reveals the media consumption of library users made great sense.”

Author Ann Patchett recently opened Parnassus Books, an independent bookstore in her native Nashville, when big box stores Borders and Davis-Kidd Booksellers closed, leaving the Tennessee city without a place to browse and buy books.

“We’ve all had the experience of going into a three-story Barnes & Noble and saying, ‘I didn’t really find anything I wanted to read.’ But you can go in to a small store with an intelligent staff …. [and] well-displayed, well-chosen books, and come out with five books that you’re dying to read. And that’s what we’re going to do.”

On Steven Pressfield’s site, Shawn Coyne weighs in on author/entrepreneur Seth Godin’s decision to end his successful publishing venture, the Domino Project.

Literary agent Rachelle Gardner advises authors to minimize the obstacles when trying to break into traditional publishing.

And for some writerly inspiration, at Writer Unboxed, Krissy Brady reviews Jonathan Fields’s book Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt Into Fuel for Brilliance.

This will be my last post as part of the Industry News Team of Kecia and Pat. I will be taking over duties as VP-Communications, while Pat will continue to bring you news and tips regarding the publishing industry of concern to RWA-WF members.

Have a great writing week everyone!

Kecia &

Your Industry News Team

Penguin Group (USA), via its Book Country subsidiary, now offers a menu of services for writers planning to self-publish. For fees ranging from about $99 to about $549, plus a share of sales revenue, Book Country will convert files, create covers, and handle other tasks. Read more at  http://goo.gl/jWVun and at http://on.wsj.com/sKqzGn

Danielle Poiesz, Book Country’s Editorial Coordinator, offers tips to ensure manuscripts are ready for publication at http://bit.ly/vZYD7a

Best-selling author Barry Eisler spoke to Grub Street about his decision to self-publish and his thoughts on the future of the publishing industry. Listen to him at  http://vimeo.com/32204698

Literary agent Jessica Faust offers a succinct definition of women’s fiction at http://bit.ly/rDXBRG

At Writer Unboxed, Therese Walsh interviews agent Katie Shea, who’s new to the Donald Maass Literary Agency and is looking for women’s fiction. Shea, too, has a definition of  the genre. Read more at http://bit.ly/sp54SZ

 The Authors Guild isn’t a fan of Amazon’s new Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. The Guild is concerned authors won’t be fairly compensated and has reservations about publishers’ right to include titles in KOLL.  For more information, go to http://bit.ly/vNUMF9 

Writer Beware‘s Victoria Strauss tackled the same issue at  http://bit.ly/sKadLg

According to Mike Shatzkin of  The Shatzkin Files, some publishing houses effectively bolster authors’ own marketing efforts. Traditional publisher Macmillan, for example, is sending out emails to tens of thousands of readers and, more importantly, tracking click-through rates. E-book publisher Open Road Integrated Media prides itself on its marketing plans, reaction time, and analytics. Read more here. http://bit.ly/uHqt2D

Happy Thanksgiving!

Industry News

“We are living in tough times,” [Arnaud Nourry of Hachette Livre] noted, saying the French market was flat, but not declining. “People still want to read.”

Mike Shatzkin on his way to Frankfurt reflected that “Kobo’s new deals propel them into the top tier of global ebook competitors” and predicted that the global e-publishing market would be dominated in the future by three big players, with a nod to Amazon as the front runner.

In the realm of bookselling, GalleyCat’s Jason Boog reported:

“According to Association of American Publishers (AAP) net sales revenue report, summer readers rocked the hardcover market in July.”

Meanwhile paperback sales continued their downtrend, while ebooks showed more modest gains than in previous quarters of 2011.

On Steven Pressfield Online, Shawn Coyne continued his discussion of publishing and bookselling from the perspective of recent history. Hint: there’s a clue to the demise of Borders in there.

On the agent query front, Rachelle Gardner offers “What Not to Say In a Query.” And Mary Kole of Kidlit.com provides some great general advice about not being too “cute” in your agent query.

Finally, reader/columnist Rob Errera expressed familiar mixed emotions about digital reading in “Toss Out the Bookshelf Not the Books.”

“Books are created in the heart and mind of the author, and live in the hearts and minds of readers. The bound stack of pages with writing on them is merely a transfer method … Still, I miss my books.”

Happy writing this week!

Your Industry News Team,

Pat & Kecia

Espresso, anyone? I know I need a double this morning. In publishing industry news terms, however, espresso means the Espresso Book Machine (EBM), the nifty in-store machine that can whip you up a print-on-demand book while you wait. HarperCollins publishers—home of women’s fiction author Marisa De Los Santos (Falling Together) and romance icon Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Call Me Irresistible) among many, many others—recently announced a partnership with EBM developer On Demand Books, LLC to publish backlist books that may not be available in stores.

“Even as digital book sales grow, bookstores continue to be an important place for customers to shop for physical books. The goal of this initiative is to give the local bookseller the capability to provide customers with a greater selection of HarperCollins titles in a physical environment,” said Brian Murray, President and Chief Executive Officer of HarperCollins Publishers.

By contrast, TechCrunch’s John Biggs predicts there may not be a need for bookstores in the near future in his post, “The Future of Books: A Dystopian Timeline.”  The impetus for Biggs’ predictions? The unveiling of Amazon’s new line up of e-readers, including the Kindle Fire tablet.

The Wall Street Journal offered up a finance-related analysis of the new Kindle launch. And tech gadget reviewer, John Gruber at Daring Fireball gives the new Kindles a glowing review as Amazon works its price points and retail advantages in its favor:

“The Kindles are to Amazon what the printed catalog was to Sears a century ago.”

So what does all this mean for the author? Well, as the prescient Bill Gates once wrote, content is king. (If you’re interested, I found that brief essay reprinted here.) Meanwhile, Shawn Coyne posts an analysis of a publisher’s Profit and Loss (P&L) calculations at the acquisition stage on Steven Pressfield’s blog, designed to educate all writers. Before your eyes start crossing at the number crunching (ye gods! spreadsheets!), take a look at the comments to the blog. Very positive, including this quote:

“The future is bright for the entrepreneurial author/writer. But the artist will have to learn how to put on a bunch of other hats in order to seize the reigns of her career.”

Have a great writing week!

Your Industry News Team,

Pat & Kecia

The publishing industry is supposed to be on summer lull right now, but the blogs have been active as late summer conferences wind down, and Apple and Amazon launch salvos in the ebook access and pricing wars.

On Barbara Vey’s Beyond Her Book blog, guest blogger Maggie Mae Gallagher gives a rundown of reader-author event RomCon, recently held in Denver, CO. She was so impressed by the reader-focused interaction that she’s put the conference on her “must-go” schedule for next year.

Meanwhile, there is good news from the American Publishers and Book Industry Study Group, BookStats. As Publisher’s Weekly blogger Jim Melliot reported:

BookStats found that, contrary to widespread belief, the publishing industry grew in both 2009 and 2010, aided by $1.6 billion in sales from e-books. Total estimated revenue for all publishers rose 3.1% in 2010, to $27.9 billion, following a 2.5% increase in 2009.

As digital news outlet C-Net reported, reader access to ebooks on the iPad and other Apple devices took a small blow when Apple decided to disallow “buy” links from ebook reader apps such as Kindle and B&N’s Nook. However, Apple may have to rethink its strategy as Amazon responded with its new Kindle Cloud Reader web app that uses HTML5 to create a web app, more technical details from Wired here. Apple will also have to respond to a lawsuit accusing Apple and other “agency model” publishers of illegal ebook price fixing.

Also this month the discussion continued about literary agents offering additional services, namely ebook publishing, to their clients. The Knight Agency was named in this blog entry from the Shatzkin Files as one full service model to keep your eye on.

Jane Friedman interviews author Amy Stolls about how book marketing has changed in the past five years, and how Amy is marketing her novel, The Ninth Wife. And BookEnds literary agent, Jessica Faust, offers the advice to author-entrepreneurs to, “Give it five years.”

Stay cool, everyone. And happy writing!

If you’re querying agents and editors, you’ll enjoy this two-minute video in which agent Kristin Nelson gives two down-and-dirty query tips.

Amazon is venturing into book publishing, with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to publish the print editions. They put in a bid for Amanda Hocking’s YA series, but she decided to go with St. Martin’s.

More news on Dorchester, and it’s not good. They’ve been publishing books digitally that they don’t have the rights to. Brian Keene, a former Dorchester author, is encouraging writers to boycott them.

Brenda Hiatt updated her Show Me the Money! list. A good place to go if you want to get an idea of what publishers pay. Some e-publishers are included in the list, too.

Smashword’s Mark Coker says that the data stating that “ebooks accounted for about 8% of the overall trade book market” is incorrect:

“The data only includes reported results from about 12-14 large publishers, so it doesn’t include data from the hundreds of thousands indie authors and the thousands of smaller independent publishers.”

At Barbara Vey’s Beyond Her Book blog on PW, Rosemary Harris reported that during an Industry Professionals On Publishing workshop at the Left Coast Crime Conference, “an audience member questioned the existing publishing model, specifically the role of agents and editors…” Agent Janet Reid’s response was met with cheers:

“GM went under and no one talked about the end of the car”

If you’re wondering why e-books are taking longer to catch on in Europe, you’ll want to read this New York Times article.

I started with a fun link, and I thought I’d end with one. At Romance University, read this article by Jeanne Adams to find out if you’re visual, auditory, or kinesthetic, and how to use that to make your workspace work for you.

The fight between Amazon and Macmillan has been big news this week, with Amazon removing the Buy links for Macmillan books in a dispute over pricing. I read last night on Twitter that the “Buy” links were up, so all is well now. But a lot of people were angry at Amazon, and many others say that publishers need to lower prices to stay in the game. I won’t put up all the links I gathered through the week, but here’s one of the earliest from The New York Times, which also mentions Apple’s decision to give publishers leeway in price setting.

Reuters thinks that the Amazon loss on e-book pricing could fuel a trend. They reported that Amazon stocks went down this week and Apple went up.

A thoughtful article from The Authors Guild says:

Yet if Macmillan prevails, the eventual payoff for its authors (and all authors, if a successful result ripples through the industry) is likely to be significant and lasting.

My favorite on this subject is John Scalzi’s brilliant and funny “amazon.fail” blog, in which he said:

“oh, sweet Jesus, did Amazon ever hump the bunk.”

For more articles in this vein, I’m referring you to Dear Author’s Friday Midday Links post, which includes 9 links on e-books and the pricing debate.

Dorchester Publishing announced a Publisher’s Pledge Program, promising to fulfill reader expectation and guaranteeing satisfaction.

From the last RWR, Avon is currently seeking submissions. and editor Lyssa Keusch is looking for high-concept romantic suspense and mainstream woman’s fiction.

At Bantam Dell, Jessica Sebor has been promoted from an Editorial Assistant to Assistant Editor. In a November interview with Winnie Griggs, she said she’s looking for single title and women’s fiction books — and she’s actively seeking out new authors.

At Ed Gorman’s blog, St. Martin’s Toni Plummer, an Associate Editor at Thomas Dunne Books, says she’s excited about building her own list of authors.

“I’m looking for mysteries, from light, funny ones to really gritty, thrilling ones. I respond to humor, well-drawn characters, and stories with a strong sense of place. I’m also looking for women’s fiction, literary and commercial. Multicultural, historical. I like some romance in my novels, but if it dominates the plot, it can become too much for me.”

On to agent news. Guide to Literary Agents was busy this week. First up is How to Trim Your Query to 250 Words (or Fewer): Advice from Agent Janet Reid.

Next, in a Guide to Literary Agents interview, Agent Laney Katz Becker of Markson Thoma Literary Agency says she is looking for “‘book club fiction,’ (i.e. novels with substance that you’re eager to talk about); character-driven stories; and smart, psychological thrillers.”

In another interview, agent BJ Robbins of the Los Angeles-based BJ Robbins Literary Agency is seeking “quality fiction—both literary and commercial.”

Guide to Literary Agents also interviewed agent Irene Goodman of the Irene Goodman Literary Agency. “Her fiction list includes historical fiction, women’s fiction, thrillers, literary fiction, and mysteries.” The interview ended with advice to writers:

“Be bold. Be yourself. Write the book that only you could write. Technology changes, but the fundamentals don’t. Human beings have had a driving need to tell stories since they lived in caves. The earliest storytellers enthralled listeners around campfires. Chaucer entertained the court by telling them the Canterbury Tales. In the 19th century, people lined up for blocks to get the next installment of the new Dickens story. Today, teenagers in Tokyo are downloading the latest vampire saga onto their phones. So no matter what format becomes the norm, a great story is still what it’s all about. Hone your craft, learn the techniques of telling a great story, and the rest will come.”

In an interview with Anne Riley, agent Paige Wheeler, a founding partner of Folio Literary Management, LLC, says she’s looking for:

“All commercial fiction and Upscale (think book club) fiction, as well as women’s fiction, romance (all types), mystery, thrillers, and psychological suspense. I enjoy both historical fiction as well as contemporary fiction, so do keep that in mind.”

In an interview on Mother. Write. (Repeat.), agent Joanna Stampfel-Volpe at Nancy Coffey Literary & Media Representation says for adult lit she’s looking for:

“women’s fic, urban fantasy, historical romance, speculative fiction, horror, magical realism, romantic suspense, mainstream commercial fiction, thrillers, etc.”

Registration is open for the 7th International Women’s Fiction Festival in Matera, Italy, Sept. 23-26. There’s an early registration fee until June 30, and it looks as if RWA members will get a deal too.

There’s a new link on Twitter for Women’s Fiction. http://twitter.com/itsabookthing It appears to be mostly readers from the UK, but might be interesting to check out.