Bad News and Troubling Reactions
Every writer wants to be published. For many, it’s the Big Thing. It’s the external validation, the justification for continuing on with all this madness. But in today’s world, it’s also very easy, and writer exploitation is a rampant nuisance.
Like most writers starting out, the first paid fiction sale was my main goal. Not word count, not long-term project completion, not mastering the craft; I wanted, first and foremost, to be published.
And in August 2010, I received an acceptance for my first story, “Night of the Widow” — not a great story, but one I was proud of at the time. It was purchased — or at least contracted for — by Bill Tucker of the Library of Horror Press. Mr. Tucker is a great guy, so far as I’ve been able to tell, and has worked hard for the Library. I went on to sell three more stories to Mr. Tucker for various Library of Horror Press anthologies, one of which was paid for and published. The other three, I just read on the publisher’s forum, have been cancelled, for financial reasons. So they’re no longer listed on my bibliography page, and will likely never see print. I’m fine with this, despite my initial disappointment.
But what troubles me, aside from my own interests in the matter, are other writers’ reactions to this small press going broke and subsequently cancelling upwards of a dozen — if not dozens — of announced themed anthologies. Each of these books was conceived as a themed collection of stories, and then an editor (to be paid on release of the anthology, like the writers — the editors have been equally wronged) would read, select, and send out contracts for chosen stories. Then a table of contents would be posted, and a vague, tentative release date such as “Spring 2011″ would be posted.
Due to financial difficulties — i.e., poor sales — the projects were simply abandoned. And writers, editors, and cover artists were left unpaid (I’m assuming — cover artists were perhaps paid on completion of their work) and unpublished — which happens all too often in this industry. I’d read the horror stories more times than I can count, and yet I always assumed nothing like this would ever happen to me.
But the writers involved are fine with this! They’re disappointed, sure, as I am — but they’ve offered up propositions such as:
- accepting a one-time advance of $5.00-$10.00 in place of the contracted 1 cent/word + contributor’s copy
- attempting to use Kickstarter as a way to fund books that have already been compiled and contracted for
- and even: paying for the publication of the books in place of accepting payment!
Are we so fucking desperate? Do we never want to have careers?
The writer is such a delicate artist, such an utterly senseless creature, that he is willing to look past simple business sense, accept no payment — which he was promised long ago, perhaps over a year ago, when the contract was signed — and be happy about it?
Involved parties have suggested that a penny per word is itself a problem, that the publisher wouldn’t be going broke if it hadn’t customarily promised writers compensation of 1 cent/word plus a contributor’s copy, and then only the editors and cover artists would need to be paid. Fuck… Aren’t these books of stories? Written by writers?
Anyway, my anger is not toward the publisher — a labor of love with a very passionate community surrounding it — and certainly not toward the editors, but toward the writers themselves, who are too stupid to recognize the seeds of exploitation, who are fully willing to forego payment of any kind, or even pay the publisher to fund the book’s release. This is not the way publishing works — it was never intended to work this way, and it shouldn’t ever work this way.
If someone is in such a big damn hurry to be published, he ought to take ten minutes to convert his document to .mobi format and throw it up on Amazon. Or put together his own pay-on-demand anthology project — and hell, don’t offer contributors any sort of compensation for their work. Maybe they won’t mind.
But dammit, writers, stop giving away your work for free. Writers get paid.
Writers and artists alike, man. Those of us who want careers often get screwed because there are so many people out there willing to work for free. And it’s a damn shame. It devalues the entire industry, makes other people think it’s not worth paying for.
Sorry about the contract cancelations. But you’ve got the right idea: let the press bow out gracefully, but refuse to offer up your work as a sacrificial lamb.
Totally agree, Alex. Too many people have such little faith in themselves and their work, so they give it all away for free. Reminds me of this rant by Harlan Ellison.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj5IV23g-fE
I don’t always agree with him but I think he’s definitely right in this case. And so are you.
I heard about the cancellation – sorry it affected so many of your stories.
Those desperate writers have tunnel vision. They’re looking at their one story and needing IT to be published. They forget they need to keep writing in order to write a better story and a better story after that so they can be contracted with a more stable market.
It’s not about the story. It’s the journey, and they’re missing out.
I just posted on your Facebook diggity, but… speaking of desperation, what’s funny is, when I’m writing a lot, I don’t submit anything. But when I’m not writing, I’m all crazy about my submissions. In other words, I would never be published if I could keep myself writing all the time. WEIRD RITE?
That’s too bad, but I’d say you’ve got the right attitude.
To avoid this problem in the future, set the ‘Payscale’ field on Duotrope’s to ‘Pro payment’ and ignore the rest. Stability pays, and they might even be around long enough for people to find you in a back issue.
I stopped by because I wondered if this would affect you. One of my stories received the ax as well.
I, too, read through the forum thread on the matter and was surprised at how people reacted. It’s definitely a supportive community over there so it doesn’t surprise me that people were saying “so sorry to hear that, you gotta do what you gotta do,” but yeah, I’m glad there were no responses from higher up to the “how about everybody put in $50 to help out.” I firmly believe that money flows to the writer and not the other way around.
The editor of Glitch, Wayne Goodchild, has asked our permission to try to shop the entire anthology to other printers and see if anybody wants it–and I’ve let him for now. Though I’ve started to wonder how much money we might expect if someone does agree to print it. I’m not going to sign a contract if there’s no pay.
I’m not sure all of the writers over there do want to have careers. Some seem to only write stories for Library anthos and would rather stick with the press than shop their work elsewhere. I guess everyone is different, but personally I want this to be so much more than a hobby.
Eileen, sorry to hear you were affected as well. I’m glad to hear Goodchild is taking the initiative to shop the project around; at least this way, you might still get paid. There are other small presses like the Library out there.
And yeah, I’ve noticed that some people who write for the Library are purely hobbyists. Not sure how they manage to make the cut, but to each their own, I guess. Like you, I’d love to make a career of this. Whether or not that happens, I’m going to value my work enough to make sure I’m paid and treated with respect; that’s the minimum standard for any profession.
Eileen – Sorry to hear you got hit by this too.
I was sort of upset about my single story with TLP until I realized Alex and others had three or more stories involved, which made any disappointment I had seem like a mosquito bite versus multiple wasp stings. There are probably a few writers who just had their publishing resume dinged or maybe even wiped clean right before an agent query process.
I like Doc and TLP. It’s a fine community and I wish everyone nothing but the best of luck. The stories I’ve read in their anthologies were entertaining–perhaps a bit more “wide open” and adventurous than the stuffier magazines.
I’ve already brushed up my story and sent it off to a couple new markets. That’s all we can do. I agree with you about “so much more than a hobby”.
It makes complete sense that the Librarians have rallied and offered to do whatever it takes to get published. After all, MOST of them have never been published previously, and MOST of them have never gone through the process of formally submitting to a real “honest to goodness” press. More than half of them will never get their work accepted someplace else. (Unless it is perhaps, a 4theluv.)
The fact is, Doc has been publishing work by his FRIENDS; people who have been a part of his community, for the most part. None of them have had to really worry about their aptitude for writing. Their work was not accepted based on skill, but on friendship. Doc provided the basic editing to pull their stories together…barely. The reality is, quite a few of the books, including the novels, contained tons of spelling and grammatical errors.
If the authors have no clue as to what a professional writer is to expect, the blame falls squarely on the press’s shoulders. After all, it was HE who conducted his business poorly from the start. His intentions were well meaning, and Doc may be a sweetheart of a guy, but business is business. You simply do not pay a toddler to do a grown man’s job. Most of these authors are just that; toddlers.
Pedro,
It’s unfair, I think, to say that all the authors published by the Library are Doc’s friends, and even more unfair to call them “toddlers.” Yes, I’m sure that a number of them are his friends, but to my knowledge he’s rarely — if ever — edited any of the anthologies himself, so if any favoritism played a part in the selection process, it was done by the editors, not Doc.
Also, I didn’t know a single individual in the entire Library-based community until after my story “Night of the Widow” was selected for Fearology 2. Not long after that, three more of my stories were selected, all by editor Bill Tucker. I’d like to think that, since I’ve never met Mr. Tucker in my life, favoritism had no part in that; he was simply accepting stories he found to be of merit in comparison to the lesser works in the slush pile.
But yes, you’re right in criticizing the failure on the part of the publisher in terms of business. There are marketing considerations, quality control aspects, and simple business ethics that may have been largely eschewed in the name of friendship — and, yes, maybe even an amateurish approach to the selection process.
That said, this happens in every corner of every industry. Good stories sell themselves, but sometimes…friendship sells them, too. In defense of the Library’s many talented writers — and indeed there are many — Doc is fortunate in that most of his friends, or at least those who repeatedly appear in his books, are competent writers.
Truth -
I don’t think Doc ran TLP as you describe. I didn’t know anyone at TLP, and I didn’t even post on their forum until after I was accepted for Fearology 2. There are a bunch of good writers over there, too.
As far as nepotism, I hate to tell you it doesn’t stop at the higher paying markets. It’s in every facet of the business, and always will be.
I liked the anthology ideas TLP came up with. They were creative and interesting. But I feel they tried to do too many, and I don’t doubt other writers felt the same way. I wish them nothing but the best. I found them sincere and pleasant to work with.
Truth, what you say about MOST of the Library writers is probably true for some of them–I know for certain that a few haven’t stretched beyond the Library, and I imagine those are the ones pushing to get the books into print no matter what. Personally, I’m impressed and happy that Doc and the editors haven’t taken the idea of a For The Love antho and run with it. It represents integrity on Doc’s part, that he isn’t willing to do this unless he can pay the authors something–and something more than “token” at that.
My only beef with Doc and the way he runs his business is that he uses the forums to announce big news. I didn’t find out Doomology was available until a week or two after it was released, and I only found out on a random trip to the forums. I don’t check them regularly. I later found out that the EDITORS didn’t even find out from Doc until after it was fact (though I was annoyed with them for not emailing the authors as soon as _they_ knew.) Fortunately, the editor of Glitch has been great about keeping us informed (including this bad news), though I saw on the forums that he didn’t even hear it straight from Doc. And it seems like some of the other editors haven’t been doing as good of a job of spreading this news to their writers (and possibly haven’t even heard themselves yet), so lines of communication could drastically improve. But at least he’s unwilling to turn the Library into a vanity press and wants to help new writers get started (and not just his friends.)
Amen to everything you’ve said, Alex. I don’t know very much about Library, but on finding out that it seems to be essentially a one-man operation, and noting the number of anthologies they’ve published (or promised to publish), I can’t help but think that editorial oversight was minimal. (One thing I’ve learned about the small presses–which aids in separating the professional from the unprofessional–is that I must look over my work to an excruciatingly fine degree, because there’s a good chance nobody will be doing any copy-editing once the story is accepted.)
I ‘ve had very little interaction with Library, mainly because I don’t write zombie stories or anything like that. But I did have a story pending in Liminality (ed. Michael C. Lea), and I’m pretty disappointed it’s not going forward.
The thing of it is, I think it would have been a pretty good book. We had Cat Rambo (late of Fantasy Magazine), Gary Cuba of Baen’s Universe/Grantville Gazette, Ferrett Steinmetz (who’s been in Asimov’s numerous times), and Silvia Moreno-Garcia (publisher of Innsmouth Free Press, and no slouch as an anthologist herself), among many others. I don’t know what criteria they used to decide which anthologies are going forward and which are cancelled, but, if it were you, wouldn’t you go forward with Liminality? I sure would. I’ll be honest: I thought Liminality might be just the book to give Library credibility; a genuinely professional effort.
Good points, Desmond. Thanks for dropping by.
Yeah, I was disappointed when my submission to Liminality was turned down and I saw the table of contents. It would’ve been a really excellent book, in no small part due to the professionalism of editor Michael C. Lea. And Cat Rambo is a phenomenal writer. (The silver lining is, I eventually sold the story to a pro-paying market for hundreds of dollars — my first professional sale.)
I think, to be frank, the Library just bit off more than they could chew. They would be taking submissions for upwards of ten, maybe fifteen anthologies, and have several from two years prior that still hadn’t been released. If I’m exaggerating, it’s not by much.
Sorry to hear that you were affected by the cancellations. Best of luck with your writing, and I hope to hear from you again.
Hopefully I’m as fortunate with my own Liminality story. It was back out the very day I read about the cancellations (which I ran across by chance–though we did get a nice note from Michael Lea a day or so later, in which I got the impression *he* found out about the situation only by chance, which just leads into expounding on the problems of the Library all over again…).
(Though I still say, if I had a Cat Rambo story on my hands, I’d publish that instead of Zombie Tales Volume 50 or whatever.)
Glad to hear about your sale of your own Liminality effort. May I ask what the story is called and where it will be appearing?
Desmond,
My story is called “In the Arms of Lachiga,” and it will be appearing very soon in Digital Science Fiction 4, on Kindle, Nook, Sony, and then in paperback not long after that.
How about you? Any other publications/acceptances on your end?
Not much here, actually. I’ve barely written any short fiction lately; too busy with novels. But Tor.com reprinted my first-ever published short story:
http://www.tor.com/stories/2011/08/wikihistory
That was nice, and a nice little piece of change as well, even for such a short story (Tor pays ten cents a word for reprints). It was quite the unexpected solicitation; I don’t usually wake up to emails from major publishers asking permission to send me money.
I also have a piece called “Sirens” coming out at some unspecified time in an anthology from Double Dragon tentatively titled Love and Darker Passions. This is notable mainly because it runs about ten thousand words, which is by far the longest story I’ve ever sold.
it mite seem disappointing now, but maybe ur better off having ur stories back as originals, rather than being published in a low-circulation antho and in dubious company. unfortunately, i learned the hard way that sometimes it’s better to be unpublished than to have publications that u mite later regret. maybe this is even ur chance to redraft and polish these stories and send them elsewhere – there’s no reason why they won’t be taken up somewhere else.
btw, i’ve added u to my blogroll: http://tlrese.wordpress.com/
=)
Rese (T.L.?),
I definitely think you’re right about that. I didn’t really elaborate on it, but that was sort of embedded in my first comment about writers — myself included — being in too big a hurry to get published, rather than learning the craft and getting acquainted with the industry and the literature. As for these particular stories, it’s just as likely or unlikely as any other instance that they’ll sell again. So many variables, so many editors and changes in the business right now, that while I hope they sell, I won’t put my soul at stake over the matter. And like you said, I’ll probably take the time to do a little polishing before sending them off to the next market — which I should have done about a week ago, but have been caught up in school work, etc.
Thanks for the link, and for dropping by!
Best,
Alex
I just found this post via the BOOKS OF THE DEAD PRESS blog.
I gotta say:
HELL TO THE YES.
You are completely fucking right. Writers get paid. Period. No if’s, no and’s, and no but’s about it.
If you want to write then never give your work away for free and allow someone else to profit off it. You want to hook up your fans, then cool. That is awesome. Doing a marketing thing to draw in more readers, no problem.
But being okay with not geting paid just so you can get the exposure, all the while allowing someone else to charge the reader full price for your work is bullshit.
Write good shit.
Sell it.
Write more good shit.
Rinse and repeat as necessary.
Thanks for dropping by, James. Appreciate the enthusiasm–especially when it comes to the topic of writers being paid for their work.
This is an older post, and some of it is water under the bridge at this point, but the general gist of it remains as true as ever. I, for one, have learned the lesson the hard way: Don’t submit your work to places that you wouldn’t be proud to see your name or work associated with. No bad blood with Twisted Library Press, but I’d say they more than got their comeuppance for that blunder. And now, after seeing some more success and taking online fiction classes with horror writers like Jeremy C. Shipp and Jack Ketchum, I know better than to shortchange my work.
Those early stories were practice; it’s all for the better that they don’t ever see the light of day. Maybe sometime down the road, I’ll take my favorites and rewrite them anew, the way King did with some of his college-era short fiction.
I see that you’ve had some big success with your Deacon Chalk novels. Kensington’s a great publisher, and I see their stuff on shelves all over the place. Best of luck to you with that. I may have to check out Blood and Bullets sometime in the not-too-distant future, when I’ve gotten halfway caught up on my to-read pile, which grows much faster than I can read, unfortunately.
If I ever find myself in Georgia again, maybe I’ll hunt down your tattoo shop and have you ink me up.