I wanted to write and explain why I have reached this decision after spending my entire career as what some have referred to as a “New York author”.
First allow me to give a huge thank you to the publishers, Tor and Titan in particular, and the editors, Patrick Nielsen-Hayden, Stacy Hill, Diana M. Pho, Miranda Jewess, Cath Trechman who have supported and whose insightful comments have improved my work over the years. I have great respect and sympathy for the situation in which they, and in fact all of us, now find ourselves.
Publishing has always been a shoestring undertaking. They called the early publishers “Book Men” because a.) they were mostly men, but b.) because they loved books. Of course they wanted to make money, but at their core they loved books, the people who produced the stories and they wanted to bring those stories to the public.
But there have been a number of forces that have put such stress on traditional publishing that it has made it very difficult for those companies to turn a profit, and by extension these stressors roll down onto the writers.
The first one came in 1979 with the Thor Power Tool Company v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue. Without going into all the legal intricacies here’s the take away as it was applied to publishers. Basically the decision ruled that inventory had to be reported as income. So all those warehouses in New Jersey where publishers used to keep author’s backlist (ie previously published books) went away. They simply couldn’t afford to keep supplies of books, particularly for mid-list writers where many of us fall.
This resulted in books having an extremely short shelf life. I had one book distributor tell me that the average lifespan for a book was about 6 weeks before it was stripped and the battered and abused book was returned to the publishers.
(The idea that books could be stripped like magazines is a whole other issue that I won’t get into today. There are also very few book distributors left in the country which creates another problem which perhaps I’ll address at another time.)
Years passed, technologies advanced (I found myself thinking a lot about buggy whip makers in 1910), and suddenly there were ebooks, and there was Amazon and other platforms. Then came the trade wars and the rise in paper costs. The pressure on traditional publishing was profound. Upshot being that if an author or a series wasn’t selling well it was more cost effective to cut them loose and search for the next potential best seller. I call this the Hollywoodization of publishing — always searching for that box office mega hit. We all hoped that these mega hits would allow publishers to keep funding the more esoteric writers, but remember, profit margins were always very thin.
I’m one of the victims of all of these problems. My wonderful agent, Kay McCauley set about to revert the rights to all my works, and now I have control of the Linnet Ellery series, my Edge series, and the, as yet, uncompleted Imperials series.
As for Imperials — it was highly unlikely that any publisher was going to take on a busted series, bring the first 3 books back into print and agree to print the final two books so I approached Alexi Vandenberg and asked him to be my point person on bringing these works to the new platforms.
So beginning in late December or early January you will be able to download or print on demand the Linnet books. With a new ending to book 3 that gives me the option to write book four that I had always planned. Also the books will now be published under my own name.
Next up will be Imperials to be available. I am hard at work on the fifth and final book of Imperials, but that won’t be the end. There are stories to be told that can fill in some skipped years, and of course there is the next generation to explore and with whom to go adventuring.
There are huge advantages to going this route. The older books will always be available unless the zombie apocalypse hits and the worldwide web is destroyed. I can still have in person appearances and order books to be printed and shipped to either conventions or book sellers at those conventions, and I know I have a terrific team with Alexi and his people so I can focus on doing my job which is to write. Not design covers, handle marketing strategies, hire copy editors, etc.
And I’m still going to work with my agent and traditional publishing on new works, or perhaps on that Agent Kallus novel that I’m quite desperate to write.
A thank you to all my readers for your support over the years and I hope you’ll follow me as we move into this paradigm. I’ll keep you all posted on when books become available.
That is a big change, and probably as nerve-wracking for you as it is exciting. Does this mean we can buy ebooks direct from you once it’s all set up? I’m so happy to hear Imperials has a future though, whatever form that takes.
I won’t be selling them directly. They’ll be available on Amazon and I think several other platforms. You just order and pay. Amazon takes their cut (which is not that large), and sends the remainder of the funds on to me. They’re sort of like a big bookstore in the cloud, and if you want a hard copy you order the book as a print on demand.
CJ Cherryh shared – best wishes in your upcoming (re)publications! I follow a lot of successful Indie authors, and I hope you’ll hit the ground running and be one of them. 🙂
I was really touched that she mentioned me. CJ is a writer who inspired me and still does. I am a huge fan of all of her works, and am particularly enjoying the Foreigner series.
While waiting for book 4 of the Imperial series, I reread 1-3! There will be great rejoicing for 4&5!
Thanks
Thank you. I means a lot to me to actually finish the story and bring Tracy and Mercedes to an appropriate ending.
I’m glad you have control over your work back, although there are, of course, both positives and negatives. I was amused by your reference to whipmakers. My dad’s father, uncles, grandfather, and cousins were all in the whipmaking business in Westfield MA (once the whipmaking capitol of the world). Then the bottom fell out. Suddenly, nearly the entire town population had to find different work.
It’s a risk, but at least all my books will be available to readers, and once I’m done with book 5 of Imperials I’ll see about proposing a new fantasy series that my agent can take to New York publishers. We’re also exploring this Star Wars book. I would so love to write in that universe. Star Wars inspired me to leave law and start writing so it would be a dream come true.
Any news on how this is going? I really want the Imperials series please.
We have an artist. Alexi is working with him on some tweaks to the look of the covers. We’re trying to have the Linnet Ellery books available at Emerald City Comic Con. I’m hoping the first 3 Imperials will be available by MegaCon, or certainly by early June. The plan is to have a launch party for book four The Currency of War at DragonCon over Labor Day and book five will be out a couple of months later.
OMG this is excellent news. I will pass on the news about books 4 and 5 of Imperials on to my Goodreads group!
Thank you so much. It means a lot to me when readers enjoy my stories and I get to hear from them.
Will there be a fourth Linnett Ellery book? You certainly left the ending of Publish And Perish open for a sequel.
Indeed there will, and since I now have total control over the content I took the end of book 3 back to the ending I wanted, and not the one pushed on me by my publisher who wanted me to wrap up the series. I can’t get to it immediately — I’m working on a fourth book about Richard, Mosi, etc. from the Edge books, but Linnet and her Scooby Gang will have more stories.