Rent a grouse

[erastes]

I am very cross with Dragon’s Cave. Two years plus I’ve been playing that game, and I look forward to the holidays because you get a special egg, and it’s the only time you can get that particular egg. This morning I bred a candy-striped one, and it was confiscated from me, and then the site told me I couldn’t have a Christmas egg either.

Upon enquiring at the site, it appears that – unlike EVERY SINGLE OTHER EGG on the site – you can only have two of each of the Christmas themed dragons. So you can never get a full set—and as I have one adult and one frozen hatchling of each type, I’m not allowed any more.

STUPID. To be frank, I’m (probably) going to burn my scroll tonight, it’s not the time sink that the Facebook games are, but after this stupidity (and of course the inevitable rudeness and wank that my innocent, baffled inquiry caused) I am pulling out.

The Silver Publishing Email.

I wasn’t going to post about this, but I’ve been mulling it over and I think I need to say something. Writing is a business. Publishing is a business. Editing is a business. it’s not a high-school playground, or a Women’s Institute meeting, it’s not a social club—no matter how people in semi-public/private fora seem to think so. It’s work. As in the sort of thing that most people do on a nine-to-five basis and behave professionally while they do it. People think that sitting in front of a pc at home means they don’t have to act as well as they would do if they were sitting in front of a pc in an office.

I didn’t get one of these Silver emails, so I don’t know exactly what they contained, but from all the talk about it over the last few days it seems like it was a scattershot-spam email sent to possibly 100s of authors from many many different publishing houses.

I understand that the tone of the letter was (and I’ll probably need to find one posted online before I post this) saying “we can do better than your current e-publisher” and offering high advances and royalties. There’s been a lot of snide talk about desperation and business models and whether Silver is going under and I don’t know or care about that. What has shaken me was the vitriol about someone doing a perfectly legal and normal business practice that has been tried and tested in business probably for EVER.

At least one publisher said that they didn’t want “their authors targeted,” which made me fall on the floor laughing. They aren’t anyone’s authors. They are autonomous beings, who are usually contracted to a publisher for one book—perhaps a series—perhaps a genre. Not wanting their authors targeted smacks to me of a similar kind of desperation they were accusing Silver of—desperate to hold on to their cash cows. Ring fencing their assets and making it clear that to investigate this offer would be some kind of disloyal betrayal.

Would I, as a paralegal, have been considered ‘disloyal’ had I moved to another firm that offered more money? No. Of course not. And I was offered more than once, and sometimes I moved and sometimes I didn’t. What I had to decide was what was right for ME. Not for my employer, my employers were big enough to look after themselves.

But I saw publishers say that they had worked “so hard” to build up a business and Silver were poaching on that hard work. That they had spent years getting into the black and still took no salary for themselves. Oh Boo Hoo. Would whining convince me to stay with a publisher? Er, no.

Most spam mail is annoying. No one wants Viagra substitute adverts or emails promising a bigger cock (although i did reply to this one, but I never was sent one) but when it comes to business it WORKS, or people wouldn’t do it. Just ask the Headhunters.

It’s the law of the jungle, even though you may not like it. If only five authors from the many emails that were sent out put their next book with Silver, then Silver will find that their email (which obviously cost nothing) was cost effective. What Silver did was CHEEKY and perhaps badly aimed (as a lot of m/f authors were spammed, and complained about it, but goodness, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that they might write m/m) – but it wasn’t wrong.

If a new Pizza House opens in a town with three other Pizza Houses, the first thing they are going to do is to print out a load of leaflets and put them through every door in the neighbourhood.  Now – are the existing Pizza Houses going to gang up and slag off the new boy? Are they going to bitch in the trade press as to how the new shop has poached their customers and boo hoo it’s taken them years to gain their clientele? Will there be web-wank? NO of course bloody not. If they had any sense, they’ll check out the new boy’s prices and menu and delivery options and make sure he’s not given them anything they don’t already offer. Perhaps they will pre-emptively up their own game, offer a free coke with every pizza, or a loyalty card: buy ten pizzas over time get one free. Then after that it’s up to the customers.

Same with authors and publishers. IT’S A BUSINESS.

Has no-one seen The Apprentice? Are the apprentice wanabees employers complaining at them trying to get another job?

All publishers work in different ways—and their mistakes are theirs to make. A web-wide-witch-hunt achieves nothing, particularly when Silver did nothing worse than a leaflet drop. Ok, I don’t like the double glazing leaflets through my letter box, but I have a recycling bin in the hall. Similarly I have a “delete” button on my computer. Don’t you? If I’d received one, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to even tell any of my publishers about it-why on earth would I? I wouldn’t tell an employer if a head hunter had got in touch. I wouldn’t go to Joe’s pizzas and tell him that Luigi’s had sent me a leaflet.

Publisher loyalty is admirable in some respects. I understand why some authors like publisher loyalty. It’s a sense of safety, that they know they’ve got a publisher who will at least look at their new proposal, and some authors know that anything they write will be published by their current publisher. They like the sense of community that belonging to a publisher brings, they like the chat rooms, the blogs and the author groups where they can gossip about the world in relative safety. I get that, I do. it’s altogether not for me, but I get that.  What I’ll never get is the playground mentality where one group of authors on a publishing group behave like warring meerkats,but then I didn’t go That Kind of School.

If I had this sense of fanatical “I belong to one publisher and no more” I would probably never have sold another book. I was literally head-hunted for Transgressions by Running Press—what would I have been if I’d have said to them: “Sorry, but I’m a PD Publishing author only.”  Loyal? or Stupid? I can assure you that PD Publishing have never been more than gracious with my “defection” – wished me all the luck. Standish is still one of their best sellers and that makes them happy.  Running Press said to me when tying me in for LIFE with my contract for gay historicals (and I have the email from them still) that they’d like to keep me as long as they could, but when the call from Random House or the like came, and they were sure it would - they wouldn’t stand in my way. (opinions formed by Running Press do not reflect the owner of this blog)

I bought just about all that we need for Boxing Day, might need some more veg by Saturday, but I can pick that up over the next day or so. Tesco’s was quite civilised, and not the madhouse of everyone scrabbling for the last pack of potatoes that I thought it would be.

In final news – I have the first twinges of arthritis(?) rheumatism(?) in the fingers of my right hand. This worries me, not on its own—hell, we are all getting older, but my half-sister developed MS, and when I suggested to the eye clinic last time I was there that my eye problems (and arrhythmia, and swollen legs) might be MS they said “well, there’s no real test for it, but we watch out for the next Event” (e.g. something else going wrong.) Hmm.

IN BETTER NEWS – HURRAH – Shortest Day today, so from now on the days get longer! Whee!

Comments

[moons-storm.livejournal.com]

You're 100% right. Publishing is a business, as is writing. In the States, an author is not an employee. They are a self-employed contractor for the companies they have contracts with. There is no reason why any author should remain with one house.

I think the e-publishing world, blogs, Facebook, forums, and Twitter have blurred the lines of the professional and the personal. It's a hazard. Many authors and publishers feel that the professional barrier has been lifted, but it hasn't. I expect authors to behave professionally with me, and I try my best to behave professionally with them.

[josephine-myles.livejournal.com]

All sounds like good sense to me. I haven't seen one of these emails, and I'd probably ignore it if I did get one, but I can't see the point in getting wound up about it. Just chuck it in the spam file and delete it if you don't like it :)

Yay for longer days! Now all we need is for this snow to melt so walking around isn't so bloody hazardous...

[angrboda]

Oh dear, DC boss showing his age again?

That was part of why I eventually tired of the game. It doesn't really matter if he's a technical genious to make a game like that and have it be so popular. Not when his decision making smacks of Entitled Teenager. (I can't even remember what the issues that made me dislike him and his attitude were, but I do remember the annoyance with him)

[erastes.livejournal.com]

the rudeness wasn't from him, but it brought home to me that most poeple playing on the game were kids. I still don't get--and will never get-why the Xmas eggs are any different to other holiday eggs. I LIKE the game and it really annoys me to give it up, but if i don't have a chance of getting a set of christmas eggs - e.g. male, female, male and female hatchies and ungendered egg - then what's the fucking POINT?? card collecting games (which this is) are all about being able to get the set, even if it's getting a rare - but making it IMPOSSIBLE is so stupid i can't even express my frustration.

[angrboda]

Yeah, I can understand how many 1st gen eggs you can get from the cave so that everybody would have a chance, but you ought to be able to breed them and win the missing eggs that way. Otherwise it's just not logical.

[vashtan.livejournal.com]

Erastes - I agree.

The moment where this would be "bad business practice" is, when, for example, the Poaching Publisher took data assembled and value-added from the Poachee Publisher.

That's why our sales team is very much instructed NEVER to take - or acquire/obtain/blag - the programmes and attendee lists of rivals' events. Because at least ONE of the names on that list, if not several, are "seeded" - that is, they are fake accounts of people who don't exist, but the email goes to that publisher, who then goes "oh, they took our data LAW SUIT!"

That's it. Data in a specific format - a list, say - is protected in the UK at least (no idea outside).

Fact is, I keep an eye on royalties and sales, and if I can sell more elsewhere, I move. I have a list of publishers that goes like this:

1) Biggest seller/royalties
2) Bigger seller/royalties
3) Big seller/royalties
4) OK seller/royalties
....

I start at the top, and work my way to the bottom.

I also choose my publisher by other factors. Is that book a certain length and do I absolutely want paper? Then I go to X. Do I want an extremely good editor and don't care that much about royalties, but expect to sell craploads? Publisher Y. Are publishers X and Y already sitting on one sub each, I work my way down the list.

This is again modified by sub calls. "Oh, publisher Z has a sub call for my exact kink at a length I enjoy writing!"

And that's it.

I am "loyal" to a publisher in one way: I sub to them again. They are - and stay - on the list. I might even do extra work for them, go out of my way to promote the book, do anthologies, help their authors on their author loop if I have the time. I even recommend it to my friends and the many young authors that ask me about my experiences.

If a publisher ever fucks with my head - or royalties, book, reputation - and I know it's either malice or incompetence - and I had both - then not only do I never sub to them again, I will state publicly that I won't and why, and tell other authors why I wouldn't and what I think are the better pubs.

That might be called "negative loyalty", but I think there are black sheep around and I do have an opinion based on fact/experience (so it's not even libel).

And if anybody has worked hard to develop a writer, it's in 90% of all cases the author. The most fantabulous publisher can't turn straw to gold. The gold has to be there already.

Like any business that is ultimately founded on people - software shops, trading desks - the best way to "keep" your authors is to treat them well.

If Luigi constantly makes the best pizza in the world, never cheats on the change, and still smiles at you even if the place is packed, then you'll stay with Luigi, however many flyers Sandro puts through your door. It's simple as that.

[mylodon.livejournal.com]

Hear hear. I got one, replied politely ("not at the moment but maybe in the future") and recognised it as savvy business practice.

[vashtan.livejournal.com]

I'll look into Silver once they have a few more years under their belts. :)

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Ummm... since when is offering a better deal to a writer unethical?

I used to have considerable publisher loyalty to my previous publisher. I was (reasonably) happy there, apart from the inevitable wrangle over covers, and I really didn't see any need to look elsewhere.

Then, at 11:40 PM one December 31, I got an email stating (in the rah-rah happyspeak that corporations use when you're about to get screwed)---Surprise! As of midnight, your contracts belong to another publisher! We sold you! Ain't that great?

Excuse me?

And the details were just lovely, too - all books in print would go out of print for at least a year and a half--those the new publisher chose to keep; the chance of wider circulation for the certainty of a year+ out of print. And after the new bunch took nearly six months to decide what they were going to do with us, I decided I wasn't inclined to stay with a company that let people dangle in the wind like that.

However--I presume most publishers would see nothing intrinsically wrong in that transaction. If a company owns the publishing rights, they have the right to sell the contract. And it usually says so, right there in the contract.

If a publisher has the right to sell its writers' contracts to another publisher, it seems damned foolish to pretend that there's some 'gentleman's agreement' that one publisher may not issue invitations to writers who publish with other presses.

My books are mostly with two different publishers now--one print, one e-book -- and I can't say I'm crazy about the situation. Somewhere down the road, I'd rather have all formats under the same roof.

I'm doing a little freelance editing for Silver now, so I'm not entirely uninvolved... and I've got to say that they're quick to answer questions and seem to get work through the edit-to-publish process pretty smoothly. Brenna Lyons is involved with the company and I was always impressed with her common sense over at EPIC, even when we didn't see eye-to-eye.

Whether the company is trying to expand, looking to get name authors under contract to bring new readers to their website, or even looking to get said contracts in order to make an appealing package to sell to someone else...? I have no idea. But unless a publisher is willing to assure its writers, in writing, that they will not sell them out, I think it's a bit much to expect writers to behave like ladies in a harem.

btw, Silver does m/f as well as m/m and menage, so I can see the point of a scattergun mailing. After all, why not?

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

I don't see anything wrong with a publisher inviting authors to submit to them. Publishers don't own authors. Yes, if you're contracted to offer the next book to Publisher X first, you offer it to them first. If you're very happy with your experiences with publisher Y, and there's no better reason to send stuff to anyone else, then you send to publisher Y first. But you're always interested to know that there are other options out there in case things go pear shaped. It is, as you say, a business.