Thursday Linkage

Today over at Maclean's there's a piece called "The Incredible Shrinking Short Story" which mentions -- can you guess? -- hint fiction. Here's the first part:

At some point, if you work them right, words eventually become stories. Fragments and sentences turn into paragraphs, and paragraphs, if you’re lucky, become something whole. But the exact moment that change takes place can be hard to pinpoint. It’s not always clear what’s a narrative and what’s something less. That’s especially true in the field of very short fiction, which is enjoying a moment right now.

Writers have long played with prose forms that are shorter than traditional short stories. Franz Kafka and Jorge Luis Borges wrote slices and sketches that don’t fit the typical model. Hemingway once supposedly penned a story in six words to settle a bet. That piece—“For sale: baby shoes, never worn”—has never been definitively tied to “Papa.” But fans of what’s sometimes known as flash fiction, or very-short prose, often cite it as the ur-text of their form.

Check out the rest of the piece here.

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Over at PandoDaily, Sarah Lacy shares an email from a publishing insider who wishes to go unnamed ... which is smart, as this person basically admits he/she will soon be out of a job:

Long-term there’s no future in printed books. They’ll be like vinyl: pricey and for collectors only. 95% of people will read digitally. Everybody in publishing knows this but most are in denial about it because moving to becoming a digital company means laying off like 40% of our staffs. And the barriers to entry fall, too. We simply don’t want to think about it.

Amazon is thinking about it, though, and they’re targeting the publishers directly.

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On the heels of reading this, I then read all about Apple's big announcement where they talk about getting into the textbook business. Great! I also read about how they are finally opening a platform for writers to publish directly through them. Great? Well, not really. You see, in the app's license agreement, you find this:

Now understand I have no problems granting exclusivity. In fact, I have enrolled several of my e-books in the Kindle Select program, which allows Amazon Prime members to download those e-books for free via their "lending" program, plus I'm able to make my e-books free for up to five days during the ninety day exclusivity period. I tried it out with a few e-books to see how I liked it, and I actually like it quite a bit, so much so that I might enroll all of my books ... which means they would no longer be available via Nook or Sony or iBooks. On the one hand, I don't really like the idea of exclusivity -- I obviously want as many readers to be able to read my work as possible -- but on the other hand I benefit tremendously from it. The bulk of my sales are through Amazon; my sales with every other platform is so minimal it's almost laughable. That's the thing -- Amazon knows how to market and sell e-books (after all, they make apps that can be used on practically any device, so granting exclusivity isn't really a big deal when you think about it). Apple? Well, if they do, they sure haven't proven it yet. Me thinks this is a case of too little, too late. Their app is no doubt nice -- I must admit I do love Apple products -- but if you're looking for a program to create e-books, I highly recommend Scrivener.

So E-Far, So E-Good

The free promotion for Man of Wax and Phantom Energy started just this morning, and already Man of Wax has gotten here:

Yes, that's right -- it's in the top 100. After No Shelter had managed to sneak into the top 100 last week, I doubted Man of Wax would be able to replicate the same success. In fact it's done even better. Why? Who knows. There really isn't any rhyme or reason for why a free book is downloaded more than another free book, as far as I can tell, and the only promotion I did was here on this website and links posted on Twitter and Facebook.

As of right now, Man of Wax has been downloaded over 14,000 times since this morning. Phantom Energy? About 150.

Anyway, the inevitable response will be something along the lines of Yeah, that's great and all, but why in the blue blazes are you giving away your stuff for free anyhow?

I was actually asked this question just the other day, and my answer then was the same as it is now: Why not?

If you believe that every free download is a missed sale, you have a lot to learn about the publishing business -- or practically any business. Companies -- such as, you know, publishers -- give away products all the time. Free is always the best form of promotion (which isn't the same as pirating, but that's a whole other discussion for another time ... though I will say that, while I think pirating is wrong, I don't lose sleep over the fact that several of my e-books are currently available on torrent websites).

Of course not every person who downloads the book is actually going to read it, but for the few seconds it took them to download it, they at least saw the cover and title and my name. And who knows, maybe they will read it at some point. Yet out of the 14,000 downloads so far for Man of Wax, how many readers will actually try the book? I'd be happy with even a tenth of that number, but I think that's being too generous. Then again, maybe not. After all, the whole point here is to be read, plus -- wink, wink -- the second book in the trilogy is slated to be released this April ...

The downside of free promotion, however, is that not everyone is going to like whatever it is that's free. This seems to be especially the case with free e-books. In my experience, many one-star reviews are the result of free e-books. It seems readers who don't care for a book they didn't pay anything for find it their duty to tell the world. And you know what? That's okay. No writer's work is ever universally loved.

But you know the massive upside of free promotion, especially at Amazon? The more free downloads, the more your book gets recommended, both during the free promotion ... and even after.

Last year No Shelter sold around 300 copies. That's 300 copies for the entire year of 2011.

After last week's free promotion, No Shelter sold nearly 300 copies in just one day.

Let me repeat that -- No Shelter sold nearly 300 copies in just one day.

So think about that.

And while you're thinking about it, download Man of Wax and Phantom Energy if you haven't done so already. Did I mention they're FREE?

What About The "Book" Book?

Maybe we have to drop “books” from the way we think. I think that’s keeping us from not thinking as big and broadly as we need to. I have authors come in and I suggest we start with e-books and then have a print companion later on and they say, “what about the ‘book’ book?”

What I see Hyperion as is a producer of great reading experiences in the form that someone enjoys.

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.

-- Hyperion CEO Ellen Archer

On The Reading Mandate And Other Stuff

Walter Dean Myers has been named the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, and this is some of what he has to say about it:

“We all know we should eat right and we should exercise, but reading is treated as if it’s this wonderful adjunct. ‘Reading takes you to faraway places.’ We’re still thinking in terms of enticing kids to read with a sports book or a book about war. We’re suggesting that they’re missing something if they don’t read but, actually, we’re condemning kids to a lesser life. If you had a sick patient, you would not try to entice them to take their medicine. You would tell them, ‘Take this or you’re going to die.’ We need to tell kids flat out: reading is not optional.”

Now don't get me wrong -- I do believe that reading is crucial for kids (not to mention everyone no matter how young or old they might be). I mean, I did my student teaching in a high school where I dealt with seniors who never read any books and who could barely write a full and sensible paragraph. Granted, not all the seniors were like that, but there were enough to cause alarm. And it's just getting worse. That's why I find it shameful when people want to bash any kind of young adult books, whether they're Harry Potter or Twilight, because at least they're getting kids to read.

But, having said that, I do think it's important -- vitally important, really -- that kids aren't forced into reading. Because, just like with anything else, when you're forced into something, nine times out of ten you become obstinate in doing whatever that something is.

So how do we get kids to read (and like reading, no less) without forcing it down their throats like, um, medicine?

I think I'll leave that up to our new Ambassador to decide.

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Have you taken advantage of my two free e-books yet? If not, hurry, because the offer is only good for a few more days. Currently, No Shelter is killing it with over 12,000 free downloads and is, as of this writing, number 33 in the overall free Kindle store. The Dishonored Dead, on the other hand, is doing so-so, with about 1,100 free downloads. If you have taken advantage of these free downloads (and even if you haven't and just want to be a nice person), help spread the word, huh? The more downloads, the better.

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My local newspaper did a nice write-up of what's happened to me since the Hint Fiction anthology was released last year. (Hint: a lot.)

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The very cool and talented Roxane Gay gave Phantom Energy a nice shout-out on her end-of-year-blog-post where she talked about, among other things, all the books she read in 2011:

"I must say, I love this book. Swartwood’s short stories are quirky but they’re really fucking good. This is one of those books not enough people know about. The title story, in particular, is just amazing. Buy this book. For real."

Thanks, Roxane!

If you don't regularly read Roxane's blog, do yourself a favor and fix that now. Plus, her first collection Ayiti is now available on Kindle for a very reasonable price, so check it out.

A Look Back At 2011, The Numbers Edition

It's almost the end of 2011, which means that 2012 is right around the corner, which means the ancient Mayans are going to come back from the dead and eat us all. That's how the prophecy goes, right?

Anyway, instead of doing a rambling post about this past year, I thought I would just share my e-book numbers for the year, split up by each month. I find it's interesting stuff, looking at the progression (I'm a nerd like that). Granted, these past two months have been great for sales, which no doubt is thanks to the holidays.

(Note that I'm also not including the free downloads for The Silver Ring and In the Land of the Blind, which number over 30,000. Also note that these are for Kindle and Nook; Sony and iBooks and Smashwords only gave me a handful more, but wasn't worth my time adding up for each month as Smashwords' spreadsheets can be tricky. Also note the bump in sales come June; that was after The Silver Ring finished its free promotion and, surprisingly, kept selling like hotcakes. And finally, note that there are still two full days left in December, so the numbers listed are as of right now.)

• January: 13
• February: 13
• March: 81
• April: 232
• May: 793
• June: 1,858
• July: 1,054
• August: 1,272
• September: 1,166
• October: 1,244
• November: 1,661
• December: 2,102

For the year, I've sold nearly 11,500 e-books. My bestsellers were, hands down, The Serial Killer's Wife (3,175) and The Calling (3,663). My best 99 center, besides The Silver Ring (2,534), was Spooky Nook (671), which really picked up there near the end of the year.

What can we learn from this?

Who knows.

People have told me that the e-book bubble will burst soon, and maybe it will, though I don't think so. It's clear that e-books is where the future of publishing is headed. Print books will always be around, but e-books will definitely begin to dominate the marketplace. And of course, in terms of sales, what goes up must come down ... and eventually (hopefully) go back up. I have more books that I plan to release this year (about five or six), and if I've learned one thing this past year, it's the more books, the better.

Actually, let me rephrase that.

The more quality books, the better.

Great cover art, great product description -- they're both very important, but if you don't have a quality book to sell, readers will quickly sniff it out and sales will drop.

So will my sales progress throughout 2012? I certainly hope so. But there's really no way of telling.

The only thing I can say for sure is that 2011 was a pretty good year.

Here's hoping 2012 will be even better.