Publishing News and Notes

Listen to the podcast episode

I'm out of town so I thought I'd do a quick podcast covering a few topics:

Listener question in response to last week's episode: 

"I have a lot of friends who are signing with small presses. One of the terms though is, while they don't charge an upfront cost, they take all royalties until production cost has been repaid, then after it has been repaid, the split the royalties 50/50... What are your thoughts on this type of publishing?"

Big surprise- I don't like this idea. The author writes the book, the publisher handles the publishing side. The two parties share royalties. That's how the partnership should work. What's described above sounds like "pay to publish on the layaway plan."

Nook Press is reportedly closing accounts of authors who  have published erotica:

I've seen a couple different letters authors have received. In some cases it's a vague notification with a request to contact Nook. The other is a termination letter. 

Nook still accounts for a solid percentage of my sales, but it's getting smaller and their customer service has been bad for a long time. I think they're determined to shoot themselves in the foot.

International Thriller Writers is presenting George RR Martin with "ThrillerMaster Award" for lifetime achievement in writing thrillers.

Problem is, he doesn't write thrillers. Yes, his books can be thrilling. Yes, there can be overlap between his work and elements of popular thrillers, but that doesn't mean they fit into the Thriller genre. Some characters in Stephen King's books fall in love and get married, but his books aren't Romance. The boys in his novel IT all took turns having sex with the female protagonist as a way of "bonding" before fighting the monster, but everyone knows that book isn't erotica. "Thriller" is one of those genres that is pretty well identifiable: books in which the plot relies heavily on the fantastic, on "too advanced" technology, or where romance or erotica provided the primary plot line might be "thrilling" but are not "Thrillers." 

GRRM is one of my favorite writers, and good for him for getting the award, but I can't help but wonder what is the point of having genre awards and a genre-specific organization if you're going to honor the achievements of authors who don't write in the genre?