The Coming Demise of the Mass Market Paperback

What started this if you missed the Publishers Weekly article.

In effect this says midlist titles will vanish. There won't be any mass market paperbacks other than bestsellers.

I decided to throw out the question of how we, as western writers, can continue to write our tales of the Wild West and get our work in front of readers. My basic worry is one of demographics. My starting point is that our readership won't migrate to ebooks due to lack of/contempt for technology. This same group might also find it difficult to be upsold to trade paper, which can cost twice what a mass market pb goes for now. I may be wrong. I hope I am, but back in the day when trade pbs were introduced I thought this would cannibalize pb sales. It didn't. Trade pbs turned out to be a new market that expanded sales.

So, it is quite possible I am completely wrong and expanded printing in this format will reach a different market. That doesn't take away the need for us to find alternative markets and new ways of reaching readers. As I see it, pbs are our bread and butter (and jam and...)

Many thanks to Jeff Mariotte, Cheryl Pierson, and Richard Prosch for their fine counsel and sharing of experiences.

Cheryl hit the nail on the head. Series sell. The question is how to get those series in front of our readers, especially since most series now are published in mass market pbs.

It's clear that there's not a single path forward. But elements are showing up that seem to be in the mix.

We need a coalition working to sell everyone else's work, as well as working on our own titles. How can WF help in this?

I believe Amazon ads work because someone who *wants* to buy goes hunting for something to read. The step of convincing that would-be reader to come over and look has already been done. But ads on Facebook and elsewhere require an extra step since people aren't primarily going to FB or elsewhere to buy.

Along with this is the notion of Kickstarter titles (way to go, Jeff!)  I just got this in my email. Looks like Prism is a promising idea.

Jeff’s input: "I agree with AI that weird westerns are the hottest thing going at the moment--but the audience for them is not the same as for traditional westerns. It skews younger, for one thing, and more tech-savvy. Major publishers putting out traditional westerns are practically extinct, but some of them will still publish weird westerns. I'm essentially the go-to reviewer for weird westerns at Roundup and True West, and a lot of what I see are academic treatises about weird westerns--which means the universities are getting in on the act. I have one waiting for me to review that's specifically about sex in weird westerns. It's a 350-page hardcover from the University of Nebraska Press, retailing for $99. And there aren't even any pictures!

"So there's definitely potential in that arena...it's just not likely to carry over to traditional western work. I enjoy writing both and would hate to just write the weird stuff."

More thoughts from Jeff: "It's interesting that you called out the Prism anthology. That's from Crazy 8 Press, with whom Silverado Press is loosely associated. Crazy 8 started with 8 friends who all wrote sf/fantasy stuff, and organized as a loose authors' consortium. The principals all have their own individual websites, I believe, but there's also a Crazy 8 website at which all their books receive coverage and can be ordered. If one of them puts together an anthology, the others all have open invitations to submit. They all support each other’s projects, cross-promoting to their individual fan bases (many of whom have become Crazy 8 fans rather than just reading one author, because there's enough commonality in the type of work they do--although over the years they've expanded their initial genre focuses).

"When Howard Weinstein and I talked about forming Silverado Press, we went to Crazy 8 because we're both friends with most of them, and they agreed to take us on as a separate but related imprint. We get some cross-promotion from them and a small presence on their website, and when we conceived the Silverado Press Presents anthology, they were all invited to participate. Several of them did, because even people who don't usually write westerns like writing westerns. Crazy 8 was also instrumental in setting up the Kickstarter, which I had never done.

"If Western Fictioneers could adopt a similar approach, it could be very beneficial to the organization and its members. Western Fictioneers as a brand name would be good to slap on our books, if it was understood to mean quality fiction of the old west. We have enough members that people cross-promoting one another's projects, participating in an anthology, providing blurbs, etc., would probably have an impact on sales and help us reach readers we can't find individually. It would require some retooling of the organization's structure and value. If only we knew somebody with a leadership position in the organization...

"Anyway, the Crazy 8 model, which the Prism book represents is, I believe, one good way to increase readership and sales for everyone who takes part. None of the Crazy 8 folks are becoming millionaires, but they're getting consistent sales and have a ready-made market to reach out to." {End of Jeff's musings....}

Back to my maundering on potential sources of income from our stories:

Grants may be a source of funding. But something I am, in my old age, learning, we don't have to do it all ourselves. There are grants experts out there. Every university has a phalanx of them. Maybe hiring someone to cull through certain classes of grants would be worthwhile for a writers' coalition?  I know of one western fan who specializes in compiling bibles for western series. Is finding suitable grants that much different in terms of sourcing?

I just ran an AI search and got the following (shows a start on finding freebie money). I am sure more can be found drilling down into individual states and maybe asking about companies and specific in-house magazines.

My first shot at the AI prompt: You are expert in finding monetary grants from state, city and federal sources. You will not list any contest or competition nor will you list any source requiring an entry fee or other money paid up front by the author. The grants you list in a bullet point format seek fiction of any length set in the wild west in the era 1860-1920. Provide links to each source found.

And the ChatGPT AI response:

Finding grants specifically for fiction writers focusing on the Wild West era (1860–1920) can be challenging, as many funding opportunities are broader in scope. However, here are some grants and programs that support fiction writers and may accommodate projects centered on this theme:

- **National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Literature Fellowships**: The NEA offers fellowships to published creative writers, providing $25,000 grants in prose (fiction and creative nonfiction) and poetry. These highly competitive grants are intended to support writers in their creative endeavors. [NEA Literature Fellowships]

- **Sustainable Arts Foundation Awards**: This foundation offers grants to writers and artists who are parents, providing unrestricted funds to support their creative work. While not genre-specific, writers focusing on historical fiction, including the Wild West era, are eligible to apply. [Sustainable Arts Foundation]

- **Arizona Commission on the Arts Grants**: Given your location in Scottsdale, Arizona, the state arts commission offers various grants to individual artists, including writers. These grants support the creation of new works and professional development. [Arizona Commission on the Arts]

- **Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC) Grants**: If your work has a connection to the Portland, Oregon area, RACC offers grants to writers and artists for project-based works. Historical fiction writers focusing on the Wild West era may find opportunities here. [RACC Grants]

- **Wyoming Arts Council Creative Writing Fellowships**: For writers residing in Wyoming, the Arts Council offers annual creative writing fellowships. These are merit-based and intended to support writers in various genres, including fiction. [Wyoming Arts Council]

When applying for these grants, it's essential to highlight how your project aligns with the grant's objectives and how it contributes to the understanding or appreciation of the Wild West era. Carefully review each grant's eligibility requirements and guidelines to ensure your project is a good fit.

That's a start, at least. Depending on grant money is hit or miss, but it comes closer to the medieval pattern of a patron of the arts supporting writers/artists/sculptors than we have now. Unless you already have a "sugar daddy" paying you to write. If so, does your patron need another peon writing about the Old West?  Let me know. <g>

Other places to explore:

Anthologies: problem is that they don’t sell very well and are few and far between.

University presses and small presses: quality work, very few openings, not much in way of money.

Kickstarter: a good place (see Jeff’s comments above how he is doing this) but Kickstarter projects require a considerable dedication of time and careful planning. They are more complicated than just toss it out and expect people to give you money. Benefits can be that the fans signing up work to find others to contribute through various levels of incentives and stretch goals.

Patreon: start putting up stories or serialized chapters for a $1 or two a month. Or more words at a higher price. This is a way to get paid regularly (by subscription) and keep in closer touch with your most fervent readers. The problem here is one of demographics again. How many western readers will go online and jump through the hoops to set up a Patreon account?  OTOH, if you entice a few hundred patrons each chipping in a couple dollars a month, in a year this is about the advance on a full-fledged paperback. The problem is getting eyes on your account initially. "Cross pollination" with others following this route would help. "Can I borrow a cup of fans, please?"

YouTube: The same as Patreon. Set up your own channel. You can take subscriptions like Patreon, but there's another way to get paid on YouTube. You must join the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) and link your channel to an AdSense for YouTube account.

Meet YouTube Partner Program Eligibility

Before applying, ensure your channel meets these criteria:

·   1,000 subscribers    

·   4,000 valid public watch hours in the past 12 months  

·   Adherence to YouTube's policies and guidelines  

·   Linked AdSense account: Once eligible, apply for the YPP through YouTube Studio.)  

The more eyes YouTube gets, the more willing they are to pay you and find advertisers. I suspect this is a bridge too far for most of us, requiring many thousands of viewers, but maybe western apparel stores or other related businesses might be enticed to drop a few ad dollars. But eyes!  This needs lots of eyes to achieve.

 Audiobooks: Amazon seems to be making this easy now, but, like print books using an Amazon ISBN, it’s not portable—you can’t take the product and sell it somewhere else. This might not be a problem, but Amazon’s deal is vastly favorable to Amazon. You can do your own audiobooks using AI. Go from text to voice using services such as Elevenlabs.io   You can clone your own voice and then use it to read your work. This sounds nice but in today’s e-scam world, I’m not sure I want anyone getting such a long stretch of me reading anything. Deepfake voice, you say?  But I am paranoid. The point is you can produce audiobooks without personally recording with your own voice.

Series: absolutely. But if mass market print is cut off, this forces us into ebooks. Monthly series in trade seems a hard sell to me. Ebooks have the same problem of cutting through the static and getting noticed which brings us back to ...

...Indie selling: Amazon, Draft2Digital, etc. This requires us to do everything to get the book out. Writing, cover, formatting … and marketing. Simply putting a book up on Amazon won’t sell unless you’re named Louis L’Amour and have the wind of 320 million sales at your back. Your current competition is something like six million other titles on Amazon, plus the backlogs of L’Amour and Zane Grey and everyone else who has written a western. I’m experimenting with ways to use AI in ads. After a bit more poking and prodding, I’ll report on how that’s gone. (Preliminary results seem to be small success for sci-fi titles, far less than exciting for westerns.)

Cross advertising each other’s works using a hashtag on the various social media (and announcing our own releases) might give a real boost. This might work best with a Patreon account on the receiving end of the PR.

I hope this isn’t an exhaustive list. Chime in with your own ideas. Because we write about the Good Ole Days doesn’t mean we can't use all them danged modern gadgets. And services. And ways to sell.

Feel free to whisper among yourselves, pass notes in class and let us all hear your thoughts. But no spitballs, please.

Bob Vardeman

president WF

Jackson Lowry Amazon Page

Karl Lassiter Amazon Page