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
