BookCamp Halifax

Nic Boshart | 06/15/2010 | Digital

On the phone a few days before heading out east, I told someone I was heading up two sessions at BookCamp Halifax. They told me that was great, and that I’d be looked at as an expert out there; perhaps implying that a) I wasn’t an expert in Toronto, and b) Halifax doesn’t know about digital publishing.
I’ll agree with the first point—I consider myself a knowledgeable generalist—however, Halifax completely schooled me. 

I’m not going to get into a blow-by-blow of the day and recap every session for you, especially since I missed the (apparently) best session about libraries because I went to the ONIX session like I do EVERYTIME, and even missed that as I was frantically emailing people in Toronto to shut off my work computer which was caught in an endless auto-response loop. But I’ll throw in the gist of that session: Have good ONIX. Go now to the BookNet site and read everything, and if you still don’t believe me, read this article by Mike Shatzkin.

If you still don’t believe me, go work at the car-wash or possibly join an amateur wrestling league, as you’ve clearly got meat for a head.

But! My first session, You Can’t Always Get What You Want: Authors, the Internet, and Self-Publishing From a Publisher’s Perspective was the highlight of my day. I was joined on stage by my publishing partner Robbie MacGregor.

I’ve long had serious problems with self-published authors. Namely their perceived lack of introspection and the attitude that publishing is some game to be played, rather than a career path or a wealth of caring individuals who work for very little money and strive to make the best books they can. They take rejections personally and fervently believe that if only their manuscript were to be released into the world, they would become the next Cormac McCarthy or Margaret Atwood.

It’s been irritating to say the least.

Or I thought it was. Turns out I’m wrong. Self-publishing, already transformed from it’s previous existence as vanity publishing, is obviously growing, but not so obviously exciting.

Unfortunately, BookCamp was the same day as the Writer’s Federation Annual General Meeting.  Since there weren’t a lot of writers in the room, we concentrated on what we thought the role of publishers would be in the future, and where the traditional publishing company fit in this new world of easy publishing. Lulu, Smashwords, Espresso machines – pretty dark and daunting stuff to publishers as it takes away a full third of what we offer, namely creating a book and distribution. Another third, marketing, is already being foisted on authors via online social engagement, booking their own appearances, and general non-caring on the publisher’s part. I’m talking the big houses here. Indies always coddle their authors.*

And that last third? Editorial. Again going the way of the dodo, big houses often don’t want to allocate resources for a substantive edit.* And many an author believes they don’t need an edit, or has had some inexpert friend or family member ‘go over it’ for them. That’s lunacy. Editing is a very, very tough skill. I know your sister did really well in her sociology program at Western, but that doesn’t mean she’s memorized The Chicago Manual of Style.

Also, your father-in-law does crappy watercolour paintings, he’s not a book designer. Neither are you. If you have a book design, hold it up to the screen now. See? That’s terrible. God, what’s with your margins? That photo on the front is blurry. Is that comic sans?

The idea we came up with for Invisible was a loose network of experts. A publishing company based entirely online, revenue-sharing with designers, editors, publishers, etc. Perhaps the company is community driven, and we all read posts and pitches and decide which book we want to work on. We form groups interested in making and selling an awesome science-fiction novel, one of us writes it, one of us edits, one of us stands on a corner and yells “HEY READ THIS BOOK, TORONTO!”

So isn’t this just Richard Nash’s Cursor? Yes. We sort of recreated his project. Sorry, Richard.

Ideally, this eliminates bad books. I see now that my biggest beef with self-publishing, and why I shy away from reading it, is that lots of times self-published writers don’t do their jobs. Writers write. They need to let editors sort out their words, designers make their books look nice, and marketers get their ideas into the world. Let people do their jobs. You can’t publish a good book on your own.

“But Terry Fallis! William P. Young! The Joy of Cooking!” you say.

You’re not those people. Plus imagine if those people had access to a collective network of skilled individuals who could help them now? William Young’s friends actually formed a publishing company to publish him, and did a good job of it. Stephen King’s first four manuscripts were rejected; can you imagine the King Collective? A world-wide network of horror writers, designers, and editors?

More to the point, where are the mid-list self-published authors? Oh yeah, there aren’t any … just breakout surprise bestsellers, because not enough people have the support. And then came the internet…

I still won’t be trolling Smashwords any time soon, but I think the idea has some legs. I’ll be following Cursor closely, and perhaps the next time I get a call from Litty McAuthor, I won’t be so short. Unless he gets in my face; that’s just rude.

*I think a lot of people are very quick to lump all publishers together. Indies are very different from larger houses, and a distinction need always be made. You’re not going to get a huge advance from an indie, but you will get a lot of love and attention.

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