Oh, My! How The Publishing Game Has Changed!

 

 

About 16 years ago I made the decision that to better be able to enjoy writing that I would pursue it as a hobby as opposed to a profession, despite the fact that it had always been My dream to become a published author.  The main reason I made that decision all those years ago was that writing was a hard business to break in to, as I shopped around for potential publishers for Whispers Of Darkness.

As I am sure many struggling writers know, back then writing and publishing was one of those games that was pretty much reserved for the rich, or at least those who had a significant money to blow.  If you didn't have the money to self-publish through a vanity press, then you had to take the real hard road.  Publisher did not want to hear anything from you unless you had an agent.  Agents were not willing to represent you unless you had already been published.  Hell it would have been easier for a 15 year old to get an unsecured credit card than a serious writer with a stack of manuscripts to ever get his first book published.

Since learning at the beginning of the year how easy it was to have an eBook submitted and published, and actually publishing Heather's Journey: The Sound Of her MASTER'S VOICE only a matter of weeks later it made Me realize that the game had changed, as eBook publishers like Amazon, Barnes & Nobel, Smashwords, Lulu and dozens of others have effectively cut out the middle man.  What more could an independent and budding writer want?  No scraping and bowing to publishers over content.  No need to share fractional royalties with parasitic agents when many eBook publishers allow upward of 80% royalties dependent on the selling price.

Yes the game has indeed changed, and today that became even more apparent to Me.

This morning when I opened My mail box I found the most unexpected thing.  A letter from a publisher.  In it the publisher stated they had discovered Me through researching the Library Of Congress and noticing that I had a work now registered there.  Which seems to me is a clear indication that publishers are now trolling the archives of the Library Of Congress because the eBook market is putting a hurting on them.  I was also offered the chance to have My work reviewed by them, and I could send them a typewritten copy (oh, how quaint) to see if they would be interested in publishing it.

I had to laugh to Myself a little.  So this is the latest thing that I am going to be bombarded with?  Publishers coming to Me and wanting a chance to look at My work to see if they found it worthy of publishing?  I laughed a little louder, realizing that this publisher was in turn cutting out their own tried and true middle man, the literary agent.  I called the lady vyle and told her, saying "If all it took to get published back in the day was to send a copy to the Library Of Congress I would have done it.  However, back then publishers wouldn't have bothered."

Did I find the offer a little bit tempting?  Maybe just a little.  But I had never heard of Dorset Publishing before, plus I was sure that My content would not have been what they were looking for.  Were it Random House or Balentine or Berkley I would have probably been a little more tempted.  But then again, despite the fact that I'm not sitting on a huge mountain of money, or planning My retirement from My day job because the things I have published are selling so well, I kind of like being the Master (not sure if a pun is intended there or not) of My Destiny.  It's a lot of stress in some ways, because self-promotion in just that, Me promoting Myself with the help of a few friends such as Marabelle Blue, Nicola Matthews and Jason Darrick.  But on the other side of the coin I have the power to write My own jackets, to design My own covers, control all of My content and set My own pace.  After being overlooked and neglected by publishers I find that I'm not ready to give up My independence, or even consider it seriously if there was a mainstream publisher that wanted to put My work into print.  Were I vain, I would have went out and bought a printer and paper, and had a print copy ready to send out by the end of the week.  But I'm not.

I love the status I have as an independent writer.  I'm proud to be published, even though it is only in eBook format.  People look at you differently when you tell them you published an eBook.  You can tell that the average person on the street doesn't see that as being as glamorous as being published in print.  But, I don't really thing that attitude will last too much longer.  The world is changing by the month with the development of new technologies.  The publishing game has changed.  Print publishers and literary agents no longer hold the power.  The power is in the hands of ePubs and independent writers.

Where's the proof?

Well, I found the proof in My mailbox this morning.



Master Vyle

So What Is Michael C. Laney Up To?

A blast from the past, something old to Me and new to you!  Huh?

Well for everyone that's been following Me I am sure knows that the past year was a pretty big year for Me.  In March 2010 I posted My first two stories online, Descent To Venus and Older Is Bedder.  Then between March and October I wrote several new short stories and a few dozen poems, became a Twitter tweeter, and finished a novel I had been working on for almost four years Heather's Journey: The Sound Of her MASTER'S VOICE.  At the very beginning of January 2011 I discovered I had been plagiarized, and set out to deal with that problem with help from fellow victims and with success.  In February an unabridged edition of The Sound Of her MASTER'S VOICE was published for download and eReaders, in a way bringing to close what was quite a year.

Afterward I went to work on several projects, starting a new story collection and working on getting a good start on the first novel of Shadows Of The Night.  I know, because people ask, they're wanting to know when they're going to see what they know I have in the works, but the problem is it's hard to answer.  Writing is one of those funny things.  Sometimes you will be so inspired to work on a particular project, and then poof, you get stuck, or suddenly you have another idea for a project you want to work on, but I'm thinking, always thinking, about whatever I put on hold or on the back burner.  I've actually begun to think that,especially with longer projects, that I need to work on them a little at a time while working on shorter works in between.

Of course life is something else that tends to get in the way.  I can tell you I really miss the days when it seemed like nothing was ever holding me back as I wrote.  When I was in high school I churned out story after story, assigned and on my own, between going to school full time, working practically full time (35 hours a week) and keeping a full "social" life.  Now I pretty much work, and that's it, or at least all I intend, but usually something is always coming up.  And that's just the basic stuff.

This year the lady vyle has faced several health concerns, and in the past 365 days or so she has been under and in surgery four times.  She is well now, but when you're dealing with the love of your life I think you know that you will put everything on the back burner to attend to their comfort and  to let them know that you're there.

Then there are all those other things that come along.  Boy scouts, "volunteering" at the middle school, yard work, etc.  You know, all those things that come along with being a parent and an adult.  One thing at a time doesn't seem like much, but add it all together and you wonder where all the time when, or how the hell did I write more when I was young with either just as much, if not less, time.

So, I've had life.  Ideas have come and went, some to simmer on the back burner and others stuffed into the freezer to grow cold.  Yet I'm at least always working on them in My head.  And then, there's always what I'm working on now.

Currently I am working on revising My 1994 short story, A Day In The Life Of  Abagail King into a novel.  The story was one I had chosen to quickly convert from a 3.5 inch mini-disk file and put onto My Kindle so I could look it over and have something to read when I was in Missouri for My oldest son's graduation, and as I read over it before I even left I had come to the decision that the story itself didn't need all that much work.  In fact I was surprised at the BDSM themes that had ended up in several of the scenes, and which still stood up pretty well, despite the fact that at the time I had only been living in the lifestyle for a little over a year.

So what's A Day In The Life Of Abagail King (the novel) going to be about?  Well the story is the tale of a southern prostitute, told in her own words.  I know I do My best to try to make each story I write very different from one another, but those familiar with My other works will find it quite a departure from My other works.  Abagail tells her story with her own person moxie and sometimes cutting her words down, dropping the G's off her words when she gets on a roll to reflect her own vocal accent.  She a product of her upbringing and at odds within herself over southern values and modern ideas.  With little apology or shame she relates the events of one of her work days from $50 quickies to a lesbian BDSM scene to a party where she entertains a large group of men with the help of only one other woman.

Is Abagail King going to be for everyone?  Probably not, but then again I would be hard pressed to name anything I've written that had Universal appeal.  However I am pleased with what I have, having just reached the halfway point, and I have as always striven to tell a true to life story with true to life characters.  I have a date in mind I would like to have it done and published, but whenever I actually name a date it seems I never get it done by then, and I hate to give a date and continually push it back, so for now I'm keeping the projected publication date under My hat.

Next?

Well, work continues on on My Fungi collection, slowly but  surely.  Plus I have been reading over The Sound Of her MASTER'S VOICE.  The story of the second novel in the Heather's Journey Trilogy is slowly starting to build itself in My head.  I have already worked on cover and interior art for the novel and I can assure you that work will probably begin on Heather's Journey: The Manual Of Discipline before the end of the summer.

Until then, I'll keep you posted.  But look out for A Day In The Life Of Abagail King, coming soon!

Master Vyle

Crude Michael Jackson Joke #MichaelJackson

I was reading the paper while I was on break this morning when I realized it was the second anniversary of the death of Michael Jackson.  Just to give some background I've always made these little South Parkesque Michael Jackson noises, like "He-Heeeeeee" and "Chumona", in the early mornings, but since his death it has become a daily thing.

Anyway, once I got back from break I went into the office and did a "He-Heeeeee" and announced to my coworker, Marco that it was the second anniversary of Jackson's death.

Marco said, "He ain't really dead.  He just did that so that he can have his privacy, get a normal job and be able to molest all the little boys he wants."

I replied, "Yeah, do you think he became a Catholic priest?"



Master Vyle



Cover Presentation, All About That Look!

The old adage goes that you can't judge a good book by its cover.  This may be true, but it sure didn't stop Me from buying several dogs just because they had great artwork on the cover over the years.  Hell, I still do it today.  Plus I will confess that I've kept them all around because I love the artwork.

For My own part it's My hope that it is My stories that readers find endearing.  However from the above experience the fact that the cover plays an important part of the sell isn't lost on Me.  For the independent writer the position is difficult.  Without having money to spend on the resources I've learned that you have to be creative.  The three initial covers I came up with were done quickly, and not with much practice with the photo program I used to generate them.  I revised the cover for Heather's Journey: The Sound Of her MASTER'S VOICE as soon as I had a chance to sit and think of exactly how I wanted to tweek it.

I pretty much had no idea what I was doing to begin with.  However as I was redoing the SOHMV cover I recalled the covers from comic books that I had collected over the years.  From around the late 60's or early 70's until the late 90's Marvel Comics, and later DC, started placing the image of one or more of the main characters in the top left corner beside the title of the comic.  This is what influenced Me to put My Skeleton Belaton icon in the same place on all My reworked covers so far with House Of Master Vyle Presents beside it.  Call it an homage to what helped to get Me here, because comic collecting helped further inspire My desire to create My own fictional universe.  (Give Me a few years to get more out there and you'll see the connections between stories.)

Of course I've been playing around for the past couple of weeks and I can tell you that not every cover idea follows this design, but it's the one that I've got out there so far.  I've had to be somewhat creative with limited resources.  So far I've doctored up some of My old pictures, took new pictures of places and objects, learned to crop, color and skew bits of My own personal pictures, My own horrible artwork, and in the future I plan on purchasing some pictures from royalty free stock photo sites where they're reasonably priced.

This week I updated the covers for Bunny Holes:

And St. Patrick's Day Scrumpin':

As you can see I did My best to make them both a little more visually arresting and professional looking.  I went back to a lot of those old Zebra Horror covers to get an idea about adding just a bit of extra wording to the covers.  Overall I'm pretty satisfied with My work and as I am sure you can see they're both a little more eye catching that the original covers.

In addition to giving them new covers I also put both stories on Lulu now as well.  I should have their links all up and posted in the stories section soon.

So tell Me what you think.  Do they look better than they did?  I actually received My first compliment on the Bunny Holes cover within five minutes of it being posted.  Yeah, I know.  I'm trying to sell a book based on the cover, however I've also done My best to put something entertaining and unique beyond that cover as well.




Master Vyle



I'm Not Afraid To Use The N-Word: Character VS. Writer!

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