Itinerant

For the past few months, it’s been pretty quiet around the site. Less updates, with gaps of silence between each one. It seems breakthroughs in my personal/professional life and the frequency of site updates are inversely proportional. The more going behind the scenes, the less I find myself writing about matters that divert creative energy from those endeavors in a public forum.  Or wanting to write about them at all, actually.

I suppose such reaction works counter-intuitively in practice. Certain happenings could be interesting to outsiders, but my tendency to be quiet about major developments in the moment is just something I do. Often by the time I make peace with some weighty events and reach a place where they stop drawing down so much mental and creative energy, the prospect of posting about them seems a step backwards. Really, the world has bigger issues than my problems coping with good or bad news, does it not?

Maybe such reasoning is moot given the frenetic posts on Twitter that have consumed the collective Internet consciousness in the past year. Lately it seems anything, including finding scratchy toilet paper in a friend’s bathroom is notable–even while attending a party where one made the shocking discovery.

All I can do is reach for a balance that works and feels right. Somewhere between period check-ins and noting what’s on the end of my fork is probably the answer.

In the meantime, here’s two points of interest:

Met with Steve about the video project. He’s going to make some very surgical tweaks in the next few days, and then apply a nifty filter that will make the digital video look more like film. And insert some little surprises for the super attentive.

I’m writing again. Ahh.

Double Plus Good

Besides announcing the release date for The Last Track (  8/25/09 ), some longtime readers might have noticed a smaller, yet related to the larger news, on the site. A particular favorite page of mine “Are You Agent?” has been removed. Personally, I always found the entry amusing. But it is no longer necessary, which begs the question: is there an agent responsible for the publication? The answer depends on one’s approach to the question. After spending quite a bit of time trying to find one in the midst of an unprecedented and transformational shift in the adult fiction market, several realities of the landscape became very obvious which made a change in course necessary–at least for me.

The first is the classic problem confronting all authors right now: major upheaval at the big publishers. Books are risky bets in the best of markets, and right now the larger economy is in a major contraction. Some say a once in a lifetime trench. I could agree with that. Regardless, when the chips are down, publishers do as Wall Street and Main Street does and reduce their expenses. That means a lot of people who could purchase titles have less funds, or in some cases, no funds to do so. Less dollars chasing the same number of potential projects.

On the surface, the deficit undercuts primarily writers with new material looking for a home. But it also really hurts agents who suddenly have even less access to those making purchasing decisions inside the publishing biz than at any time in history. Quite a few established agents bemoan online the lack of editor response to their well qualified queries. Un-returned phone calls and email and the like. Par for the course for anyone trying to sell product to someone who is unconvinced of its merits.

It’s my opinion that at this juncture with only the rarest of exceptions, an author is at no greater advantage with representation over one without a literary agent. By this I mean primarily newcomers. There is a case to be made for established brands firing their agents, but that’s another entry for another time.

Consider the usual journey for an author with representation. NOTE: This particular progression of events I witnessed at fairly close range.

About two years ago, my boss sold an agent on the idea for a book and a week later the agent netted them a substantial advance. With about three business days worth of work the agent netted a near six-figure payout. When the book hit the shelves about a year later, it underperformed. Needless to say, that agent isn’t doing a hell of a lot for them right now trying to place number two.

That story is rather typical. Replace the substantial advance amount with the a lesser one and a correspondingly smaller payday for the agent and the same problem happens all over. Because no one knows the lifetime earnings potential of a book at the outset, agents gun for projects that will most likely net advances and commissions on the front end. Publishers like these projects because it means headlines. Agents and authors like them because it means a real check now.

Where agents can’t get big advances, they look for other flavors of more of what publishers have bought previously. At the end of the day, agents generally do very little to actually promote the book when it appears, or guide an author for the course of their career. They can’t afford to. They have little time for such matters, because the lion share of their effort goes toward finding the next big thing. Or at least the next thing. Agents want to close as quickly and as often as possible, much like a real estate agent. That is their best chance at getting paid. It’s in their interest to churn and burn and they almost have to.

Agents must place good projects in front of editors on a regular basis or their reputation ceases to matter–the agent loses their access to a publisher by attrition. Personnel at the houses simply turns over too often and what-did-you-ever-do-for-anyone takes hold. Entropy by another name is still time spent in Suck City.

What I realized after my efforts of searching was that I already have an agent. Me. I just had to accept that I’ve always had this job title.  I have advocated my work from the beginning.  So, I’m keeping another fifteen percent for my efforts on this book.

And I’m in very good company.

Here’s just a partial list of authors who managed to get manuscripts to market without representation:

Chuck Palahniuk  – Fight Club was placed without an agent. He eventually signed with an agent, but they were actually an actor by profession. Said actor sold Fight Club to a movie studio.

Christopher Paolini – Eragon. Enough said.

Stephen King – Carrie ( did get an agent after earning 3 million dollars writing ).

Madeline L’Engle – Wrinkle In Time. Had an agent but when the going got rough, agent dumped her before placing her first book. Whoops.

Isaac Asimov – More books than anyone can list. No agent.

James Patterson – Didn’t have an agent, then got one, then got rid of them when he realized lawyers are cheaper than 15 percent per project earnings for life. In a twist that can only be described as quirky, turns out Patterson had the same agent my former boss works with.

UPDATE: New Release Date 2.13.10 – Read Why

Tastes Like Chicken

After a hard day at work, I like a nice, furry bunny taco.

Original photo gallery available at: chron.com.

Been absent through much of March so far–really much of 2009–from the site. At the risk of going too deep with the details, I’ll be brief. Essentially, there was an intersection of twin culprits: one professional, one act of God.

Least important crisis first. The act of God. Basically, the point came where I could no longer trust the hard drive on my primary PC. Normally that would work out to about one day of down time to get everything humming again.

But these are not normal times. And the computer formerly known as Electra is no normal computer.

By any definition Electra is an ancient machine. Like seven in people years, which translate to about nineteen in terms of technology. When Electra was “born” in 2002, nearly all of the components, minus the hard drive, were cast off parts from other machines in a buddy’s basement. This means the machine is really much older.

Some have called the machine ghetto because of its ragged exterior ( which includes masking tape and exposed metal edges ) but to me what always mattered most was consistency. When the power button was pressed, the machine worked.

Until it didn’t.

Anyway, after a full reload on a new hard drive, all is lovely again. In some ways I’m happier with the box than years previous because it’s such an economical and–dare I say–elegant arrangement. The only software on the machine are tools necessary for writing and periodic maintenance. Absolute opposite of clutter. Plus the price was right. Forty-nine bucks for a new drive and some labor. The difficulty came when searching for a single block of time.

The more pertinent cause for the spotty updates stems from an intense period of professional reflection. Between the time I started pitching The Last Track and now, the marketplace changed drastically. Publishing moves in cycles like most other business, ebbing and flowing with the tides of the global economy. What is considered an acceptable risk these days has changed a great deal. Witness the recent string of celebrity book deals and memoirs.

Also the technology changed, too. Just two years ago, Kindle was a press release for a yet-to-be-released product. Now there’s more than 500,000 readers and 230,000 titles available. Fujitsu launched an e-reader product, as did Sony. Lots more will follow.

These two game changing landscapes–and other realities–have prompted a reconsideration of one of my most tightly held beliefs about writing and publishing.

While I was plotting a new course, I thought it was best to keep quiet until I had the pieces lined up on a map of continents that seemed to shift daily. This pause gave me the space I needed to really consider if I wanted to be daring, or just write about being daring.

Because what’s going down in June is a good thing, and big departure. As that month draws closer, I’ll be more specific.