Erotica By Helen E. H. Madden

Well, I'm back from Shore Leave. Actually, I've been back for almost two weeks now, but I got hit with some personal events the moment I got home thus my lack of posting these past ten days. Among other things, I fell down a flight of steps and messed up my left foot; my husband picked up a nasty case of the flu that left me on my own to take care of two kids while I limped around the house; and I had to put down Fritti, one of my beloved cats. As of this post, my foot is recovering and my husband is back to work. However, I am still mourning the loss of my cat. It's hard when you've loved a pet for more than fifteen years to suddenly realize you have to make the decision to end his life. It was, unfortunately, the only thing I could do for Fritti. He had been ill for a while and one afternoon he just lost control of his legs. If a cat can't walk, it can't survive, so I did the hard thing and took Fritti in to the vet. God I miss that cat.

So my personal life the past two weeks has been screwed up. But I am back online and ready to report about Shore Leave. I had a good time at the convention and I learned some interesting things, which I intend to discuss in detail. To cover it all, I'll be breaking down this blog entry into three separate posts. Here is Part I.

Although I enjoyed my time at Shore Leave, I'm afraid I'm going to have to start off with a complaint, and it is this. If you plan to give out a program handout on the panels being offered during the convention, please for the love of sardines add clear descriptions on what each panel is about. Titles alone are not enough, especially if the titles of the panels are so vaguely worded that they could describe anything from local politics to the horrors of armpit hair. I spent a couple hours in two panels on e-books that turned not to be what I expected at all. It was not a complete waste of time, but considering that I could have also gone to a panel on podcasting and a panel on 3D animation during those same times and probably have gotten better information on subjects that interested me as much as e-book publishing and marketing, I'm a little irked.

But it's too late to complain about it now. So what was the subject of these e-book panels? Well, both panels focused on Star Trek anthologies that will be coming out this year or next in e-book format. Apparently Pocket Books publishes a regular line of e-books called Starfleet Corps of Engineers. And yes, you must be a total geek to have any appreciation of this. Having been a logistician in the military and having been a fan of Star Trek, I think it's very cool that Pocket Books is doing this, and even more cool that a new e-book in the series comes out every month. The anthologies are an additional e-book project put out by Pocket Books. Both anthologies are edited by Keith DeCandido, a long time Star Trek novel writer, and both sounded interesting, even if I wasn't totally thrilled about the fact that the panels barely even touched on the subject of e-publishing itself. For those who are interested, the Star Trek e-books are available at SimonSays.com.

The most interesting thing I learned from these panels is that the big bad traditional publishers apparently have no clue how to market their e-book stuff. When I asked how well the e-books were selling, both editors at the panel sort of shrugged their shoulders. The numbers are low but steady, they told me. They had one spike with a particular book, which was odd because it was the second book in a series. Turns out Pocket Books' marketing department bundled the first book with a PDA someone was selling, thus generating interest in the second book. However, the marketing department apparently didn't let the editors know they were doing this, which makes no sense to me. Even big publishers should talk to their editors to let them know how the books they produce are going to be marketed, and editors should talk to the publishers in return. That way everybody knows what's going on and nobody is tripping over or fucking up anybody else's effort to sell the book.
I did find it interesting to know that Pocket Books gave away the e-book. Pocket Books also gave away a free paperback with every Shore Leave goody bag, available to all who attended the convention. Plus there were additional copies sitting around on the freebies tables, where you usually find things like fliers, bookmarks, maybe the occasional button or ashcan for an online comic. Hmmm. Giving away free stories and books as a marketing technique, and this being done by someone like Pocket Books. Very interesting. I make a note of this because I've been listening lately to Tee Morris' podcast, The Survival Guide to Writing Fantasy and there's been discussion on there about the pros and cons of giving stories and books away, including offering free podcasts of entire books.

Personally, I think it's a good idea to offer stories for free, and even books for free (especially if you podcast them; podcasting is cool!). Writers have to build an audience, and this is one way of doing it. Besides, you don't have to give away every story you write for free. Do a few here and there to show people what you write, so they can have a chance to decide if they want to spend their hard earned dollars on your other work. Unfortunately, every time I discuss this point of view, I get the hairy eyeball from other writers (usually traditional print published authors who also scorn e-publishing as well). I can not count the times I've heard someone say giving stories away is evil because "...giving away stories/books only makes readers expect to get everything for free..." and doing so "...hurts other writers..."

Bull shit. There's a long history of people giving away free stuff to build a customer/fan base. Bands offer up free songs on the web all the time, and often perform for free at festivals, etc., just so they can reach an audience who might, just might, want to hear more of their music. Hell, Blue Oyster Cult did a free concert this summer just down the road from where I live. Blue Oyster Cult is not in today's top 40, but they're good, they've been around a while, and I'm guessing that as long as they promote their stuff with things like free concerts, they will continue to find a new audience and sell their CDs.

Who else is giving away stuff for free? Digital artists these days have complete portfolios online for people to look at and will offer downloads of artwork for your desktop image. The portfolio is the artist's way of saying, "Look, I can draw and paint and if you like my style, why not hire me to do a special commission just for you?" And I know this because I've got tons of magazines on the subject saying every artist needs to have a portfolio and a website to market their work. My sister even tells me that when people start out in the chef industry, they often work as unpaid interns or volunteers just so they can work with some famous chef and have that person's name on their resume. They will work for free for up to a couple of years to make an inroad into the business, and if the chef they work for leaves and goes to another restaurant, guess what? His entire unpaid staff goes with him. It's that important to people to get that kind of experience and to have that kind of recommendation on their resume. So free stuff? It works.

Granted, free stories vs. free art vs. free music vs. years of unpaid labor does not make a perfect comparison, but there's enough there to make me think this is a workable marketing strategy to garner myself an audience. Thus I am posting free stories on my website, and I submit to non-paying markets on occasion, and I am always happy to have a story posted on the ERWA Theme Gallery (also non-paying, and a good place to get "discovered").

Anyway, that was what I got out of Shore Leave's panels on e-books. Next up, slash fiction. Does it sell? Tune in tomorrow to find out!

Labels: Conventions And Appearances, E-Books, How To Promote

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Notes From Shore Leave 29: Part I - E-Books and Free Books