Saturday, May 11, 2013

Romantic Times 2013 Observations, Eavesdropping and Overall Impression



 

Romantic Times organizers found themselves – probably for the first time ever – inundated with participants from the NY Times bestseller list (the “List”), and they were in a tailspin tending to that List.  Directions to workshops and events were mixed up, many of them had the wrong names on the wrong rooms, event organizers were hard to find and support staff seemed non-existent.  The most common response was “just go look at the tags on the doors or read the schedule that came in your bags” (many of which were wrong).  Mass confusion!



Of course, it was inevitable that certain participants would need to be pushed aside in order for the organizers to respond to all the members of the List who showed up this year.  Those participants were, unfortunately, readers, aspiring authors, small press authors and other members of the “smaller community”.  On the day of the big book sale, I understand some of those authors got together and rented a room over at the Marriott and then passed out postcards to their fans telling them where they could be found.  My partner, Jamie Hill, and I were grateful that we didn’t bring any books and were spared that experience.   

Jamie Hill

As Books We Love, we focused on what would be most beneficial to our authors.  We attended workshops related to changes in the industry, marketing using social media and (here’s where the eavesdropping came in, a few workshops geared towards larger publishers and agents and how they were faring), which, interestingly enough, was fairly consistent across the board.  A large number of List authors were freaking out about the fact that with ebooks dominating the industry their NY publishers are pricing their ebooks out of the competitive marketplace.  That’s not to say their books aren’t selling, hey, I myself bought a JD Robb ebook for $14.99 and got severely scolded by my partner: -), but I had a long airline flight, and if the new release by Books We Love’s Joan Hall Hovey ("... Joan Hall Hovey has penned as good a thriller as I have ever read...a superb tale of terror and suspense that puts her right up there with the likes of Sandford and Patterson..."Ingrid Taylor for Small Press Review”) whose novella is priced at only $2.99 had been released before I left, then I’d have foregone the JD Robb and been reading Joan’s Defective which is now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords and coming soon to all your favorite online retailers.


Fortunately, Jamie and I made good choices.  The workshop focusing on Apple and their major move to counteract the Amazon machine was fascinating, and gave us lots of new material for charting our own course in 2014 and beyond.  One of the List authors gave a particularly interesting presentation on the use of Facebook fan pages and groups and as a result of what we learned in that workshop we’ve started our book club, which in three days has gained 350 members.  Those of you who follow our Blogs and Facebook will already know about this but if you don’t already follow us, we’d love to have you, please do come by and join our Facebook Book Club (or like our Facebook Fan page) where you’ll see that we’ve already implemented many of the suggestions we got from those workshops.   



In summary, Romantic Times is not a conference that I would recommend for small press publishers or authors.  They’ve already decided to jump on the List train, and maybe, for them, this is the right choice. 
 

As a small press publisher, Jamie and I will be looking at regional conferences – the ones that are very happy to have small press publishers and authors in attendance and who make a lot of effort to provide opportunities for authors and readers to connect and interact, and to provide Workshops that focus on advice from experts in the small press segment of the publishing industry – relevant content to all of us, and of course, Readers! Readers! Readers!



In my opinion the Romantic Times organizers made a huge mistake when they shunted the small press authors and their publishers off to an “overflow motel” to sign their books, and Jamie and I were very glad to have opted not to participate in either the eBook Fair or the print book fiasco.  We’ve heard there were many complaints from small press publishers and authors who stated that they “definitely won’t be back to Romantic Times”.  Unquestionably they did not appreciate being treated like the proverbial unwanted step-children. 

Jude Pittman

Putting on my author hat, Romantic Times had very little to offer me individually and if I’d paid that large conference fee as well as airfare and accommodation to attend a conference that was focused on an entirely different segment of the industry I’d have been mad.  As a publisher, we benefited from the marketing workshops, the social media workshops, conversations about industry changes and fluctuation and of course, from watching some of the scrambling.  It was like being an outside—insider to observe these “industry leaders” reacting to this new world.  One of the agents joked that an awful lot of his contemporaries were out there selling cars instead of books. 


     

In addition to the workshops we interviewed some very promising aspiring authors, and we’re excited about adding a couple of new faces to our team.  A lot of those authors liked the focus of Books We Love and what we have to offer our authors, and they definitely loved the fact that ours is one of the highest paying contracts in the industry – if not the highest.  



We met our expectations and we learned a lot about the current state of NY publishing and where they are going.  More than one List author was heard to lament the fact that he/she was stuck in a contract that tied her books up for decades and was never going to get the rights back to either take them to a small press publisher or self-publish the books themselves.  Almost unanimously these List authors agreed that if you’re going to go the self-publishing route, you need to hire a manager and a promotion team to take care of all the details required in publishing.  You need someone to format, someone to design, someone to arrange for your cover, someone to take care of the actual publishing and definitely you need someone to do the marketing, announce your book, promote your website and fan sites and all the millions of other details that either your Small Press Publisher or your combination business and promotion manager needs to take care of so that you can take care of your number one job – writing.

The next most common refrain we heard from the List authors giving workshops is that if you want to be a known author then the most important thing for you to do is write your books.  You cannot write one book and expect that you’re going to become a name author.  Most of these List authors are writing anywhere from four to ten books a year.  They know that writing is a business and being on the List requires an equal combination of talent, luck, determination, good marketing and downright hard work. You can’t have a best seller if you don’t first write one.



Overall, it was a positive experience for us.  We went with realistic expectations, and of course we had a lot of our own business to take care of.  We also met with Michelle our cover artist and were able to exchange ideas and suggestions.  Look for Jamie Hill’s release of two favorites in one volume, Playing for Keeps coming soon to Books We Love.


Look for a future “Insider” post where I’ll explore the various conferences available to authors and what those conferences have to offer Small Press.  Happy Writing! and Reading, of course!  Jude Pittman, author of the Kelly McWinter mysteries.


15 comments:

  1. I guess nothing has changed since I went years ago. At least they had room for us but we were separated by a rope and treated much differently. The most fun I had we're at the different themed parties and I did enjoy the workshops. Like you, I'll be looking for other conferences. Jimmy Thomas is holding one in Las Vegas which is a lot cheaper and sounds interesting. I'm going to try to attend the southern book conference in Nashville.

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  2. Wow! What a great inside look at the RT Conference and book publishing in general!

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  3. Great article, Jude. Well said. That there seemed no benefit to me to belong to Romantic Times, I've not renewed my membership this year. As an aside, I must say I am in awe of anyone who can write four to ten books a year. I'm not one of them. Thanks for the plug for "Defective". Love being with Books We Love.

    Joan
    www.joanhallhovey.com

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  4. Maybe the RT Conference organizers should have asked Books We Love how to manage their conference!

    A really interesting and informative article Jude. Thanks.

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  5. Thanks for attending and gleaning all this information. I'm so glad to be part of BWL. You and Jamie are the best.
    Ro

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  6. And another thank-you for attending, Jude and Jamie. Glad you learned a lot and that you "cut your losses" by not taking print books along. And to "the list" authors, welcome to the jungle. ;)

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  7. Jude, Lots of interesting things from the meeting and like you, I occasionally buy one of those heavy priced ebooks but they are only by two or three authors and it's because I can't wait for paper copies.

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  8. Great report and I think it further proves me right as to something I've suspected even before I actually published. The e-world has revolutionized publishing and all of us are very, very fortunate to have gotten a foothold in it at this stage of its growth. I've often thought we were the "paper-writers" of this new generation of publishing, just as we cut our teeth on the $.99 paperbacks of Victoria Holt and Mary Stewart and Alistar MaClaine. We bring great books to readers at prices they can afford. We couldn't have paid $5.99 when we were teens for a paperback. That was a LOT of money back then. I've bought two ebooks for $9.99 and that was on a gift certificate from one of my bosses. And for Janet Evanovitch books. I can't pay that for ebooks on a regular basis and why would I? Just look at the plethora of talent in these cyberwalls for $2.99 and $3.99! I'm proud of what we do, what we offer our readers, and grateful to be part of BWL!

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  9. A great breakdown of the RT convention, Jude . . . and maybe no surprise. It's a big mistake to treat any publishers with a lack of respect, whether large or small. To not treat the 'reader' as the most important player is a BIG mistake. I'm sure you and Jamie represented us at BWL well. Working full-time - I'm shooting for four books for the year . . . but ten . . . unless I am writing full-time ... that won't be happening. :) If I could do nothing but write ...write . . . write ... I'd be in 7th Heaven!! Love the pictures - ladies . . . I'm proud and honored to be here at BWL.

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  10. Thanks very much, Jude, for a fantastic and frank summary (and critique). I have no doubt that you'll turn your insights into to dollars for us all.

    (Very clever the way you snuck the marketing into this post, too!)

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  11. Thanks for all the info Jude, a well thought out piece on the RT conference. No hystreonics - just telling it as it is. Your report was much appreciated and thanks to you and Jamie for all you do.

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  12. Hi Jude,
    Great blog, very informative. Thank you so much for keeping us all in the loop. I have never aspired to go to the RT conference, too far away for me, but I would have been extremely disappointed had I been there and was shunted away from the "big boys." Bet RT didn't offer indie presses and their authors a discount to compensate them for being treated like 2nd class citizens..

    cheers

    Margaret

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  13. Betty Jo Schuler May 13, 2013

    Jude, this was a great blog. I'm sending this URL to some writer friends. I know they'll love hearing what a truly great publisher has to say.

    Betty Jo

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  14. Great post, Jude, and very informative. I know quite a few authors who have attended RT and loved it but it sounds as if RT has shifted focus somewhat. :)

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  15. After reading the blog post about RT, I just had to comment about the large ebook price. There are a few authors that I will routinely buy in ebook....but these are old established favorites (Terry Pratchett, Tamora Pierce, Patricia Briggs and Mercedes Lackey)

    It's funny because I was lamenting on how there don't seem to be any new authors coming out. Working with BWL has made me realize that there are a ton of new authors....they are just moving in a different direction than the big print companies. There are a ton of new people out there that are publishing in the ebook format that are going with the smaller publishers.

    The large publishers are hurting themselves because they aren't snapping up these new names. I refuse to pay their asking price of 10 to 15 on a new author that may or may not be worth reading. So when I look around for someone new to read, well, I don't go with the big name publishers.

    I don't think the big publishing houses are keeping up well with the reader market. I expect in ten years or so they are going to be driving themselves out of business solely based on the fact that they won't adapt to the new market. They want to keep the prices high and keep their profit margins through the roof.

    It's interesting to see where the trend is heading.

    Roxanne - editor with BWL

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