A Touch of Small Publisher and Self-Published Romance: Interview with magazine editor TJ Mackay

Today I have something a little different. Recently, InD'Tale magazine, an electronic magazine dedicated to small publisher and self-published romance opened up. I interviewed the editor-in-chief, TJ Mackay.

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1) Tell us about your magazine.

InD’Tale is a brand new, totally unique magazine geared for those who are interested in self and small publishing. It has been developed in a totally new and inventive way. One that has never been used before!

Along with the website, www.intale.com, InD’Tale is published as an actual magazine each month and is delivered straight to subscribers inboxes. Until now, one’s options have been to pay and subscribe to a print magazine, then have it delivered digitally, as well, or hunt down a digital magazine’s website to read their content. InD’Tale combines the best of both worlds. It’s an interactive, digital magazine that is delivered directly to the reader so they can download and read anytime or anywhere, on mobile devices or on-screen!

2) Is it targeted more toward readers or authors?
It is targeted to both! So far our subscribers are split pretty evenly down the middle so it is very important that we include content that will interest and pertain to both reader and author alike. For instance, in our flagship issue, we have interviews with both Mark Coker, CEO of the giant digital distributing company Smashwords and Catherine Bybee a hugely popular author. Both are interesting, fun people to read about but one leans more to the interests of authors while the other is a big reader favorite.

Our monthly columnists are another great example. Jimmy Thomas, the hunky and hugely successful cover model/media mogul, answers both serious industry questions and just plain fun, fan questions in each column, while Tammy Grant just gabs, Andy Rooney style, about books and the industry as a whole.

The website also encompasses both reader and author alike. Authors can submit books for review, advertise etc., while readers can read short stories, reviews and find interesting books. Both can also participate in the contests, drawings and surveys available on our “fun stuff” page, along with so much more!

3) Why have you chosen to eschew a print version?

That’s a very good question. It’s kind of a two-sided answer. The reading world is changing from print to digital so fast it is hard to keep up and while print will always be a personal favorite of many (myself included), there is no denying the emphasis has turned. If I want a magazine that will be viable in the future, it must be digital. The other side is the fact that the costs of printing and distributing a print magazine are astronomical in comparison to a digital magazine. For someone just starting up, and with the future in mind, it just wasn’t feasible.

4) What was the impetus behind starting this magazine?
I had the idea around the first of this year. I have worked in the industry for years and watched so many incredibly talented authors struggle to make it but were denied the media exposure because they were not sponsored by big, mainstream publishing companies.

I happened to be chatting with Catherine Bybee, right as her book, Wife By Wednesday, was shooting to the top of the NYT bestseller list. She had been pestering me to go out on my own for a while, suddenly she said, “This is it! This is the time!” After consideration, I agreed and took the plunge!

5) Please tell us about your staff.

Oh, my goodness, I have the best staff! Once I made the commitment and started building, I went back to all my contacts and networks and hunted down the people I had most valued and enjoyed for their opinions, insight and writing abilities. Then, it was just a matter of begging hard enough to convince them that jumping on board this project would be worth their time and effort! Every single one has been so amazing and supportive! They have done whatever has been asked - whether it fit their “job description” or not. They’ve worked and cheered and encouraged, all for nothing more than the satisfaction of knowing they are part of building something great.

6) Does your magazine cover all sub-genres of romance and/or does it have a special emphasis?
It covers all genres! In fact, that is one area that I’m struggling to help people understand. I don’t want just the basic “romance”, although we love and accept them readily, we encourage any book, any genre, romance doesn’t even have to be the main theme. As long as there is a romantic thread in the overall story, we want it!

7) What sort of content should readers expect each month?

Each month the magazine will include interviews with some of the biggest stars in the business, along with fun and informative articles. We will showcase a new and different short story each month, along with publishing a serial story that will print in installments. We also highlight a new and rising talent in each issue. This can be anyone from a cover designer to an author, to a reader who has developed a unique and promising idea. All that along with our monthly columns by Jimmy Thomas and Tammy Grant mentioned above AND book reviews for every taste and genre... Whew!!! The most amazing part is that all this is being offered for FREE!!!

Subscribing doesn’t cost a penny!

8) Your tagline is "serving small and self published with romantic flair." So, does this mean your magazine is going to restrict itself only to content related to small publishers and self- published books? If so, why did you choose that particular focus?
Yep! It is those authors and people who really need the exposure. Those are the people who, heretofore, have had no voice but their own. The whole premise of InD’Tale magazine is to give those talented people the means to become successful, right along with those who have the backing of large publishing companies.

9) People love contests. Any sort of fun contests coming up?

Oh heaven’s yes! We just ended our first big subscriber drawing and gave away a $250.00 gift basket! We have so much planned, starting with a “finish this poem” contest starting up next week! That is the one area that we are still asking people to be patient with us, though. Since we are new, we are still tweaking the technology to fit our needs. The “fun stuff” page will need so many different additions that we are still working to incorporate them. All we ask is that you keep checking back, it’s going to be great!

10) Where do people go to subscribe?

www.indtale.com

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Thanks, TJ.

Please visit www.indtale.com for more information or to subscribe.

Hon no sekai no kakumei oh suru tame ni

I've been writing on and off for years. For most of that time, I never thought much about publishing. I wrote mostly because I have a deep urge to tell stories. All sorts of different types. I love developing characters, pondering their psychology, generating plots, et cetera. Sometimes I like to weave in complex themes and sometimes not.


Until recently, it didn't really matter. I participated in things like National Novel Writing Month, but those were nothing more than an exercise in fun. A couple of years ago, for a variety of reasons, I decided to get serious about my writing. Some of this related to me having very few creative outlets left. I started writing a lot more than I had been. 


They say you need to write a million words before you produce something publishable. Well, I may not have published yet, but I've produced my million words.


When you plan to do anything, you should know what you are doing. To that end, I began studying the business side of publishing--everything from querying to how film rights worked. Yes, in the end I'm just someone who wants to tell stories, but what good is a story without an audience?


A funny thing happened in the last two years. The e-book market has exploded. I blew it off at first. 


"Who cares?" I asked. The agent and editor blogs I was reading didn't seem to think it meant much.


The numbers starting growing exponentially.


"Well, it's easy to grow when you're starting at the bottom," I said. 


Yet, things kept growing. Even now, I'm dubious they'll continue growing as fast as they are but they could easily reach 25% within a year or two (if not more). It may grow or maybe it will stall out there. Despite what many people may think, CDs are still the predominant music format compromising 60-70% of music sales. So, let's assume (even though we have no reason to necessarily equate the two) that ebook sales hit at least around a third of total book sales. That's a good chunk. All the arguments about ebooks not "being there yet" or not satisfying some aesthetic urge are kind of pointless if a third of the sales are ebooks.


In 2010, 10% of total book sales were e-books. In the first few months of 2011, 20%. Now some of that may be the post-Christmas effect. I'll grant that. So, let's cut the increase in half. Say, it was 15%. Keep in mind here, it's not a matter of adding customers, it's a market of readjusting the existing market share. We could easily end up at 15-20% of total books sales (if not more) by the end of 2011.


So, why am I harping on all of this so much?


In April, author and small-press veteran Kristine Kathyn Rusch wrote a rather lengthy blog post where she offered evidence that the Big 6 publishers are significantly underreporting e-book royalties. While I encourage you to read the post (which discusses royalties in general), one thing I'll point out here is that she did not attribute this to active conspiracy. Instead, she suggested instead it may stem from archaic accounting procedures.


Now, many people have been critical of Ms. Rusch for her often rather strident indictments of the Big 6. I found her post rather frightening, but I kind of filed it away.


At the end of May, veteran agent Kristin Nelson (who is the agent representing several delightful authors I've discovered in recent years) had a post that ended with the following chilling statements:


"In four short days, I can already tell you two important things about this digital revolution.

1. Pricing is everything. Pricing a title appropriately will move a great number of books in a short period of time.

2. Publishers are under-reporting electronic book sales in any given period on the royalty statements we are seeing.

That's a fact."



Chaos! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!


Last week, agent blogger Nathaniel Bransford gave an interview at Writer Unboxed where he talked about the industry and his reasons for leaving agenting. Though he was most insistent that his agenting career was fine, and he was just more interested in being more involved in social media, one section really caught my eye:


But I won’t try and say that the flux in the publishing business played no role either. In my Year in Books post at the end of 2010 I talked about the “Big Squeeze,” and how hard it is for a book to sell to a traditional publisher and how difficult it is for young agents to start their career.


Let's sum this up. We have e-books growth exploding, we have the Big 6 underreporting royalties, likely due to archaic business practices, and we have agents having a hard time even selling books to the Big 6, anyway.


This does not sound like a sustainable system to me. It also sounds like a system in the middle of tremendous transformation.

Now, I've cited these three people, but I see these sentiments all over. I follow a -lot- of writing and publishing relating blogs and forums. People can stick their fingers in the ears and pretend it's 1999 (Hat tip to Ms. Rusch) all they want, but the old order is being swept away. Electrons are flowing over our paper and changing everything.

The question becomes: what happens when it finally all comes tumbling down?


I haven't a clue. We have agents now becoming publishers. Some have already received criticism for perceived poor quality efforts.


Author David Gaughran had a fascinating post the other day that points out the increasing trend of agents, including those closed to submission, of signing successful self-published authors.


This is all terrifying yet exciting. A tradition-bound, slow-to-adapt industry is being ripped to pieces and forced to change. Is this creative destruction or something far more sinister?


I've been following all of this unfold with great attention. For me, I just want to get my stories out to people, and yes, I want to make a little money. Currently, I have two jobs. I have two jobs because I need the money to support my family. I love telling my little stories, but I'm not in a position where I can simply just quit my jobs to concentrate on writing. My children enjoy eating. I enjoy electricity. Occasionally, I also enjoy water. 


It'd be nice, for instance, if I could replace at least of some my modest part-time freelance job with a modest amount of writing income. After all these years of improving my craft, this year I've started toying with queries and the like. Life overwhelmed me though and I'd only sent out a relatively modest amount.


Now, I find myself watching this huge revolution unfold and wondering what to do? Seriously pursue an agent? That takes a huge amount of time, they can't always sell a book and besides poor royalties, there will be the de facto "underreporting" tax on your royalties. Given the molasses-like speed at which the Big 6 have reacted throughout the decades, I'm dubious they'll get the royalty situation in-hand soon.


Should I start trying to submit to small presses? Submit to an e-press? Self-publish (oh, how what was once verboten is now permissible)?


I honestly don't know. People say, "Shut up and write" and I've been doing that. I'm at the point  where I'm a bit dubious of spending a huge amount of time focusing on getting an agent until the fundamental structure of the publishing industry has settled a bit. So, perhaps a two-armed approach. Though the bulk of my million words over the last ten years aren't fit for the consumption of the gentle reader, I have been slowly revising and editing (with the help of many wonderful critique partners) a couple of novels that I actually feel someone might pay a modest sum to read. One, I think, I shall perhaps try and submit to a smaller publisher. The other I could use as part of a self-publishing experiment.


Decisions, decisions.

Author Interview: Shawn Maravel

Today, I'm talking with Shawn Maravel, who has recently released Severance, a sequel to her young adult paranormal romance, Volition.

1) Tell us a little bit about your latest novel.

I don't want to give too much away for Volition by telling you about Severance so here's a look at Volition:

Charlotte Rush would be the first to admit that her life is no rollercoaster ride. Her days are laced with ordinary and at times boring monotony. But with a heart that finds itself frequently broken she's happy to say that she's content.

When her friends convince her to spend the night out at a club to let loose and maybe even find a guy, she finally admits that her life might be missing something.

No sooner does she let go of her inhibitions does she find herself waking up in a dark hotel room in the presence of Joel, a man who carries mystery in his eyes and familiarity in his smile. Against reason Charlotte decides to trust him based solely on one thing. Somehow, she is sure that she knows him.

In a race against time to find answers and to solve the crime committed against her Charlotte finds herself falling for him. However, with nothing but mystery surrounding him she can't even be sure that he's the hero at all. While knowing all of the right things to say he still manages to tell her nothing. As a battle is waged over the innocence of her cryptic stranger, Charlotte discovers that much greater danger awaits her. And the mysteries behind who and what Joel is will lead Charlotte to discover that heaven and earth are not so far apart.

2) What inspired your novels?

Volition started off as a question that I posed to myself, "Who knows you inside and out, has seen you in your darkest hour, and loves you anyway?" On top of that I thought to myself...wouldn't it be interesting if it was someone you didn't even know? That you couldn't possibly grasp the concept of your love, but somehow...when you met them, something inside of you just knew that you loved them too? From there I decided on the answers to the questions of who exactly was he (Joel), what was he, how they will they meet, and what obstacles come with that type of relationship?

For Severance, it was very similar. At first, there was just going to be one book, but then I saw a movie called "Elsewhere" and the ending really freaked me out. It was kind of a physiological thriller, going to bed that night I though to myself, what if Volition took a turn like that? The stories are totally different from each other of course, but the idea that Volition could go somewhere I hadn't planned excited me. I had a rough idea about where it would go, but I wasn't positive until a friend that had read Volition and loved it posed another question. It made me realize that even bigger possibilities awaited this two book series. And without my friend's question it wouldn't be the same series by a long shot.

3) Did you find it easier to write the sequel or were their challenges you did not encounter when you wrote your first book?

It took less time for me to write Severance, the sequel to Volition, I started writing it as I was editing Volition, and I was really excited about it because Volition is the build up, and Severance really takes the reader into this crazy awesome adventure of love and how powerful it can really be. In that sense, Severance was actually easier. At the same time, I hit a lull while writing around the same spot in both books. Around page one hundred. From there it's like pulling teeth to finish. All in all though, I think it happened less with Severance because I had a lot more figured out. I took a lot less out then I ended up taking out of Volition, and I knew exactly how it would end. 

I had also been going to school online full-time when I started Volition,and by the time I'd moved onto Severance I'd stopped going to school to focus on writing. It provided me with a lot more time to writing. 

4) Tell us a little bit about your writing process.

My writing process is kind of strange, for the most part, after getting a main idea, theme, and character names down, I just start writing. I pick a spot that I think will be a good lead into the story, and I just start writing. The characters kind of take it from there, as strange as it sounds. I build up these characters, and through writing I kind of determine their personalities. As I throw them into situations, I can picture how they would react to them. As far as when I write and for how long, it all depends. Usually I'd write during the day between taking care of the house and pets. It's like having a job with a flexible schedule. I make sure that I write every day, or at least most days. But sometimes I get writer's block, though I wouldn't exactly call it that. I just need to step away from the story for a bit. Even when editing I need to take breaks, otherwise I'm not actually paying attention when I sit down to work. Sometimes ideas will come at strange times though and I'll be up at three in the morning huddled in the bathroom or at the kitchen table trying to let my husband sleep while I get down whatever ideas that I can onto paper. I know that once I fall asleep the flow will be gone when I wake up the next morning. 

5) Your work is self-published, but in stark contrast to the current crop of self-publishing authors, you haven't e-published. Given the current furor over e-publishing, why did you choose to go this route?

The site I went through, Createspace.com, does paper back books mainly, though I do think that they have the option to do e-books as well. I do intend to publish e-books at some point also, with my husband's technical help, but publishing my books for me was all about being able to hold my book in my hands. I think that e-books are a great tool, and I look forward to expanding in that direction, but I don't have an e-book reading device so the main goal was for me to be able to have access to my own work without having to buy something in order to read it first. I also happen to be a personal fan of hard copies as apposed to digital when it comes to books. I like keeping a physical library, to see my books lined up on a shelf, those I've read and those I've written. 

6) If you had one piece of advice for an aspiring author, what would it be?

The writing world is a competitive one with a lot of great story ideas to compete with, so keep your head up and stay positive. It's the people who truly believe in their work that will become successful. 

Waiting

I've written many books, but only the last couple approach publication quality. I guess that whole "you need to write 500,000 words before you can write something worth reading" thing is true. I'm now aggressively querying one of my novels. There is a LOT of waiting involved in this kind of process.

You query and wait for an agent to respond (if they respond). When they respond, you send a partial and wait for a response for that. If they like the partial, you send a full and wait for a response for that. When you land an agent, you have to wait while they try and sell it to a publisher. Even excluding all the back and forth between editing and revisions, it can take a long time for a book to come to the market. 

There has to be a better way, right? A quicker way? A way that doesn't involve so much waiting! A way that can get me the money I need to quit my day job and write full-time? (The last may or may not be a thought depending on how much you like your day job).

I've heard many people say they are interested in self-publishing because they don't like the waiting that accompanies traditional publishing. In this age of Kindle, Nook, and what not, why wait to trudge through the entire traditional publishing process when you can just upload your book to Amazon, Smashwords, or wherever and be off to the races? Part of this mindset often seems to be that self-pubbing is some road to instant success as an author.

Now, for the record, I'm not anti-self-publishing. Many of my author friends are pursuing electronic self-publishing. I'm strongly considering it myself (I don't like the query-go-round anymore than anyone else and can see the advantages of having personal control of every part of the process). Judging from a lot of things I read around on blogs and what not (yes, I know, excellent scientific survey there) I think a lot of people who are considering e-publishing their own books don't seem to understand that waiting is just as much part of the process. 

We've all heard the stories about the potential success that comes with self-publishing and how it's different than the old days because of the vastly expanding reach of e-books. Amanda Hocking made a million off her self-pubbed books and now has a two million dollar traditional contract because of her self-publishing success. Romance author Victorine Lieske may not be a millionaire (yet), but she has made over thirty-five thousand dollars on her self-published debut novel. 

In both of these cases, however, these authors didn't come out of the gate selling thousands of books a day. They had to put in the effort, the marketing, and most importantly the time. When you self-pub, if you don't already have a huge established platform, in the beginning you are going to putting a lot of time and energy into marketing. You'll be visiting websites, sending out requests to review sites, doing interviews, et cetera. Despite putting in all this effort, you may not see a lot of sales initially. Depending on your personality, this might be painful and hard to handle. There will be no agent, no publisher to buffer potential disappointment. Of course, there also will be no agent or publisher to threaten to drop you for not being a quick success, either. 

While self e-pubbing allows rapid adjustment of things like covers and pricing to evaluate marketing, this can create even more disappointment. I've seen many people bemoan the fact that they've polished a book for years and are having to creep along at a sale or two a day.

"I don't get it. I've done everything, yet my book is still only selling a few copies a day."

"I don't get it. My book is much better than a book written by [insert name of self-pubbed or published author you dislike here]." 

If we assume the person has truly done everything (a lot of self-pubbed authors seem to eschew serious marketing efforts, pretty much condemning their books to obscurity), this can seem tragic. All that effort for nothing? 

Now, if a person is putting in the proper effort (and their book is competently written and edited), I do strongly believe they will find success, but it still will take time. The big advantage of e-book self-publishing, in particular, is that because of the lack of shelf-space requirements, e-books can sit around on their virtual shelves for as long it takes to find an audience.

That being said, if you do choose such a path, remember that e-publishing may be changing a lot of things, but it's still not producing instant millionaires. The people who have achieved success, such as Amanda Hocking and Victorine Lieske, had to, over a long period of time, put in a tremendous amount of sustained personal effort. Also, despite what anyone says, no one really knows how the e-book revolution will play out in the long term.  

I'd be more impressed by publishing experts if the publishing industry didn't seem so defined by surprise successes and clumsy retroactive attempts to recapitulate such successes. I definitely think we're at a fundamental shift in how people interface with the written word, but I just don't feel anyone really knows what that will really mean in five years to readers, authors, agents, and publishers. 

Whatever path you choose, keep writing, revising, and dreaming in the meantime.