The Infinite Wordstream: Part II

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(This is part two of a two part series. Read The Infinite Wordstream: Part I here!)

The Infinite Wordstream

If reader satisfaction is to mean anything to the budding epublishing author, it’s going to require hitting the moving target of reader desire. To reverse myself for a moment, the old 3,000 word and 300 page limits were and still are awfully handy as guidelines because the teeming mass of our reading public has been indoctrinated to expect these formats and sizes. It’s comforting for both readers and writers to know exactly what the expectations are.

It’s as we move out of the realm of standards that things get hairy. Spend some time with writers who have published their short stories electronically and you will hear horror stories of 1 star ratings, angry comments, and negative reviews…not for the stories’ merit but because of their length.

“Charging money for this is insulting” is one comment leveled at fantasy author David Dalglish‘s short story release, Guardian of the Mountain (get it here) from an admitted fan of his other words. At the time of this article’s writing, the 13,000 word short story—the equivalent of 50 paperback pages—was selling for just $.99, yet this reader was offended at the length. Crime fiction writer Ed Lynskey released a novel length collection of 15 short stories, Out of Town a Few Days (find it here), and received a 2 star review. The comment? “Not a real fan of short stories.” Full stop. Nothing about the collection’s merit.

With that preface, things might seem gloomy for short story and novelette writers the world over. But indie writer Deborah Geary might disagree. She writes a popular urban fantasy series (the “Modern Witch” series) that has garnered great reader reviews, but also constant fan pressure to release more, sooner. To keep the hordes at bay, she published several “Novel Nibbles”: stand-alone, 20,000 word stories not meant to be part of her regular lineup. Rather than an angry response at the length of the nibbles (which are about ¼ the size of a novel), she’s received positive feedback and now new chants of “we want more” and “turn this into a novel, too”.

It’s speculation on my part, but I have a feeling that Deborah’s releases would have been considered “unpublishable” five years ago: too long for magazines, too short to be novels, too awkward to be collected in an anthology. Yet, even in today’s climate, they might’ve been 1-starred had they been half their length and released as “short stories” in the digital market. Through hard work and careful cultivation of her audience she’s found a non-traditional word count that works. She’s helping to break the old standards.

Tapping the Stream

The point for writers is that the face of not just publishing, but writing itself, is changing. Reader bias for standard lengths will continue as long as there are print books (which I hope is forever). But as the digital market evolves, so will reader tolerance for unusual formats and non-standard lengths until, at some magical moment, we’ll just be talking about “story”. And that’s good news for writers everywhere, because the craft of writing shouldn’t be pushed into a corner by the cost of paper, the weight of a book, or the width of your spine.

Why Goodreads Is Making The Switch And What That Means For You

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Why Goodreads Is Making The Switch And What That Means For You.

Book reviwer and blogger “Books: The Cheapest Vacation You Can Buy” points out in this post that Goodreads  has moved away from Amazon for its basic book information, finding Amazon’s requirements “too restrictive”.

I’m not sure what that means, exactly, and I haven’t followed up independently with GR to see the whole story, but for authors and readers/reviewers with tons of content on the GR site, you may want to check your account, as some books will need to be “rescued” by January 30, 2012, i.e., have their title, author, and content matched.

Although this seems to affect few titles, the ones that are will lose their matching, so reviews and ratings will be floating around in GR space, opinionated orphans without a home.

The Infinite Wordstream: Part 1

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Mention a number to writer who’s been at the craft for a while and you’ll probably get a Pavlovian response in word count.

700? Flash fiction.

3,000? Standard main-stream magazine short story length. 8,000? The “one-per-issue” exception if the fiction editor likes your work.

15,000? Novelette. 25,000? Novella. 50,000? Short novel, a slim volume you might be able to sell to an unsuspecting—or forgiving—public.

75,000? Industry accepted minimum length for a debut novel, about 300 paperback pages.

150,000? Unless you’re Stephen King or George R. R. Martin: an agent’s rejection slip followed by a suggestion to find a good editor.

Despite the immense spread, however, these numbers have two things in common: they are the industry-accepted perceptions of what the public desires for a “good read” at particular moments. And they are all restrictions imposed on story-telling by the physical limitations of the medium in which they are delivered.

The Finite Wordstream

Let’s put aside the first point for a moment. The second is an interesting thing to ponder for a second. Short stories are, well…short, because historically magazines were expensive to print. Putting out 35 glossy pages every month is costly and it took years of experimentation for publishers to triangulate the sweet spot of issue length, reader interest, and expense. The formula they arrived at allowed for three to five 3,000 word short stories with room left over for a novel excerpt, a couple of book reviews, and a letter from the editor.

At the other end of the scale is the novel. 75,000 words translates nicely into a 300 page paperback which, when placed on a bookstore shelf, has a one-to-two inch spine that is narrow enough to leave room for the latest 480 page New York Times best seller release and long enough to keep a customer from feeling cheated.

Anything in-between these lengths (the long short, the novelette, the novella) was eventually found to be either too long or too short—and here’s the point of this article—physically. It either didn’t meet the compressed economics of a magazine or it didn’t give value on the bookstore shelf by merit of its heft.

The Missing Link

The much more important half of the equation, reader satisfaction, has been the poor, unwashed cousin in this relationship. Our tastes in literature over the last century have been shaped as much by the 300 page standard as they have by story-telling, literary merit, or creative genius. Or, put another way, since those attributes can be shoe-horned into a predetermined, one-size-fits-most model driven by economics…they have.

What’s changed? Electronic publishing. Certainly, the old tropes of historic publishing remain—the feel and smell of a book, the pleasure of holding it, the sense of tradition you get sitting by a fire with a novel. This isn’t the place to argue those points (which I agree with, anyway). But if epublishing has done one thing—and it’s done more—in the field of literature, it’s that it has broken the chains of physical limitation on the creative process of writing.

In a digital medium, format as expressed by word count is not just irrelevant, it’s meaningless. It’s like asking someone how much air they breath. A lot? A little? The important thing is that you’re breathing. Old monikers like short story and novella begin to slip away. And with that side of the equation gone, what are we left with?

The only thing that should matter: reader satisfaction.

Read The Infinite Wordstream: Part II here!

Librarything Giveaway, Take Two

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My second Librarything Giveaway is now about three weeks old and, like my first in early December ’11, I’m happy with the results.

(Addendum: For authors interested in the Librarything Giveaway, check out my previous post for tips or go straight to LT’s Giveaway page. Thanks for pointing that out, Adan!)

I sponsored a two-week Giveaway of my second short-story collection, Three the Hard Way, a set of three crime fiction stories. I emailed the list of takers from the first Giveaway (about 55 people) and announced in certain other channels (I didn’t want to email blast friends, family, and acquaintances who may have already supported me by buying the collection).

The Numbers

Here are the numbers:

  • Although the Giveaway period was shorter than the first by almost two weeks, I had 79 takers, an improvement of 24.
  • Of the 79, 55 responded within 7 days. At the time of this writing, 15 haven’t responded at all. With Christmas and New Years in there, I’m happy that the delay wasn’t even greater. I was also curious to see what effect new Kindles and Nooks might have on the Giveaway, but I can’t tell if the (modest) surge was from better exposure or new e-readers.
  • The breakdown of requested formats (which might surprise you) to date are:
    • 19 Amazon Kindle gifts
    • 12 PDF files
    • 23 Smashwords coupons
    • 10 .epub files
  • At the time of this writing, I’ve had
    • 6 Amazon reviews
    • 8 Goodreads reviews
    • 13 Librarything reviews
    • 3 Smashwords reviews
    • 2 blogger comments

Notes

  • I offered 450 copies of my book; the reason for the high number is listed here.
  • I worked on the description of the book and edited it several times. Basic HTML (bold, italics, links, etc.) is allowed and you can use it to your advantage. A short but powerful description is a must. Some writers in the Giveaway are really missing the boat on this one.
  • I made LT and Goodreads “friends” through both Giveaways and I think this is a key to future success.
  • It’s not much, but I use the respondent’s first name in the salutation of my letter back to the readers. If the respondent mentions something personal in their reply, I try to make a comment on mine (for instance, one woman was undergoing shoulder surgery the next week and had participated in the Giveaway to get reading material for the recovery, so I wished her well, then sent her a coupon for a free copy of one bad twelve, my master collection of shorts).
  • I plan to send out reminders at the one month mark for the “no replies” to encourage them to get their copy.

Thoughts

  • I’m still surprised at the number of people, as in my first Giveaway, that signed up for a copy but didn’t respond to me when I emailed asking what format they’d like. I’m not offended by the no response, but it takes some effort to read through my LT description and click “Yes, give me one of those.” Why wouldn’t you send me a one word reply to get a free book?
  • I love the Librarything Giveaway opportunity, but their execution of it could be better. The list of winners is simply posted as an HTML table on a webpage. To make use of it, you have to copy and paste into an Excel sheet and massage to get a workable database.Also, if you’ve done more than one giveaway, the most recent group is listed at the end, which leads you to believe they’ve overwritten your new contact data with old. Wouldn’t take much to simply post it above the old.

That’s about it. I may plan a giveaway in the ramp-up towards publishing my first novel, A Reason to Live, this Spring. I’ll post numbers from that and any other Giveaways I take part in. If you’ve had success (or failure) with an LT Giveaway, I’d love to hear about it!

Tell…Don’t Show

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Lately I’ve been finding myself sighing, flipping pages, and thinking about my fantasy hockey team while I read the latest New York Times zillion-copy seller. I’ve turned into a serial-skimmer, looking for the telltale short paragraphs and action buzz words that tell me there’s something worth reading amidst the reams of fluff.

Now, after the fifth or sixth unsatisfying read, I think I’ve figure out what’s striking an off-note to me in these novels. The investigation took a while, because it’s counter to everything I’ve learned as a writer.

These writers are showing, not telling. And I really wish they’d stop.

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