Patricia J. Parsons

The confusing world of 21st century publishing jargon: A glossary for writers

Posted on 21 Apr 2014 by Patricia J. Parsons

“So what are you writing now?”

This is a question I often hear from friends, relatives and colleagues alike. They know that I’ve written a dozen or so books – among other things – but I don’t really think they get me as a writer. I’m a hybrid writer. Or at least that’s the word I used to use. Maybe I’m just a promiscuous writer. You see, I write both fiction and non-fiction, and I publish mostly through traditional publishers (which are…?) and independently (whatever does that mean…?).

So, what am I writing right now? I have a fiction (sort of lifestyle satire again, but then what does that mean?) piece on the go, but the book I’m supposed to be writing is on writing and publishing in the twenty-first century using both research and my experiences. This latter piece has me thinking about definitions of the confusing array of terms in the new world of publishing. Since I’m a strong believer that we need a common understanding of terminology before we can discuss any issue, I thought I’d develop a glossary of terms – and I thought I’d share it with you as a work-in-progress.

So, herewith (great word, isn’t it?) I offer you the working definitions of publishing-related terms that I’ll be using in my upcoming book.

Author

An author is someone who has published a book, article, paper, poem, report etc. The act of publication is what differentiates between someone who is engaged in the act of writing and an actual author. Method of publication does not matter.

Traditional Publisher

A so-called traditional book publisher is an organization that takes the financial responsibility for all aspects of publication including acquisition, editing, publishing, distributing and promoting. Consequently, this publisher garners a hugely larger percentage of the book receipts than does the author of said piece. Traditional publishers often make their publishing decisions from an array of solicited and unsolicited manuscripts based on their prediction about marketability. Judging from the number of traditionally acquired flops, they are not very good at making these decisions (You probably know that J. K. Rowling’s original Harry Potter manuscript was rejected at least a dozen times. See “30 famous authors whose works were rejected (repeatedly, and sometimes rudely by publishers”).

Trade Publisher

A trade publisher is, in contrast to a scholarly press, for example, a traditional publisher that produces books for what is referred to as a ‘trade audience.’ A trade audience is you and me in our everyday lives. A trade publisher might specialize in fiction of a certain type or non-fiction – but only non-fiction that has a wide appeal.

Literary Publisher

This is a term that I struggle with. A self-proclaimed literary publisher will be able to tell you, nose in the air, precisely what they do. However, looking in from the outside, it is not quite so clear. So, for my purposes, I am defining a literary publisher as a traditional publisher, usually of the independent variety (see below) who refuses to wear the title of trade publisher, believing that his or her works are a cut above in artistic or literary merit.

Vanity Publishing

Vanity publishing is when an author pays an organization a large sum of money up front for the following services: editing (sometimes), formatting (usually), cover design (if you’re lucky), printing and binding (always), distribution (only if you count filling the author’s personal orders) and marketing (not on your life). Of course, it is self-publishing. The term may have been used as early as the 1940’s, but self-proclaimed Vanity Publishing expert Jonathan Clifford seems to think he coined it in 1959.[1] The term is never used in a positive way, just as the word itself would suggest. As I discussed in a previous post where I admitted to vanity publishing one of my earliest books, “Presumably it was vain for an author to pay to have his or her book published. I’ve never been sure why it isn’t ‘vanity recording’ when a musician pays to have a CD recorded and subsequently distributed…” The term is often used when making snide remarks about the inferiority of self-published work. Note: Vanity Publishers always publish(ed) works under their own imprint.

Self-Publishing

Self-publishing differentiates itself from vanity publishing in that the term vanity has been dropped. That’s really all there is to it. Make no mistake about it: self-publishing is vanity publishing without the moniker. The twenty-first century has provided self-publishers with a digital world wherein the possibilities are almost endless. Self-published books can be as bad as most publishing snobs always thought vanity-published books to be, or, equally, may be as good as any book out there. Self- publishing is differentiated from traditional publishing in that the author takes complete financial responsibility for the editing, publishing, distribution and marketing aspects of authorship and reaps the lion’s share of the benefits. It need not have the stench of “vanity” about it. But it might. Note: Self-publishing need not be done under the imprint of another entity such as a publisher.

Subsidy Publishing

Subsidy publishing is characterized by a financial subsidy that is provided to an author to partially cover the costs of publishing. The subsequent publishing is usually done through a traditional publisher. Some people suggest that subsidy publishing is the same as vanity or self-publishing. However, that ignores the situations where subsidies are offered by non-profit or governmental organization to support the publication of the work of academics in a scholarly publishing world where there is no money to be made, but costs to be covered. Thus, I think it needs its own category.

Independent Publisher

This is a tricky one because there is a difference between being an independent publisher and the act of publishing independently (see below). For my purposes, an independent publisher is one that uses a traditional publishing model of acquiring work from an author and shouldering the burden of the financial responsibilities while at the same time maintaining independence from the big, corporate publishing houses.

Supported Self-Publishing

Supported self-publishing is a business model where a publisher provides services to a self-publishing author at a cost. Packages are offered and services can be purchased a la carte depending on the size of the company. There are large, corporate ones who try to sell a variety of expensive services (they make their money from selling services to authors, rather than on selling books. In fact, this business model does not even require them to sell books – their profit streams accrue from selling unsuspecting authors services, that after the editing is paid for, they don’t actually need). A whole cottage industry of services to self-publishing authors has spring up – for better or for worse.

Publishing Independently (also known as Self-Publishing)

When an author decides to forego the submission-rejection-submission-rejection merry-go-round of the traditional publishing world, he or she steps into the process of publishing independently. The author takes full financial responsibility and can choose from a variety of types and sizes of self-publishing and supported self-publishing platforms. The possibilities are endless: from companies who will simply print your book n demand (e.g. Lulu or Createspace), or distribute it electronically (e.g. Smashwords), offering only if you want it other services, to large behemoths like iUniverse who sell a wide variety of expensive packages and individual services and will continue to market to you even after you’ve said ‘no’ if you publish with them.

Indie Author

This is a widely used term among ‘indie authors’ themselves and for my purposes refers to anyone who chooses to publish without benefit of a traditional publisher. It is neither a positive term, nor is it a negative term – it is simply a term. It does not refer to an author who publishes through an independent publisher as I have defined it.

E-Publishing

E-publishing is digital electronic publishing where both the process and the product are digital. Traditional publishers, independent traditional publishers, self-publishers etc. can all utilize the concept of publishing for electronic distribution. When e-publishing first began, it was often a route that was taken after a book was published in hard copy. Today, more and more books (and journals and magazines etc.) are available only electronically.

Cooperative Publishing

Cooperative publishing is a publishing process independent of the traditional model where authors form a cooperative in which each one contributes financially and in writing-editing capacities to publishing works by each member of the cooperative. As I said in a previous post on cooperative publishing:

“Some people who have written about cooperative publishing consider it to be a publishing model that represents the middle ground between traditional and print-on-demand publishing. Although this might represent cooperation between an author (who pays) and a “publisher” who is contracted by the author, it still says self-publishing to me. The model of cooperative publishing I’m suggesting here is based on a business co-op model where, as the CCA says, the business (in this case the publisher) is owned by the members who use its services. In the case of a publishing co-op that I’m suggesting is worth exploring, the owners both use the services and are the “employees.”

In terms of financial compensation, the members of the co-op all take the same percentage of the royalties from any of the publications.

Hybrid Publishing

I think that it’s safe to say that there is much confusion between the terms hybrid publishing and hybrid author. Unless we can make a clear differentiation, then we can’t communicate about it as I mentioned at the outset of this glossary. So, I’m going to go with a clear demarcation between the two. Hybrid publishing is a situation wherein a publisher has a model that has aspects of both self-publishing and traditional publishing where everyone (from editors to marketers) gets a percentage of the royalties but that the author is not asked to pay for publishing costs. David Vinjuarmi, who often writes about publishing, did a piece in Forbes on hybrid publishing that I think covers many of the bases. For his piece see: “How Hybrid Publishers Innovate To Succeed.

Hybrid Author

A hybrid author is one who has published books and/or other pieces through both the traditional publishing model and via a self-publishing route.

That’s me. I’m a hybrid author. However, I’m also a promiscuous one: an author who publishes in a number of genres.

Let me know if you think the glossary is helpful – and if you’d like to see other concepts added. P.

[1] Neil Nixon. 2011. How to get a break as a writer: Making money from words and ideas. Troubador Publishing (U.K.) . p. 311. See also the archived web site Vanity Publishing http://www.vanitypublishing.info/.

Ideas generation, Writing

Books I wish I had written

Posted on 2 Apr 2014 by Patricia J. Parsons

Writers are usually avid readers. I suppose that it is expected of us, and possibly even required – although I’m certain that many of the classics were written by authors who did not read widely since there was so little to read (this is a theme I’ll get back to in a later post). I’ve given some thought before to the books that shape us as writers, but I’m still left wondering if others might be a little like me. Sometimes, when I come to the end of a book, I have a deep feeling that I wish I had written this book. It occurs to me that an examination of those books might provide insight into what we ought to be writing about – rather than simply always writing about what we think we should be writing about (or worse, only what sells).

I wish I had written…

Over-Dressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion by Elizabeth L. Cline. This book affected me even beyond my deep feeling that I wish I had written it. An important examination of an industry that affects all of us in one way or another, this book is one that needed to be written, and needs to be read. This feeling of a book that needs to be written, coupled with my interest in the subject matter were the factors that perhaps conspired to make me wish I had written it. The author, Elizabeth Cline is an American journalist whose commitment to the investigation of the North American penchant for disposable fashion resulted in a story that had my head spinning – although much of it did not come as a surprise – and I avoid disposable fashion like the plague, given my penchant for quality.

I wish I had written…

Deluxe: How Luxury Lost its Luster by Dana Thomas. As I closed the cover of this book I had a very distinct feeling that it was one I should have written! A social history of the luxury goods industry, the book is also well-researched, lucidly written, informative and entertaining. The fact that it focuses on a topic that has been of interest to me since I started researching the marketing tactics of luxury goods manufacturers in my day job (don’t ask!) might also make it the kind of book that I would have liked to have written.

I wish I had written…

The Thoughtful Dresser: The Art of Adornment, the Pleasures of Shopping and Why Clothes Matter by Linda Grant (who is also a novelist). This book had me at the following statement on page 10:

“I consider it to be absolutely normal to care deeply about what we wear, and detest the puritan moralists who affect to despise fashion or those who love it. Who shrilly proclaim that only vain, foolish Barbie dolls, their brains addled by consumerism, would wear anything but sensible clothes made to last. As if appearances don’t matter when, most of the time, they are all we have to go on. Or sometimes all that is left in the ruins of life.”

This paragraph encapsulated for me the conundrum of my life as a professor and writer – and someone who has always enjoyed the fun of dressing. On a university campus, dressing fashionably is viewed in much the way Linda Grant describes. She nailed it. Oh how I would have loved to have written this book for my colleagues to read!

So, these books all do seem to have things in common. But what strikes me most is the fact that they are all non-fiction. I hope my inner writer is listening. I’ve been focusing my future writing on fiction – which I love to produce – and yet the books I wish I had written are all research-based, narrative non-fiction.

A few years ago during one of my many searches for an agent (two searches were successful; neither of them sold my manuscripts), one of them snottily said the following to me: “If I had a dime for every bona fide non-fiction writer who wanted to write fiction, I’d be rich.” Then she refused to represent any fiction I might produce. I guess I should have been happy to have been referred to as a bona fide non-fiction writer, which I suppose I am.

So I think I’m going to consider this analysis of my own reading interests. Don’t get me wrong, though, I love to read fiction. I just wonder how much of it I should be writing.

Book Reviews

When is a book review not a book review?

Posted on 26 Mar 2014 by Patricia J. Parsons

It seems simple enough. You write a book, someone reads it, likes it (or not), writes a review, and other potential readers interpret the review for themselves, deciding whether or not to read your book based on their own criteria. One of the most important factors readers might use to interpret a review is the identity – and therefore perceived credibility – of the review writer.

For example, for some readers there might be a big difference between a review written by the New York Times and one penned by Oprah (or at least endorsed by her). Or between the writer’s spouse and someone who doesn’t know that writer personally. That may be the line we cross into territory where a review is not really a review – it is an advertisement. And these are not the only kinds of ‘advertisements’ masquerading as book reviews.

There can hardly be a writer or ‘wanabe’ writer around these days who is unaware of the current book review scams visited upon readers.

In August of 2012 The New York Times published an article titled: “The Best Book Reviews Money Can Buy.” Author David Streitfeld reported on what appeared to be a newly established business model: writing book reviews for cash. He tells the story of Todd Rutherford’s gettingbookreviews.com, a business based on writing online book reviews – paid for by the writer. One of the service packages he offered was for him to write 20 online book reviews for $499. What could be better? Twenty reviews proclaiming a book to be worthy of 5 stars, the work of a literary genius. In my view, what would be better would be some honesty.

And Rutherford was merely one among myriad businesses that have been springing up all over the place to provide exactly the same service to writers desperate for sales. Quite often, the entrepreneurs offering this service are themselves wannabe writers.

But what happens when a reader finds out the truth of the review? Maybe the book is a good one; but maybe it isn’t. Readers searching for new, indie writers will soon become jaded from being burned. Buying book reviews hurts everyone.

So if a book review is not a book review when it is written for money, what about when it’s written by your spouse (or mother, or sister etc.)?

The Amazon review by a certain party whose last name is the same as mine was not penned by a relative.

I was mortified when I went onto Amazon.com to see that one of the reviews (and a 5-star one at that) of one of my historical novels Grace Note was penned by someone whose last name is PARSONS. I’m quite certain that anyone looking at that would make the reasonable assumption that it was written by one of my relatives. It wasn’t. I’m just glad the reviewer liked it! The bottom line, however, is that a review by one of your nearest and dearest isn’t really a review either.

So…and here is the one where I’m going to get myself into trouble… what if the review is written by a member of your co-dependency group. These are those writing groups, usually virtual, or Twitter communities, wherein everyone gushes about everyone else’s books mostly so that when yours is published everyone will do the same. I have to admit that this really bothers me. It puts me off buying the promoted books, which is a shame for the writers. However, I just don’t trust these reviews.

I follow a number of otherwise interesting indie authors who also review books on Twitter, but I find that the reviews are always 5-star ones, or very close to it. I’m presuming that they only tweet their 5-star ones (surely there are books they dislike?), but I’d like to be directed to one that might be a 4 or even a 3 ½ star review so that I can make up my own mind. When everything is ‘awesome’, then nothing is ‘awesome.’

Let’s get back to some truth in advertising among writers and publishers. Please.