LIFE AS A HUMAN https://lifeasahuman.com The online magazine for evolving minds. Tue, 07 Feb 2023 19:32:43 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.2 29644249 An Ode to Creative Writing: An Everlasting Muse https://lifeasahuman.com/2023/arts-culture/creativity/an-ode-to-creative-writing-an-everlasting-muse/ https://lifeasahuman.com/2023/arts-culture/creativity/an-ode-to-creative-writing-an-everlasting-muse/#respond Tue, 07 Feb 2023 19:32:43 +0000 https://lifeasahuman.com/?p=404479&preview=true&preview_id=404479 A Poetic Ode to Written Expression: An Everlasting Muse

Creative writing is a form of communication that allows us to share our thoughts without saying a word. Thoughts are no longer invisible to the naked eye but clear as day in the hearts of many. Writing is a language that breaks barriers within ourselves, shattering the mold of external factors that shaped us from birth. Whether painting lead portraits on paper or pouring our soul into a tablet or laptop screen, we can bring to life something beautiful on a once lifeless platform.

Let us explore this craft that has been around since the beginning of humanity’s inheritance of the Earth that continues to connect all customs and traditions. Whether old English from the era of Romeo and Juliet or hieroglyphics from the ancient Egyptians, words are like musical symbols that are symbolic of getting a message across in various tones and styles.

Self-growth

Writing leads to growth because it forces us to open our minds to information we may not have researched before stitching a project together with the needle and thread. Also, depending on the nature of a written piece, we may have to examine ourselves psychologically where the hard truths reopen wounds. The truth is very buoyant; no matter how much we suppress it, eventually, it will come up, one way or another. When writing, our verbiage broadens, and how we string together, thoughts become more efficient, one way or another.

In the same way, our bodies need physical exercise the same way we need to exercise our brain by sharpening it with the edge of life’s experiences. The confidence, maturity, and discipline it takes to create a masterpiece make us better students. It takes each cell of gray matter to ignite and cooperate to focus on every punctuation, word definition, and focal point that shapes paragraphs to understand new colorful topics.

Endless Adventure

We can travel to places not yet explored without having to pay a cent for a plane ticket. Explorations into the universe from our office, the train, or the bed go as far as we want the fiction to last. Love fills the tank that burns with passion for places we can visit when we close our eyes. The voyage into our soul isn’t such a scary place to navigate when we understand everything is connected by strands of light that encompass ideas and creativity.

A protagonist can sail the seas, blast off into outer space, or explore the thickness of a dense forest from chapter to chapter. We get to go along for the ride and let a story tell itself. Kids play hopscotch without a care in the world, and we can innocently hop back and forth between history to draw from events that happened before we were born.

Appreciation Of Life

Any muse brought into reality comes from an appreciation of something or someone. Even when life gets rough, we can take what comes with the draft and alter what we assume is written in stone. Life becomes a library with our spines filled with published content that is more valuable than any amount of gold or silver. All we have are our stories to leave behind that leave shiny gems of impressions. Our footprints don’t have to let time fade away.

Embellishing the hunt for curiosity establishes the same acceptance for understanding what is ok not to understand. Our hands become an extension of our hearts and mind to create a playground where anything is possible. Written expression, fiction or nonfiction, is the most potent silent outcry. The power of words can inspire to create a new reality between the lines. Life becomes our playground, and the writer who embodies the index can call the title their name.

Muse

A writer’s job is never done because when meaning is supposed to be ejected out of openings that stream consciousness, it’s time to get to work, no matter what the clock complains about. It can come from a painting, a note from a song, a conversation in passing, or a sermon that can cause tiny wings to grow in our heads and get high off the aspirations that guide the pen to structure an article, novel, or poem. The origins of this blissful experience are when an idea refreshes our spirits and grant’s us the privilege to express ourselves. Self-expression is a gift that enables us to bleed ink and use our hands to spread it around everywhere.

Our story doesn’t perish when we are lowered into the ground; they become more embedded in the roots in which everything started in the first place. When raindrops hit the earth by the millions in seconds, that special moment the needle hits the record activating melodies, or the first time you look into your lover’s eyes, a muse manifests, born as an infant, crying out for us to nurture it into written expression.

Photo Credit

Image by Ghinzo from Pixabay


Guest Author Bio
Michael Colon

My name is Michael Colon born and raised in New York City. I am a content writer for multiple platforms with a deep passion for the craft. My mission is to continue to impact the lives of others positively and productively. My writing is unique and can best be described as reflective, thought-provoking, and direct.

Follow Michael On Instagram

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3 Lessons from Classical Fables https://lifeasahuman.com/2022/arts-culture/on-writing/3-lessons-from-classical-fables/ https://lifeasahuman.com/2022/arts-culture/on-writing/3-lessons-from-classical-fables/#respond Wed, 20 Apr 2022 19:17:26 +0000 https://lifeasahuman.com/?p=403582 Phaedrus Fabulist - 1745 engravingFables are beautiful because they express lifelong, time-honored wisdom in a manner so concise and clear that anyone can understand their message. The most famous collection of these pedagogical fantasies is Aesop’s Fables, which includes notable stories such as The Tortoise and The Hare. However, in the first century AD, the Roman fabulist Phaedrus himself compiled several books of fables, some of which he translated from Aesop’s Fables, others the product of his own mind. Below are three of Phaedrus’s fables, each of which furthers our understanding of the world and elevates our ability to live well in it.

Phaedrus’s first fable is The Wolf and the Lamb. In this story, a wolf drinking from a stream longs for an excuse to eat a lamb who is drinking downstream from the wolf. The wolf accuses the lamb of stirring up mud in the water he was drinking, but the lamb says that this cannot be so since the wolf is upstream from the lamb. The wolf then accuses the lamb of gossiping about him six months back, but the terrified lamb answers that he had not even been born at that time. The wolf snarls that it must have been the lamb’s family who spoke poorly about him, and eats the lamb. Although this fable ends on a depressing note, it reminds us that some egocentric people will only pursue their own ends. They may appeal to logic, they may try taking a moral high ground, but indeed they are only trying to trick good people to achieve their evil ends. These people are like tyrants who crave any pretense to act as they please. In the end, we can do nothing but simply separate ourselves from them.

From Phaedrus’s second book of fables, The Man and the Dog teaches us to think about the long-term effects of our actions. In this fable, a man, having been bitten by a dog, throws the dog blood-dipped bread to make it cease. Wise Aesop then interjects that these treats will only reward dogs for biting, and that this man’s actions will encourage this dog and others to carry out their vicious acts. This fable reminds us not to sacrifice long-term good for short term expediency, and invites us to consider how others may misunderstand our actions, and how we may be encouraging harm rather than curing it.

Lastly, The Proud Frog provides a humorous note. Trying to match the size of an ox, a frog continually inhales and puffs herself up, each time asking her children if she has reached the size of the ox, each time growing larger than before. In cartoon fashion, the frog swells to such a size that she bursts apart. Do not be like the frog of this fable whose hubris, jealousy, and pride brought her demise. Rather, reap the wisdom of this fable and the others which build your understanding and intuition about yourself, others, and the world around you.

Photo Credit

Phaedrus Fabulist 1745 engraving – Wikimedia Public Domain


Guest Author Bio
Erik Hanson

I am Erik Hanson, an undergraduate at UNC Chapel Hill studying the classics. My plan is to attend graduate school, obtain my PhD in the classics, and teach at a university. In late 2021, I started my blog ConsultTheClassics.com, a place where I could share my love and appreciation for the Ancient Roman and Greek worlds by posting about the benefits of studying these civilizations of antiquity. In my free time, I enjoy reading literature (in many languages!), writing, and playing soccer with my friends. Thank you for checking out my work!

 

 

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Writing: For the Love of It https://lifeasahuman.com/2021/arts-culture/on-writing/writing-for-the-love-of-it/ https://lifeasahuman.com/2021/arts-culture/on-writing/writing-for-the-love-of-it/#respond Sat, 16 Oct 2021 15:46:47 +0000 https://lifeasahuman.com/?p=402674&preview=true&preview_id=402674 I love writing stories about genuine individuals who live out their lives with purpose. These people increase my responsibility to give them proper recognition – like a portrait artist who captures the spirit, as well as the image of his subjects.

Now, as I’m writing this, a reprinted story of mine –originally written almost a decade earlier – just chimed into my email from a long-time publisher of my work. I kid you not! Wow… the things that make you go hmmm!

First get good; then get fast.

What are the odds of having this re-appear at the same time I’m writing about the quality of my current work? As I read it again, I can honestly say that the initial quality has stood the test of time… at least my time.

I ask myself: am I still maintaining and increasing my link to that same standard of quality? It’s like being reminded of a bigger picture. As President Abraham Lincoln said, “I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.”

So, why would anyone rush the process when so much of it is out of our hands? Is this about revival? Sometimes I feel that I should write faster and produce more. But then, I would have to deal with personal disappointment if the piece didn’t measure up to my own standards: first get good; then get fast.

My blog stories also appear in various publications including ‘The Morcom Report and Laffs’ by Editor / Publisher, Pat Moauro. When I reached out about this, he graciously responded with words of wisdom, saying “We often are our own harshest critic – never quite satisfied… one’s writing is never ‘finished’ – we can always improve.” Paraphrasing Ernest Hemingway, Pat added, “Easy reading is hard writing.”

Leonard Cohen also advised against perfectionism… waiting for our perfect offering. Plus, everyone must deal with deadlines which leaves me wondering: Do I lose something by rushing the process?

Or, maybe, the sparse time allowance is a blessing since it forces me to efficiently produce my 500-word type stories so they’re readable and offer something of value. Yet, every word must help make the main thing, the main thing!

A seasoned author once asked me if anything can be said in just 500 words. I said I didn’t know, but it takes all my time. Abe Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address in roughly 300 words; John Lennon wrote “Imagine” in approximately 130 words (plus he had to create the song!) Maybe it isn’t fair to compare myself to pure genius, but their example shows how you can learn to say more with less – be it plain hard work or catching lightning in a bottle. “Whatever gets you through the night (it’s alright)” (172-word song by John Lennon, but who’s counting?)

In the end, writing for the love of it must be the biggest hit of all… we’re always coming back for more.

“With a Little Help from My Friends”
~ The Beatles

That’s the way I figure it. – FP

Photo Credit

Image from Pixabay

First published at fredparry.ca


Guest Author Bio
Fred Parry

Fred Parry lives in Southern Ontario. He is a lover of people and a collector of stories, music, wisdom, and grandchildren. His raison d’etre? “I’m one of those people who believe that if my work serves the common good, it will last; if not, it will die with me. As a freelancer – including ten years as a Torstar columnist – I still believe that’s true.” His book, ‘The Music In Me’ (2013) Friesen Press is also available via Indigo / Chapters.

Blog / Website: www.fredparry.ca

 

 

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Meet Your Characters https://lifeasahuman.com/2021/arts-culture/on-writing/writing-fiction/meet-your-characters/ https://lifeasahuman.com/2021/arts-culture/on-writing/writing-fiction/meet-your-characters/#respond Fri, 23 Apr 2021 11:00:25 +0000 https://lifeasahuman.com/?p=401968&preview=true&preview_id=401968 Some of the greatest writers use the process in this article to an extent. The late Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison wrote in the Forward of her novel Beloved that she had seen the character of Beloved before bringing her to life on the page. Morrison wrote that “She walked out of the water, climbed the rocks, and leaned against the gazebo. Nice hat.”

Before I begin writing or formulating a scenario from which the story begins (the inciting incident), I dedicate hours thinking about who the characters are. I like to think of characters as people who lived entire lives or some variation of it if they’re young. I meet my characters right before the inciting incident to see them as they are, unchanged. This has helped me kick-start countless stories and, by the end of this article, you will be able to apply this process as well!

Location

Perhaps the most important element in this process is the location in which you choose to meet your characters. Some of my characters are trapped in places they cannot escape. I never meet them in those places—dejected places that put unnecessary stress on the mind.

Instead, I free the characters so that I might meet them as they were prior to the inciting incident. Neutral ground—outdoor restaurants patios or amongst the crowd on the Santa Monica pier—is where I prefer to meet my characters. Finding what places are most comfortable for you and your characters is essential. If your comfort place is a cabin in the woods, coated with snow, then take your character and yourself there; if it’s a gloomy 16th-century castle or deserted island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, then to each their own. But make sure your characters are also comfortable because they are people too and, sometimes, they are dissimilar to us. Make sure the place is not too overtly distracting either, as you need your character’s full, undivided attention and vice versa. Once the neutral ground is established, you and your characters will be relaxed and open enough to chat.

Things to Ask when Talking with Your Characters

Before jumping into what to say, I’d like to stress that you should try to avoid speaking with more than a single character at a time. Unless, of course, your mind is trained enough to speak with more, you should avoid mental strain as much as possible. This process could be hugely rewarding if you think of it as a form of meditation and try to have fun with it.

Okay, so you have the best possible neutral location in which you and your characters can freely discuss birth, death, and everything in between. Now what? Well, now the fun begins.

But hold on, you might be thinking, what if we have nothing to say to one another? What if it’s awkward?

Not to worry. Whether a character does or does not speak with you demonstrates who they are as people. Note your character’s gait if you two are walking. Is your character a fast or slow talker? Make note of what diction they employ. What about their posture if you two are seated somewhere? Does your character slouch or are they as stiff and upright as a white picket fence? These are the questions I ask myself before asking my characters anything.

Toni Morrison, in the above quote, said, “Nice hat,” when she saw Beloved because she noticed her nice hat. It could be as simple as that.

If your character is awkward speaking with you that says something about them as much as it says about you. I believe that we learn more about ourselves through the characters we create and meeting them in our heads before the story begins is like meeting a piece within us we didn’t know we had. And when you do begin to write, you’ll feel as though the character for which you are writing is familiar and you’ll greet them like a friend you haven’t met with in a while.

Photo Credit

Photo by Tom Miller on Flickr – Some Rights Reserved


Guest Author Bio
Rygell Arana

Rygell P. K. Arana is a part-time freelance writer based in Los Angeles, CA, and a full-time stay-at-home father. He covers a wide range of topics ranging from politics to sociology and is determined to share, inspire, and educate others. He writes hoping to inspire others to share their light with the world.

Blog / Website: Rygell Patrick Kumar Arana

 

 

 

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How to Kickstart Your Creative Process into Gear https://lifeasahuman.com/2020/arts-culture/on-writing/how-to-kickstart-your-creative-process-into-gear/ https://lifeasahuman.com/2020/arts-culture/on-writing/how-to-kickstart-your-creative-process-into-gear/#respond Fri, 03 Apr 2020 22:00:22 +0000 https://lifeasahuman.com/?p=399967 We all find ourselves with a lot of time on our hands at the moment.

There are those out there who are using this unique time to get creative. There are also those out there that are using this time to watch Netflix. But the two activities needn’t be mutually exclusive.

You might have decided you will use this time to finish that half-finished screenplay that’s been sitting on your desktop for a year. Or you might want to use this time to start the screenplay you’ve always wanted to write.

But how can you make this practical? What can you actually do to get the creative process started? And how you can you turn ideas you have whilst watching Netflix into a reality?

Let’s take a look at some tips and tricks for kicking the creative process into gear:

1 – Watch Films/TV That Inspire You Rather Than Just Inform You

What are those films/TV shows that really light up your imagination? Do you ever find yourself drawn back to a film or specific series episode but can’t quite put your finger on why?

It might be tempting to constantly resort to binging the latest docu-series. But make sure you’re not getting complacent with your viewing habits. Are you watching films/series that get your creative juices flowing? Of course, it’s important to have a balance of both. But make sure that you’re giving yourself a healthy diet of stories that relax and entertain you and stories that inspire and provoke you.

It’s worth sitting down to analyze why you love your favorite film or TV show.

  • What are the themes? Why might they speak to you?
  • What is the style? Why might that speak to you?
  • Who are the main characters? What is it about them that you like or relate to?

By getting to the root of why you like something you will help kickstart your own creative process.

  • What are the themes you want to talk about?
  • What is the style that most reflects you?
  • Who are the kinds of characters you want to represent?

2. Try Free-Writing Loglines

Don’t overthink it at this stage. Just put pen to paper (or more likely fingers to keyboards). A great way to get fully into the creative process is to just go with the flow.

However, writing loglines is a way of keeping that flow relatively focused and ordered.

  • A logline is a concise and striking summary of your screenplay in one or two sentences.
  • It describes the main purpose of your story and makes perfectly clear what the goal of the protagonist is and the stakes of reaching that goal are.

For example, the logline of Booksmart is: ‘On the eve of their high school graduation, two academic superstars and best friends realize they should have worked less and played more. Determined not to fall short of their peers, the girls try to cram four years of fun into one night.’

So brainstorm some ideas with these rules in mind. What is the setting, protagonist, goal and stakes? These don’t have to be perfect at this stage. But by getting ideas down on the page you will have well and truly kickstarted the creative process.

Furthermore, you’ll be able to see what sticks and what doesn’t. You might have a page full of ideas that leave you feeling cold. Or there might be a diamond in the rough there, that idea that you feel you can expand on and start developing.

3. Surround Yourself With Research but Find the Characters

Is there a particular subject you want to explore? A certain historical time period that fascinates you? Researching such things is a great way to get into your creative process.

The motivation of research is a great way of surrounding yourself with inspiration. So you love Roman history? You could delve into countless books on the time period, countless movies, countless pieces of art and academic research. The opportunity to fully immerse in this world is definitely there. By making it come to life in your imagination you might be more likely to come across the story you want to tell.

What’s important, however, is to always look for who the protagonist in this world and story will be. Having a clear and detailed picture of a time period or subject is a great asset. But it will mean nothing unless there is a convincing and captivating character leading the audience through this time period or subject.

Try and think of these two aspects as separate elements that need to be brought together. Develop the idea of who you want your character to be and what their main motivation will be. Then plunge them into the world/subject matter you want.

Sometimes a protagonist will scream out from a particular subject matter or time period (a famous character or someone at the forefront of a subject, for example). Sometimes you’ll have to work hard to find that all-important guide for your story.

Conclusion

There’s no official way to kickstart your creative process. Everyone is different and sometimes finding what works for you is almost as difficult as doing the actual creative bit.

But easing yourself in, with techniques such as the above, can be vital. Don’t start your creative process with a jolt but embed yourself in a way of thinking. A way of thinking that can unfold over time. Time spent embedding yourself in the right creative process will be time saved on the other end of your screenplay.

 

Photo Credit

Image by Lukas Bieri from Pixabay


Guest Author Bio
James Robert

James Robert is a content writer for Industrial Scripts. Founded in 2010 by a former Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures script consultant, today Industrial Scripts is one of the world’s leading script development companies. With over 1,000 verified testimonials, we deliver superior support to writers and filmmakers from around the world, while our online and offline training courses educate and inspire. Finally, our popular blog – Character Driven – informs and entertains.

 

 

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Breaking Silence: Part 6.025 https://lifeasahuman.com/2018/mind-spirit/breaking-silence-part-6-025/ https://lifeasahuman.com/2018/mind-spirit/breaking-silence-part-6-025/#respond Tue, 30 Oct 2018 11:00:12 +0000 https://lifeasahuman.com?p=396717&preview=true&preview_id=396717 I admit feeling quite vulnerable now: This thing called life, when truly examined … it’s difficult to describe the sense that what we thought we were, what we have been conditioned to believe as ‘our identity’, through nature and nurture both, when it begins to fall away through self examination … how utterly exposed and vulnerable it can make one feel. Especially as it feels as if we are running down time, as it speeds ever faster into infinity.

Mary Rose trainingI feel compelled to write again: About the fact that the peeling away of the layers of us – all that might have served (artificial?) purposes – the ‘we must do such and such in order to ‘be a successful part of it” – is nothing short of a double edged sword.

It feels, at once, like an exciting unfolding of something new and real and original and innocent – like a return to that which we loved and were before the conditioning algorithms of ‘this is what you should be in order to be liked, worthy, successful, etc’ – but it also feels like … it’s as if the ‘knowing yourself’ thing goes hand in hand with a willful self-exclusion from everything comfortable, familiar, and reliably ‘safe’ … that one is imposing the suffering and exclusion that comes with ‘separating oneself from one’s programmed identity’, and therefore, responsible for all that follows (even if it’s something as simple as choosing not to be a part of social media … or something as complex as choosing to believe that one can heal all dis-ease within oneself, by having the courage to continually understand that one’s adopted and learned identifying parameters are NOT the definitive be all, end all of who one truly is.)

Regarding everything from how to meditate, how to eat, how to live, how to be successful, how to be happy, to social media, and regarding the possibility that we can take responsibility for ourselves, instead of existing in a kind of ‘someone else will do it; someone else must validate/see me’ mentality, the choice to not accept the parameters of impossible expectations – to be ourselves, but ‘not that way’ – ironically, brings out True Exposure of Self.

The irony has a metallic taste, and it can make us feel as if we are being pitted against ourselves. Blame, shame, game; what’s your name?

In a world obsessed with definitions and titles and appearances, who are we? Who are we when no one’s watching?

When we choose to know ourselves, truly and with stoicism, persistence, gratitude and confidence, the old conditioning fights harder to win us over. It’s voice becomes louder and more insistent: That we can’t ‘win’ at life if we choose not to ‘play’ within the impossible parameters established for us. And what kind of regular person would have the audacity to think their way of being is better than ‘the norm/popular/established way’?

Who are we when no one is watching?

What ambiguity lives in the mystery. What strength we must summon to stand up to the lies of convenience.

In short, it’s not all flowers and sunshine. Which is why I am going to go outside and absorb the flowers and sunshine prior to writing more.

Because this process … it requires a kind of confidence and fortitude which I admit, does not come easily to me. And I feel the need to apologize if I have ever made it seem as if it’s as easy as hitting an easy button.

I take comfort in having sounding boards and support. Thank you to those who feel me.

I also take comfort in the natural things because they are like I wish to be, underneath this ineffable, flowering process. They just are. They don’t even have the ability to need or ask to be anything other than what they are. The sun doesn’t care if we choose to feel its warmth on our skin, and the flowers don’t care if we see their beauty or taste their lovely aromas. To even personify such things with qualities we humans cling to .. it puts things into perspective. And as the layers peel off, we need that. Like air. Because this process .. it’s one of the most difficult things to put into words, because it’s the same and different for every single one of us.

It’s lonely bloomin’ into an only human.

Doctored Agents of Change, Dr. Strange patience yield; repeat cycle bargaining, to find more truth revealed.

Repeat pattern comforts the habit’s caress, to heal what’s been found in our own only-ness.

One. Life. As a human.

Photo Credit

Photo courtesy of Mary Rose  – All Rights Reserved

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A No-BS Tour of Modern Publishing Part 4 – The traditional industry: the bookstores (and distributors) https://lifeasahuman.com/2016/arts-culture/on-writing/a-no-bs-tour-of-modern-publishing-part-4-the-traditional-industry-the-bookstores-and-distributors/ https://lifeasahuman.com/2016/arts-culture/on-writing/a-no-bs-tour-of-modern-publishing-part-4-the-traditional-industry-the-bookstores-and-distributors/#respond Wed, 12 Oct 2016 11:00:18 +0000 http://lifeasahuman.com/?p=391360 When I started my own publishing company, I had the chance to sit down with the owner of the largest science fiction publisher in Canada. We talked about a lot of the arcane details of publishing, but most of our discussion was on how to drive sales. His strongest bit of advice was this:

“You know what the best way is to sell your books? Have them on bookstore shelves.”

Book StoreIn recent years much has been made of the rise of Amazon, ebooks and online shopping in general, and the death of the bookstore has been heralded as imminent. The disappearance of Borders, a national US bookstore chain, in 2011 certainly seemed to support this claim. Indie bookstores across North America come and go, and while some shut down others open. The fundamentals of the market are shaky these days, however, and a couple of recent articles by the NY Times and Shelf Awareness provide further insights.

There are several national bookstore chains left in North America, with Barnes & Noble leading the American market and Chapters-Indigo dominating in Canada. Both of these chains have started offering a much wider variety of non-book products in their stores, to the point where a shopper often has to walk past several aisles of candles, throw pillows and picture frames just to get to the books. These non-book products are much more profitable to sell, and their increasing presence in your local B&N or Chapters suggests that book-selling is not as profitable a business as it used to be.

In my previous article I talked about how the financial risk of producing a new book rests entirely on the publisher. This is exacerbated by the ability of bookstores to return books. A bookstore will place its order for new titles and, eventually, pay for them – but if that title doesn’t sell off the bookstore shelf, the bookstore can return the book to the publisher and get full credit. Publishers and bookstores play a continuing, monthly dance of new sales versus old returns and the cost is ultimately carried by the publisher. It might not sound so bad, until you consider that the publisher has to pay to print enough books to fulfill initial orders – if 40% of those books are ultimately going to be returned, that’s a lot of “old” books sitting in the warehouse.

But surely the publisher could then just turn around and sell those returned books to someone else. No, generally, because bookstores aren’t interested in books that have already launched. A title will be pitched to bookstores about four months prior to launch – and that’s it. Unless it wins an award, gets made into a movie or has some other extraordinary post-launch success, it will never again be pitched to stores. It will go onto the publisher’s backlist to quietly die.

(As an author and a publisher I personally disagree with this mentality, but my purpose here is to reveal the no-BS truths of our industry.)

Another important aspect to be aware of in the book-selling industry is the role of the distributors. These are companies which effectively act as middlemen between stores and publishers. The people in bookstores are hard-working, harried folks and it is too time-consuming for them to meet with a sales rep from every single publisher. Publishers, likewise, are hard-working, harried folks who rarely have the resources to meet personally with every single bookstore. Distributors solve this problem. Each distributor will represent hundreds of publishers and will have regional sales reps who visit the stores to present titles en masse. Distributors will also warehouse the books for publishers and fulfill orders to bookstores. It’s an efficiency born of necessity that helps both publishers and stores.

But it doesn’t really help any individual title. Each publisher will have what is effectively a sales pitch session with their distributor, trying to convince the distributor why their titles should be well-represented to stores. The distributor, though, has to present thousands of titles (from their hundreds of publishers) and no sales rep can possibly give full energy to each. So the distributor picks its favourites and ultimately only a small percentage of the total list of titles is actively sold to the stores. It’s a question of numbers, and no one is really “to blame” for this – but it does threaten the chances of success for any particular title.

The Big Five publishers have their own sales forces and distribution facilities, but even here the same problem emerges. A Big Five publisher has thousands of titles per year they’re publishing – their own sales force can’t possibly know every title and represent them well. So internally each editor has to do a sales pitch to the sales team, and the reps will choose only those titles which they think they can make money selling. It’s the same process, just internalized to a single company. This is important for an aspiring author to understand: just because you’ve signed with one of the Big Five doesn’t mean that your book is going to get the publisher’s sales team’s full attention. In fact, you’re now competing directly against best-selling authors for the attention of the sales team.

Despite this seedy underbelly of the sales process, none of this means that bookstores are bad. They’re not – they’re great! Any book lover can happily spend time in a real “bricks-and-mortar” bookstore and the ability to just browse the shelves until something catches your eye is a very pleasant method of buying which cannot be replicated online. As a publisher I still want my books to be on bookstore shelves, and I still endure the significant resource drain to make every effort to get my titles there. I want my titles to be on the shelf and ready for the book lover to discover them.

But it’s a tough business, for publishers, for distributors and for bookstores. All of us basically play the averages, knowing that a handful of titles are going to sell well and pay for all the other titles that don’t. That’s business, and that’s how the traditional system is built.

Does it effectively serve any particular, individual title? Not particularly. This tension between what’s best for the company (be it publisher, distributor or bookstore) and what’s best for the author is the great challenge we face in publishing today.

I recommend that anyone interested in learning more about bookstores, and Barnes & Noble in particular, read this recent article by Mike Shatzkin at The Idea Logical Company.

Photo Credit

Photo is pixabay Public Domain

 

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A No-BS Tour of Modern Publishing Part III – The Traditional Industry: The Publishers https://lifeasahuman.com/2016/arts-culture/on-writing/a-no-bs-tour-of-modern-publishing-part-iii-the-traditional-industry-the-publishers/ https://lifeasahuman.com/2016/arts-culture/on-writing/a-no-bs-tour-of-modern-publishing-part-iii-the-traditional-industry-the-publishers/#comments Fri, 09 Sep 2016 11:00:48 +0000 http://lifeasahuman.com/?p=391081 The Good CompanionMany authors feel that the only “real” way to publish is to go through the well-established method of querying an agent, having your agent pitch to publishing houses, and then signing a deal where the author pays nothing and gets an advance from the publisher. This is called “traditional” publishing – or trade publishing for short. In this article I’d like to give some idea of what this industry really looks like from the inside.

Note: I’ll be focusing on the North American traditional publishing world as it’s where I work and what I’m most intimately familiar with. This article will talk about the publishing side of things; the next article will talk about the bookstores.

First of all, as the CEO of a small press, Promontory Press, let me explain what the traditional publishing model is from the publisher’s point of view. This is how it works:

  1. I pay you, the author, money up front for your IP (the manuscript);
  2. I pay a bunch of talented folks to edit, design and otherwise get this book ready for market;
  3. I pay to prepare an amazing sales pitch to either my distributor (for the big American bookstores) or to the book buyers themselves (here in Canada) and to independent bookstores. Note: the chances of any particular title on my list (such as yours) actually getting picked up for a major, nation-wide buy is slim at best despite all my efforts as publisher to make it irresistible;
  4. I pay to print the book and ship it to all the places who want to sell it;
  5. I pay to market the book in various ways;
  6. four months after the book launches, bookstores will start to actually pay me for the books they’ve bought, less their 40-65% discount. BUT bookstores have the right to return, for full credit and at any time, any books of mine which haven’t been sold to customers.

So it’s a lot of money up front, and the only path for revenue starts to pay between twelve and twenty-four months after I’ve signed you, and those revenues are unreliable at best.

What a stupid business model!

But that’s how traditional publishing works. And woe be to anyone who suggests to the establishment that maybe we should re-think some practices. That’s the way it’s always been, and damn your eyes if you think it’s going to change! (More on this when I talk about self-publishing and hybrid publishing in later articles.)

I hope this enlightens you as to why publishers operate the way we do. Every time we sign a new book we’re committing ourselves to considerable financial risk. So when we look at submissions, we’re of course looking for excellent writing, but just as important we’re looking for a book which we think we can make enough money selling to at least cover our risk (to say nothing of making a profit). Call it cold and hard, but if publishers don’t make money they go out of business, and then they don’t publish anything anymore.

The North American traditional publishing industry is dominated by the Big Five. These are New York-based publishing groups which together control about 80% of trade publishing sales. They are:

  • Penguin Random House
  • Harper Collins
  • Macmillan
  • Simon and Schuster
  • Hachette

All of them have multiple publishing imprints – for example, you as an author may sign with the publisher Morrow, but Morrow is just a division of Harper Collins – and most publisher names you might recognize are just small components of the Big Five. Each of the Big Five is in turn owned by a larger business group, many of which are actually based in Europe, and none of the Big Five represent the majority of sales for their parent company.

You will definitely need an agent if you want to deal with these publishers. Each company produces between 1000 and 15000 new titles a year, so there’s plenty of opportunity for authors, but keep in mind that you’re competing against thousands and thousands of other aspiring authors, plus thousands of established authors.

The Big Five bring with them the clear advantages of dominant market share, powerful lobbying abilities, and vast pots of money to throw at books they want to support. Most best-selling authors come from the Big Five. For an excellent summary of the current (and shaky) financial positions of the Big Five, please have a look at this recent article by Thad McIlroy at The Future of Publishing.

As almost (but not really) a side note, Amazon is considered the Great Satan by the traditional publishing industry. And Amazon is now doing its own traditional publishing through its imprint Thomas & Mercer. We might need to talk about The Big Six before too long.

Beyond the Big Five, there are hundreds of small presses and micro presses. They can produce anywhere from one to a few hundred new titles each year, and many specialize in their favourite niche or genre, so be sure to research this before submitting your manuscript to them. Small presses often deal directly with authors, but agented submissions are also usually welcome. Small presses pay much smaller advances than the Big Five, so agents aren’t always interested in dealing with small presses as they get a percentage of whatever advance they negotiate for their author.

Small presses can be advantageous for a new author as it is marginally easier than with the Big Five to get your manuscript reviewed. Another advantage is the care and effort a small press will put behind its titles; it only does a small number each year, and the likelihood of a blockbuster is slim, so the publisher needs to ensure that every book does at least reasonably well in sales. However, small presses have much less access to major bookstore shelves and cannot afford (or even execute) huge marketing campaigns.

It’s pretty clear that the traditional publishing industry is in trouble. Sales are mostly flat, there are a lot of mergers going on, and with the rise of online selling and ebooks, the traditional sales routes (i.e, through bookstores) have been seriously disrupted. Self-publishing, although derided as “vanity publishing” by most trade professionals, is also becoming a noticeable threat because traditional books now have a much larger field of competition online, stunting sales growth online even as traditional bookstores are reducing their orders (more on that next time).

Traditional publishing still has a lot of things going for it, the most significant being a solid guarantee of quality for every book it produces, but it is an industry in trouble. It needs to change, and if it changes properly it can be to the benefit of the publishers, the authors, and the readers. Time will tell.

 

Photo Credit

Photo is pixabay public domain

 

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A No-BS Tour of Modern Publishing Part II – Making sense of the lingo https://lifeasahuman.com/2016/arts-culture/on-writing/a-no-bs-tour-of-modern-publishing-part-ii-making-sense-of-the-lingo/ https://lifeasahuman.com/2016/arts-culture/on-writing/a-no-bs-tour-of-modern-publishing-part-ii-making-sense-of-the-lingo/#comments Wed, 10 Aug 2016 22:18:33 +0000 http://lifeasahuman.com/?p=390830 Publishing PressOne of the biggest challenges an author faces in today’s publishing landscape is just trying to understand what’s what. Taking money from authors has become a billion-dollar business in the past ten years, and there are all kinds of terms floating around out there. As authors unravel one scam after another, the charlatans and pirates are forced to repackage their scams with fancy new terms.

But to make matters much more complicated, not everyone out there charging money is a scammer. Many of them offer legitimate, valuable services which authors are well-advised to consider. Even those authors dead-set on traditional publishing.

So which is which? And what’s what? This article is going to attempt to offer some clarity.

Traditional publishing:

Also known as “trade” publishing, this is the old-school method of getting books to market – it hasn’t changed much since it was established in Edwardian times. The publisher pays for all the production and distribution costs and in return owns the rights to the book and keeps 90% of the revenue. The author is usually paid an advance on royalties. The publisher will have a sales team who actively sell the book to bookstores and they will probably have a marketing team who will promote the book in the month leading up to launch.

The publisher carries all the financial risk and is motivated to sell as many books as possible in order to make money.

The strengths of this model are:

  1. Books are rigorously curated, usually ensuring that the quality of writing is very high;
  2. There is a team of professionals working hard to ensure that the book is excellent in all aspects;
  3. The publishers have the best access to bricks-and-mortar bookstores and other major distribution channels;
  4. The author gets paid for his/her book and does not have to contribute financially to the project.

The weaknesses of this model are:

  1. It is very hard to get in – bordering on impossible for an unknown, first-time author;
  2. It is driven fundamentally by economics, not art, making it very difficult for unusual or ground-breaking books to get accepted;
  3. It is utterly dominated (in North America, at least) by the Big Five publishers in New York;
  4. Each book has only one shot at the market – if it fails, it is relegated to the backlist and forgotten.

Examples of traditional publishers are Harper Collins (one of the Big Five) or my own Promontory Press (a small press).

Self-publishing:

This is a relatively new way to publish books, brought about mainly through the development of three key technologies: print-on-demand (POD) printing; ebooks; internet selling. In this model the author retains all rights to the book and pays a self-publishing company to do many of the things a trade publisher would do. The self-publishing company will “publish” the book – although in reality, it will merely list the book on bookstore and distribution databases. It is important to note that a self-publishing company has no sales team or marketing team and they will make no effort to pitch or promote the book to bookstores.

The author carries all the financial risk. The self-publishing company makes all its revenue from the fees authors pay up front and has no stake in the ultimate success of the book. Because of this, there is no quality control by the self-publishing company – their business model is based entirely on quantity, not quality.

The strengths of this model are:

  1. The author retains full control over the final form of the book;
  2. The author retains all rights to the book;
  3. The author receives a high percentage of revenue from sales;
  4. There are no barriers to entry beyond cost.

The weaknesses of this model are:

  1. There is no quality control – this industry has justifiably earned a reputation for producing junk – and therefore it is harder for an author to be taken seriously in the market;
  2. There are a lot of false promises made to uninformed authors;
  3. There can be a great deal of “opaqueness” and the author can struggle to know what’s actually happening with the book;
  4. There is no access to bricks-and-mortar bookstores.

Examples of self-publishing companies are AuthorHouse and Tellwell.

Hybrid publishing:

This is a middle-ground method of publishing, trying to take the best elements of trade and self-publishing and create a new way. There are very few true hybrid publishers, and it can be difficult to distinguish them from self-publishers who cloak themselves in names like “partner publishing” or “assisted publishing.”

The author and publisher both make a financial contribution to a hybrid project and share the revenues more equally than in trade publishing. The publisher has the same sales and distribution access to bookstores as a trade publisher, and they will have a sales-and-marketing team dedicated to supporting each book.

The financial risk is shared between author and publisher. Both parties are dedicated to selling as many books as possible in order to make money. The publisher does not profit from author fees – rather, anything an author pays goes toward producing and distributing the book.

The strengths of this model are:

  1. Books are curated for quality, usually ensuring that the quality of writing is high;
  2. There is a team of professionals working hard to ensure that the book is excellent in all aspects;
  3. The publishers have access to bricks-and-mortar bookstores and other major distribution channels (but often not as good as trade publishers);
  4. It is more accessible for new authors than trade publishing;
  5. The publisher will usually promote a book longer than a trade publisher will.

The weaknesses of this model are:

  1. The author usually makes a financial contribution to the production of the book;
  2. It can be very hard to determine from the outside whether a publisher is truly a hybrid or just a self-publisher in hybrid clothing;
  3. The author will have to do much of the marketing after launch;
  4. Some industry groups (such as major awards and grant-giving organizations) consider hybrid to be self-publishing and do not recognize it as legitimate.

Examples of hybrid publishers are She Writes Press and BQB Publishing.

(Full disclosure: Promontory Press has done some hybrid contracts in the past in addition to our traditional contracts.)

Author Services:

This is a recent industry trend which developed from the backlash against self-publishing companies. As authors become more informed and comfortable with the self-publishing landscape, there is less and less need for “hand-holding” by a self-publisher. Self-publishing is much easier for authors than it was even five years ago and there is a growing demand from authors for greater transparency and control over their books.

Author services are simply that: individual, tailored services offered for a price with no ongoing commitment to (or interference with) the project. There is no “publisher” besides the author. There are thousands of contractors who offer their paid services to authors (editors, cover designers and website designers are the most common) and in this landscape it is very much “buyer beware” for the author. Most contractors are honest and talented, as ultimately it is their reputations which will sustain their businesses in the long term.

The advantages of this model are:

  1. The author has complete control over every aspect of the book;
  2. There is more transparency than with self-publishing;
  3. The author can pick and choose exactly what services he or she wants;
  4. There is no “hard-selling” from a self-publishing company to buy more services.

The disadvantages of this model are:

  1. The author has to act as project manager of the book;
  2. The author has to be very discerning about which contractor is signed;
  3. The author carries all the financial risk;
  4. There is no access to bricks-and-mortar bookstores.

Examples of author service companies who provide a wide range of services are CreateSpace (owned by Amazon) and Cascadia Author Services.

Examples of distribution providers (for the author looking to publish without an intermediary) are Ingram Spark, Smashwords and Lulu.

 

Photo Credit

Photo is pixabay public domain

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A No-BS Tour of Modern Publishing Part I – Author Motivations https://lifeasahuman.com/2016/arts-culture/on-writing/a-no-bs-tour-of-modern-publishing-part-i-author-motivations/ https://lifeasahuman.com/2016/arts-culture/on-writing/a-no-bs-tour-of-modern-publishing-part-i-author-motivations/#comments Fri, 01 Jul 2016 11:00:54 +0000 http://lifeasahuman.com/?p=390408 The centre of all publishing is the author. Without the author, there is no art form. There are no manuscripts for agents to pitch, no covers for publishers to design, no books for stores to sell. Without the author, the publishing ecosystem would not exist.

So why is the author at the very bottom of the food chain?

Ghosts of WarIf you are an aspiring author, or are just musing on how you’d like to one day write a book – welcome. My name is Bennett R. Coles and I’m an author. I’ve been traditionally published through New York, I’ve self-published my way to awards, and I’ve even tried out that mysterious new “third way” of publishing, hybrid. I’m still active as an author through Titan Books, but I also happen to be the publisher at a small (but mighty) publishing house called Promontory Press. This dual role gives me a fairly unique perspective on the industry, but in my heart I’m always an author first.

So… you want to be an author. Awesome. The very first question I’m to ask you, though, is this: why?

There are plenty of valid reasons to want to be an author. Perhaps you’re an angst-ridden intellectual desperate to steer the collective will of the people toward a greater tomorrow. Perhaps you’re happiest when writing and nothing would give you greater pleasure than to share your words with the world. Perhaps you have a business which could benefit from having a companion book which can offer value to people over time and serve as a high-quality business card for you. Or, just perhaps, you’re naturally good at writing and you want to make a ton of cash from your skill-set, no matter what the genre or style. These are all good reasons to write, and all equally valid, no matter how different from each other they might be.

But, the approach to publication is very different for each one. Before you set out on a publication path, take some time to really ask yourself what motivates you. Are you an artist first, or do you just want to get rich? Is the book a means to an end for you, or is it the end itself? Most people will feel that they have a bit of everything in their motivations. I mean, who wouldn’t want to keep their artistic integrity while raking in bazillions of dollars in author royalties, proud of their book as an accomplishment all on its own while recognizing that it supports something greater. Sounds good to me!

Unfortunately, the reality of publishing rarely winds up being so generous. If you are an author who really has something to say – be it a political position or just a specific genre of fiction – you will likely find yourself fighting to even get your work read by publishers hungry for market success and wary of outliers. Likewise, if you’re just writing whatever the market demands for a bunch of cash, don’t hold out a lot of hope of winning any awards or changing the world.

What I’m trying to say here is this: before you even start to think about which publishing route to investigate, be honest with yourself about what really matters to you as an author. Here are some typical writing goals which you should weigh:

  • Money – would I still write if it paid almost nothing, or am I doing it to make serious money?
  • Fame – do I want to be mobbed at writing conventions, or would I rather remain unknown?
  • Validation – is it important that I be taken seriously as an artist, and if so, by whom?
  • Motivation – is writing this amazing thing I do that I love and draw great energy from, or is it more of a job?

Likewise, here are some skills which most modern authors need. Do an honest assessment of yourself for each, either at your current level or what you honestly think you could develop into:

  • Writing new and original stuff versus formula fiction, academic works or business writing;
  • Working with an editor and potentially seeing your book changed significantly;
  • Talking to strangers;
  • Being involved in social media;
  • Being able to actively sell yourself and your book;
  • Marketing savvy.

All of these skills are required by both the traditional and the self-published author – the only difference is degree.

In this series, A No-BS Tour of Modern Publishing, I’m going to explore the ins and outs of the publishing world, but I’m always going to bring it back to what it means for the author. As we move forward, I encourage you to really take some time and ask yourself the questions above. I’ll do everything I can to break down some publishing myths and provide some solid info, but in the end different authors (and their books) can be genuinely better-suited to traditional or self-publishing. The most honest you can be with yourself, the better chance you’ll make the best choice for your own career.

 

Photo Credits

Book Cover – By Bennett R. Coles – All Rights Reserved

Feature image – Wikimedia public domain

 

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