Word Wenches

Loretta Asks Why

           
     The way I do my job (inefficiently) leaves very little time for TV.  The last thing I want to do most evenings, after hours of staring at a computer screen, is look at any other screen.  And TV, by and large, is pretty awful.  Still, it doesn’t require any thinking, so it can be a great relaxer, and I do relax my brain on Friday nights, when my mate is elsewhere and the remote control is mine, mine, mine.
      This week, though, I had a little additional time to sit stupefied in front of the TV screen, and managed to catch a bit of the Actor’s Studio, a show that seems to be fairly popular with writers, among others.  The reasons for this seem obvious to me.  Actors become characters.  The process of becoming, of getting inside a character’s head, of finding his/her center and soul, is bound to fascinate those of us who spend most of the writing day doing precisely this.
      Funnily enough, the topic that got me thinking wasn’t about characterization.
      Dustin Hoffman was on the stage, and one of the segments I caught was about an interaction with Lawrence Olivier when they two were working on Marathon Man.  They were dining together when Mr. Hoffman asked the great actor, “Why?  Why do we do it?”  Sir Lawrence stood up, leaned across the table, getting in his face and said, “Look at me.  Look at me.  Look at me.”
      And I thought, yes, this is also one reason writers write.  George Orwell had a similar take on it.  He maintained that the writer is “driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.  For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention.”
      This is a good reason, though not the only one.
      I realized long ago, before I’d even completed a novel, that writing is a way of asserting control.  The real world is chaos.  On the page, though, the writer makes order.  The writer is a divinity, the beginning and end of all things.  It’s good to be queen of the world.  And yes, queens do get attention.  Well, some of them do, anyway.
      Writing, I ought to point out, is also among the top ten get-rich-slow schemes.
      Here are some interesting statistics from the Wall Street Journal of 29 August 2006:  “About 80% of the 1.2 million books tracked by Nielson BookScan in 2004 sold fewer than 99 copies and only 2% sold 5,000 or more copies.  The average book sells 500 copies.”
      Ah, yes, but the average aspiring author isn’t aware of these nasty facts of life.  I certainly wasn’t.  I imagined that once my first book was published, fame and fortune would follow as naturally and swiftly as winter follows summer in New England (which is often on the same day).  Not that knowing the truth would have stopped me.  I was writing fiction and poetry in the third grade, if not sooner, so there was not a lot of reasoning going on, or meditating, “Why?”  I tried other things, as did the other Wenches (see frightening picture of me as a meter maid in Archives). I had jobs that offered a regular paycheck and benefits.  But in the end, the drive to be queen of a fictional world overcame all.
      Samuel Johnson said, “Sir, no man but a blockhead every wrote except for money.”  And Mark Twain seconded that opinion:  “Write without pay until somebody offers to pay; if nobody offers within three years, sawing wood is what you were intended for.”
      Ooh.  Harsh.
      But the writing life, like so many creative professions, is harsh.  The average writer is in the same position as the average actor.  Success is the exception.  Those who can earn a living at these professions are in the infinitesimally small minority.
      So, some might be inclined to ask “Why?”  I even understood the irritating young woman who wasn’t satisfied with the Lawrence Olivier answer, and asked Mr. Hoffman “Why?”  I think she wanted a more profound answer, maybe something about understanding human nature, or bringing enlightenment to the benighted or something Really Important.
      I missed Mr. Hoffman’s answer.  But I did catch the part when he said if he hadn’t got the big break he would still be doing it, in one way or another.
      So maybe we do it because it’s simply part of who we are, part of the internal wiring?
      What do you think?

More on Corsets

From Loretta:

I thought this late comment from Ingrid was so interesting that it needed to be brought up front for your perusal:

"I've only just discovered this blog and was reading back. I can't
resist making a very late comment, even though no one will read it.
I just wanted to say that it's perfectly possible to raise your arms
above your head without lifting your shoulders, you just can't have
your arms skimming your ears. The method is taught all over the world in ballet classes. Just look at a photograph of a ballet dancer (male or female) with one or two arms above his or her head, the shoulders
are never raised. Ballet teachers also like to explain posture by telling pupils to imagine themselves wearing a corset. One aspect of this is bringing your breastbone forward and up, and your shoulder blades together, which is exactly what the 18th-century corset does."

As soon as I have another six or ten cups of coffee, we will return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Hard or soft?

From Mary Jo

A Wenchling has asked how books come to be published in hardcover, mass market paperback, or that midpoint format, the trade paperback.  Since this is publishing, the answer isn’t simple.  The kind of book, the genre, the author, and the publisher are all part of the equation. 

In the broadest sense, the choices are made from marketing considerations.  Or to put it in bottom line terms, publishers put the books out in the formats they hope will make them the most money, which is perfectly sensible. 

There’s a direct relationship between price point and profit margin:  the more expensive the book, the more the publisher makes per copy, but the fewer copies are likely to be sold.  A mass market original will make less profit per book, but should sell lots more copies—unless the author is a big bestseller and a zillion people will buy her in hardcover.  A paperback author who sells well will generally be moved into hardcover eventually. 

Sometimes thrillers with a lot of potential will be published in hardcover and take off like a rocket, but romance is overwhelmingly a mass market genre.  A lot of romance readers like to own their books, and they read a lot.  Women also tend to earn less money than men do, and they can buy four or five paperbacks for the cost of one hardcover.  Not only can a reader buy more books, but she’s risking less if she tries a new author and doesn’t love the work.  The average woman will think once, twice, thrice, before buying a $25 hardcover by a new author even if it’s heavily recommended. 

So why are my books in hardcover?  Truthfully, it’s something of a fluke.  When I moved to Ballantine ten years ago, the new head of the romance program wanted to make a splash, so she came up with the idea of doing a little hardcover sized to fit into a mass market book rack.  The idea got lots of publicity, and as the launch book, my story, One Perfect Rose, made the New York Times and Wall Street Journal hardcover bestseller lists.  Yay, team!

But little hardcovers never because a standard format because they cost almost as much as a full sized hardcover (lovely paper and binding), but it wasn’t possible to charge as much money for them.  Ballantine did only four books in that format.  They generated publicity, but were never became a standard type.

Still, my books remained in hardcover.  A fair number of copies are bought by libraries, and enough dedicated readers are willing to spring for the higher price to make the format profitable for the publisher. 

Did my content or quality change when I went from mass market original to hardcover?  Not that I noticed.  The day may come when my publisher decides my book will work better as mass market originals, and that’s okay.  There are bestselling romance authors who have moved into mainstream and still write both paperback originals and hardcovers.  As I said above, it depends on the book, the author, and the publisher.

What about the other genres?  Science fiction and fantasy has become more of a hardcover genre, probably because mass market retailers like supermarkets and general merchandise stores no longer stock much paperback sff.  The audience for such books is wide spread but not large, so the mass market retailers can make more selling backlist titles of mainstream bestsellers.  Small genres like sff, Westerns, and subgenres like traditional Regency have been squeezed out of the wholesale outlets. 

So sff sells well in hardcover, with a lot of copies going to libraries, and sff mass market paperback reprints are generally found in bookstores only. 

(Note: I’m making a lot of generalities here!) 

Mystery tends to be split between hardcover and paperback originals.  Again, libraries are huge customers of mysteries—they are one of the largest categories for circulation, I believer.  But a lot of mystery series are launched as mass market originals, too.  If they sell well, eventually they’re moved into hardcover. 

So what else comes out in hardcover?  Most non-fiction and “serious” fiction.  Traditionally, book review sources like the New York Times reviewed pretty much exclusively hardcovers.  The publisher might not sell a huge number of books in that format, but the title will end up in some libraries and if it gets good reviews to plaster on the cover, it should sell well in paperback later. 

So why are some books reprinted in paperback and others not?  Again, it comes down to what the publisher thinks will sell.  Some hardcovers are reprinted into the larger, more expensive trade format, especially if they are more literary in style. 

Hardcovers usually have larger type so they’re easier to read, and the production quality is better so the bindings should last longer and the pages won’t turn yellow before you get to the end of the book.  On the other hand, if you drop one in the bathtub, it makes quite a splash.

Trade paperbacks inhabit an interesting niche between hardcover and mass market.  The contents are more likely to be similar to a hardcover, and reviewers like Publishers Weekly review them side by side with hardcovers.  The paper and binding are good, but the price point is ten dollars or so lower than hardcover, which is quite appealing.  Thus a book like Susan Holloway Scott’s Duchess is in trade paper with an eye catching cover, and lots of people will buy it who might be put off by a hardcover price.  (Lots and LOTS!!!)  There are bestselling authors like Philippa Gregory who built an audience in trade and have now been moved into hardcover.               

Trade paper has been quite trendy in the last few years, and became the format of choice for chicklit and books that bridge the gap between mainstream and literary.  I have a historical romance writer friend who was moved into trade because of her beautifully crafted, rather literary prose.  She’s done well, too.

I’ve been in a couple of trade paperback books.  One was a collection of five of my Christmas stories, Christmas Revels, because the publisher felt like trying the format. A year later, it was reprinted in mass market.  The romantic sff anthology Irresistible Forces was in trade for two years before being reprinted in mass market this past January.  I have no idea if the books benefited by being in trade, but trade paperbacks are often kept on the shelves longer. 

As you might gather, choosing a format is as much art as science.  Me, I just write the books.  As long as they’re out there for my readers to enjoy, I’m fine.

Mary Jo, posting more recent hardcover, not that you haven't seen it before!