the big six – One Thousand And One Parsecs

2020-02-20 Newsletter Author’s Note: Thoughts on the History and Future of Science Fiction (Part 1)

This author’s note originally appeared in the February 20th edition of my newsletter. To sign up for my author newsletter, click here.

One of the projects I hope to get to someday is to make a podcast on the history of science fiction. I’m a huge fan of podcasts, and subscribe to almost 100 of them, and some of my favorites are history podcasts like Hardcore History, History of Rome, Revolutions, The Cold War: What We Saw, etc. At this point in my life, I don’t think it’s the right time to get into podcasting, but at some point in the next few years I’d really like to try my hand at it.

I have thought a lot about what this History of Science Fiction podcast would look like, though, and it’s led to some interesting thoughts about the future direction of the genre. Let me explain.

Modern science fiction began with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which laid the groundwork for just about everything else. Authors like Jules Verne and H.G. Wells picked up the torch, launching “scientific romance” as its own literary genre. Many of the conventions and tropes of science fiction were set during this era, which lasted from the 1820s through the early 1900s.

The next major era of science fiction was the era of the pulps, which experienced its heyday in the 1920s and 30s. The publishing innovations that had made the penny dreadfuls possible only a generation earlier now led to a proliferation of novels and short story magazines, opening up all sorts of opportunities for new writers.

This was the era of bug-eyed aliens and scantily-clothed damsels in distress, as frequently displayed in the cover art. Science fiction, mystery, western, adventure, and true crime stories were all mashed up together. Major names from this era include Edgar Rice Burroughs and Hugo Gernsback, who coined the term “scientifiction” to distinguish the stories that would later be called under the name “science fiction.”

The pulps laid the groundwork for the golden age, which lasted through the 40s and 50s. It was greatly influenced by John Campbell’s tenure as editor of Astounding Science Fiction, and the authors that he mentored. This was when science fiction really came into its own. Major authors from this era include Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, George Orwell, and Ray Bradbury.

The next major era was the New Wave, when authors like Ursula K. Le Guin, Michael Moorcock, Frank Herbert, and Phillip K. Dick broke out of the conventions established by Campbell and other golden age figures, experimenting with new styles and creating new tropes. This was when we began to distinguish between “hard” science fiction that revolved around the hard sciences like physics and math, and “soft” science fiction that revolved instead around things like political science and social studies. The political radicalism of the 60s and 70s also influenced the science fiction of this era.

At this point, most histories of science fiction point to an era called “cyberpunk” or “the digital age,” which emerged in the 80s and defines the period that we’re currently living through. However, I don’t think this is correct. Instead, I think that literary science fiction went through a dark age from the mid-80s to the late 00s, and only recently began to emerge from it. Let me explain.

In film, TV, and video games, the 80s and 90s were a golden age. For books, however, it was exactly the opposite. The rise of the big box stores like Borders and Barnes & Noble drove independent booksellers out of business, which caused many local distribution companies to collapse. This, in turn, led to a period of mergers and consolidation within the publishing industry, giving rise to the “big six”: Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin, Random House, and Simon & Schuster.

At the same time, the rise of the internet led to a massive and precipitous decline across newspapers and periodicals, including traditional short story magazines such as Analog and Asimov’s. Most of the science fiction magazines folded, unable to adapt their business models to the changing world. This would later change as podcasting and crowdfunding, but before those innovations would later revolutionize the industry, many considered short stories to be dead.

The effect of all of this was that literary science fiction entered a period of managed (and sometimes catastrophic) decline. As the publishing houses merged and consolidated, their offices all moved to New York City in order to pool talent and resources into one geographic center. However, this also led to problems like groupthink as publishing fell in an echo chamber.

Science fiction began to balkanize. The proliferation of cyberpunk, steampunk, deiselpunk, biopunk, and all the other _____punk subgenres is emblematic of this. Furthermore, as all of the major editors became caught up in the echo chambers of progressive, blue-state politics, they increasingly overlooked red state authors from “flyover country.” Baen, whose offices are in North Carolina, has never suffered from this, but Tor and the other New York publishers really have.

I think Orson Scott Card really bookends this period. In the 80s, he was the first author to win the Hugo and the Nebula in the same year. In the 00s, he was all but excommunicated from the canon for his allegedly homophobic views. Science fiction had transformed from the big tent genre of the 50s, 60s, and 70s to something so balkanized, elitist, and radical that “wrongthink” had unironically become a crime in the very genre that had invented the term.

And then indie publishing happened.

This author’s note is getting long, and there are other things (including writing) that I have to do today, so I’ll have to end on that note. I’ll follow up in my next newsletter with my thoughts on current trends in the science fiction genre, and where we’re heading from here. I think the 20s will see some massive creative destruction, but ultimately I’m hopeful that the best is yet to come. The dark age is over, and there’s never been a better time to be a reader—or a writer!

On Amazon, Hachette, and the future of books

I sincerely believe that this is the best time in the history of this planet to be a reader. There are so many great books coming out now–so many new authors who are writing stuff that is new and different and exciting. Because of the internet, it’s so much easier to find the book that you’re looking for. All the old barriers to distribution are coming down, so that authors from Australia or India or Japan are just as easy to find as authors from the US or the UK. Prices are coming down, too, and ebooks allow you to carry an entire library’s worth of books in a single device. Blogs and social media make it super easy to join book clubs, form fan communities, and connect with authors. It’s awesome.

I also believe that it’s the best time in the history of this planet to be a writer. The self-publishing revolution has thrown open the gates and made publishing as easy as clicking a button. Where before it was almost impossible to make a living, thousands if not tens of thousands of writers are quitting their day jobs and building lifelong careers, myself among them. We can write what we want, publish however we want, have as much creative control as we want–in other words, be in charge of our own business. And the terms of that business have never been better.

Before, our only hope of getting published was to sign away our rights, often for the life of copyright. Now, we can publish on every continent in the world and still retain all of our copyrights. Before, we were paid a pittance for our work, with payments and royalty statements that came late if they came at all. Now, we earn the lion’s share of the profit and get our payments every month like clockwork. No longer do we have to put up with publishers that infantalize us as tender, fragile “creative types” that need to be “nurtured.” We can build lucrative careers for ourselves with business partners who actually treat us with respect.

In fact, things have changed so much for the better that it makes you wonder how we put up with all that crap before. How many great books were never published because a slushpile reader never gave it a decent chance? How many writers gave up on themselves because of the crushing grindstone of rejection letters, or the nagging doubt that perhaps their writing was just unmarketable? How many unique and wonderful voices were whitewashed by revisions demanded from lazy agents or incompetent editors? How many promising careers were cut short because of the stupid mistakes of a publisher? How many authors resorted to suicide when the stress became too much to handle?

Make no mistake: the traditional big publishers are not doing anything to make things better for readers or for writers. In fact, to the extent that anything in the book world has changed, it’s in spite of the traditional big publishers. They have been dragged into this world kicking and screaming, conspiring illegally with Apple to raise book prices, collaborating with scammers like Author’s Solutions, clamping down on their authors with increasingly draconian contract terms and accusing Amazon–the company behind almost all of the innovation in the book world–with everything from destroying literature to taking over the world.

amazonhachette It’s in this context that one of the largest and most traditional publishers, Hachette Book Group, is now engaged in a nasty and increasingly public contract dispute with Amazon. The sturm und drang in the book world has been rising steadily, and with no resolution in sight, I expect that this tempest in a teacup will get a whole lot worse before it gets better.

From where I’m standing as a self-published author, it looks a lot more like an epic clash of daikaiju than a tempest in a teacup. The outcome will probably have an effect on my career, but there’s nothing I can do to affect it. Taking sides either way is more like joining a cheering section than doing anything constructive, so up to this point I’ve been content to follow it passively, without offering much in the way of commentary. However, that doesn’t mean that my position is neutral.

I’ve got to be honest–I hope that Amazon wins. Not because I self-publish through them, or because I’m in any way illusioned about them “being my friend.” I hope they win because I want to see Hachette get the bloody hell beat out of them.

In a world where disruptive technology has turned the publishing industry on its head, big traditional publishers like Hachette justify their existence by arguing that they serve as “curators” or “gatekeepers.” In other words, they claim to produce value by limiting reader choice, not expanding it, and preventing books from getting published, not from actually publishing them. They “defend literature” by obstructing it!

In fiction, the reader and the writer are the two most important players. Everyone else, from publishers to booksellers to agents to editors to distributors, is just a facilitator between the reader and the writer. Literature happens when a writer touches readers in a profound and enduring way. Anything that gets in the way between writers and readers is therefore a threat to literature. By putting up obstacles between the reader and the writer, Hachette is a far greater threat to literature than Amazon ever was.

Do I feel sorry for the Hachette authors that have been caught in the middle of this contract dispute? Yes–I feel sorry for them in the same way I feel sorry for a victim of domestic abuse. “He does so much for me,” “I’d be nothing without him,” and “he hurts me because he cares about me” are all variations of things that I’ve heard. Is it Amazon’s fault that Hachette’s authors are suffering, or does Hachette bear some of the blame? Remember, these authors have signed away almost all of their rights to their publisher, under terms and payment that pale before Amazon’s self-publishing platform.

So yeah, I hope that Amazon wins this fight. Or, more accurately, I hope that Hachette loses. I hope they get the living snot beat out of them. It may cause some pain for the authors that are married to Hachette, but Hachette is doing far more to hurt both readers and writers than Amazon ever has.

Thoughts on traditional vs. indie publishing

In case you didn’t know, the publishing industry is in the throes of a major revolution. With the growing popularity of e-books and the collapse of distribution channels and chain bookstores such as Borders, traditional business models are proving simply untenable.

I’ve been perusing several internet sources to make sense of all the craziness, among them Joe Konrath’s blog (a midlister who is now making six figures via ebooks), Writer Beware (which still emphasizes caution with self-publishing), the Adventures in Sci Fi Publishing podcast (which has recently started interviewing several successful indie authors), Dean Wesley Smith’s blog, and his wife Kristine Rusch’s series on the changing business of publishing (which I highly recommend–seriously, if you read nothing else, read this).

Some of these people predict the imminent collapse of the big publishers, and have selected (ironically enough) 2012 as the predicted date of the collapse. Others agree that many traditional publishers will collapse, but believe that most will survive and evolve into something different (the “dinosaurs evolved into birds” theory vs. the giant meteor). All of them agree, however, that whatever new form the publishing industry takes, ebooks will dominate.

For someone in my position–a budding author looking to break in in the next few years–all of this is simultaneously thrilling and unnerving. Should I venture into indie publishing and risk having my work lost in the flood? Or should I spend the next five years toiling endlessly to break into traditional publishing, only to see my rights get tied up in a bankruptcy?

Thus far, my strategy has been to a reputable agent, or a new agent at a reputable agency. I’ve been holding back from submitting directly to publishers, out of fear that getting rejected from publishers would make it difficult for an agent to do her job.

That was the orthodox model under the traditional system, when the big six (HBGUSA, HarperCollins, McMillan, Penguin, Random House, and Simon & Schuster) dominated the industry. For the time being, they still dominate, but I’m wondering whether it’s such a good idea to go with them.

The big six have been swallowing up independent presses and imprints for years, and as a result, they’re now major corporations. As such, they aren’t looking for moderate midlisters who sell consistently–those kinds of writers would drive them bankrupt. No, in order to support their corporate expenses (like multimillion dollar office space and executive bonuses), they need bestsellers like Stephen King or J.K. Rowling.

Trouble is, they often lose when they gamble on new writers, which means that the next bestseller needs to be even more spectacular than the first. And with the ebook revolution underway, they’re getting desperate.

Agent Kristin Nelson recently lambasted McMillan for claiming rights to all “derivative works” in their new boilerplate (a bad faith move comparable, IMO, with the worst scams on Writer Beware), while Kristine Rusch recently noted how the big publishers are becoming increasing hostile to new writers. Advances as low as $1,500, or single book only contracts, or nebulous clauses that ensure publishers keep ebook rights for decades, even with the author barely making $20 per year on royalties?

How am I ever going to make it full time in a business like this?

Well, according to Joe Konrath, every day my books aren’t up as indie published ebooks, I’m losing big money. His views are pretty extreme, but he makes a very compelling argument, especially for someone in my position. Yes, there will be a flood of crap, but good stuff inevitably rises to the top. Yes, sales start out slow, but that’s simply part of the new model–and they build over time. For a minimal investment of time and money, I could launch my books and start earning an income from them now.

But money (such as I may or may not make as an indie) isn’t everything in this business. At this point in my career, gaining prestige and making a name for myself is just as much if not more important than income. Granted, I can build some prestige through indie publishing if my books sell enough, but I don’t want to have to depend on that, especially if it takes years for sales to build.

For the science fiction and fantasy genres, the professional standard is set by SFWA, or the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America. In order to become a member, you have to have your work published in one of their approved markets.

Last night, I did some research on those publishers. Of those that specialize specifically in science fiction and fantasy, seven of them are affiliated with the big six (Tor, Ace, Baen, Bantam Spectra, Roc, Del Ray, and Orbit). Thirteen others are independent presses that might conceivably be interested in my work.

Now, just because a science fiction and fantasy imprint is affiliated with the big six doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea to submit to them. Tor, after all, is the undisputed king of the genre–the company has won the Hugo for “best publisher” every year since 1988. I also tend to think (though I have no data to support it) that the bad contracts are more common with mainstream fiction. Science fiction, after all, has always been small potatoes to the rest of the publishing world.

But precisely because science fiction is so small, I’m starting to wonder if it’s a bad idea to submit to agents first. Agents go where the money is–in LDS publishing, virtually every author is unagented. While there’s still a national market for science fiction, it’s definitely a small one, and all the agents I’ve found always tend to list it as an afterthought, focusing instead on YA/MG, thrillers, romance, or the ubiquitous “commercial fiction.”

In other words, I think that part of the reason agents have been so reluctant to pick me up, even after showing some interest, is that they just don’t see enough money to justify taking a risk on me. Granted, it may also be the quality of my work, but the bulk of the rejections I’ve accrued seem to point more to subjective factors, like the agent’s personal tastes (the ubiquitous “I don’t feel I’m the right agent for this work”).

Which is not to say that I don’t think it’s a good idea to get agent–not at all. Even Amanda Hocking, who has turned down several big publishing deals, has an agent.

No, what I’m saying is that in today’s market, it might be easier for a science fiction writer to attract an agent by getting picked up by a publisher, rather than attract a publisher by getting picked up by an agent.

And, of course, the only big reason to do any of this is to make a name for myself. At some point, I will go indie, even if only with a few of my works. The revolution has arrived, and I’d be a fool not to capitalize on it–the only question is when, and how.

(images from Postsecret)