BLOGTABLE: Impending Doom!

Welcome to this month's Blogtable! I'm Dean E.S. Richard, and I will be your host this month. For those of you who may not know me, I write (primarily) science fiction, including the 3024AD Short Stories and the short story 'Far', which you can read for free this week over at QuarterReads. I also love to drink and cook, and even venture outside to snowboard or kayak. Primarily, I am obnoxious on Twitter. But enough about me. Time to meet your respondents:

Respondent the First: SEAN E. WILLIAMS is the NEW YORK TIMES best selling writer of FAIREST: THE RETURN OF THE MAHARAJA for Vertigo, THE VAMPIRE DIARIES and SENSATION COMICS for DC Comics, ARTFUL DAGGERS for Monkeybrain Comics and IDW Publishing, and more. He co-founded the comics publishing company Comicker LLC, which launched with its Comicker Digital label in 2015. You can find him at seanewilliams.com, or on Twitter at @sean_e_williams. Comicker Digital can be found at ComickerDigital.com, or on Twitter at @ComickerLLC.

Respondent the Second: E. Catherine Tobler's fiction has appeared in Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, and SciFiction.  She was a Sturgeon Award nominee in 2013, and is currently senior editor at Shimmer Magazine. Her first novel, Rings of Anubis, is now available. For more visit www.ecatherine.com. Buy her book here.

Respondent the Third: Scott Whitmore Scott is an avid reader, and his most excellent review blog can be found here. He is just past what some may consider the midpoint of life (51 53), but likes to think he is still open-minded and (at least) partially aware of what’s going on in the world of pop culture. He has also written two three novels, his most recent being Green Zulu Five One. (ed: Update your blog bio, Scott)

In Which Dean Ponders the IMPENDING DOOM of publishing!

Prompt: Nearly any commentary on publishing these days reads like a 1950's science fiction movie poster. AMAZON! INDIE PRESS! INTERNET OUTRAGE! LACK OF DIVERSITY! Lost in that mess, it seems, is the fact that people actually read a lot. It's fairly safe to assume people will keep doing so. But in what fashion? Is there a way all the present options can coexist?

Those questions come with myriad options, so let's attempt to narrow them down for the purposes of this post:

1. With the massive variety of reading options out there (ebook stores, WattPad and the like, etc), is there a way to ensure the average reader will get a quality product, or does the medium benefit from a near-total lack of gatekeepers?

2. How, in said mess of options, can authors effectively reach and build an audience for their works?

To our respondents!

Sean: The lack of gatekeepers is a huge benefit in a lot of ways, as it allows for series that might not exist otherwise to reach the marketplace. For example, there's a large call for more diversity in YA fiction (well, in every storytelling medium), but publishers are slow to change their ways, partly because they don't know how well they'll sell, but also because they don't know how to market diverse titles.  I've seen this firsthand as a creator.  Luckily, the tide is starting to turn, like with a majority of the top-selling titles in Marvel's Buy-One-Get-One sale at comiXology being female-led series.  Things are getting better, and having an open marketplace showed that that was possible, and that it was needed.

As far as the quality question goes, readers know what they can expect quality-wise from larger publishers, such as DC or IDW.  It's something we're going for at Comicker as well.  But regardless of if it's self-published or published by the Big 2, user reviews are what people look to nowadays - either in comments, ratings, or via social media. If something's bad, people will let other people know.  It's the whole Yelp phenomenon - people will post a review if they don't like something, but they won't necessarily if they DO like it.  That's why I personally aim to only make recommendations via social media - there's so much negativity out there, I'd rather lift up the quality books than try to cut down books I don't enjoy as much.

One of the reasons I co-founded Comicker, and one of the reasons we launched with our Comicker Digital label, is because digital offers the biggest audience, and one that's growing. There are huge swaths of this country (and the world, in fact) that don't have a good comic shop or book store within driving distance, but tablets are becoming commonplace.  There's no shortage of readers out there, and from what I can see, there's no shortage of quality creators either.  There's room for everyone.

E. Catherine: "Quality product" can be defined in many ways, of course--what one reader finds to be quality, another may not. I would point anyone toward recent Hugo Award controversies as evidence of recent battles over quality, what does and does not "deserve" to have a place at the table. What one editor does not care for will find a home with another; the same is true of readers. What one person loves, another will loathe.

If gate-keepers are defined as editors and publishers, I don't think those are going to vanish any time soon, even among those who choose to self-publish. Certainly there are authors who won't bother, wanting to get their work into the market as soon as possible, but fortunately we live in an age of being able to read a sample before we purchase (oh gosh, we can do that in bookstores, too!), so readers can still determine if a work meets their own definition of quality before purchase.

If I knew the answer to the second question, about authors building and reaching an audience, I would surely be rich by now. I think audience attention is divided now more than ever--there's so much of everything. Video games and TV shows and movies and comics and tabletop games and apps and music. When everything and everyone is striving to be on top of the pile and have their voice be the loudest, it's overwhelming. I think authors have to trust that they will find their audience even if it takes a while. Love what you do, because that will come through in how you promote and speak of it to others.

Scott: I don’t think it is possible to *guarantee* readers get a quality product. First off, everyone has their own opinion on what constitutes quality. I dislike typos, but honestly if I’m paying $1-3 for an Indie author eBook I’m a lot more tolerant than I would be of a traditionally published eBook costing $10-15. As long as the story is good, I’ll give the benefit of the doubt to the Indie writer because I know what it’s like facing the choice of hiring an editor or paying your mortgage. (PS: I find typos in Trad Pub books all the time, too.)

The wide-open nature of the field these days certainly favors Indie writers. Anyone with a computer and a little knowledge can publish a book (eBook or paperback) and sell it on the web. Anyone lacking the computer and/or knowledge can hire someone with those things to publish a book for them. I’ve helped a couple people do it for free. Personally, I like that it has become easy for people to express themselves creatively.

Now, for readers this is a Good News/Not So Good News situation. There are many, many more books to choose from, some exploring topics previously ignored by Trad Pub (which usually focuses on playing it safe over being inventive) and this is Good. But having so many options can be overwhelming, paralyzing readers who just want to easily find a good book, and that is Not Good. Generally Indie books are much less expensive and that is Good. Stories that are poorly written or technical deficient, and there will be some (many?), are Not Good.

Now may be a good spot to discuss reviews. Ideally, reviews should help readers and writers equally, steering consumers to works they are likely to enjoy while letting substandard authors know they need to work harder. Unfortunately, we all know there is a lot of “gaming the system.” Recently, I’ve seen a surge in the number of websites offering glowing reviews for a fee, and I have been contacted a couple times by writers suggesting a “5-star swap” in which I praise their book and they praise mine. There are even books on how to set up “review circles” and create false personas for writing multiple reviews of the same book. Looking past these ethical lapses, even honest reviews from readers can be misleading and/or useless. My favorite is a one-star review of a novella featuring space ships on the cover: “Too much sci-fi.” One may wonder why the reviewer bought the book in the first place but the bottom line is the review tells me nothing about whether the book is worth my money. 

As to the second point, if I knew, I’d be driving a much sexier car than my 2007 Dodge (Ed: Yeah, right).

Ok, seriously, I think it starts with the writing. The cliché is “the cream rises to the top.” Your story must be compelling, inventive, exciting, mind-blowing, engaging, cool — pick an adjective. What comes next is a bit of a “chicken or the egg” deal. When the story is good enough, you’re going to get readers who will want to tell someone they know about it, and maybe write a positive, useful review, too. But to create that lovely word of mouth you’ve first got to get the story in front as many mouths (and eyes) as possible. Social media blitzes, free giveaways, contests, and targeted adverts are all options. But remember how egalitarian the whole deal is these days? Yeah, everyone else is doing the same things. How to stand out in such a crowded field? I just don’t know (see above re: my Dodge).

Kickstarter Spotlight: In the Dark

Every once in a while you stumble upon a Kickstarter that you simply must support.  You watch the video, read the background on the creators, examine the pledge levels, and have no choice but to open up your wallet.  In the Dark - A Horror Anthology is one of those projects.  Click here and I dare you not to back this amazing looking project.

The premise is rather simple, but astounding when you consider the talent associated with the project.  It is graphic novel comprised of 20 all new horror stories penned by Cullen Bunn, Sean E. Williams, Rachel Deering, Justin Jordan, Michael Moreci, and more.  Artists include Marc Laming, Christian Wildgoose, Andy Bellanger, and more.  As if that weren't enough to warrant a purchase, it also includes a feature from comic book historian Mike Howlett on the history of horror comics.

IDW is offering its services to help with the logistics of printing, etc. so you can rest assured that this book will be of the highest quality.  Most of the higher tiered pledges got scooped up quick, but there are still a few great ones if you are feeling generous.  If I had deep enough pockets I would have secured the original Artful Daggers story from Sean E. Williams.

At the time I penned this the Kickstarter was around $4,000 shy of its goal.  I feel confident that it will be funded and you should at least hop in at $10 for a digital copy of this gem.  I have high hopes and feel that this creative team will deliver a high quality book that will be the crown jewel of my bookshelf.  The hard part will be waiting until April to get my grubby hands on it.  Once again, click here to check it out yourself.

Interview: Comics Writer Sean E. Williams

After working in film and television for a number of years, Sean E. Williams transitioned successfully into writing comics. He currently has two active titles, Artful Daggers, a steampunkish tale of covert operations set after the events of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, as well as the new arc of DC/Vertigo's Fables spin-off Fairest, which debuts today. In between his appearances at C2E2, where he crossed paths with our own comics guru Mikey, he took some time to answer questions about both of his titles and the evolution of the industry.

NF: Full disclosure to our readers, after the dust of the Hollywood writers' strike settled, you and I worked on two screenplay projects together, but then you left Hollywood for what I assume is a far more sane environment. It seems like very quickly you found yourself working in comics. How did that transition happen?

SW: It actually came about fairly naturally. More naturally than I would have expected (especially coming from Hollywood). One part of it is (long story short) that I'd become friends with Bill Willingham and pitched him a story that led to my arc of Fairest. Another part of it was that I'd started to work with an exec at a production company who was also an editor at a comics publisher, and I had started pitching him comic ideas as well as movies. And the third aspect of my transition into comics was that I'd had a prose novella published for a property I was trying to get made into a television series. So when my wife got a job in rural Minnesota, I took a step back and realized I was doing more comics and prose writing than scripts and screenplays, and that I could do it just as easily from the Midwest as I could in Los Angeles, and for a lot cheaper. At that point, I went all-in on comics and prose.

NF: Comics and film are both collaborative, visual media. Can you talk about the overlap between writing for the two? Was the learning curve pretty smooth, or were there a few things that stood out as significant differences?

SW: Great question! A lot of people don't make those connections between comics and film, but you're spot on. Coming from screenwriting, I think I had a pretty easy transition. What helped, especially coming into Vertigo, was that I'd written six issues of a comics series for a small press company, so I was able to get the feel of comics there. Training wheels, basically. The hardest part was getting my brain to start chopping actions up in to smaller parts, for panels. In a screenplay, you can say “He jumps on a horse, firing his blaster at the aliens, killing three.” But in comics, it's “Panel one: He jumps on a horse. Panel Two: He fires a gun. Panel Three: The aliens get hit.” So that was a transition, but by the end of the six issues I'd trained my brain to think that way. It's basically the equivalent of calling out each shot in film, which you don't really do in screenwriting. I'd also gotten back into reading comics in film school, so my brain was use to the look, feel, and pacing of comics. I'd think it'd be hard if you were coming into it cold, but like TV and film, it's a learnable format for writing.

The other part of your question that's important to point out is that it's collaborative. I know some screenwriters (I was going to say “starting out screenwriters,” but I know some produced screenwriters who still have this issue) who struggle worrying about what a screenplay will look like on the screen. One of the best lessons I ever learned in Hollywood is that there's no point worrying about the words on the page being perfect, because the audience in the theater isn't going to see them. Not to mention the fact that the version of the movie in your head isn't the one that makes it on the page. That's the thing with film: there's the version in your head, the version on the page (the screenplay), the version that gets shot (with all the production setbacks, limitations, and happy accidents that go along with it), and the version that gets edited to be the final movie. The difference between the first version and the last is staggering, so why worry about getting what's in your head onto the page perfectly in the first place?

Comics are the same way. There's the version in your head, the version on the page (the script), the version the penciller turns in, the version the inker turns in, the version the colorist turns in, and the the version that finally gets lettered. And each phase can really change the story. With one of the upcoming issues of Fairest, we had Andrew Dalhouse, the colorist, add blood spray to change an injured character into a killed one after Stephen Sadowski, the penciller, turned a tussle into a brawl. You, as the writer, have very little control once it leaves your hands, which is the best part of collaboration, in my opinion. Everyone brings their best, and it raises the whole book up.

NF: You seem to be walking successfully on both sides of the street right now ­­ with a creator-­owned title (Artful Daggers) being published digitally by MonkeyBrain Comics and now an arc of Fairest for the granddaddy of them all, Vertigo's parent DC Comics. Can you talk about the biggest differences working under the two models?

SW: They're really two different animals. It's great having the support of editors at Vertigo to improve my writing and make sure that everything stays on schedule production-wise. For this latest draft of a Fairest script I turned in, Shelly Bond insisted that I add a flashback, and she was totally right. Again, I love a collaboration that makes the book better, which is everyone's goal. And with creator-owned books, it's all on you, which I personally love. If you forget to write the solicit, it's on you (something we actually had a momentary panic about last night on our weekly Artful Daggers call). If you run out of bristol boards, you have to track them down yourself. At DC, all those things are being checked and double-checked by everyone up and down the ladder. They're totally different, but both great experiences in different ways.

NF: How did you make the leap to Fairest, which was a pre-­existing title? Were you hand­-selected by Bill Willingham, or was there a different process involved?

I guess you get the longer version of the story after all! When I first pitched Bill to do a story in the Fables universe, Fairest was only an idea he'd started to put together. I think he'd started to talk to Adam Hughes about doing the covers for a spin-off series, but it definitely wasn't finalized yet. This was at San Diego Comic Con in 2010, and Chris Roberson's first standalone Cinderella arc had done well, and he was already working on the second. I asked Bill if it'd be okay if I pitched him an idea for something similar, and he said yes, so I went to a local place away from the con and wrote out a whole proposal that night and gave it to him the next day, which he definitely wasn't expecting!

Here's the thing, though, I'd known Bill for years at that point, so it's not like I was some fan who asked him out of the blue. We'd met at SDCC in 2003, I think, when I approached him about doing Fables as a series or movie (it wasn't available), and so we started trying to get Proposition Player made around town, to the point that by the end I'd even written the first draft of a pilot script for Bill to rewrite. So he knew that I knew how to use a keyboard, at least.

So basically, I've been working on Fairest since 2010, is the short answer.

NF: Fairest is interesting on a lot of levels, but I'm wondering from a writer's standpoint what it's like to step into something that's had a couple of arcs already, but doesn't have 50 years of lore behind it like your Batman or Spider-­Man titles. Did you have a lot of latitude in writing this arc, or was there something like a TV model where you broke the stories in collaboration or in support of a larger vision?

SW: You hit on a couple of different things with this question without realizing it.

First, since I'm dealing with Kipling Fables and some characters from the epics of Hinduism, I'm working with a bit longer on the lore-scale than most superhero stories, for better and worse. For instance, when I pitched this version of my arc (there was a whole other arc I worked on for almost a year, the first one I pitched actually) to Bill, I was keeping with the Fables rule of “what happened in the Fables universe isn't necessarily the same as what the stories tell.” But then halfway into writing the arc Bill told me he wanted me to keep the Jungle Book as it was, and not change it. So I had to adjust the backstory for one of my characters, which worked out fine, if not better, but it was an adjustment mid-stream. On the other hand, with Nalayani, who is a minor character in The Mahabharata but the star of my arc, I read three totally different versions of her story while doing my research, so I had a little more wiggle room with her.

As far as breaking the story goes, I pitched this version to Bill after meeting with him over the holidays in 2010, when he told me he and Shelly Bond wanted me to write an arc centered on the character who'd become “The Maharaja” in my arc. That was all they gave me, a character, and I came up with the rest for the pitch. Then Bill and I would kicking around ideas to flesh it out. For instance, he wanted there to be no men in the Indu, the Fables world where my arc takes place. Which was a great idea, and really added a lot to the dynamic of the world. But for the most part, Bill's been fairly hands-off, which I really appreciate as a writer. Another good example is when Stephen Sadowski, the penciller for the arc, drew the fight scene I mentioned before to be a lot more gruesome than I'd envisioned, Bill okayed killing off a fairly substantial character, without really worrying about it. That kind of freedom is liberating, and intimidating at the same time.

NF: Finally, I wanted to ask something a little broader of scope. The digital revolution has traditional publishing famously shaking in its boots, but I don't sense that same kind of dread in the world of comics -- ­­ possibly due in part to the success of Comixology. What do you think the digital delivery model offers for both creators and fans that makes the industry seem more in balance than the traditional print model?

I think digital is going to save comics, with ComiXology playing a huge role in it. The big reason I think that is that a large part, if not most, of the country doesn't have a local comics shop. I mean, comics aren't carried in groceries anymore, so how else are people going to get (much less discover) comics? I took it for granted while living in LA, which has at least four amazing comics stores, but once I got to rural Minnesota and had to drive an hour and a half to the nearest shop, I saw the biggest hurdle comics had to overcome as an industry. So digital is getting rid of that. Having tablets (which are the perfect size for reading comics, and have better and brighter color than paper) take off and become as ubiquitous as they have is a big part of that too. They go hand in hand. So that's the fan side of things.

From the creator side, it means if you can make a comic, you can get it out into the world. There aren't any gatekeepers anymore (for better and worse). In addition to the web, you've now got ComiXology Submit, and Amazon's Kindle Comic Creator, so you can reach basically anyone world-wide. Which still blows my mind. It doesn't mean you'll be a hit, but it at least gives you a chance to have your work read.

NF: I know you're out there a lot and available for fan interaction, so what's the best way to track you down on the interwebs, and in­-person in the coming months?

I'm on Twitter all the time, as is most of the comics industry, at @sean_e_williams, or you can like my Facebook page for updates there, or my tumblr/blog is www.seanewilliams.com.

My next convention appearance is CONvergence, up in the Minneapolis area, followed by San Diego Comic Con later in July.