Category Archives: self-publishing

Bible study, self-publishing

I Hate Making Book Covers

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This trial cover does what I want, but looks awful.

Work progressed very well on my Bible study, Acts Of Faith. I wrote it in a little over a month in June-July this year. I found a couple of beta readers, got some comments, did several rounds of edits, and wrapped it up early this month—sandwiched in between getting Documenting America: Making The Constitution into print.

This week, on Wednesday, I called it a wrap and began working on publication files. Then Wednesday night I thought of one more thing I wanted in the Introduction. I did that Thursday morning, yesterday, and called it a wrap again. I went back to building publication files. By the end of the day I had the print edition files complete, all except for the cover.

I had done the cover on Tuesday-Wednesday. Or rather, let me say I did a cover on Tuesday-Wednesday. You can see it here. It’s awful. My thoughts as I began pulling it together were:

  • Since it’s quite possible I’ll prepare more of my Bible studies for publication, it would be nice, with this first one, to create some sort of graphical branding. I looked at a couple of printed Bible studies we have here at the house, and at some other books that are parts of series, and though the colored band with the words “A Bible Study” in the band would work, preferably across the top.
  • I thought maybe the other words on the cover, the title, subtitle, and my name could also be in bands. So I put them in the same color bands of the same style.
  • Then I played with the background color and texture and came up with something.
  • Then I thought, how about putting some of the names of those covered in the book on the cover, somewhat randomly, as if in a “cloud”. I did that, finding a font I liked. I decided to make each one a little bit more or less opaque and putting them on top of each other. I liked that effect.
Better? Perhaps, but still not good.

Then I looked at it all, and it was terrible, as you can see from image of it I put in above. Bad colors. Bad contrast of graphical images. A couple of friends whose advice I trust agreed with my assessment. Alas, I don’t know how to make it better.

I had played with a cover earlier, which I posted here. That was just a trial, to have something to show. However, it’s probably better than what I came up with this week. I like the cloud effect of the names on gray, so I clipped that out of the new cover and pasted it in the old in the space reserved for a graphic. You can see how those two work together. I think I like this a little better, but I’m still not sure it’s what I want.

A few extra touches make it look a little better, perhaps.

Sigh. I may just go with a generic black cover with white or yellow lettering, no graphic, and not worry about whether it looks good or not. Just so long as it doesn’t look awful. Or, maybe I’ll have to just find a professional and turn it over to them. I’ve contacted one, and am waiting on hearing back.

Bible study, Documenting America, self-publishing, Writing

Publishing My Next Book Getting Closer

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I finished writing Documenting America: Making The Constitution Edition in mid-June. I let it sit a little, then began the editing process. The editing took a while as I didn’t go overly fast. Plus, in late June I finally decided I should write and publish my Bible study, Acts Of Faith, and so pulled off DA for a while. I meant to have it published in August. Alas, with only nine days left in the month, I think that’s unlikely to happen.

But where do I stand with it? I have completed all passes of edits. On Wednesday I ran Chapter 5 through our critique group, and have a few comments to go over and perhaps make changes. I’ll do that today. The next step will be the cover, which I’ll do myself using G.I.M.P. I already have the series theme, so all I have to do is change the title and use a new center image, which I already have picked out. I may need to load G.I.M.P. onto this computer. Doing all that is a tomorrow task.

That cover work, of course, is for the e-book cover. Before I can do the print book cover I have to format the print book so I know the thickness. The interior formatting will be the next step. I might do the e-book formattings (one for Kindle, one for Smashwords) on Sunday, or it might slip to Monday. At that point I may upload the e-book to the platforms, thus getting it published in August. Then I’ll tackle the print book formatting. That always takes longer, and I’ll have to dedicate a day or two to that. I hope I get it done before the end of the month so that I can order a proof copy.

So, when will the next Documenting America be published, you ask? With any luck and sufficient diligence on my part, before the end of August for the e-book, and before September 15 for the print book. Stay tuned. I’ll announce it here. I’m working simultaneously on the leader’s guide to AOF, so we’ll have to see how the time goes.

self-publishing, stock market, Writing

Rainy Days and Mondays

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The Carpenters had a major hit with their song “Rainy Days and Monday“, the lyrics saying that they “always get me down.”  As I look out The Dungeon window, through an opening in my computer desk, through the vertical blind slats, through the glass and the screen, I see a cloudy day. When I awoke at 6:30 a.m., a gentle rain was falling. The rain has mostly ended now.

Exactly what I see out The Dungeon windows as I type at my computer.

Yet, I’m not depressed by the dark day. Nor am I depressed by this Monday, or any Monday. Being retired helps with that, but I was never one to rue the end of the weekend and start of the workweek. And I do have my work to do. Monday through Friday I work on our stock trading business. Since nowadays I’m mainly trading for income rather than wealth building, it’s less intensive than it used to be.

But seeing as how I mostly liked my engineering career, and was enjoying the work I did those last few years of that, Mondays were never a drudgery. Nor were the weekends necessarily better than the workweeks. So much work to do at home in just a few hours, I never felt like I was on top of things.

Now, that all has changed. I spend a lot of time at the computer between stock trading and writing and promoting my writing, but I’m not chained to it. Any day I can go outside for an hour of yard work. Any day I can work on de-cluttering. I’m able to exercise on the elliptical (strategically placed in The Dungeon) several times, as I do most weekdays and some on the weekends. Any day I can go outside and walk. Any time my mind gets weary I can take a break, perhaps go to the sunroom and read.

So, I sit at my computer, look through the desk and the slats, and am encouraged. This morning, after my Bible reading and prayer time, rather than write I decided to update my writing income and expense spreadsheet. I had last done this in early to mid-May, so I wasn’t too far behind. My mileage is entered; my inventory purchases are entered both in expenses and on the inventory sheet; my sales amounts are entered. I have an exact picture of where I am profit and loss wise. And, since the spreadsheet sums everything and auto-fills lines for Schedule C, may taxes due next April are mostly calculated—so long as the IRS doesn’t change the form.

I have a few more writing related business tasks to do, which I’ll do as soon as I finish this blog post. Tomorrow I’ll do the same thing with the stock trading. That is mostly up to date on a spreadsheet, but I need to transfer it to my income tax spreadsheet. That will only take 30 minutes, and I’ll be way ahead of where I typically am come January.

So, time to get back to other work. I have two books—one finished, one nearly so—that are begging for my attention. I hope everyone will be able to find today productive and enjoyable.

Dateline: July 29, 2019, for posting on August 5, 2019

construction, Documenting America, Engineering, reading, self-publishing, stock market, Writing

Random Friday Thoughts

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Can a graphics duffer create the print-book cover to go with this? Enquiring minds want to know.

As I look out from The Dungeon windows at 06:47 a.m., the sun is hidden by the tall trees at the rear of our backyard. But enough sun gets through I can tell it will be a sunny day, at least to start. Storms are predicted for tomorrow, and might start in a small way sometime today.

Yesterday was a busy day. In addition to stock trading in the morning, I did a few writer things. I’m trying to create the print book cover for my friend’s book. I made a good start on it despite the fact that it’s been a year since I created a cover. Using G.I.M.P., a no-cost alternative to Photoshop, I managed to get the overall sizes of each part of the cover in place. I found some good notes I wrote on that. Alas, I’ve forgotten enough that I didn’t get it done in the time I had. Hopefully I will this morning.

I then at a quick lunch, hopped in the van, and went to do some engineering work, final inspection of one site and monthly inspections on three other sites. I completed the final inspection, with a little arguing with the contractor thrown in. Not bad arguing, just them obviously not appreciating the things I found. I got a little testy at one point when they gave new information about a structure I’ve been trying to get them to modify. Why they didn’t give me that info months ago is a mystery.

I went to the first monthly inspection, walked the site, saw only one or two things out of the ordinary. This has been a problem site, with me constantly finding things they are doing in violation of City codes. They’ve started to get much better. They had installed almost all the handicapped ramps incorrectly. I decided to let the first few go, but I found a new one wrongly constructed. They will have to change that. They also had one where they attempted to construct it correctly, but came up short. Fortunately the correction is inexpensive.

The engineering work to that point took me from 12:30 p.m. to about 3:30 p.m., with two more sites to go. I was beat and dehydrated, as I hadn’t taken water with me. I decided not to do the other two inspections, leaving them to the employee of my former company who joined me yesterday for training purposes. I came home, rested an hour, then wrote the reports for the two inspections.

Then I took it easy in the evening. We had plenty of leftover chili to use for taco salad, so had that for supper, and a slice of turtle pie for dessert. I spent much of the evening on the computer working on the reports as well as trying to find some photos in the company files to prove the point I tried to make on site.

I’ll soon be creating a cover for “Documenting America: Making the Constitution Edition”. It will be a simple re-creation of this one.

I wrote an e-mail to the CEI project manager, telling her my inability to do the two other inspections was “most likely a combination of too much sun, frustration with [the other] engineer and developer and contractor, age, and perhaps a creeping retirement-starting-to-care-a-little-less each month.” I haven’t heard back from her yet. I have trained the other man to do these inspections and had no doubt he could do the remaining two and write acceptable reports.

I spent no time in the sunroom, didn’t work on my own books at all, didn’t make much progress on my to-do list. My wife and I did a little reading aloud, and we took a very pleasant call from our oldest grandson and had evening devotions with him. Our reading carried us after normal bed time.

So, up this morning after sleeping through the night, ready to “awaken the dawn” that I see unfolding out the window. It’s fully light out, though the trees still obscure direct rays. On to other things for a couple of hours, then back to the book cover work.

Carlyle, reading, research, self-publishing, Writing

Still Reading Thomas Carlyle

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My first book on Thomas Carlyle, published 2014

Most of my posts lately have been related to my immediate works-in-progress or my other reading, with an occasional dabble in an inspirational post. I have a thought for the latter, based on study for yesterday’s Life Group lesson. I’m not quite ready for that yet.

So, I’ll stick with what I intended to post about today, which is my current reading in the writings of Thomas Carlyle. It’s been a while since I’ve written about him. “Carlyle” is a category for my blog posts, so you could easily check and see what I’ve written about him before.

I have published one book about him, a gathering and reprinting of his articles written 1820-1823 for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia. So far as I know, my book is the only time all his articles for that publication have been gathered in one publication.

I’ve been slowly, over several years, working on two other books about Carlyle. One is about his book Chartism. The other is a Comprehensive Chronological Composition Bibliography. Both of these works have stalled, mostly  because they are simply lower on my writing priority list than others. Perhaps that will change one day, but it’s the case for now.

Carlyle changed from being a compassionate man to a promoter of slavery. How that change came about is the subject of my Carlyle studies.

But I’m back to reading him. From 1827 to 1833 Carlyle’s main writing was a series of articles for the Edinburgh Review and other literary magazines. Emerson gathered these and published them in three volumes around 1839. It was so popular in the USA that a British edition soon followed. Today they are considered one of Carlyle’s major works.

I’ve read a couple of the articles before, and started a couple more, but never got very far with it what have come to be called Carlyle’s Miscellanies. I haven’t wanted to put money into buying them in print (or e-book), and had never found an e-copy of good quality of a public domain version. About two weeks ago I went looking for them again, and, lo and behold, I found an e-book re-issue of the essays, of excellent quality, all in one volume, I think.

I’m reading them on my smart phone. That’s not a totally new experience, since I recently read Locke’s Two Treatises of Government on my smart phone. Still, reading books on phones will be somewhat new for a while. I’m enjoying it there, however. I turn the phone sideways and slightly enlarge each page to fill the window. So far I’ve read two of the essays, the first two in chronological order: “Jean Paul Friedrich Richter” and “State of German Literature”, both from the Edinburgh Review in 1827. I finished the second one last night.

Why am I doing this? Why distract myself from my writing or research for my writing. I can only plead a reduction in sanity, or perhaps an increase in delusion. I sometimes think myself a scholar and want to read something that either is or seems to be scholarly. Carlyle seems to fit. And, in case I ever do get around to finishing that Chartism book, these readings might actually play a part in it.

The Richter article was easy enough to understand, and I found it informative and even enjoyable. The German Literature article was tedious, even boring. I think this is where I bogged down before in my reading of his essays. The book has some good parts to it. I think I would grasp more with another reading. Carlyle, like so many writers of his time, wished to write poetry along with prose. He left a number of poems to us, none of which are highly thought of. I may pull out some of his thoughts on German poetry, really about poetry in general, and see if I couldn’t make essays out of them.

Queued up on my phone is his third essay in the book, “Life and Writings of Werner”. I don’t believe I’ve rad this one before. I don’t know Werner, so am not looking forward to reading it, except to know it will perhaps sate my need to be reading something intellectual. If I can get through this third essay, there’s hope that I will get through the entire book.

Meanwhile, should you buy and read my previous book on Carlyle? I’m really just an editor in that book. I wouldn’t recommend it, not unless you want to make study of Carlyle a significant intellectual enterprise. If you do, be forewarned that, after publication, I found an embarrassing error in the chapter on Pascal. I corrected it in the e-book, but it remains in the print book, awaiting my taking the half-hour needed to make the correction and republish. Seeing as I have to migrate all my print books from CreateSpace to Amazon KDP, I’m planning to get that correction done during the migration.

 

Bible study, self-publishing, Writing

Something New—Again

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Last Friday I did some cleaning in my office. It is somewhat of a mess, and I figure I’d better get it organized before my retirement in a mere 4 months and 25 days. Every week I’ve been taking something home, reducing the amount I’ll have to bring home the last week or day.  It’s working. I see much less I’ll have to take care of in the months and weeks ahead.

So on Friday last, I was going through little piles of paper on my desk, mostly the back of sheets from my Dilbert desk calendar, which I use as note paper. One of those had some notes I’d made on some Bible passages, three to be precise. I looked at them, trying to remember why I’d made those so many months ago, and what I was trying to tell my future self, meaning me right now.

I soon understood. These were some biblical insights I had that I thought could be turned into a Bible study. Yes, I saw it clearly. Three passages, three insights, three lessons. The start of a Bible study for our Life Group at church; the start of a Bible study book.

Now, I’ve written about this before, how these ideas come to me of things to write about. Often they are book titles that I can’t leave, which, in my mind, I flesh out into plot (for a novel) or outline (for non-fiction). Since I’m so busy while still working, and since I can’t possibly fit anything into my writing schedule for the next decade or two, I usually document the idea by writing it, hopefully somewhere where I’ll find it again, and in a form I can understand, then try to put it out of my mind. If I didn’t do that I think I’d go crazy.

I found this one, and after a bit of thought understood what I had written and why. I pondered it a while. I’m always looking for something for Life Group curriculum, as I’m more or less in charge of that for the class. This looked like a good one. Three weeks isn’t really enough for a good lesson series, so I thought more about it, and easily came up with a half dozen more lessons on the theme. I felt like I then had something, stuck the paper, and a larger sheet newly generated, into my carry-home folder. That night I looked at it some more. I thought of how, if we did that series beginning in October or early November, I could tie some Christmas lessons into the them. I added those, making twelve lessons. Two more came to mind, making fourteen.

The experts these days say your lesson series should be a matter of about six weeks, or a little more. Fourteen lessons would work for Baby Boomers, but not for later generations. But, our class is a bunch of Baby Boomers. so the longer series should be okay.

Now, the questions to be asked are:

  1. When do we start this series?
  2. If Sept 9, which is the earliest day needed, can I get enough done to make that happen?
  3. If it runs through Dec 16 as we would need it to, what do I do with it then? Should I immediately turn it into a printed Bible study? Or should I “shelve” it for the moment, to returned to when I have a more opportune time?

Enquiring people, including the author of this post, want to know. If I do this, what do I do with my publishing schedule? I’m so far behind on my novel-in-progress, and I’ve laid aside my research into the next Documenting America book. Do I totally trash the schedule and move the Bible study into first place on the writing list?

I have a few days to decide. For sure it’s something I’ll develop (at least a short-ish version if not the long one)  and teach, along with my co-teacher. And, some day, I’ll expand into a published Bible study. But for now, what to do, what to do?

Carlyle, self-publishing, Writing

My Thomas Carlyle Studies Continue, Slow but Sure

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My first book on Thomas Carlyle, published 2014

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything for An Arrow Through The Air about Thomas Carlyle and my studies about his life and writing career. I’ve published one book about him, a compilation of the articles he wrote in the early 1820s for The Edinburgh Encyclopedia. I’ve sold a whopping nine copies of it.

How to explain my fascination with Carlyle? He is a most complex character. Raised in southeast Scotland by strict religious parents who we’d consider to be peasants, he studied for the ministry, then briefly for the law, before settling on literature as a way to earn his bread. The encyclopedia articles were his writing apprenticeship of sorts. From there he did mostly translations for a while, with commentary sprinkled amidst the words of others. Thence it was magazine articles for most of the next six years, though with some book writing.

Finally, he broke out into books, and obtained success. He was significantly helped by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who published his books in the USA and sent handsome royalty checks back across the pond. England noticed his success in America, and began to demand his books. By 1840 he had achieved a measure of financial success.

The biggest disappointment for those who like Carlyle has to be his embrace of race-based slavery. He was quite upset that Great Britain was in the period of emancipation of all slaves in the empire. It was passed by Parliament in 1833 and would become final in 1848. By 1849 Carlyle was writing and publishing pamphlets in support of slavery.

How awful that is. How could he do that? His belief that work was the highest and best thing mankind could do, and that since slavery was guaranteed work it was good, caused him to be blinded by such concepts as freedom and justice. My question is: How did this happen? And when? My Carlyle studies are for the purpose of answering this question. What caused him to land on the dark side of this issue in history?

I have two more Carlyle books in the works:

  • Thomas Carlyle: A Chronological Composition Bibliography
  • Carlyle’s Chartism Through the Ages

Both of these are on the shelf for now. The second one is perhaps 70 percent complete, though I don’t know that for sure. My two essays to close the book are yet to be written. And I have to check with several Carlyle authors to gain permission to reprint essays of theirs. The first one is less far along, maybe 50 percent. Yet, this one I continue to plod along on, that plodding purposefully quite slow.

I have the format of the Bibliography established, and am reasonably satisfied that I have all, or darn near all, of his known compositions for the years up to 1842/3 entered and documented as to composition dates. I have a few things to make more sure of, such as how to handle the notebooks he used in 1822 to about 1833, but I’m fairly happy with how that part is shaping up. So I still need to add his later works, from 1843 through his death in 1881.

The good news is this is the period of his life when his writings were mostly all published, and the dates of composition are fairly well known. I got past the hard part, the years before 1834. But, that doesn’t mean everything falls into place without research. Publication dates are known and documented; composition dates still need to be established for some items. To do this, I’m working my way through Carlyle’s letters, wherein he often mentions what his work(s)-in-progress is/are.

Right now I’m reading one letter a day, from the Carlyle Letters Online, a database of Duke University. Or, if in a given day he includes a short note, I might read a couple or three letters. I do this in my quiet time when I arrive early at my office, after my devotions, and before I work up the day’s to-do list. So I read maybe 10 to 15 letters a week, taking 5 to 10 minutes of my time every workday. I’m currently in July 1843. Carlyle had just finished a magazine article and went on a holiday (without Jane, his wife, who it appears didn’t want to go) to Wales and Scotland.

The days I’m reading now, he is between compositions. I could skip them, but have elected not to. I feel they give insight into the man, and could be useful for all of my Carlyle writings, either those in progress or something in the future that I don’t yet foresee.

This is, for the most part, satisfying the need I have to be working on something that would be considered intellectual rather than simple entertainment, or even popular education. I don’t say that to be snobbish. I just want to work on things that really expand my mind. I have more to say about that, but this post is already long. I’ll save that for a future post, perhaps my next one.

self-publishing, Writing

2nd Quarter Book Sales

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I find it hard to believe we are halfway through the year 2018, and that the second quarter has ended. My title remaining till retirement now stands at 5 months and 29 days. The closer it gets the more I’m looking forward to it.

But with the end of the second quarter it’s time to report book sales. They were definitely better than in the first quarter. Here’s the table.

Not the greatest quarter, but an improvement over the last.

After a first quarter of only 6 sales, the second quarter has 18. Ten of these were of my latest book, The Gutter Chronicles, Volume 2, which I published this quarter. Four more sales were of The Gutter Chronicles, Volume 1. So the second in the series dragged the first along, at least a little.

I created and made the cover for this one; so, if it doesn’t work, I’ll gladly take the blame.

During this quarter, I did almost no promotion. A couple of Facebook posts was it, along with an in-house e-mail to the company that told all that the second volume was available for pre-order. I did a little looking at Amazon ads, but wasn’t able to spend the time studying to know if it was right for me.

So, into a new quarter, still plugging along, though slower these days. Multi-tasking isn’t working very well for me. In a future post, maybe on Friday, I’ll talk about my current writing.

The following two pics are smaller versions of the above two, for linking at Absolute Write.

to link to at Absolute Write
Church History Novels, Doctor Luke's Assistant, self-publishing

A Bad Review

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It’s not an exaggeration to say that writers live and die based on reviews. I think this applies equally to trade-published and self-published authors. Although, the trade publisher has channels to solicit reviews from professional reviewers, whereas the self-publisher is unlikely to have such a network and must rely on the reviews posted by readers on Amazon and similar sites.

Most of us take time (some of us a little, some a lot) to encourage people to review our books after they read them. Alas, few do. I understand that. It takes time for a person to go to Amazon, find the book’s page, and enter a review. Sometimes people don’t want to leave a review if it’s negative, remembering that Mom said, “If you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything.” I get it.

Out since 2012, I’ve sold more copies of “Doctor Luke’s Assistant” than any of my books.

Thus, I was excited to find a site that reviews Christian books. Not all my books are overtly Christian, but some are. Interviews and Reviews is the site, run by a woman author who is a member of an internet writing group with me. I checked over the site, saw it was legit, and submitted Doctor Luke’s Assistant as a means of getting my toe wet. It took some time before any of their reviewers set a request for the book. I submitted on April 10, 2018, and one reviewer finally asked for a copy on April 27.

After that, I didn’t hear anything. Books are supposed to stay in the reviewing rotation for a month (plus one extra month if no one requests it). Since DLA is a large book, I knew it would take the reviewer time. Then, on June 5, I received a request for it from a second reviewer. I contacted Amazon, arranged for a copy to be sent, and felt good.

Then I checked the home page of I&R, and saw that a review of DLA had been posted! I went there right away, only to find it was…two stars. That’s two out of five stars, the same review system as Amazon uses. Needless to say, I was sad to see this. Here’s a link to the review.

I don’t fault the reviewer if she didn’t like it. All books cannot appeal to all readers. The gist of her review is this:

…instead of a compelling historical fiction novel, I found the book was mainly a comparison of some of the Gospels and an exploration of what methods might have been used in Luke’s research. What little plot there was existed mainly in the latter half of the book, and even there it was thinly scattered and not used to its full advantage.

That’s rather stinging.

I took a little time to cry over it (not literally), then got past it. I’m sharing it to a wider audience, not to seek sympathy or offsetting reviews, but rather to continue in making my works public and not glossing over anything.

It’s not like I’m the only person to ever receive a negative review. While I was going through some saved links today to see which were still valid and which weren’t, I came across Thomas Babington Macaulay’s review of Robert Southey’s Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society. The review was published in the Edinburgh Review in 1829, when Southey was poet laureate of England. Would Macaulay treat Southey with due respect because of his position? No! Here’s how the review began.

It would be scarcely possible for a man of Mr. Southey’s talents and acquirements to write two volumes so large as those before us, which should be wholly destitute of information and amusement.

Now that is hard-hitting. Yet, Macaulay is far from done.

Yet we do not remember to have read with so little satisfaction any equal quantity of matter, written by any man of real abilities.

Let’s look at one more criticism.

It is, indeed, most extraordinary, that a mind like Mr. Southey’s, a mind richly endowed in many respects by nature, and highly cultivated by study, a mind which has exercised considerable influence on the most enlightened generation of the most enlightened people that ever existed, should be utterly destitute of the power of discerning truth from falsehood. Yet such is the fact.

I could go on, but this would only become repetitive.

I guess I don’t have it so bad. My reviewer ascribed kind motives to me and didn’t question my abilities, only my outcome. And, DLA was my first novel. Hopefully I’m getting better at it.

self-publishing, Writing

Stolen Royalties

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News has come out in recent weeks about a literary agency where a bookkeeper stole millions of dollars of author’s money, both advances and royalties. The story was covered recently in a couple of posts on The Passive Voice, one of the two writing blogs I follow regularly. Passive Guy, an attorney who owns this blog about information relevant to self-publishing, generally takes posts from other publishing-related sites, quotes a good chunk of a post, and links to it.

He also linked to a post by defrauded author Chuck Palahniuk (who I’ve never read, but is quite a notable author). Palahniuk wondered why he wasn’t getting much revenue. Turns out this prestigious literary agency, Donadio & Olson, had one man who handled all money transactions. This clerk figured writers wouldn’t miss a few thousand dollars, so he took some or all of the agency’s clients 85% for himself, presumably passing on the 15% the agent and agency got. It seems D&O had zero financial controls in place.

This clerk’s theft is estimated to be $3.4 million of however many years he’s been doing it. He’s been charged. So far, I haven’t heard that anyone else at the agency has been charged.

Why not? The big bosses there (all two of them) didn’t steal, but they obviously didn’t fulfill their fiduciary responsibility. The agency owes writes this $3.4 million. They should be held liable for this, and probably face criminal negligence charges. Scratch one literary agency.

In another post, Passive Guy quotes a blog post from Kristine Kathryn Rusch, an author who has been published by trade publishers and who has championed the self-publishing sector in recent years. Kris is saddened for her fellow writers who have been cheated on, outraged (though not surprised) that the agency was so lax in controlling finances, and again speaking about the whole system of requiring agents in the first place.

One of the surprising things that came out of this is the non-response from the agency. The fraud was discovered in March. Even now, D&O’s web site is silent about this, and I don’t think they’ve sent notices to their authors. That is shameful to the max. Okay, so one of their employees was a crook. Let your clients know; don’t make them learn this from the media. Probably announce it to the world: He, world, and authors, our bookkeeper was a crook, we were asleep on the job trusting him, but we’ll get it right. They have lost the PR game, that’s for sure.

What about all the other literary agencies out there? I imagine they will experience fallout from this, though I don’t know what or to what extent. Will authors represented by agencies now wake up and demand that publishers send them their cut directly instead of through their agents? Better yet, since the author hires the agent, have the publishers send 100% of the funds to the authors, and have the authors pay their agents, the people they hire. Yes, that seems more fair to me. Maybe that will happen soon.

If I haven’t said this for a while, I’ll say it now: I am so glad I chose to self-publish back in early 2011. I avoided the whole agent thing and kowtowing to what publishers want. No, I don’t have a lot of sales, but the 561 sales I do have are gratifying.  I’ll continue to self-publish, and watch the trade publishing industry continue to implode.