Having talked a little about Kindle Unlimited the other day, I thought it was worth calling attention to this article by noted hybrid author, Michael J. Sullivan, over at Digital Book World. Relevant passage (though you should read the whole darn thing):

Historically, Amazon has been good about treating self-published authors and traditionally published authors equally. There are some exceptions (for instance traditionally published titles can be pre-ordered, and most self-published authors cannot get this feature. Again there have been exceptions made for best-selling self-published authors), but for the most part both self- and traditionally published authors have enjoyed equal treatment. They share similar exposure on best-seller lists and top-rated lists, and Amazon’s “cut” from sales have been the same for both groups (30% under the agency model). In fact, when the agency model went into affect, Amazon raised self-publisher’s royalty from 35% to 70% to match what traditional publishers were getting. But now with the roll-out of Kindle Unlimited, we see two very different treatments:

Self-published authors MUST be exclusive to Amazon (except for a handful of best-selling authors) and can’t sell their books on other sites. Traditionally published books have no such exclusivity requirement and can be sold wherever the publisher wishes.

Self-published authors are paid from a pool set by Amazon each month. They have no idea how much they will be paid per book. Traditionally published books get paid exactly as they would if a sale were made. They know exactly what the unit price will be for each book and are not relying on the Amazon’s whim as far as what their unit price will be.

Now, a few comments.

Some of my books are there, not through KDP Select, but through Amazon Publishing (Skyscape, in particular). The books seem to be doing well — noticed a jump in my ranking (which is a number may or may not be attached to anything, like a child’s steering wheel toy).

But this isn’t that. This post is more relevant to author-publishers.

As noted, if you want into Kindle Unlimited, you have to be exclusive through KDP Select.

Which means — well, it means tough tee-tas, is what it means. It means if you’re willing to shut the door on other sales avenues, Amazon will reward you by… giving you a different, in some ways lesser, deal than if you entered KU with a publisher.

Someone will correctly point out that the average $2/month payout is potentially better, though, then what a published author will get. That’s likely true (though not guaranteed) — but it doesn’t change the fact that the price of your self-published book becomes irrelevant. Control over price is a meaningful aspect of acting as your own author-publisher, and this takes that away from you. Sure, it’s nice if you wrote a 5,000 word story at $0.99, but a 100,000-word fantasy for $5.99 –? Hey, two bucks either way. And nobody knows how the pool is calculated or if it’ll go up, down, or sideways. To reuse a phrase — it doesn’t seem to be attached to anything.

So: if you’re an author-publisher, maybe be a little wary of Kindle Unlimited. I don’t know that it’s worth an, ahem, big petition or anything, but it may be worth sending Amazon a polite note to suggest that they tie the compensation to the price of the book and, further, eradicate any exclusivity demands. Because, again, diversification will help make a writer — exclusivity can help break one. Particularly one just starting out.

Thor’s a lady. Captain America is a black dude. Ms. Marvel is Muslim. Spider-Man is a Hispanic kid. Groot is a tree. Adam Christopher and I, along with artist Wilfredo Torres, have reimagined the original patriotic superhero — The Shield, once of Red Circle comics, now of the Dark Circle reboot — not as Joe Higgins, but, rather, as a full-figured ass-kicking woman.

It’s exciting stuff. I’m like, It’s not enough! It’s addictive. Let’s see Idris Elba as James Bond. Or Emily Blunt as Jane Bond. Hey, Japanese Batman. Or flip the Luke and Leia roles in Star Wars.  Transgendered Pakistani Doctor Who! More, more, more!

*flips the table*

*then gender-flips the table*

*now the table is a chair and also a Chinese lesbian*

Actually, a while back I suggested flipping the gender of the Doctor, and dang, you’d think I was dropping a hot deuce on a Gutenberg Bible. Some people get mad when you say stuff like that. Like, religious war mad. Like, you just insulted my mother mad.

And I’m seeing that again. Not about our variant of The Shield — but about beloved characters like Thor. Like, ahhh what the fuck if Thor is a woman then anything can happen what if my Mom becomes my Dad and my dog becomes a plant and then I fuck the plant and then we have dog-plant babies holy snack-nuts this is worse than global warming.

People rail against this. They find excuses why it shouldn’t happen — “But Thor is mythology,” they say, as if mythology is history and as if comic book fiction is meant to be an accurate, factual depiction of historimythic events. (Sidenote: I now quite like the word “historimythic.”)

Thing is, I kinda get it.

Fifteen years ago (cough cough, maybe even ten), I probably would’ve been in the same camp. In my 20s, geek shit was more important to me. You bind yourself up with these things — Star Wars isn’t just a movie you like, it’s an emblem for things you believe, a sign of who you are, acting as both aegis and mantle. Someone fucking with that feels like someone fucking with your DNA. (Doubly ironic then when it’s troublemaker George Lucas mucking about with the work of legend George Lucas.) You say, “But I am That Thing, so if you change That Thing, then who the fuck am I?” Geeks don’t like change. That includes anybody who geeks out about anything. Washington Redskins? GASP HOW DARE YOU. Changing the name wouldn’t change the team. It would simply be a name that stops pissing in the eyes of Native Americans. But changing it is like saying, “If you change of the name of the team I love, what does that say about me?”

It says nothing about you, of course, but we’re weird creatures, we humans. Hard-wired, it seems, to associate with the things we love in a way that goes beyond mere appreciation. We aren’t distant. We mesh. We merge. We braid ourselves up with the things we adore.

And so, we rail against it.

Let’s hack away at some of the issues surrounding the gender-flip.

But This Thing I Love Is Different Now

It is. And I know that’s hard. I don’t say that glibly — I mean, yeah, no, I get it, change is hard. Even in something simple as the comic books we read. But, here’s a vital reminder:

The whole reason you have the affection you had is because the original version existed in the first place. Which means it still exists. Nobody is taking away your old Thor comics and drawing boobs and a vagina on him. You still have those things. The version you loved hasn’t gone away. Now it’s time, as all children must learn, to share. Let somebody else drive the Big Wheel around for a little while, okay? Someone who maybe doesn’t look like you or sound like you.

It Breaks The Rules Of The Story

Again, Thor can’t be a lady because Thor is a dude in the mythology. The Doctor can’t be a woman because [insert some cryptic rules-lawyering from some episode 20 years ago].

These are made-up stories, though.

This isn’t science we’re trying to defy. We’re not spitting in the Eyes of the Gods. I can literally, right now, go write a story where Harry Potter is a pansexual goat-being. It’d be absurd and I’m sure somewhere J.K. Rowling would quietly harrumph in her tea, but I’m just saying: this stuff ain’t gospel. Stories are meant to be flexible, malleable — even religion and mythology allows the teller to adjust the tale to the listener. That’s a feature, not a bug.

This Is Tokenism

You misunderstand tokenism. Tokenism is, and here I’ll quote The Internet:

the practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to do a particular thing, especially by recruiting a small number of people from underrepresented groups in order to give the appearance of sexual or racial equality within a workforce.

So, to be tokenistic, Marvel might say, “Thor isn’t going to be a woman, but look, there’s a woman in the next issue. She’s a toll booth attendant and she’s a Strong Female Character because dang, look at those biceps. She handles loose change like a champion. She’s her own boss. #feminism.” Instead of making Captain America black, they’d say, “We’re racially diverse because his dry cleaner is Asian, and his real estate agent is a homosexual African-American, and look! Page four! Someone with mocha-colored skin walking a dog.”

Tokenism is doing the bare minimum to look like you’re meeting the maximum.

It’s Just A Publicity Stunt

I do not know the heart of anybody who decides to invoke greater pop culture diversity, but what I do know is that media companies are pretty much always engaging in publicity stunts because that’s how they get attention. If something like this is at the heart of a publicity stunt — hey, whatever. You only do publicity stunts when you think they’ll work, and if they think engaging in greater diversity would net them valuable media attention, that’s suggestive of a better world than I think I lived in ten years ago. The publicity stunt used to be that HOLY CRAP THEY’RE KILLING SUPERMAN. Now it’s HOLY CRAP THEY’RE SPACKLING OUR COMIC BOOK PAGES WITH DIVERSITY IN AN EFFORT TO READ MORE READERS.

Perhaps I’m just not cynical enough, but recognizing that this kind of news will grab attention and hook new readers — readers representative of the diverse world in which we live — uhh, okay, yeah, sign me right the fuck up.

It’s Just Politically-Correct Snarghlewarble

“Politically correct” is a phrase so often (mis)used, it’s entirely worthless. My opinion is that if you’re trying to score points with a political party or with folks to get votes, then that, my friends, is politically correct. If you’re trying to make an earnest change to whatever (media, policy, education, workforce) and that change happens to be about sexism or racism or some other perceived imbalance, that’s not political correctness. What you’re calling “politically correct” is really just someone trying to make the world a better place according to their ideals. “Don’t say that hurtful word” isn’t an expression of political correctness. It’s an effort to be Ask You To Be Less Shitty. “Let’s see more diversity on the pages of this comic book” isn’t somebody trying to score political points. It’s trying to address what the person or company sees as a problem.

Why Can’t They Make New Heroes Instead, Jeez

The logic here is, “Why do they have to make Captain America black? They should make new heroes, instead, that are black.” I get the point — and at the core, the creation of new and diverse characters has value. But you also have to realize that new characters regardless of gender / sexual preference / skin color / nationality / etc. have a hard time reaching new readers right out of the gate. They run the risk of being marginalized heroes. One of the great things about taking iconic pre-existing characters and flipping them around is that it says, hey, these top-shelf characters aren’t just restricted to one segment of the population (i.e. the Straight White Dude contingent).

Also, this excuse runs the risk of sounding like, “Yeah, sure, you can have your super-ladies and whatever, just keep them over there. Go play in your own sandbox. This one is ours.”

No, What We Really Need Are More Diverse Creators

Can’t fault that argument. Entirely true. Thumbs-up. High-five. Put it to a vote — you got mine.

That being said: as a fellow creator, I can only do so much here. I can support and signal boost.

Further, this isn’t a one-or-the-other dichotomy.

But yes, you’re entirely correct: more diverse writers, directors, artists, even executives.

But These Characters Don’t Look Like Me

Nope, they don’t. And they may have experiences not indicative of yours. So what? What do you think everyone who isn’t like you has been experiencing all this time? That same feeling. And yet they still read Batman or watch the same television shows.

Confession time: I’m a jerky white dude. I’m clumsy in my assumptions and preconceived notions and — hey, I acknowledge my privilege. The privilege of privilege is being blinded by it and blind to it. You can walk around all day, whistling like a happy asshole, completely unaware of all the toxic douchebaggery splashing all around. We step on flowers we don’t even notice.

Sometimes, though, you have your eyes opened to it, and it’s a real holy-shit-we’re-in-some-kind-of-sexist-racist-Matrix moment. Rape culture doesn’t seem like a thing until someone starts pointing it out and then it’s a really awful Magic Eye painting, except instead of seeing a dolphin you’re seeing how we ask rape victims what they did to deserve getting raped. Once someone tells you, “That Terrible Thing is really an actual thing,” it’s ants, it’s dust, it’s fingerprints-on-glass. Didn’t notice it before, but now you realize it’s freaking everywhere.

And one of those “it’s freaking everywhere” moments is when you realize, oh, yeah, okay, our pop culture has been speaking very directly to heteronormative middle-class white-guy culture for a long time. Comics, television, novels, whatever. It’s time to share the storytelling. Time to pass the Talking Stick. Besides, maybe if we saw more diversity on the page, we might be willing to acknowledge the diversity outside our doors. I often say that the most valuable multitasking we can teach our kids and express in ourselves is to dual-wield Empathy and Logic, and if this helps in that, so be it. If this makes people more open? More aware? How is that possibly a bad thing?

You want to talk about Kindle Unlimited.

I know you do because folks have tweeted me, asking me about it.

I even got a couple e-mails. A whole couple. Almost a few.

(People, when will you learn I’m no expert on anything?)

First up, if you want to talk about it, I will point you to Mike Underwood’s post here. Also, this GigaOm article is worth the direction of your uncertain, questioning gaze. (If you don’t know the core gist of the Kindle Unlimited service, it’s this: unmoored from the Prime Kindle lending library is another service which you can pay $9.99 a month for in order to read a whole host — around 600,000 e-books — on your Kindle device or app. It consists mostly of Amazon Publisher books and KDP Select author-publisher books. You can do a free month trial right now.)

My thoughts — unfocused and rambly, because it is Friday and at this point I’m not even sure I’m sitting here typing on a keyboard and not nude in the woods somewhere banging on a yellow-jacket hive, hallucinating from anaphylaxis — are as follows:

a) Amazon is interesting because it is a big company and yet it moves like a spry, tiny company. Which is awesome and scary because when big companies move quickly, it is often tectonic.

b) I don’t know yet if this is tectonic. It is interesting to me as a reader and a little scary to me as a writer because all new things are scary to me as a writer because writers are ultimately flinchy since being whacked in the nose so many times with bad deals. I think if this becomes a truly dominant model, then it will be tectonic, shaking How Books Are Consumed and How Authors Are Paid to the molten, trembling core.

c) I think it’s a good price point.

d) I think there’s an argument to be made where this devalues books.

e) I think there’s an argument to be made that high e-book prices hurt authors more than low e-book prices, so, blah blah blah book value exposure something snore.

f) I think Spotify was bad for bands but this isn’t Spotify.

g) Most of the time, your money triggers based on people reading to a certain point in the book — 10% or so. If this becomes a dominant model, maybe easy to game? It’s like, someone reads as far into your book as they would the available free sample, that triggers payment. Which is nice. But potentially subject to some kind of abuse.

h) Contrary to the narrative about Amazon, this could be interpreted as them hoping to keep actual e-book prices high. If you look at the language that’s being reported (this bit found at Publishers Lunch) —

Filling in one of the unanswered questions for authors, Amazon Publishing authors will be compensated in a manner similar to that to for authors of publishers that agreed to participate. As Amazon Publishing executive Jeff Belle wrote to agents in an email, “every time a customer reads more than 10% of your author’s book through Kindle Unlimited (about the size of the current free samples available for Kindle books), your author will earn their full ebook royalty rate based on the average sale price of their book for the given month.”

— that suggests an incentive for keeping your e-book prices higher, not lower, particularly if Kindle Unlimited becomes truly popular, or even as noted, dominant. (I bolded the relevant bit suggesting this.) The higher the e-book price, the better that average becomes. It ostensibly even discourages sale prices. Prices too low, too often, and authors will be paid less.

i) You will find some of my books there, including Under the Empyrean Sky, Blightborn, and the short fiction set in the Heartland world, The Wind Has Teeth Tonight. You’ll also find Kick-Ass Writer there. (Full list here.) None of my self-published work is there, as this appears to be only open to those in KDP Select. KDP Select is the “I’m with Amazon exclusively” program, which I don’t dig because I do well selling my author-published work elsewhere.

j) No, I didn’t know about Kindle Unlimited before a couple days ago. I was not given a chance to opt-in or opt-out. This isn’t exactly abnormal for publishers, mind you. I do not believe KDP Select people received any warning, either — so, if they’re in, they’re in for at least 90 days or so, I believe. They can, I expect, opt out thereafter. (Correct me if I’m wrong.)

k) That said, worth realizing that Amazon not giving authors any overt choice or head’s up suggests they’re more like regular old publishers than you might believe. Which isn’t good or bad — it’s just worth noting.

l) Ten bucks a month isn’t as good as I’d like, but one assumes (hopes?) that the roster will grow, and not shrink. Then again: could this be tied in at all to current publisher discussions? Did publishers know much about this? Some did, presumably.

m) But but but, it contains audio, which is big.

Overall: it’s interesting.

I am cautiously optimistic.

I like being read and I like being paid. I hope this does both.

I am, as always, wary of Amazon corralling all of the book world under one tent — e-books! Kindle! Goodreads! Audio books! Publishing companies! Print-on-Demand! And now, subscription services! — because monoculture makes my butthole clench.

Still — I’m trying the free month because free month.

Still: stay tuned, surely more to come, with further clarity.

Feel free to comment: what do you think about Kindle Unlimited?

Play nice in the comments. (None of that “Amazon Is EEEEEEVIL” rhetoric, please.)

Last week’s challenge: @YouAreCarrying

Next week is SDCC — San Diego Comic-Con. Which means this week is a lot of comic booky superhero-flavored stuff. News bits in particular (including my own bit of good superhero news with author Adam Christopher). As such, I’ve got superheroes on the brain.

Which means this week, you will have them on the brain, too.

I want you to write 1000 words of superhero fiction. Except — except! — I also want you to mash it up with another genre. So, superhero fantasy. Or superhero horror. Superhero romance? Whatever. Pick another genre, smash it into the superhero one. Go nuts. Post it at your online space. Link back here. Due by next Friday, noon, EST.

OH, HEY, WHAT’S THAT.

Oh, y’know, maybe it’s just Adam Christopher and Yours Truly tackling the rebooted, gender-flipped The Shield for the Archie comics Red Circle revamp, Dark Circle Comics.

We’ve got Wilfredo Torres making magic on the art machine.

(And we’re totally in USA Today talking about it.)

And we join other creators revamping the Red Circle titles, too — Duane Swierczynski and Michael Gaydos on Black Hood, plus Mark Waid and Dean Haspiel on The Fox.

Really excellent company, yeah? Yeah.

All this under the editorial iron fists of Masters Alex Segura and Paul Kaminski, both of whom deserve eternal thanks for letting us two cuckoopants novelists play in their comic book sandbox and create our own “Daughter of the Revolution.”

So, in other words: holy crap.

Adam and I have worked on some other comic ideas before this — honestly, we work well together. He’s a pal and a gifted writer. If you don’t know Adam, you will. (You should familiarize yourself with his work, stat. If you want a free taste, check out Cold War at Tor.com right now.)

More soon (including, I think, some thoughts on gender-flipping and diversity in comics).

In the meantime, you can find Adam and I at our Tumblr: Adam And Chuck Make Comics.

I’d like to thank those amazing comic writers who inspire me (and, I’m sure, Adam as well): Gail Simone, Greg Rucka, James Robinson, Marjorie Liu, Kieron Gillen, Kurt Busiek, Kate Leth, Alex de Campi, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Christopher Sebela, Paul Tobin, Caitlin Kittredge, Faith Erin Hicks, Kurtis Wiebe, Matt Fraction, Neil Gaiman, Devin Grayson, Mike Mignola — you know, that list goes on and on and I could be here all day.

HA HA HA I GET TO MAKE COMICS NOW WHEE

MY ALL-OUT ASSAULT ON ALL FORMS OF WRITING AND STORYTELLING CONTINUE

Ahem.

I’m excited, what can I say?

Oh, and one last parting shot of The Shield…

Two petty criminals find themselves inextricably linked when a stop at a roadside bar leads to murder. On the run and out of options, they reluctantly rescue a stranded boy and his dog from a lonely crossroads in the Mojave Desert and decide for the first time in their lives to do the right thing. But this one selfless act unleashes a terrifying onslaught of demonic trouble as they struggle to save the boy—and themselves—from an evil far greater than they ever imagined.

1. We Were Somewhere Around Barstow

Barstow, California has a Home Depot. Who knew?

2. The Method

Writers can learn something useful from method actors. Back in the 20^th Century, two schools of acting battled for prominence. Classical actors sought to create a lifelike portrayal by studying people and applying the knowledge to their performance. They worked from the outside in. Method actors searched for an emotion similar to what the character was feeling and used that information to inform their performance. They worked from the inside out. Up until I wrote Ceremony of Flies, I used the classical approach. I can’t quite remember why I had the idea to try the method approach but EUREKA. This was a breakthrough. Infusing a scene with a specific emotion bumped up the quality of my writing a level or two.

3. Scary Nuns And Cool Mythology

Christian mythology is more interesting than I thought. I’ve shied away from Christian themes because the world has enough stories about Satan and hell and clergy battling demons, and what do I know about it anyway? I discovered there’s plenty of other cool myths to explore. Also, Nuns are scary. Really, really scary.

4. The Power Of The Novella

Novellas aren’t short novels or long short stories. They’re a distinct literary form with interesting limitations and possibilities. Subplots and multiple point-of-view characters belong in novels. The most successful short stories are told in a single scene with a single point-of-view character. (Of course there are exceptions to this rule. Please list all instances that prove me wrong in the comments. Start with Beowulf) Novellas fit in an interesting middle space. Like short stories they are best when they stick to one point-of-view character and like novels they have the space for multiple scenes. It’s an intriguing form to work with. Novella’s dip a little bit deeper into the world without going in for full emersion. An added bonus is that novellas are especially well suited for reading electronically. Readers seem to like being able to finish a book in one sittings. It appeals to the movie watching instinct.

5. What Happens In Vegas

In 1910 a law was passed in Las Vegas that forbade all forms of gambling including flipping coins. This harsh law inspired gamblers to take their games underground. The lesson here is: fun cities like Las Vegas develop when conservative law makers are in charge, so elect those folks… No, maybe there is no lesson. Las Vegas is still pretty cool.

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