Five Little Words

So I was working on Sand last night.  It was one of those every-word-fights-me places in the revision process, where my goal is to keep the emotional arc intact while altering what's being said, who says it, why she says it, and what secrets remain unsaid.  So.  Freaking.  Frustrating.

Then, while staring at the little cursor blinking at the end of the last line, I decided I needed to add a timeframe to an event mentioned two paragraphs above.  Up went the cursor, and I typed, "--two generations before the Woes."

Then I sat and stared at those five words while the underpinnings of three novels shifted into alignment.  I swear, I could almost feel subterranean pillars, staircases and tunnels scraping and creaking and rumbling into new positions.  And when all that movement ceased, I was left with a backstory and an arc and a thematic backdrop that suddenly made perfect and beautiful sense.

After, I made not a whit of forward progress because I was too busy examining shiny plot pieces, seeing what they looked like in the new light.

--two generations before the Woes.

Five words that didn't change a thing, but showed how all the changes make sense.  I write because of moments like that.

Aside: I've altered the titles a little bit as well, to better reflect... things:
Sand of Bone
Breath of Stone
Burn to Hone

A Disappointing Turn

I was twenty years old when an established author first explained to me how the process of publishing fiction worked.

Pause.

Okay, I've just written and deleted seven paragraphs--all running in different directions--that could logically follow that first sentence.  Those paragraphs are for another time.

The paragraph for this time:
In the two decades since, I've had the opportunity to hear from, read about, and befriend writers, as well as chat at length with editors and agents.  The one constant between all professionals was the claim that real publishers weren't like the scam publishers.  Scam publishers charged huge up-front fees for substandard work.  Scam publishers offered egregious contracts and preyed upon ignorant writers who either didn't know better, and wanted their books out too badly to care.  Scam publishers belonged in the literary slums, scorned and mocked by Real publishers.

If you haven't already seen it, go check out John Scalzi's take on the contract terms for Alibi, an imprint of Random House.  Yes, Random House.

Then take a look at the report from blogger April Hamilton who received a letter from Simon & Schuster asking her to help them out with marketing.  S&S partnered with Author Services back in November, and now they want "affiliates" to refer new writers to their overpriced "self-publishing" services.  And what do the affiliates get?  A "bounty" of $100 per signed author.  Can you imagine being asked--by a "respectable" major publishing house--to make money off fellow writers who don't know any better?

I should probably be angry about all that.  In truth, I'm just saddened.  Disappointed.  But, oddly enough, not surprised.

The question now is how the lines between real and scam shall be defined.  Me, I can't see how real and scam can be sibling imprints in the same publisher.

ETA: Here's the link to Archway Publishing's affiliate program.

Look: I am all for successful business models.  But an industry can't stake a claim to prestige with one hand, then participate in practices they've derided in the past with the other.