What Do I Do Now?

[Dean from Australia]

The art of writing...the joy of words...of putting them together...the satisfaction of typing the final page of a manuscript...the excitement of being publisher...the pride of holding the first copy of the book that you wrote in your hand...

It's all bullshit.

Wait. No. Scratch that...

It's only all bullshit when what comes afterwards turns to poo and sullies all those positive feelings that a writer and author should feel on the journey towards becoming a published author.

When my novel was published in 2010 through the wonderful ireadiwrite Publishing house, I was - as you can imagine - understandably ecstatic. It was the culmination of a life long dream to become a published author and I will forever be grateful for the opportunity Michelle Halket and the team in Vancouver gave.

When it became apparent that my novel would be going into print, we discussed how we would get the book down to Australia and we were able to set up quite a good mechanism for achieving that. I set up my own distribution company, Hambledown Road Imprints, and I became the distribution executive for the Asia/Pacific region.

This is just a fancy way of saying that I took up the responsibility of pounding the pavement, taking my book to book stores as far and as wide as I could to garner interest, form relationships and, ultimately, get the book on to the shelves. This is the ultimate prestige for an author - one that we spend most of our life dreaming of.

But, make no mistake, this was hard work.

I had to become a salesman, become articulate in-so-far as learning the language of the book trade as well as develop a professional 'persona' that would allow me to 'sell' my book. I had to become an astute business person in order to strike agreements and arrange promotional events. I also had to set up a business operation that would allow me to track stock, keep in touch with book stores who had agreed to take on my novel, prepare invoices and send them out as the sales reports came in.

Initially, I enjoyed all this very much and I felt that I was making much of this new enterprise. I was, in my view, yielding success.

Along the way, however, I began to encounter a darker side to the whole business of selling books.

I would send invoices out to stores based on their sales reports back to me and ask for a 30 day turn around which, to my mind and my observations of business operations, seemed entirely appropriate. I'd set up reminders on my calendar in order to remind myself when invoices were due to be paid and I ticked them off one by one as transactions were completed.

I recounted an experience last year in a previous blog post where a particular store I had struck an agreement with avoided paying an significant account after several friendly reminders, a couple of phone calls from myself and a visit in person to the store. They threw up all sorts of excuses to me as to why they hadn't paid the account on time and engaged in serial avoidance in order to delay the account even further.

That experience degenerated into my having to threaten legal action, if the store did not pay the account within 7 days and I had to terminate my relationship with that store. That whole experience heralded my entry into the darker side. I lost a lot of sleep over it. It affected my relationships with my family and it soured all of those good feelings I described at the top of the page.

I am now experiencing similar difficulties with two more stores who, as I write this, have not paid accounts I sent out to them in May this year. We are now at the end of July. Letters I've sent are not being responded to, emails I send go unanswered, phone calls I make are either blown off or given the "I'll get back to you on that"

I don't understand how it is that these book stores - in fact any business - can operate like this. The two book stores are stores that I have previously held in high regard. I have visited them many times over the years and I've bought books from them. They have good reputations. I approached these book stores on that basis because they are stores I wanted to see my book in.

They are fucking with me and I know they are fucking with me.

There are certain mannerisms that you can pick up in phone conversations that scream obfuscation. Non committal answers to simple questions like - "When can I expect you to pay the account sir?", "Will you confirm you've received the account by telephone with me?"

My bullshit-ometer has turned way up to 10 now and my tolerance for these people is stretching to breaking point. It is also spoiling my pride in being a published author.

But it is also making one other thing clear to me.

Throughout this year, news services have run with stories of the collapse of big book stores like Borders both in America and Australia. This has been blamed in part on the rise of on line retailers like Amazon and the advent of the ebook. I think it has more to do with the failure of supposedly sound corporate entities and their shitful business practices. I know this from experience. I struggled for nearly a year to receive payment from the parent company of Borders Australia who again, sold a significant number of my novel from their shelves. As a lone Australian author and CEO of a start-up book distribution house, there was little hope of me extracting monies from them any sooner than I eventually did. Again, the experience left me frustrated and discouraged.

But it has also lead me to question the need for me to continue forming the kinds of bricks and mortar relationships with entities that are, from my vantage point, in trouble. If book stores enter into formal arrangements with authors that include signed documentary agreements and then they fail to live up to the spirit of those original agreements, then what the fuck am I doing with my time? I think my future as an author will ultimately be determined in a greater marketplace anyway - where the most important relationship will be that between the author and the reader directly. Frankly, the middleman sucks.

There is no real moral to this story. I think I've given you an insight for you to determine your own moral here.

I would just say that if you are in business, the one piece of advice I would impart to you as a fellow businessman...

Pay your fucking bills.

[poingjam]

I tend to believe that most people are dumb, thoughtless, and incompetent. But any time I actually deal with people, I trust them to be capable and considerate and understanding, then I'm all surprised and upset if they turn out to be dumb, thoughtless, and incompetent.

It really sucks that you're going through all this, but you can take away from it the knowledge that trust needs to be earned. You can trust yourself and your close friends, but everyone else can only be given so much leeway.

[Dean from Australia]

Yeah, I am becoming a really harsh assessor of character. Business tends to do that.

[amyuilani]

Businesses often think they don't have to take the little guy seriously. Follow through, or be prepared to walk away forever from the entire experience. It's one of the reasons writers often use agents. They don't need the hassle of bookstore business and can let the middle men deal with it.

[Dean from Australia]

I've decided to follow through. I figure that I've got nothing to lose now so I'll just keep annoying the fuck out of them until they pay up. As I write this, I just got a cheque from one of the stores today.

Winning.

[tempfoot]

Sounds shitty - but all too common. I'm always amused by those who ascribe evil intent and machinations to businesses. The vast majority are simply far too incompetent to get away with anything.

[Station]

Try invoicing the Government sometime. Its a sad part of business, but welcome to it, it doesn't get better and it doesn't go away. The county has owed me 3k since January.

[Dean from Australia]

I did actually bill my local council for a time a few years ago because they were constantly spraying my nature strip outside my house and killing off the lush green lawn I had cared for and manicured over a long period. I had an argument with some bureaucrat on the phone after which time I started billing them for all the lawn mowing and lawn care I did...

Never got a cent but it did piss a lot of people off.