LitRPG: Inclusive, Exclusive, and Gatekeepers

Yeah... but, call me a pessimist, that was then, and now is now.

We've known since the Middle Ages that a monopoly tends to suck, unless you happen to be at the top of the food chain of said monopoly; and, hugely and crudely simplificating things, societies seem to have been torn and oscillating between “let’s get rid of them!” and “how do I get to the top of them?”

Back in the ‘50s and ‘60s, “let’s get rid of them and collaborate between us all” was quite in vogue (at least in some segments of society), and so it was some years ago back when Internet was young; the dream was that we were gonna get rid of the middlemen and just trade directly between producer and consumer…

… fast-forward to today, what happened is that in pretty much every business the middlemen have been clustered into the One Middle Man for that business sector; and if Amazon, Facebook and Google keep their trends, it’s gonna be the Holy Trinity real soon, and it's gonna be There Can Only Be One time, methinks. =)

So, unlike the ‘50s and ‘60s, the channels are becoming increasingly few (even if, or rather because, those channels have worldwide reach). And to a large extend, the whole Silicon Valley ethos seems to be “get there first, then get so big nobody else can”, with Big Pharma adding "and patent the shit out of everything in the meantime!". Add all of that together… yeah, at least some will have a strong incentive (cultural, and technologic) to arrive first to whatever spot in those few channels seems profitable, and claim it for themselves.

And the mob mentality that all of this also fosters is something that does not cease to amaze me (in a sad way), and reinforce the previous trends



Meh. =/



Sorry; methinks it’s Rambling Rant Day for me today.

 

I, as a person, don't mind when someone approaches others with a possible deal. What I've found in my own meanderings, is a lot of vagueness. This is based on "private" conversations I'm privy to from other authors, notes I've seen myself, generic emails to me, site advertisements for lots of publishers when I debated that route, and so on.

I am not attracted "submit your book and we'll pay you something" because it's unclear. I get why a business or spokes person might do that. I will not risk money shopping for vagueness when I can self publish and at least know everything that happened was my fault - because I know I can learn but can't trust a company to change it's practices. The few times I've sought pointed figures and a rough game plan, or even their marketing reach, the responses come in what I consider waffling language. Sure, the vagueness is designed to paint and outline of the actual contract which can vary from person to person, but as a government employee, I am mired in vague-speak and hate it.

I am attracted to signs that are clear like "1.99 for a quarter pounder with cheese" because the exchange is clear from the outset. The publishing house version of that should be "Hi, I'm [Doug Smith from State Farm], and I'm with [Company X who isn't State Farm], we've done [examples of other works here], we offer [specifics here] to people who meet X expectation. If you think you have [Awesome Sauce™ in your veins] apply here.

Now in these posts I jumped on all of them, the Reddit, the Facebook, the one here. That's because when I read them, it didn't present specifics. (I can't even find the Reddit post to double check). Either way, I didn't see a clear indication of reach, the range of money being offered, anything specific. To me, it said "put your book in and weeeee!". This isn't the time someone's said "Apply here for unclear results" - sometimes they come in with longer winded but still waffling phrasing. Sure, certain works will go further than others (Awaken Online verses say, Continue Online). Sure, some companies will put in more effort with product X instead of product Y because of expected ROI. However, without knowing what the publisher can offer, generally offers, has offered, etc, it's impossible to tell if my product will be treated like A or B or if the company even has any extra effort beyond a cover and editing.

Here's another fantastic mark about the publishing industry and even audio contracts with Tantor and so on - they will offer a ton, if you product is worth it. But without knowing how much they'll offer, you may get stuck with a basic contact that bends the writer over. From a business standpoint, I get it - but I don't like going into business without knowing the range of choices.

I'm not going to poke my head up for a sales pitch that's the literary equivalent of a haiku to a blind man describing the sunset - that is pretty sounding but nothing compared to actually seeing it.

I will always encourage (as stated above) that anyone willing to go down that road do their homework and go in with eyes as wide open as possible. Argue for more than what the basic contact gives you. This market is one where haggling actually does something.

 

I try, really hard, not to kneejerk when I respond. Publishers are one of the things that sets me off because it really is 75% sharks. Any "new" logo asking for rights in exchange for who knows what, regardless of spokes person, is going to put me through some mental hurdles. I recognize that it's a reach out and get an offer - hell, I know for certain a lot of these places have different offers pretty much pre-assembled based on who they're working with.

On a more topical situation; I'm glad of anyone's success. I have vague ideas of what top authors make and low end ones makes as indies. I barely know what I make (because I really should have released 4 more books to keep up name value and all that but haven't) - I do want other authors to be successful. I'd rather hear about "I'm doing awesome and am no longer a peon" then "I was taken for a ride and now have a slave collar" - if me being uncouth somehow leads to more of the former than the later - then I'll consider my existence generally positive.

 

Well. With KU, helping others is literally taking money from your own pocket - especially if you've got a big enough backlog to get millions of reads a month.

There are groups for people who make above X amount, and some of those are full of people watching each other to see what genre is hot. Write to market is a very real thing.

Sometimes it's not even being super successful, it that the questions bin asked are always the same, and sometimes given the answers gets people who simply carbon copy your work, same font, same style of cover, same artist, and same themes. There's MSE knock offs out there right now. Helping people, such as "Artist X" or "editor Y" means that person is getting more work, which means less time for the person who gave out their contacts.

Writing as a business is competitive. It's also worth noting that people only have so much money every month or two - so even without KU, they're not going to buy EVERY book n the market - but 3-4a month or whatever.

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This is getting a bit off topic though. I imagine publishers are the same way, at least ones that have ad campaigns and other services that make working with them more appealing. They can't take EVERY book, they can only take X books in X time - which means they're already gate keeping on their side.

 

I'm about 1/3 of the way through Fridays Online - a follow up to CO, and have like 4 other books 90% "done" - need to add a chunk to one, fix an ending on another...essentially I'm still doing lot I'm just not happy with any of it.

I also spent few weeks overhauling my site so that all the draft projects and final projects are on different pages - and took everything out of KU, which shoots my wallet in the foot but gives me more freedom.
FrustratedEgo Stories

Better watch those carbs tho.

 

Well, there's certainly a difference between "not helping" and "actively preventing" (a difference I'm everybody is aware of, just being rant-istic today myself, sorry about it! =)

FrustratedEgo does raise a good point though, IMHO, which I hadn't considered: with KU, it's certainly true that authors sort of "steal" (please note the quotes!) readers from each other (if nobody reads my book, then there's a bit more of money for every author that does get read in the KU ecosystem).

On the other hand, I'd say that, in the big picture, a few more (successful) LitRPG authors will "compensate" all other LitRPG authors by making the genre more well-known (i.e. attracting more readers to the genre that will then might go on to read other authors in said genre).

Having always worked for clients or publishers, but in a different industry (videogames), my two comments on the specific matter are:

1) In general, and a really, really silly example, but if a car that needs 4 tires only has 3, then it's not like it works at 75% efficiency; it just doesn't work (and when you consider the whole car, missing a single tire is probably missing just 1% of the car; it still ain't working!). As said before, it's a super silly example, but what I mean is: not everybody has the whole skillset, and sometimes having a publisher bitting off a huge chunk of the royalties is the difference between getting something out there, and getting nothing (since the skills the publisher brings to the table are essential to the whole thing working, even if they are only just a small percent of the whole "write + market + sell" a book effort).

And self-publishing books looks like requiring writing a lot of books; in that scenario, trying out what happens with one book may not be such a bad idea.

2) In this case in particular, it did seem to me that Conor Kostic was testing the waters (and I'm saying this in a good way), and was very upfront at it. As in: a certain publisher is wondering if a certain genre will sell well in brick-and-mortar bookstores, and is doing some inquiries. Seemed to me that, basically, nobody (not them, not us) have much of an idea if that will work or not, and were trying to find out if some authors would be willing to be part of the exploration party, so to speak.

Needless to say, everybody should very carefully read everything they intend to sign (or, better yet, have a lawyer read it); just saying that, in this case, it seemed to me Conor was very upfront with this being a new gig, with the risk/reward it entails (those that get in first may die first... or may pull a Kong and reap the benefits of first movers)


Hope the above wasn't a rant; for once, that was not my intention today! =)

 

I think the general idea is: if folks are reading A, then they are not reading B (even if money is not a limitiation for some readers, time surely is).

My point would be that one way to frame the above (the Kongian way, I suppose? =) is "if they are reading your LitRPG, they are not reading my LitRPG" (which, technically speaking, undoubtly hurts me in the short term).

Another way to frame it, though (let's call it the TribaLitRPG? =), is "once they finish reading your LitRPG, and assuming they want more, they are more likely to read my LitRPG than to read somebody's Urban Fantasy/Sword and Sorcery/Military SF" (which helps me in the long run).

Which is why I'm not entirely sure what's the purpose of trademarking LitRPG; the genre being so small, the biggest player in the genre actually benefits from every reader we "steal" from other genres, since no matter how said "stolen readers" get into the LitRPG, the author they are most likely to read next is the biggest fish in the pond. In other words, the guy that reaps the most benefit from everybody using the LitRPG tag on their books and attracting readers to the genre is Kong himself.

Heh... yeah, that got me scratching my head at first, with the first few books I read. Then I found out what was going on. =)

Bah... screw f**k, screwing is much better!

 

Yyyup, exactly this.

Imagine for a sec (although I'm pretty certain that was not the case!!) that one of their lawyers told them to use that akward phrase, instead of LitRPG, just to avoid the slightest chance of Kong suing them for trademark infringement... that would be a clear case of the trademark acting against Kong's interests (since, by being the Boss of the biggest LitRPG facebook group, he benefits every time a newcomer googles "LitRPG" and finds the Facebook page).

By LitRPG not being mentioned, the genre as a whole misses a chance of being discovered by readers, hence every LitRPG author misses a chance of being discovered, and (by simple weight distribution) the one that loses the most is the biggest LitRPG author.

Then again, for clarity's sake: I have absolutely no insight into Kong's motives or plans (which may have changed); just noting that, looking from far away, trademarking a genre tag that you want folks to use (since it basically brings outsiders to the tiny pond where you are the biggest goldfish) seems counter-productive.

 

The clearest reason was about branding - since has the LitRPG.com site or whatever - everything he made is geared toward that, mugs, and so on. The trick was to protect any and all money made from using is as a logo for swag.

But since this thread is a bit about gatekeeping - it's interesting to note that owning that kind of site while being so heavily invested in self promotion, is a huge roadblock to anyone else getting in.

There are also a lot of people who simply use the tag anyway, in the fashion of write to market style where it's "Big Book of Derp: A litRPG space harem monkey adventure"

 

I dunno... I've seen a lot of folks wearing a Star Wars T-Shirt; don't remember many wearing a T-Shirt saying "I love Space Opera", if that makes any sense. I mean, I have no doubt there's profit to be made from a popular franchise selling stuff with the franchise's logo (like "The Land" T-Shirts, for example). But the genre?

Not saying it wasn't his idea, mate; just saying it sounds a bit, dunno, weird.

On gatekeeping:

Yyyep, that's why Kong gets so much flack. Yet, long term, seems like a counter-productive strategy for Kong himself.

Suppose a really huuuge Fantasy author, with an equally huuuuge following, decides to try their hand in our genre. They most likely won't need much promotion for LitRPG fans to find out and probably be happy that such a huge name will write in our favourite genre (there will always be naysayers, of course! =); on the other hand, I'm fairly certain a lot of their fans will discover a new genre they didn't know anything about.

Now, suppose this author's lawyers decide to play it safe in lieu of Kong's trademark, and label the book "GameLit", or just use "Online" in the title... that would be another example of the trademarking of LitRPG backfiring, since it's the "GameLit" tag the Fantasy author's fans will search afterwards if they like the genre (and may even be put off by the "LitRPG" if they somehow reach the conclusion that is not the same as "GameLit").

I mean, any way I look at it, the biggest fishes in a small pond are the ones that benefit the most by newcomers arriving to said pond. So gatekeeping and stiffling the genre seem counterproductive for them.

Then again, it's Kong taking cartloads of money to the bank, not me, so I may be dead wrong in most/all of my assumptions! =)