INTERVIEWER: Joyce Ellen Armond

Author Charlotte Boyett-Compo has to her credit almost thirty electronically published novels, and has successfully navigated the changing waves of e-publishing practically from its inception. She graciously agreed to give SpecRom her take on where e-books can take you. SpecRom: You first published THE KEEPER OF THE WIND in 1995. What expectations did you have for the epublishing industry when you started out? Have you been satisfied, disappointed or surprised by the way epublishing has evolved? CBC: Actually, THE KEEPER OF THE WIND was published by a subsidy publisher…the infamous Commonwealth Publications…in mass market paperback. I was one of the very few authors who had their work printed and released in a fairly wide market by CP. I received two fair sized royalty checks before the publisher ran afoul of dozens of authors who filed a class action suit against them, me included. The reason I am telling you this is because I would *STRONGLY*…and I can’t say that loud enough or often enough…advise against anyone going the subsidy/vanity route. Far too many people have been conned by crooks like CP and Sovereign Publications and others. But with that said, had I not had TKOTW under my belt when I went to a Romance Foretold chat one evening, I most likely would not have gotten BLOODWIND and NIGHTWIND published by the startup company RF began. Because I had something to show that I had been published and had viable manuscripts already finished, Penny Hussey of RF asked to see BW and NW. Both were too dark for RF but since she and others in the company believed in the books, another imprint…Twilight Times Books…was started to pub my work. That is an honor for which I will forever be grateful since it got me ‘in the door’ of publishing. As for expectations, I really didn’t know what to anticipate. I knew nothing whatsoever about e-publishing, It was in its infancy back then. As I understood it, the books would be available on CD-rom and later…when the company could afford it…in trade paperback. I really didn’t expect a lot of sales but when reviews started coming in for BW and NW and they hit bestseller lists on a lot of websites, I started getting a name for myself. When I could Google myself and come up with over a thousand hits, I knew I’d semi-arrived. I was a pretty happy camper and it wouldn’t have happened without being e-pubbed. SPECROM: When you sat down and planned for your successful publishing career, did you look at the market and write into what you saw as trends, or did you write and then find a publisher that would match your work? CBC: I really didn’t pay any attention to market trends when I first started writing. I only wanted to write what I enjoyed in the hopes that readers would embrace my tales. I had had it up to my neck with romance writers who followed the formula: girl is headstrong, meets boy, boy is an alpha male with an attitude, there is the MISUNDERSTANDING that keeps them apart, girl gets into trouble from which boy must extract her and then live the ubiquitous HEA (happy ever after). I wanted to write stories where the hero with chiseled pecs and the heroine with every hair in place didn’t necessarily ride off into the perfectly balmy sunset on a pristine white horse who never pooped. If you ask any e-pubbed author I imagine you will get the same answer. One of the reasons there are so many of us is because we CAN write what we like. We are not forced into a mold that says you have to write only what NY says is acceptable. We can mix genres, we can do multiple POVs (points of view). Although headhopping, as it is called, used to be a major no-no for the traditionalist NY publishers, lately it’s being done by major writers like Christine Feehan and Sherilyn Kenyon and is becoming acceptable. As an e-pubbed author, you aren’t required to provide that omnipresent HEA although some very adamant readers still require that in their fantasies. When it became obvious that Romance Foretold Inc. was not going to make it, I started looking around for other publishers. What I was looking for was an e-pub who would allow me to write what I wanted without having to follow that silly NY mold. Since nearly all e-pubs will do that, there were a lot from which to choose. I went with those that had a sterling reputation and even helped start one which is well. I decided with the demise of RFI that I would never again put all my books with one publisher. Some went to Hard Shell Word Factory, two went to Twilight Times Books (which had broken away from RFI), and some to Ellora’s Cave. With Ellora’s Cave, I began writing books for the first time with a specific market in mind. EC publishes Romantica® and because all my books had sex in them, it seemed natural to simply magnify that sex for the erotica market. Being accepted by EC was actually the beginning of my career as I see it. My books are not only e-pubbed but are showing up in print on the shelves of brick and mortar bookstores of Waldenbooks, Borders, Books-A-Million and Barnes and Noble. It wasn’t for the money…although that is turning out to be a wonderful plus!...but for the ability to have my work readily available to a larger market that I began writing erotica. I can tell the same tales but with a spicier slant, in the way I want to tell it, and it is there for a much bigger audience. To me, that is a powerful incentive to keep writing e-pubbed novels. SpecRom: You describe many of your titles as "dark fantasy" and you have one publishing credit in the horror genre. Since it's my personal passion, I'd like to ask your opinions on the potential success of melding the darker speculative genres with romance. CBC: Due to the influences of NY-pubbed romance authors like Feehan and Kenyan, the market for dark fantasy has become a worldwide phenomenon. They both write paranormal vampire tales and vampires are dark fantasy. Their heroes are larger than life and the story is a romance. There is explicit sex in the tales and by a stretch of the imagination that makes it erotica. When you combine the three genres, now you have one hybrid genre: dark fantasy erotic romance. More and more traditionalist Formulaic romance writers whose books aren’t being snatched off the shelf quite so readily anymore are coming out with books with a paranormal theme to cash in on the monies being generated. That is the true essence of writing for a market.  Many of those books aren’t very good because the authors aren’t really dark fantasy writers. They don’t have the same love and understanding of the genre that those of us who have always written in that genre have and it shows. I’ve had bookstore managers tell me readers are there as soon as EC books are being stocked on the shelves each month and are buying not one or two but as many as ten books at a pop, that the books are literally flying off the shelves. The market is definitely for paranormal/erotica so you’re going to see a lot of that in the future. SpecRom: Do you think there is an essential skill set an author must develop for a successful electronic publishing career? CBCIt is the same essential skill as any author needs: talent. Virtually anyone can sit down and write a book. It might not be something someone else wants to read, though. I’ve had friends say: “You seem to be doing okay. I think I’ll write a book. How hard can it be?” With that mindset, it isn’t hard at all. All you need to do is sit down at the keyboard and type. Never mind the typos or the inconsistencies in the plot. Overlook the triteness of the tale or the implausibility, the stilted dialogue, and the mad grammar. Editors will fix that for you. Add a few ‘bad’ words in during your sex scenes and you’ve got a potential bestseller. Right? Wrong! Yes, there are dozens of e-publishing companies out there but very few would be classified as professional and even fewer of them have garnered a good reputation. Many of them were started last week. They aren’t particular about what they will contract. They’ll put just about anything up on their web pages and declare you are a published author. Such ‘companies’ don’t have editors who are truly capable of shaping a manuscript into something worthwhile and what editing they do is minimal at best. Some of them don’t even bother to edit the writing before putting the work up for sale. Heck, some of them just put the story up as a free download. If you don’t care about making either money or a name for yourself and just want to put your writing up for people to read, that’s the way to go. Some writers sell themselves short by going that route, though. They may have the talent, but they don’t have the patience to take the harder road. Submitting to an e-pub like Ellora’s Cave might make that writer see his work isn’t as great as he thinks it is. He gets ticked because the submission was rejected and he goes off looking for someone who will take it as it is. He’s too self-absorbed and too lazy to make the necessary corrections to have a quality e-pub contract for it. If a fly-by-night e-pub will take his manuscript without him having to fiddle with it, the writer might simply sell out and take that easier road. A word to the wise, though: Traveling that route, you will never know if you were really good enough to get off the porch and run with the big dogs. Of course being a big dog in a small kennel is better to some than being a small dog in a large kennel. SpecRom: What strategies have worked well for you in marketing your titles? Was there something that surprised you? Is there a Big Mistake that any author considering e-publishing should avoid, in terms of marketing? CBC: I have found that having an easily navigated website with synopses, excerpts, cover art, and reviews of the novels is an absolute must have. If you are considering becoming e-published, it doesn’t make sense that you wouldn’t have a web presence. It amazes me that any author wouldn’t make that a priority. No successful entrepreneur would ever leave home without having business cards in his pocket. Think of a web page as your business card, your calling card, and an advertisement of what you have available. Making that web page an enjoyable experience for the reader will garner their notice and they’ll remember your name. Making that web page something from which they can’t wait to get away will only serve to make you and your work forgettable. Attending chats and signing onto lists where I am allowed to talk about my work is another great avenue for promotion. Word of mouth sells more books for ‘unknown’ authors than anything else. Some websites allow you to turn in press releases or to advertise your work on there for free with banner exchanges and the like. Some ask that you write an article for them in exchange for them promoting your latest work. Take advantage of that! You’re a writer so write! What continues to surprise me is how truly loyal readers will be. It is a humbling experience to have a reader…and especially a reviewer!...write to tell you how much your story thrilled them. I get emails every day from readers who make me cry from their compliments. If I never received another dollar for my work, just having these wonderful people who have become so dear to my heart write to tell me they can’t wait for my next book to come out or to have them tell me they are fighting other reviewers on who is going to get to review that book makes me one very proud lady. I never expected to get fan mail. That was the very last thing I thought about when I started out. To have that loyalty, that respect is terrific but to know you’ve written something someone, somewhere has taken to heart is a feeling unlike anything else. The biggest mistake I have seen…and one I unfortunately made myself a few years back…is to get a genre list ticked at you for opening your mouth and voicing an opinion when you should have kept it shut. We are all tempted to rebut discussions on lists because we are doing it sight unseen and it’s so darned easy. We’re not facing the other person so we tend to feel protected. Everyone wants to know what you think about the subject, don’t they? You’re an intelligent person so won’t they be swayed by your argument? The old adage of Silence is Golden should be typed up in bold red letters an inch high, printed out and taped to the top of our monitors. Sometimes it’s what you don’t say that is the wisest course of action. Here’s why I say this: Many dark fantasy romance authors don’t believe in that ever-present HEA (happy ever after ending). That’s fine so long as you don’t go on a list and tell that list how you feel about it. There will ALWAYS be a few people on that list…and sometimes a LOT of people on that list…who will take exception to you pooh-poohing something in which they firmly believe and will allow no venturing beyond what they hold as sacred. A discussion will begin and it will escalate. Angry words and insults are flung about. Feelings are hurt. Reputations are made. Neither side ever wins in such incidences. You aren’t going to change that person’s mind and you’ll only make matters worse by continuing to argue about it. Let it go. If you don’t, if you continue to antagonize your opponents, believe me when I say you’ll get a reputation you really don’t want to have. “She’s got an attitude and I wouldn’t read one of her books if it was given to me!” So watch what you say on the lists. Bite your tongue if you have to. It is better to be thought stupid by lurking than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. SpecRom: What would you change about the e-publishing industry now? Where do you think electronic publishing is headed? CBC: Simply because e-publishing is not accepted by a lot of people who believe it is a medium by which anyone can get their work…good or not…published, that it doesn’t take talent or professionalism to ‘be’ published, and that the entire e-pub industry is a bastard child, I would like to see e-pubs police themselves better. When an e-publisher does put out mediocre work with glaring typos and bad grammar, when the work is not edited and re-edited and then edited again for mistakes and inconsistencies, that e-pub isn’t doing the industry any favors. The shoddy stuff that shows up on the web every day isn’t helping to establish a good name for the industry; it is reinforcing the stigma attached to e-publishing as a whole. As for the future of the industry, e-publishing is here to stay and I can’t see it doing anything other than expanding. Unfortunately it is the fly-by-night companies who wouldn’t know an edit if it was shoved down their throats and the subsidy/vanity companies who charge ridiculous prices to put your work up on their website when a reputable, professional e-pub would have done it for nothing, give the industry a bad name. E-books will one day be the norm in schools and colleges because they are cheaper and you can carry twenty in one hand-held reader. With backlit screens, you can read in the dark and if your eyesight isn’t what it used to be, you can tweak the font size. When those hand-held readers become as commonplace as record players and VCRs were in the past or DVD players and iPods are now, then e-books will sell like the proverbial hotcakes. Will they replace a book you can hold in your hand even though you can download instantly and have at hand the nation’s number one bestseller at three o’clock in the morning during a snowstorm for half the price of a paperback? It’s doubtful, but there is room for both. Some folks will never embrace the technology of e-books anymore than they learned to program their VCR while others will continue to sing their praises and yearn for even more advances. It’s just a matter of comfort level. Visit Charlotte’s site at www.geocities.com/windlegends for free short stories, to learn more about the WindLegends series and a spectacular writer’s research link page!