We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kathleen Morris a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Kathleen, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to start by getting your thoughts on what you are seeing as some the biggest trends emerging in your industry.
The publishing industry is rapidly changing from the older models of “write a book, get an agent who sells your book to one of the Big Four in New York and the money rolls in”, supposedly, to a great many authors choosing to go with a smaller indie publisher, or self-publish themselves. Some even go with a vanity publisher, which charges the author to publish their book, sometimes as high as $10,000 or more, in my opinion the worst possible choice an author can make. Making the right choice for themselves can be tricky, and all are fraught with frustration and sometimes disaster, whether it’s in the form of losing a lot of money or not successfully selling their work.
Predators are rampant, and many of us are bombarded with pitches promising cheap editing, cover design, promising hundreds of positive reviews, PR choices – everything you can imagine. Nearly all of these breathlessly promised opportunities are fraudulent, many are AI driven, and the few that are legitimate are likely something you can do yourself, or a good publisher, small or large, will do for you. It’s a wild world out there from what it was even six or eight years ago.
My first three books were published by two small publishers, one of which is now out of business, but both were legitimate, honest and good at their profession. I eventually made the choice to establish my own publishing company, Dunraven Press, and to take on the responsibility of doing it myself. It’s been a learning process, but a good choice for me. Four books later, and five awards later, I can say it’s worked very well.
One trend that has become hugely popular is writing series books, popular throughout the industry. Some small publishers even only want writers who will consent to do this or they won’t work with them. The sales and monetary value in this are the driving force. Many authors still publish full size novels, some quite long, especially in sci-fi and fantasy, that are a series type, such as Game of Thrones. Others, usually the small publishers, and two especially come to mind, put out books in a series that often are 120 to 150 pages, and rush these into print, with as small a wait time as one month between the debut of the first one, and the ongoing sequels. While I haven’t read most of them, I have read samples and generally speaking, the writing isn’t as compelling as it could be. The covers are mostly slapdash, generic Shutterstock, AI or done by someone’s spouse. The series can be just four or five with the same character, or go on seemingly forever. I respect the drive to make a profit for both the publisher and writer, but find the quality lacking in many of these offerings. That said, each to his own.
I have been in negotiations with a couple of these outfits and turned them down. This type of writing, while perhaps more profitable, just isn’t for me. I write because I love to write, to bring my characters and stories to life. I don’t take this lightly, and I don’t want to give my creations short shrift. They deserve respect and care, and as a writer, I want to feel I have done the best I can. I am a stickler for accuracy, good research and writing prose that sometimes makes me jump up from my desk and yell “Yes, that’s it.” All of this, from creation to the final cover design, takes time to do well. I’m not saying these quickly produced books don’t have their place, it’s just not a model that works for me.
Kathleen, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I’ve been a writer nearly all my life, from writing Nancy Drew type serial mysteries and selling them to my classmates once a week in fifth grade until now. They sure weren’t going to win the National Book Award, but they sold well. Life, family, school all occupied me for many years after that but eventually the urge to write became so important I couldn’t ignore it. I took a college writing class and surprisingly, won an award. The candle was lit and the flame has burned since. A few years later, I was teaching my own college writing classes and had an editing/copyrighting/coaching business while I wrote my first book. After that, the stories just keep coming and I love writing them.
My first book was a historical novel about Big Nose Kate, Doc Holliday’s girlfriend, titled “The Lily of the West” and told not only her story from both her point of view and my own. (Sometimes I felt like she was hovering over my shoulder and I wanted to get it right, something most other book and screenplay writers have not.) The next was another about a strong woman character set in the West, but even though both of these won prestigious awards (I was gratefully surprised), I didn’t want to be known strictly as a “western” writer. I have become known as a writer of strong, independent women and that holds true in each of my books, whether set in a historical period, such as New York’s Gilded Age or Tombstone, Arizona, or contemporary thrillers like “Risk” or “Never Touch Down”. Whether it’s now or then, I do love mayhem. I have been fortunate enough to win Western Fictioneers’ Peacemaker award three times, and have been a finalist twice for Western Writers of America’s SPUR award. I’ve been asked to be a judge repeatedly for both these organizations and I love doing this. It gives me a good perspective on my fellow writers and their work, not to mention I get to read some really great books.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
The lesson I had to unlearn is that you cannot put your faith and trust about your ability in the hands of others. Writers are fragile creatures, most of us. Many times when we first become serious about our craft, we are in classes where we critique each other (hopefully with kindness) and eventually, show our work to others we feel we can trust, say a best friend, spouse or sibling. This doesn’t always work out, for a variety of reasons, some we least suspected. The top of the list when it doesn’t is good old-fashioned envy, whose evil face surfaces, surprising both of you, but more often just plain ignorance of how to judge good from bad writing. Sometimes this is sadly enough to stop a writing career in its tracks. This happened to me with my former spouse, who baldly told me writing just wasn’t my forte. I seethed with hurt and then resentment, finally copying a few paragraphs of Faulkner, and asked him what he thought of my latest effort. He shook his head and suggested I take up photography. I decided to write a book and get a divorce instead. I’ve never been good with cameras.
Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?
Yes, and there are great ones out there. Most writers are intimidated into thinking the old model of get an agent, get a Big Four publisher are the only ways you can succeed. This is mostly a fairy tale, and it’s also very difficult, Stephen King aside. Times have changed. There are other avenues.
Do your research, check out small publishers who accept submissions from writers without an agent. Some are great, but they aren’t advertising. (If they are, that’s a red flag no-no.) Writers’ Market, Writers’ Digest, lots of writers’ groups on social media are helpful.
If you decide to go the self-publishing route, there’s hundreds of blogs/ Youtube videos with lectures on how to best accomplish this. Reedsy, Amazon KDP and others are invaluable with help and suggestions, almost all of it free. There’s formatting software like Vellum and others that do a wonderful job, some inexpensive and again, some free. Take a photoshop class and design your own covers if you have an artistic bent, rather than pay for someone else to do it. I don’t advocate AI for any aspect but there are so many other legitimate resources you can employ.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.KathleenMorrisAuthor.com
- Instagram: Kathleenmorrisauthor
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kathleenmorrisauthor
