Gretchen Jones

With the arrival of my W2 from my day job this week, taxes have been on my mind.  I’m fairly determined that this year I begin representing myself as an author to the IRS.  I believe with the completion of a first draft manuscript, serious revision underway, I have submitted my work (in some form, mostly queries) to an agent and an editor (with negative results…sigh) that I have earned the right to call myself author and receive credit for the things I’m doing to reach the goal of publication.  So with a bit of trepidation I step out onto the icy surface of IRS requirements and begin my adventure.

One of my local RWA chapters will have speakers from a tax preparation service presenting material next week but in the mean time I’m looking around for information to educate myself on what is permissible and what is not in terms of deductions.  I’ve found the following sites that reference author taxes and thought I’d share them here.

Note:  I do not have any qualification to determine that these sources are reliable, correct or otherwise represent the reality that is the IRS tax code.  But they were interesting and helpful to me.  Your tax return is your problem as mine belongs to me.

The Eclectics website provided a list of IRC (Internal Revenue Code?) sections that particularly refer to writers and authors.  It includes case studies sited in the code itself I think.  Including a reference to RWA Dues specifically and the “deductibility” of same.  I found this site particularly interesting.  Although it appears the sections were snipped and assembled from various documents, each does reference the code section that it applies to and I thought the cases were interesting.

As long as I was putting that site out there I thought it why not take it further, so I have asked uncle Google for his assistance and received the following links in return.

On ForWriters.com a history of the current tax code as it applies to authors is provided.

Publishlawyer.com provides a more summary account of what authors can expect in terms of categorizing themselves for tax purposes.

On a LSU faculty website I found this page that goes into some detail of hobby vs for profit pursuits.

On Gentlemanranters.com I found this “tax guide for journalists and authors.”

And don’t forget you can always ask the IRS or your local tax professional - Yeah, that guy standing on the corner in the green bedsheet and the statue of liberty foam crown - There’s an expert for you (Just being snarky, I’m sure the company he represents is exceedingly capable).  But seriously, I bet his boxers are sticking out of his pants that are way down around his dangly bits if you look beneath the verdigris (shudder).

I digress.  I’m sure the IRS has lots of publications that are certain to provide you with something to think about.

So that’s what I found on the internet.  Any other resources you care to add I’m happy to see.  Comments for first time posters are moderated so don’t be surprised if your comments don’t appear immediately.

Once again I managed to stumble across a really nice set of lectures on the internet.  This time the subject is writing romantic suspense.  I couldn’t even tell you how I got there, but I bookmarked it and have been back to read and re-read the helpful information within.  Lisa Gardner has a series of lectures, two of them actually.  The first is on the business end and the second is on the practical craft of constructing a romantic suspense novel.  These were well organized, thoughtful lectures that addressed market, synopsis, characters, plots, and the whole spectrum of writing in the rom-suspense sub-genre.

I’ve been working on my current wip for a full year now.  I finished the first draft in November and am workshopping it with Holly Lisle’s How To Revise Your Novel.  The thing I didn’t know I was missing (between all the brilliant techniques delivered in Holly’s lessons) is the genre specific reminders of my target.  There were many things in Lisa Gardner’s lectures that I had forgotten or never really thought about. It came at exactly the right time to toss my thoughts in fresh directions for my revisions.

So if you’re working on a romantic suspense I highly recommend that you take a look at her Lisa Gardner’s website and the tricks of the trade section.

The last week has been a foggy mess here in the Midwest.  As if it weren’t bad enough that we had a foot or more of snow, the melt appears to be going straight into the air.  Traveling highways in thick fog is dicey at least, so it was pure stubbornness that a group of us to converged on Topeka, Kansas Saturday night to see the Euphoria String Band play at the Classic Bean coffee house.

The band sans bass player who was blocked from the photo by someone's hat

Until we pulled back into the driveway we weren’t sure we would be going home.  The fog was so thick we couldn’t see further than about five yards ahead of us on the interstate.  That made for slow going.

Sometimes I feel that way when writing, like the clouds are low and thick and so much is unknown in front of me that I may never make it to my goal.  Fortunately there are lighthouses located across the landscape shining through the mist with help for the fogbound writer.

This week I received a link to one of the more subtle aspects of craft, verb tense. Romance University always offers excellent advice, instruction and examples and this week an excellent post with clear explanation and pointed examples.  The comments provided additional insight.  Overall a useful time spent on the internet.  Really, how often can you say that?

Here’s the link to the post.  http://romanceuniversity.org/2010/01/15/ask-an-editor-problem-with-tense/

Last July I went to the RWA Conference in Washington D.C.  As part of an on line chapter’s pre-conference events we went to the FBI Academy at Quantico for a special program.  I had no idea ahead of time that we would get to go out on the firing range.  I hadn’t been anywhere near a firearm since I was about 16 but that was another story entirely.

The first weapon I ever fired (besides my mouth oh, and that #2 pencil I jabbed Bobby and Robin with in grade school - sorry about that - impulse control is much better now, thanks)  a thompson sub-machine gun…

A tommygun is definitely a woman’s weapon  I did like the feel of it.  Very solid, heavy, two handles to grab hold of and the butt wedged firmly against your shoulder it felt very secure.  The other rifle that we fired was also a nice piece of equipment that was comfortable to fire, didn’t kick terribly hard, but it just wasn’t the same.  There’s just something about a girl’s first tommy gun…(sigh).

Here’s the view from behind me.  You can see how close the instructors stood behind us.  Brave souls I must say.

Then there was the one round I fired from the shotgun.  It was not my favorite and just felt unsafe and out of control as the business end of the weapon rapidly pivoted up toward the heavens after firing.  I had the opportunity to fire additional rounds with the shotgun but I found it scary and it made me say HOLY CRAP several times quite loud even with ear protection.  So I exercised a judgement call on that and skipped it.

Below you can see my fine shotgun wielding form being corrected prior to taking the shot.

It took awhile to get the photographs from the photographer, but it was well worth the wait.

Some days just can’t be beat and this one was right up there at the top of my list.

Inventory list for world domination, which I’ll get right on just as soon as I finish revisions and sell my first novel:

(WHAT? it could happen)

• tommy gun

• 1964 Oldsmobile Cutlass f-85 Vista Cruiser Station Wagon (after market A/C,  maroon with maroon interior preferred)

• GPS

• Google phone

Wildcard characters you can use when searching (displayed at right below)

Note that wildcard search and replace can be very tricky so be careful.

I did a wild card search for sas and it returned every PARAGRAPH that ended with sas. Even <*sas which should (in my mind) have returned each word ending in sas instead returned SENTENCES that ended in sas.  I should have used <(*sas) I think or even better (sas)> for words that end in sas. (looking for the word Kansas if you’re curious).

So a search using wildcards for the word condo would be formatted <(condo)> I think. (Starts and ends with condo).  That should return condo but not condolences.  Helpful when doing a search and replace.  Play with it in a COPY of your manuscript or some other document.

You can get really complicated with this if you want to. You have to check the “use wildcards” box below the search and replace box.

Be very careful and make a copy of your work before doing a search and replace using wildcards or any big risky search and replace.

Incidentally I’ve been using MS Word for more years than I can remember and this is the first time I’ve ever gotten wildcards to work.  I’ve got a degree in computers so it’s not particularly intuitive.  (or I might be a moron – you never can tell)

Recently I’ve been in on a conversation that once again strayed to the seemingly archaic world of book inventory management.  Having spent about 20 years working in inventory management for health care I actually had a basis to form an opinion (instead of making shit up like I sometimes do - it’s an old family skill).  You know the economics of book inventory is a peculiar thing. Almost as peculiar as my mind which wandered all over this topic the other day and came to a rather duh conclusion.  Endure…uh, I mean enjoy.

Economies of Scale

It doesn’t cost much more to ship one book as it does two as long as you use the same box.  If you ship a full truckload it is more economical than a partial truckload (when you break it down to unit cost). So for the publisher it makes a certain amount of sense to ship more units to its distribution points(presumably wholesalers).  Besides if there are more copies available on the shelves more may sell - a gamble but not a crazy one up to a point.

The more copies you print the less each copy costs, because like most consumer goods the bulk of the manufacturing costs are in the setup not the materials.  Bookstore buyers have a no risk prospect in terms of over-ordering because the return policies are liberal.  It’s almost a consignment relationship (though there are monies flowing back and forth throughout the exchange I expect, so technically not consignment).

Handling Costs

Sure for the bookstores and wholesale distributors there are some costs associated with handling of inventory. There’s the lost opportunity cost for both, associated with shelving the wrong titles. But the book buyers can only make their best educated guess as to what will sell.  So the way that it currently works does make a lot of sense in some respects.

Inventory is an asset

On the balance sheet inventory is carried as an asset increasing the value of the organization so holding more inventory doesn’t hurt at the end of the month or the year.  No rewards there for keeping inventory low.  I don’t know if they even measure days on hand inventory levels in publishing.  It seems kind of silly to do that but who knows?  Ok there are financial offsets but that’s never stopped…Yikes I hope that returns charged against the author’s royalties are net of production costs.

Efficiency

Is it efficient?  Certainly not in a classic sense.  There’s too much waste as a byproduct for that.  But the supply chain is working as designed.  Manufacturers and wholesalers provide competitive terms (incentives) to buyers to encourage them to purchase more and everyone hopes that the need for returns will be low.  The capitalist system working in all it’s glory.

So why not switch?

In most manufacturing and sales environments it is in everyone’s benefit to keep the inventory levels low, the production matched to buyers needs, delivered just before or right when they need it.

In publishing, the buyers (you and me in this case) patterns are not as predictable and a large variety of units must be available for sale in order to maximize profits to the bookstores.  This requires an inventory of considerable size. A few of each, of many book titles makes you and me - the browsers - happy.

So now publishers must produce a large variety of titles.  And that is good for authors in that more stories are published. Whether the number of units (books) sold remains constant, despite the number of titles published is a question I don’t know the answer to. But if publishers could sell the same number of books producing 1 title versus a hundred it would make better financial sense to produce just the one title.  Authors be damned.

I’d be interested to know what book store inventory turns are.  (the number of times inventory turns over (is bought and sold) in a timed cycle - a year for example, which indicates the rate at which goods are converted into cash).

A table of AMR top 25 supply chain 2009 can be found here.  Go! Apple with 45 inventory turns per year woooo!

Just In Time versus Just In Case

Now if we decide okay, we’re going to go “just in time” on the inventory (a ridiculous notion, but let’s pretend).  Let’s put Espresso Book Machines (r) (a book printing/binding machine) in every bookstore and only put a dummy copy of the book on the shelf (like movies at Blockbuster).  Let’s assume that for the sake of argument the machines worked perfectly every time.

That would allow us to have a just enough inventory right when we needed it, but I’m guessing a higher per unit cost for supplies than traditional publishing.  After all smaller batches higher costs right?  All duplication costs absorbed by the bookstores, but the initial setup and formatting still charged to the publishers.  That would be reflected in the royalty the bookstore would pay the publisher.  Yes, royalty.  The bookstore would be licensed to use the image of the book in the Espresso.  Espresso conveniently tracks that.

But buyers couldn’t browse the books the way they do now by picking them up and handling them in the stores.  If the buyer had to wait at the counter while their books were produced (say 2 minutes per book) would they buy that impulse title that is displayed so conveniently today on an end cap?

Probably not, if they had to wait for yet another 2 minute copy to be pumped out of Espresso on top of the six or eight minutes for the three or four other books they are having produced.  After waiting in line for half an hour during the Christmas rush.  Which face it.  It’s the browsers who shop in stores at christmas time desperate to find that last minute gift.  Even if the store gave complementary lattes while you wait.  Well, maybe I’d wait if I had a free latte.

God forbid Rawlings starts the Harry Potter Junior series and you have to wait in line behind 150 ipod wearing pre-teens to get your copy of the latest J.D. Robb.  (Shop for books on line anyone?).

The Espresso Book Machine (r) should be portable otherwise book signings require the author to stand beside the machine as it pumps out each copy.  It would be a different world indeed. Not unlike signings at RT for the e-book authors I imagine, except to get the hard copy autographed it would have to be printed first.  Hmmm Author could just pre-sign a bazillion covers - NO WAIT, they’re printed as the book is printed so that wouldn’t work.  Now back to your regularly scheduled programming…

So does lower sales and the reduced costs associated with material handling save enough to justify a change to something like a just in time model?  I dunno but it seems unlikely given the costs of turning over a store to a print on demand model.

I’m guessing it’s not even an option for the big box stores but it might contribute to saving the independents.  Think about it.  The reason so many people flock to the big bookstore chains is variety (and location - Espresso can’t do anything about that).  Well, if the lines are shorter during the Christmas rush at the little shop around the corner than the big box stores hmmm…not much of a decision there.  With an espresso machine if the book wasn’t in stock…make it.  Sorry another digression.

Probably bookstores, wholesalers, and publishers will come to some compromise to lower costs by experimenting with the supply chain.  Unless we get some uber smart inventory geek who’s looking for something to fill his empty hours to model the supply chain. And as a business problem publishing supply chain probably isn’t that interesting.

Have I got this wrong? Anyone?

This has been a week of getting things done. Yes I have indulged in a bit of self congratulatory behavior this week. I think I may have even strained my shoulder from patting myself on the back. Not really, but if I had it wouldn’t have been a surprise.

First I turned 29, well add twenty to that and you’re closer. Whether that’s an accomplishment I’m not sure, but it does say something about my endurance. I’m not 50 yet, but I can definitely hit it with a rock from here.

For my next feat of derring do, I completed the first draft of my manuscript. Lone Survivor. This is the second manuscript I’ve written. The first one went to live with the dust bunnies under my bed after I struggled with it for three years. Now to do cleanup and polishing and plot repair required to get it ready to sell and give it a shot. Every bit of work I do I learn from so if this one doesn’t sell, it just gives me more lessons to apply to my next one.

I started Lone Survivor in January 2009 after thinking about it all December and finished the draft November 25th. Just 11 months. Yea me!

My usual book gobbling habit is still working.  First reading Holiday in Death (Nora’s J.D. Robb Series) on my kindle. Eve Dallas and Roarke were fabulous as usual.

And I also read a terrific Shannon K. Butcher book today.

Burning Alive. It’s the first in a series - Paranormal Romance and I was hooked from the first page. Next one out is Finding the Lost by the way.

I had put off reading Burning Alive because I’m a snob about books I get for free and I got it at a book signing at Nationals in DC.

Stupid I know but I have so many free books around here, some even left over from the 2008 RWA Nationals. It’s hard for me to pick them up and get started. I suppose it doesn’t help that I’ve probably also got fifteen books on my Kindle lined up to read. {Sigh} Being a reader is such a burden.

Anyway Burning Alive really delivers on action, romance, and paranormal world building. The hero is a hunk the heroine courageous when it counts, the sex is hot, the supporting characters (mostly hot guys, one hot chick for a future installment no doubt, a couple martyrs, a crotchety yet loveable grandma schoolmarm, and a couple of magical women whose true natures shall be revealed in good time) and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I’ll be buying more in the series for sure. Doesn’t hurt that there’s a shiny hunky guy on the cover with a big sword.  He’s definitely do-able, but alas taken by a woman who would frighten me if met alone in a dark alley.

And finally I got to get my hands dirty today. If you follow the blog you probably know I have a camper.

A few weeks ago when we took it out for the last camping weekend of the season I had all kinds of problems with the water system. The filler hose for the tank was cracked in several places and it took a trip to the hardware store, several buy it by the foot lengths of tubing, hose clamps and a not insubstantial amount of packing tape to get the antifreeze into the tank so I could winterize it.

Here in Kansas City the winters can be very cold and water lines freeze and split if you don’t put propylene glycol in there. It’s the pink stuff and non-toxic not like what you put in your car. Today I swapped out the filler hose (obtained during a second trip to the hardware store and a visit down the buy it by the foot aisle), the filler cap assembly and fashioned a cushion out of tubing scrap to protect the hose from the sharp edges of the bracket that protects the hose from road grit (Fleetwoood’s marginal design). All in all a very satisfying repair. I also broke out the multi-meter and verified that my battery is charging from the 18 watt solar panel I have hooked up. I’ll connect it periodically over the winter to make certain it stays charged. I had to replace the battery at Winfield this year and I’d like to make this one last.

So this is the hand of a writer, a reader, an RV enthusiast and a woman. Dirt, grime and all…hmmm needs a manicure bad. Oh well, hear me roar.

I attended a meeting at the HERA chapter here in Kansas City last Saturday.  It was a fun time to visit with other writers from the Kansas City area.  One of the other guests bemoaned some of the writing programs she had some interaction with and she mentioned a haiku she remembered.  I thought I’d dust off a pair of pieces I wrote sometime in the last two years on my favorite topic.  One is a Haiku and the other a short essay I took great pleasure in writing at the time.  They have a theme in common.  

The  humble trebuchet.

Today I hung a sign in my front yard that read “Trebuchet Rides Fifty-Cents”.  This was not some pre-halloween fund raiser or practical joke. 

I was dead serious.  You see I had already mailed five dollars worth of tickets to my boss the ninja-turtle (Portabello, Mortadello, bowl of jello I can’t exactly remember his name) in hopes that he would be the first in line. I realize five-dollars would be “overkill” because I had faith that first fifty-cents would take care of the problem, but you never know with trebuchets. In my experience it’s always the hardware that is the weakest link.

I double checked the counter-weight to make certain the ride would be long and satisfying.  Because, you know that a too short amusement ride spoils all the fun. 

At the other end of the trajectory alternating concentric rings painted stark white and a delicate pastel rosy shade, like some kind of stretched-out-untwisted-fifties-throwback-barber pole, could be found on a wall.  A brick wall.  A wall with reinforced steel rebar, I - beams and and a very pleasant border of pansies arranged in yellows and blues. 

In the center of the bull’s eye carefully printed in 8 point “happy-birthday-come-to-my-party-font” were the words “I quit – thank you and have a nice day.” I hoped he would wear his glasses.

Haiku - The trebuchet

The trebuchet waits

Kinetic energy leashed

Is your seat comfy

Every now and then I’ll write some sentence that I know is telling when I should be showing.

Sure enough, after I submit it to critique I’ll get some comment on that sentence.

So I fix that chapter, but for some reason I can’t bring myself to fix the sentence that I know needs revision.

I’ll edit the chapter, maybe rewrite the whole darn thing and when I’m done, I’ve still got this damned sentence staring back at me.

“No,  not a thing.” I remembered my disappointment.

What is it that keeps me from splitting the viscera of that line open and letting the bloody guts of the matter spill out onto the page?

Are those fragmented telling sentences coming out when I don’t like where the scene is going?  Where the book is going?

Or there is some uncomfortable truth about my writing staring me in the face that I still can’t see?   That’s really the one that worries me.

Still, I charge forward with this manuscript, damning the torpedoes of my own making knowing that it’s not there yet.   I struggle to come to terms with the reality I have put on the page, and that even when it’s done it will still be unfinished.

Anybody got whiteout you could lend me?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Happy Birthday Sunny.

Happy Birthday

There appear to be several.  At least two different examples crossed my path this week showing how literature can be condensed into a savory broth of little volume but great substance. Ok, maybe one was from the week before but still…

The most recent was a video at reuters that described how two Chicago college students are having their collected works published.  The book is titled “Twitterature”.   Each of the classic tomes included is “tweeted” in 20 “tweets” or less.  I’ve seen this before on the web  (see Book-In-A-Minute at this website) but not on twitter.

And it’s another example of using video on a website that is not YouTube.  I do like variety.   Thank you Reuters for sharing and for not embedding the commercial at the front like on your website.

Earlier there was a fabulous spoof of the Romance Genre - Regency in two minutes.  This was cause of great amounts of personal hooting and nearly caused me to pass a chicken wing through my nose.  I laughed so hard I literally cried right there in the Buffalo Wild Wings where I had my lunch.

Thank you Smart Bitches for bringing that to my attention and providing this awesome link (below).

The following link takes you to the FanFiction.Net site and straight into a spoof of a Regency Romance.  This is truly a fine bit of parody.  It manages to make fun of the genre in a smart way, and it’s absolutely accurate.

Author's Facebook page for the book PPZ