#BUT it is true about the pub dates/‘printing issues’. you can look on her twitter for proof. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

spaceshipkat · 1 month

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oh fuck. what happened this time?

the usual things (i’m tired of the selfpub to tradpub pipeline, but i’ll spare the rehash of why) (also it’d be great if trends didn’t make or break an author’s chances of 1. selling a book in the first place and 2. doing well enough to earn back an advance so an author can start to receive royalties) and a new thing i learned of today (some of tradpub has apparently begun making some of its authors print their own physical ARCs, since they’re more expensive than eARCs and unfortunately ARCs don’t have a great return rate—aka not enough people leave reviews or spread the word about a book they’ve read an ARC of. yet another problem is that publishers can’t distribute the author-printed ARCs for the author because the publisher didn’t print them itself)

but also what’s going on with Bethany Baptiste. if y’all haven’t seen, i’ll try to sum up what i know of the present situation: she sold her debut years ago and was supposed to also publish years ago (i think around 2022?). her editors fucked it. (from what i’ve heard over the years, sourcebooks is notorious for fucking it. this is not a new phenomenon where they’re concerned, but it’s double fucked because Bethany is Black and as we all know publishing caters first and foremost to white people.) then she was supposed to debut earlier this month (March 2024) but “printing issues” forced sourcebooks to push her release date back to the end of this month. this week, she tweeted that sourcebooks has continued to fuck it, and today (3/21/24) sourcebooks tweeted that her new pub date is this May, again citing the aforementioned “printing issues” (whatever the fuck that actually means with regard to Bethany’s specific situation is anyone’s guess)

it’s just…very, very disappointing for countless reasons: that tradpub is willingly fucking over an incredibly important voice in publishing overall, but especially YA SFF; that publishing continues to undervalue Black voices; that time and time again anyone who is not cishet and white (and, more often than not, a man) will get the shaft; that tradpub continues to prove it is literally falling apart at the seams and no one is actually sure how to fix it. for instance, apparently S&S sent out an email to agents apologizing for editors who are “unresponsive,” except whoever made the decision to send that email thinks “unresponsive” means three weeks, which is just absurd given how overworked editors are. by this, i take it to mean S&S is gonna try to push editors to reply to submissions within three weeks, which is fucked. (i hope i am misreading what this means, but i am pretty sure i’m not.) not only will that harm editors who are already overworked and underpaid, it’ll likely have detrimental effects on authors since it’s unlikely an editor will be able to make a sound decision in that timeframe and get their entire editorial staff (anyone who participates in acquisitions meetings, when editors bring a book they want to buy before their publisher on the whole) on board. i have watched this industry change so goddamn much over the last decade, to the point i barely recognize it anymore. i remember when the Big Five was the Big Six. i remember when an author could hit a bestseller list through quality rather than the volume of noise surrounding their book. i remember when publishers still did marketing for their authors (and even then it wasn’t great, but the fact that was better than it is now? dear fucking god authors are so fucked). i remember when an author’s advance was based on the quality of their book, rather than the number of followers an author has—i remember when the latter was the goddamn exception to the norm. i remember when an author could be sent on tour by their publisher rather than paying out of pocket if they wanted to meet readers. i remember when an author could dream of making a living through their writing. now that’s fucking laughable. now you’ll be lucky to make north of a nice deal ($1 - $49,000) and you’ll barely see a sniff of publisher-led marketing on that money—on any money. (remember, that’s why tradpub is snapping up selfpub successes and popular fanfic with the serial numbers filed off. those won’t require as much marketing because the author has already personally done the heavy-lifting.)

now to be fair, tradpub is a little better in some ways: representation is a bit more common now, for instance, even if still woefully sparse—on every side, from authors to agents to editors to publicists etc etc; john green isn’t topping the bestseller lists for years and years (though CoHo and sjm are)—and bestseller lists are a bit more fluid, even if they don’t seem to carry as much weight and still largely ignore anyone who isn’t cishet and white (and likely a man) (go look at Kennedy Ryan’s insta post from the past week when she hit the NYT list); and it’s good that most of editing is done virtually rather than by hand, since we need to save trees (however much i would have loved getting a physical copy of my book in the mail sprinkled with editorial notes). but overall? tradpub is on fire and im so fucking tired.

#ask #anonymous #publishing industry #i don’t wanna talk too much about how sourcebooks fucked it because #some of what i know is through a friend w the publisher and bethany hasn’t shared everything #so some of my understanding is based on assumption #BUT it is true about the pub dates/‘printing issues’. you can look on her twitter for proof.#also i have it on good authority about her release date getting pushed back and back and back #i trust the person who told me—not only personally but for knowing what happened #wrt how sourcebooks fucked it

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sometimesalwaysmusic · 6 years

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PARAGON CAUSE

Paragon Cause is a songwriting, production and musical duo based in Ottawa. Members Marnie (originally from Southern Ontario) and Kirwan (hailing from Cape Breton) bring their love of Hip-hop, jazz piano, 80's synthesizers and 50's guitars to create music that is mysterious yet familiar. We caught up and discussed influences, the differences between Ottawa and their hometowns, and some of their favourite live shows.

VITALS

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ParagonCause/

Web: https://www.paragoncause.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ParagonCause

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paragoncauseadvanced/

Latest Release: Escape (Album, May 2018)

Upcoming shows: Sat, August 4 - Paragon Cause, Lethargicon. The Seahorse, Halifax NS Sat, August 11 - Paragon Cause and more TBD, Pressed, Ottawa ON Sat, August 18 - Paragon Cause, O'Connels Pub, Ottawa ON

SA: How did Paragon Cause come together? Kirwan: Well, I wish we had some story about meeting after a performance in a dark lounge after Marnie was singing jazz, but that would be a lie. I stopped playing music for a while after playing with some bands back in Halifax. I decided to start recording and writing again and spent a year or two making weird techno and house music, but I found it a bit unsatisfying. Marnie completed a music degree was trying to decide how to start playing live again. So, both of us put profiles up on a website called Bandmix, basically the on-line dating version of finding band members.

Both of us met with other people, played with others but it never worked. I know for me, my music was always a bit too esoteric for most people. I would sometimes show up for a practice and just sit there and not play, the music was too…normal. Finally, I reached out to Marnie after seeing a video of her singing and playing piano. There was something in her voice that struck me. Although, we are lucky we ended up playing together. It’s a bit odd for some random online person asking you to come over to a stranger’s house to play tunes in their basement! She came over, we jammed on the Beatles Norwegian Wood. I knew within 1 minute, this was it. It was insane how we connected. The last time I was even close to that was playing with Rose Cousins and Steve Gates back in Halifax, but this was on another level. Right then and there, we started writing and learning songs. It was special.

SA: What bands or musicians would you cite as the biggest influences on your sound? Marnie: For me, it would be classical music, Mamma’s and the Papa’s and definitely the Beatles. Where I grew up, music like that was hard to find. Remind me in our next interview, and I’ll tell you more (laughs). Kirwan: It’s a bit complicated I suppose, I basically want to be as cool as Tribe Called Quest or the Digible Planets, but I know that’s impossible. So, I draw from a lot of my favorite bands and musicians I think are special. The Cure, The Raveonettes, Janes Addition, The Suuns, Peter Green’s Fleewood Mac, Howling Wolf and of course Portishead. I think deep down, I want to do what Portishead did, create something different, unique. But in the end, we really just try to do what we love. We know ‘our’ music and sound when we play it.

SA: Thus far in your career, what has been your biggest success? Kirwan: To be honest, completing an album. When we first met, we said, “let’s make an album and print it on vinyl and give it to our friends and family.” That’s what we are doing. As for Marnie, I think one of her’s would be winning 1st in the Quebec School Choir as the choir director. Although, when we released the song Sunny, it was played during the traffic report at 4pm on CBC Ottawa All in a Day. I’m not sure you can get much bigger than that.

SA: On the other hand, what is the biggest challenge you have faced, and how have you dealt with it? PC: Hands down, a tie between navigating the new method of music distribution in an online and social media ruled age as well as learning to let go of a song and move on. With respect to navigating the system, trying to get your music heard is hard. No one ever writes you back when you write them. However, we are lucky, we both come from a place in which we can invest the time, learn and figure out how to distribute music without the help of a label. We both have formal music training and thus writing music comes pretty easy, but that leads us to the next issue, we are SUPER picky about things. We probably write about 10 songs a week, but maybe pick 1 or 2 a month we like. For example, the song Next Time and Fear took over a year to finish. I was never happy with them, we have about 20 versions for each song, some with completely different arrangements, live drums, synths, etc, etc. So in the end, navigating the system and letting go and moving on are tied.

SA: How do you guys approach the song-writing process? Kirwan: With some good craft beer, guitar pedals and plans to order pizza with pineapple. I think we have three ways. Marnie usually will write a song on piano, a complete arrangement from start to finish. She has all the melody, harmony everything done and usually recorded with a running commentary recorded on her phone.

For me, I start with a riff or a beat and a rhythm. Then, we usually take it to the other person. For me, when she shows up with her song, I say, ‘ok let’s record it, regardless what you think of it.” She always thinks her music is not good enough, but I’m usually blown away by it. Then, we usually record the piano or synth and vocals in one take together.

Both Fear and Next Time were recorded in one take, vocals and piano. Then, I usually spend some time thinking about it, the feel, the emotion and the melody. She and I spend about 30 hours with the song, playing along, writing guitar parts and drum beats. I’ll often alter it a bit by changing the mode of the song, which is akin to changing key, but different. Next Time was a very happy sounding song at first, but by adding the bassline, it gave it a very dark feel. To us, that is what is amazing about music, the key didn’t change but the method and way you play the chords did and that completely changed the song.

When I bring a song to her, I play it and she kind of goes into a trance. She will sing melodies and then quickly write words. Often, I can’t even snap her out of it! She just goes into another world and writes the entire melody…Consequence and Away from Me were like that. Away from Me was originally called “Acoustic Song” as I wrote it all on an acoustic Guitar, start to finish and she wrote the lyrics and melody and made it something special.

After that, I usually spend weeks producing, mixing and editing. We like to write, record, then play live. It gives us an idea what works and what doesn’t. I then take the final version to her for it to get constructively criticized. In the end, we work extremely well together. Did I mention we also enjoy craft beer during our sessions? We also have a great desk to work at.

Finally, we jam. We can play songs and improvise for hours. There have been times, were we start playing and stop an hour later and just look at each other, speechless. We are off in another world. Although once, we recorded a 20 minute song that was our best ever. It was recorded on webcam, but I forgot to turn the microphone on, so we only have a video, no sound and we can’t remember the song.

SA: Both of you are transplants to the National Capital region. What are your thoughts on the Ottawa music scene? Kirwan: Well, for me it’s very different than Halifax. I think I can speak for both of us when I say, we are still getting used to it. The people we met from bands like The Pale Light, Sol the Violinist and superstar guitarist Lee Jessom have been extremely helpful and friendly. I think in Ottawa however, it’s harder to get involved. Back in Halifax, everyone talked, everyone knew each other all the bands would be out supporting other bands. We are still trying to find that here.

We still play at open mics around the city. We love doing that. We are both strong believers in supporting song writers, musicians and performers regardless of their skill level. We have no shame in showing up at Irene’s or O’Connels Open Mic and play some Fleetwood Mac, Nancy Sinatra, Amy Winehouse and some Raveonettes. We even play some Portishead. The open mic scene is super friendly in Ottawa. But, the music scene so far has been challenging. We should have played more metal, the metal and punk scene seems to be amazing here. Halifax was very folk oriented and alt/indie style so it was a bit easier to get involved. But who knows, perhaps we just need to write better songs.

SA: If you guys could choose a 'dream tour' with currently active artists, who would you be sharing the stage with night after night? Kirwan: The Raveonettes, The Suuns and Geoff Barrow’s new band Beak>. Although, Portishead and The Cure would be dreams come true. Marnie: Tough question, but the answer would be to sing in Les Miserables.

SA: If you could narrow it down to one album that has been influential on your life, or even your musical path, which would it be and why? Kirwan: Super hard, so many, but I have to say, The Low End Theory by Tribe Called Quest. When that album was released, It made me appreciate writing, jazz, hip-hop, rhythm and why the feel of music is something that sets good music apart from bad music. That album with songs like Vibes and Stuff just puts you in a place, from the first noises you hear. It changed my life as a kid and made me obsessed with hip-hop. Number 2 is a tie between Pornography by the Cure and Ritual de lo Habitual by Jane’s Addiction. Marnie: Les Miserables.

SA: Have you been to any concerts recently, in Ottawa or elsewhere, that have been particular inspiring? Kirwan: For sure, a few years ago I saw The Cure life in a small theatre in New York. It was called Reflections Tour. They played their first three Albums, start to finish then 2 more sets up rare and old tunes with the original line up, including Lol Tolhurst. It was mind blowing. Robert Smith is a God, people need to realize how good he is. I also saw Guru (of Gangstarr fame) and I saw one of James Browns last concerts. Polica and The Suuns are great live as well. Oh, I saw Portishead and The Breeders, during their last tours, amazing and beyond inspiring. Marnie: Seeing LCD Soundsystem last year at Bluesfest was insane. My god they are good.

SA: What can we expect from Paragon Cause moving forwards in 2018? Our best wishes for your continued success! Kirwan: Well, you will see some surprises I hope. We are writing and recording our next album. We also want to do more soundtracks for podcasts and film. We currently do some of the music for a big Canadian Podcast called The Night Time Podcast. We love just playing ambient stuff and making sounds. We also want a cello player and perhaps some sort of percussionist. Also, a French Horn would be nice on our next album.

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