Self-Pubbing Pitfalls and Prejudices
Twenty years ago when I wrote my first book, there was only one road to getting published. Once a writer finished a book, you bought (or went to the library to peruse) the latest big honking copy of The Writer's Digest, made a list of agents/publishers seeking new writers, went to your local copy center and made dozens of copies of your manuscript, spent days writing what you considered a good cover letter and synopsis, stuffed everything into manila envelopes, bought some stamps, and started your poorly fated snail mail campaign.
I did that. Months of agony dragged by waiting for the flurry of rejection letters. Thirty-seven envelopes went out. Twenty-two rejection letters came in. Some encouraging, most terse. Not for us. Needs work. Not seeking new writers at this time. One even told me not to quit my day job. No lie.
Still, I was undaunted. Well, I was daunted for awhile. Okay, I cried. I screamed. I railed at the injustice of it all. I rationalized and philosophized. After all, I had read all the pundits who warned first books rarely get published, but I was determined to be the exception.
After the tears and anger were spent, I sat down and started writing the next book. And the one after that. And the one after that. I still have them, and I'm eternally grateful none of them ever saw the light of day. But I digress.
Back in those dark days of pre-internet, not only was it next to impossible for a new writer of genre fiction to be picked up cold unless you had a face-to-face encounter with an agent or publisher and made enough of an impression to elicit an invitation to submit your work, there just wasn't enough room in fiction to accommodate a writer who couldn't be pigeon-holed into the romance-scrfi-horror boxes that comprised the bulk of genre fiction at that time.
Then a wondrous invention arrived on the scene. Ta da! The internet came along and changed publishing forever. Now there was information readily available to help writers improve their craft, connect with agents/editors/publishers, and navigate the troubled waters of publication. One still had to seek and impress representation, and hope that once accomplished, it would lead to a book contract, but the light at the end of the tunnel for virgin writers was getting a little less murky.
The only alternative to the traditional route back then was a vanity press, many of which were comprised of unscrupulous folk who would take a writer's hard-earned money, throw out a few books, and claim all rights for themselves. Savvy writers avoided them; desperate writers kept them in business. I had my own experience with one. I didn't even know that's what they were when I submitted my second novel to them. They offered a contract. Told me it would cost $5000 to get my book in print--a fortune for a single mother of three who wrote in the wee hours after the kids were asleep and should have been joining them because she would be dozing at her desk at work the next day. My brother, who was screenwriter, asked me to forward the contract to his lawyer, who called me the next day with one word of advice--RUN. I did.
For a while after that, I put away my pen and concentrated on living life. I had a family to support, no time for this writing nonsense. But when you're a writer, you can only ignore that need to tell stories for so long. I started writing again, but my needs changed. I didn't care so much about recognition or validation as I did for getting my work out there. A writer writes to be read. It's a contract between writer and reader; each needs the other for it to work. I neither had the time nor the patience to start the whole submit-hope-reject cycle again. I just wanted to have my stories read.
And along came ebooks. I remember the first time I read about a Kindle. It was on Nathan Bransford's blog. Then my best friend bought one. How did the books get on there, I wondered? What kind of formatting was that? I started researching it and discovered the books had to be converted to html, and once done, you could upload it to Amazon yourself and actually SELL OR GIVE AWAY YOUR BOOK without any representation. No one telling you that your story didn't fit a predetermined genre, or a publisher's catalog or simply wasn't commercial enough to warrant the risk and expense involved with taking on an unknown commodity.
I had taught myself web design back in the late 90s when I wanted to create my own website. I worked hard at it, writing all my code by hand without the use of editors like FrontPage or Dreamweaver. Just Notepad. When CSS hit the scene, I taught myself that as well. I started getting paid to create websites for other people, first friends, then strangers. Companies. Built a business around it, Nytshadow Designs. Taught myself graphic design. Surely I could convert a manuscript to html for use on a Kindle.
As it happened, life jumped in and delayed my foray into self-publishing for a couple of years, or I would be further along in it by now. Both my parents were stricken with cancer, and I was the primary caregiver. Publication would have to wait. Family trumps all.
Once I did jump in, I converted that first book, my novel Being John Bland, completely by hand. Pulled it into Notepad and coded every line in html. I chose that book because it was fairly short for a novel--76,000 words. Still, it took weeks to convert. I also used CreateSpace to make a print copy simply because I wanted to hold my book in my hand. The cost to sell in print was prohibitive, even with next to no profit, but I didn't care. I had published my own book. I've yet to sell a print copy of it (other than to myself to have copies for family and friends), but it's my book and I'm justifiably proud of that.
However, that first conversion experience was almost enough to put me off being an indie. Weeks of coding narrative into html was tedious and draining. Then I learned about tools like Caliber and Sigil, and later, InDesign, which is what I now use. I went back and re-coded Being John Bland using InDesign, and have written and published three more books since then. Each time the process gets easier. Now I'm even doing books for other writers, and have added publication services to my design company.
But converting the files is only half the process. Because now you've got to find a home for that book. Where to sell and how to market become almost as time and energy consuming as writing the book. At first I used Amazon exclusively. Not satisfied with my sales there, I moved on to include Barnes & Noble. I still shied away from Smashwords at that time because they accepted only Word files and I was not about to turn my carefully crafted manuscript over to the whims of their Meatgrinder. I had heard nothing but horror stories about the finished product, and after seeing some of those books firsthand, believed every word of them.
That was two years ago, and Smashwords, along with D2D, Libiro, Amazon KDP, B&N, Kobo, Apple iBooks, and all the many other retailers and distributors have brought epublishing into the mainstream. Digital book sales are increasing every year as the majority of people do their reading on electronic readers and devices. How those books get to the devices--whether through traditional publishers or the intrepid DIY efforts of indie writers--is irrelevant to the reader. The reader wants quality fiction, and there is more of it available than ever before.
This should be a good thing, right? And yet, despite all these successes, there is still a stigma attached to writers who have opted for the indie approach. The perception that these writers, because they represent themselves, must somehow be inferior to traditionally published writers prevails, particularly among the industry. I've even been turned down for signings by indie bookstores because I'm self-published. This, despite the successes of indie pioneers like Amanda Hocking. It seems that indie writers have to work twice as hard to be accepted among their peers, and no where was that more obvious than the way we were singled out and ostracized this past week by retailers WH Smith and Kobo, who, through their actions, sent a message that indie writers are incapable of governing themselves. Like we're some lawless purveyors of words looking to corrupt the masses.
Look, writing is hard work, and the only people who will deny that are non-writers. Whether you're traditionally or indie published, writing is the same process and requires the same amount of imagination, skill, and talent. If everyone could do it, they wouldn't need writers to tell the stories. A writer--at least, a good writer--bares their soul to entertain others. Conceiving, plotting, planning, writing, rewriting, and editing a book takes a lot of time, effort, and dedication. For every writer who finishes a book, there are dozens of people who claim to want to write but never do, and hundreds more who couldn't put a sentence together if their lives depended on it.
And yet, some writers, because they chose to forge their own path, navigating the shark-infested waters of publication alone, are still looked down upon or treated like second class citizens because they don't have the weight of traditional publishing behind them. There are as many reasons for choosing the indie route as there are writers who do so. Everyone has their reason, and those reasons should not only be respected, but not factor into whether or not the writer deserves the prejudices leveled at them. At the end of the day, the only thing that any writer should be judged against is the quality of their work.
I did that. Months of agony dragged by waiting for the flurry of rejection letters. Thirty-seven envelopes went out. Twenty-two rejection letters came in. Some encouraging, most terse. Not for us. Needs work. Not seeking new writers at this time. One even told me not to quit my day job. No lie.
Still, I was undaunted. Well, I was daunted for awhile. Okay, I cried. I screamed. I railed at the injustice of it all. I rationalized and philosophized. After all, I had read all the pundits who warned first books rarely get published, but I was determined to be the exception.
After the tears and anger were spent, I sat down and started writing the next book. And the one after that. And the one after that. I still have them, and I'm eternally grateful none of them ever saw the light of day. But I digress.
Back in those dark days of pre-internet, not only was it next to impossible for a new writer of genre fiction to be picked up cold unless you had a face-to-face encounter with an agent or publisher and made enough of an impression to elicit an invitation to submit your work, there just wasn't enough room in fiction to accommodate a writer who couldn't be pigeon-holed into the romance-scrfi-horror boxes that comprised the bulk of genre fiction at that time.
Then a wondrous invention arrived on the scene. Ta da! The internet came along and changed publishing forever. Now there was information readily available to help writers improve their craft, connect with agents/editors/publishers, and navigate the troubled waters of publication. One still had to seek and impress representation, and hope that once accomplished, it would lead to a book contract, but the light at the end of the tunnel for virgin writers was getting a little less murky.
The only alternative to the traditional route back then was a vanity press, many of which were comprised of unscrupulous folk who would take a writer's hard-earned money, throw out a few books, and claim all rights for themselves. Savvy writers avoided them; desperate writers kept them in business. I had my own experience with one. I didn't even know that's what they were when I submitted my second novel to them. They offered a contract. Told me it would cost $5000 to get my book in print--a fortune for a single mother of three who wrote in the wee hours after the kids were asleep and should have been joining them because she would be dozing at her desk at work the next day. My brother, who was screenwriter, asked me to forward the contract to his lawyer, who called me the next day with one word of advice--RUN. I did.
For a while after that, I put away my pen and concentrated on living life. I had a family to support, no time for this writing nonsense. But when you're a writer, you can only ignore that need to tell stories for so long. I started writing again, but my needs changed. I didn't care so much about recognition or validation as I did for getting my work out there. A writer writes to be read. It's a contract between writer and reader; each needs the other for it to work. I neither had the time nor the patience to start the whole submit-hope-reject cycle again. I just wanted to have my stories read.
And along came ebooks. I remember the first time I read about a Kindle. It was on Nathan Bransford's blog. Then my best friend bought one. How did the books get on there, I wondered? What kind of formatting was that? I started researching it and discovered the books had to be converted to html, and once done, you could upload it to Amazon yourself and actually SELL OR GIVE AWAY YOUR BOOK without any representation. No one telling you that your story didn't fit a predetermined genre, or a publisher's catalog or simply wasn't commercial enough to warrant the risk and expense involved with taking on an unknown commodity.
I had taught myself web design back in the late 90s when I wanted to create my own website. I worked hard at it, writing all my code by hand without the use of editors like FrontPage or Dreamweaver. Just Notepad. When CSS hit the scene, I taught myself that as well. I started getting paid to create websites for other people, first friends, then strangers. Companies. Built a business around it, Nytshadow Designs. Taught myself graphic design. Surely I could convert a manuscript to html for use on a Kindle.
As it happened, life jumped in and delayed my foray into self-publishing for a couple of years, or I would be further along in it by now. Both my parents were stricken with cancer, and I was the primary caregiver. Publication would have to wait. Family trumps all.
Once I did jump in, I converted that first book, my novel Being John Bland, completely by hand. Pulled it into Notepad and coded every line in html. I chose that book because it was fairly short for a novel--76,000 words. Still, it took weeks to convert. I also used CreateSpace to make a print copy simply because I wanted to hold my book in my hand. The cost to sell in print was prohibitive, even with next to no profit, but I didn't care. I had published my own book. I've yet to sell a print copy of it (other than to myself to have copies for family and friends), but it's my book and I'm justifiably proud of that.
However, that first conversion experience was almost enough to put me off being an indie. Weeks of coding narrative into html was tedious and draining. Then I learned about tools like Caliber and Sigil, and later, InDesign, which is what I now use. I went back and re-coded Being John Bland using InDesign, and have written and published three more books since then. Each time the process gets easier. Now I'm even doing books for other writers, and have added publication services to my design company.
But converting the files is only half the process. Because now you've got to find a home for that book. Where to sell and how to market become almost as time and energy consuming as writing the book. At first I used Amazon exclusively. Not satisfied with my sales there, I moved on to include Barnes & Noble. I still shied away from Smashwords at that time because they accepted only Word files and I was not about to turn my carefully crafted manuscript over to the whims of their Meatgrinder. I had heard nothing but horror stories about the finished product, and after seeing some of those books firsthand, believed every word of them.
That was two years ago, and Smashwords, along with D2D, Libiro, Amazon KDP, B&N, Kobo, Apple iBooks, and all the many other retailers and distributors have brought epublishing into the mainstream. Digital book sales are increasing every year as the majority of people do their reading on electronic readers and devices. How those books get to the devices--whether through traditional publishers or the intrepid DIY efforts of indie writers--is irrelevant to the reader. The reader wants quality fiction, and there is more of it available than ever before.
This should be a good thing, right? And yet, despite all these successes, there is still a stigma attached to writers who have opted for the indie approach. The perception that these writers, because they represent themselves, must somehow be inferior to traditionally published writers prevails, particularly among the industry. I've even been turned down for signings by indie bookstores because I'm self-published. This, despite the successes of indie pioneers like Amanda Hocking. It seems that indie writers have to work twice as hard to be accepted among their peers, and no where was that more obvious than the way we were singled out and ostracized this past week by retailers WH Smith and Kobo, who, through their actions, sent a message that indie writers are incapable of governing themselves. Like we're some lawless purveyors of words looking to corrupt the masses.
Look, writing is hard work, and the only people who will deny that are non-writers. Whether you're traditionally or indie published, writing is the same process and requires the same amount of imagination, skill, and talent. If everyone could do it, they wouldn't need writers to tell the stories. A writer--at least, a good writer--bares their soul to entertain others. Conceiving, plotting, planning, writing, rewriting, and editing a book takes a lot of time, effort, and dedication. For every writer who finishes a book, there are dozens of people who claim to want to write but never do, and hundreds more who couldn't put a sentence together if their lives depended on it.
And yet, some writers, because they chose to forge their own path, navigating the shark-infested waters of publication alone, are still looked down upon or treated like second class citizens because they don't have the weight of traditional publishing behind them. There are as many reasons for choosing the indie route as there are writers who do so. Everyone has their reason, and those reasons should not only be respected, but not factor into whether or not the writer deserves the prejudices leveled at them. At the end of the day, the only thing that any writer should be judged against is the quality of their work.
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