Sunday, April 14, 2013

Self-Publishing? Yay or Nay?

I see an abundance of self-published/Indie authors all over my timeline when I'm on facebook. Yes, on my personal facebook I literally go around "Liking" several dozen Indie Authors' pages, looking their published pieces up on google, Goodreads, Amazon - anywhere people talk about them - to see what they write about, how many people read them, how popular they are, what people say in their reviews of their books; ya know, shit like that. I think that, as an aspiring author and avid reader, one can never be too informed about what's hot on the market and what people are flocking to in their reading tastes. If an Indie author's book has hit the NYT's or USA Today's Bestseller lists, I damn well need to know who they are, what they write and how much they charge for an e-book so I can read that shit asap.

I've also read a blog post very recently by Suzie Townsend, a literary agent at New Leaf, and it reminded me of several things:


  1. The conversation I had with my friend about self-publishing.
  2. I have too many indie books on my kindle that I have not read and need to get to like, ASAP. And
  3. Why I don't self publish.
Yes, I have a finished MS and yes, I've thought about self-publishing it several times.

The problem is that I don't want to.

So, the convo with my friend. She's SUPA talented; writes thee most AMAZEBALLS Spoken Word/Slam Poetry that I've ever had the honor of hearing. She's unpublished but prefers it that way; her work really is best heard and not read. The emotion isn't really conveyed on paper so much as when you hear it. Anyway...

She says that there is no integrity in self-publishing. I disagreed and I still disagree. I don't see anything wrong with publishing your own work yourself. You get all the royalties, you get full and final say on what gets chopped and what gets left, you have free reign on what you want your cover to look like - the works. But you also get the negative backlash if that book doesn't sell.

Of course,  that could and does happen to those who choose to query agents and all that jazz but when you self-publish, there is nothing to fall back on. Let's say you write a full 80k+ word novel. You get your ideal cover and self-publish. You couldn't be happier with how it all turned out. But it doesn't sell like you think it will.

Okay, we've cried and moved past that. Now, we want to take it and shop it to agents and publishing houses to try something different OR you take a completely different MS and shop it. In your query you should mention your self-published book. Said agent will look it up if he/she is interested and will ask you how it sold. If it didn't sell well, it does not inspire confidence in your agent that this next MS will sell. 

OR, if you're shopping the self-pubbed one around and they take you as a client, they now have a MS that they cannot sell to a publishing house. Because if it didn't sell when you self-pubbed it, chances are a new cover, jazzed up blurb and a famous name behind it won't help it sell either. It is the SAME words, SAME story. Just in different packaging. 

Now there are some cases where self-published authors make it to the NYT's best selling list. Like Jamie McGuire, Shanora Williams and Tracey Garvis-Graves. But not everyone can or will do that when they've self-published.

Personally, I'd like to have a few manuscripts under my belt first.Get a hold on my own writing style, let it develop a bit more and just generally KNOW and recognize my work when I see it. I hope someone understands what I mean when I say that. I also want my books published by a well-known publishing house. No, not because I think my work is better than anyone else's or that I deserve it more but because I believe in my writing. I believe it can stand on it's own next to the St. Martin's Press publishings. I believe in my own ability to write great books and I will not rest until I have made someone smile with words I have written down on a piece of paper.

Like I've already said, self-publishing can turn into something amazing for some authors. It's just not something I want to do at this early stage in my writing. 

Happy Writing!  --A.

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