Tag: self-publishing

Be Careful Pulling That Self-Pub Trigger

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

columbineI’m not usually the one to give self-publishing advice. That’s because, while I’ve done a bit of it – a couple of backlist books (Petals and Thorns and Negotiation) – I’ve put a lot more focus on the traditional path. There are a lot of reasons for that, which aren’t really pertinent to today’s point, though I’m happy to talk about it if anyone wants to know.) That said, I will be doing more of self-publishing in the future, including a fab anthology project and an exciting secret something with Grace Draven.

Still, I feel like I should say something to up-and-coming writers who decide to self-publish.

Apparently there’s a lot of bad advice out there, because this particular question keeps coming up on my author loops. A gal going to RWA Annual Conference asked for advice on pitching to agents and editors. Which is great that she’s asking! I pitched for many years and it’s not easy. However, she said that she self-published the first book in her series and it’s not doing well, but the second book is almost ready. She wondered if she should pitch the first book or the second.

The answer? NEITHER.

And I should caveat this by saying that she is FAR from the only person to do this.

So here’s the deal. We all read the stories about the self-pubbed book that gets picked up by a major publisher because it did so astonishingly well. This makes for great news in part because it’s SO RARE. It doesn’t seem like it, because the stories are so high profile, but statistically this is hugely unlikely to happen. This is one of the very worst reasons to self-publish, especially the first book in a planned series. Seriously. Here’s why.

If the self-published book does not do astronomically well – and that means tens of thousands of copies – then a traditional publisher will not want it. That’s just the facts of the industry. The book has been market-tested and will hold no appeal for a traditional publisher. Which means that an agent will not want to represent it, because they know they can’t sell it to a publisher. Simple logic.

Also, pretty much no publisher will pick up the second book in a series. There are some exceptions to this. Occasionally a traditional publisher will drop a series after two books and another will pick up the third. But again, this happens when the original series did decently and I’ve only heard of it working when a bigger traditional publishing house drops it and a smaller, usually digital-first, publisher picks it up. I don’t know of any cases where they’ve picked up more than one book. It’s really a gamble that lovers of the series will buy that final book to round out a trilogy. With a series, most traditional publishers want to control the packaging and marketing from the beginning.

So the upshot of this is: 99.9% of the time, once an author self-publishes the first book in her series, she has to commit to self-publishing the entire series. If she wants to try for a traditional publishing deal, too, then she needs to pitch an entirely new series to agents and editors.

(Also, if she really wants to go the agent route, then it’s best to pitch to them first, and let THEM pitch to editors, but that’s a whole other post.)

I want to add that committing to self-publishing a series can be a terrific plan. I have several writer friends doing very well that way. One, Elizabeth Hunter – whose book THE SCRIBE (book 1 in the Irin Chronicles) I’m just *loving* – told me that she saw no significant audience for her books until she published book 3. Other people have said book 4 or even 5.

Sure, self-publish a series! But commit to that path for it and don’t look at self-publishing the first book as a stepping stone to getting it traditionally published. It *can* open the doors to having another series traditionally published. But once that first book is out there, it’s out. If you harbor hope of taking that series down the traditional path, think very carefully before you pull the trigger and click that “Publish” button.

The Critical Step

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

Sometimes I wish I could make the photos really big, so all the subtle variations stand out. Guess you’ll just have to come sit on my porch. I’ll give you a blanket and a mug of mulled wine.

My waxer is a lover of sexy books and an aspiring writer.

Isn’t everyone’s?

I know, I know – it kind of sounds like an episode of Californication. My waxer – I’ll call her Angelica – is the polar opposite of Marcy. Angelica is an Amazonian redhead, with this very glam look and an incredibly sweet heart. She has a thing for firemen and runs her salon with style and aplomb. She once wrested my Kindle from me and wrote down the title and author of every book I had on it. She’s read my books and asks me questions about writing hers.

She’s at that stage where she’s still playing with it. She’s done the thing where she’s read the really awful book and thought “I could write something way better than this.” She asks me questions about my process, like if I write a book from beginning to end (I do) and how much I go back to revise (easily a month’s worth of writing time). All of this in the approximately ten minutes it takes her to give me a Brazilian. She’s not only skilled, does a perfect job – she’s also really fast.

I see her about every six weeks and two appointments ago, she told me her sister suggested that she take a one-week course on romance-writing at the Iowa Writer’s Program. I had no idea they were offering one now – go figure. I do know a fair number of writers who graduated from that program though and I have a pretty good idea that it wouldn’t be cheap. I told her it might be a great experience, but that there’s so much available online and through local RWA chapters, that she should consider starting there first. In fact, I said, the New Mexico local chapter, LERA, is having a one-day conference in November (now this Saturday) where we’re bringing in a gal to teach deep editing techniques. I told Angelica she should come; I tried to get her to mark out the day in her appointment book.

And she totally balked. She didn’t really have five opening chapters. She wasn’t ready to learn to edit. Her work isn’t at a place where anyone else can look at it. It didn’t matter that I told her she had three months to put those five chapters together, that only she would see it and that learning to look critically at your work is a huge step.

She wasn’t ready and I let it go.

So, then, the most recent appointment, she said her sister told her she’d read about all these people who self-published their books and made millions and what did I think of that? Could that be a viable option for her?

I tell you, these stories about the Amanda Hockings of the world are attaining the level of urban myth.

So, yes, I tell her – things like this have happened for people. But they are isolated cases (I didn’t mention that they’re also regularly and wildly distorted) and that the people who seem to be doing the best with self-pubbing are those writers with either established audiences or backlists of already polished work. I asked her if she’d encourage someone to open a salon who’d never worked in a professional capacity before and she got my point.

Now, I hope I don’t sound negative about self-publishing here, because I think it’s becoming a great option for many writers. But it’s disturbing to me that some people are seeing it as an option to skip the critical step. Not the crucial one, though it’s that, too, but the many-layered process where you learn to critique your own work, to assimilate the criticism of others, to incorporate editorial input that shapes the story and to view the work in light of the readers’ expectations and the marketplace.

Yes, this is the painful and awful part of being a writer. I really don’t blame anyone for wanting to skip it.

It would be a lovely world if we could write our stories and they would emerge full-fledged and perfect, ringed by rainbows and escorted by white ponies with ribbons in their tails.

This is not that world.

So, what I tried to get her to see is that she needs to apply all the work she put into becoming a terrific aesthetician – and she’s one of the best I’ve ever encountered – and to building her business and creating a well-run salon, and put that into becoming a writer. You don’t need a certificate from a fancy writing school, but you do have to work at it.

And, if you’re not ready to show it to people for critique, you’re not ready to publish it.

No golden tickets to fame and fortune, alas.

Though I wouldn’t mind one of those white ponies with the pretty ribbons.

Because I Say So

admin / / Blog

And so, the lines continue to blur.

It’s been clear for some time that publishing is changing. It’s just that no one is sure what it’s changing into. It’s kind of like the scene in a horror/sci fi movie, when one character begins to change into something else. Everyone around them stares in transfixed and fascinated fear while the person loses the hallmarks of humanity. While we wait to see what they become, they’re this mess of jutting bones, sliding tissues and odd liquids.

Right? Exactly like publishing news today.

So, if you’re not plugged into publishing gossip 24/7, the big news this week is that Barry Eisler – a well-known author, though I haven’t read him – turned down a $500K book deal from one of the Big 6 NYC publishers to self-publish. He’s a buddy of Joe Konrath, who has become kind of the foaming-at-the-mouth cheerleader for self-publishing. Don’t get me wrong – a lot of people are inspired by Konrath and his tremendous ability to self-promote, but I find him a trifle on the fanatic side of being a fan of self-pubbing. At any rate, Eisler and Konrath took down their 12,000 word conversation on Eisler’s decision and posted it to the internet. A couple of snide commenters suggested that perhaps they could have used an editor.

At the same time, as former Pocket editor and current Penguin Sekrit Projeckt Wrangler, Danielle Poiesz, notes on her blog, self-publishing luminary Amanda Hocking is close to sealing a major deal with one of the Big 6.

So many choices. So many shiftings back and forth.

Meanwhile I’m seeing more and more writers becoming editors for epublishing houses. They often pick up the work to supplement their incomes. In those transformations, though, a curious thing occurs. As they take on the editorial persona, they gain a certainty they never professed as writers. They start offering writing and editing tips, because now they have the authority to back it up. Sometimes this is like the B film to me, where the person is bit by the vampire and POOF! suddenly they have white skin, red lips and fangs. And a cape.

People are also starting up epresses like crazy. After all, what more do you really need than a computer? Declare yourself an editor, recruit some writers to be editors, too, and start offering book contracts. No need to invest money in advance. It’s the ultimate start-up. All it takes is your time.

The most interesting part of all of this is that reputation, at least for the moment, doesn’t seem to matter. It’s a curious world where things are what people declare them to be. And whoever shouts it the loudest gets the most people to believe them.

Thus the Eislers and the Konraths post their conversations and declare their opinions Gospel truth. People announce contracts with week-old epresses, celebrating with the same fervor as they would a Big 6 contract.

The world will be as we want it to be, people shout out.

It’s as if whoever describes their invisible outfit in the most exciting detail will actually be wearing the velvet and gold. And perhaps they will. Time will tell. Proof is in the pudding and all that.

For a long time, publishers have wanted readers to associate books with their brand. They’ve wanted readers to pick up a St. Martin’s book and buy it because they know what they’ll get with a St. Martins book, just as they would with a Big Mac. This is a basic marketing thing (says she who knows squat about marketing). Obviously this was never going to happen. Readers associate stories mainly with authors, possibly with genre. Most readers never notice the publisher.

As the epresses proliferate, I think this will change. Already I see people noticing that certain epublishers turn out less-than-wonderful books. I’m cleaning up the language considerably here. I hear people talking in terms of the publisher as in, I bought a ebook from Fringed Lampshade books and I wondered if anyone ever read it, much less edited it. Then they don’t want to buy from Fringed Lampshade again.

Which is really how it should work.

It costs nothing to start an epress, to sign authors and offer them a percentage. Maybe you bring quality editing and a fresh perspective. Maybe not. As with all businesses, much will depend on the long run. It’s simple to put a product on the shelf, not so easy to get customers to buy a second time.

And perhaps the big publishers will finally get what they’ve been looking for. After all, at this point the main advantage they retain is editorial and marketing experience. If they can convince readers to look to them for a certain quality, then it might be difficult for an epress to compete.

Meanwhile, we are all in the cast, standing in a circle and watching in fascination as publishing writhes on the floor, kicking out all kinds of ooze. What will it be?

Time will tell.