Are you going for mainstream or self-publishing?

I was going to self publish but I decided once im done to just shop around for an agent. I'll leave self publishing as a last option in a sense.

My apologies to those self-published authors who spend time and money to put the best product possible out there, but in the midst of rewrites I started to get tired and thought "This is way too much work, I should just self-publish."

I think there's a thought of "self-published = crap" even though it is not absolutely true (as in, not true 100% of the time). That's why I don't want to do it except as a last resort.

I'm 99% sure I'm going to self publish in ebook format only. I have a bunch of good reasons for doing so and they are all good, valid reasons that make sense for me and the genre I write. I have only one issue holding me back, the stigma that goes with it that the writing is bad and I couldn't get a traditional publisher to publish it so I took the easy way out and self pubbed.

Celeste Carrara said:

I'm 99% sure I'm going to self publish in ebook format only. I have a bunch of good reasons for doing so and they are all good, valid reasons that make sense for me and the genre I write. I have only one issue holding me back, the stigma that goes with it that the writing is bad and I couldn't get a traditional publisher to publish it so I took the easy way out and self pubbed.

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I was impressed with how high the royalties are and not having to pay an agent commission.

Have you looked into self-publishers yet? I don't know of any other than CreateSpace and Kindle Direct (which are both Amazon) but the dubious "What we deem offensive is probably about what you would expect" in the Content Guidelines makes me REALLY nervous. "Your books and other content (such as book titles, cover art and product descriptions) must adhere to these content guidelines. We reserve the right to make judgments about whether content is appropriate and to choose not to offer it. We may also terminate your participation in the KDP program if you don't adhere to these content guidelines."

This scares me enough that I would go traditional just to have someone on my side to go over contracts.

Disappointing since Amazon has such a wide reach and -technically- you don't have to pay to get started.

KateM said:

Have you looked into self-publishers yet? I don't know of any other than CreateSpace and Kindle Direct (which are both Amazon) but the dubious "What we deem offensive is probably about what you would expect" in the Content Guidelines makes me REALLY nervous. "Your books and other content (such as book titles, cover art and product descriptions) must adhere to these content guidelines. We reserve the right to make judgments about whether content is appropriate and to choose not to offer it. We may also terminate your participation in the KDP program if you don't adhere to these content guidelines."

This scares me enough that I would go traditional just to have someone on my side to go over contracts.

Disappointing since Amazon has such a wide reach and -technically- you don't have to pay to get started.

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I think you really have to cross the line into taboo subjects though. Amazon has a lot of selfpubbed erotica if that's what you write. It's just when they include stuff like rape, bestiality, incest, etc. That Amazon has a problem.

KateM said:

I was impressed with how high the royalties are and not having to pay an agent commission.

Have you looked into self-publishers yet? I don't know of any other than CreateSpace and Kindle Direct (which are both Amazon) but the dubious "What we deem offensive is probably about what you would expect" in the Content Guidelines makes me REALLY nervous. "Your books and other content (such as book titles, cover art and product descriptions) must adhere to these content guidelines. We reserve the right to make judgments about whether content is appropriate and to choose not to offer it. We may also terminate your participation in the KDP program if you don't adhere to these content guidelines."

This scares me enough that I would go traditional just to have someone on my side to go over contracts.

Disappointing since Amazon has such a wide reach and -technically- you don't have to pay to get started.

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Yeah, I've researche the heck out of Amazon and Smashwords. (They are who I would choose to use if I do go through with it.) I'm an avid reader of the genre I write in so I know my stuff is very similiar to the books they already have on there so I'm actually not worried at all about my content not being appropriate.

Browland86 said:

I think you really have to cross the line into taboo subjects though. Amazon has a lot of selfpubbed erotica if that's what you write. It's just when they include stuff like rape, bestiality, incest, etc. That Amazon has a problem.

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Many books are picked up by traditional publishers that include rape (A Tree Grows in Broolyn) or incest (The Color Purple) or even necrophilia (Gerald's Game). There is a Stephen King novella that has a man having sex with his dog (who goes on to have sex with his 12-year-old daughter) that I read in a four part collection that included Apt Pupil and The Breathing Method but can't find the title of now.

It's off putting that they don't specify what is offensive. Authors are supposed to assume what is taboo and hope Amazon/Createspace doesn't pull their work and keep the royalties.

And then (highlight for offensive words) this didn't get pulled until Amazon was threatened, and this is SO much more taboo than anything you mentioned above (except the beastiality, because that is on the same level as what I have below)
But then this sick, twisted piece of shit was allowed to publish and this is way worse than a rape scene:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20022495-93.html

Just wondering how people have fared because the "what you'd expect" apparently varies from person to person, and on createspace it says to "keep the global market in mind" because what is not offensive in one culture is offensive to another. Some mixed signals going on.

I want to publish traditionally, but I have no qualms about self-publishing either. I think self-pubbing used to be really looked down upon and now, not so much. Of course there will always be the not so great writing but that is in either case - tradition or self-published.

I'm going for writing a good story that other people might like to read.

I've pretty much given up the idea of traditional publishing, and self-pubbing is a confession of failure and incompetence, in my mind. So, I don't much think about publishing in any manner anymore.

caw

Mainstream, but I wouldn't be opposed to the other.

I should clarify...books are not the only writing I do. I also write the occassional article for various nfl-based websites and as of May 1st I have launched my The Dutcher Journal website in the hopes that it will further increase revenue over the long-term.

I'm also doing this full time and have no other sourse of income. Between me and my wife and two teenage boys we get by. The $700 monthly is a combination of several writing outlets...not just self published novels.

But...there is only one reason I have gotten to the $700...I refuse to be satisfied with less. I am not even satisfied with that amount either. I read...I research...I even look at the real life successes here and I learn what works and what doesn't. I sometimes go against the common theories and get positive results.

I owned my own design agency for over ten years. To this day I get clients calling and asking me to do work for them. I turn them down every time. Simply put...I will live or die by my writing. I'm rapidly approaching 50 and I put off my dreams most of my life for my family, church or other reasons...I just came to a point where I realized I would be an old man telling my future grand kids what "could have been".

I also view it like collage...I'm paying my dues now for a better future.

(Sorry typing on a tablet and the compose window is small...can't see whole post or making corrections to auto correct) "College"

I have a list of milestones I wish to achieve and $20,000 annually is the one I'm working toward right now. That's about $1,666.66 per month, so I'm still a ways off at an average of $698 monthly right now.

People use to ask me what I would do if I retired. Without hesitation throughout my life the answer was always "write." My long term goal is $50,000 annually. I'm nowhere close to that. But eventually it will come. It might take me ten or more years but it will come.

I'm not unrealistic. I know the challenges I face. I know many say it can't be done. But I got this far by realizing the people who do succeed come from two groups...the lucky people or the people who refuse to accept failure. I have always felt personally that hard work, discipline and dedication...along with being open to "consider" the input and successes of others...will overcome any challenge in life.

This has served me very well in my own experiences.

(Long-wind comment continued)

I hope the above doesn't sound like bragging. I don't feel like I have anything to brag about. I'm still not satisfied. I want to fully support my family though my writing. When the kids move out I want to pay cash for a brand new RV and travel the country with my wife as I continue to write. I want to attend these writers conferences I hear so much about.

I want to travel the convention circuit, take my wife to see america and see my kids get college degrees and have successful careers.

Right now, I have agents I don't even have to query anymore. They have requested full 2nd draft manuscripts whenever I finish a novel. So I know it's a matter of time untill I get what I want...so long as I keep plugging away and pay my dues.

Both. If you're already traditionally published, have established readership and have the knowledge and desire to run your own business, why wouldn't you? I have already made ten times the money I made traditionally on self-publishing my backlist books. When you have control of marketing/pricing, you can do a lot that traditional publishers are not willing to think about, especially for midlist authors.

For me, self-publishing and traditional publishing are the new writer diversification plan.

This has been a very interesting thread.

My current goal is traditional/mainstream publication. I'd be happy with a smaller house as long as they're committed to the craft. I have no illusions about anyone backing a money truck up to my home. I don't have the broad skill set successful self-publishing appears to require, and I'd be happy to leave everything except the actual writing in the hands of professionals.

I do want to comment on a topic that came up earlier. I am still fairly new here, obviously (see post count), and no doubt there are aspects of the culture I have yet to encounter, but if years of reading about the publishing/agenting world have taught me anything, it's that there is no One True Path, and no one is infallible. The agents I follow freely admit that good books can go unagented and unpublished, while what we shall charitably call lower-tier writing can hit the jackpot, and that some self-publishers have the drive, smarts, and luck to pull it off without any help from anyone else.

For all the hand-wringing over gate-keeping and whatnot, publishing is a business run by human beings, who are not perfect, and I don't think any of them claim otherwise. Every single step of the publication process depends on subjective judgements. It is literally impossible for anyone to devise a "publish all of the good books and only good books" algorithm; there are always going to be exceptions, surprises, and outliers.

Do what's right for you. Think hard and investigate all of the options. Doing one thing now doesn't mean you'll never do anything else. Five years from now there will be options that are a gleam in someone's eye today.

Pontification over. Now I will get back to work. ;-)

I've always thought you should leave things you don't know about to experts. I'll focus on getting my stuff on paper and then I'll query it until hell won't have it.

I would have loved....

To have gone traditional publishing, but every single query letter I sent out was rejected. I can only surmise it's because the "love" interest in my book is secondary to the bond that exists between my two main characters who are brother and sister, and the story is their tale of escape and survival. While there IS a love interest, for both, that doesn't happen until the latter part of the novel.

It's gotten fantastic reviews so far as a self published ebook and paperback. I'm not selling a ton yet, but I hope once I get more reviews it will sell better.

MissyLaRae said:

To have gone traditional publishing, but every single query letter I sent out was rejected. I can only surmise it's because the "love" interest in my book is secondary to the bond that exists between my two main characters who are brother and sister, and the story is their tale of escape and survival. While there IS a love interest, for both, that doesn't happen until the latter part of the novel.

It's gotten fantastic reviews so far as a self published ebook and paperback. I'm not selling a ton yet, but I hope once I get more reviews it will sell better.

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Missy,

did you swing by QLH, by chance? off-topic, but I think a lot of folks give up on traditional pubbing prematurely, because either they never get a workshopped query with hard outside eyes on it, or they sub to like thirty agents and wander off believing they subbed the shit out of that manuscript, when they were barely scratching the surface.

just a thought, but I have trouble believing it got rejected because agents only want books with romance in thirty pages or less...I DO have no trouble imagining them rejecting because the query looks like straight-up romance and that doesn't match the book, or vice versa, and they leave with the wrong impression......

Yeah, I'm with Quicklime on that. If the *query* isn't resulting in requests, that's likely a problem with the query. If you're getting requests for partials that don't turn into fulls, that's a problem with the manuscript.

Mainstream.

I've considered putting a shelved WIP out in an e-book self-published format, but otherwise mainstream. I'm confident enough and serious enough about my current WIP that I feel it has a chance to be published by a traditional publisher and sold in bricks-and-mortar bookstores.

But then, maybe I'm wrong, because I've had three full requests and three (complimentary) rejections.

Mainstream because, despite this vocation, I don't like risk. A qualified publishing house with qualified editors and PR people will give my story the best chance it has to succeed in the marketplace. Sorry, but I would like to be published by Scribner's so I can place a rose on the grave of Maxwell Perkins. It's an impossible dream but something to hope for.

KateM said:

As for Amanda Hocking she wrote 8 books in 2010, 2 in 2011, and four in 2012.

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No, that's how many she published. She didn't write 8 books in 2010 (well, I don't really know that, I'm just saying that the number you have is published, not necessarily written).

rainsmom said:

Yeah, I'm with Quicklime on that. If the *query* isn't resulting in requests, that's likely a problem with the query. If you're getting requests for partials that don't turn into fulls, that's a problem with the manuscript.

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This.

Also, out of curiosity, how many is every?Many new writers think sending out twenty, thirty, or even fifty queries is a lot, and if this doesn't result in partials / fulls, their manuscript isn't worth persuing trade publication for.

For my debut novel alone, I sent out... lets see, 200? 220? queries to agents and publishers.

Remember, it only takes one yes.

Good luck!

IDGS said:

For my debut novel alone, I sent out... lets see, 200? 220? queries to agents and publishers.

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Good point, but some genres have more agents than others.

IDGS said:

This.

Also, out of curiosity, how many is every?Many new writers think sending out twenty, thirty, or even fifty queries is a lot, and if this doesn't result in partials / fulls, their manuscript isn't worth persuing trade publication for.

For my debut novel alone, I sent out... lets see, 200? 220? queries to agents and publishers.

Remember, it only takes one yes.

Good luck!

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someone else will likely bring the actual numbers up, but Harry Potter and The Help were both rejected, repeatedly, as well.