I'm thinking of giving up on Standard Model Publishing

I guess I'm one of the exceptions. Most of my author friends are too.

Diana, if you want to self-pub, you know the rules of the game: Good story, clean editing, great cover. Take over the role of publisher and get the same quality they would offer, and go forward. The readers will recognize quality. That's all the reader cares about, and they'll pay for the privilege.

kkbe said:

As for author promotion and all that, from what I've read, even if you get published traditionally, it's not uncommon for the publisher to expect you to do a lot of your own promotional work via social media and all that. Some folks are savvy at that, some, not so much.

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I keep seeing it stated (not in this thread but in general) that publishers expect authors to do a lot of their own promotional work. I'm not entirely certain why that's a criticism (or I'm reading it as such). As an author, why wouldn't you want to promote your book in some way? Note, I'm not saying go on a social media barnstorming. Find out what's worked for others and what makes sense for you - if anything. I guess when I see statements like this I'm not sure what the expectations are of the publisher. They don't make much, or any, money off of most of the books they publish. So how far are they supposed to go to promote each title?

kkbe, I hope this doesn't sound like I'm picking on your statement in particular. I'm not! Just wondering what people are expecting from publishers on promotion that they don't feel is happening.

Ken said:

... and in summation, who wants things easy? Not me for sure! Long odds excite me. Impossibilities are delightful. Obstacles, spectacular. Always have been; always will be. As to luck, if it ever seeks to help me I will cuss it.

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Yo, Ken! After you cuss Luck out, send her over to my place. She can weep gold all over my shoulders as long as she wants.

kkbe said:

As to the chances first-time writers have vs. previously published authors, maybe you're right. Which would bode well for unpublished authors, but not so well for those who've been fortunate enough to see their novels published. Still, I have to believe that an author with a published novel or two under her belt will have an advantage over an author who has never been published; proven track record and all that.

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That depends. I think the market has become harder on mid-list authors who have reliable, modest sales. If the publisher's bar on what makes acceptable sales numbers is raised, the mid-list author with several books to her credit may find herself without a contract.

No offence taken, Namatu. I guess I just always thought that if your novel is snapped up by a traditional publisher, that publisher would take it from there. That's my naivety talking. And Fear and Doubt are coming into play once again, because I don't consider myself at all savvy when it comes to social media, which puts me--in my own mind, at least--at a distinct disadvantage, especially when I read that Editors A, B, C etc. expect their authors to step up and do their part to get their novels sold.

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I get it! I'm not very social media savvy either. But we can learn. Lurk, get used to the waters, and then start swimming. You're not going to start off with a medal-winning freestyle, but the dog paddle is respectable while you build your skills. It is a time investment, but it could reap rewards later. Don't let fear and doubt hold you back.

That isn't an unreasonable expectation, I know. And you're right: why wouldn't an author do everything she could to get her name out there, get her novel noticed? It's an exciting prospect, unless said author feels doesn't believe she has the skills or know-how to do that.

Fear and doubt, Namatu. Ugh.

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I'm very private, and like many of us here, I'm also an introvert. I'm trying on social media, and feeling awkward about it, but muddling through and having fun more often than not. You can overcome your fear and doubt, kkbe!

Diana Hignutt said:

...I am really thinking of just doing it all myself, hiring freelance editors, and skipping all the unpleasantness of the standard model. I know my sales would be less, but I'm not really in this for the money. I know I wouldn't get reviewed. But I'm not in this for reviews. I just want to write books and have some people read them. If I make a little money that's fine. By self-publishing ebooks I'd make more on one sale than on ten standard published book sales. I'm a minor cult-classic-ish sort of writer, I know I'm never going to sell a million books and I'm tired of the disrespect that seems to have become the industry standard. Depending how the release of the trilogy goes, I might just give up on ever submitting anything again. I guess we'll see.

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I agree that it is quite the buzzkill to jump through all the hoops and spend a year sending a manuscript out when the chances/sales aren't good for the type of book you've written anyway. I've decided to go by how books similar to whichever one I've written are published.

For example, right now I'm writing one nonfiction book, revamping another, and revamping one fiction book. The nonfictions are marriage rejuvenation tips, and beauty tips for older women. I plan to try to get quotes from experts and so on but still, while there seems to be a gigantic market for both those types of books, I don't see many of those published by "nobodies." From my cursory research anyway, publishers want either people who with advanced credentials in the related fields or else celebrities. But I still want to write my books, so I probably won't bother sending them around. The fiction, though, is a YA fantasy novella that I wrote twenty years ago before fantasy and novellas were much in demand. I plan to do the rounds with the trade publishers for that one because now I see those all over the place.

Once I learned how to self-publish, I was surprised at how much fun it is. You get to do everything when you want, how you want, no asking anyone's f*cking permission. Woo hoo! However. After the momentary thrill of making over $100 so far this month, when I stop and think of how hilarious my happiness would probably look to a big publisher, ummm. I mean, if the money was the main thing I was after, I'd get a job but I don't want to leave money sitting on the table either. So, my thought is just why not consider each book individually. If a decent sized publisher picks up a book and gets me a fat wad of cash, I'll probably forget the annoyance. Good luck!

Phaeal said:

Yo, Ken! After you cuss Luck out, send her over to my place. She can weep gold all over my shoulders as long as she wants.

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Instead, I'll send you "The Monkey's Paw," pub'd in 1902.
And if you still want Luck after reading the story she's all yours

I think, Diana, you're in a well-informed place to do it right. Rooting for you!

Ken said:

Instead, I'll send you "The Monkey's Paw," pub'd in 1902.
And if you still want Luck after reading the story she's all yours

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Hey, people who don't know the difference between a monkey's paw and a rabbit's foot shouldn't dabble in magic.

Phaeal said:

Hey, people who don't know the difference between a monkey's paw and a rabbit's foot shouldn't dabble in magic.

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hee hee

Raw raw self-publishing, I mean, yea go pay for an awesome editor and make yourself a great book.

RedWombat said:

I've done both now, and honestly, if you can write a publishable book for trade, if you hire a decent editor, you can almost certainly write a publishable book for self-pub. I'd go for it--third book in a trilogy dropped by a publisher is a great case for self-pub, and you've got nothing much to lose.

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Red Wombat and Others;

Thanks for this thread! Also to all who shared! I'm trying to decide on Self-publishing or Traditional. I at first thought self-publishing was easy, find at a book cover site and select a cover that works, put the title on it, then go to Kindle where it's made easy to in a few minutes self-publish. After that notion I read that the most versatile file-type is html. Html I guess assures readers with different reading devices etc. that my book will appear in best quality and not with conflicts etc. I then found a free online course on html and discovered that to some it's easy to convert a file to html but for me it was a major ordeal. Then I found by not going that route of doing it myself that then there's the cost of hiring a programmer to convert my word processing to html. I also found that one has to be their own publicist in order to really get readers to even know my book is available. There's a lot more I'm not mentioning but self-publishing sounds like a major task if you want to find readership and some kind of income.

I haven't read about traditional publishing, although I read it's horribly competitive to even get an agent or a publisher. I thought I'd at least try that route as I imagine traditionally publishing the house staff does the publicity and all the accounting and making book covers and making sure all is (I think) in html for digital copies where all the writer mainly has to do is write, right? If anyone knows different let me know. I'll keep browsing the threads to see what I find about traditional publishing. I read that once you ePublish agents won't take you, or regular publishers? Has anyone heard that before? I still might go the self-publishing route, especially because I have a novella and read that traditional publishers, and probably agents, don't take novellas. Mine is 37,000 words. Sounds like you have had an easy time self-publishing Red Wombat. Is my take on it exaggerated?
Kindest Regards,
Winfred

Self-publishing (at least, self-publishing well) definitely is work and probably more work than many people realize. However, for me, the publishing part was easy, but I've been doing HTML and CSS for many years.

The real work begins once your book is published, IMO.

Winfred said:

I read that once you ePublish agents won't take you, or regular publishers? Has anyone heard that before?

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I've never heard that before. What matters is the quality of the manuscript you submit to an agent. There are dozens of authors whose books came out from digital-first or digital-only publishers, or who self-published, and who later queried agents successfully.

I still might go the self-publishing route, especially because I have a novella and read that traditional publishers, and probably agents, don't take novellas.

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Depends on the publisher. I have a 20K Christmas novella coming out from Samhain in winter, and a 30K novella being released by Loose Id in March. But if you're hoping for a shot at the Big Five, then you're better off querying a novel.

Tor, arguably the biggest English-language SFF imprint right now, has a new digital-first division aimed at novellas.

Winfred said:

Sounds like you have had an easy time self-publishing Red Wombat. Is my take on it exaggerated?
Kindest Regards,
Winfred

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"Easy" is a bit of a loaded term here, so let me start with the basics--I've self-pubbed, I've big-trade-pubbed, I've small-press pubbed, and they're all different and guarantees are few.

My time self-publishing has been a much easier row to hoe than many authors because I've been trade-published before--I'm a hybrid author. I essentially came to self-pub with a built-in audience that I'd built up over ten years of blogging, art, doing a webcomic, small-press books, etc. (We'll set aside my children's books for the moment--the audience overlap is slim and I don't know how much they're moving the needle on the self-pub stuff.)

At the end of the day, because of my career up to this point, I can pretty much count on a thousand eyeballs minimum on anything I produce.

That is a lot of eyeballs. (And they lead to more eyeballs!) If I self-publish a book, I can reasonably expect that a thousand people will buy it right out of the gate, because I've poured about fifteen years into somehow fooling those people into thinking I am not a total blithering idiot.*

This is a completely different situation than if this is your first book and you have no audience. First book/no audience, I would ALWAYS suggest going trade if you possibly can. They can get you those eyeballs. Getting them yourself is a LOT of work, and requires either a lot of time or a specialized skillset, and there is absolutely no substitute for a big house with a big marketing team and a budget. Even if you only get the bare bones of that, it's probably more than you can do for yourself.

...this is starting to sound a bit grisly, with all the eyeballs. But anyway!

In the case of the OP here, though, she's GOT an audience--the first two books of the trilogy were trade published, people are clamoring for the last book. That's built-in eyeballs. You usually don't get that out of the gate in self-pub. So OP's third book of a trilogy is a great candidate for self-pub, whereas the first book of a trilogy by an unknown author would be a totally different kettle of fish.

Nobody can say what's right for you, but yeah, a novella is a hard sell. (Tor is currently working with novellas, though, so there's hope.) But if you don't have an audience, I'd generally suggest at least TRYING trade publishing, because you lose nothing by trying it and you could gain a great deal that you can't do for yourself without miserable effort.

*Some of them may be on to me.

Diana Hignutt said:

I completely loved the process of ebook self-publishing on Amazon.

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Just a suggestion, you might add the "look inside" feature on your ebook. I don't get any book without using that.

Yes, I can get a sample sent, but the "look inside" is quick and easy for someone browsing books. If a book doesn't have that, I wonder why ...

ETA: is there a fee for that, the "look inside?"

"Look Inside" is automatic, but it can take a few days to show up.

Hmm, there seem to be a lot of books that don't have it. There isn't a box to check or something else to include it?

Of the ones showing in the "customers who viewed this item also viewed" section on her book page - none of them have the "look inside." On my view of Amazon. Yours might be different. ?

You might also want to fix the typo in the book's description on Amazon

Diana Hignutt said:

. I've sent ten queries and have only received one response thus far. Maybe, I'm just old fashioned but, that shit is unacceptable to me. I'm pretty sure I'm decided.

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Only 10? That's hardly any at all. Really. I probably sent out 100. Some responded, some did not. Eventually I sold my book though and was thrilled to get the phone call - "Grab a glass of wine and celebrate. We're publishing your book!" Of course, I'm the most tenacious person I know, so......