If You're Not Ready To Invest, You're Not Ready To Publish

This post is about the alarming sense of entitlement I'm seeing out there among indies and would-be indies now that we've become empowered to publish. I'm sure I sound like a broken record (or damaged MP3) by now, but apparently I need to keep saying this:

The decision to self-publish for profit is a BUSINESS decision. When you decide to self-publish for a profit you are deciding to LAUNCH A BUSINESS. You are going into direct COMPETITION with every other publisher and self-publisher out there, and many of them have a lot more money, time and experience than you do, no matter who you are. No one who goes into business has an inherent right to success or profit, or even the attention of consumers. All of those things must be earned, and are generally hard-won.

Anyone who wants to launch a new business like a restaurant, widget manufacturer, accounting practice or pool service expects to invest a certain amount of start-up capital, both in terms of actual cash and sweat equity. Neither is dispensable. Yet plenty of would-be indie authors seem to think it's unfair for me, and even the book-buying public, to expect them to invest anything more than the sweat equity part of the equation. They expect the public to be able to look past a cut-rate cover, ignore the typos, bad grammar and the many other substantive flaws that can be eliminated by a good editor, and see the excellent story within. These indies are wrong, and they're hurting all of us by lowering the collective bar.

In a recent Facebook exchange, one indie author directed this to me:

Not all self published authors can afford to hire out for pro services. If that were the case, why not go with a vanity publishing company and all their promises.

To which I responded, in part:

...if we self-publishers wish to compete head-to-head with mainstream books, we have to be willing to invest what it takes both in terms of effort and money. Hiring a pro editor and cover designer yourself is a far cry from going with a vanity press, which will usurp your rights and take a cut of your royalties. A pro edit, file conversion and cover design shouldn't cost most self-pubbers more than about $400-$600, if you check the freelancer listings on Smashwords---and many can beat even those prices by shopping around and calling in favors. Yes, it's a lot of money, but compare that to how many thousands of dollars a mainstream publisher invests in every book *it* acquires and releases. If we want a seat at the poker table, we have to be willing to invest at least a small stake.

Another commenter replied:

I work as a handyman. I'm barely making it. $400 to $600 is half a months' wages for me. How would you suggest I scrape together enough to pay someone to edit my book and another someone to design a cover for it?

My response was:

I'm sorry to say this...but the realities of launching and running a business are what they are, and I have often advised would-be indies NOT to publish until they can afford to do it right. The vast majority of authors, mainstream and indie alike, do not earn enough from sales of their books to live on. Virtually all of us still need day jobs.

The fact that the content is gold won't matter if all the reader notices is typos, bad grammar or spelling mistakes, and an amateurish cover. For years us indies have been saying all we want is the opportunity to compete against the mainstream on a level playing field---but that means we have to be willing to do (and spend) what it takes to compete. I'm all for DIY when the person has the skills, and for trading favors and doing whatever else one can to shave costs. But it's unrealistic to think one can go up against multi-million dollar publishers without spending even a few hundred dollars.

Hopeful Olympians pay for quality equipment, coaching and travel. Hopeful artists pay for quality supplies, professional framing and gallery space. Hopeful filmmakers pay for quality cameras and professional editing, or at least time in a professional editing bay to do it themselves. The fact that it's much easier for a rich hopeful to afford the necessities of his craft or sport than it is for a poor one doesn't make those things any less NECESSARY for the poor hopeful.


People DO judge a book by its cover, as I've learned firsthand. The cover for my novel Adelaide Einstein is much less slick than the one for my novel Snow Ball, and Snow Ball outsells Adelaide month in and out despite the fact that Adelaide has nearly three times as many positive reviews. I can complain all I want about how unfair it is that more readers won't give Adelaide a chance, but that won't sell more copies of the book.

And ebook fans DO post negative reviews based solely on bad editing and poor formatting. I've found most ebook fans to be very welcoming to indies, and even willing to cut them some slack to an extent in acknowledgment that we're not backed by a Big 6 publisher. But when poor formatting or bad editing gets in the way of their enjoyment of the content, they stop reading and let others know about it.

Remember: publishing was never meant to be fair. It's a business. Mainstream-published authors have the luxury of a whole staff of businesspeople standing between their delicate, artistic sensibilities and the harsh realities of commerce, but they pay for it pretty dearly in reduced royalties and the loss of control of their work. We indies have to be willing and able to play both sides of the net, art AND commerce, ourselves.

If you're not willing, or you're not able, you're not ready to publish.

UPDATED TO ADD: having seen comments on this post here and elsewhere, I'm kind of shocked that this is such a controversial stand to take. I mean, if I wanted to go into business making and selling any other product, and openly admitted I had no money for quality control (editing), packaging (cover design) or marketing (author platform) for the product, that I didn't have the skills to do all of those things myself at a level comparable to a professional, and I don't know anyone who'd be willing to offer those services to me for free, everyone would just say, "Well, maybe you need to wait till you've saved up some money, then."

But for some reason, to some people, when the product in question is a book, it's somehow a special case. To those people, suggesting the author delay publication till he can make his product---a book---the best it can be is elitest. I'm not saying that only the rich should be able to publish, not remotely. I strongly encourage controlling costs, acquiring as many skills as possible so you can do a professional job of things yourself, calling in favors and comparison shopping for services. And I'm not saying those who don't do these things should be barred from publishing.

All I'm saying is, if you're going to step into the spotlight and invite the scrutiny of a paying public, doesn't it make sense to put your best foot forward? If "good enough" is inadequate when it comes to the quality of your storytelling and characterization, why is it acceptable when it comes to the quality of your book's presentation?

Shelf Life

When my first mainstream-published book, The Indie Author Guide: Self-Publishing Strategies Anyone Can Use, shipped to booksellers at the end of November, I started checking the Borders and Barnes & Noble sites almost daily to find out when the book would become "available in-store". I planned on making the pilgrimmage to all my local stores to see my book on the shelves, but with some ambivalence.

After all, why should I, an outspoken indie author who says brick-and-mortar sales aren't all they're cracked up to be, care if my book is shelved in physical stores or not? I imagined I shouldn't care at all...yet it seemed as if I did. At least, enough to visit the stores in person. I had to admit to myself that I did care, and I was kind of ashamed of that.

I imagined stepping into that first store, striding purposefully to the reference section, and being thrilled to find my book right there on the shelf next to all the others I'd so often perused in days gone by. I'd bring a camera with me, so I could enjoy that rite of passage so many authors I know have allowed themselves: having my picture taken, standing there in the bookstore with my book in hand, against a backdrop of shelves where several more copies of my book could be seen.

I further imagined coming back home to write a sheepish blog post about the whole thing, in which I'd have to come clean about still harboring some of those same mainstream publication fantasies as my peers who've remained steadfastly anti-selfpub, and who still view mainstream publication as the only publication that counts. Was it possible that in some way, however small and hidden from the world, I still believed it too? And if so, what would that mean?

I decided that having spent the majority of my years in a world where indie wasn't a viable option for the great majority of writers, and where self-pub was heavily stigmatized, it was only natural that my brain would become imprinted with such notions and as a writer, I'd internalize them without even necessarily being aware of it. But if this were the case, as Ricky Ricardo might say, I'd have some 'splainin to do.

Well, by now you've probably noticed there is no picture of me proudly brandishing my book posted here. The outcome of my little expedition to that first store surprised me.

As planned, I drove to my nearest store and walked in, camera in hand. I found five copies of my book on the shelf, and my reaction was one of, "Huh. So there it is. Yep. Right there." I felt no more excitement at seeing my book shelved in a Barnes & Noble than I might've felt eyeing my car coming out of the far end of a car wash. It wasn't a thrill for me at all; it was merely a confirmation, like double-checking to ensure a deposit I've made was properly credited to my checking account. I didn't bother having the picture taken, and as I was feeling more awkward than happy standing there, I left. And I didn't bother visiting any of the other bookstores on my list.

I felt WAY more excitement than this when I saw my first self-pubbed title listed on Amazon. THAT'S the moment when I felt like a "real" author. This was just...business.

Part of me feels sort of robbed of this nugget of joy I thought I had coming to me, but the larger part feels relieved to learn I can now say in all honesty and from personal experience, mainstream publication is not the be-all, end-all it's been built up to be for people of my generation and older. If it's been your lifelong dream to see your name on a book on a brick-and-mortar store shelf, I sincerely hope that dream comes true for you one day, and I have no intention of diminishing the importance or meaning of your dream for you. But if you've been of an indie mindset for any significant period of time you may be surprised to find---as I was---when that much-anticipated day of fulfillment finally arrives, your dream apparently changed at some point when you weren't paying attention to it.

Probably when you were busy self-publishing.

An Indie Call To Action

Most of us indie authors talk a good game about how there are plenty of quality indie books available, and how there are plenty of terrible mainstream books. We also like to complain about the lack of variety and originality in mainstream book offerings as compared to indie books. Such musings generally lead to the conclusion that if people would just give indie books the same chance they give to mainstream books, if they would just put indie books to the ‘fifteen minute’ or ‘first ten pages’ test, the frequency with which they’d find books they would want to keep reading would be on par with that for mainstream books, and indie authors and readers everywhere would rejoice. It’s time we stop all the hand-wringing and blind hope, and make this happen.

Yes, we have the power. Every indie author is also a reader, and every one of us has a circle of influence. So if you’re an indie author or small imprint owner, I issue the following challenge to you:

1) Find an indie book you LOVE, from an author to whom you have no connection. The lack of a prior connection or relationship is important, since it will eliminate any possibility of a conflict of interest. Finding the right book will require you to put a few likely candidates to the fifteen minute/ten pages test, but if you’re not willing to do it, why should any prospective reader out there do it for your book?

2) Write positive reviews of your chosen book on every site where the book can be bought (e.g., Amazon, Smashwords, Scribd, Lulu store, Authors Bookshop, etc.; most allow you to enter reviews whether you bought a given book on their site or not) and on any reader community sites to which you belong (e.g., Goodreads, Shelfari, LibraryThing).

3) If you’re on Twitter, tweet about the book and author, and include a link to a page where the book can be purchased. Use the hashtag #indieaction, to make it easy for everyone to find these indie action tweets (and some great indie books!).

4) Add the author’s site to your blogroll or links page on your own site.

5) If you were already planning to buy books as holiday gifts and your chosen book is available for sale, include it in your gift mix.

6) If you typically review books on your blog or website from time to time, review the book there as well. If you don’t typically post full reviews, just add a one- to two-liner about the book and author at the end of another blog post. Link back to this post if you feel you need to put your remarks into context.

7) Recommend the book personally to family, friends and coworkers.

8) Spread the word about this campaign to every indie author and indie supporter you know. Here’s a handy link you can share for this post –
http://bit.ly/13kM5j

This is not a shady scheme, and this is not a mutual back-scratching society. This is the many thousands of indie authors flexing their collective influence as readers for the benefit of the indie author movement overall.

Maybe you’ve never actively sought out indie books to read, and don’t know where to start. I’d suggest you begin by checking the top-selling, most-downloaded, and/or top-rated books at any of the sites listed below. Most of the bookseller sites listed allow authors to post a free excerpt (for your 15 minute/ten pages test); for other books, try looking up the author’s website to see if you can find an excerpt that way. Again, some time and effort will be involved here but you can gain a lot of insight into the typical book-buyer’s experience with indie books by going through this exercise.

Web Fiction Guide
LL Book Review
Small-Press Bookwatch
Scribd*
Smashwords*
Podiobooks (podcast audiobooks)
Authorsbookshop
Self-Publishing Review
The New Podler Review of Books
Top 100 Kindle Store Independent Authors

*These sites offer both indie and mainstream books, so you'll need to check the publisher name to see if you're dealing with an indie/small imprint book, or a mainstream release

I’m going to get the ball rolling by recommending an excellent indie book from an author who’s a complete stranger to me. The book is called The 6th Seal, and it was written by J.M. Emanuel. It’s an excellent, and truly scary, supernatural thriller set against an archetypal good vs. evil backdrop. If you enjoyed The Da Vinci Code but wished it had more depth, if you enjoy books by Straub and Stephen King, or any of the darker works of Neil Gaiman, if you like fictional explorations of Armageddon, mysteries, or stories built on biblical revelation, you really ought to give this book a try. You can read the first few pages of it using the Look Inside! Feature on Amazon.com, where it’s available in both print and Kindle editions.

In the coming week I’ll put my keyboard where my mouth is by tweeting and posting reviews of this book everywhere I can.

Now get out there and become part of the solution!

Getting Organized

Bottom Line It For Me, Baby Version (200 Words Or Less):
The series based on content from my how-to reference book on self-publishing, The IndieAuthor Guide, marches on. I can't just copy and paste everything from the manuscript, because the thing is 300pp long and heavily illustrated besides. But I will present topics from the book to the extent of detail possible in a blog post. Note that I'm not covering editing, designing your own book cover, creating your brand or publishing to the Kindle here, since those topics are already presented on my website in the form of free pdf guides. I’ll include links to previous posts in the series here in the Bottom Line It section. So far, I've posted topics on Publishing Options, Rights, Royalties and Advances, What's the Deal With ISBNs And Bookstores, and Choosing A Publisher. Today's post is about Getting Organized.

Go On An' Run Yo Mouth, I Ain't Got Nuthin' But Time Version (Can't Promise It Won't Go On Forever):
Keeping your digital work organized is a critical but often overlooked step in successful authorship. As you work on a manuscript, you need your research, notes and drafts at your fingertips. When you begin iterations of revision, you need to keep tabs on the feedback you receive and make sure that feedback is readily available when you need it. After the manuscript is completely polished, proofed, and “locked” against further changes, you need to maintain separate ‘containers’ to hold the files for each type of release you intend to make available (i.e., POD, eBook, Kindle edition, etc.). Finally, you will want to archive all the files related to former works in progress, as you never know when those notes and ideas will come in handy as you work on some future project.

Hard Drive Housekeeping
It’s essential to set up an organized filing system for all of the writing-related files on your computer. This will save you a great deal of time and energy in the future, when any file related to any one of your manuscripts will be easy to locate with just a few mouse clicks. A well-organized, centrally-located filing system also simplifies and speeds the backup process---which of course, you’re doing regularly, right?

The question of specifically how to organize your files is a matter of personal preference, and what makes sense to you. Most people will have a top-level folder called “Writing,” “Manuscripts,” or something similar. Beneath that, some will create a separate folder for each different manuscript, using the manuscript’s title as the folder name, and then create sub-folders within each manuscript folder to hold each different type of file: rough drafts, notes and research, proofs, eBook versions, etc. Others will prefer to create folders for each different file type within the main, “Manuscripts” folder, and then place files for each different manuscript within the file type folders: all proof versions in the ‘Proofs’ folder, all eBook versions in the ‘eBooks’ folder, etc. etc. My own filing system is a combination of the two.

Within my Writing folder, I have a folder for Completed Manuscripts, Published Manuscripts and Works In Progress (WIPs). Within the Completed Manuscripts, Published Manuscripts and WIPs folders, there are subfolders for each manuscript. Within the Published MSs folder, there are subfolders for each different publisher/format. I also have a Web Presence – Promotion folder with subfolders to store all documents, notes and information related to my websites and promotional activities, organized by promotional activity type (i.e., a folder for press releases, one for each blog, one for my main website, etc.).

Within each manuscript folder in the Completed MSs and WIPs folders, I have subfolders for Correspondence, Current Version (for the most recent version of the manuscript, or in the case of published manuscripts, the final version), Drafts, Excerpts, Graphics (for cover art or any images appearing in the manuscript), Notes (for workshopping feedback) and Research. In setting up your own filing system, try to think in terms of how you will most often search for items it contains in the future.

Email Housekeeping
Just as on your hard drive, a logical, tidy email filing system will save you a lot of time and headaches when you’re desperate to locate a specific note, name or contact information. Just as with your hard drive filing system, your email filing system should be organized in a way that makes sense to you, but there are some overall guidelines that will probably make sense for everyone.

Typically, you correspond with many of the same people about all your different works and it may initially seem like a good idea to set up a separate folder for each of those people, containing all emails you send to, and receive from, each individual. However, if you set up your email files this way, when you need to find a specific email from Susan Editor about your My Super Fantastic Career manuscript it may not be easy to locate among all the other emails from Susan Editor pertaining to all your other manuscripts. I suggest creating a separate folder for each manuscript and storing all relevant correspondence accordingly. Separate folders can also be created for correspondence not specifically related to any particular manuscript. And don’t forget, you need to periodically archive and back up your email too!

At this point in The IndieAuthor Guide, there’s a chapter on Creating Your Brand. I won’t be covering that material here because it’s already available for free viewing and/or download on my website.

Next Time: DIY Formatting For POD, Part One

The Publisher Has No Clothes

Bottom Line It For Me, Baby Version (200 Words Or Less)

Selling a book used to mean four things: a respectable advance, a respectable promotion budget and effort, your book would appear on store shelves, and your publisher would gladly publish anything new you had to offer. Thanks to industry consolidations, just 6 media megaconglomerates now dominate American publishing, and they are bottom-line focused with a vengeance. In an industry that has historically, consistently seen profit margins ranging from 4-8%, media megas are determined to squeeze out 15% or more. They don't want books they predict will bring in typical 'midlist' sales (5-40,000 copies), so they don't buy so-called 'small' books from new authors, nor from authors who've been raking in steady, reliable sales for years. Now, for all but celebrity, bestselling and prestige clients, advances are paltry, promotional budgets and efforts are nonexistent, there's no guarantee your book will appear in brick-and-mortar stores, and your publisher won't want your next manuscript unless the one they just bought sells more than 40K copies. This deal could only be more unattractive if authors also had to deliver coffee to the publisher each morning, yet aspiring authors everywhere continue to grovel at the feet of the media megas. WHY?!


Go On An' Run Yo Mouth, I Got Nuthin' But Time Version (Can't Promise It Won't Go On Forever)
From where I sit, there are far more reasons not to sign with a mainstream publisher than reasons to sign with one. They've killed the midlist, they've adopted Hollywood's blockbuster marketing model, they've chipped away at advances and promo budgets for all but their prestige and bestseller clients, and now that Borders is reducing its in-store stock by 20% to display more titles face out (a move they've reported has led to a sales spike, so you can bet it'll be rolling out to B&N too), big publishers can't even guarantee a new author's book will be shelved in brick-and-mortar stores anymore.

What's astonishing is the fact that so many aspiring authors still see mainstream publishers as the gold standard in authorship and are willing to give up so much---even risking their entire future careers by putting all their literary eggs in one basket with that first manuscript sale, betting their future prospects on the slim chance their book hits big in spite of DIY marketing and poor exposure---in exchange for some kind of perceived status. The emperor clearly has no clothes, so why don't more of my peers see it too? To be sure, bestselling authors have their publishers to thank, in large part, for their careers. But given that bestselling authors make up maybe 1-2% of all published fiction writers at any given time, we've all got as good a chance of hitting the lottery as entering that rarified group. And if we don't enter that rarified group, we would've done better if we never published anything with a big house to begin with. Lemme break it down for you:

First off, it's widely accepted that only about 5% of all manuscripts submitted to publishers get contracts, and marketability/screenplay-likelihood is as large (or larger) a factor in rejection as quality of the work nowadays. Maybe 25% of that 5% is made up of manuscripts from famous, prestige, or previous-bestseller authors, and these will get the lion's share of attention, advances and promotional budget. The rest will get paltry advances of a few thousand dollars, which sounds all right until you realize that's your payday for the past months or even years of work you put into writing the manuscript. It's less attractive still when you realize the publisher's sole contribution to marketing your book will be promo copies, and you'll have to spend most or all of your advance on marketing. Have fun trying to sell your book, because the publisher can't guarantee it will be shelved in brick-and-mortar stores, and doesn't even want to broach the subject of audiobook or ebook editions until or unless some worthwhile sales figures come in. "Worthwhile" to these folks are sales on the order of more than 40K copies, and if your book doesn't cross that threshold the publisher (and all its imprints) won't want to publish you again. Talk about a vicious circle. Compounding your misery, you're facing an uphill battle in trying to sell future manuscripts to any of the other 5 major publishing conglomerates because you'll be viewed as damaged goods.

Some of us will make it, and the risk will have been worthwhile for those few, but all the other authors who get a contract will find their celebrations short-lived. I'm truly baffled by the 90% of aspiring authors who stay in the hunt for a prize they've only got a 5% chance of getting in the first place, which more often than not turns out to hurt the author more than help him or her. What up with that?!