It is all about Free market and Change

Okay I said I was going into hibernation but I have to respond to Sandra’s comment on my post of March 1^st.

Just so you all understand where I am coming from in the first place, I publish my paper books using Amazon owned CreateSpace and I publish them as ebooks on Kindle and on Barnes and Noble’s Nook.  Barnes and Noble also carries my paper books.  In my March 1^st post I was not referring to a decision to publish on Kindle but just to use one of the publishing plans it is offering to its authors.  I already publish and will continue to do so on Kindle.

To me, the whole discussion centers around free markets and change.  When I wanted to publish my first book I wrote over 100 letters to agents and to traditional publishers asking them to publish my book.  Many politely refused, some didn’t even reply.  It was a heart wrenching experience but I accepted it as reflective of what is going on right now in the publishing industry.  Traditional publishers are becoming more and more exclusive in their selections as the sales of paper books gives way to the use of reading devices.  It’s called progress.

Yes, progress in a free market economy can be brutal.  Yet, just as Amazon in the form of Kindle is refusing to list some publishers, so independent books stores do not carry some publishers.  And for the same reason!  The publishers will not give either Amazon or the Indies enough margin to make it worthwhile for them.  Horrors!  Amazon and Indies in the same boat. 

But it is true.  For an Indie book store to survive these days it must trim its cost of doing business.  In the same way any merchant operates on the back of its’ margin so does Amazon.  In the case of the Kindle books that Amazon recently rejected it is wholly possible that Amazon did not feel the price point at which the publisher wanted to place their works was an acceptable profit point for Amazon.  The Indie store doesn’t always have the same clout as Amazon but this war with the traditionals might be something that eventually benefits the Indie book store.

As for me as an author.  I had no clout with the traditional publisher.  To be fair using the same logic as above, they felt as if they would not make money on the novel of a untried author.  It is their prerogative.  BUT.  I wanted to publish.  Amazon said, come in, make yourself at home.  Oh you may only sell a few copies?  Well we’ll let you give it a try.  No agent or traditional author said that to me and my local Indie bookstore was even less helpful.

It’s about the free market and change.  I will go where I can accomplish what I want to and if someone wants to give me a chance then I will be grateful to them.  I may not accept every offer they make me (after all we don’t buy every new fangled gadget on the market) but I will take advantage of things that forward my dream for me.  Bring it on Amazon.  We all need change, whether we like it or not.

Vanity or Business?

In “Surprises, Again” I skirted the question: “Is self-publishing always vanity publishing?” So if you want to know what I think: “Could be, depends on motivation and economics.” Of course classic vanity publishing consists of paying for set-up and printing of a limited number of copies. The author is liable to get stuck for these copies if they are not a nimble enough book seller. Additionally the margin of profit isn’t nearly as deep as some of the current POD vendors.
In the current POD environment of self-publishing, there is little or no up-front fixed cash investment on the part of the author (I only paid for a CreateSpace upgrade) especially if you are something of a tech hound. I have invested in several books so that I can sell them to various friends and save for them the cost of shipping from Amazon.com. I also get a higher percentage of the take on these copies so I have been keeping a close record of my expenses. So far I have exceeded the actual out-of-pocket expenses of the book. I am free to order copies whenever I need them.
Additionally my POD publisher, CreateSpace is a subsidiary of Amazon so, as mentioned before, marketing can get viral at no expense to the author.
In the current state of the publishing market, as publishers decrease advances and ask authors more and more to do their own marketing (especially for the first-time author), there is a tipping point where getting ones book in print and marketing it by oneself may become more feasible than traditional publishing options.

Why I've self-published...part two

So I re-examined my motives for publishing. Was it to be on the best-seller list? Well I’d certainly love that but it wasn’t the reason I write. I write because I have to. I have a pension, and (as of next month) I have social security. I have a little job at the hospital and a nice volunteer job at Therapeutic Riding. While I’d love the money from a best-seller, I’m not sure I’d like the fame and the work.

I examined the current publishing industry. Certainly an up-front advance would be nice but, more and more the industry is giving smaller advances to first time authors and requiring more and more that they do their own publicity.

What is my goal? Well it certainly isn't being snubbed by the “in” girls while trying to get into the industry. It wasn’t doing my own publicity after I had spent a year blowing my own horn to get the book published in the first place. It wasn’t being out of control of my own book with regard to when and where it was in print.

But I don’t have the money for vanity or subsidy publishing. Then one day I stumbled upon LuLu.com. Voila! The new self-publishing. I could see my book in print and sell the book with any type publicity I chose. Now how do I do this?

To be continued.

Why I've self-published

I said I’d talk a bit about why I chose to self- publish. The primary reason is that I truly believe that this is the way of the future for at least a first time author and perhaps for everyone, not sure of the latter. I’ve read all the pros and cons. I’ve tested some of the waters and, for me, this was the best option.

Let me qualify some of that statement. First of all, I write because I have to. Those people you see on the paper float around my brain and demand to speak. Articulate or not they ask to be written down. Various versions of them have run about my head since I was about 14. Not necessarily the characters in IBG, back then it was a movie star turned infantryman in WWII and a couple of young nurses.

At any rate, they have demanded to be written down and I do so. In the past they have gotten moldy in my closet and eventually thrown out. One of my stories has been around since the early 90’s and will eventually get to print. One story started talking to me last night in the bathtub (ever try to jot down notes under a foot of water?).

IBG started about 4 years ago and came to a final form during NaNoWriMo in 2007. What’s NaNoWriMo? That’s a topic for another post but Google it for now and there’s plenty on their site to get you going.

I did the requisite mailings to selected agents and publishers. Only one asked for a full and then rejected. Most rejected on the strength of various iterations of my query pitch.

I’m easily intimidated. They scare me. But when I thought about it the whole thing was just another batch of kids from grade school telling me that I wasn’t as good as them and I got mad. They may have their place with bigger egos than mine but I wanted a safe place. Perhaps publishing wasn’t it for me but perhaps there was a space where I could survive.

To be continued…

On Amazon

Today, In Between Goodbyes, showed up on Amazon.com. I'm ecstatic, humble, proud and scared all at once. This is my first effort at publication though not my first at writing a novel.

This week I'll post on why I used self-publishing, why I prefer it, but right now I want to savor the idea of being published.

Find my novel HERE