When I started this blog, I started a list on a notepad on my phone of subjects I might blog about. I add to it, delete from it, grab ideas that inspire me and run with them, etc.
I was looking over my list the other day and saw this one. “I think one of my favorite authors is self-publishing.”
It was such a thrill, such a secret joy to see that self-publishing was so valid that a favorite traditionally published author of mine might be quietly experimenting with it.
That was also a note I left for myself almost seven years ago.
Not only is that author TOTALLY self-publishing, several other of my favorite traditionally published authors have moved over to indie life as well. And they’re not being quiet about it. One of my very favorites has been making A LOT of noise about her decision to move to independent authorship. She’s tired of being taken to the cleaners by trad pub houses.
I still run across the idea that going indie somehow cheapens being an author, that slogging through the publishing houses is a badge of honor. It’s getting slimmer, though, and more and more, it’s a sound of desperation by authors who are being taken to the cleaners by their trad houses and want to somehow validate what they’re going through.
The more I learn about being traditionally published, the more I’m glad I never broke in. I had a few rejection letters that had nice notes scribbled at the bottom, and in his book On Writing, Stephen King says that’s a sign you’re close to getting a deal. But I gave up and did the indie thing instead. Am I rolling in cash? Hell no. Am I even making a decent living? Again, no. Do I think that would be different if I had been persistent and broken in with a trad house? No. No, I do not. And I would have a ton less say over my books than I do now.
I am taking a cue from one of my favorite authors and re-editing my books in preparation for a big marketing push. I know a lot more now than I did ten years ago when I put the first one out. I’m not ashamed to clean up my errors and make my books the best they can be — better than they are right now. My author role model was told a bunch of things in the editing process about her books — by PROFESSIONAL EDITORS — that turned out not to be true. Things like, don’t worry about character development, focus on action, no one cares about the character’s relationships, no one cares about historical accuracy. By her sixth book, she was making enough money that she could tell the editors what to do, but the first five were already out there, messed up. She’s re-writing them how she wanted to in the first place. I am thrilled and will be buying all of them when she releases them. But now that she’s indie, she can do that. I’m already indie, so I can, too.
I realized my book covers weren’t doing me any favors. So I hired a new cover designer and had her re-do them. There was a bit of a kerfuffle in the writing world last year when a trad author had a new book come out and tweeted that she thought the cover was awful. The designer was hurt, the publisher offended, and she had to take her words back and apologize. The cover is truly awful, but trad authors get NO SAY on that kind of thing. I don’t have to deal with any of that.
I realized my book descriptions weren’t doing me any favors. So I took some time, studied up on doing them right, and put together new ones. You know how many truly bad back-of-the-book descriptions I’ve read on some trad pubbed books? Like, really bland and stupid. Or the books with no description at all, just some guy at some magazine really liked it. So? Who is that guy, and why do I care if he liked it? What’s the book ABOUT? I don’t have to deal with any of that. My descriptions were bad — now they’re better. Thanks, me.
The other cue I’m taking from all these authors I admire that are self-publishing?
I started out a little ashamed of self-publishing. People would ask me who published my books, and I didn’t want to tell them it was me.
After realizing that traditional publishing houses are a business like any other, and that giant corporations care about profits and nothing else, and that they will drop an author like a hot rock if it becomes fiscally better for them to do so, I am no longer the least bit ashamed of being indie.
Who published my books?
ME. I’m an indie!!
And so are some of my very favorite authors.
