Hi all,

I have been working hard on my craft for some time now and have recently began exploring my options to turn a hobby into a job title. Obviously I have looked into the processes of both traditional and self-publishing and both have their pros and cons. I have started to draft a bit of a business plan for self-publishing, should I summon the nerve to do it. But here's what's holding me back. I'm a closet writer. Or I was. Now a handful of people know what I do as a hobby and obviously, if I were to self publish, I would have to reveal my secret. Obviously, the same goes for the traditional publishing route, but somehow, I think I would find that easier if I had a professional from the industry backing me, rather than me selling myself, if that makes any sense at all.

I'm wondering if anyone else is coming to a similar hurdle, or if you have already been through this experience. Some like-minded company would be greatly appreciated.

Lucy

Hey Lucy!!

Welcome to Book Country. I think a lot of people live with similar fears. I can’t remember if we’ve ever discussed this... but I didn’t tell people in my *real life* that I published. Even when the started gaining traction, I was like, well, it would just be weird if I started telling people now.

Slowly, I started getting email forwards from people with subject lines like, “Why is your face on this book?” 

There’s only one way to respond to that, lol!

The bottom line is, so much of the insecurity was/is in my head (which doesn’t make it any less real!)

The marjoity of people who are going to look down on you for being a writer are going to do so know matter what you write or how it was published. But most people are just going to think it’s cool that you wrote an entire book

xo

Love these insights from Alys and Alex--thanks to you both for posting!

Alex, I want to know more about this love/hate relationship with social media. As a bystander, I am only seeing the love!

I have been traditionally published, but I would LOVE to try self-publishing. The idea of making a business plan and getting to try little ideas and experiments sounds so fun to me. But right now I just have to concentrate on the writing. I mean, if I don't finish my book, there's no point in a business plan . . .

But yes, Lucy, I think you are in great company with these questions.

What do other folks out there have to say about "coming out" as a writer to friends, family, and colleagues? Is it scary? NBD? Any funny stories?

Hi all,

Thanks for your responses! It’s really nice to see that I’m not the only one who has gone through similar feelings. Unfortunately I haven’t had any online success yet, and I think that maybe damaging my confidence a little, my (very basic) business outline is based on the hope of having some sort of online following. My twitter following has grown, but that’s about it, haha!

I think I could tackle the editing side, and I’d pay for a good quality cover, or do it myself if I can get my hands on some affordable software, but the social side is kind of terrifying right now, I definitely need to sort that out.

It’s that confidence and security that comes with an industry professional that you mentioned, Alex, that I think I most crave.

I’m surprised to hear that you’re not necessarily at the top of your agents priority list, now you’ve said it, it seems obvious that they will have to prioritise their clients, but I’ve never really thought about that until now, that and the fact that by having an agent will mean losing some of the control of my work, is quite off putting. On the other hand, it has some serious benefits as well, doesn’t it? I’m like you in that I’m not very keen on querying. I give it a go but I just don’t seem very good at it haha. I got three rejections on an old novel and after the third I closed the document folder for that project, and I’ve not looked at it since. I think I’m far too soft for this game, really.

I didn’t know you could self publish and traditionally publish at the same time, is that what you’re planning on doing, Alex?

Alys, I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned that you didn’t tell people that you had published, that must have been really hard to keep quiet, especially as TCG really took off! You’re so right with what you say about the way people will respond to admitting to writing... (that makes it sound like a dodgy problem, but you get what I mean!)

Good thread here. My comments:

--edited by Perry on 5/7/2015, 5:43 PM--

Perry,

You make some good points. It’s nice to see different experiences in one place, thank you. It’s clear that it really can go any way, which is probably why I haven’t done much with my business plan yet. It’s all quite daunting really. I, like you said, will also have a lot to learn about the industry. Thanks for commenting and best of luck with your writing ventures!

Lucy

An interesting question there about admitting to writing - I guess it's because we're afraid that if people we know read it, they might find it weird or not like it for whatever reason, or try to reltae it to what they know of us in real life (which in my view is not the right way to 'read' a book, though inevitably happens). But then once you take the plunge and admit to it, most people are admiring and supportive, or at worst indifferent. So it's just a matter of overcoming that first hurdle, I think.

As for self-pub or trad, as Perry says, there's pretty much the same amount of marketing to do. I've been doing a lot of reading about that but it still seems a bit hit and miss to me, so I have no idea how it'll work, if at all. I tried about 30 agents and the last to reply said, 'Although this isn't right for us, we encourage you to keep trying because it deserves to be published'. But by that time I was fed up with the whole querying process, and tried a couple of publishers instead. A very small, recently established publisher, Meizius Publishing, has accepted it now, with a release no doubt in September. Right now I'm happier with that than with self-publishing, simply because I prefer the idea of having that sort of backing, however small. But the marketing challenge remains, and seems like a mountain to climb at the moment. I just have two aims in that respect - get as many Amazon reviews as possible, and get the sequel out in less than a year. But the first aim involves all sorts of other work (i.e. social media) which gets in the way of the second. So most of the time I have a default mood of 'Well, I'll just do as much as I can and if it works, so much the better, and if not, tough - at least I'll have tried.'

Self-publishing has a bad name. But since The Market is what drives traditional publishing, why not put your stuff out in The Market and see how it does? We're supposed to be ashamed of what used to be called "Vanity Publishing," but "traditional" industry perceptions of what will sell leave a whole lot of good books and authors out in the cold. There are such rigid industry ideas about what is "worthwhile." That's why people self-publish and why they always have. 

Take Walt Whitman, for instance. You know, that thoroughly awful guy who claimed to be a poet. Not only was his loose-goosey poetic form totally off the wall, but he was disgusting--all homoerotic and sensual and all that. So he did the old Vanity thing for a time.

I think I will be a posthumous success. It's as if nobody now wants to take the time to let some of us unfold our plots, our themes, our characters in a slow, old-fashioned way. I don't excite on page 1, so I get bad reviews. I'm working on getting a friend and colleague (in my real teaching-at-a-high-school job) on Bookcountry so you folks can help him. His SF story has been rejected by agents because they "don't connect with the characters right away."

Well, phooey. I connected with his characters, but it took me--oh--about 20 pages. Once in, I was fully in, relishing the romance, the surprises, the terrifying plot twists, the subtle sexiness, the historical tie, and the character interactions of his story. He wants the traditional thing--we all do. And let's face it, we're not all going to have that. So why not see what the market does with our best effort? I have a story on Smashwords that's a free download, and it always will be, because so far, it has provided comfort to the 500+ people who have needed to know how not alone they are when they've coped with the loss of a pet.

We all want to make a living at writing. But most of us will not be J.K. Rowling. (Happy Birthday to her tomorrow, by the way, thank you to the author calendar at my job that pays me). Put your work out there. You may get smacked down by market forces that don't like what you have (today) or you might make some sales. Maybe, as I have discovered with my pet story, you'll do some good along the way for your fellow humans.

Only just checked back to this thread - thanks, Lucy, for your reply! Renee, I totally agree that "'traditional' industry perceptions of what will sell leave a whole lot of good books and authors out in the cold" and in theory there's no reason why self-published works shouldn't be noticed and sell well if they meet with readers' expectations of what a good story is. But the "market" is still skewed towards the "traditional" route and overall, books with agent representation as well tend to do better. Which means that although the marketing and promotion effort has to be huge whatever route is taken, it has to be that much huger for indie and self-published. It's daunting and very time-consuming and, as Alex says, it has to be pretty relentless. But I decided I've got to do it and I guess I'll learn more about it as I go along. It's great that your Smashwords story is getting attention - how did people start noticing it in the first place?

As for your other point about pace and getting the reader hooked straightaway, again I quite agree and understand. It's become a convention to have a death or two (or something equally dramatic) in the first couple of pages, but that's all I see it as, in the same way a sonnet has 14 lines. The difference being that the first convention is one that's seen as commercially necessary, though not of course sufficient. So a well-crafted story that doesn't "start" till page 20 can still be successful, but again, the push to get it noticed will be that much harder. And that's the optimistic view - the pessimistic one is that reading anything much longer than a tweet will eventually die out!

Ha Ha, sadly, we do live in the Twitter era, for better or worse. The reason people have paid attention to my story is because it was something they needed. It's the one thing I've written that people want to read (other than my newspaper columns, which are my $40-a-month success story). I put the grief story on Smashwords, and it went out on a bunch of channels, including Barnes and Noble. With an allotment of 10 keywords (I think), people can find your work. Then if they like the sample, they buy it. I got a very nice review on Smashwords and 7 reviews on B & N (a couple of dumb ones, the others really nice). By dumb, I mean the person who thought writing about a cat was a ridiculous idea.

The thing is, the industry is paying attention to Smashwords, and probably Create Space on Amazon. I read Publishers Weekly (PW) for my job, and that esteemed old faithful journal publishes Smashwords' Top 20 and articles about self-publishing. Even PW has a self-publishing option, and all the usual marketing and editing add-ons you can buy.

Yes, there's a lot of junk out there. But for some of us, it's the only option. I just cannot trust my psyche to an industry that offers up a rigid pathway to publishing and then violates its prescription over and over. Take The Historian. While I personally know one big fan of it, my entire book club read it and thought it was in bad need of editing. Every professor I know (my current book club is professors and profs' wives) agrees on the annoying verbosity of the book, with the exception of one book club member who loved it. 

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Everyone I know had my experience--slogged through the first 75-ish pages hoping to get hooked, got royally hooked and couldn't put it down, then slogged through the ending. It was like the Lord of the Rings movies, which seemed to have 4 or 5 endings.

It all comes from the industry we all desperately want the support of.

I totally agree that the support of the publishing industry is a better experience. I also stand by my disgust at the inconsistency of an industry that can give its support to 50 Shades...because the author was a well-connected industry insider.

Here's a final thought: will a Kardashian ever be denied access to the publishing industry?

I doubt it.

--edited by RCGravelle on 8/7/2015, 4:57 PM--

I guess the concept we grapple with is the publishing business is just that -  a business. Talentless media personalities and their ilk, plus such nearly-not scandalous books like 50 shades of whatever get the press and the sales regardless of quality or the lack thereof. Twitter? Yes, I'm on it, but I ignore anyone trying to sell me something. Instead, I try to find, build, and maintain relationships with other writers and agents. I celebrate their successes in work, as well as wish them well when they take their first tango lesson.

On the downside, self publishing has, in business speak, lowered the barrier to entry. In fact, the only barrier is the availability of a computer and an Internet connection. Visit the most remote countries, war-torn no man's lands, etc. and you will still find writers self publishing at no cost.

Having grown up surrounded by the works of Carl Hertzog and Bill Wittliff, I learned to appreciate well crafted stories printed in well designed books. Did any of the books sell millions of copies? No. But they are books worth reading and collecting. I know I am picky. I could have self-pubbed my first novel two years ago. But it wasn't ready. Now, after multiple beta readers, comments from great BC readers, and a detailed critique from a mystery publisher, I am almost finished with the rewrite. I'll resubmit to said publisher, but if they aren't interested now, that's okay. I have an illustrator very interested in doing the covers for my trilogy. Between her assistance and the help available from BC, self-pubbing is looking very favorable. 

The bottom line is quality. If people take the time to produce quality work, they will reach an audience, even through self-publishing. And that's something I'd tweet about.