Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire

  • Mood:
  • Music:

Answering questions about self-publishing.

(Note: This is originally from my Tumblr, but I felt like it was a conversation worth having here, for ease of searching and such.)

stopdropandbeauty asked: "Hi! Me again with another complicated writing question. Um, I've been trying to figure out the whole self publishing thing, but it's been hard for me to find accurate information. It's all really polarized, either 'everyone and their dog should self publish, there are no down sides' or 'if you self publish you're an idiot and your mother smells of elderberries.' So I was wondering if you had any thoughts about it/knew any good online resources. Please and thank you!"

I am going to start this answer by noting that I have not “self published" anything in the sense of “I took a thing and I formatted the thing and then I sold the thing and made money for it." All of my for-profit fiction has been traditionally published, meaning that it was presented to someone else in manuscript form, and then they did all the heavy lifting of bringing it to market. My free fiction has technically been self published, since I was the only motive force behind it, but as I haven’t seen a dime from that, I don’t consider it a self publishing success. I hope that makes sense and is clear and doesn’t make me sound like a magical self pub fairy here to wave a wand and clear everything up. Cool? Cool.

So here is the terrible secret of self publishing: no one knows why it works. There is no magical combination of ingredients that makes you an automatic success, no sorcery that makes people sit up and take notice. There are elements that will help you a great deal—good writing is one of them, but good, professional-looking cover design is another, since that’s what catches eyes and brings people to your story. A solid web presence. A good sense of appropriate self promotion. And luck. Oceans of luck, galaxies of luck. Why did someone else hit big while you languish in obscurity? NO ONE KNOWS, and anyone who tells you that they know the cheat codes is probably lying.

I do feel that long term success in publishing of any kind will be dependent on the quality of your writing, which is why I tend to recommend trying traditional publication first, even if you ultimately decide it’s not for you. Why? Because when the rejections go from form letters to “this is good, keep trying" to “not this time, please submit again" to “YES YES WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE," that means you’re in a good place with your craft. You know the words are really genuinely good, not “my mother says I’m a genius" good. I’m honestly grateful self pub wasn’t an option when I first started trying to sell a novel, because the books I wound up writing in my quest to become good enough were better than anything I would have thrown to the wolves of the world if I’d been given the opportunity. I got better by throwing myself against the wall.

Now maybe that’s not for you. Maybe you’re already mad awesome because you had walls to throw yourself against. That’s totally cool, and I support you—and honestly, some stories still have to be self pub, because they’re niche or they’re experimental or because people just don’t take enough risks. But you need to be sure you’re ready, emotionally and skill-wise, because a lot of self pub ends in “failure" when no one sees your book, or it doesn’t make a million dollars overnight.

That’s another thing: “I made a million dollars with my self published novel" is like “I lost a hundred pounds eating McDonalds every day" or “I fell off a thirty story building and didn’t even break a bone." It happens, but it’s a statistical anomaly. Most people will fall inside the bell curve, not on the hard, improbable edge. Don’t pin your hopes on a one-in-a-million chance. You might get what you wish for. You’re way more likely to break your own heart.

Invest in a good book cover. Invest in a good website. Understand that you will be spending money to make money, at least at first, and that there’s a good chance you’ll never make that money back. That’s part of the value of a publisher: they take that risk for you. They also take a good portion of the profit you may eventually make, which is a reason to self publish—if you make any money at all, it’s yours. Just consider what that money is going to cost to make.

Keep writing. You have the potential to be amazing. All you have to do is work as hard as you can, and learn to be a phoenix: learn to be reborn even as you die inside.

You can do it.
Tags: contemplation
  • Post a new comment

    Error

    Anonymous comments are disabled in this journal

    default userpic

    Your reply will be screened

    Your IP address will be recorded 

  • 26 comments
Thank you for this. As I'm hitting the "OMG, I almost have a finished novel....now what?" stage, this was really helpful.
I'm so glad!
Good luck! Never give up hope. I know it's gonna be hard no matter what route you go, but Seanan is a great example of what happens if you just never, ever, ever, ever, ever stop writing, revising, and trying.

Okay, she's also a fairly special case because very few authors kind of explode out of the gate like she did when they hit the big time, but still... :)
Same here. I have already gotten some form rejections from major agencies and major publishing houses, and it makes me proud and makes me want to keep going. I still want to do traditional publishing no matter what my mother says - and this is extremely helpful, knowing that self-publishing is what it is in comparison.
Also know that if you go the self-published route, you're up against a lot of factors.
Other authors may look down upon you. Publishers may look down upon you. Agents and editors may look down upon you. Reviewers will definitely give you the shifty side-eyes of doom. Everyone will wonder why you didn't go through the traditional method of being published. And everyone else will congratulate you on THWARTING THE MAN.

And you will work HARDER THAN ANYTHING to get your stuff noticed as a self-pubbed author. You are responsible for EVERYTHING. Making sure it has a professional level of editing because PEOPLE WILL NOTICE if you have grammar or spelling or formatting errors and they will hold it against you. Making it look good, feel good, read good. You are responsible for your own publicity, and you will work, literally, 24/7/365 and fight for EVERY. SINGLE. READER until your fan base hits the unknown magical critical mass and starts spreading on its own. Because when you self-pub... you're the entire show. You and whatever you spend money on, like that editor or publicist or website designer... or you do it yourself.

Self-pubbing is an enormous gamble, like opening a small business. Hell, the worst thing isn't failure. It's obscurity. It's releasing your first book and maybe 10 people notice. Maybe one person a week buys your book and every month you can buy a Happy Meal as a result. That's something you might have to expect. Or you might get lucky and get a following through your HOLY BALLS AWESOME writing and RELENTLESS self-promotion, and become comfortably successful and just never sleep again...

But seriously, folks, there's a lot to keep track of. Publicity is big. Getting reviews are important. Convincing the review venues that count that you're legit, that's hard as well, but essential. Many will reject you just because you're not traditionally published because all of the self-pubs who don't bother to spellcheck or edit for grammar or who send in horribly formatted e-books have already broken them. Others will put you at the bottom of the stack. Some let you pay for reviews. Never pay for a review if you can help it. Unless it's Publishers Weekly, in which case I might get assigned to review it, and hey, I can always use another paycheck... :)

I'm not discouraging anyone from going the self-pub route, but understand that it's not a highway to success. It's a dark desert highway littered with landmines and drunk cows and weird naked people running in your path and many walls. It's just as hard as the traditional route, and if you go that way, just be warned. Look at the examples of Amanda Hocking and whoever else became rich and famous, and read the interviews and see just how much time and energy they spent on EVERYTHING before they took off. And then go look at everyone else.

And when you're ready...I wish you luck. Because I'll never tell someone "don't self-publish" because there is no One True Path, but I don't want them to go in blind. I don't have any concrete examples or How To Guides or resources, but I've spent a lot of time studying the industry, and I Know Things. :)

And those are my thoughts. For the moment.

All good thoughts.

oneminutemonkey

3 years ago

So here is the terrible secret of self publishing: no one knows why it works. There is no magical combination of ingredients that makes you an automatic success, no sorcery that makes people sit up and take notice. There are elements that will help you a great deal—good writing is one of them, but good, professional-looking cover design is another, since that’s what catches eyes and brings people to your story. A solid web presence. A good sense of appropriate self promotion. And luck. Oceans of luck, galaxies of luck. Why did someone else hit big while you languish in obscurity? NO ONE KNOWS, and anyone who tells you that they know the cheat codes is probably lying.

Yes, this. Bolded for emphasis.

My modest successes in self-publishing haven't needed much in the way of a website (...thank goodness...), but I definitely invested in the cover art where I could*, and I was fortunate enough to get a review. And even a 3-star review from a good reviewer (one who is able to say what worked and didn't work for the reviewer, in such a way that people can decide if something'd work for them)...? Very useful. (Of course, we now go back to appropriate self-promotion, because hounding reviewers just makes them want to kick self-publishers away with cleats.)

But you need to be sure you’re ready, emotionally and skill-wise, because a lot of self pub ends in “failure" when no one sees your book, or it doesn’t make a million dollars overnight.

Also this. Not to mention that you can, for a few months, feel that you've hit the dream! You have the luck! You have the sales! ...aaaand then something happens, someone changes the Also-Bought algorithm or you saturate the market for your clever niche crossover genre or who knows, and bam, you don't have the sales, or they're down to a much more modest level. See also Luck, revised and reiterated.

Anyone who is looking at self-publishing... I would recommend going and reading kriswrites.com; she's definitely usually in the "YAY, SELF-PUB" camp -- but frequently presents all the details that can go into it. Not just formatting, art, etc., but also things like, "Your works are part of your estate; make sure you deal with this in your will."

And, of course, self-publishing or traditionally-publishing? Gotta Keep Writing.



(* The best part of self-publishing, in my experience, is being able to pick the artist and the art. Sounds like DAW is good for also hitting the "yes, that, like that!" reaction from the author, though! *grin*)
Excellent tips, thank you.
Fantastic well balanced post. :)
Thank you!
Thank you so much! A lot of aspiring writers are completely confused as to which route they should take. (Myself included.) And I love your word-picture about being a phoenix. :)
Very welcome!
This is awesome advice. <3

"anyone who tells you that they know the cheat codes is probably lying."

I'd say this goes for self, digital first, and traditional publishing. People can tell you why they have had success, but even if you do exactly the same things, you aren't necessarily going to have the same results. I know a good few traditionally published authors who did all the things they were supposed to, and ended up either having to switch publishers or write under new names (or self publish) because they just didn't take off. I'm still annoyed with some publishers for leaving out book 3 of a trilogy because the first 2 didn't "sell well enough." (Most of these were back before self-publishing was not a viable option, though.)

I have had some of my work e-published (although I have gotten the rights back as things have changed since then). For two books, I did all the promotional stuff you were supposed to do at the time. When one of them released, I did nothing, because I was dealing with serious illness at the time. I didn't have the time to promote or do everything that traditional wisdom at the time suggested you do. The book I did nothing for? I probably made a good grand, at least, from (which I know is considered about nothing now, but at the time, for e-publishing, it was respectable). The ones that I did all the right things for? Sold less than a hundred copies combined. Sometimes it's just up to luck. (Nobody likes to hear that.)

"Because when the rejections go from form letters to “this is good, keep trying" to “not this time, please submit again" to “YES YES WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE," that means you’re in a good place with your craft."

I would personally put this around the point you're getting, "Hm, this is good, but not quite to our taste", which I got a lot before finally selling. Since, when dealing with editors, you'll be dealing with personal taste as well as market concerns ("We just bought a steampunk", "This is kinda niche", "The publisher said no", which may not be communicated to the author), and probably the editor's mood as well (at least, I would imagine agents and editors also deal with the issue of "This just isn't clicking with me today", like readers do... some of my favorite books, I've put down because I just wasn't in the right mind frame). But if you're getting solely form letters...

If someone has no interest in traditional publishing at all, that's where a solid crit group or betas should come in, I think. (Although this is also dependent on the skill of the critiquers/betas involved...)
Oh, absolutely: there are no cheat codes for anything. But this was specifically a request to talk about self-publishing, and so that is what I did. I think I've done okay at not sugar-coating my traditional publishing experience (and admitting that I am a unicorn), but that's not what this post is about.
So here is the terrible secret of self publishing: no one knows why it works. There is no magical combination of ingredients that makes you an automatic success, no sorcery that makes people sit up and take notice.

That’s the same terrible secret that regular publishing has!
Yup.
This is timely...I have two friends. One of them is utterly butt-terrified of being judged by publishing folks (someone I knew had an online magazine that friend submitted to, and she freaked the shit out after a joke and writes novel after novel after novel. She has a huge sci-fi trilogy and a giant series taking place in a small town. She hasn't done anything with the giant series yet, but she did put the first of the sci-fi books online self-published style. I suspect I am the only one who's ever read or seen them, because she was totally concerned with the publishing and getting a cover made and blah blah blah, but not in the slightest about giving people a reason to have heard of her and want to pick it up.
Dammit, I wasn't finished with that! Anyway, finishing the parenthetical bit...there was a joke on the submission page about throwing out stories that were too long and she had a giant freakout...so well, maybe trying to go with traditional publishing isn't a good idea if she's THAT sensitive about it. But it still makes me think that it was kind of a waste to make a big deal about putting it online and then nobody knows it exists. Meanwhile, my other friend now wants to do the same thing and I tried to point out to her that if nobody knows about you to want to read it, who cares if it is online? But I think she's going to end up doing the same thing as the first friend. It
And goddamit, I don't know why my computer is doing this. Grr. Anyway, I guess it's more important to them that they get their work online at all even if nobody ever, ever reads it...I guess I don't see the point.
For some people, being able to say "I am published" is more important than being able to say "I am read."
The entry was helpful, thanks for posting.

Good timing for me to read, as well--I spent a good long while querying literary agents because I wanted to give traditional publishing a fair try but recently I came to the decision that I'm ready to attempt self-pub. I think both methods have their pros and cons, and that one of the most important things to remember is that either one is going to involve a lot of work if you want to do it well.
Yes, exactly.

Deleted comment

My take on this is that I have no take on this.

If your community is completely locked, you shouldn't lose first publishing, but what stops someone else from re-posting it? And if it was completely locked, why are you telling people you posted there? At the same time, editors get to set their own rules, and if an editor wants to say "it cannot have appeared online ever, in any form, anywhere," that's their choice.

I do not have the answers.