Adrian Stephens's Blog - Posts Tagged "publishing"

We all value our time. We have so precious little of it to spend doing what we want to do, that none of us want to feel like we’ve wasted it. For us readers, as much as some of us seem to devour everything in sight, we still don’t want to spend our time on a book with a poorly developed plot, weak characters, or worse, such poor editing that we can’t stay in the story long enough to find out if the book is even any good. Because our time is so precious, we don’t want to waste it on a self-published novel, right?

Not necessarily, although there was a time when I admittedly would have thought the same thing. It is easy for us to come to the conclusion that, if an author is self-published, it can only be because they couldn’t get picked up by a traditional publisher, right? I can’t speak for everyone, but in my case I can say that theory is wrong. Could I be picked up by a traditional publisher? I can’t honestly answer that, because I never tried.

All I can speak for is my own situation, but I would be more than happy to share my story with you. I’ll save how I came about writing In My Shoes for another day, and focus on the publishing decision today. I was about halfway through my first novel when I decided I should have a plan for how to get my book out there. I began with researching book publishers. That didn’t look so promising. After a while, I started researching agents. For the most part, both the publishers and the agents had a theme; it was apparent to me that most of the publishers and agents felt inundated with material. Everyone thinks they can write and they all send their work in to be the next big author. The publishers and agents, for the most part, have taken the stance that wannabe authors can feel free to send in their manuscripts, and they will go to the bottom of the slush pile. Someday, somebody just might open it, and if they like what they see, they may read a few pages. If that grabs them, they may read a little more. For those select few who make the cut, they will contact you, and a year (or two) later, your book may just get published.

Reading that was pretty discouraging. At that point, I decided I should at least consider publishing the novel myself. I mean, I am very detail oriented, thorough, and I was confident that I could learn the process and publish my book myself. What I found was, though I could do it myself, it was going to be very costly. Not that I didn’t expect costs, but I didn’t realize how much. It’s just not cost effective to print 100 books at a time. In order to make a profit, you have to buy in bulk, and even at a discounted rate, bulk purchasing means bulk dollars spent. In addition to the cost of the book printing, there are the costs of the ISBN numbers and business licenses, to name a few. Everything had a cost. Meanwhile, I kept writing. I knew that regardless, I was going to finish my novel and I was going to get it out there, one way or another.

As the end of my novel neared, I began doing more research. I had been leaning fairly heavily on going through the process of trying to get traditionally published. I figured I had spent a year writing it, so what did it matter if it took a while to get published? It would cost me significantly less to send out manuscripts to all of the publishers.

Almost exactly one year later, I had reached the end. The book was done, and I was satisfied I had a good book. Not an okay book. A good book. One that people would pick up and enjoy. Was it Harry Potter? No. Was it Hunger Games? No. It may never be a best seller, but I felt it was good. I still hadn’t decided on traditional or self-publishing, but I knew that, after a year of hard work, I wasn’t going to send it anywhere without it being as flawless as possible. So, I found a team of editors, qualified and willing to edit my book and tell me everything they thought was wrong with the book. It took six more months for editing. First, I edited the book as thoroughly as possible. Then I printed copies for each of my editors to mark up as they saw fit. Once I had all of the copies back, I made the corrections and took some of the suggestions into consideration. Once I was done, I edited the entire book again. The book was edited several times, at different levels, until I was confident that the book was ready (and yet I still have found a few errors). By the time I had the book ready, I had decided to undertake publishing the book myself. I had saved enough money to get my first printing, I could keep control over the final product and I had done enough research to realize I could do this.

One month later, In My Shoes was available on Kindle. Two months after that, it was available in hardcover at Amazon and on my website. Now, the book is available in all major digital formats, and the hardcover is available at a few select locations, with more to come.

I could write all day about Traditional vs. Self-Publishing, because as a self-published author, I have become increasingly aware of the connotation attached to the term. There are some who choose to read primarily self-published novels and some who don’t care where the book comes from. Most people still seem to prefer traditional authors because they feel there is a quality that comes from the screening process. I would agree with that in a lot of cases. But ask yourself, have you never read a bad book from a traditional publishing house? Have you never read a traditionally published book that was poorly edited? I can tell you, I’ve read a great series, a best-selling series, and each of the four books had significant, blaring mistakes.

If you are still with me (thank you by the way), you are probably asking, “Is there a point to this rant, Adrian?” Yes, there is. Thank you for asking! My point is this; there are plenty of things to judge a book by, whether it be the cover, the synopsis, the preview chapters, or the ratings of other customers who have read and reviewed it. No longer will I judge a book solely by the fact that it took a different route to the stores. I would ask you to do the same.

If you've been checking out my previous blogs, you might be wondering why they tend to be all over the place. Since I'm sure you've all been holding your breath waiting for the answer, I'll keep you in suspense no more...they're just gonna be that way. I don't really see a point in writing a blog if I'm not going to be speaking about the things that interest me. For the most part, what interests me these days is the writing and publishing processes for my book, In My Shoes. But sometimes I'm going to go off topic and talk about something in left field. Hopefully, at the end, you won't feel you wasted your time. Speaking of wasting time, let's get on topic...

When people seek out to buy my book, sometimes they can feel like it's a Where's Waldo adventure. You've got to know where to look to find it. So, I thought I would share an experience I had with a major national bookseller. I've waited a while to tell the story because it's personal to me, and I didn't want to rant before I had time to analyze it better.

When I started the publishing process for In My Shoes, I spent a lot of time researching the process. I'm not one to just shoot from the hip. I wanted to do it right, and I wanted to be taken seriously. I'm willing to jump through the hoops, as long as the goal is attainable. Major reviewers and booksellers alike have guidelines for submitting your books for their consideration. For instance, many books reviewers will not consider reviewing your book once it's been published. They want an advanced copy at least three to six months prior to publication.

Booksellers also have guidelines. They all play by their own rules and as far as they are concerned, they are doing you a favor by even considering your book. So, when I started the process, I contacted one of the national booksellers, and asked them some specific questions regarding their criteria, to be sure I understood what I needed to send them. Their response was short, but I thought they answered my questions. When the book was ready, I registered the ISBN and sent a finished manuscript copy, with all of the other requested data to this seller. I over-nighted the package so they would receive it right away. Two weeks later a representative called me, told me that she just received my package, and that I did not submit an actual finished, bound book to them, and that they would not consider my book until I did. I explained that my book was currently with the printer and would not be ready for over a month, and I also told her that I had emailed them with that specific question, and their reply did not say anything about a bound book back from the printer. She replied if I wanted my book in their stores, I'll get them the copy. I did that the day I received my books from the printer, nearly a month later.

Here's the thing, though. Almost immediately after my conversation with that representative, my book showed up on their website. They were pre-selling my book, more than $6 off the cover price, and without any agreement in place with me (come to find later, they pull the data automatically from the ISBN database and start pre-selling books, whether they actually have any intent to sell the book or not). They continued the pre-selling until the release date, which I had provided when I registered the ISBN. The day the book was released, they stopped pre-selling my book, and marked it as unavailable. People who had purchased my book were out of luck (and I know people had bought the book because I had a sales ranking on their webpage). About a month after my book was for sale at Amazon.com
(for both hardcover and Kindle), my website adrianstephens.com and several smaller stores, the national bookseller finally placed their order for my book. They ordered one book. I had pre-sold at least that many, and had already sold plenty more than that on my website and through Amazon, but they wanted one book. So, I shipped them one book.

After selling over 200 books through other sellers, I contacted the company again, asking them to consider placing my book in their stores. My book was getting lost on their website, and I knew that people wouldn’t catch on unless they saw it in the stores. On a website, if it’s not a featured book, it has no chance. As my name doesn’t end in Rowling, Meyer or Collins, my book doesn’t have much chance of being featured, which I completely understand. So, I emailed her, suggested letting me place my books in the stores local to me. I offered to hand deliver them (so there was no shipping cost), and asked them to give it six months on their shelves to see how it did. A test market. In the stores where the book is on the shelf, people are picking it up and buying it. I also offered to forego invoicing them until the books actually sold.

I was excited when the representative asked me to call her so we could discuss it. I thought, if she’s actually asking me to call her, she must be considering it. Heck, I’d be willing to adjust my terms to get a foot in the door, so things were looking good. That was until I called her. I called her that day, and reminded her who I was since she has so many people she deals with. When she found my email, she began reading it back to me, and laughing as she read it. That’s right, she started laughing. Not boisterous laughing…just average run of the mill old laughing. Then she explained to me that is not how they work. Now, I understand that’s not how they work. But, from my standpoint, while my book is selling consistently at other retailers, my book is crawling with them. What I also understand is that, if that’s not how they work, an email with that statement would have sufficed to get that point across. If she is as busy as she says, why have me call her to go through the motions? I decided she must have needed a laugh for the day, and I was the designated fool.

So, we continue along…they sell one book, they order one book. In the time it takes my book to get to their warehouse, the book is listed as not available. In times like this, when it can be quite frustrating, I remind myself that I was able to publish my book the way I wanted, on my terms. Coming up on 300 books sold, I’m pleased with the progress. It’s a learning experience, and I’m enjoying the ride. It may take me longer, but I’ll get there. Is it worth it? Oh yeah!


So…what are you still doing here? Go out and buy my book, tell your friends, post a review! Oh, and thank you!