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Is It the Golden Age for Journalism?

Welcome to the weekly The Smart Set, where I share three smart pieces worth reading about the publishing and media industry. I also point to issues and questions raised, and welcome you to respond or ask your own questions in the comments.

“To seek: to embrace the questions, be wary of answers.”

—Terry Tempest Williams

Journalism Is Doing Just Fine, Thanks by Matthew Ingram

The top-line summary of this article says it all:

Some argue that the rise of the internet has destroyed — or severely crippled — journalism, but all it has really done is disrupted traditional mass-media business models. Journalism itself has never been healthier, and new players are finding new models.

I agree whole-heartedly. The health of journalism oughtn’t be tied to what’s happening to the business models for newspapers, magazines, or traditional/legacy outlets for journalism. (I wrote more about this here: Reasons to Be Optimistic During the Disruption of Publishing.)

Thoughts & questions:

Ingram himself asks, “If readers are being well served, and news reading has never been more popular, then why should we be concerned about the future of journalism?” Do you agree that readers are being well served? (We do know that news reading is up by all measures available to us, if you count—of course—online news reading.)
The business model for producing and distributing journalism is obviously changing. How concerned should we be about the death of the old business model?
Is it, in fact, the golden age for journalism, given the new opportunities presented by the internet?

The Tablet Magazine Has Been Flawed From the Start by Ricardo Bilton

Speaking of business model concerns: Magazines haven’t been doing all that great with their tablet editions. Bilton conducts an interview with Joe Zeff at ScrollMotion, who says:

There are some real opportunities to rethink the idea of a tablet magazine in order to recreate something that’s compelling. A tablet magazine should be smarter than the current set of publications. They should give me options about what content I receive and how and when it’s delivered. To do that, content has to be more modular. Today content is wrapped up in a magazine format, where everybody gets the same product. It really should be mixed and matched based on what works for me, not what works for the publisher. Content should be tied to where I am and what I’m doing, and become much more part of my regular routine.

Thoughts & questions:

I am a devoted reader of The New Yorker magazine’s tablet edition. I happen to think it’s superior to the print edition, though still flawed in many ways. Do you read any magazines solely on your tablet? Why or why not?

Is Buzzfeed a Tech Company? by Ben Thompson

In another thought-provoking post by Ben Thompson, he discusses the recent investment in Buzzfeed and comments on its desirability as a media company. One excellent point he makes is that Buzzfeed treats Internet-native formats like lists, tweets, pins, animated GIFs, etc., as equals to older formats like photos, videos, and long-form essays. He also applauds their use of native advertising. He concludes:

This is what makes BuzzFeed so interesting: absent legacy, media absolutely benefits from Internet economics as long as you can figure out effective monetization, and it’s possible BuzzFeed has done just that, and, just like their product, they have done so by abandoning that which primarily mattered in the old medium.

Thoughts & questions:

I wonder if native advertising is a flash in the pan, or something that will be a long-term and valuable source of revenue for publishing. For an alternate viewpoint on native ads (that is: far more negative than Thompson), check out Simon Dumenco’s Here’s What Else Is Wrong With Native Advertising.

The post Is It the Golden Age for Journalism? appeared first on Jane Friedman and was written by Jane Friedman.

How Revising Rewards Mistakes

Amina Gautier

One writing and publishing adage I’ve always believed in: “Writing is rewriting.”

Fiction writer Amina Gautier’s approach is similar. For her, revising is the best part. Over at the latest Glimmer Train bulletin, she offers tips on unlocking the joy of revision. She says:

Revising encourages and liberates the writer to “make mistakes.” It rewards mistakes; each “mistake” teaches one something about the story one is writing and gets one that much closer to the story one is meant to write. Revision reconciles the competing versions of the story that the writer carries in his head. Until the writer has gotten the story down on paper or onto the screen, he often cannot tell the difference between what he actually wrote, what he thought he wrote, and what he hoped to write. 

Go read the entire piece over at Glimmer Train. Also take a look at Michael Varga’s “Find the Seeds in Your Own Biography.”

The post How Revising Rewards Mistakes appeared first on Jane Friedman and was written by Jane Friedman.

How Can We Generate Rewards for Reading? [Smart Set]

Welcome to the weekly The Smart Set, where I share three smart pieces worth reading about the publishing and media industry. I also point to issues and questions raised, and welcome you to respond or ask your own questions in the comments.

“To seek: to embrace the questions, be wary of answers.”

—Terry Tempest Williams

Publishing’s Future: When Editors Eat Robots by Porter Anderson

This is a provocative overview of a talk by publishing industry futurist and consultant Richard Nash (formerly of Byliner, Small Demons, and Soft Skull). Some of the choicest quotes are:

“One of the things that I think is important for us to understand is how, in fact, limiting the book has been as a tool for taking creativity and culture and converting it into money. … It turns out that books may not necessarily be the best way for capturing the value that an author creates.”
“We’re going to need to re-think intellectually how we conceive of this book. Not book-as-object. But rather book-as-reading-service. As a service you offer readers.”
“[This] is the task that I believe we all need to take on … To ascertain how generating rewards right now for reading can be offered to readers. How do we give readers rewards right now, rather than in the future? As arbitrary or irrational or manipulative as those rewards might be: Find bullshit rewards for readers now. Because they will thank you in the future.”

Nash’s last point relates to the “quantified self” trend now prevalent in our lives. (He uses the Fitbit as an example.) His comments remind me of an excellent talk by Jesse Schell on the gamification of daily life; it’s well worth the 30 minutes to watch and imagine how this might affect writing, reading, and books.

Thoughts & questions:

I find authors often more capable than their publishers at capturing the value they create—if they can free themselves from thinking that money only comes from book sales. Nonfiction authors, however, tend to have an easier and smoother time creating that value (speaking/teaching, consulting, coaching, etc). It’s sometimes difficult to point to good fiction writer models to follow, where value can be captured outside the book itself, outside of the huge franchises (such as Game of Thrones). Suggestions, anyone? John Green, the YA author, comes to mind.
What do you think about coming up with rewards for reading?

Last Call: The End of the Printed Newspaper by Clay Shirky

When I shared this piece earlier in the week, I received a number of comments along the lines of, “Duh!”

It’s probably helpful to read another Shirky piece that helps inform “Last Call,” where he discusses the continuing nostalgia for print. Given that most traditional print publications earn the large majority of their revenue from print, and only pennies from digital, one has to start imagining (1) a lot of publications closing in the next decade, (2) new digital publishing business models that successfully charge people for content, and/or (3) more successful digital advertising models. (Native advertising looks most promising at the moment.)

Thoughts & questions:

Do you believe the New York Times won’t exist in print form in 2024?

Stuff I Want to Know by Hugh Howey

Howey lists a range of excellent questions he’d like Amazon to answer, including:

How many customers borrow a book, then go on to buy it.
How far readers get in a book.
When gamification will be implemented (very, very similar to what Nash is suggesting above—badges for reading/completing books)
and much more. Go browse the full list.

Thoughts & questions:

Amazon definitely knows the answers to the questions that Howey asks (at least those that seek data points and analysis). It speaks to me primarily of how much power and insight Amazon has, given their immense data set, that the rest of us do not.

The post How Can We Generate Rewards for Reading? [Smart Set] appeared first on Jane Friedman and was written by Jane Friedman.

My Latest Thoughts on Marketing for Writers

My latest interview, with advice for writers on websites, blogging, social media, and marketing, is now live over at Social Media Just for Writers. Frances Caballo asked me wide-ranging questions such as:

What are the elements of a successful website and blog?
How important is blogging for a writer’s success?
Should writers participate in online forums?

And there’s much more. Click here to read the full interview.

The post My Latest Thoughts on Marketing for Writers appeared first on Jane Friedman and was written by Jane Friedman.

How to Measure Whether Your Social Media Activity Is Worthwhile

Today I’m a contributor over at Writer Unboxed, discussing how social media can be used more effectively. My suggestions rely, in part, on categorizing your activity within distinct stages (though they certainly overlap with one another).

Here’s a bit of what I have to say:

Regardless of your stage of activity—but especially during marketing campaigns—you should measure traffic to your website from social media. Does it make up a high or meaningful percentage of visits? If you don’t know, this is a significant gap in your knowledge that is preventing you from really answering the question: How do I make it worth my time?

Here, my assumption is that the author website is the most important online presence of all, where the most valuable or interested readers end up. If you’re seeing a lot of readers reach your site through a particular social media outlet—and those referral numbers are increasing month-on-month or year-on-year—it is indeed worth your time.

I go on to show a website traffic snapshot from Google Analytics and how I would modify social media activity based on the numbers.

Click here to read the full post: How to Make Social Media Worth Your Time: When Is Enough Enough?

The post How to Measure Whether Your Social Media Activity Is Worthwhile appeared first on Jane Friedman and was written by Jane Friedman.

Who Can Effectively Challenge Amazon in the Book Business? [Smart Set]

Welcome to the weekly The Smart Set, where I share three smart pieces worth reading about the publishing and media industry. I also point to issues and questions raised, and welcome you to respond or ask your own questions in the comments.

“To seek: to embrace the questions, be wary of answers.”

—Terry Tempest Williams

[How to Give] Amazon a Headache by Mike Shatzkin

Industry analyst Mike Shatzkin floats an interesting idea, partly inspired by how Google and Barnes & Noble recently partnered for same-day delivery of books (a big yawn for industry observers.)

What if Google and Ingram, the book business’s largest wholesaler and distributor, became partners? Shatzkin writes:

[Ingram is] already providing global digital and print distribution as well as print-on-demand. Ingram is positioned to deliver any book in any form anywhere extremely efficiently. They also have a robust and accurate database of book metadata which, if combined with Google’s data and search mastery (and capabilities that match Amazon’s “Search Inside” offering as well), could challenge Amazon effectively as a “best first place to look” for any information about books.

What Google needs to take on board to make the strategic leap to explore a partnership like this is that most book consumers read both print and digital and probably will for some time to come. It will get harder and harder to compete with Amazon without a print-and-digital offering; you can’t be fully effective with either one unless you do both.

Read the full post.

Thoughts & questions:

Is it true that both print and digital offerings are needed to compete with Amazon?
Does Google really need Ingram if it’s serious about becoming one of the biggest players in the book business?
What value would Google-Ingram provide to customers that Amazon does not? Or is that irrelevant since Google is baked into so many people’s day-to-day experiences? (E.g., you search for something, Google recommends a book you should reference—but do you automatically go to Amazon to buy it? Why buy from Google-Ingram?)

Amazon’s Fan-Fiction Portal Kindle Worlds Is a Bust for Fans, and For Writers Too by Jeff John Roberts

The headline is misleading and the article is flawed, but the piece is still worth a look.

Last year, Amazon launched Kindle Worlds, which allows authors to write and profit from new work that’s based on licensed properties. (It’s the only way you might legitimately profit from any form of fan fiction, as far as I’m aware). At the time, many prognosticators said the effort would fail because profiting from fan fiction is antithetical to the philosophy and practices of the community.

A new paper by law professor Rebecca Tushnet explores the Kindle World initiative, its restrictions, and its limitations. She does not conclude that the effort is a bust—either in the eyes of Amazon or for the writers who use the service (thus the misleading headline and flawed article). And Amazon has not indicated they plan to pull back on their efforts. But it’s interesting to pause and consider how the initiative has developed, and what its long-term place might be in the fan-fiction community. (For a critique of the piece, check out The Digital Reader.)

Thoughts & questions:

As Nate Hoffelder says in his critique, what we don’t know is the profitability of Kindle Worlds material (whether for Amazon, the writers, or the copyright holders). That’s a fairly significant unanswered question.
Have you written any fiction for Kindle World, or purchased any Kindle World work? Let us know about the experience in the comments.

Blurb Puts Its Big-Boy Pants On by Mick Rooney

Rooney rightly points out that Blurb is a “sleeping giant” of the self-publishing services world. It’s most well-known for specializing in full-color, illustrated books, and has quietly been doing very well for years. (It’s especially popular in the photography community, and I’ve used it myself for personal projects.) In April, Blurb added distribution through Amazon, and they just announced distribution via Ingram. They’re one to keep an eye on.

Thoughts & questions:

I’ve always liked Blurb as a service because of its quality product and transparency. They don’t try to sell you stuff you don’t need. If you have an experience to share about Blurb, please comment.

The post Who Can Effectively Challenge Amazon in the Book Business? [Smart Set] appeared first on Jane Friedman and was written by Jane Friedman.

What Does It Mean to Protect Authors’ Interests? [Smart Set]

Welcome to the weekly The Smart Set, where I share three smart pieces worth reading about the publishing and media industry. I also point to issues and questions raised, and welcome you to respond or ask your own questions in the comments.

“To seek: to embrace the questions, be wary of answers.”

—Terry Tempest Williams

More Fights About Terms by Brian O’Leary

Publishing consultant and analyst Brian O’Leary discusses the decisions that publishers, physical bookstores, and online retailers make—every single day—about acquiring, shelving, displaying, or marketing books. His post is obliquely about the Amazon-Hachette dispute that continues to rage, but he’s making a much larger point:

Parties are not required to take deals they feel are not in their best interests. Otherwise, book publishers should be explaining the titles they rejected, bricks-and-mortar stores should be talking about the books they don’t stock and Amazon should be regulated as a utility. …

While the jury is still out on whether [Amazon's] dominance can be challenged, the verdict is in on what happens to publishers, wholesalers and retailers who argue about terms to solve a business model problem. Check out this year’s collapse of single-copy sales of magazines when Time Inc. and Source Interlink reached an impasse and Source Interlink closed up shop.

That’s the absurdity of “protecting authors interests.” We act as if reading were a preferred activity in this country. Look again. There’s an oversupply of content and a relatively small base of demand. 

Read the full post.

Thoughts & questions:

Envision a big-picture strategy for a smart, forward-thinking author who observes these struggles, and wants a viable writing career over the next 20 years. What does it look like? What does it consist of?
What exactly ARE authors’ interests? I think that’s a very difficult (impossible?) question to answer. (No two authors are alike, for starters.)

Making Sense of Amazon-Hachette by Jake Kerr

This is the most original thing I’ve read on the dispute since it started, from someone in the tech industry with an outsider perspective. (I’m finding it increasingly impossible to read anything from inside the publishing industry at this point—it’s become a huge, nonsensical echo chamber that’s highly divisive and emotional.)

I’ll make no friends here by simply saying there is no bad guy. Amazon just wants to make a bit more money while not putting their current market share at risk. Hachette is looking at an existing marketplace that is about as good as it gets for them. Expecting for them to be generous and give some of their money to Amazon is unrealistic. This is business, not a charity.

Read the insightful post.

Thoughts & questions:

I’m tired of discussing.

How Technology Is Changing the World by Ben Thompson

Over at the Stratechery blog—always reliable for insights into the tech, business, and media industries—Thompson comments on the significance of Procter & Gamble’s strategy of greatly paring down the number of its brands. It’s well worth reading the entire post, even if you think it doesn’t apply to your world.

Thoughts & questions:

This post sparked all kinds of questions for me about the significance (or lack thereof) of traditional book publisher brands (what is the value of the brand “Penguin Random House”?), and the difficulty of any publisher trying to market 200 new book titles a year, of which each could be said to constitute a mini-brand.

The post What Does It Mean to Protect Authors’ Interests? [Smart Set] appeared first on Jane Friedman and was written by Jane Friedman.

What Should a Strong Authors’ Advocacy Group Be Doing? [Smart Set]

Welcome to the weekly The Smart Set, where I share three smart pieces worth reading about the publishing and media industry. I also point to issues and questions raised, and welcome you to respond or ask your own questions in the comments.

“To seek: to embrace the questions, be wary of answers.”

—Terry Tempest Williams

For the Authors Guild [a wish list] by JA Konrath

The Authors Guild is one of the key organizations that advocates for authors’ interests. It has been under fire recently from the indie author community (and many others besides) for being ineffectual and ultimately supporting publishers’ interests.

A Twitter discussion sparked JA Konrath to put together a sincere and excellent wish list of what an effective Authors Guild would do, including:

Help authors get their backlist rights returned
Help get ebook royalties increased
Demand that unconscionable terms be removed from boilerplate contracts
Find better group health insurance for authors who don’t live in New York

You can read the full list here.

Thoughts & questions:

Konrath’s list offers insight into issues that, at the very least, the Guild should be raising awareness about—specifically #1, #2, #3, #7, #10. I have little hope that it will do so.
I don’t understand the Authors Guild well enough to know how they decide what to expend their resources on. Perhaps someone with more knowledge can comment on that.

Book Publicist Wanted: But Not Just ANY Book Publicist by Mary Walters

Walters writes:

Increasingly, book promotion through traditional media doesn’t work for any author. (Not that it ever was that effective.) People just aren’t reading newspapers and magazines cover to cover they way they used to. TV audiences are no longer captive, either: thanks to PVR/DVR, people only watch the programs that they want to watch. How many people download a book review or author interview from Netflix?

So what does book publicity look like today? Well, aside from the inundations of book promotion by self-published authors on Facebook, Twitter and other social media, we have traditional book-promotion strategies that no longer work – and people who have been trained in those strategies who are no longer useful.

Walters goes on to describe the kind of help she needs in a publicist:

What we need is a promotional program that is specifically designed for each of our individual books. If I have two books to promote (which I do right now, although several others are waiting in the wings), I need two promotional programs. I need to sit down with my book, think clearly and honestly about its prospective audience (and recognize that it is not for everyone–no book is for everyone), and devise really ingenious ways to find its audiences and tell them about my book. Once I’ve found them, I need to make contact. After that, the quality of my book will do the work for itself. People will love reading it, and they will tell other people, and once the ball is rolling, I’ll be able to turn my attention to one of the other books I want to tell the world about.

I would probably consider this person a marketer more than a publicist (or both), but regardless, her post captures exactly what kind of help authors need—I get e-mails every day from people who want this help. But where to get it? It’s not easy.

Thoughts & questions:

Do you know strong freelancers or businesses who serve the functions described in Walters’ post? Please comment and let us know about them.

10 Things Nobody Tells You About Being a Debut Novelist! by Tim Federle

Just go read it if you are one (or will be one).

The post What Should a Strong Authors’ Advocacy Group Be Doing? [Smart Set] appeared first on Jane Friedman and was written by Jane Friedman.

4 Things I Learned From Writing on an Emerging Mobile Story Platform

Today’s guest post is by Los Angeles–based writer Kathryn Stanley (@kathrynstanley_).

About six months ago, Pocket Gems, a mobile game developer, launched a new platform called Episode. It allows writers to script a story and then turn it into an animated interactive mobile story. It combines parts of TV shows, comics, and novels, and provides the unique ability for readers to have some control of how the story goes.

I started writing on the platform almost as soon as it launched and have written three stories to date. My most successful story, Finding Mr. Wright, has built a significant audience in a short time. So far it has an audience of 163,000 readers, who have collectively read over 1,222,000 chapters of my story.

Writing for Episode has been an immensely rewarding experience. The Episode team is highly collaborative and supportive, with an emphasis on producing the strongest work possible and a mindset that invites and encourages taking creative risks. They’re pushing the envelope on what it means to tell stories in the digital age.

There’s no denying we’re becoming a mobile society. Episode interests me as an author because it approaches storytelling from a completely mobile perspective, giving readers a new medium with which to engage and connect over stories.

Here’s the most valuable advice that I could give an aspiring Episode writer below:

1. Plot out your stories.

A great TV writer once said that you don’t have a season until you know how it ends. Rather than jumping into your first chapter without much of a plan, determine where the story is going and then decide how to best work toward that ending by writing an outline before you even get on the portal. Much like television, Episode’s stories tend to be released in 10-to-20 chapter “seasons,” with many stories having more than one season.

Developing your story premise from a pitch to a season involves plotting out the major moments of conflict, turning points, cliffhangers, and resolutions. In doing so, you’ll be able to develop subplots that’ll play into the larger picture in the end. You’ll also be able to identify areas in which your pacing seems to fall off, as a large part of retaining your readers is making sure that there is a strong, unrelenting sense of narrative urgency from chapter to chapter.

2. Write toward the fantastical and dramatic, but create relatable characters.

One of the really exciting things about Episode is that the content lends itself to creating truly imaginative, exciting stories. Stories on the platform include witches, magic, aliens, giants, and more. In other words, there really are no boundaries to the story worlds that you can create.

However, take the time to figure out who your characters are before you start writing, and make them believable. Plot aside, creating characters who are going through things that your readers can relate to will keep them reading. Allow your characters to have flaws and make mistakes—and then deal with those mistakes in realistic ways. Give some kind of redeeming quality to your villainous characters; nobody’s all bad or all good.

3. Add frequent, meaningful choices.

One thing that really sets Episode apart from other storytelling platforms is that it’s so interactive. Episode’s scripting language lets authors add choices to their stories, where readers can choose different paths in the plot.

The more meaningful choices that you can incorporate into your stories, the more readers feel invested in the outcome. They like to feel like they are determining where their story goes.

However, branching can get complicated when you try to create too many major choices that split the story off in too many ways. For that reason, it’s important to figure out manageable approaches to creating different story paths.

4. Answer your fan mail.

Another thing that makes Episode so unique is that it provides the opportunity for readers to get in touch with the writers. All fan mail that you choose to respond to is displayed publicly on the app.

Many readers have asked me for tips on writing, have had questions about the story or the characters, have shared their own insights about how they experienced the story, or have simply wanted to offer a compliment. It really means a lot when you respond (even if you’re just answering a question about your favorite kind of pie), and it’s been a wonderful platform to encourage and spread positivity, kindness, and tolerance.

Want to experience Episode for yourself? Visit their site and download the app.

The post 4 Things I Learned From Writing on an Emerging Mobile Story Platform appeared first on Jane Friedman and was written by Kathryn Stanley.

Self-Publish or Perish: Why I Made the Leap from Traditional Publishing to Indie

THE Funky Man / Flickr

Today’s guest post is by New York Times bestseller Eileen Goudge (@eileengoudge), whose newest novel, Bones and Roses, releases today. 

I read Claire Cook’s recent blog post with great interest and a jolt of recognition. OMG. She was telling my story! I wasn’t alone. There were other authors like me who were traditionally published in what now seems a bygone era, and who’d enjoyed runs on the New York Times bestseller list and all the benefits therein—book tours, media escorts, an honest to God marketing/publicity budget … Can any of us remember that far back?

I know from my husband, the aviation geek, that when a plane goes into what’s called a death spiral, as it reaches a certain altitude and succumbs to the pull of gravity, it can’t pull out. The same holds true for authors: fewer orders results in smaller print runs, a smaller marketing budget and lackluster sales, then a smaller advance for your next title, and the vicious cycle continues. In short, you’ve entered the “death spiral.”

The cold, hard truth is this: If the sales figures for your last title weren’t impressive enough to get booksellers to order your next title in sufficient quantities to make an impact, you’re basically screwed. It doesn’t matter if your previous titles sold a combined six million copies worldwide. You’re only as good as your last sell-through.

What’s even more dispiriting is that you’re perceived as a “failure” by publishers when your sales haven’t dropped but aren’t growing. You become a flat line on a graph. The publisher loses interest and drops the ball, then your sales really do tank. Worse, your poor performance, or “track” as it’s known, is like toilet paper stuck to your shoe, following you wherever you go in trying to get a deal with another publisher.

If you’re among the lucky handful to not only sell your first novel to one of the Big Five, but get a nice-sized advance, first of all, let me congratulate you—that’s a remarkable feat in today’s publishing climate. I don’t want to burst your bubble, but here’s the thing: Unless your book is the lead title in the publisher’s spring or fall catalogue, you’re more or less on your own as far as marketing and publicity is concerned. Marketing/publicity budgets for all but a handful of fortunate front list authors like my good friend, Kristin Hannah, are, sadly, a thing of the past. I’m only telling you this because it’s better to know going in than find out after the fact. You must do as much of your own publicizing, through social media outreach and whatever else you can drum up or afford, for your book to have a chance of succeeding.

So here’s what happened to me: My loyal fans, God bless them, were still out there and clamoring for my next novel. For the publishers who’d once courted me, it was “meh.” The recession only worsened what had begun with the less than stellar sales of a novel of mine that came out during:

the shifting sands of a corporate merger (Penguin and Putnam)
a falling-out with an editor
a divorce from my agent (literally, I was married to the man), and
the loss of a key executive who’d been my champion and who’d gone to another publishing house.

Any one of the above would’ve been a blow. The combination was crushing.

I won’t bore you with the details of what came next. Suffice it to say, my career never fully recovered. The irony was that my inbox was blowing up with emails from fans begging for a fourth book in my Carson Springs series. I had to break the news to my loyal readers, gently, that the series was no more.

Flash forward: Recently I found myself at a crossroads when my author friend, Josie Brown, suggested I go indie. She’d made the leap from traditional publishing a few years prior and was reaping the rewards. She’s also a savvy businesswoman with a background in marketing and advertising. I wasn’t sure I was up to the task. I’m a writer. That’s what I do—I write. I flunked math in school. I was one of those grumpy authors who had to be dragged into doing social media (which I’ve since come to embrace). She persuaded me by posing a question: “What’s the alternative?”

I realized the only alternative was to keep doing what I’d been doing that wasn’t working. I was like Charlie Brown with the football, hoping I’d get lucky and that, just once, the football wouldn’t be snatched from beneath me when I went to kick it. I’m at heart an optimist. But I’m not stupid. So I took heed of Josie’s advice and gathered up the courage to embark on a different path.

And something wonderful happened along the way.

My creative wellspring that’d been drying up, due to all the discouragement I’d received over the past few years, was suddenly gushing. An idea for a mystery series, something I’d long dreamed of writing, came to me during a walk on the beach in my hometown of Santa Cruz, California, where I lived before I moved to New York City. Why not set my mystery series in a fictional town resembling Santa Cruz? I even had my heroine, property manager/amateur sleuth, Tish Ballard, a recovering alcoholic who doesn’t buckle under adversity or authority, sketched out in my mind.

Thus was born my Cypress Bay mystery series. I immediately got to work. I was on fire! The book practically wrote itself. Book One of the series, Bones and Roses, comes out today. Click here to read an excerpt.

I’ve also completed a first draft of Book Two, Swimsuit Body, scheduled for release in spring of 2015.

I’m excited again about the possibilities the future holds. Nothing is a given, of course. The self-publishing landscape is like the Wild West in one respect—it takes a hardy soul to carve out a piece of it and the mortality rate is high. I’ve never worked harder in my life, not even when my kids were little. I’ve had to learn a bunch of new tricks I didn’t think this “old dog” was capable of. I have more social media platforms than I do platform heels in my closet (I’m addicted to my Sketchers Go Walks, and besides, these days I no longer do power lunches, which means no executive threads, and who has the time to dress up for evenings out when they’re working all the time?).

Was it worth it? Only time will tell. Meanwhile there it is, beating in my breast: that feathered thing called hope. Something I thought I’d lost, regained. Something to celebrate.

The post Self-Publish or Perish: Why I Made the Leap from Traditional Publishing to Indie appeared first on Jane Friedman and was written by Eileen Goudge.