Thoughts on Publishing

There has been a fair amount of drama in the publishing industry this week, with the announcement by Less Than Three to close at the end of the month and the firing (Oh, sorry, “restructuring”) of Angela James of Carina. I try to avoid drama, but so many “self-publishing is better/safer” posts had me screaming.

I get what they’re saying. The publishing world is uncertain and chaotic right now with Dreamspinner not paying their authors/artists appropriately, LT3 closing, and a huge advocate for diversity being shunted from Carina. And self-publishing is an obvious solution to that.

But to some degree, and not to get super political here, self-publishing feels a lot like people who, when someone complains about the state of their country, tell them to “go to a different country if you hate it so much.”

Because that original country is still going to be shitty and a wreck. And what about all the people who can’t just pick up their stuff and leave? (Not to mention certain countries not welcoming refugees, let alone people who just want out.) So bravo, you have the option to self-publish, but that just means it’s silencing the voices of all the people who don’t have that option.

Because self-publishing is hard. Hell, publishing with a small press is hard. I’m not great with marketing and a lot of small presses need you to do your own. I don’t have a huge online presence, cuz the internet depresses me and exhausts me. I dream of the old days where the author would send a manuscript in and never have to interact with the public. But that’s not realistic.

I have (half-heartedly) tried to self-pub. It was a book that already had been edited, so I didn’t need to buy an editor ($$$). I made the covers myself rather than paying a cover artist ($$). So all I needed to do was hit “print” on Amazon, right? Oh, except all that PR stuff. Because having a following matters. I just read a very good “how to PR” article that stressed that it’s important to create a following/presence before your first book drops. Interact with people, be real, etc etc. Which is hard when just logging in to Twitter is hard. When you’re overwhelmed by the Twitter feed. When you try to interact but the response is lukewarm, if there is one, and you aren’t really encouraged to do more.

So there are three major obstacles to self-pubbing that a lot of people who promote self-pubbing seem to ignore (or blithely think you’re just not trying hard enough):

Cost. If you are sole-income household with a mediocre job, you might not have the thousands of dollars to pay editors and cover artists what they rightly deserve. Often there are cheaper options, but it’s a dangerous thing. Congrats to you, Miss I Have an Incredibly Well Paying Day Job and Mr. My Wife Makes Enough for Both of Us.Time. If you have a day job, you have x hours of free time. If you have a life, you have y hours of free time. If you sleep, you have 0 hours of free time. Obviously exaggeration, but making a book takes a lot of time, and self-pubbing puts all that need on the author, which not all authors can handle.Energy. If you have a condition that makes doing things hard and somethings even harder, it can be especially overwhelming to face doing ALL of it on your own (whether you hire out or not). Not to mention the mess of financials come tax season. Write a book. Revise the book. (Market yourself!) Find an editor. Edit book. (Market yourself!) Find a cover artist. Go through drafts. (Market yourself!) Prepare a blog tour! Book releases. (Market yourself!) Oh, while you’re writing your next book (Market yourself!). Oh, and don’t forget to promo your backlist so people don’t forget about that.

These are the blocks to most individual ventures, of course, but idolizing self-pubbing as this miracle cure for the current shit-show of the publishing world ignores a lot of the advantages (should I say privileges?) those people have.

Not to mention you can do all of that work and invest all of that money and if you do one of them not quite good enough, the book might never sell and you’re out thousands.

And yet to potentially make back that money, you have to start up and do it all again.

Don’t get me wrong. I want to self-pub. The state of the queer publishing industry is terrifying. There doesn’t feel like there’s anything I can do from within the industry as a nobody.

And yet.