Keeping High Morale In The Self-Publishing Trenches

[image error]When I was thirteen, I was convinced I was going to be a famous writer. This was back in the day when anything and everything was possible. I turned to my mother one day and asked her if she had any friends that had a summer home I could use for my writing, maybe on a nice quiet lake somewhere. My mother gave me her "my child is crazy" look and told me I had watched too many movies about Jane Austen. "But how will I become a famous writer if I don't lock myself away in the countryside and write for twelve hours a day?" I asked. She never gave me an answer. Now I am an adult writer and I still wish for that cottage on a lake somewhere. Sadly, no writer I know has a writing cottage down by a lake; well, except for Stephen King, but I don't "know" him so he doesn't count.

Times are different, and not just because I use a keypad instead of an inkwell. It's 2011 and I have rent that needs paying, a dog that needs walking, a husband that needs loving, a mother that needs calling, a house that needs cleaning, friends that need chatting, and on and on. Did I mention that somewhere in there I am also supposed to be a creative artist?

What I'm saying is it's hard to be a writer, and people don't get that. I was so excited to call myself a writer when I sold my first story. This is it, I thought, I'm an actual writer; people will respect me as a writer now, but they didn't. Most of the time, when I tell someone I'm a self-published author, they just kind of turn their nose up at me and tell me about their "real" job. They have no idea what it takes, especially for people who have a full time job as well. Alice Munro and Stephenie Meyer had to write late at night after they worked all day and finally put their kids to bed. People don't understand the dedication it takes.

Then there is the fact that everyone thinks they are a critic. Do they really think that just because they learned their letters in kindergarten, they're automatically experts on writing? We strip ourselves naked every time we write a page, just to have to hear someone say "Mmm, her hips are too wide," or "Her arms are kinda gangly."  Plus there is the fact that we are self-published. That drives their nose further up in the air.

We know that self-publishing is here to stay. We know that pretty soon big publishing houses will be either a thing of the past or at least a small part of the publishing industry as a whole. Unfortunately we are the minority right now, and constantly have to educate people about what we do. I am so sick of convincing people self-publishing is a legitimate way to be an author. I guess that's what we get for being at the forefront of this revolution. We end up having to be the ambassadors.

While I love being a self-published author and truly would not want to be traditionally published, it is very lonely experience. Robert Heinlein said, "Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterward." Being a writer now a days is hard; being a self-published writer is next to impossible.

That's why we need to support each other. I am frustrated with authors not sharing information with one another. If you're a good writer, people will buy your work; if not, they won't. People are not going to stop buying your books because you helped another author learn how to self-promote. If we don't support each other, then how can we expect others to? We are the only ones who know what other authors are going thru.

This is why I love this blog site. It's not trying to sell you anything you don't want, and it will never be about self-promotion. It's about having a place where people in this industry get together and share what they know with everyone else. So go out there and support each other. Take what you have learned from this site and others, and help someone else out. Answer that person's question on Goodreads, retweet someone's tweet about their new book, write a comment on someone's book blog and join an author's Facebook page. We have got to start helping each other out because I don't see Jane Austen coming to help us anytime soon.