Why a Once-Agented Author Went Indie: Guest Post from Jen McConnel
I’m really glad that Boyce asked me to talk about my publishing journey today, because I’ve certainly had a long and curving road. Like the industry, I’ve had to learn to adapt, and I’m still not sure how to classify myself as an author.
Let me explain. I have always dreamed of being a published author, and that dream, until very recently, included one of the “Big Six” publishing houses, book tours, and, perhaps, a dream advance. A year ago, I shifted my work so I could put writing at the center of my life. I went from being a full-time middle school teacher who wrote in her free time to a full-time writer who taught part time at the community college. It was a wonderful shift: I finished four novels from start to finish, and I immersed myself in my writing.
Last fall, I started querying the novel that I was sure would be “the one.” It’s a YA fantasy novel, a genre I recently discovered that I love writing almost as much as I love reading. I queried about fifty agents, and had five requests to read the full manuscript. It was a heady experience, topped only by the fact that a wonderful agent offered to represent me.
We went on submission in January, and I sat back and waited for fame to come. That was my first mistake: I didn’t stop writing (I don’t think I am physically capable of that, actually), but I got complacent. Of course I would have a big book deal soon. It was meant to be! However, after months of submission, I felt stymied: the book wasn’t moving forward. Maybe the timing wasn’t right, or maybe I needed an attitude adjustment. In July, when my agent was offered an amazing (non-agenting) promotion, I had a choice: keep pursuing traditional publishing, or take some time to go off on my own.
I chose to do both, sort of: I’m still pursuing traditional publication for my YA fantasy novels, because I feel that any publisher, large or small, will have better access to the YA market: the sales numbers show that while adult novels are selling more and more in e-book form, teen fiction is still selling more in tangible form. But I decided to split my focus: while I would continue pursuing traditional publication for my YA, I wanted to experiment with indie publishing for my adult fiction. (I told you, I’d been writing A LOT in that year, and I even had a few manuscripts sitting around from before, just waiting).
So I plunged headfirst into the unknown. I connected with other indie authors and started asking questions. I read everything I could get my hands on. I reviewed the instructions on formatting from Createspace and Amazon, and I hired a cover artist through Elance. Then, when all the external wheels were turning, I revised the heck out of my novel. I’m lucky enough to have a friend who freelances, and she was willing to turn her critical eye towards the editing of my novel.
Then I taught myself how to format. And got my first migraine.
Somewhere along the way, I stepped into the identity of an indie author.
What I’ve learned is that no one publishing model fits all. For me, it depends on the book: the story I tell in Isobel is a bit hard to classify: it doesn’t pack down into a nice pitch, and that means it doesn’t have a well-defined genre. It’s contemporary with a dash of historical, new adult with a bit of romance, mystery with a side of occult. This is the kind of book that lends itself really well to an indie model: as my own publisher, I can choose how to classify the book, and I can use multiple genres as identifiers. A traditional publisher is likely to pass on a book that’s hard to classify; in the traditional model, sales and exposure are dependent on which shelf the book sits on.
So where does that leave me? My debut novel, The Burning of Isobel Key, is indie published. I still don’t know what will happen with my YA, but I’m keeping my options open. And I think that’s the most wonderful thing about publishing today: the options are infinite. There’s never been a better time to be a writer!
Book Extras
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