What I've Learned About Self Publishing
Over the last few months, I've interviewed a number of DIY authors and other artists. Now, I'd like to turn my attention to another DIY author: me!
I sat down with myself to ask myself a few questions. The transcript follows.
Brendan Halpin, Blogger: Thanks for stopping by!
Brendan Halpin, Novelist: I was in the area.
BHB: So tell me why you decided to do Enter the Bluebird on your own.
BHN: Well, the choice was pretty much made for me. The book was turned down by a raft of publishers, most of whom said they really liked the book, but they didn't think a superhero novel would sell. And then there were some others who said no because they didn't think a novel by me would sell.
BHB: Ouch!
BHN: Right? So I ran the Kickstarter and got some money together and did it myself!
BHB: And what did you learn from that process?
BHN: Well, I learned that being a publisher is hard. That is to say, it's a bit heavy to be responsible for the whole project and putting the pieces together and paying for it. Having said that, there were a number of things about it that were great. In the editing process, we really focused on making the book better rather than making it safer. So the drug addiction and sex trafficking and stuff that I might have had to sanitize or remove if I'd been working with a big publisher all stayed in. Also, I got a cover that looks exactly the way I want it to look. There was no learning to live with a cover I don't love--so this book looks exactly the way I want it to look, which makes me happy. It's pretty rare in producing any kind of art that you don't have to compromise your vision at all.
BHB: Oooh! Compromise your vision! Listen to mister artiste! But don't compromises sometimes make better art? Didn't you write about that recently?
BHN: I mean, I did get this book professionally edited, so there were things I had to rephrase, jokes that didn't work that I took out, stuff like that, but all of this stuff just helped me make this the best version of the book I wanted to write rather than the book someone else wanted me to write.
BHB: Can you tell us how you found your editor and your illustrator?
BHN: Sure. My editor, Deb Bancroft, is a friend from way back. She's done beta reads for me in the past, and I knew that she both got what I was trying to do with the project and would be fearless about telling me if something wasn't working.
Erik Evensen, who did the illustration and designed the cover, was recommended to me by illustrator Abigail "No Relation" Halpin. We had talked about something Halpin-related on twitter, and I asked if she knew anyone who'd be good for this project, and she sent me to Erik.
BHB: So networking. Do you know anything about those sites where you post a job and people bid on it?
BHA: Only that I worked with a company that had hired a guy in India to do web design through one of those sites. And, I mean, the work was done competently, and cheaply and fast, but there just wasn't a lot of care put into it and the follow-up questions after the initial job was done were pretty much ignored. So I just feel like if you're investing in a passion project like this, you shouldn't go with fast and cheap.
BHB: Fair enough. What's been the biggest challenge of this whole process?
BHA: Just getting the general public to know that the book exists. I mean, I used to kind of dump on some of my publishers because I'd had a book only sell 4 or 5 thousand copies. And now I realize how incredibly difficult it is to sell even that many copies. And what a disadvantage you're at if you publish something yourself.
BHB: How are you at a disadvantage? Control! Freedom! Branding! J.A.Konrath!
BHA: You're at a disadvantage because literally anyone with a computer can put an ebook together. Which means that the overwhelming majority of self-published books are just not professional products. Some of them definitely are, but most of the stuff that's out there just isn't. So you have to work against that preconception that people have that because it's not coming from a legacy publisher, it's crap.
So, for example, I sent about probably 50 requests for reviews. And I got four responses. Most book bloggers didn't even acknowledge the email. And these were people who had reviewed some of my previous work. Most of the bloggers who have posted reviews of my previous work say on their site that they won't even consider a self-published book. I get why they do this, but it does make it difficult.
And it's difficult to get Amazon reviews and goodreads reviews, which has proven pretty interesting. It's actually way easier to get people to buy a book than to review it. Either because I like to sound off on my opinion or because I'm cheap, I didn't actually know this, so that surprised me.
BHB: So what's been successful?
BHA: Not much. I paid to promote the initial Facebook post about the book, and it was seen by about 8,000 people. None of whom bought the book. I printed up bookmarks for a free ebook and placed them in 4 local comic book stores in order to try to reach that audience. It was a fun day, but a total of zero people downloaded the free ebook, so that was a fair amount of money and time that has not paid off. I put the book on sale for my birthday and got a bunch of people to buy it, but that was with heavy social media promotion.
BHB: That's good! It shows you're using social media well, right?
BHA: Yes, but I really don't want to go that route anymore. There's a relatively small number of people who help me out with retweets and link sharing and such, and I just don't want to burn them out by continually asking for favors. They've already done so much.
BHB: So what are your criteria for success? How will you know if you can call Enter the Bluebird a success?
BHA: I really wish I could say that I'm happy just to have the book out there and looking fantastic and being a completely kickass YA noir superhero novel, but the truth is that I'm really not satisfied with that. I had really hoped that I could actually make some money on this book, and thus far that hasn't happened. Ideally I'd like to clear enough that I could pay for editing and cover design for a sequel.
BHB: But why don't you just run another kickstarter for that?
BHA: See "burning out my small group of supporters" above.
BHB: So where do we go from here?
BHA: I don't really know. I mean,the book is still out, and it's still awesome, and there's plenty of time for momentum to build. I continue to believe that once people read this book, they're going to like it and tell people, and I just sold a bunch for my birthday, so we'll see. I will continue to think about what else I can do to let people know about the book, and I will continue to rejoice every time the number of copies sold increases by even one. This is a good thing about this process: I get a real lift from every single sale. I'm looking forward to a lot more lifts.
