Confession: Why self-publishing is perfect for me

I have always loved to write. My love for it started around the third grade. I lived in Memphis at the time and my class had creative writing. The teacher would give us a choice of three topics and we’d write a short story about the topic we picked. I can’t remember what my topic was or the details of the story. I do remember it was a love story about a carrot and an eggplant. It’s okay to laugh. I was in the third grade. The teacher loved it and thought it was cute. I got an A on that story.

When I was jr. high school, I graduated from writing about vegetable romances to writing steamy plays with a friend of mine. We’d alternated acts. She’d write one, then I’d pick up the next. It was a lot of fun plotting the next scenes together and watching how the whole play changed as it went on. I have no idea where those plays are today.

After that I got busy with life and didn’t pick up writing again just after my divorce. I tried to write a story to just release some built up hurt and anger from the stress of the divorce. It used it as an outlet to direct all the negativity that was in my life at the time. that why I could use up the positive with the kids. Nothing became of that story. In fact the story really didn’t develop into much. I made the choice to go back to school and get my degree in Accounting. So writing was put on hold.

The next time I pick up the pen, or by this time the keyboard, was in 2007 after discovering paranormal romance. I read everything I could one after another and loved the worlds of vampires, shapeshifters, witches, and magic. So I set down and wrote. It took me a good six months of brainstorming and starting a number of stories only to find they didn’t work before I got a solid plot going.

That was when the Divinities were born.

At the time I had no idea what I was going to do when I finished Forgotten Visions . I didn’t know about self-publishing. I researched the process of getting publishing and was very intimidated. I don’t have a lot of patience and I’m a control freak. I knew that going through 100+ rejections while waiting for an agent or publisher to love my voice and story enough to take it would only wear me down. So the drive to make it a career wasn’t there. I wrote because I enjoyed. I didn’t believe I’d make money at it.

Then I got an email ad from Barnes & Noble about their Pubit program (now called Nook Press) and thought, “No way. It’s couldn’t be that easy.”

It’s not that easy. I’ll get to that in a minute.

I’ve talked to a co-worker about my writing and she said she has friends that publish through kindle. This opened up a whole new research project. My drive was back. I looked up indie authors and bought books about self publishing. I was going for it. I was going to make money off my writing.

When I finished Forgotten Visions, I joined a critique group. It was in that group that I decided to go through the submission process because I learned that there were many options when it came to choosing a publisher.

FV was picked up by a publisher in late 2011 and released in July 2012. Within that time frame I wrote and submitted my 1Night Stand to Decedent Publishing. I still planed to self-publish a future series. A number of events surrounding the process of getting FV ready for release pushed me to release the rest of the series as an indie author. I will not go into details about by experiences with that publisher. It is a successful publishing house with some amazing authors. But not all publishers fit with every author. I’m too much of a control freak to not be part of the process. That’s just my personality. I need to know what is happening and schedule things and stick to that schedule. As for Decadent, I LOVE them and will continue to submit to them for special submissions.

So that brings me to the pros and cons of self publishing. The lists below are according to my experiences over the last two years, and they are my opinions.

Pros:

I have full control over cover art, the editing process, marketing, and release dates.
I don’t have to follow a “standard” set of pub-house rules. I’m able to cross genres and heat levels. I can also break a few rules within reason.
I make more per book
I can view my actual sales numbers and see a clear trend in the market so I can write accordingly.

Cons:

Full control. You are doing this alone. You have to make sure edits are prefect, the formatting is correct, and upload to each retailer. Many use Smashword and their extended market, but Fated Desires does not.
Time management: dealing with editors, formatters, and retailers, marketing and branding your name and books, tracking sales and payments are all time consuming. I’ve been writing full time for five months now and I still work from 6 AM to 9, sometimes 10, PM. And I have a business partner that helps. (These long hours are not standard. I have goals I want to meet so I choice to work longer to meet them.) Time management and balance is very important. If you don’t have the time to dedicate, then self-publishing may not be for you.
Marketing: Again you are on your own. yes, you still have to market your work if you are traditionally published, but you also have the backing of you publisher and an established readership, but with self-publishing it takes time to gain the following. It’s completely up to you to sell your name and work.

 

I can’t stress enough that if you plan to self-publish critique partners/groups are very important. (CPs and beta readers are not friends and family, they are experienced and aspiring writers that want to make a career out of writing. Friends and Family will love your writing because they love you and may not give you the critical advice you need to push you.) It is also important to have your book edited by a professional editor. There are many freelance editors out there. I suggest having your book go through a couple of rounds of edits and a round of proofreading before publishing. I go through a couple of CPs, 3 rounds of edits, and a proofreader.

Have a wonderful week!