Musings on Self-Publishing Vs. Mainstream, Part 1

I just read a very honest and insightful Blog post by Wendy Higgins ( http://www.wendyhigginswrites.com/201...) about her experiences and earnings as a published author via the mainstream press. On the same day, I read a review of Armageddon Girl by my good friend Bill Reich (http://www.amazon.com/review/R6WB8MOD...) where he mentions that I pretty much gave up on mainstream publishing after a single rejection letter. All this got me to thinking about my decisions about my first novel and about self-publishing versus mainstream publishing.

I started my writing career (back in the early 1990s) in the tabletop RPG industry. I was lucky enough to get a few breaks and got published fairly quickly. The money was never great but it was often good: I made $7-9,000 in a couple of books, although most RPGs netted me something around $2,000-3,000 or less within the first year of publication and maybe an equivalent amount in dribs and drabs over the ensuing years. I managed to make a living writing full-time, but it was never much of a living, except for a brief stint working as a full-time employee for an RPG publisher. Eventually, I went to work in a different industry for a lot more money.

The writing bug never left me, though. After many (many many) false starts, I finally finished a novel, thanks to assorted sources of inspiration (ranging from the web-show The Guild to overdosing on Richard Kadrey books and old Watchmen comics). I dutifully bought a copy of the Writer's Market and checked my options vis a vis mainstream publishing. The few places that would look at genre fiction overwhelmingly demanded agented submissions, which I didn't (and still don't) have. The few that didn't were dominated by e-publishers that didn't seem much better than self-publishing, places with a 9-12 month response time, and one publisher with a rapid (3 month) turnaround time.

I sent that publisher my manuscript ($50 between printing and mailing fees), waited my 3 months, and on the 87th day got a form letter rejecting the manuscript. At that point, my choices were to go with the 9-12 month publisher, which meant I wouldn't get an answer until sometime in 2014, try the smaller publishers that allow for simultaneous submissions (but don't offer much of an advance, if any, and mostly e-publish their books), or go for self-publishing.

I was impatient. I was also arrogant enough to think the book was good enough to be published. I also had some measure of name recognition via my RPG work, which I thought I might parlay into some sales. So I went for it.

tl;dr - I was greedy and impatient, and went for self-publishing. Part 2 describes how well (or not) I've done so far.