Combating the Stigma of Self-Publishing

I've been keeping quiet about the fact that I published my first novel without the aid of a publishing house. I've received a whole bunch of stellar reviews (including this one from a fellow Huffington Poster) and it really hasn't been an issue. There's a publishing company listed on the spine of the book and that seems to be good enough for most people. Partially, I blame that on the fact that I paid an incredibly talented artist and designer to put together the covers and they don't look like your average self-published fare.

Some people are pleasantly surprised by the fact that I took on the job of publisher as well as writer and don't seem to have any trouble accepting it. It doesn't take a genius to see that the traditional publishing model offers very few advantages to readers or writers in this day and age. Aside from shelf-space for a new release and reviews in slightly larger publications, I can do just about everything they can do and more.

I'm an entrepreneurial publisher. I invested in all of the things a publisher would have taken care of out of pocket. I paid an editor, I paid artists and designers, I took care of marketing. And since I took all the risk, I could offer the book to readers cheaper and still maintain a higher return per copy sold. I had to look at it this way: did I want to be an employee in a giant machine? Or the owner of a small business? I already own my own small business and it works beautifully, so the choice for me was natural. I had a few publishing outlets I could have talked to, but in the end, I thought I could do it just as well with an investment on my own.

I was right. I'm in the black on my investment and if sales remain consistent, I'm on the road to making a nice monthly income on the side of my day job. If I follow the same business model for my next book and the book after that and the book after that, in a year or two I'll be able to make a full time living as a writer without ever stepping foot into the traditional publishing establishment with my prose. And that's just with digital sales alone. I'm doing just as well selling signed copies off of my website and doing appearances and signings.

Some people don't get it though. I was dismissed by one gentleman as an "entrepreneurial amateur." Another told me flat out that he was planning on buying my book until he found out I published it myself, but that he NEVER reads anything by a self-published author. His faulty reasoning told him that the only sort of person who self-publishes is the the kind of person who has been rejected by every publisher in town and, as a vendetta against readers, publishers, and decency, puts the inferior material out themselves. They don't seem capable of comprehending the fact that there are thousands of reasons to self-publish and all of them are completely valid.

JK Rowling was rejected by 12 publishers before Bloomsbury Press picked her up. Would it have made the Harry Potter books somehow less good if she went to self-publish them instead of try another publisher? Maybe they wouldn't have had the runaway success they did, but she certainly wouldn't have produced a bad book.

On the other side of the coin, how many terrible books have you read coming from publishers? The answer is a lot. They get it wrong as often as anybody. They really aren't the tastemakers people seem to give them credit for.

And I'm sure some of you skeptics are saying, "I bet this guy would jump at the chance to be at a traditional publisher." And to some degree you might be right. But doing everything from scratch means I know what it takes to get a book together. I'd have to think very carefully about the kind of deal before I'd take it. In fact, I know of an author who put out her own YA Fantasy book, the first of a trilogy (It's called "War of the Seasons" and it's really good) who was approached for her second book by a small publishing press. They talked briefly, but there wasn't anything they could do for her that she couldn't do for herself, and since she likes the control of self-publishing, she is moving forward on her own. Would she rethink that if she was offered something more? Absolutely. So would I.

For all of you people struggling to make this decision, you really need to look at it like any other business decision you'd make in any other arena in your life. Do you have the capital needed to put your book together professionally? Is it a risk you're willing to take like any other small business venture? Are you willing to put the blood, sweat, and tears in? If the answer to these questions is yes, then becoming your own publisher is an option you should seriously consider.

For all of you skeptics out there, just try to bear in mind that there are more than one reason for approaching book publishing as an entrepreneur and very few of them have to do with revenge on the traditional publishing industry for their shortsightedness. And give some of them a read. You never know. You might like it.

Bryan Young is the editor in chief of the geek news and review site Big Shiny Robot! and is the author of Lost at the Con and Man Against the Future.

 

 

 

Follow Bryan Young on Twitter: www.twitter.com/swankmotron

Comments

[Richard Bauman]

06:23 PM on 07/13/2011

I have a friend who had more than 50 titles published by traditional publishers. He's self-published his last 20 titles. He says he's made more money via self-publishing than he ever did with traditional publishers. I've self-published four books, and I've been pleased with the product and sales.

[jannev]

10:11 AM on 07/11/2011

I like to remind those that scoff at self-publishing that Beatrix Potter self-published Peter Rabbit after being turned down by publishers. I've been trad published by Penguin and Cambridge University Press, but I've sold more books, and made more money by self-publishing.

www.just4kix.jimdo.com

[iwritereadrate]

04:30 AM on 07/07/2011

Hi Bryan

Firstly, congratulations on your indie publishing success. It's fantastic to see that you've taken on the whole process of bringing a book to market and succeeded. Our belief is that this will happen more and more over the next few years.

I wrote a short article a while ago called The eBook Revolution about exactly this - how ebooks offer a new flexibility to both writers and readers - that this could drive a transformation in publishing and what it means to be 'published'. It's here if you'd like to read it: http://blog.iwritereadrate.com/?p=246

Secondly, I'm always a little baffled by some peoples reactions to 'indie pubbed' books. As you allude to, there are a plethora of reasons why an author may not get a publishing house to print their work. It's certainly not necessarily due to the quality of the writing, editing, and presentation. My belief is that all well put together, cared for books/ebooks will be able to find an audience that loves the writing - it's just a matter of finding them. The internet offers great scope to do just that.

(FYI - yes, there are a great number of well presented but dull books from publishers!)

Congratulations again, your story is inspirational and we'll be tweeting about it for days to come!

All the best

Adam Charles
http://www.iWriteReadRate.com

[Lisa Grace]

11:05 PM on 07/06/2011

I have a hardcover of my first book traditionally published; however, my ebook version (which is self-published) Angel in the Shadows, Book 1 is already in the top-twenty for over six weeks in teen books on Amazon.com. See link:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_nr_n_12?rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Akindle+books%2Cn%3A%211000%2Cn%3A28&bbn=1000&keywords=kindle+books&ie=UTF8&qid=1307412306&rnid=1000#/ref=sr_pg_2?rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Akindle+books%2Cn%3A%211000%2Cn%3A28&page=2&bbn=1000&keywords=kindle+books&ie=UTF8&qid=1307412318

I've been approached by small presses, but none can offer me more sales or a better deal than I am already getting from my own efforts. I'm waiting for a contract where the paperbacks will be available in the bookstores.
Angel in the Storm, Book 2 just released July 1st and is steadily climbing the charts. One of two scenarios will happen:
1) Either I will get offered a contract for the paperback rights from a large house or
2) I will approach Walmart/Sam's Club myself, and cut a contract to offer them the self-published paperbacks. (Yes, I take the risk this way.)
Angel in the Ice, Book 3 releases November 1st, so I will wait until Book 4 is out (early 2012) before I see which route I have to go.

[Jeffrey Penn May]

05:41 PM on 07/06/2011

While I like your "business model" and congratulate you on your success, some of us are merely writers and have been so for many years, not "entrepreneurial," not "marketeers," and have few funds to risk starting a publishing business likely doomed to failure because of our introspective, isolationist, writers' personality. Our work will suffocate under the pile of businessmen's self-published work. However, we are trying with ebooks, which cost very little to "publish." (Jeffrey Penn May, author of "Where the River Splits," nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and much more.)

[Bryan Young]

06:43 PM on 07/06/2011

I don't like being a business man. At all. It's a reality of the business. It's not that your work will suffocate under the self-publi­shed work of businessme­n. It will suffocate because you're not willing to get outside of yourself and put the work in to make it work for you. If you've been winning awards and prizes and have an audience from a traditiona­l publishing model, it's 100s of times easier for you.

[Katherine Carol]

05:10 PM on 07/06/2011

Being an author is being a business person too! Excellent article.

[Kimberly Gerry Black]

02:45 PM on 07/06/2011

I self published and I am pleased with the results. Check out my book at Chroniclesofthesentientsword.com

[RT Kaelin]

11:17 AM on 07/06/2011

You've hit the nail on the head, Bryan.

I've been going through the same thing myself since Progeny came out in December. Some authors I've been in touch with turn up their nose at what I've done. I try to point them in the direction of all the glowing reviews (both Joe-blow reader, as well as professional reviewers), yet they still poo-poo my work.

Others have been tremendously supportive in my effort. They let the work speak for itself.

My fault was writing a 300k word epic fantasy novel as my first work I sent to agents. If you are Brandon Sanderson or JK Rowling, a 300,000 word book is readily accepted and loved. If you're R.T. Kaelin, your query letter gets tossed in the trash.

Keep on writing and believe in your work. Let the readers decide what is worthy and what is not. It takes a much longer time to gain recognition, but it can happen. Seven months after Progeny was released, it has made its appearance in the top 20 on Amazon's Top Rated Fantasy and top 10 in Epic Fantasy a few times. Word of mouth and hard work by an indie author is what is needed to get the name out.

[abookexpert]

10:48 PM on 07/05/2011

Bryan, kudos to you for your entrepreneurial publishing spirit! You are what every self-published author should be, serious about publishing, approaching the book as a product and planning your marketing strategy. Why there is still such a stigma in this day and age against self-publishing is beyond me. Traditional publishing houses can publish junk and so can any Joe-author. It is one thing for a publisher to “look down” on self-publishing, but who are these snobbish readers? Does a designer label of a publishing house logo make for a good book, I think not. I work with self-published authors every day and I have read so many incredible books that are just screaming for “best seller” status. Books that are quality in content and production. How many best sellers have made the list on the wings of a strong marketing and PR campaign, not on the merit of the book? At the end of the day, don’t we all just want to read a good book and not have to care where it came from.

[ThreeCrows]

10:46 PM on 07/05/2011

If you haven't experienced the rejection from literary agency when trying to submit a screenplay or novel, you'll never understand the feeling when you send out 100 queries and you get back 100 queries. And with screenplays, it's that Catch-22 type of situation where you have to have representation in order to be considered optioning but you can't get representation because they won't look at your material because you're not represented. Self-publishing opens up that wall of obstacles. It's not like some TV talent show where your craft can be seen in a 30 second tryout. Writing still remains a solitary venture that you put out there in hopes of getting someone to look at it. If you ever wrote a stage play, expect to wait a year to get any feedback, if you're lucky. If the world of self-publishing gets you out there, by all means, take it. Life is too short to wait any longer. Control your own destiny.

[Bryan Young]

11:14 PM on 07/05/2011

Yeah, I tried a long time to make it with screenplays and got them a little further than agents, but making something of it is near impossible sometimes.

[ThreeCrows]

11:53 PM on 07/05/2011

I've been at it too long myself. I'm going to go in the route of doing a low budget ala Paranormal Activity route sometime in the fall. I have an actor buddy in LaLa and we discuss these things and I struck upon an idea and worked up the first 23 pages of a script, psychological thriller, that had people hooked but I had no ending until recently when I spoke with a recent film student who inadvertently sparked my imagination to give the the ending. So basically, it's going to be 97 percent interior shots with just a handful of players. And since I can compose my own music and I know how to use the editing program, Lightworks, along with two others, at least I can get a majority of the work done myself. And since we're not no talented reality stars who haven't made any sex tapes, I guess we have to rely on our God given talents to make it in this business and try to bring this back in some sort of order. Talk to you later Bryan.

[BlackJAC]

06:10 PM on 07/06/2011

And let's consider the downside: regardless of how your stuff gets deployed, it doesn't sell.  Is it better to have gotten the $10K blowoff advance (less the agent's cut and taxes) from a real publisher, or be $2K out-of-pocket from a self-publisher?

[Jeffrey Garza Falcon]

03:44 PM on 07/14/2011

The problem of race in America begins and ends with Whites. They are the source of the problem. They are the ones who make it an issue. You say you choose books by theme rather than ethnicity. That's my point! Black themes tend to come from black writers, latino themes from latino writers, asian themes from asian writers. You make it sound like you're open to reading writers of color, as long as they don't discuss their heritage. That's my point about big publishing companies. They exclude and marginalize writers of color, because they are not writing about "white issues." Everything you've said only supports my point.

[whillice]

07:43 PM on 07/05/2011

I walk into a bookstore and there are literally thousands of books I have no interest reading. I always browse through the remaindered books to see if I can pick up anything for cheap and often leave puzzling to myself, "Someone got PAID to write that? Someone got PAID to edit that? Someone got PAID to do the layout for that?" And nothing is as fun of a read imho as Lost at the Con. Ok, take that back-- Patton Oswalt's Zombie Spaceship Wasteland was slightly better. Slightly. And to be fair I haven't yet read Bossypants.

But if "print is dead" then we need to start looking at these alternatives. Back in the day, samizdat, or self-publish, was the lifeblood of the Soviet Underground. Are we that close to the corporate controlled media we may need to start relying on that again?

Your real problem, Bryan, is you're such a Republican. To you it's all about the entrepreneur and work ethic and yada yada yada when really it's about outsourcing good American publishing jobs to be done by your little cabal of misfits and dope addicts. : ) < /snark>

[BlackJAC]

06:25 PM on 07/05/2011

In all seriousness, it goes to the qualifying-introduction factor of real publishing. If, for example, Simon & Schuster signed you it means you convinced both a literary agent and a publishing company editor that you are a professional. With self-publishing you essentially walked into the copy center of a Staples, plunked down your credit card, and said you want them to make so many bound copies of your manuscript.

[Bryan Young]

06:47 PM on 07/05/2011

That's the perception, anyway. But that's what I'm trying to fight, because it's not the case in a lot of cases.

[pelusey]

03:34 AM on 07/06/2011

I agree Bryan. My experience having 80 books published by publishers is that for me it is about control. I want to write my book, publish it, promote it and get more than the 5% royalty. There is a perception that publishers do everything for you. They source an editor, designer etc and want the author to still do the promotion. In this day and age, we can all source our own team and come out with a great product. Good luck with your books.

[BlackJAC]

04:04 PM on 07/06/2011

It's not a fight you're going to win, as long as all of those success stories the self-publish crowd tout end up getting or already had signed deals from real publishers.

[MichaelNMarcus]

11:45 AM on 07/06/2011

That is NOT the way professional self-publishing authors work. We use the same quality printers, editors and designers as the traditional publishers. Maybe even better editors.

Michael N. Marcus
-- http://www.BookMakingBlog.blogspot.com
-- http://www.BooksForAuthors.com (reviews)
-- http://www.Self-Pub.info
-- Create Better Books, with the Silver Sands Publishing Series: http://www.silversandsbooks.com/booksaboutpublishing.html
-- "Stories I'd Tell My Children (but maybe not until they're adults)," http://www.amazon.com/dp/0981661750

[BlackJAC]

06:14 PM on 07/06/2011

But you're still completely out-of-pocket on it.  And the more services you shell out for, the more units you gotta shift to make it worthwhile.