Why is Self-Publishing Considered Embarrassing?
Yes, I know the
answer to that. In fact, I’ve met enough self-publishers to say that the
expectation is easily found. Many indie writers truly are impatient egomaniacs
who quickly regurgitate a naïve perspective on literature, posting half-baked
and painful reads while being overly sensitive to poor reception.
But, not all are.
And, more importantly, not all have to be.
I recently
announced that I am self-publishing some of my play scripts to dabble in the
process as well as make them more readily available to potential buyers.
Theatre works differently than novels, and most of the time you’re making your
money by selling rights to produce, not the books themselves. (Which is why
it’s not uncommon for publishers to merely rent the scripts rather than sell
them. Of course, those are nice, soft-leather bound copies, different from the
cheap literal paperbacks you can buy for consideration.)
This was not a
decision that I took lightly. After starting up my literary journal, I got some
bad backlash. My father’s friend pressed for details about the journal before
smirking, “So it’s just self-published.”
“Well no,” I said.
“It’s other people’s writing. ‘Self’ isn’t really a part of it.”
The snide remarks
towards a small anthology of local authors—a pet project—made me wary towards
how it would be if it had been a novel that was near and dear to my heart. I,
in fact, received a pretty vicious, unsolicited response from a dear friend on
how she absolutely despised my cover, and it made it really hard to roll with
the punches. Why would I take something I cared deeply about, put it out into
the world, to have people say, “So it’s just self-published?”
I think there’s a
lot of merit to traditional publication, and indies have to be stronger, wiser,
better, faster than their trad counterparts in order to obtain half the
success. I am not one of those people who think self-publishing is going to
wipe out the old, nor that should be the go-to for many writers. Nor should
trad pub be the go-to necessarily either.
What I’m interested
in, however, is the evolution of my own thought process behind the idea, and
why it doesn’t bother me nearly as much as it did some years ago.
I remember one
writer’s conference—the first one I went to, I think—where a man asked a
question about a self-publishing company who offered to do everything for one
packaged price. The backlash of agents was alarming, their energies spiking as
they insisted, “NO! NO! Big scam! Don’t ever pay to be published!”
Which today, it
actually is kind of a bad deal. Self-publishing companies, even reputable ones
with good business plans and customer service, aren’t always going to be the
most creative or informed people. They hire like your good ole bureaucracy. It
doesn’t draw in those who love the field or want to help people. It’s a day job
to most of them. Finding freelancers, independent artists, and choosing based
on your personal tastes is a much, much better plan than just handing your work
to one company and calling it a day. You get more of a personal experience, for
one thing, but when it’s your money, you should have a say.
Despite all of
that, the reaction towards his self-publishing question changed drastically in
the following year. Not only were the answers more about how to vet a company,
rather than NO, one of the agents on the panel was strictly for
self-publishers. (What does an agent do in self-publishing? I’d say act as an
advisor, I suppose, but honestly I was a little skeptical of her.)
So what changed?
Well, previously the potential for success amongst indies was actually pretty
crap. “You need money to make money,” so to speak. Printers who would create
books for cheap weren’t as numerous and so you had a smaller choice. Print
books are expensive to make and not only can you not undercut the trad
publishers like you can with an ebook, most times you’d actually have to sell
it for more than average market cost to afford it. Still true today even.
And why, honestly,
would I buy a self-published work that probably hasn’t seen the eyes of another
human being before going to print for fifteen dollars, when I could by a bigger
one that is loved by many for seven?
For me though, in
my years of reading indies and interacting with them, I realize how much I
stopped trying to vet people. If it’s hard to tell if it’s self-published, then
that’s a pretty good sign the author knows what they’re doing. I mean, I don’t
like being burned by books. I have just recently bought a novel by an indie
that I really want to like, but have
a feeling is also some self-pandering slough. I wouldn’t have gotten it either,
but I couldn’t stop thinking about it and finally said, “Why not?”
I only knew he was
self-published because I had followed his blogs and his original covers were…
exactly what you’d think. But it was because I was keeping track of his process
that I kept returning to his page as well.
I used to think, I
realize, that self-published works could never be taken as seriously as the
trads, that if my book wasn’t picked up by a ‘real publisher’ it wouldn’t be an
actual book itself. I had high doubts anyone could be successful as an indie.
Hard work wouldn’t matter, right?
But that’s not
entirely true. Publishers are just people. Graphic designers, editors, writers
even, the whole shebang. With the right amount of money, you too could act as
publisher and find the right person for the job. Why not? Sure, you have
handicaps going it alone, having to learn things by yourself, but presuming
that anyone worth their salt is going to be working for a big company is
disingenuous to the way I view the world.
I’m not
self-publishing a novel, if you were wondering. I don’t have the money for one
thing, I still believe it needs to be done right. I still believe that
traditional publication has its merits, and if I do go the indie route, I have
to plan for the possibility of complete failure.
But it is a path
that has been opened for me which wasn’t originally. For one thing, I’m more
confident in my design skills, and I’m not entirely sure that I want to be well
read all of the time. Something about being a really successful author scares
me. Having a book out there with some anonymity becomes a nice dream rather
than a nightmare.
Point is, don’t
knock it until you try it. Times are changing and no matter how you feel today,
you’re not sure how you’ll feel tomorrow.
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