On the Indy Front

I'm back, and also finally getting into the how of indy publishing. It's a lot more complicated and worrisome than I ever imagined. Everyone has different opinions on which is the best way to go, but facts are few and far between. I think I've gotten more info from comments left here at PBW than anywhere else, so let me thank everyone who has made recs in the past.

The cost involved with using a publishing service is a lot more than I expected. I'm often reminded of the old days of vanity print publishers, and how they used to swindle writers into paying way too much for print books that ended up sitting in boxes in their garages. My sister's father-in-law, who was a university professor, got scammed big time by those folks. Anyway, some of these service providers seem to be doing the same thing, only in electronic version.

Of course I'm cheap, too, but I was willing to invest a little fee-wise in my first title. I already have by commissioning the cover art. However, I don't think I should have to pay a thousand dollars to indy publish in e-book and print on demand. These providers tend to change their pricing and range of services whenever they like, and in most cases the fine print is pretty daunting. I am definitely not interested in giving any service a percentage of my sales, so that also eliminates most of them.

I'm back to the daunting reality that I have to figure out how to do all the publishing stuff myself. Fortunately there are authors who are sharing the wealth, like Bill Peschel, who offers a ton of indy publishing advice on his blog. For example, this post shows you how to create the best .pdf for publishing your book with CreateSpace, with step-by-step instructions along with screenshots (and when you do release that new book for career writers, Bill, you've got a sale right here.) Right now my plan is to write and indy publish a test run short story first under a new byline. That way I can screw it up without disappointing or pissing off my readers. Then, once I've got the procedure down, I'll move on to my own longer byline works. So that's where I am on the indy front.

In the meantime, for those who are interested in indy publishing via Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing, I found a simple tutorial here by author Graeme Shimmin on how to do it in (basically) three steps. Also, for those of you who are interested in designing your own covers but don't want to invest in a pricey photoshop program, Dereck Murphy's DIYBookCovers.com has a whole page of interesting free tutorials, templates and tools here that include showing you how to design cover art in MS Word.

Indy Planning

Now that I've taken the first giant step toward indy publishing by ending things with the agent I am working out a plan for the first byline title I intend to publish. I've decided that will be the third novel in my steampunk Disenchanted & Co. series, for which the working title is Her Majesty's Deathmage.

The first task is, of course, to write the novel. Since I'm working full-time as a ghost writer I will have to fit that in with my professional obligations, which at present are rather hefty. I am sending out inquiries to the people I want to work on the book production, so that I have a team in place once I'm ready to publish. For promotional purposes I'll probably resurrect the Toriana blog (although I'm not entirely decided on that yet.) Scheduling everything is also important for me, as I like to set deadlines for myself to keep the process rolling along smoothly.

While all this is going on I'll also have to take a harder look at all the indy publishing options available and decide which direction I want to take with HMD. I am grateful to all of you who have offered to help, and I will probably be asking plenty of questions in the future. That said, it's important to me to learn and be able to the majority of the grunt work myself. As always I'll pass along whatever I learn in the process that I think may be helpful to other writers taking or considering the same path.

Readers, I will keep you updated here at the blog. I know I can't write the book fast enough for some of you, but I hope you will keep in mind that I now have a day job. I must give my clients top priority (and since they pay me for the privilege, I'm sure you understand that.) I'm also likely to be a bit slower than most writers at leaping into the indy publishing waters, but this is so I can swim instead of sink the first time out. My ultimate goal is to provide you with the best possible reading experience that I can once the book does hit the shelves, so your patience will be greatly appreciated.

Indy authors, if there was one bit of advice you now would give to yourself back when you started, what would it be? Let us know in comments.

D2D

I'm seeing a lot of indy published authors recommending Draft2Digital as the way to go for formatting and distributing e-books. Here's what the site has to say about their services in a nutshell:

"Here's the deal: There are no fees for formatting or distributing your book. When you sell a book, we both make money. We keep about 10% of the retail price. We don’t try to upsell you to some expensive services package or nickel-and-dime you for making changes to your e-book. You can list your ebook at whatever price makes you happy. It’s your call. You can even offer your book for free."

I like that they have a page here that breaks down what you have to do to get your e-book rolling with them. It seems very simple and easy to do. They handle all the formatting, which in my POV is the hugest headache. They also place your e-book with what appears to be all the popular online vendors, give you an ISSN for free, generate monthly sales reports and make paperback editions available via CreateSpace (and this is one of the deal-breaker options I would have to have if I went indy; I want to see my work in print as well as electronic format.)

That they charge "about 10% of the retail price" is the only flag for me. I don't like the slight vagueness there, so if you do want to try them, be sure to get a real figure of what they "keep."

Indy Temptations

I've been getting a lot of e-mails asking about when/if I'm going to publish under my byline again. I don't have much to offer as an update. I have not been sending anything out to publishers because it just seems like a waste of time now that I've got the ghost writer gig working out so well (along with a nice, reliable income.) This past week I did reach out to my publisher for the Disenchanted & Co. novels, just to be absolute sure there was still no interest in publishing a third book, and while they wish me well there still isn't.

Ever since finding Payhip I have been thinking about indy publishing for profit -- mainly to continue series like Disenchanted & Co., for which I had three more novels planned, and would like to write at least one more. I could also finish other series that were dropped, like the Youngbloods books, or publish the stories readers wanted but NY didn't, like John's story from the Darkyn series. I also have some new works I would prefer to sell versus giving away, like the Novels of Netherfield.

Some form of low-key indy publishing is attractive to me for other reasons. Because Payhip has such a reasonable transaction fee I would be able to keep the prices reasonable. Not having to learn the ins and outs of the bookseller platforms, which have always seemed overly complicated and rather intimidating to me, is another big plus. I'd also have complete creative control over each publication which, after fifteen years of entrusting my work to others who weren't always as invested in it, would be a nice change. My sale pages would finally be protected, too. I wouldn't have to impose on friends to help me (and as it happens several have already very kindly offered to help push my stubborn ass into the new publishing reality.)

There are just as many downsides. Indy publishing under my byline would take time away from my ghost writing gigs, which are paying the bills. Next fall income is going to be a major issue for us, as our daughter is planning to go off to college in another state. I'd want a decent cover designer and an experienced editor to help me produce a professional-level product, and they're not cheap. I really don't want to impose on my friends to help me, and since I don't know how to make anything other than a .pdf on Adobe, I'd have to look into what it costs to covert files into the various formats people want to buy.* PBW still gets a respectable amount of traffic, but I think selling strictly from the blog would bring limited profit at best.

I don't know. My guy says to try indy publishing one book and see how it goes, which seems reasonable, but I'm really enjoying the ghost writing, which has done good things for my creativity and my bank account. Then my ulcer chimes in and advises me to run and hide under the bed until it all goes away, which is pretty much all the ulcer ever does. What I do know is that I don't want to go back to the stress of traditional publishing, and all I can promise you is that I am thinking about the indy alternatives more seriously than I ever have.

*I've just found a service that does this for free if you sell your books through them, and I'll have more on them later this week.

Payhip

I spotted a new indy publishing platform, Payhip, which allows authors to sell direct to their fans and followers using a link. Readers can buy using Paypal or credit cards. Evidently they charge a flat 5% fee for each sale once its made and then pay the author immediately (disclaimer: I did not read every single page on the site, so if you want to use them do check them out thoroughly.)

I don't indie publish for profit, so naturally I'm not the best judge of the service, but it looks pretty straight forward to me. According to their FAQs they ". . . support ALL file formats. Including EPUB, PDF, MOBI, AZW and many more."

Since Amazon.com and other host sites are charging a lot more than 5%, this could be a more attractive alternative to writers who simply want to sell direct from their web site or blog versus getting lost in the glut of the booksellers. I really like the idea myself -- this would be the sort of site I'd prefer to use if I ever decide to go indy. Are any of you all using Payhip, and care to comment? Let us know if you want to share.

Got Indy?

Now that the eyes, work and life in general have settled down I've been looking for some indy author titles to add to my TBR. I confess I haven't read much in the way of indy since LJ Cohen blew me away last summer with her indy YA SF Derelict so I do need to make more of an effort.

I guess the main problem is print is always my #1 format preference. I know, with all the technology involved in reading these days the paper book is going the way of the dinosaurs, but then I am, too. Print books for me are always going to be the real deal; they're easier for me to read and I just like them better. So the first thing I look for with any indy title is a print edition option. Not many authors opt for print, however, so I then have to eye the electronic alternatives. Since I don't have a working e-reader I use Adobe for .pdfs (love being able to print them out, too, hint hint) my Nook thing on the PC, or that idiot Amazon Cloud thing (don't get me started on that; I just this week finally figured out how to reopen a book on it.)

My latest indy purchase was from LJ, as she has a new indy title out: Time and Tithe, which is the sequel to The Between. Along with all the electronic incarnations she has a print edition available on Amazon, which I happily ordered and will have by Tuesday, according to the e-mail. I could complain about having to wait three years for the book, but that might jinx the sequel to Derelict so I'm keeping my mouth shut.

Having been burned more than a few times I generally don't buy indy titles from writers I don't know anymore. Sad but true; I just can't gamble on new-to-me indy authors the way I can while browsing the brick-and-mortars; there are just too many indies who are simply not writing at a professional level. I have a select few authors who are doing both traditional and indy publishing whom I trust to deliver every single time, and I'll buy anything they publish indy-wise. Some favorite authors of mine are now independently publishing backlist titles for which they've had their rights revert, and if there's something I've never read I'll grab those. I'll also occasionally buy indy titles from authors I'm watching (not in the stalkerish sense, but more to see if they overcome various rookie/early career writing problems and develop into the storytellers that I think they could be.)

Considering how many debut indy titles I have I think the bulk of my purchases are to support writers I know who have opted to fly solo out the starting gate -- like our blog pal B.E. Sanderson, who has gone indy with her first novel Dying Embers. Although B. has a print edition option I bought the Kindle format so I could use it as a test book on their stupid Cloud thing. It turned out to be my good luck charm novel, too, because with it I finally figure out how to close/go back/reopen my purchases. Which means that once I finish B.'s novel I can also read that Anne Stuart Kindle-only book I bought like two years ago and have never been able to reopen.

Are you buying more indy books these days? Got any title recs you want to share? Let us know in comments.

IngramSpark for Indies

I've had more than a few folks ask me about free publishing services for indie authors, in hopes that I had something tucked away in the No-Cost file. Unfortunately:

1. I am not an indie author, unless you count self-publishing e-books for the last thirteen years. Since they're all free I think that makes me crazy, not indie.

2. From my limited POV (and when I say limited I mean it in the comfortably-fits-in-my-favorite-thimble sense because I don't do it myself) unless you handle everything -- formatting, cover art, promotions, web site, Twitter, Facebook etc. -- indie publishing is never 100% free.

So those are the disclaimers, and I defer anything I write in this post in advance to any dissenting indie author with more experience than me, which is basically every indie author.

That said, I did a little homework and found that if you're interested in going the indie author route IngramSpark may offer the most pub for your buck as an all-in-one low-cost pub/concierge POD service:

Ingram Content Group has introduced IngramSpark, a new Publish-on-Demand platform that enables the delivery of content worldwide to readers in print and electronic formats. Powered by Lightning Source and CoreSource, Ingram’s ebook distribution platform, IngramSpark is specifically tailored to the needs of the small and independent publisher.

IngramSpark streamlines sales, account set up, content management and customer support activities into an easy-to-use, self-service platform. All you need to get started is an email address, print-ready PDFs for print titles, EPUB and JPEG for ebooks, an ISBN, and a credit card.

Here's a look at their pricing (my comments are in italics):

Account Set-Up: Free (excellent)

Title Set-Up ~ Loading, storing, and managing book, ebook files, and metadata per title.

Book and ebook -- $49.00 (submitted at the same time)
Book -- $49.00
E-book -- $25.00

(Admittedly not cheap but I think in the range of reasonable for most wallets.)

Titles are eligible for automatic free set-up with an initial order of 50+ copies. When a print order is placed for 50 copies within 60 days of title set-up, the customer will receive a $49 refund. (I would first figure out how much 50+ print copies are going to cost you before signing on for this. As in spending $1000.00 to save $49.00 is a bit silly.)

Print On Demand (Print & Ship): Printing and shipping costs will depend on your book type, volume, and shipping location.
You can print as many copies as you need (one or thousands). We have volume discounts available for large print orders. (They have a Print and Ship Calculator to help you estimate costs, too, which can be helpful.)

Global Market Access (Book & Ebook Distribution) ~ Your title(s) are automatically available for purchase to over 39,000 global retailers, and their consumers. (I would want to know upfront if Amazon, B&N and BAM are among these 39K retailers, but that's me.)

Book and Ebook Market Access -- $12.00 per title, per year (if submitted at the same time)
Book Market Access -- $12.00 per title, per year
Ebook Market Access -- $12.00 per title, per year

(Not so thrilled about this charge, as access has already been granted via the set-up charges, but a dollar a month is also reasonable for most wallets.)

Publisher Compensation:

When your books are sold through our distribution network, you are paid:
Printed (POD) Title -- Dependent upon your wholesale discount, you are paid 45% or 60% of List Price minus print costs
Ebook Title -- 40% of List and Agency Price

(And this would be when? Something you might also want to find out in advance.)

Upside: This is quite a bit cheaper than the indie publishing platform my literary agent recommended to me some time back, so I hope that means indie author services are becoming more competitive.

Downside: It's all self-service, so if you mess up something along the way you might end up with a clunker or having to repeat the entire process. I also suspect that if anything goes wrong it may take some doing to correct, so you might want to find an author who has used the service and ask them about their experience with it.

Speaking of that, does anyone out there use IngramSpark's services, and if so can you share any intel on how they perform? Or do you use another POD publisher that provides more services for less $$$? Please let us know in comments.

Another Guide

I found How to Publish Your Own E-Book by Nik Rawlinson, published by Magbook, on the tabloid shelf at my local market's checkout line, which was probably why it caught my eye. That and waiting to pay for my groceries is always a little boring, so I picked it up, flipped through it and decided to fork out a rather pricey $14.99 to take it home for further study.

The author is a UK journalist, btw, and brings that sort of no-nonsense tone to the book, which for me made it an easy read. He devotes the first twenty pages of the magazine to convincing the reader why digital self-publishing is the best option, and they're quite effective. There are a few slams against traditional publishing but it's nothing you haven't already heard. Chapter Two addresses writing your book, but only very lightly and not at all in practical terms; this is only section that I found to be basically useless. That said, this is really a book to teach you how to self-publish, not how to write.

Chapter Three is where Mr. Rawlinson earns his cover price by detailing how to create and format your e-book using Sigil, Scrivener, InDesign, QuarkXPress, and iBooks Author. He also looks at working with Kindle Format 8 and how to test Kindle and ePub documents to see how they're going to look. I haven't used any of these programs, so I can't comment on the quality of the info, but there are plenty of screenshots and instructions, and they appear to be what someone would need to get through the basic process involved with each. My only reservation is how long this info will be useful, especially as the e-publishing world continues to evolve. According to the author it has been updated to reflect changes in these programs and services through December 2012, so unless there are radical/unexpected changes ahead in the near future it might be a good reference resource for another year or two.

Chapters Four and Five, Selling Your E-book and After Publication, return to the lighter/theoretical format of earlier chapters, although they contain some solid advice. Since I'm not personally interested in going the indie publishing route, the fact that I found two resources, Sigil and E-Junkie.com., still made it worth the cover price.

I wouldn't call this a complete guide, or a must-have manual for anyone considering digital self-publication, but it contains enough info to get you started down the indie path. I couldn't find it for sale at any US online booksellers but it is available through Amazon's UK site here in Kindle format. Combine this guide with your own research and online legwork, go cautiously, and you just may be able to self-publish your own e-book, too.

Direct e-Sales

Sorry I'm so late posting today (long story), but I do want to pass on some info for those of you who want to self-publish but are not in love with the idea of signing on with Amazon, Apple etc. and handing over a chunk of your profits. Alternative services are coming onto the market now, like E-Junkie.com , which for a monthly flat fee will sell digital downloads of your books. You're paid directly and instantaneously for each purchase via services like Paypal, and you're not required to adhere to preset (and often obnoxious) formatting requirements. Do be sure to read carefully all the terms of service and the amount required per month to keep your title(s) in stock before you sign up.

While a direct sales service isn't for everyone (new-to-the-biz writers might want to first establish themselves via the online booksellers), if you have built a strong following and have a dedicated readership, this could be the way to sell via links from your website or blog and keep 100% of your profits. Authors who have a specialty title might profit more from selling direct as well; you won't get lost in the current deluge on the big bookseller sites.

With the direct sales approach you'd definitely have to be more aggressive with promotions and getting the word out, as you won't have the exposure you'd get on the big bookseller sites, so keep that in mind as well.

Indie Reads

One of my first indie author purchases for my new Nook was Free Fall by Carolyn Jewel, a novella set in her My Immortal series. I chose a novella because I wanted something shorter than a novel to test for my initial reading experience. I also happen to like the author's voice and the unusual characters in this series. The story was appropriate for a novella-length tale, and while it was a bit light on the plot side (one of the normal downsides of novellas) the characters were absorbing enough to keep me reading. I've heard the frequent gripes about how indie authors skimp on length, but at 240 pages (and there are an additional 62 pages of excerpts from some of her other works at the end) it's a solid read and to me definitely worth the $2.99 cover price.

It did take me a couple of days to read the novella; I'm still fiddling with the screen resolution and brightness, and until I find the right combination for the most comfortable reading experience I'll be reading on the Nook in short doses. Also, once you do have an e-reader I think you can go a little crazy buying e-books (after years of not being able to read so many books, it's pretty hard for me to resist a spending spree.) To keep my spending in check I decided only to buy something new once I'd finished the last e-book I bought for the Nook. This way I won't hoard stories or create a towering e-TBR.

After I finished Carolyn's novella I purchased The Sleeping Night by Barbara Samuel; mainly because I read on her blog her post on how long she struggled to get it published. Interracial romance is always a tough sell, but this one is an especially great read, and I applaud her for choosing to self-publish it. I think more readers would probably invest in it if it were a bit cheaper (I paid $10.15 for my e-copy) but I don't mind spending a little extra on an author I know for a fact is a very talented storyteller. Far as I'm concerned it's an investment in my future reading pleasure.

This novel particularly resonated with me because my first love in middle school was an island boy. Kevin and I were part of the first generation to be subjected to public school desegregation, however, and as a result our fearful parents put a swift end to that fledgling relationship. We certainly weren't together as long as the protagonists in this book, nor were we treated as badly, but even forty years after the fact I can still relate to their wretched situation.

Ten years ago Barbara's novel likely would never have been released; the author probably would have shelved the manuscript and moved on to write something she could sell to New York. Now that she has more options, she's exercising them to gain more creative control of her work while making more of it available to her readers. That she can do that while also paying her bills and making a living at writing simply provides extra insurance that she will keep writing; something we all want to see happen, yes?

I may be regarded as a traditionally-published writer, but people often forget that I started self-publishing my fiction online back in 2001. While I've always done it for purposes of promotion versus profit, I know exactly how tough it is to fly solo with the work. I've never cared about the hoopla surrounding self- versus tradish-publishing, or e- versus print-releases, which always seem to me to be fueled mainly by some personal agenda or poorly-disguised marketing campaign. None of that matters to me as a writer or a reader. As storytellers we have to make tons of choices regarding the work; how we publish is just another item on a very long list. As readers we all want great stories, and whether they're released by a publishing house or the author really doesn't factor in for most of us.

My largest problem with reading self-pubbed works has always been that 99% of them aren't released in print or aren't print-enabled. Until last month I've only read print or printed-out books for pleasure because I have to stare at a computer screen all day. Thanks to my family's birthday gift of a Nook that's now a non-issue (I also solved my inability to use a touch-screen by purchasing a Nook Stylus. Now if they'd just invent a wireless keyboard for the Nook I'd be very happy.) Having access to all those books I've not been able before to read means I'll probably be posting more about great indie reads here on the blog.

Now I'm curious -- which indie authors have you been investing in lately? Got any titles you'd recommend as great reads? Let us know in comments.

In Demand

Educational book publisher Saddleback has announced that they've partnered with On Demand Books to make their catalog titles available via On Demand's Expresso Book Machine, currently the only digital-to-print service with which customers can push a button and print, bind and trim a paperback book in under four minutes (a .pdf of the press release can be read by clicking here.)

When I read this I had one of those glimpse-of-the-future moments and imagined EBMs or something like them in every book store in the country. If all publishers made their catalogs available to print on demand in this fashion, customers could walk up, pick a title, press a button and have a new copy of any book they want in a couple minutes. It would redefine the brick and mortar store; reducing the number of physical copies they'd have to carry while making every book available (no more waiting a week for the store to get a copy from a distributor or their warehouse.)

I'd like to see the same kind of partnership evolve between On Demand and independent authors who want to sell print copies of their digitally-published works. Having these titles made available via EBMs would relieve the author of having to invest in printing and storing physical copies plus dealing with the ordering/payment/shipping headaches. It would also eliminate the portion of the profits the author currently has to pay online booksellers for selling print copies; the EBM would be a soup-to-nuts solution. We just need more EBMs now.

The eBrush

Published in the June 18, 1881 issue of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (click on image to see larger version):



Just what made Dr. Scott's Electric Hair Brush such a Marvellous Success!!? Was it producing a rapid growth of hair on bald heads, or ending nervous/bilious headaches in 5 minutes? Was it curing dandruff and diseases of the scalp, stopping premature grayness, preventing baldness and soothing the weary brain? Or was it the cordial indorsements provided by the Prince and Princess of Wales, the Rt. Hon. W.E. Gladstone, the Mayor of Saratoga, or the effusive Mr. Pliny F. Smith, who would not take $1000.00 for his eBrush if he could not replace it?

The promises in this ad, which in 1881 probably sounded absolutely believable, are rather astounding. After all the germ of all life is electricity -- says so right on the back of the handsome handle (made of a new odorless composition resembling ebony!) A combination of substances producing a permanent electro-magnetic current which acted immediately upon the hair glands and follicles sounds so important and scientific, doesn't it? And look, actual royalty indorsed it! Had to be the real deal.

Or maybe not.

I'll tell you the secret that made Dr. Scott's eBrush such a success. It was the $3.00 sent in by every hopeful bald, graying, headache-prone and dandruff-ridden person who read this ad and believed it. And when they got their brush and it didn't produce anything but a little static electricity, which is really all it was capable of producing, they still felt the tingle. That little buzz was likely just enough to keep them hurrying to the mirror every morning expecting to see a head full of long, glossy hair.

We all want something, and every now and then some eBrush-type salesman will come along and tell us how we can get it. It will be cheap, easy, and there will be plenty of VIP indorsements assuring us of how amazing it is and how beautifully it works. They make it sound so wonderful because they're compensated to do that, just as this newspaper was paid to run this ad. Trust me, if we're not the ones forking on the three bucks for this secret to Marvellous Success!!, someone else is.

I can guarantee you, the only person Dr. Scott's electric brush really worked marvels for was Dr. Scott. Same goes for every other quack out there selling similar eBrushes.

In a hundred and thirty years, someone will look back at a page from our time, and chuckle over whatever is our version of Dr. Scott's eBrush. They'll talk about how silly we were for believing in such an obvious fraud. And then some of them will slap down their hard-earned credits for something that preys on their hopes, and feeds on their dreams. Because just as if anything sounds too good to be true it usually is, there will always be people just desperate or hopeful enough to believe it's true anyway.

Keep your eyes open, your brains working and check the facts thoroughly before you buy into anything anyone tells you. And please don't base your decisions on what the Dr. Scotts out there are telling you; judge things for yourself.



Okay, not like this.

E- to Print

I came across this interesting bit of promo on an endcap when I was out shopping at the brick-and-mortar B&N:



I wondered why the flyer was made of cardstock-weight paper, and then saw the preforation line. The end of the flyer can be torn off to use as a bookmark (with helpful bullet reminders of the release dates for each installment.) To tempt buyers who have already read the e-book versions, which I assume were the self-published works that made the author a sensation, there's also the promise of "all-new bonus stories" in each volume.

This is one of those odd marketing experiments in Publishing that I like to observe. I think in certain ways the publisher and the author are thinking outside the box, and it should be interesting to see what happens on the shelf. This could even turn out to be a unique alternative to the traditional submissions process: self-pub first, start earning income, and once you've racked up enough numbers to prove you're marketable use them to negotiate a print contract.

Also, for those of you with a BAM in your area, this week calendars and planners are 50% off; and I think they'll be even cheaper after the new year. I went ahead and got my 2012 fix:

Promo No-No Ten

Ten Things You Shouldn't Do to Promote Your Self-Published e-Book
(The PBW Edition)

Ask me to review it: The answer is no. This does not mean I hate you, or that I'm a print-published snot, or I'm part of a legacy publishing conspiracy to squelch your genius and/or kill the sales you were stealing from us before you cause our antiquated system to collapse into some tar pit where we'll bellow pathetically as we slowly drown. The answer is no because I'm a writer, not a reviewer.

Bribe me: Unless it's five million tax-free dollars, don't even bother.

Convince my mother to get me to read/endorse/promote/blurb it: It never works. My mother is a nice lady who will say yes, take your CD, and put it in a safe place at home. After that it will stay there for all eternity, because in a day or two she will forget you, what she agreed to do, your e-book and where the safe place is.

Describe your personal problems and explain how my purchase is going to solve them: Call me a pessimist, but I honestly don't think my three bucks will get you through that nasty divorce, stop the foreclosure on your house, pay for that gastric bypass surgery or get you back into rehab.

Disguise your promo with unsolicited advice on how much money I could be making by self-publishing: Yeah, that's totally going to dupe me.

E-mail me an unsolicited free copy: Oddly enough, this is not going to tempt me into reading or reviewing it. This is going to make me delete your e-mail and divert any future e-mail that comes from you right to the SPAM folder.

Offer reciprocal pimping: I don't sell my self-pubbed stuff, sorry. It's insane, I know.

Patronize me: While I acknowledge the weighty depth of publishing experience bestowed on you during that unbelievably stressful fifteen minutes you spent uploading your first novel to Amazon.com, you just might want to rethink this strategy, grasshopper.

Send me a discount coupon code: Use some logic here. If I wouldn't take a free copy, why would you think offering me a dollar off the cover price would be the temptation I could not resist?

Warn me that I'm missing out on the best book of the year: Sorry, I've already read that one. Alas, you didn't write it.

Self-Pub Ten

Writer Excuses for the Digital Self-Publishing Age
(Or, I can't write because . . .)

Amazon.com paired my book with the diary of a dominatrix who uses the exact same pen name, and now all I get are IMs from guys in diapers who want me to cyberspank them.

I'm too busy promoting my novel on Twitter and Facebook to finish writing it.

Mommy says I can't publish my book until I eat all my vegetables and put away my toys.

My artist says the cover I want is anatomically possible only if she depicts all my characters as squid.

My formatting software got corrupted and now whenever I try to upload a manuscript to Smashwords my disk drive rewrites itself.

My freelance editor refuses to believe that English is my native language.

Pubit! claims the book I wrote about my ex is illegal, libelous, infringing, offensive, harmful, threatening, harassing, legally obscene, defamatory, and intentionally hateful.

Someone posted a 3-star review that utterly ruined my perfect 5-star rating. Was probably my ex, the bastard.

The rights for my next novel haven't reverted back to me yet.

Whenever I enter the ISBN I made up for my last self-pubbed book to check my sales ranking, NORAD automatically goes to Defcon 2.

Co-op Shop

Setting up a shop to sell only copies of your own books sounds like the ultimate expression of authorial ego, but in reality authors have been doing it online for ages. To open a brick-and-mortar version, as NASA dude Andrew Kessler has for his book, is an interesting marketing gimmick, but from what the article says the shop is only temporary.

I've often considered opening a small independent book store. I've worked as a bookseller, a book store manager and I've run several other businesses, so I've got the experience. I know exactly how I'd set it up and what elements and services could give me a decent shot at making it a success. Book stores are my #1 favorite place to shop, and I loved my time working as a bookseller, so being an owner wouldn't be a hardship. I'd probably get speeding tickets going to work every morning.

I've always stopped at thinking about it, though; I know I'd be extremely selective about the titles I stocked and what I chose to handsell. I'd also be a snob about features; big names and their cookie cutter bestsellers would go to the back of the store while great reads by little-knowns would get all the terrific real estate in the front. No coffee shop, no cold cases of two-day-old danish, and no laptops allowed. Instead I'd have nightly social readings (something like bring your own snacks, I'll brew the tea.) Free bedtime stories for kids. Book picnics in the park. Weekend retreats at the lake for readers and writers.

I would have such a great time with my own book store. Why aren't I doing this again?

Ah, I remember now. Opening and sustaining a new business also requires a pile of money, unwavering committment and devotion of 100% of one's time, and even then there are no guarantees it will survive more than a year after the doors open. That has to be the worst kind of heart break, too; watching a business you love and worked so hard to build go under. Then there is my work, which is not going to simply go poof while I run a business. While I love books, I know my real passion is to write them.

There is an interesting alternative to setting up your own brick-and-mortar book shop, however, as our blogpals Charlene Teglia, Alison Kent, Sasha White and some of their friends have done by joining forces to create Walk on the Wild Side Books. To quote Charlene: "It's not a publisher, it's a publishing hub for our independently published titles." I think this is a great way for writers who work in a specific genre or have crossover readerships to showcase their self-published titles, and by forming a co-op they can also help each other (and to read more about the evolution of the site, go here.)

If you were going to set up a book store (virtual or brick-and-mortar), what would you stock on your shelves?

Self-Publishing 911

Operator: Self-Publishing 911, what's your emergency?

Author: My new novel isn't selling. I'm sure sales will pick up next month; that's why I quit my day job. But right now, well . . . the utility company just shut off my power and I can't cook my Ramen noodles.

Operator: How many copies of your novel have you sold, ma'am?

Author: At least two or three thousand by now. Amazon just hasn't posted them yet.

Operator: Ma'am, how many sales have been posted?

Author: Two. I know what you're thinking, but my mother only bought one of them.

Operator: Call your old boss, ma'am, and see if you can get your day job back. (switches lines) Self-Publishing 911, what's your emergency?

Writer: I want to self-publish but I'm afraid I'll fail and then that will be the last straw and I'll kill myself. Could you tell me what to do?

Operator: Don't kill yourself, sir.

Writer: I mean about self-publishing. Should I do it? Or should I keep enduring the rejections?

Operator: Sir, what's the title of your novel?

Writer: "All the Stories I Couldn't Sell to New York."

Operator: You need a new title, sir.

Writer: What? I can't change my title. It's the first book in a sixteen-part series.

Operator: What about titling it "All the Stories I Wouldn't Sell to New York."

Writer: Hmmmm. That's not half-bad. A little clunky, but I could work with it.

Operator: Glad I could help, sir. (switches lines) Self-Publishing 911, what's your emergency?

Reviewer: I don't want to review self-published books. They're all nothing but crap.

Operator: (sighs) Then you should review traditionally published novels only, ma'am.

Reviewer: I'm not getting any ARCs to review. The publishers aren't printing them anymore, can you believe that? What am I going to sell on eBay now?

Operator: (checking eBay Pulse page) Fake Coach handbags are trending. (switches lines) Self-Publishing 911, what's your emergency?

Writer: Okay, I'm ready to change my title. What do you think of "All the Stories New York Was Too Stupid to Buy"?

Operator: I think you need another title, sir. (switches lines) Self-Publishing 911, what's your emergency?

Editor: I've been an editor at a major publishing house for seventeen years, and without any warning at all they gave me a pink slip today. They said they don't have enough titles to justify my position anymore. No one else is hiring. What am I going to do?

Operator: Ma'am, you could self-publish a memoir about being an editor.

Editor: What? Become an author? I'd rather eat dirt.

Operator: Well, self-published authors are hiring freelance editors now, ma'am.

Editor: Does that pay anything decent?

Operator: Let me redirect your call to a Freelancer Specialist. Please hold. (transfers call, switches lines) Self-Publishing 911, what's your emergency?

Author: This awful book reviewer won't review my self-published novel. She says they're all crap and only wants printed ARCs from real publishers. So how am I going to get anyone to hear about my book?

Operator: (props head against hand) Have you created fake accounts and written any five-star reviews on Amazon.com for your novel, ma'am?

Author: I post a new one every day. How did you know?

Operator: It's my job, ma'am. Now, using the fake accounts you've created, go onto Amazon.com's discussion boards, pretend to be readers who loved your book, and gush about how good it is.

Author: Wow. That's a great idea. Thank you so much!

Operator: You're welcome, ma'am. (switches lines) Self-Publishing 911, what's your emergency?

Author: My agent has been shopping around my zombie novel for twelve months with no luck. I want the prestige of being in print, but I could publish it myself tonight in twelve minutes and start making money right away.

Operator: Which do you want more, sir? The prestige or the money?

Author: Why can't I have both?

Operator: Sir, you're not Amanda Hocking.

Author: That's not an answer.

Operator: I know. Good luck, sir. (switches lines) Self-Publishing 911, what's your emergency?

Writer: Okay, I changed my title to what you said and uploaded it to Amazon.com, but it's been three minutes and it's not selling. I'm going to kill myself.

Operator: Don't kill yourself, sir. (takes a deep breath) Have you tried offering a discount coupon on your blog?

Taking the Leap

I don't often get sucked into industry dramas, but lately all this "make or don't make millions by self-publishing" hoopla has provided me with a lot of free entertainment (which is also why John and Marcia came out of retirement last week.)

After you've worked in the biz for a while you can almost predict these things, especially when the herd and the possibility of making money is involved. They seem to occur at roughly two-year intervals. Give it enough time and it will even loop back right to where it started, as it has in romance:

1999: Why go through the submission process? Print is dead. Self-publish romance e-books, become an author and make millions.

2001: Romance e-books are dead. Write romantic suspense, become an author and make millions.

2003: Romantic suspense is dead. Write romantica e-books, become an author and make millions.

2005: Romantica e-books are dead. Write vampire brotherhood romances, become an author and make millions.

2007: Vampire brotherhood romances are dead. Write romantic mashups, become an author and make millions.

2009: Romantic mashups are dead. Write angel and demon romances, become an author and make millions.

2011: Angel and demon romances are dead. And hey, why go through the submission process? Self-publish on [online self-publishing entity], become an author and make millions.

Any time someone in Publishing says you can make millions doing something, a portion the herd will run toward it. It's the nature of the game as well as the herd. Now, when you tell the herd that they can make millions and avoid the submission process and publish whatever they want while it seems to cost them nothing, it's almost a given that there will be a general stampede in that direction.

It's not all bad, of course. Many of my writer friends, some who have been out of work, are now self-pubbing for profit and putting out some great books. NetPubLand seems to find a new self-pubbed author with fantastic sales every day, and I'm always happy to see a fellow writer earn a nice income. Authors also finally seem to have some real control over their work as well as the lion's share of the profits, which could even be viewed as a kind of poetic justice.

It all seems so wonderful, too, doesn't it? Big numbers. Money rolling in. Artistic freedom. Destiny control, at last! It almost sounds like a Publishing Renaissance. Which to me is usually the first sign I'm about to be fleeced.

The time, though, it seems that there really are pots of money to be made. A self-publishing service has made me a very generous offer, so generous in fact that I really can't refuse. This is why I have notified my agent that I'm firing her, and canceling the rest of my contracts with traditional publishers.

I can also give you an exclusive look at the first three books I'll be self-publishing in my Publishing: The Ugly Truth series:



In addition to all the stats about self-publishing, I will be revealing what I've learned over the last thirteen years about the non-writers involved in traditional publishing, including all the dirt I've been told by my editor friends about other editors. This includes all the drinking, lying, cheating, trashing, bad-mouthing, sabotaging and of course my personal favorite, the bloopers section (aka What Happens at the Conference Doesn't Always Stay at the Conference, with Photos!)



I am supportive of my writer friends, and they've always said they'd like to return the favor. I think it's high time they did, so I am spilling the beans -- all fourteen years of them. If you are a writer friend of mine and would like me to omit anything specific that I know about you, how you really feel about your colleagues, the number of cosmetic surgeries you've had, your much younger lovers or that tattoo you got of Donald Maass you know where, feel free to e-mail me and we'll talk about how much that's worth to you.

And finally, the third and most important volume in my Ugly Truth series, which will explain what really motivated me to take this leap. You do need to see this one full-sized, though, to truly appreciate what I'm trying to do, so click here.

Contractions

"Ms. Lesharpe?" Jenny, the editorial assistant Mercedes had inherited along with her too-small, hopefully very temporary office, yawned over the intercom. "Your eight a.m. is here."

Merce punched the reply button. "Please pickup the handset, Jennifer." As soon as she heard her assistant's asthmatic breathing in her ear, she said, "We don't refer to anyone I am seeing by appointment times."

"We don't? But Ms. Hartlace--"

"--is now working for Wiley and Tight House," she reminded her. "Where, if she chooses, she may call people by their pornstar names. In my office, however, we use proper names."

"Okay." Jenny sounded glum. "Mr. John and Ms. Marcia are here to see you."

Merce gritted her teeth. "Mr. John and Miss Marcia who?"

"You said not to call them your eight a.m."

"I meant, what are their surnames?" After a long silence, she asked, "Their last names?"

"Gee, I don't know," the assistant admitted. "I don't think they have any. Come to think of it, neither do I."

"We don't mind being referred to by our appointment time," a pleasant male voice called out over the speaker.

Merce propped her forehead against her hand. "Jennifer, the next time I request you pick up the handset, please remember to also turn off the speaker."

"Oh, sure." Chewing gum popped. "I'll write that down."

"Excellent." The assistant would definitely have to go back to reception, by the end of the week at the latest. "Now please send in our guests."

"Who? Oh, you mean them. Okay."

Merce straightened the lapels of her jacket, slid her hands together to check their temperature and humidity, and then resisted the urge to fiddle with the perfection of her chignon as the door to her office opened and her eight a.m. came in.

The hero, Merce saw at once, was far too tall, dark, and handsome. As for the heroine, she looked like a brunette-wigged Heidi Montag before all the surgeries. "Good morning. I'm the new senior editor, Mercedes Lesharpe. Do call me Merce."

"I'm John," TTD&H said, striding over to reach across the immaculate desk and seize her hand. He had a grip like a shoe junkie at a DSW 80% off sale. "It's such a pleasure to meet you." He released her bruised fingers and slipped his arm around PreSurgery Heidi's thick waist. "This is my darling Marcia." He patted the bulging elastic panel on the front of her skirt. "And of course our little devil, who won't be making an appearance until our next novel, Demon's Redemption."

"A sequel." No one had mentioned this. "How delightful. Congratulations to you both." Merce imagined heads rolling down the aisles in Acquisitions. "Please, sit down."

Once everyone had settled, Merce put on her sympathetic-but-brisk face. "I appreciate you making time in your busy schedules to see me. I'm also sorry we had to meet here, but the board is still shifting personnel, and it will be a few weeks before I have my office." She removed a folder from a drawer, and pretended not to see the empty Skittles wrapper that came out with it. It fell on top of her right stiletto, which she quickly shook and shifted to cover it. "Although I have yet to assign a new editor to your novel, I want you to know that Ms. Hartlace was extremely fond of your novel, and deeply regretted leaving your author in the middle of production."

"Really?" Marcia appeared bewildered. "Her last e-mail said she couldn't wait to get out of here. After she called me a stupid bimbo who needed to grow a brain."

"No, honey," John told her. "It was before she described blowing chunks over our manuscript so often she had to be treated for bulimia." He thought for a minute. "Or maybe it was after she said she now believes there is a hell, thanks to us."

Merce cleared her throat. "Nevertheless. I will do my best to find the right editor to step in and fill the enormous shoes left behind by Ms. Hartlace."

"Size eleven and a half extra wide," Marcia said.

Merce blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Agatha had feet like a rodeo clown." John's expression grew fond. "She always smelled deliciously of powdered sugar and Jack Daniels, too. God, I miss her already."

"Yes. Well." Merce decided the faster she could end this meeting, the sooner she could start in on the thermos of Irish coffee she'd brought from home. She opened the folder. "I do have a few questions about your story." She nodded at Marcia. "You are currently pregnant, obviously, but when I read the manuscript for Angel's Darkness I never found a wedding scene. Did your author at some point hold the ceremony off-stage?"

"We didn't get married," John said. "Marcia wanted to at first, naturally, but her being half-angel and me being half-demon, well . . . it would create a catastrophe."

"What kind of catastrophe?"

"Um, the apocalyptic kind." Marcia made a face. "We discover it when I find that unholy book in the very back of the library, you know, and read the prophetic passage that details the destruction of all life in the universe, the sundering of Heaven, the end of time itself, yada yada yada. Should John and I ever tie the knot, all that kind of happens. Like immediately." She thought for a moment. "Middle of Chapter Seventeen, I think."

"Right after we do it on top of the coin-operated copy machine," John put in.

Merce sighed. "Chapter Seventeen will have to be tweaked, then. The unholy book can be deleted, and that will take care of this apocalyptic prophecy. I also don't care for sex atop public-access equipment, so we'll cut that as well. You" --she looked at John-- "may use the resulting space to propose marriage. And you" --she turned to Marcia-- "will blushingly accept with all your heart."

"I don't have a ring," John said. "Or a heart. I'm half-demon, remember? Totally different physiology."

Marcia looked stricken. "We liked having sex on top of the copy machine. The slidey part made it fun." She touched her stomach. "It's how our little angel was conceived."

"Is your mother Sarah Palin?" Merce asked sweetly. "No? Then this unplanned pregnancy is not happening. I also want you two to date in the story for several months -- eight or nine should do -- before you jointly decide to commit to a physical relationship. This should happen a week or two after John proposes. We want your author to send the right message to our readers, don't we?"

The couple simply stared at her.

"Good. Now, a few more things."

Merce went through her notes, briefly outlining the two hundred and seventy-nine other tweaks she needed their author to make. Neither John or Marcia made any more protests, and by the time Merce reached the last item she felt comfortable enough to break out her thermos and pour herself a healthy measure into her company mug.

"The final change I want made is this green wallpaper." She took a sip from the mug. "We want to offer readers attractive modern settings with the sort of interiors they dream of for their own homes. Your author can paint this room instead; since it belongs to you, John, I think soft but still masculine adobe colors with some texturizing would be--"

"No!" Marcia jumped to her feet. "You can't take away our wallpaper! I know it's a hideous green, but it's our hideous green, don't you see that?"

"I'm sorry you feel that way." Merce closed the folder. "But the wallpaper is fictitious."

"Like our wild monkey sex, our huge plot twist, our unborn half-human quarter-angel quarter-demon baby?" John countered. "They may not mean anything to you, but they're our whole world."

"Which is also fictitious," Merce said sweetly. "I'll have your new editor explain it to your author once I order, I mean, assign one to her."

"We do have other publishing options now, you know." When she didn't respond, he stood up. "All right. I don't think our author will be working with any of your editors on this novel."

"I'm sorry you feel that way." Merce knew her smile wasn't as pained as it should have been, but she was enjoying this too much. "The terms of your contract, however, are quite clear. As senior editor I do have the final say over content, and with the exclusive rights clause your author agreed to, she can't sell any paranormal novel to anyone else without my approval."

"Wrong." John produced a roll of papers from his jacket and tossed them onto the desk. "Our contract. Check the next to last page."

Merce scowled as she unrolled the pages, flipping to the end. "These are the usual agency riders. There's nothing here that forces us . . . " she paused as her gaze drifted to the bottom of the page. "Where is the author's signature?"

"Temperance hasn't signed it yet." John plucked it from her hands and dropped it in the trash can next to her desk. "Come on, darling," he said to Marcia. "We'll go and talk to that nice man from B&N.com who promised us seventy-five percent."

Merce shot to her feet. "You'll never get the kind of distribution we can give you," she called after them. "Or a print edition. Or any editing at all."

"Sounds good to me." John shot her the bird behind Marcia's back before the couple exited and the door slammed shut.

Merce sank back down into her chair. "Ingrates," she muttered as she emptied the rest of her thermos into her mug. "I can sign five authors -- better authors -- to take the place of yours before lunch." She chugged down more coffee and then yelled, "And they'll write without an advance for six percent, do you hear me? Six percent and not a penny more!" The intercom buzzed, and she punched the button. "What now?"

"The Dreamworks studio rep is holding on line two," Jennifer said meekly. "He wants to talk to you about acquiring the film rights for Angel's Darkness and Demon's Redemption. Evidently Mr. Spielberg loves the storyline. He also wants to inquire about us collaborating with them on enhanced content for the e-book editions."

"Get his number and tell him I'll call him back." Merce spilled the rest of her coffee down the front of her blouse, slipped on the Skittles wrapper, and slammed her hip into the corner of her desk, but the sodden material, broken stiletto and shooting pain didn't slow her pace. She skidded to a halt by Jennifer's desk. "Which way are the elevators?" She waited for the girl to point, and then raced out in that direction.

Jennifer waited until the editor disappeared around the corner before she got up, went down the hall in the opposite direction and knocked on the door to the private conference room. "Hey, you were right, she actually broke a shoe. Now what do I tell her when she comes back and asks for the rep's number?"

"Say he preferred to call her later," John suggested in a slightly muffled voice. "When Spielberg can do a conference call with them."

"John." Something inside the room got slapped. "That's too mean."

Something inside the room got kissed. "So was tweaking our baby out of existence."

"So is your author really going to self-publish, or was that just part of the gag?" Jennifer heard a yowling sound, and peeked inside. Seeing what John was doing to Marcia on the conference table made her giggle. "Gee, Ms. Hartlace was right. You guys really are like bunnies."

(for Darlene and all the other John & Marcia fans out there)

Twenty Years, Twenty Minutes

Let's take a trip in the KindaWayBack machine to 1989, to when most of the world had yet to discover cyberspace. I started writing in 1974, but I didn't really get serious about pursuing publication until '89.

Back then it was a very different world for writers. Imagine: no internet, no e-mail, no social media, no cell phones, no Twitter or Facebook, no nothing for the writer but the writing and us all alone by ourselves.

I've talked to other writers of my generation, and we all went through pretty much the same thing. We wrote all the time, endlessly, wildly, often shivering with the delight of it because we were so close to it. None of us were perfect, either. We fumbled, we ran out of steam, we crashed, we burned, we resurrected ourselves only to do it all over again. We wrote clunkers and stinkers and failures. We began piling them up along with legal pads filled with even more ideas and story fragments and mini-rants.

After the work stopped sucking quite so much, we decided we were good enough and dared to write up a submission. This we typed on a typewriter with a correcting ribbon, because no matter how thinly we applied it liquid paper (aka white-out) could never look anything but globby. Also, sometimes the ink from the typos would bleed through and leave a little dark ghost of what we never meant to say behind the correct words.

I'll tell you a secret: sometimes I still miss the smell of metal, ink ribbon and white-out. It was our writing perfume.

Anyway, twenty-seven or forty-nine drafts and at least one typewriter ribbon later, we mailed off our submission in an unpadded envelope with rows of stamps we had to lick to make them stick. A week later we went to the mailbox with all our expectations, which were naturally dashed when no response appeared among the bills and junk mail. A month later we started waiting at the box for the postman to arrive. Three months later we suspected the postman had delivered it to the wrong address and went around asking the neighbors if they'd gotten it by mistake.

Six months later we got a thin white business envelope with vertical creases on it from the publisher we'd submitted to. We knew this because it was the SASE we'd sent along with the submission, on which we had neatly written our own address in ink. We put it on the kitchen table and stared at it for at least an hour, afraid to open it for fear it would actually kill us.

When we finally tore into it, the outpouring of praise and admiration we expected was actually a one-page form rejection. Thank you for your blah, it's not for us, good luck yada yada. Sometimes it was even signed. We carefully enshrined that first rejection somewhere so nothing would happen to it (and also so we didn't have to look at it) and then dragged ourselves back to the keyboard. By that night we convinced ourselves of a thousand reasons (all mistaken) for the rejection, and made up the next submission.

Now read the previous paragraph again. Read it ten times, fifty times, a thousand times. We didn't spend a year or two doing that every week. We spent five years, or eight, or ten, until our shrine/hiding place began to overflow with rejections. We shrugged them off in public and wept over them in private. We drove ourselves mad with wondering: What was wrong with these editors? Didn't they read that amazing opening line, the one we spent two years thinking up? And what about the rest? Nobody was doing anything like us. Was that it? Were we too different?

And on and on and on.

The only thing we ever figured out for sure was that no one was going to answer our questions. Ever. We had to find the answers by ourselves.

As the years passed we still wrote endlessly, but the wildness and delight subsided and became a more deliberate, focused quest. We looked at everything in our bag of writing tricks and started sifting and sorting through them. We weeded out what seemed wrong and kept what felt right. We studied how-to books for writers and subscribed to writing magazines (the sum total of available information for poor writers back then.) The more our submissions were rejected, the more determined we became. We would write the book that would sell, by God, or die trying.

New and interesting torture came in the form of editors who would write to request a full manuscript only to reject it three, four, five months later. We began to loathe the words Not what we're looking for and I just didn't love the story. Sometimes -- more often than you imagine -- the responses were personal, and nasty. We stood at the mailbox and imagined socking the postman right in the nose the next time he gave us a sympathetic look. No, what we really wanted to do was call those editors and demand to know what, exactly, they were looking for, and why the hell their love had anything to do with it.

As for the editors who got nasty, we indulged in vengeful thoughts as a kind of anger management self-therapy. We saved all the really inappropriate responses in a special file marked with something like "Send copy of first book" along with more scribbled, rehearsed lines for when we signed it for them: Too bad you passed on this one. Thanks for sending me to a way better publisher. Hey, nitwit -- looks like you were wrong. We prayed our first book would go platinum overnight, not so we'd make a ton of money, but just so we could also include a copy of the Times bestseller list in the nah-nah-nah-nah-nah packages we'd send to every pinheaded editor who'd stomped on, spit at or sneered over our work.

Then something actually happened; usually when we'd hit a really low point, and were thinking about throwing in the towel, admitting defeat, and finally putting an end to the torture. Another envelope with a single page arrived, but this one wasn't a form bounce, or the lukewarm invite for more humiliation.

No, this one was serious. Bizarre, too, for it offered praise mixed in with all the nitpicking. It asked if we were willing to make some changes. It gave us a phone number to call, and a name to ask for, and when we called it, we found ourselves stammering like an idiot and agreeing to everything the editor said because oh dear God the last thing we were going to do was piss off the one person who could make all our dreams come true.

We made the requested changes, and more changes after that, and more changes after that, always frantically cheerful and ridiculously willing. Of course we would change anything, anything at all, because obviously this editor was the smartest one on Earth. It didn't matter how many times we had to redo this or rewrite that, we had his/her attention. Attention meant they liked us. They wanted us. If we did everything right, they would be very pleased and request approval to purchase us.

The final phone call came, and at last the editor uttered the words we had been waiting to hear, praying to hear, working our ass off to hear: "We'd like to make an offer." Once we finished silently shrieking, we dislodged our heart from our tonsils and offered joyous yet still humble thanks. We would not let the editor down no matter what. Then (if we were stupid) we agreed to accept an offer for a manuscript we had been working on for three or four years, an offer that was equal to the pay a worker at McDonald's earned in ninety days, and a month later signed a contract that deprived us of most of our rights as an author. If we were smart, we promised to call back as soon as possible and started (hysterically) looking for an agent to represent us.

Either way, from there we turned pro. The euphoria of selling the first book did give us temporary amnesia, so (fortunately) most of us didn't mail out those F-Y packages to all those cruel editors. If we were lucky, we survived our rookie year. If we were very lucky, we got through everything else Publishing throws at a writer. If we were very very very lucky, we even sold a lot of books.

And then came the internet, and everything began to change.

Today -- right at this very minute -- there is a writer out there who has just received (electronically) their very first rejection. Tonight that same writer will format their rejected manuscript into an e-book, upload it via digital self-publishing to an online bookseller and begin selling it immediately.

Just like that. No muss, no fuss, no heartbreak, no torture, no problem. From there the writer will move on to penning their next work, untroubled by the depression, anger and self-doubt inflicted by the harshness of a lengthy traditional submission process. They need not analyze, improve or even compromise. They might even get lucky and sell a lot of books.

When a writer can do in twenty minutes what it took me and other writers who came up before the internet so many years to accomplish, I'm thinking it has to be better. More tempting, too. How could anyone resist something so easy and painless as self-publishing just to put themselves through the innumerable levels of hell that is (even with the internet) still the traditional submission process? Believe me, I totally get why so many writers are abandoning the still-dismal chances of publishing with a major house in the rush to self-publish for profit. If I was part of this generation, I probably would have, too.

Am I sorry I'm not? Nope.

Don't get me wrong, it's not because my twenty years of slogging my way toward publication makes me superior to someone who does the same in twenty minutes. Technology marches on, and even though the Publishing industry has had to be mostly dragged kicking and screaming along with it, things do have to change. If they didn't, we'd still be writing novels in longhand with quills on parchment and vellum (and just imagine what those writers would think of my speedy little manual typewriter.) Also, plenty of writers are still doing things the old-fashioned way, mailing off hard copy submissions to publishers and waiting months if not years for responses. I don't think that will ever go away.

But for all the speed and ease and no-hassle perks that today's technology offers for writers pursuing publication, I feel like something is still missing. I think it's time. For all the hell I went through, I also got a huge amount of time along with it to find out who I am as a writer.

I had -- literally -- two decades to practice and think about the work, and study it, and develop it, and try things and discard things. During the last ten years, I had all the time I needed to develop theories and work habits, look and find ways to improve my productivity, and teach myself how to be a working writer. Every day I did this; I thought about it, I was obsessed with it. Before I published one word I had like seven or eight different major shifts in what I wrote, too, the same way a painter goes through a blue period or decides to change mediums.

If you ever wonder why I never run out of stuff to talk about writing, it's probably because I spent all those years alone thinking about it.

The solitude, waiting and wondering what would happen, yeah, was not so great, but because I am self-taught I definitely needed the time to grow and mature as a writer. I didn't simply find out what I could do, I had the time to understand it and get it under control and channel it and learn to live with it. It's all the things that have nothing at all to do with Publishing and everything to do with who you are as a writer. I don't know, maybe today's writers can figure all that out in twenty minutes, too.

I am all about speed and efficiency, and I think being able to publish almost instantly is an amazing thing (another reason I've been playing with self-publishing as promotion for ten years -- it's quick and easy.) This is the first time since I turned pro that I feel some optimism for the future of Publishing, too. But as a member of the old typewriter and snail-mail generation, I hope self-publishing and technology doesn't eliminate the entire journey of self-discovery. As arduous and heartbreaking as it can be, I don't think it's a trip any writer should take in twenty minutes or less.