The Artful Self-Publisher

Summer Sabbatical

2008-04-30T17:02:00.000-07:00

I'm taking a break from The Artful Self-Publisher this summer to focus on promoting Ghost Notes and Songs from Memory, and to figure out where this blog goes from here.

If you're new to self-publishing, here you'll find a wealth of information about subsidy publishing, printing methods, manuscript preparation, and everything else to get your project going. Scroll to the "Blog by Label" section and pick your category.

If you'd like to follow my trajectory this summer, keep an eye on my other blog, which is called Layin' Down the Law.

Thanks and happy publishing!

Art

POD Self Publishing II-Disadvantages

2008-04-04T06:49:00.001-07:00

The drawbacks of POD self-publishing are similar to the drawbacks of POD subsidy publishing, with one important difference.

First, you are limited to certain sizes and styles for your book, just like you would be if you went with a subsidy POD company. In the end, your book will look like a POD book, which is probably a notch below the best the publishing world has to offer.

Secondly, just like offset printing, you, the publisher, will be responsible for getting an ISBN. This is one step Lightning Source will not handle for you, so be ready to pony up $270.

Finally, although Lightning Source will do returnables for you, it comes with a fee. Depending upon your situation, you may still choose to work with those traditional bookstores on your own, just like if you’d gone with an offset press.

Art

POD Self Publishing I-Advantages

2008-04-04T06:47:00.000-07:00

Up until a few years ago, authors had to choose between either a subsidy publisher (POD or otherwise), or pay the big bucks up front for an offset press to print their books. There has since emerged a new middle ground, which is being called POD self-publishing.

As it turns out, most POD subsidy companies go to one source to manufacture and distribute their product, a company called Lightning Source. If you sign on to a subsidy POD company, they outsource your book to Lightning Source, who essentially do all of the work, get your book into its digital form, get your book set up at important wholesalers, handle fulfillment, etc.

Here's the funny thing: anyone can do business directly with Lightning Source. You don't have to be iUniverse or the like to work with them. In other words, your fee to a subsidy POD publisher is essentially a fee for them to transfer most of the work to Lightning Source. If you work directly with Lightning Source (or some other POD printer; I'm sure there are others), you're skipping the middleman. Many are taking this step and keeping more of the profit for themselves.

The advantages of this route are at least threefold. First, as mentioned above, you keep more of the money; no cut goes to the subsidy company. Not only is it the least expensive of the three options on the front end (Lightning Source has very agreeable start-up fees), your cut per book is significantly more when you sell books, often twice as much, depending upon how you set up your pricing. (Pricing details are all up to you with Lightning Source.)

Secondly, Lightning Source will set up your book at the same important retailers and wholesalers that a subsidy company would. This isn’t offset press, where the printer prints your book and you do all of the dirty work. Lightning Source does distribution for all of its subsidy presses, and they’ll do it for you, too.

Thirdly, Lightning Source has a few different options for making your book returnable, which might make it more attractive to brick-and-mortar stores. (Again, this is a detail that's entirely up to you.)

Finally, it’s POD, so you don’t have to worry about book storage.

In these ways, self-publishing POD with Lightning Source is emerging as the best of both worlds, with the simplicity and convenience of subsidy POD publishing but with the possibility of greater freedom and profits, like traditional self-publishing.

Next week, disadvantages to POD self-publishing.

Art

POD Subsidy Publishing II-Disadvantages

2008-04-04T06:43:00.000-07:00

There are disadvantages to going with a subsidy publisher. First of all, the author has limited control over what her product will look like. Do you want a matte finish to your cover? How about a specific type of paper? Does your book on 9/11 have to be nine inches by 11 inches to further convey your theme? Unfortunately, none of these is a possibility with POD publishing. You’ll have to go with an offset printer, and pay a lot up front for it.

Secondly, the vast majority of programs at subsidy publishers do not offer returnables, which means traditional brick-and-mortar bookstores won’t be able to return the book to the subsidy publisher for a full refund, which means they’re likely to ignore your title. When an author is published by a subsidy publisher, any dealings the author has with traditional brick-and-mortar bookstores almost always come directly from the author’s personal stock of books, and likely at very little profit.

Finally, with subsidy publishing, your overall cost per book is the most of any self-publishing option. Sure, with subsidy publishing, you can have your book published and up quickly at amazon.com, but at your likely royalty rate, you’re going to pay the most possible per book, which cuts directly into your profit. In other words, if you’re lucky enough to sell 1,000 copies of your subsidy published book, you probably would have been better off going with an offset printer.

Examine your market and likely sales potential before assuming subsidy POD publishing is the right choice for you.

Subsidy Publishing POD I-Advantages

2008-04-04T06:31:00.000-07:00

There are many subsidy publishers who use print-on-demand technology, and probably many more by the time you finish reading this sentence. This part of the writing industry is growing quickly--exponentially, in fact--and you should explore your many options.

Many subsidy publishers offer a service and charge a fair price for it. Others charge more than what’s fair. A few are scam mills and should be avoided. The key to having one work for you is understanding what you need from your subsidy publisher and paying only for that. It can be a happy, healthy business relationship, but not if you don’t know what you’re doing, or why you’re doing it. Check ten subsidy publishers before deciding on one.

Going with a POD subsidy publisher has its advantages. First of all, it’s far less expensive to get up and running with a subsidy publisher than it is to go with an offset press, at least to get your book to the point where people can buy it. The packages offered at most POD subsidy publishers do not exceed $1,100, with others as low as $100. For that price you, at minimum, get your book uploaded to their digital file. And guess what? Since your book is in a digital file, you don’t ever have to store books at your home or office if you don’t want to. This is one of the biggest advantages of going POD: no stored books means more room for the rest of your life.

Also, most subsidy publishers will take care of little yet important issues, like ISBNs and basic distribution. No one gets into self-publishing because they want to deal with these types of details, yet everyone has to deal with them. You can either do it yourself or, for a fee, a subsidy publisher can slide in and take care of everything. That way, you can spend more time writing, or marketing, or doing other things that might make a difference in sales.

Next week, the disadvantages of POD subsidy publishing.

Art

Traditional Self-Publishing II

2008-03-20T12:36:00.000-07:00

An International Standard Book Number, or “ISBN,” is that bar code and number on the back of most books. It’s your book’s numerical thumbprint, a way for the book industry to keep track of when your title sells, and where it sells from, which is something you want. Many POD companies tackle this detail for you, but an offset printer probably won’t, which means, if you want any kind of distribution, you’re going to want to take care of getting an ISBN yourself.

You take care of it through a company called R.R. Bowker, and it’s pricey. R.R. Bowker sells most of the ISBNs in the U.S. The problem is, you can’t buy just one ISBN for your introductory title. You have to buy ISBNs in blocks of ten, minimum, and the cheapest block will cost you $250.

R.R. Bowker is set up to supply numbers to publishing companies, not to individuals, and all of those ISBNs will seem superfluous if you only plan to publish one book. Still, do yourself a favor and get an ISBN, even if it means buying ten of them. At some point, Bowker has to take advantage of this new potential market of one-time self-publishers and start selling ISBNs one at a time, but for now that’s not the way it is. So, if you want to go offset, plan on the extra expense of ten ISBNs.

Also, your offset printer probably won’t set your book up at important retailers, like amazon.com, and important wholesalers, like Ingram. You will want to take care of this yourself.

Ingram is the biggest book wholesaler in the country, and it’s where companies like amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Borders get much of their stock. In other words, Ingram is the kind of place where you want your book hanging out. If it’s not at Ingram, book retailers will have to look harder for your title, and like anyone, book retailers don’t like to work harder than they have to. Make it easy for them; have your book stocked at Ingram.

Likewise, amazon.com. It’s hard to imagine in this day and age having a successful self-published book without said book being on amazon.com. This is the first place many book buyers go to find your book, even if they don’t buy it there.

If you go offset, you'll have to learn how to get your book on amazon.com. The good news is it’s not horribly complicated. Look into Amazon's Advantage program for more details.

Next week, subsidy self-publishing companies.

Art

Traditional Self-Publishing I

2008-03-20T12:10:00.000-07:00

Despite the emphasis placed on POD self-publishing these days, it's not the only option if you want to self-publish. There are at least three printing possibilities for someone who wants to self-publish her work in the current market.

First of all, you can always do it the old-fashioned way, which is to go to an offset press, get a quote for your project, and pay them to print it. This is the way many have done it, and still do it. As crazy as that sounds--isn’t this the kind of thing print-on-demand technology saves us from?--there are upsides to going with an offset press.

First of all, there are many more printing options with offset printing. For example, do you know that great texture most literary fiction titles have over the books' covers? It’s called matt finish, and you won’t get it if you go POD. Also, have you ever wondered what would happen if you went to your POD provider and asked for a certain kind of paper on the inside? You guess it. They can’t do it. The technology that brings us our books so cheaply comes with limitations. (Hey, you can’t have everything.) Your local offset printing company will gladly slide in to fill that special request for you should you not be able to live without it.

Also, having an offset printer print your book is one way to forgo one of the biggest drags of going with a POD subsidy publisher, returnables, which we'll talk more about later.

But, guess what? Publishing your book with an offset printer, a.k.a. traditionally self-publishing your book, has its price, and it’s hefty. Depending on more factors than you can name, the price to publish 1,000 copies of your book will easily make it into the four figures. Also, you have to say how many books you want printed, not just have your book uploaded to a digital system and have as many copies printed as you want, when you want. That’s a heavy hit right at the beginning of your self-publishing experience, especially when you have no idea how many you’re going to sell.

Moreover, with most offset printers, the more books you have printed, the cheaper your cost per unit. For example, 500 copies of your title might cost $3,000 to print traditionally, but you can get 1000 copies printed for $4,000. How can you pass that deal up, right? This thought process usually prompts beginning self-publishers to print way more than they need, causing a storage problem. (Imagine someone pulling up to your home with a pallet full of books. Do you have room for that much product?)

Finally, there are details to self-publishing your book that most offset printing companies simply won’t handle for you. For example, you will have to supply your own International Standard Book Number for the book.

“Wait a second,” you say. “What on earth is an International Standard Book Number?”

Good thing you asked.

Next week, ISBNs, RR Bowker, and more downside to offset printing.

Art

"Vanity" Publishing III

2008-02-28T14:44:00.000-08:00

What it comes down to is this: the choices made by traditional publishing are subjective. They are not the bearers of the beginning and end of what should be published, purchased, and read, nor should they be. They try--they actually do a pretty good job--but in the end they are less than perfect. There's nothing wrong with that.

So, what if you’re the writer of a book that, despite all of your efforts, doesn’t get published by traditional publishing? Are you willing to accept this imperfect judgment as the final word whether your title sees the light of day? If the answer is yes, good for you. Move on to your next book or non-book project. Maybe you’ll get lucky next time.

But understand that the answer will be no for many, and that they have a valid reason.

If you go the self-publishing route, no matter your printing method or reasoning, people will try to hurt you by calling you a vanity writer, and your publishing company a vanity press. The bite of this comment is slowly and surely being taken away, but it's not entirely gone yet. Be prepared for it, and rest assured that it’s harder than it was ten years ago to dismiss someone’s work this way--and that it’s sure to get even harder in the next ten.

Here’s my contribution to taking the bite out of this term: throughout my blog, I will refer to vanity publishing by the non-pejorative “subsidy publishing.” You’re paying some entity to subsidize, or assist, your publishing venture. That’s exactly what it is, and exactly how you should look at it.

Art

"Vanity" Publishing II

2008-02-28T14:38:00.000-08:00

Let's continue our discussion from "Vanity" Publishing I.

First of all, every book of merit does not get published by traditional publishing. I could site a dozen examples, starting with the ones in the “Success Stories” blog a few weeks ago. All of these books had considerable merit, if we judge merit by sales, critical success and satisfied customers--and I don’t know what else to judge books by.

Also, to address our converse example: all books that get published are not necessarily deserving. Judging by sales figures and critical inattention—or critical lambasting—many books that didn’t deserve to see the light of day do. We’ve all read books that left us shaking our heads, wondering who on earth killed trees to allow such a thing to exist.

Thirdly, a small audience for a book does not necessarily mean that the book is not worthy of publication. If a book has an audience of, say, less than 500 readers, do we ignore those 500 people simply because it’s not profitable for traditional publishing? Not ideally. Many are happy to satisfy these micro niche markets, and some will be shrewd enough to profit from it.

Finally, in the real world, every author who would like to be traditionally published doesn’t get to be traditionally published. In our society, we still hold books in high regard. Books are emblems of something we cherish in the human spirit. When someone gets his name on the cover of a book, we want it to be because he deserves it.

Despite this, can we honestly say, "People who want to see their names on the covers of books shouldn’t be allowed to?" Wanting to have written a book is perhaps a vain fantasy, but who reading this blog hasn’t had that fantasy at one time? It hurts absolutely no one--perhaps a few trees, but at least with POD they're not printing a bunch of books they can’t sell--for these folks to have their whim fulfilled. I compare it to those people who have photographers take a picture of their faces and then super-impose them on some weightlifter’s or supermodel’s body. Nobody is running around trying to end this practice. “Hey, he’s not really a weightlifter. Vanity bodybuilder.”

People can fantasize, publicly and tangibly if they like, about being an author. Why not?

Next week, Part III.

Art

"Vanity" Publishing I

2008-02-28T14:22:00.000-08:00

There is no phrase more pejorative in self-publishing than “vanity publishing.”

For the record, there are some good reasons for people to be down on forms of publishing that require the author to write a check, as opposed to collect one. There are companies out there who try to get writers to pay an exorbident amount to publish their book for them. Quite often, these companies make the author buy a certain amount of his own book, and the company does almost nothing to sell the author’s title. The business model of these companies is centered around making money off the author--usually a lot of money off the author--as opposed to selling the author’s book to the public.

These companies are the worst of the worst of the worst. They try to make you feel like you’re a traditionally published author, and they make you pay dearly for this fake prestige. You want nothing to do with them.

But in the last ten years, especially with the advent of the larger POD companies, the term “vanity publishing” has started to lose its raison d’etre, which is to censure companies that have disreputable business practices, and to warn authors and readers away from them. Instead, the term is now used by some people in and out of the writing industry to criticize anyone who pays any entity to publish any work for them. Let me explain why this is wrong.

Let’s imagine a perfect publishing world. In this perfect publishing world, only the books that deserve to be published get published traditionally. The converse is true, too; no book that does not deserve to be published gets published. Secondly, everyone who wants to write a publishable book eventually does so, and of course since it’s publishable, it gets traditionally published. Finally, in this perfect publishing world, there is enough of an audience out there for every published book to merit a traditional publishing print run.

In such a world, there would be no need for self-publishing. The publishing industry, the writer, and the audience are all well taken care of by the system. Everyone is happy. Hail, hail. All is well in Publishingland.

But, just in case you didn’t know, that’s not the way traditional publishing works.

More on this next week.

Art

Which POD?

2008-02-21T07:31:00.000-08:00

POD companies are like snowflakes. From a distance they all look the same. Up close each has it’s own unique make-up. None are exactly alike.

Any POD company offers to do at least this for you: they will put your book into their digital catalogue, fulfill orders for it as they get them, and pay you a royalty--usually a higher royalty than that of a traditionally published book--for books sold. From there, they can offer to get your book set up at Amazon, bn.com, and various important wholesalers. Most will design a cover for you. Some will include a modicum of marketing materials like posters, bookmarks and postcards. A few will edit and proofread your book, and there’s almost nothing they won’t do for additional fees, from teleconferences on marketing to co-op advertising to cover concept evaluation.

When researching POD companies, make a list of what you need and pay for that. The industry is in such a flux right now, it pays to take your time, turn over rocks, see what people are willing to offer you. Something no one has thought of yet could’ve hit the market by the time you read this blog, and it could be just what you’re looking for.

For my first novel, Stuck Outside of Phoenix, I went with iUniverse, and I was happy, if not overjoyed, with the results. My iUniverse contact, Mike Altman, was willing to put up with my numerous questions and general fickleness throughout the process. I found the contract simple enough, if a bit too binding in the event I decided to withdraw my manuscript (they reserved the right to sell my novel for a year after its withdrawal; this came to nothing, but I didn't like it at the time). I thought the price for the premium package ($450 at the time) a bit lofty, but it was still a great deal cheaper than the offset printer up the street.

A big consideration for me was that iUniverse handled the Back-in-Print series, which is a program that re-publishes via POD worthy books that have gone out-of-print. Lewis Buzbee, a friend and mentor of mine, had his first novel re-published in this program, and I thought his book looked sharp and was formatted well.

There are two things not automatic with all POD company plans, but they’re indispensable to the POD published writer who hopes to sell any books. First, you must have an Amazon page. Most companies offer this even in their most basic plan, but some don’t. If yours doesn’t, do yourself a favor and figure out how to set one up. Second, you must have your book at Ingram, a wholesaler that is the first place a bookstore will search for your title. For all intents and purposes, Ingram stocks all books currently in print, and you want yours to be there, too.

That’s all you really need. There are all kinds of other features out there, not all of them shlocky. Take a good, hard look before you leap.

Manuscript Preparation II-Cover Design

2008-02-08T08:48:00.000-08:00

Your book’s cover is just as crucial as your book’s contents, maybe moreso. A book with a smashing cover is much more likely to be considered by people than a book with a so-so cover.

Many POD companies offer to design a cover for you, or to design one with your guidance. As a rule, these covers are not good enough. If you want your POD book to rise above the crowd, you have to have a competitive cover. It’s possible to design one yourself, but I’d only recommend it to someone who has both a strong sense of what he wants in a cover and an advanced familiarity with graphic design software. If that’s not you, pay someone, a professional graphic designer or the like, to design a cover for you.

POD books, even the best looking ones, tend to look a notch below a well-done traditionally published book. This is no crime, but you should go into it knowing your chances of blending seamlessly with the big boys are unlikely. It’s inherent in the deficiencies of POD technology. You don’t have all the options of an offset press, which is how most traditionally published books are printed. Still, the only healthy approach is to assume you’re going to have to compete with the best looking books on the block. That will spur you to make your cover as eye-catching as it can be.

My wife is a photographer and a whiz at layout programs like InDesign. For my first POD book, I found a cover design I liked, we altered it a bit to avoid it looking too much like the original, and we incorporated one of her photographs. The result was something simple and appealing. We thought it looked better than most of the POD stuff we’d seen to that point.

This is the perfect opportunity to emphasize the most important rule of DIY publishing: take advantage of every advantage you have. Perhaps your husband is a Dreamweaver pro. Get him to design your Web site. Maybe your uncle is in-the-know with people at a magazine. Have him find someone to proofread your book. Is your best friend from high school--the one who owes you a big favor--the organizer of a yearly outing of employees at her corporation? Coerce her into letting you give a reading. Everyone has an advantage or two. Be sure to capitalize on yours.

Art

Manuscript Preparation I-Proofread

2008-01-31T06:00:00.000-08:00

Skipping this task will surely catapult your book to the sell-back pile of every person you conned into buying it in the first place. Nothing screams unprofessional like a typo, even in an otherwise well-written book. One typo and eyebrows are raising. Two typos and your readers are murmuring under their breath. Any more than three and you can bet you’ll get emails from people more than thrilled to correct the would-be writer.

Does that mean you should buy an expensive spell-check program? Or let ten friends proofread it? Or read your book yourself 800 times, splitting your brain looking for that one last missing article or omitted word or error of fact? None of the above (although none of the above can hurt, either).

Before submitting your book to your POD publisher, have a professional proofreader, or a trusted teacher, or at the very least an aspiring amateur, proofread your book. (Notice I didn’t write, “read.” I wrote, “proofread.”) Why can’t you do this step yourself? Because at this point you’re the one person in the world too close to the book to do a good job. Your eyes swim over the sentences; they’re perfect in your head, and you take their real-life perfection for granted.

It’s not your fault, it’s human nature. Mundane tasks make us lose focus, and proofreaders are paid not to lose focus. So hire a pro--or as close to a pro as you can afford. Fees vary greatly, so shop around. And if you think it’s too much money, consider the satisfaction of having a fellow word geek hand your manuscript back to you and say, “I’m sorry. I just couldn’t find anything wrong with it.” How much is that peace of mind worth?

I wished I’d done this. My wife and I were the only two people to proofread my first POD novel. Mr. MFA in Writing and Mrs. BA in English would go at it until every detail was perfect. We read it over and over again, every sentence, every word, after all of the other revision had been finished, looking for nothing but spelling errors, typos, errors of fact, missing words. Then, after submitting it to the POD company and getting the proofs back, I spent another week doing nothing but proofreading. I must have read it ten times, each time correcting something I’d missed the previous time. Eventually, I got so sick of the novel I just submitted it, hoping I’d caught everything.

Once the smoke had cleared and people had finished emailing me, I had a total of ten issues: omitted words, misspellings and mistakenly placing Danny Bonaduce in Eight is Enough instead of The Partridge Family. (I know. I can’t believe it, either.) I’d learned my lesson.

Thanks to POD, this is a problem more easily rectified than before, but it will still cost you, depending on which service provider you choose. (Hint: go through Lightning Source, where ms revisions are only $40 a pop.)

You won’t hear me say this too often about self-publishing, but proofreading is one place where I wouldn’t mince a few extra dollars, or a few extra hundred.

Art

Before Self-Publishing, Become a Writer

2008-01-31T05:36:00.000-08:00

First of all, my second self-published novel, Ghost Notes, and my debut solo CD, Songs from Memory, go on sale at my Web site on Monday, February 4. In case you didn't know, this is the artistic event of the decade, so drop by, throw down, and have my novel and CD arrive in your mailbox next week.

All future ASP blogs will gloss over the most important element of the artfully self-published book: that the book is well written. To curtail any guilt I might feel about ignoring this topic, I'm dedicating this week's blog to this issue.

If you take one bit of wisdom from any of my blogs on self-publishing, it should be this: very few (none that I know of) people have had any kind of success in the field of writing without a serious, years-long, apprenticeship in the craft.

In the 21st century, many would-be writers do this by going to school for writing. This is a sound idea; you can point to dozens of great writers who've achieved both literary and commercial success by this route. It can work for you, too.

Still, you don't have to go to school to have a serious apprenticeship in the craft of writing. You can take a job where you have to focus diligently on your writing, or you can work diligently on your own. It doesn't matter how you do it, but you have to do it. It took me six and a half years and one MFA program from the time I dedicated myself to the novel form before I published my first novel. Don't be surprised if it takes you as long.

Also--and this may be complete fantasy on my part but I'm going to say it anyway--I'd like to think people get into self-publishing because they love writing. Again, this seems like it should go without saying, but I suspect many get into self-publishing for other, more superficial, reasons. Don't let this happen to you. There are unique perks to having a book with your name on the cover, but there's also a disappointing--sometimes embarrassing--downside to having a bad book with your name on the cover. And there's certainly no shame in not having a book with your name on the cover.

If you've fallen in love with writing, have worked diligently on the craft, and have a well-edited manuscript sitting on your hard drive or in your desk drawer, then you're ready for the next step, which comes next week.

Art

The Rest of Us

2008-01-19T07:03:00.000-08:00

You may have noticed Art Edwards’s name doesn't appear in either of my two previous blogs about success stories.

Oh, sure. I sold some books, had a few good readings, garnered some positive reviews. I even managed to sell enough books to get invited to iUniverse’s Star Program, a marketing support program for select iUniverse titles that print at least 500 copies and sell at least half of those through traditional markets. As of today, I've sold about 490 copies of Stuck Outside of Phoenix (not printed, not given away, sold), and I'll surpass my goal of 500 soon. (It only took five years.) This makes me feel good, and it bodes well for the sequel, which is coming out Feb. 4 at my Web site, March 4 everywhere else.

Still, none of that qualifies as the kind of success that would change anybody's mind about self-publishing. I didn’t make any money. No traditional book or movie deal followed. I didn’t attract any sizable national or international following. Nobody backed a truckload of money up to my doorstep. (Checking my doorstep one more time...Nope.)

So, what about the rest of us, those who don’t go on to achieve anything resembling a traditional writing career after our POD venture? It’s too bad, it really is. Tough luck is called tough luck for a reason. We tried. Some tried very hard. It’s never fun to work like hell at something only to be seen by someone, on some level, as a failure.

But did we fail?

Whenever I talk about self-publishing, my main point is always this: bringing a well-written, well-published book into this world is never a failure. I’ve always operated on the assumption that a good book, written well, well-proofread, with a good cover and good formatting--a good book published well--is actually quite a special event. Whether you do it via traditional publishing, traditional self-publishing, POD, or some other as-yet-unknown technology, how your book was published is the last thing someone will care about one hundred years from now when she comes across it at some futuristic used bookstore, picks it up from some dusty bin, and smiles while reading first paragraph, realizing that this little gem is coming home with her.

Next week, manuscript preparation.

Art

POD Success Stories II

2008-01-18T06:38:00.000-08:00

And now for my favorite POD success story.

In the early 1990s, Laurie Notaro wrote for State Press, Arizona State University’s daily newspaper. She wrote the funniest (I know this because I used to read them) stories based on her life in our college town, replete with booze, unclean apartments, and a feisty mother who took every opportunity to demean, castigate and otherwise emotionally scar her offspring.

I looked forward to Notaro’s article every Thursday, laughing out loud as I read them. I thought of her as one of a very small group of people who could make me belly-laugh by putting little black marks on white pages, a group that included Kurt Vonnegut and few others. It was assumed, by me at least, that a talented writer like Notaro inevitably would go on to literary success. Someone with that kind of ability pretty much calls her own shots, right?

Flash forward to 2002, a Borders bookstore in Mill Valley, California. I stumble across The Idiot Girl’s Action-Adventure Club on the shelves. Recognizing Notaro’s name, I pull it down, sit in one of those thick-padded Borders chairs and proceed to cry my eyes out laughing. People walk by, look concerned, try to see the cover of the book I'm enjoying a little too much. I leave the store thinking, “Just as I suspected, Laurie Notaro took all of that talent and strolled her way into a great literary career. How easy it is for some in this world.”

How wrong I was.

It turns out The Idiot Girl’s Action-Adventure Club was, over the course of seven years, summarily rejected by the entire publishing industry, so much so that in 2000 Notaro had to resort to some crazy new self-publishing technology called “print-on-demand” to get her book into the hands of a market she knew was out there for her. If it weren’t for a New York literary agent’s husband scanning Amazon.com and discovering Idiot Girl while looking at one of his wife’s clients’ pages, Notaro probably would be just like any other POD author right now, hitting the street, scheduling readings and events, and generally trying to secure an audience all by herself.

It was a long and hard road for Notaro (later, my eyes jumped out of my head when I saw Idiot Girl’s in stock at Target; Target!), and her success (she continues to publish and sell more than any of us dare hope) might be the greatest validation of POD so far. To think an entire industry could somehow overlook Notaro’s obvious niche. Disagree all you want about what makes a book publishable, salable, accessible, but I think we all recognize funny when we read it.

Next week, the rest of us.

Art

POD Success Stories I

2008-01-11T15:00:00.000-08:00

For some reason, Amazon is currently showing a 3 to 6 week wait for Stuck Outside of Phoenix. If you want a copy of Stuck before it goes out of print, I still have them for sale at my website. And I'll sign it, too!

Back in 2000, I was hanging out with two friends at a coffee shop in San Francisco. We were aspiring writers, and we spent a fair amount of time talking about each other's writing, our future as writers, what it would be like to get published, etc. On that day, we were critiquing each other's manuscripts and talking about what the future might hold for them. After we were done critiquing mine I mentioned, "And if it doesn't get published traditionally, I can always self-publish?"

Both of my friends were quiet. I sensed I'd said something wrong.

"Art," one said, "you wouldn't really self-publish your work, would you?"

"Yes," I said. "I absolutely would self-publish my work." I was from the world of music. In the world of music, doing it yourself was nothing to be ashamed of. Hell, it was a badge of honor. I was soon to find out this was not the case in book publishing.

"If you self-publish," the other said, "you're bound to regret it."

Regret it? I didn't understand. Of course, if I put together a shoddy product with less-than-fully-realized writing, inconsistent formatting, a rushed cover, I'd regret it, and plenty of people who'd tried self-publishing had made those mistakes. But what if I wrote a book worthy of people's attention, packaged it well, and ran my publishing house like any other business? Surely there was no shame in that?

My friends were silent, but I detected a patronizing air about them. Just let him have his moment. Of course, we know that self-publishing is nothing but a path to regret, failure and embarrassment.

I guess I've spent the last seven years fighting against that line of thinking, that there's something inherently wrong with self-publishing. I'm glad to say things have changed in those intervening years. With the advent of POD technology, writers can try their hand at self-publishing without the imminent risk of investing thousands for a garage-full of books they have no idea if they can sell. Many POD companies will, for a fee, even take care of formatting and book cover issues for you, and all you have to do is write a book worth reading (not an easy task) and find its audience (see previous).

Still, self-publishing doubters persist. "Don't fool yourself. No one really has success self-publishing a book, especially a work of fiction."

I beg to differ, and here's my evidence.

The group below represents the crème de la crème of POD success. All of them published fiction. There are other less dramatic examples, but for argument's sake I’ll mention just these five, who've achieved writerly success by just about anyone’s standards. So, without further ado...

Jeremy Robinson

Jeremy is the author of The Didymus Contingency, a religious thriller that asks the question, “If you could go back in time and witness any event, where would you go?” Robinson published his novel POD after many failed attempts to traditionally publish previous novels that were off-genre. After researching various POD services, he went with Lulu. He used his graphics skills to design a great cover for his book, and he never looked back. The Didymus Contingency has since become a Barnes&Noble.com bestseller and an Amazon Canada bestseller. It also got Jeremy through the door of traditional publishing, landing him a top-tier agent, and The Didymus Contingency continues its success after being translated for traditional publishers around the world. I don’t know any writer who wouldn’t be proud of those accolades, and it all happened because Robinson published his novel POD.

Amanda Brown

Brown was perhaps the first big fiction success of the POD circuit. After publishing her novel Legally Blonde print-on-demand in 2001, Brown went on to sell the movie rights, which resulted in the mega-film starring Reese Witherspoon. She's since sold an earlier novel, Family Trust, to Dutton, which has been optioned to Hilary Swank and Chad Lowe.

Will Clarke

Clarke published Lord Vishnu’s Love Handles POD and subsequently signed a two-book deal with Simon & Schuster, plus a movie deal. Lord Vishnu’s Love Handles, the traditional publishing release, came out in 2005.

Brian Wiprud

Wiprud had something like 600 rejections for novels prior to releasing Pipsqueak POD, which led to a two-book deal with Dell for Pipsqueak and Scattered, a follow-up. Third and fourth novels, Crooked and Sleep with the Fishes, came out via the traditional market in 2006.

N. Frank Daniels

After two years of building a story for his POD novel Futureproof, Harper Perennial eventually called him to offer a deal. The traditional version of Futureproof is due in late 2008.

A vast wasteland for many, POD has managed to kick-start the writing careers of at least a few worthy folks. The odds are slim, but anyone who tells you it’s impossible either doesn’t know what they’re talking about or doesn’t want to admit the truth.

Please don't let my list end! Feel free to add other success stories in the comments section. If they pan out, I'll add them here.

Next week, the queen of POD publishing success.

Art

Why a Blog on Self-publishing?

2008-01-04T18:24:00.001-08:00

So, with the Layin' Down the Law blog going strong, with Ghost Notes and Songs from Memory ready for the world, with all kinds of other nonsense planned for 2008, why on earth am I starting another blog?

Because after five years of promoting a self-published novel and reading the advice that's out there for the self-published author, I’ve come to the conclusion that I know a few things about this racket, and I want to pass them on to those who might profit from them. While this blog might also delve into aspects related to music and other creative endeavors, I expect it to focus—at least for a while—on my experience self-publishing, marketing and selling Stuck Outside of Phoenix, which is going out of print in a month.

“Wait a second,” you say. “You’re taking your self-published debut novel out of print? Why would anyone do that?”

I’m doing it because I published Stuck through a print-on-demand company called iUniverse, and now that it’s not my central focus I want to publish it on my own imprint, Defunct Press, at a later date.

The cost per unit for Stuck through iUniverse is significantly more than it would be if I were to publish it print-on-demand myself through Lightning Source, which is the company iUniverse uses to publish its books. If I pay less per book, that extra money goes into my pocket. The cost difference is only a few dollars, but I’d prefer it in my account than iUniverse’s.

In other words, I’m eliminating the middleman.

“That means oodles and oodles of money will suddenly come pouring from the sky on top of you, right?”

You bet. Self-publishing fiction about rock musicians is a sure way to make more money than you ever dreamed of.

Okay, that’s a lie, but I do hope to make what I can from my work, and this seems the best way to do it. It’s also the way I’m publishing Ghost Notes, so I’ll let you know how it goes.

For the record, Stuck is still available at my website while supplies last.

That’s it for now. Tune in next week as I write about one of my favorite subjects, POD success stories. A list that keeps growing, by the way.

Art