One Traveler

In order to be published successfully, you need to write for a few years. Anywhere between three and fifty should do. Then you need to write a book that’s new, fresh, unique, but still adheres to a best-selling genre that will set the next new trend without hoping to set a trend or follow a trend. Then you have to write a gripping query and query agents for a few years. Because agents are the gateway to a successful career in publishing. Then get a contract with a big publishing house and hope to sell enough copies to pay back your advance.

Wait, no, stop. Things have changed. In order to be published successfully, you need to write a gripping story about whatever the hell you want. Then get it professionally edited and invest in a flashy cover. And then upload it to a highly successfully e-reader distributer like Amazon or Barnes & Nobles. Then use your online platform to market and sell!

Wait, no, stop. Things have changed again. In order to be published successfully, you need to write a gripping story in one of the bestselling genres, and fly on the coat tails of already-established indie authors because the market is saturated and new authors aren’t seeing as much success on their own or with genres that don’t fit the mold.

Wait, no, stop. In order to be a successful author, you need to be both traditionally published and self-publish because, reportedly, ‘hybrid’ authors make the best living.

Wait, no, stop.

*sigh*

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t miss the days of printing out queries and snail mailing them to London agents found in the year’s Writers’ and Authors’ Yearbook, only to get a rejection card in the mail a few weeks later. I think the direction publishing has taken puts greater value on craft and content, because it’s the masses who decide what rises to the top. Which is a good thing.

And yet, I can’t help wondering, will the dust ever settle? I miss the clarity that publishing used to have. Sometimes I feel like I’ve taken a step back from it all because things have just changed and evolved so fast in the last four years, it makes me dizzy. It almost reminds me of a poem we were forced to learn in the seventh grade:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

-          Road Less Taken, Robert Frost

I can’t help the feeling that the moment I finally decide to jump in, the winds will change once again, hurling me toward the unknown; caught up and invested in ‘a side’ of this tug of war between indies and tradies and hybrids, oh my!

Anyone else feel like they’re still ‘one traveler’- looking down each path, and uncertain and wondering what direction the industry will take?

A Civilian in the Ebook Revolution

I want to write intelligently about the new wave of publishing online.  I really do.  But despite doing the research, I find there are still many things that elude me. 

Like, I don’t know why the term 'Epublishing' excludes self published material (I mean E-anything means electronic doesn’t it?  Whether its self published or Electronic Publisher published?  See, I’m confusing myself.  Again.)  Or why ‘Indie Publishing’ has eight different definitions.  I have totally God or Googled the whole thing.  But it feels like everyone is giving a different answer.

Everywhere I look there’s a new article highlighting how successful some online authors are- making double or triple what they would have made with a traditional publisher and in a tenth of the time.   And when you read stories like this and this, it does sound terribly tempting, doesn’t it?

However, the more I dug around, the more I realized the world of profitable online publishing is something that takes months of research to fully comprehend.  For instance- why do some authors hit it big and others no?  (besides the obvious- some people working harder at their craft and putting out a solid product)  From what I can gather, it’s a mix of attractive cover art, hot genre (romance and erotica are apparently doing very well),  lots of marketing, worthy storylines and LUCK.  – Ugh!  No matter what you do in this business LUCK seems to play at least a 75% roll in your success.

The dangers and deceptions in online publishing include putting out a product that isn’t 100% at its best (in the case of self publishing).  No one buying your book.  Losing any chance whatsoever at traditional publishing with the story in question.

The dangers and deceptions in traditional publishing seem to be the fear of spending years writing and waiting and waiting and waiting for the publishing industry to decide they want you (slight risk of dying of old age before this happens).  No one buying your book.  OR selling less copies than you would have if you’d been published online (since you control the pricing with an online product and this tends to raise book sales) and making less money for your work because you’d be receiving a lower percentage of  the royalties with a traditional publisher.

Thankfully, a few of my author friends have decided to go the Online Publishing route in its various forms and are much better equipped to give insight on the process - India Drummond,  Stephanie Haefner, Nicole Zoltack, Emily White, Anita Laydon Miller, Aubrie Dionne and Karly Kirkpatrick especially come to mind. Be sure to check them out!

 If anyone else has had experience with online publishing, I’d love for you to share it in the comments! As for all the other authors like me, trying to go traditional- what do you guys think about publishing online?   Tempting or completely overwhelming?