If you’ve read my blog or my books, it’s no secret that I skipped straight to self-publishing in December of 2010 without seriously gearing up for an agent hunt. I put my first two novels out as ebooks and eventually print-on-demand paperbacks. A little over a year later, I had four novels and several shorter works out and was able to quit the day job. Now, in March of 2013, I have seven novels out in addition to the shorter stories. Even though none of these have rocked any best-seller lists, the royalties are generous for independent e-publishers. I just finished doing my taxes for 2012, and it turns out that it was the best income-earning year I’d ever had (it also turns out that I have to send a heaping big check to the IRS here shortly).
Naturally, I’m pretty rah rah with self-publishing, and I pointed out, a year and a half ago, that the best way to find a traditional deal these days seems to be to publish on your own, promote the heck out of your work, build up an audience, sell lots of books, and then look for a deal (or wait for a deal to come to you). Of course, you may decide you don’t really need a traditional publisher at that point, but that’s a discussion for another day.
Now that it’s 2013, I’m not the only one saying this (I’m sure I wasn’t back in 2011 either; it just wasn’t as popular of an opinion). A couple of days ago, Dean Wesley Smith, an author who’s been in the biz for decades and has more books out than Genghis Khan had children, wrote up a post called, “The New World of Publishing: A New Slush Pile.”
Here are a few highlights from the post, which not only talks about how things are today (and why it’s a great time to be an author), but also goes back and shares some of the history of the industry (like why it’s called a “slush pile”):
So near the end of the 1990s, the traditional publishers switched to “No Unagented Manuscripts” and shut down the few slush rooms that were left. In other words, they outsourced the slush to the writer’s own employees. A really, really bad idea since it had the appearance of putting an employee in charge of the employer.
The reasons to go to traditional publishing have vanished. And with the reputations of traditional publishing being tarnished by traditional publishers like Simon and Schuster and Random House going into vanity press scams, even going to traditional publishing for a rubber-stamp of quality has vanished.
The slush piles of old are all now indie published. And the readers decide what is good or bad.
Instead of costing a writer money to mail it to a huge room in New York as we did in my early years, or send it to an agent, writers now can indie publish their work both electronic and in paper and make some money in the process. It might not be a lot, but it is some money. And if the book starts to sell, it will draw the attention of traditional publishers and they will come calling with an offer.
If you follow an old model, you send your manuscript to either an editor or an agent:
In essence, this is what you are doing: Imagine yourself standing at the door of a restaurant in ragged clothes, hat-in-hand, begging for some food. You have no bargaining power, no position to try to get a decent contract (meal). And if you are with a slush-reading agent, imagine that you now only get a part of what little bit of food they are willing to toss you.
If you follow the new, indie-publishing model:
In essence, this is what you are doing: Imagine you own your own business. You have money coming in the door, have customers, and a growing list of products. A representative of a major corporation shows up in your store and asks to buy some of your product for their company. You know what the product is worth and you know you can get decent contract terms. They have come to you, into your business, and it is an even bargaining position for both of you, business to business. They want what you are selling. You can decide if the money and terms are worth you selling it.
I’ll stop pilfering from Mr. Smith’s post now — I just get excited when people in the know are thinking the same things I’m thinking. It makes me feel like I have some sort of clue. If this topic interests you, make sure to check out the whole article and toss a dollar in the tip jar on DWS’s site.
I decided to go with self-publishing for pretty much those same reasons. I literally couldn’t afford to do the traditional publishing model! It takes tremendous trust in yourself to step out on your own and indie publish, but it is well worth it in my opinion. Great article!
I’ve long thought there was something *#&$&ed up about a system where agents were the only route to getting a publishing deal. Exactly what he says: an agent is supposed to be your employee, but instead they’ve gotten to be like gods because they control your fate. So glad there are other options now.
I know lots of writers are turned off by the idea of marketing and making decisions about cover art and editing but holy crap you’re paying A LOT over the lifetime of a book for being unwilling to spend time a few weeks figuring those things out.
I certainly agree with how things are turning out for indie-authors. I have been an avid reader throughout my entire life and am finding that I read more books produced by indie authors than “published” books. Not just for the price, although that is a factor, but because the stories are better, more creative, more unique.
However, I hope there is still room for editors in this shifting arrangement between author and consumer. My dream is to become an editor for fantasy authors but that might be hard to accomplish is there is no need for editors.
There’s definitely still a need, it’s just that the editing career path is going indie (read: freelance) along with the writing career path. Hang out a shingle, what have you got to lose? Good luck!
I’m sure there’ll always been a need for editors (I’d guess freelance editors are getting more work than ever from up-and-coming indie authors now), but it may be harder to find a position with a company. You may have to cultivate your entrepreneurial spirit and go into the editing business for yourself. Good luck!
Editors will always be necessary. However, I would ask that, as an editor, please remember that the job is to improve, not suggest wholesale rewrites so the author creates the story you’d like rather than the one the writer produced.
One of the most exciting things for me about the indie publishing route is that you are simply able to put your stories directly into the hands of readers. If you are trying to go the traditional publishing route, you may have a whole trunk full of rollicking adventures gathering dust because you haven’t yet stumbled upon an editor willing to take a chance on a new author.
Instead, with indie publishing, readers can enjoy your work immediately, and not only that, but you get paid for it, too! Even if you only sell two copies here and three copies there, readers can enjoy your work and you can slowly build up a fan base and build up a career, one reader at a time. And you can watch your royalties climb from $.XX to $X.XX to $XX.XX to . . . (well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves 🙂 )
I’m noticing that the traditional houses are not handling the transition well. Right now it’s starting to look like they’ll soon all end up being vanity publishers.
Now I’m wondering about professional writers’ organizations like SFWA, which has publishing requirements for becoming a full member. I haven’t looked to see if they’ve updated their membership requirements, but it certainly used to be that only novels and stories published by traditional royalty paying houses counted.
In this changing world of publishing, SFWA and others are going to have to rethink their business model as well.
The last I’d heard, the SFWA hadn’t changed anything, but I’ve come across organizations with similar requirements that have adjusted to the changing times, adding on an alternative for self-publishers (usually having sold X-thousand number of copies or making X-thousand a year from book sales).
At SFWA, you can become a member simply by selling three short stories at $.05 a word or higher to a magazine.
But a scifi-fantasy indie author making $100,000 a year would not be eligible to join.
Transitions, yo.
Thanks for highlighting this. Excellent post, from you and from Mr. Smith.
I submitted to one agent a long time ago, and got a nice, encouraging sort of rejection, but found that the idea of trying to write something for someone else’s approval made me freeze up. Years later, looking at writers’ forums, all the angsting that goes on about writing query letters, researching agents, waiting to hear back from agents, etc etc etc made me want to run away screaming as fast as I could.
As an indie author, I’m in charge of my own career, and I’m not waiting around for someone else’s permission to follow my dreams. I’m just starting out and haven’t found my readers yet, but I’m incredibly happy with this choice.
I had an agent for about four years, I think, up until 2008. I liked my agent. I wouldn’t call it the best time of my life. The whole traditional thing didn’t suit my temperament very well.
I can think of one reason to go with an agent. Because the children’s market is almost completely slammed shut against any but traditionally published manuscripts. I have six children’s novels out, including three stand-alone novels (mistake!). Setting the first book of my trilogy free has been my wisest move yet. If I could gain an agent for my stand-alones, I’d jump at it. Meanwhile, I’ve started writing a new SERIES. I may go back and add sequels to my stand-alones as well.
I don’t know anything about the children’s market, but I think your idea of writing sequels to your stand-alones is great. I personally love novels that can stand on their own but are part of a series. I’m thinking of the “Little House” books right now– each stood on its own, but the series as a whole chronicled Laura’s whole life.
The larger school-oriented children’s websites and organizations don’t even consider works published outside traditional houses, Elissa. When I do make sales, I get very little crossover from my stand-alones. Readers will follow the books in a series, however. Little House is a great example of this. One of my favorites!
Hi Lindsay – I stumbled upon your blog last summer, when I was about 50% done with the writing of my first novel and in the process of researching the logistics of publication. At the time, I didn’t even know what it took to get traditionally published, much less anything about “indie” or self-publishing. I think your blog and some others that I came across during my research changed my life. After reading a few of your posts, I never bothered reaching out to an agent or a publisher because the economics and speed of self-publishing were just too compelling to ignore. Now I have two full-length novels published, and I am working on several more. The modest success I’ve had is encouraging enough that I think this will be my full-time career very soon. I’m very grateful to you and others who have been kind enough to share their experience with aspiring writers.
I’ve just started reading your blog and it is a true wealth of valuable information – and funny to boot. I originally went down the agent path, and I must say it was one of the most frustrating experiences of my life. I couldn’t get anyone to even read it, much less accept or reject it. Making my own marketing plan to self-publish has completely empowered me. I really appreciate you sharing all your advice!