I’ve been studying the publishing industry, and the indie publishing movement, with my trademark intensity for the past year or more. I have a lot of thoughts about it that I’ve been keeping, for the most part, to myself. But one of the key insights that I would like to share is this: Writing is a business.
It’s easy for us, when speaking about the arts, to entangle our emotions with our work. Which is as it should be. But in my experience, the farther apart we can keep our emotions from business, the better. I’m not saying we as artists and creators cannot or should not have emotions. But emotions can easily blind us towards making pragmatic business decisions (see the “practical” in my blog’s title).
Writing is a business. Every writer whose goal is to have a writing career is, in essence, running a small business. Whether she knows it (or wants it) or not. This seems obvious to me because I’ve just come off seven years of running my own small business in another arts-related field. But I’ve noticed that not all writers display this attitude, and it certainly wasn’t ever something I considered before becoming a small business owner.
Here’s the thing about starting and running your own small business: There is always risk involved. Always. Business is about calculated risk. There is always the chance that the business will fail. There is always the chance that your marketing campaign won’t work the way you hoped, even if you spent tons of time and money to make it happen. There’s the chance that the economy will take a downturn and shoot you in the foot. There’s the (terrible) chance that you won’t end up being any good at your business of choice.
It’s the same deal with writing. Even though writing doesn’t necessarily require a large outlay of financial capital, we’re putting ourselves on the line. Our work may not be popular. It may not attract the attention it needs to be successful. We may make it partway down the line, only to come to an abrupt halt. As in all businesses, there are many things that can go wrong.
Self-publishing carries this same risk. Because writing is a business. And maybe the material we self-publish will turn out to be really badly received. Or maybe no one will even notice it exists. Or, horror of horrors, maybe it will keep us from ever getting a traditional publishing deal if it turns out we made the wrong choice (or are playing it safe by pursuing both options at the same time).
As business people, our job is not to condemn without thought and research. Our job is to examine, as dispassionately as we are able, our different business options. Some of us will feel more comfortable doing this than others; some of us have a more entrepreneurial spirit, whereas some of us feel more comfortable taking an established path. There is no right answer here, folks. But after examining the current state of publishing, I believe that self publishing is a viable alternative (or a building block in a larger overall strategy) that should not be ignored.
Those of you following this debate on the internet have heard all about Amanda Hocking and J.A. Konrath, and now the big news this week is Barry Eisler turning down a $500k traditional publishing deal to self-publish instead. Yes, these are big names. No, not everyone who tries self-publishing will enjoy their degree of success. No, I don’t believe it’s a clear-cut decision about which path to pursue.
My point is this: Whichever path we choose as writers, there will always be risk involved. Anyone involved in the industry has heard a few choice horror stories about how traditional publishing has gone horribly awry. Self-publishing has its own unpleasant pitfalls. When we dive into either side of the industry, we don’t know how it’s going to go. When I started as a music teacher, I put up some ads on Craigslist. I didn’t know if anyone would answer them. My business could have been a bust before I even started. We experience the same thing in publishing, whether we send our manuscript out to agents or stick it up on Amazon and Smashwords.
Whatever path we choose, it won’t be easy. Self-publishing isn’t a shortcut; it requires a lot of hard work. Whatever path we choose, it won’t be fast. Craft takes the same time to develop, regardless, and while traditional publishing can take years even after you have a viable book (between finding an agent, finding a publisher, getting a release date, actually releasing the book, and performing all the necessary work between these steps), self publishing can take a long time too (between outsourcing various needs like editing and cover art, building a catalog of titles for sale, building a reputation as a writer, etc.) The key is to educate ourselves about the options (traditional publishing, self-publishing, the small presses, the e-editions only presses), look at the different risks involved, crunch some numbers, and then decide which option (or combination of options) makes the best sense for our business. While doing this, we need to keep in mind our business goals and our unique blend of strengths and weaknesses while making sure we consider both sides of a strategy (this means reading thoughts by people who are both for and against self-publishing, and the valuable neutrals if you can find them). Businesses in the same sector have different strategies, and that’s okay. Some will fail, which is sad but not out of the ordinary.
However, I can’t help but feel that innovation can be exciting as well as scary. I’m following the twists and turns of the publishing landscape with great interest, and I’m trying to avoid being overly critical of anyone. Because technology is changing the landscape, and we’re all a part of that, and we’re all trying to figure out what parts we can play in the change. Ultimately, we all love writing, and we all love books, and we all want to ensure that many wonderful books (in whatever format) are available to be loved and enjoyed. I see a lot of badmouthing on both sides of this issue, which is perhaps inevitable, but in the essentials, we’re all in this together. We merely have different visions of how to chart a course forward.
In the meantime, writers are experimenting. Some of them are combining traditional publishing releases with self-published short stories or novellas. Many are making their out-of-print backlists available. Some are turning their backs on large traditional deals, while others are accepting them with excitement. Personally, I’m glad that I get to be a writer in a time of experimentation, when the rules aren’t as cut and dried and innovation is more encouraged. While a small part of me wishes that there was One Right Way to get published, the truth is that there never has been; it’s just become more obvious.
Now it’s your turn. Please try to be civil, but tell me: what are your thoughts on today’s publishing world? How do you think self-publishing has changed the equation (or DO you think it’s changed)? What benefits do you anticipate receiving from your own business strategy? I eagerly await your opinions.
Awesome article and I couldn’t agree with you more. As a new indie author that writing is a business. Writers tend to forget that whether your traditional published or an indie author we must still sell ourselves. I would love to write full time but unfortunately don’t have the ability to do so, but you could say I approach writing as a side-business. My family, full-time job and college come first for me and then writing gets worked in. I’ve managed to outline a business strategy for myself and currently pursuing my MBA has actually helped me understand the best process in marketing myself as an author. I haven’t invested tons of money into my marketing campaign but I have been able to score a table at the New York Comic Con in 2011 so I’m working out the details that will help promote my books to a large audience.
I was explaining to one of my friends the author day the misconception about writing and authors. Many people think you write a book and instantly millions of dollars start to fill up your savings account! But in reality even most of the traditional published authors you see on the shelves of Barnes and Noble probably have a full-time job but write on the side. I still have about another month before I publish my book but I’ve been networking through social networking websites and sending indie book reviewer’s emails in the hopes that I can promote my novel just a little bit more. As writers we tend to think people will start knocking down our door when we finish our books but I’ve realized its hard work…very hard work promoting myself and approaching writing as a business. Nothing comes easy and authors/writers who are financially successful have worked very hard to get where they are! Great post! I would love to have you on my post as a guest blogger sometime! Also McDonald’s The Dervish House is an awesome book!
Congrats on getting a table at NY Comic Con! It sounds like a really amazing opportunity!
And yes, writing really is a lot of work either way, and either way there’s a lot of promotion/marketing work to do. And I think most writers will laugh at the myth of writing making us rich! 🙂
I’m reading The Dervish House right now (finishing up my Hugo reading). So far, so good! And yes, I’d be happy to guest blog, so feel free to email me at practicalfreespirt@gmail.com to set up details.
The email you provided above didn’t work. It kicked it back.
Sorry, I did a typo in my own address. It’s practicalfreespirit@gmail.com. But I’ll go ahead and send you an e-mail right now.
Nothing against it. It just gave us another medium to bring our works to be. I figured that since we have to market our works anyway, why not do everything ourselves? We can even self-publish ebooks for free so why not try?
It always makes me happy to have options!
Right there with you, Miss Amy. I dislike the adversarial tone that many of the advocates on both sides tend to adopt. Very distasteful.
Regarding promotion, there doesn’t seem to be a substitute for a well-written book. Also, a lot of people don’t realize just how much the databases assist you in that regard.
If your work is well-received by even just a few people, the distributor’s system will cross-link your book with similar titles in the same genre (or even similar genres). The more positive feedback you get, and the higher your book ranks, and the more often this happens. You can affect this through your own marketing efforts and putting the book on sale, but, ultimately, the book has to be well-written.
I think a lot of the traditionalist advocates don’t believe a self-published title can be well-written. But, as Marilag points out so aptly: We’re doing a lot of this ourselves anyway. Similarly, consumers have been separating wheat from chaff since they were… well, separating wheat from chaff in the fields. Good work will out, as it were.
I agree that well written is key. Of course, then the question becomes “How do you know the novel is well written?” But I think that is something I would always secretly worry about.
Also a lot of people seem unnecessarily worried about consumers. Somehow they manage to figure out what music they want to listen to — with books, it’s the same sort of deal. That’s the wonderful thing about being able to download samples of books for free ahead of time (although confession, I pretty much never actually do that). Also I suspect that technology will catch up and give consumers better and better ways of sorting through books to find the ones they would enjoy the most. We’ll see if I’m right….
For a long time, “indie” books, as you are calling them, were sneered at and campaigned against. Fortunately that silliness is ending. Marketing for an independant author is tough. And no, quality of a book does not at all mean it will sell well. Getting the word out is crucial. Even with good reviews for the books I have authored and sell, getting the word out to where it reaches critical mass, that is enough word for sales to pick up is tough. What I would love is some enterprising person to market for me on spec. That is, if they manage to get me so many sales, then I pay them a percentage. I imagine lots of authors would be eager to work with a marketer who takes payment only when he or she brings in the sales.
Barry Eisler (forgive me if I have misspelled his name) advocates low prices for e-books. While his argument makes a lot of sense, I am wondering if he is able to sell so well on his own because the big publishers got his name established. What are other’s thoughts on this?
Well, Barry Eisler hasn’t actually put out his self-pubbed novel yet, so we don’t have the numbers of how well it will sell, but his short story sure sold well! I would think that him being a NYT bestseller contributed to those numbers.
I have read some people who say that being established in traditional publishing first doesn’t matter, but I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I do know examples of authors who had no trad. background doing well as indies. But on the other hand, if you’ve already established a fan base and your author name with the help of trad. publishing, that certainly can’t hurt and will probably help you.
Alas, without a few thousand sets of sample data, any predictions about going traditional first vs self-pub first are just speculation.
However! http://victorinewrites.blogspot.com/2011/03/sales-growth-over-time.html
Some hard numbers, with a little bit of data on what caused peaks and valleys.
It looks like around the 30-ish mark people start to make a living. The bottom 13 or so are doing quite nicely.
Regarding the Eisler deal: http://scrivenerserror.blogspot.com/2011/03/b322x.html
Down at bullet point five, C.E. Petit makes a really good point: “First, note that Eisler isn’t relying upon whatever he earns from that next book to pay the bills;…” Quite so. If I were offered a half million advance, I’d have to take it. Mind you, I wouldn’t have to take the second one. But the first half mil, yeah. I’ll take the check. 🙂
Really looking forward to his numbers though. I have a feeling he’ll blow away the half million in the first quarter.
Thanks for that link with all the numbers, Eric! Super interesting read.
And yes, in some ways advances are like a loan on future earnings. So in trad. publishing more of the risk of the book succeeding or failing is carried by the publishing house, whereas in indie publishing there is no loan, so more of the risk is on the writer, plus the cash flow is different.
Writing is only a business if you want to make a living out of it. Just as with any art form business success doesn’t mean creative success, nor does creative success mean business success, although there’s a good deal of correlation.
Sure, if you’re interested in writing as a hobby, that’s great too. But I’d argue that even if you have a day job and don’t make your primary living from writing, if you’re interested in getting your writing out to a good-sized audience (whether that be by pursuing a publishing deal or self publishing), it’s still usually a business.
But I do think that your writing business career can flounder at the same time as your writing is artistically flourishing. Everyone has to define what “success” means to them.
My concern with self-publishing, as with small press publishing and big press publishing is the issue of the signal to noise ratio.
It’s useful to remember Sturgeon’s Law, that 95% of anything is crap. Ideally, gatekeepers exist to address this point, to weed out the good from the sea of bad, and present only the worthwhile (accepting for the moment that you agree with a given gatekeeper’s operational definition for what is worthwhile).
At a large press, a good editor or editorial team takes on this role, and for those portions of “worthwhile” defined as “profitable” there’s a marketing team involved as well. As a small press (for example, the one I operate) there may only be one or two editors working on a project and the question of “how much money will this book make” may not even come up at all (though the question of “how much do we stand to lose” usually does).
In self-publishing, there may not be a professional editor and the author has to shoulder the responsibility of both creative artist and gatekeeper. And more often than not, objectivity goes out the window. Most of the authors I know (and I’m including myself) are rarely the best judge of whether their own work.
I run a small press and from day one made the decision never to publish my own work. Why? For the same reason I don’t expect people submitting novellas to me to include rave reviews from their mothers. There’s no objectivity there. At best there’s an attempt, but c’mon, writing is a very subjective, in-your-own-head kind of thing.
If you’re going to self publish, that’s fine, but unless you bring in an outside editor (and while you’re at it, let’s go with a proof reader and copy editor as well), my best guess is you’re going to land in the wrong portion of that 95% / 5% divide.
You bring up some good points, Lawrence. While they don’t apply to some applications (ie self publishing backlist or story collections consisting of already published stories), they certainly apply to self publishing material that hasn’t been published in the past.
There are editors, copy editors, and proofreaders available for hire. And some self-published writers do so, which I imagine helps with the quality issue. But certainly it’s not gatekeeping.
On the other hand, there are a lot of dysfunctional aspects of the current publishing system, and as a person of business they can be fairly painful to watch. So having a possible alternative developing is, for me, a positive sign. For example, I’m thinking about writers who have had their series dropped in the middle. Now there’s another way for those writers to complete those series and still have potential of payment for their work.
Another example: It’s very hard to convince publishers to buy YA set in college. There’s no clear place to shelve such books in a bookstore. But if a writer really wanted to do a project set in a college for artistic reasons, again, they could do so and still get it out to potential readers.
I believe having an alternative, even one with obvious flaws, puts more power and control in the hands of writers. And I’m all in favor of that.
Amy, I agree with you completely with respect to reissuing backlists, and continuing a beloved series after a publisher has opted not to continue with the author. But in both of those cases, we’re talking about authors who have been in the business for a while, who have gone through the experience of editing and publishing via traditional models. They’ve already had years to realize that, generally speaking, the words do not simply fall from their fingers onto the page ready for mortal consumption.
While this may be changing, I still have the impression (based on speaking to audiences of aspiring writers from panels at many conventions) that the vast majority of first time authors who are opting for self-publishing are not inclined to make use of any editors-for-hire. They don’t see the need, or the value. More’s the pity, because there are some brilliant ideas out there just waiting for some craft and polish.
I’ll close by agreeing with you on another point: alternatives are a good thing. A one-size-fits-all model, particularly one mired in the technology of the last century is not going to get the job done anymore. It’s a fine thing to have other choices on hand. The ability to make informed choices though, that’s where it gets tricky.
I have to admit that when I first started selling work, I didn’t think it needed much editing. Then I saw what the editor did, and was instantly humbled.
I’ve advanced my craft considerably over the last ten years, so my work is cleaner out of the gate, but that second set of eyeballs will never have a replacement. First-timers that can’t get solid peer review are very well advised to seek out a freelance editor. And even then, you really really want to hire a copyeditor.
Ditto the copywriter advice! The things they catch that I never would have noticed are truly amazing.
Editors are invaluable, I’m completely with you on that one. As are quality first readers. 🙂
Right now we’re in a time of flux so it’s hard to tell where things will go. My hope would be that many indies *would* opt for hiring professionals to help them, but I have no idea of the current numbers, or how trends might change.
And yes, making an informed choice (emphasis on informed) is key.
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There are so many legit e-publishers that authors should submit their books to them rather than risk the stigma of “Self Published.” My self published book which I hired a copy editor to help me with got me a rave review from Hugo winner Ben Bova (who never reveiws books!) and an invitation to Russia to speak to their top scientists at an art and science conference. My book: Vector Theory and the Plot Structures of Literature and Drama. No, I didn’t use an editor, but I did take five years to write it and did use a copyeditor. However, the stigma stays. Stigmas can be really dumb.
I’d agree with you that the stigma definitely still exists now. But it does seem to be in the process of changing — hard to say at this juncture how much it will change or how strong a stigma will remain. But I think it’s important to be aware of the stigma (especially in case it doesn’t change) and make sure to include it in career calculations.
[…] 29, 2011 by Amy Sundberg Last week we talked about thinking of writing as a business, which includes educating ourselves about the industry and making informed choices. Today I want to […]