Tag Archives: Indie Publishing

A Publishing Update

— Mark Paxson

Months ago, I posted that I was going to try the traditional publishing route with my latest novel. That effort didn’t last very long. Queries sent, queries rejected. Or just not responded to at all.

So, I decided to go the indie publishing route again. Only, I was going to put a little money into the effort for the first time, beyond some editing costs. I paid for a Kirkus Review of my novel.

The Kirkus reviewer provided a decent review, with some quotes that could be used for marketing purposes, but … the reviewer referred to the novel as a novella and the summary of the story line only included content from the first third of the novel. Which makes me wonder if the reviewer bothered to read the whole thing.

I asked them to fix the reference to it being a novella. It took more than a week to get that done. As the review was finalized, I pushed publish on the e-book version of the novel, while I finished up the formatting for the paperbook.

Let’s just say that the formatting experience became a gift from hell. Or something like that. There are certain things about Word that simply are not intuitive and never will be. Every time I work on formatting something for publication, I have to learn it all over again. It took me days and days and days to get it done.

One of the things I did with this book was to pay for a professional cover. It looks incredible and I never want to DIY on covers again. But that was another $300 down the drain.

Once I pushed publish on the paperback, I ordered author copies from Amazon. Twenty copies to hand out to people as I wish. Unlike when you buy a book from Amazon and it takes two days, sometimes a few more, for delivery, author copies take about two weeks. And for some reason, Amazon split my order of twenty copies into two separate orders. One order was … nineteen books, while the other was for one book. That one book showed up about a week later, and I waited and waited for the other nineteen books. They never showed up. Yesterday, I ordered twenty copies again. Let’s see what happens.

Meanwhile, I’ve entered the book in a couple of book contests, primarily ones focused on independently published books. I await the results. That was another couple hundred bucks invested.

And I’ve tried some promotional websites. EReaderNewsToday, which was so good for me with my first novel eight years ago, has been a difficult nut to crack this time. I submitted the book for their consideration a few weeks ago. Their website said that they were pretty booked and to make sure to submit for a date more than 30 days out. But the submission form required a date within 30 days. So, I requested a date within 30 days, and the book was rejected because they didn’t have enough room.

I re-submitted the book to EReaderNewsToday with a proposed date that was more than 30 days out. They rejected the book because they didn’t have room. Sheesh. Before I started writing this post, I tried for a third time — which is always the charm, right?

I also tried another promo site — GoodKindles. For the small fee of $45, they featured my book. Which means it was the lead book of the day in their emails and tweets to their subscriber list. My book ran on August 2 on their site and in their subscription communications. It produced a grand total of … zero sales.

A couple of days ago, I set up an Amazon ad campaign. I committed $150 to the campaign, which only costs me something if somebody clicks on the ad. What I set up was a campaign for Kindle screens. When you turn on you Kindle or it goes to the lock screen, ads show up, typically for books, but occasionally for other things. The campaign started today. As I write this post, 48 people have seen it, one of them has clicked on it, and none of them have bought the book. But at the moment, I’m only out .32 for that one click!!

This is all a long way of saying that nothing is working and I’m close to being at a complete loss for what to do next. I try to remember Berthold’s words on this topic in previous exchanges. To write for the pleasure of it and for the interaction with whatever readers I have. Between the Kirkus Review, the cover, and the promo efforts I’ve tried, I’m in for more than $1,000 now on this book and it’s actually sold worse than my last book. Even though I think it has more popular appeal that that last book.

What do you do when you get frustrated with results like this? Or do you not get frustrated? This goes back to a concept we’ve discussed frequently around here. It comes down to objective. While I don’t expect to ever write and sell a bestseller, I’d at least like to write books that reach an audience beyond my family, friends, and social media buddies. I’ve yet to figure out how to do that. I’d like to at least make some money at this and not just break even, or in this case, lose money.

It’s a mystery. How to do this in the indie publishing world is becoming almost as opaque as the traditional publishing world. Part of the problem is that there are so many of us. Literally, everybody is publishing a book now. Okay, not literally — almost everybody. It’s hard to find a spot in a limited world when it appears that there is an unlimited number of books out there competing for that spot.

I’m frustrated at the moment, but I’m also oddly motivated. I want to get to my next half completed novel and push it out there and see if that’s the one that can be a breakthrough. And, if not that one, the next one. I haven’t given up. Yet.

Opening Pandora’s Box

— Mark Paxson

Months ago, I decided to try traditional publishing with my just-completed novel. That didn’t turn out so well, so I moved on to publishing it myself. I also decided to put some money into the publishing effort for the first time. I’ve paid for a Kirkus review, which I should get in the next week or so. I paid for somebody more talented than me to do the cover. I also joined the Independent Publishers Association, which has all sorts of “benefits” for its members — reduced prices for various editing, marketing, cover design, review, and all sorts of other services the indie publisher desperately needs.

Meanwhile, over on Twitter, I’ve started following a few Twitter accounts that promote books to their followers. Most of them boast follower counts of tens of thousands. One of them has over 114,000 followers. Each of these accounts will tweet out your short blurb about your book with a link to purchase it.

Now, I’m feeling overwhelmed by the choices and the options. I’m the type of guy who would prefer returning to the days when there were only plain and peanut M&Ms, only one kind of Snickers, only three channels on the television. I have Spotify and I absolutely love that pretty much every piece of music ever recorded is available there, but sometimes, I just don’t want all of that choice and I find myself wanting to curl into a ball instead of being confronted with the world of endless options we now have.

Which is where I’m at with my current publishing journey. As the title states, I feel like I’ve opened Pandora’s Box. I have unleashed the kraken. Everywhere I look, there are more sites that will promote your book, more services that will review your book. All of these things, of course, come with a fee attached. Everything from $25 to have your book pushed through one of those Twitter accounts to $500 for a discounted review through my IBPA membership. $500!! For a review!! And that’s a discount!!!!!! (Side note: yes, I paid almost that much for a Kirkus review, but I’m not doing it again.)

Meanwhile, those Twitter accounts that promote your book with tweets to their thousands of followers? There is almost no engagement on those tweets, and I know I pay almost no attention to them. Twitter isn’t where I go for book recommendations, you know what I mean.

There are a few places that will provide a review for free, and when the time is right, I’ll pursue those.

Beyond that … see above about wanting to curl into a ball. There are just so many options out there and I can’t help but feel like it’s an adjunct to the whole vanity publishing concept we discussed a week or so ago. Sure, we’ll be happy to promote your book, pay us, and … bwahahahahaha, good luck!

We’ve talked about this here before, but if you’re an indie author who has used any of these services — particularly the review and promo services — I would love to hear from you, and I’m willing to bet other writers would too. What worked? What didn’t? How did you decide which ones to use and which ones to stay away from? How did you decide how much pocket change to throw at these things? In other words … what’s the secret recipe to success?

A Video Chat — Some of Our Favorites

In which Berthold, Audrey and Mark talk about some of their favorite indie authors. We will likely doing another chat on this subject at some point in the future as we just began to scratch the surface. If you click on the youtube link and go to the youtube page for the video, you’ll see a list of the authors and their blogs/websites, or check out their author pages on Amazon.

The first entries into our Indie Hall of Fame: Lorinda Taylor, Tammy Robinson, Noah Goats, AC Flory, Vince Dickinson, Lindy Moone, Bill Fitts, Fallacious Rose (Now publishing under F.L. Rose, with a new book coming out soon.), Phillip McCollum, D. Wallace Peach, Kevin Brennan, Jeremy L. Jones, Chuck Litka, Michael Graeme, and Carrie Rubin (traditionally published with a recent indie book or two to her credit)

A Response to Chuck

— Mark Paxson

Yesterday, I posted this guest post from Chuck Litka. Chuck speculates as to whether indie publishing is, or has become, the new version of vanity publishing.

This is a thought I’ve had over the years as I’ve written and published the indie way. Are we all just a bunch of vain people who need to feed our ego by putting our books out there, regardless of what agents and traditional publishers might think?

To be honest, I think there might be a kernel of truth to that notion. But … I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. We create and wanting the world to see our creation is a part of the process for many of us.

Yes, there are those who create only for themselves. They journal and never share it. They paint and cover their walls with their artwork. Musicians who play at home, never sharing the beauty of their music with the outside world.

And then there are those who want more than that. Who want to share their art with a larger group. Maybe just their friends and family. Maybe their community. Or maybe, they want to see just how far they can reach, how many they can touch with a piece they have created and that has meaning to them.

When it comes to writing, for decades (centuries?) there were only two options. Traditional publishing and vanity publishing. Vanity publishing typically involved paying thousands of dollars for somebody to “publish” your book, which really meant printing it and then sending you the boxes of books. It was entirely up to you to figure out how to sell those books.

Traditional publishing had its limits as well. You had to get past the gatekeepers to get in the game with the traditional approach. Good luck with that. And unfortunately, as the years go by and publishers have to prove themselves on the bottom line, they are less and less willing to take chances, to publish things that are outside of the norm.

One of the wonders of the technological revolution of the last few decades is that it has opened all sorts of new avenues for creative people to reach an audience. Whether it is blogging or other types of websites where we can show our words and our art, or places like Patreon where we can seek patrons to support our efforts, or, well sometimes it seems the possibilities are endless these days.

But there are problems with this strange new world too. Far too many people expect whatever they get on the internet to be free. Actually paying for content on the internet is, apparently, a huge no-no. I’m guessing it’s somewhere in the Bible as a venal sin. As a result, the idea of actually making money off of our art in this world where the venues seem endless … pfffftttt.

Another problem is saturation of the market place. When everybody can publish a book with the push of a button, guess what? Everybody is publishing a book. And those of us who do it the indie way have to constantly battle the backlash of readers who claim that indie published books are crap and not worth their time or their pennies.

The end result is that indie authors are faced with a world that is much like the world of vanity publishing. Sure, we can do it for much less money than the vanity publishers charged. But there’s no guarantee that we will ever actually find an audience beyond friends and family. And in some instances, maybe not even friends and family will care. So … like the writers of old who used the vanity presses, we use technology to throw our art out there and for far too many of us nobody reads it.

Meanwhile, in place of the vanity publishers of old, whole new industries are cropping up. Editors and cover artists and proofreaders and companies that will do everything for you — edit, cover art, stroke your ego, and put the books out there on the various retail platforms. For a small fee, of course. While never actually doing the hard work of marketing your book. No, that remains entirely up to the author, just like with the old-style vanity publishing.

I’ve had several co-workers who have paid several thousand dollars to these companies that are nothing better than vanity publishers for the digital age. They do virtually nothing to edit the book, nothing to market it. It’s a complete scam, but … here’s the other thing about all of this.

It’s about what each of us as writers want to do. What we want our experience to be. What we can afford. What is our objective. Those co-workers who I warned off the “publishers” they had found who were so eager to publish their books for that fee, went with them anyway. Which is fine. That fit what they were looking for and they were willing to shell out the money to make it happen.

Meanwhile, for the first nine years of my publishing journey, I didn’t have the financial resources to even think about something like that. I am one of those indie authors who has done the thing at the most minimal cost possible. Now, though, with my next book about to be published next month, I’ve cracked open the vault. I’ve paid for cover art and a Kirkus Review and I’m going to pay for some of the book marketing sites. All to see what happens. I want a bigger audience than I’ve been getting and the only way to do that is to pay for it. And hope.

Here on this blog, we’ve talked about a lot of things. Various rules of writing and suggestions for how to do things, or not to do things. Each time, I try to make sure to mention that this is not a one size fits all kind of industry.

Each writer has to decide what their objective is. Write for the fun of it. Write and publish and hope for a few readers and a review here or there. Write and publish and grow an audience. Write a bestseller and option the movie rights. Write and do what you want with the result. Each of these options has multiple paths forward and there is no right answer. Nor is there any sense in applying any negativity to the path a writer chooses.

Sure, we can call indie publishing the new vanity publishing, but so what. What’s your goal — pursue it. Pursue your art and make your dreams come true, whatever they are, whatever others may say about it, and whatever the labels may be.

Write. Create. Be you.

And buy my book!!

I’m kidding. No, not really.

A New Journey, Part II

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my efforts to find an agent, to go the traditional route with my latest completed novel. At the time, I was in the process of completing a spreadsheet with agents I was interested in querying.

Following that post and with a burst of energy and enthusiasm, I sent out a handful of queries. A week later, I sent out another handful of queries. And then I lost that energy and enthusiasm.

One of the seeming articles of faith in the publishing world is that publishers and agencies shut down during the holiday season. Most authors I see comment on this process seem to believe that sending queries to agents between Thanksgiving and the New Year is a pointless effort. Better to just wait a few weeks before giving it a try. That’s one of the reasons I took a break from querying.

Yesterday, I went back to it, sending out another handful. As of now, I’ve sent out 16 queries and received 3 rejections. I’m committed to sending out another 25-30 queries in the next week or two. That will be it. If nothing comes of those queries, I’ll go back to self-publishing. Although I may try some direct queries to publishers who accept unagented submissions.

In the meantime, I wanted to provide you with some additional resources if you are pondering the traditional publishing route.

First, there is a wonderful website called Writer Beware, operated by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The website has a wealth of information about agents, publishers, self-publishing, vanity presses, and other issues related to the publishing world. It also has a blog that regularly provides updates about agent and publishing scams out there. Guess what? There are a lot. I highly encourage any writer looking to publish to check this website out.

Second, there is Query Shark, a website devoted to helping writers improve the queries they are submitting to agents and publishers. The hosts of this site post queries they’ve received for review and then critique it. Sometimes brutally. But you can learn a lot about how to craft a query letter from reading their posts and critiques. Or better yet, submit your query letter to them and experience it directly. (I’m not sure how active this blog is. The last post was from last June, but even without any new posts, there are 335 posts critiquing 335 different query letters.)