Tag: survival

Write it now and worry about selling it later has been my mantra for a long time. Although it’s one I sometimes forget to abide by, it’s how I survive.

But there comes a point where you actually have to start thinking about what the hell you’re going to do with this book you’re about to finish. Are you going to submit it to a publisher? If so, small or big? If not, and you’re going indie, what’s the cover art need to look like? What’s the layout need to look like? What does the marketing plan need to look like? And how the fuck will you pay for it all?

Shadowpublications.com has been releasing my work in podcast form for over 13 years. During that time I’ve published eight indie works, and seven through Severed Press, an indie small press. Severed got me on the map by publishing The Black and the two paraquels Arrival and Outbreak. They also took the chance on The Derelict Saga and I can’t thank them enough for that.

Those two series with Severed Press earned more money than all my indie works combined which kind of points to a massive failure in marketing and visibility on my part for my own books, or that their genres just don’t sell. In other words, I suck at the business part of being an indie. Really suck.

And to be honest, I’m not surprised. I don’t have much of an attention span for all of that, my sense of graphic design is terrible, I have the artistic inclinations of a five year old on speed, and roughly the same skillset. Okay, it’s not that bad, but it’s close when I compare my skills to folks like Scott Pond.

Marketing requires ad buys. Marketing requires making inroads with other podcasters and content creators to help get the word out. Marketing requires taking the part of my brain that loves to create and forcing it to do something it really doesn’t want to do.

Sounds like a lot of whining, doesn’t it? It is.

The infuriating part of all of this is that I can learn. I can learn to do damned near anything, but I’m slower and older than I used to be. It takes much longer to pick up new skills and as I look at the clock of my life running down, I realize I’d much rather be creating content than selling it, which is a serious problem if your income depends on that very thing.

In my mind, the whole point of having a publisher is entering into a partnership. The writer writes, the publisher sells, and everyone makes some money. That model has been broken for the entirety of my life. Maybe for most of the 20th and all of the 21st century. The media monopoly of the 90s into the 2ks is what destroyed “traditional” publishing as a realistic, reliable income for “mid-listers.” If you followed the Penguin/Randomhouse merger trial, you know what I’m talking about.

The benefits of going with a good, small press are incalculable. They typically offer a good royalty rate, are engaged with their authors, and are devoted to the marketing madness. They kind of have to be. Small presses are also the best place to find a home for the occasional outlier of genre bending fiction. Although their advances are meager, aren’t everyone’s?

That “token” advance (usually somewhere $0 – $5,000) is sometimes a month’s car note, a rent check, or a mortgage payment. It’s money you’re essentially borrowing against the book’s success, but it’s money that goes into the checking account the moment you sign. When you’re on the financial edge, it sounds like a pretty damned good deal and sometimes it is.

Small presses also have their own downsides. Many have collapsed in the recent years due to mismanagement, outright embezzlement, or because the owner died and left a twisted legal wreck in their wake. Some are little more than scams. It’s always caveat emptor, or buyer beware. Or, um, writer beware.

Then there’s going indie. As I said, my shadowpublications.com titles haven’t sold much over the years. They’ve always done better in audio than in ebook/tpb form which may say something about my voice or my real audience than as a testament to my writing skills. Regardless, there are expenses beyond simple time.

Professional editing will cost upwards of $200. Cover art? $200 and up. Layout for ebook and TPB? Another $200 or more. So let’s say I get a deal from everyone and upfront costs are only $300, rather than the more realistic $600. That’s still $300 I have to have in order to get things moving.

Doesn’t sound like a lot of money, does it? It is. Want to know how many books I have to sell to make $300? How many patrons I have to have? How many house and medical emergencies I have to evade to have that kind of money left at the end of the month?

And while I’m managing all of that, I’m not writing. I’m not creating content, and I’ll be stressed to the gills if the book doesn’t sell.

My neuroses and sense of entitlement not withstanding, there’s no easy answer to the publishing equation. I know folks that have been wildly successful hybrid authors, others who’ve made more cash with small presses than they ever would have with a large one or by going indie, and still others that have failed on all fronts and left the industry altogether.

So what do I do with An Ancient Trap? What I do is finish the damned book, finish recording it for my patrons while I write the next novel, and maybe send off a query or two. Then, assuming someone bites, I’ll have to make the decision to either fight to keep the audio rights, or get paid for them. Or, walk away from the contract. This part is always going to be a stickler.

Now that I’ve excised this brain vomit, I’m going to record another chapter and do my best to remember that I have to finish before I sell.