Another Step on the Self-Publishing Road

A lot goes into publishing a book, and self-publishing, if it's going to be done right, and that means knowing the extent of strengths and weaknesses. My strengths include a good sense of artistic design and writing books. My weaknesses are more on the publicity, marketing and writing synopses side. I'm also good at pitches and queries, having won more than my fair share of book contracts for myself and others.

I have another strength, and that's knowing when to do it myself and when to delegate. That is why I hired a couple of top notch artists to do the cover art for my books. I also took the advice of a good friend and let her do the synopsis that will appear on the back cover of Among Women when it comes out in print. I also took another good friend's advice and let her take a crack at the synopsis; I'm using hers as the description on Amazon.

Self-publishing has a bad reputation, mostly gained from people who are rejected by publishing houses and decided they know best and publish their books anyway. In a way, I fit that category because I couldn't interest an agent or a publisher in my book. They were enthusiastic about the project, but not enthusiastic enough. They also couldn't get a handle on how to market the book, which is something I will have to deal with. Among Women is not easily shelved or pigeonholed. I'm looking to word of mouth to get the ball rolling and I'll take it from there. Advertising will help, and that's something else I'm not good at, but I am good at talking about my projects, so I'll work the publicity from that angle. Unfortunately, marketing is all about starting a buzz and, as long as I stay away from bees, wasps and hornets (I'm allergic), I should be all right. I'll wear veils and masks and gloves to protect the more sensitive parts of my skin -- and hide my identity. So to speak.

I'm also good at controlling things. My sister Tracy calls me a control freak, "In a good way," she says. Self-publishing gives writers a lot of control. I'm good with control, and I know how to decide what to delegate and what to do myself, like editing.

A good book needs a really good editor, and I have one with a taste for blood -- the red pencil kind. She doesn't spare my feelings or sugar coat anything; she just tells it like it is and we compromise, as long as it has nothing to do with grammar. Spelling, I've got that cold, and I have a few medals to prove it.

Self-publishing has a bad name because of all the bad books published that shouldn't be published, but that is changing almost as fast as the publishing business. Computers have made self-publishing so much easier and very user friendly. There are still glitches, but it's a learning process and we're all learning. We learn from our mistakes and from what has gone before. And we learn from big publishing, which seems to have lost its way.

Traditional publishing had one big advantage over self-publishing, or vanity publishing, as it used to be called. Vanity publishers are still out there, but that's a different topic for another day. Traditional publishing offered savvy editors, proofreaders, copy editors, line editors, marketing, distribution and a sales force. A lot of that has been marginalized for the sake of the bottom line. The first cuts seem to have been in editing: copy and line editing, proofing and concept editors. A writer, no matter how much of a genius s/he is, can only get better with a great editor. Most of the books I see from big publishing houses these days are full of wrong words, grammar mistakes, typo, writer's tics, and all kinds of continuity and concept errors. I cringe whenever I hit one of those brick walls. I wanted better for my book, so I hired an editor.

I learned a long time ago that I cannot do it all. I have limitations (we're back to strengths and weaknesses) and a second, or even third, pair of eyes will only make my book better. I have the best. I'm willing to share her, but not give her up. Mary Ann is the best editor I've worked with in a long time, and if it ain't broke, you don't fix it. I don't even mind (too much) her slash and burn technique where it's warranted. I need that sometimes. Keeps me on track.

In order to get my book into e-book and print, I used my brains and got help. I got two young and talented artists for the cover art and a great editor. I'm the general (control freak) and I marshalled my troops where they would do the most good. The book that came from all our efforts -- I could not have done it without them -- is a better book and good enough to publish. How do I know? Because a publisher told me he would've published the book if I'd sent it to him. I'm considering talking to him since he might be willing to help me get wider distribution for my book in Europe. Every little bit helps, and I'm not afraid to color outside the lines.

Sometimes it isn't what you know, but who you know, and that is very true of self-publishing. I chose my self-publishing company because I had the option to do most of the work myself (control freak) and yet could employ the talents and strengths of others to balance my weaknesses. I'm very happy giving up some control as long as I have the final say. One of my artists keeps telling me that I don't have to settle for less than what I want, for less than perfect. I don't -- at least as far as I know.

One good thing about self-publishing and the user friendly systems available is that I can make changes (when I find mistakes) and not have to wait for another print run of 50,000 books to do it. I can make the changes and see them within a day or two. Now that is power.

I also gave up some power where synopses are concerned. I do not do them well. It is one of my big weaknesses. When a good friend suggested mine was crap (she said it needed work), I asked her to write it. What she sent me is what I used on the back cover. I know good when I see it. Another good friend suggested my synopsis was missing something, so I asked her to write something for me, and that one is the description on Amazon. A good control freak knows when to step out of the way and let the professionals handle things. I would rather eat worms than write synopses, but that's just because I'm awful at it. For me, it's like calling someone and getting the answering machine or voice mail. I never know what to say and whatever I do say, unless it's business and I have a specific reason for calling, makes me sound like a dithering idiot. I usually just hang up or say as little as possible. It's the old saying about people thinking you're an idiot until you open your mouth and remove all doubt. That's me. The idiot on the recording.

As long as writers are willing to give up some power, or at least find people with strengths to match their weaknesses, self-publishing will become less about vanity and more about quality books, and that is what's important. Being a control freak helps, as long as no micromanaging is involved. The proof is in the pudding -- or, in this case, in the book. The proof, I mean. It's in the mail now and I'll be able to look it over on Friday. In the meantime, I'll try to focus on work. It should be easier since my book was reviewed in record time, in about 12 hours, as opposed to the 48 hours I was expecting, but then I made sure my book was as good as it could be before I hit the publish button.

Cracks in the Vanity Publishing Mirror

I began the process of migrating the data from Word into the template provided by CreateSpace and it went well the first time around, that is until I found out that the cover artist wouldn't have a template that fit the 6 x 9 size paperback. Drat! Oh, well, I downloaded another template and began all over, discovering that all the italics were missing, as were the little masks between time and location changes, and that some of the pages had lost the formatting and were still the 6 x 9 size instead of the 8.5 x 5.5 size. Well, double drat! I spent the next two hours before work and several hours -- until 11 p.m. -- after work putting it all right, checking, double checking, saving as a PDF file and checking and redoing it until it was perfect. I also found two small errors, and I fixed those. Oh, and I fine tuned a few sentences, not much, just a skoch. My part is done, except for the back cover copy and I'm not read to go there yet. I mean, how many times can I tell the story without telling the story and make it fresh and interesting and not something I've written and rewritten a dozen or more times before? It's a difficult and time consuming job, but the effort will be worth it because my book will not be just some thrown together piece of editorial tripe that should have taken much longer to write.

That's the problem with self-publishing. Too many people refuse to take the time to do it right. I could name names, but I won't. It's not necessary, especially when Mark Deniz of Morrigan Books does such a wonderful job of tearing down vanity publishing. I agree with him, but I also believe in a barrel of mostly rotten apples there is bound to be a few that are still fresh and tasty. I will do my best to make sure my book is among the edible.

Since starting this whole self-publishing odyssey, I have spent a lot of time reading blogs and commentary about well known writers jumping the legacy publishing ships to do it for themselves. They do have the advantage of having been published and on top (most of them) for years and that definitely brings up the tone of the general rush to self-publish. What I found most interesting was Kristine Kathryn Rusch's series of articles on the often arcane workings of Big Publishing and I do agree mostly with her. A behemoth like Big Publishing is not going to be able to change overnight, or even over a decade or two from the looks of it, and embrace the digital revolution. It's like trying to take a tight corner at top speed with a stegosaurus. It can't be done.

I do think there are some things that Big Publishing can do right away and that is lower the price of the digital versions of hardback books. An e-book that costs almost as much as hard cover is ridiculous, as is limiting how many times libraries may loan a digital version before getting a new license -- 26 does seem to be ridiculously low. After all, it's not like a hardback or soft cover book that can be loaned out as long as there are covers to keep the pages in place. Digital books do not wear out. That's just pure and simple blindness and greed. That is part of the reason why so many writers are jumping ship.

There will always be wide-eyed and self-published writers tired of doing it all themselves who just want someone to do everything but the writing for them. They'll still have to market and publicize and do a lot of the heavy lifting, but at least they will have more time to write. Putting a book together and making it good enough for publication is a time-consuming process and you have to juggle a lot of balls at the same time in order to get it all done right so you can move on to the next book, which is why I'm still holding off on finishing Whitechapel Hearts. Yes, it is procrastination, but procrastination for a good reason. Luckily, I'm keen on learning new skills and expanding my horizons and, when it gets to be too much, I'll simply hire someone else to do it. I don't see that happening in the near future. I'm too poor. But a time will come and I will be able to afford it, even though I will still have the last word.

I suspect my journey along the self-publishing road will not be as difficult as it is for some because I have some work and background in the business. I've been an editor at a magazine and a web site designer. I've edited a few books, ghost written a few and dealt with publishers and agents. I am learning how to market and I have to say I'm not all that keen on it, but with the bitter . . . . I have a background in art and know what I want and yet am flexible enough to be able to bend when necessary. I've been through the publishing process a time or twelve, give or take a half dozen, and I'm not averse to hard work, and believe me self-publishing, when it's done correctly, is hard work. I will never say it isn't. But, like with anything worth doing, it is worth doing well, and I, unlike many self-publishing writers, prefer to get it right the first time, and I'm not afraid to take the time to do it right.

There are times when self-publishing is all about vanity, and I freely admit there is a bit of vanity in my decision to journey down the self-publishing road. After all, I believe in my book and my ability to put it all together. In an industry when the final decision is no longer made by editors and publishers but by the advertising and sales departments of Big Publishing, I prefer my judgment to theirs. After all, what do they know about writing a good book? Advertising and sales should be about selling a product to the best of their abilities and not to deciding which product -- or book -- would be easiest to sell. If that were the case, who would have published Dickens or Steinbeck or even Hemingway since they were definitely never the flavor of the month?

It took a visionary to take Harry Potter at face value and see that he had potential. Think of the editors who turned J. K. Rowling down. I'll bet they're kicking themselves for not being able to see the future more accurately and clearly. I'll bet Rowling wouldn't have hesitated to self-publish if she couldn't get Harry to the masses any other way.

Kick Start Your Writing

My astrological chart says I'm not a self starter and I would have to agree. I am a born procrastinator -- on some things, writing being one of them. I love to write and can sit and write for hours on end, usually irritated that I have to get up and tend to nature's call or eat. I have been known to write for 36 hours straight, with nature breaks, of course, and not get tired. I am in the zone. The words are coming. The characters are cooperating and often teaching me things about them I did not know. My fingers are not tired of typing and my backside has not yet reached the leaden stage where getting up is like trying to free my nether regions from a powerful electromagnet -- must be the endorphins and adrenaline coursing through my bloodstream. Everything works fine. I wrote a 100,000-word biography like that once.

Then there are times that I just cannot face the page, knowing that if I do I will be caught in powerful currents and dragged down into the zone where I will not emerge for hours, maybe even a day or two. I cannot afford it. I have to work my day job and do the laundry and bulldoze the detritus from the last writing stint, definitely not a good idea if avoiding surprise visits by the health department.

I do write every day, but not on my works-in-progress. I journal every day, keep up with correspondence and emails, and work, which consists of 8-10 hours of typing dictation, very technical dictation. On the laptop waits my novel or short story waiting to be finished and it calls to me. Like the hunger pangs I ignore when I am in the writing zone, I ignore the siren's call to write until pretty soon, like hunger pangs, the call fades. Then begins the avoidance dance and the procrastination when a deadline looms. It is my fault; I am not a halfway person. I am either all in or all out, my versions of "Do or do not; there is no try," from Yoda to Luke Skywalker. There stands the problem: inability to commit hindquarters to seat in order to write.

Instead, I play a couple rounds of computer games (I prefer skill and knowledge games), work on blog posts, fire off a couple of quick tweets and a run through Facebook to see if I missed anything and then rounds through the various blogs, all while checking email and getting ready for work while sipping a cup of hot green tea that is cooling fast. One job through the widgets to check hits on the blogs and a quick visit to see if anyone has read the latest chapter of the novel I posted on a publishing site. The novel is unfinished and needs a final edit and proofread. It is the reason I have been procrastinating.

I want to finish the novel. Well, it is already finished and needs a little tune-up and loose ends tied. I need to finish the novel before the editor gets to it. I plan to finish the proofreading but, oops, where has time gone. Almost time for work and I still need to eat breakfast (pesky hunger pangs) and take a shower. Maybe later.

Maybe tomorrow.

Maybe this weekend.

By then, a few weeks have passed. Good thing the editor has not contacted me because I have nothing to offer to excuse my inability to kick start my writing engine.

That was yesterday. This morning, I found the answer. I knew it all along because it works for getting the laundry done, the clothes folded and put away, the bed made after the sheets are washed (making the bed every day provides a warm and moist environment for dust mites and other microscopic vermin to grow and procreate -- that is my story and I am sticking to it), the dishes done, the vacuuming finished, exercising and taking out the trash. Once I begin, the rest takes care of itself.

With writing, it is the internal editor that kick starts my engine. One of my critique partners mentioned an extra word in chapter twelve and a comma missing in chapter fifteen. They cannot be allowed to stand or I will forget and the spell check program will not catch them. Into the breach once more I go.

Control-F and type in a few words of the phrase and the extra word is easily found. Next search coordinates go in and, wait a minute, there is something else. How could I have missed that awkward phrasing? Well, that has to go. A few moments later and I am in the zone happily writing and editing and listening to the characters tell me secrets that I dutifully transcribe and polish. The first step is the problem, but the internal editor makes taking the first step effortless.

I do not have the problem in journaling or editing others' work or writing reviews. Deadlines and missing days in the journals keep me honest, but there is no real deadline for a new book or a work-in-progress that has not been contracted. Yes, the problem crops up when I have a long critique and the first glance at the manuscript ends with groaning sighs after glancing at the first page, but the deadline keeps me honest there, too. No, I will just have to rely on the internal editor and program her to whisper errors, typos and misspellings in my ear that she caught on the way out of the zone so that I am anxious one again to go once more into the breach. When that wears thin and begins to go the way of the hunger pangs, I will have to find another way to kick start the writing.

Someone else will have to whisper errors into my ear that engages the internal editor. I doubt I will ever get past the need to clean up mistakes, especially when they are mine.

Overnight Success Takes a While

The same question crops up all the time: How long did it take you to write Past Imperfect? Answer: 2 weeks.

Yes, it's true. I wrote the whole book in two weeks, at least the first draft. The published book took a little longer -- 10 years. Why? That isn't a simple answer.

In between writing the novel and publication, I had a full time job, sometimes two jobs, wrote articles, stories, edited other books and stories, kept a paper journal and several online blogs, read and reviewed numerous books (300+) and, from time to time, went back to the novel to tweak it. I had to tweak it a lot after 9/11 because there were major changes in the way airports handled incoming traffic and that affected the story.

In the meantime, I also learned about electronic surveillance and earned a ham radio operator's license, actually three licenses (Technician, General and Extra -- all within a week -- and learned Morse code). I traveled and moved and kept writing stories and articles for publication while still tweaking the novel. That brings me up to three years ago when a publisher finally contracted the novel and I changed the original name, Out of the Past, to Past Imperfect, which, as it turned out, wasn't such a good idea. The name fit but what I didn't know what that someone else had chosen the same title. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

As September 2007 rolled around, I was getting antsy because I still had not heard from the publisher or the editor and my emails weren't answered. I did some checking only to find out the publisher had gone bankrupt and forgot to tell me. There I was with the manuscript ready to be published and no publisher. Goodbye January 2008 debut.

Undaunted, I sent the manuscript to another publisher and got a quick response. YES! I signed the contracts and waited and I didn't have to wait long. During an email conversation about choosing an editor, the publisher decided she didn't want to publish the book. I had a contract, but decided it wasn't worth fighting it out in court to force her to publish the novel because she wouldn't give it her full attention or her support.

I sent the manuscript out again and got another quick response, another yes, but I didn't hold my breath. Good thing I didn't. The publisher loved the manuscript but they were over sold and requested I send it in again in a year. I didn't want to wait, so I sent it out again. That was October 2008 and I was anxious to get moving. Another yes. Another wait. This time the publisher kept in contact and finally in March 2009 the editor contacted me. Two quick edits and I was ready, but not in time for the Rocky Mountain Writers Showcase. I didn't have a cover and hadn't seen even a mock-up, and no one asked me for my input. I began to worry, seeing yet another contract fizzle.

July 2009 rolled around and two weeks before my novel debuted the publisher sent me a JPG file of the cover and the link for my page on their website. I was in business. I had a publishing date and Amazon listed the book for sale. The rest is history.

It has been a long road for that particular book, but I refused to give up. It wasn't my best work, but it was a good start and so far the reviewers feel the same way, giving Past Imperfect rave reviews all across the board. I'm now an overnight success -- sort of.

Overnight is a relative term. It may take years to get off the ground and see not only physical proof of all the hard work and struggles, but money from sales. It's not an easy road and writing isn't for the faint of heart or the easily scared and cowed. What it takes, beside hard work and a certain talent for words, is forbearance, fortitude and a whole lot of determination.

As it stands now, I'm waiting to hear from the editor for the next two novels waiting in the wings for their turn at bat. One took many years to write and the other I wrote in two weeks, spending the last year revising, editing and adding to the bones with blood, sinew, flesh and skin. I still get nervous waiting because I'm not a patient person, but it's coming. Until the next two books arrive overnight on the scene, there's plenty of time to work on new projects to keep from biting my nails and going crazy with my overnight success.

Silly rejections

I just read the form submission I got on my story, Theft of the Seventh Chakra, and the editor took the time to print a note: "Don't skip extra lines between paragraphs." I'm pleased he took the time from his busy schedule to jot down that note -- and sign it -- but he's wrong. There are times when you skip an extra line between paragraphs, but he obviously missed it.

When you are changing points of view, narrators, chapters in a long short story, and denote a time or scene change, you use an extra line between paragraphs. Since the only extra line in my story is between the body of the story and the ending when the main character is dead and the point of view is no longer first person singular, that tells me he at least read the whole story. To pick out that one "mistake" and make a note of it makes me wonder if he was looking for an excuse to reject the story. That's the thing about rejections, as I've told many beginning writers anguishing over rejections, they are completely subjective and sometimes silly.

Editors are just people and they are subject to the same stresses, prejudices and moods as the rest of humanity, although there are some people who would argue that editors are people or even human. Some editors look for a reason to reject a story, like one editor who boasted she had read over 500 stories during the year and found only two worth publishing. She threw out stories when a word was misspelled or a sentence incorrectly published and rejected several stories because the grammar was incorrect. Her rejections had nothing to do with the stories and everything to do with feeling the need to reject everything that came across her desk. It happens. Editors can be very petty and mean. Not all editors are petty and mean every day; sometimes they're just having a bad day. As one friend said this morning when we discussed rejections, an editor can wake up in the morning and decide the minute they put their feet on the floor that they're going to reject everything that comes from a female writer. I'll just add that sometimes an editor will reject everything by writers whose names begin with a specific letter of the alphabet.

"Today I'll reject every writer whose name begins with C." The editor smiles and goes about his work.

Being an editor is hard work, especially when wading through a mountainous slush pile with stories that are unbelievably bad. It's like standing in a perfume shop assaulted by a thousand different smells and having to pick one scent out of the sensory avalanche of smells. Sometimes an editor misses the good ones because there have been so many bad ones that the eyes are swimming and slightly unfocused and the feeling of hope is a far distant dream.

The whole point of this informational rant is that rejection isn't personal 99.9% of the time and it is subjective 99.9% of the time. The only remedy for rejection is to send the story to another magazine or publisher or editor and keep sending it out until you sell it. Keep the work in play, especially if the comments are generic or are silly, like not skipping an extra line between a change of time, point of view, scene, character or chapter.

Maybe if I had used three asterisks between the story and the ending, the editor would have figured out the point of view change and understood the extra line -- or not. My story is going out in the mail this afternoon. I don't take silly comments seriously. Neither should you.