Publishing: Indie or Traditional?

Photo Credit: Laenulfean on Flickr

We are now faced with a choice. A choice that, ten years ago, wasn’t even a consideration. To go indie? Or to go traditional?

What makes the decision so difficult is that there isn’t a wrong option, per say. Both routes have significant pros and cons and regardless of which option you choose, you take a risk.

A Look at Traditional

Let’s say you choose traditional publishing. If all goes well, you get an agent, who then brings your manuscript to a publisher, who then gets it published. What are the pros and cons?

Pros:

• Extra eyes on your work—you have an agent who looks at it first, who will likely help you edit it before you send it out to publishers. The publisher then has their own group of editors who go through it and help you improve it even further. It’s a team effort.


• Don’t worry about covers, formatting or distribution—this one is pretty self-explanatory. If you publish traditionally, those things are out of your hands. You can focus on writing.


• Career support—this is especially true if you have an agent (as opposed to submitting directly to publishers). I’ve never had an agent, but from what I’ve seen, agents are there to help you grow as a writer and develop your career. Many agents are in it for the long haul with their clients. They want to see you succeed.


• Your work on the shelves—the bricks-and-mortar shelves, that is. For many writers, walking into a bookstore and seeing their book on the shelf is a dream come true.

Cons:

• Publishing takes time—a lot of time. The average I’ve seen about is around two years, but it depends. Regardless, these things don’t come quickly. You have to be patient.


• Advances are dropping—I’m no expert in this field, nor do I claim to be, however, from what I’ve read, it seems the advances are dipping much lower than they used to be. Blame the e-books or Borders closing, but it is what it is.


• Low royalties—this is nothing new. Royalties for the author have always been much lower than they should be (in my opinion, anyway). This is especially true for e-books—regardless of what publishers offer you, it’s not going to be the 70% (or 35%) you can get from Amazon.


• Selling your rights—how important this one is really depends on the person. Some people don’t blink an eye at the thought of selling their rights, while others take it much more seriously. Regardless of where you stand, when you go traditional, many of your rights are sold. Period.


• Little control—again, some people care about this, others don’t. But when you go traditional, things like book cover and formatting aren’t up to you. It can be a blessing or a curse, depending on how you see it.

What about Indies?

Or maybe you go indie. But the DIY road isn’t all daisies and sunshine (or doom and gloom) either. Some pros and cons:

Pros:

• Full control—this is both a pro and a con really, because everything is your responsibility. You have full control over the cover, the formatting, the editing and marketing. If one of those things are lacking, that’s on you. On the other hand, if you do a fantastic job you can pat yourself on the back because you managed it alone. And you did it exactly the way you wanted to.


• Faster publication—once you upload you can have your book up on the e-book market in a matter of days. Viola. You’ve been published.


• Higher royalties—how much you get depends on how you price your e-book, but the way I understand it, if you price your book somewhere between $2.99-$9.99 you get 70% royalties. Anything lower and you get 35%. Either way, it’s more than you get from traditional.


• Never go out of print—this is something not many people talk about, but it’s a pretty big plus to indie publishing. E-books don’t go out of print, so as long as you don’t take it down, you could hypothetically sell your e-books forever. That’s a long time.


• Keep your rights—this is also self-explanatory. Indie publishing gives you the chance to sell your books without giving away your rights. Good deal if you care about that.

Cons:

• Full control—told you it’s also a con. Full control is great, but it can also be expensive. If you don’t have the skills, you’ll need to hire a cover designer. If you have trouble with formatting, you might need to hire outside help. Editing? Editors are insanely helpful, too—and not often free. Or you can do it completely yourself. It’s up to you.


• No gatekeepers—this may not sound like a con, but it is. It’s hard for writers to look at their own work and decide if it’s ready. Sometimes it seems ready, but it’s not until much later that you realize it needed a lot more work, after all. And if you published prematurely, it might be a little late for that.


• Stigma—it isn’t as bad as it used to be, but it’s still there. By going indie, you have to accept that not everyone will consider it a legitimate form of publishing. The fact is, there are a lot of self-published books that were uploaded way before they were ready. Your job is to prove that you’re different—and it’s not always easy.


• Not in bookstores—this is a huge deal for some writers. Call it what you want, but many writers dream about the day they can walk into a bookstore and see their work on the shelves. Chances are this won’t happen if you go indie (unless you cross over, of course, but that’s another matter entirely).

Neutral Point: Marketing

Regardless of which option you choose, you’re going to have to learn how to market yourself. Publishers don’t put a huge amount of marketing into every single book they publish—let’s face it, they can’t. There are simply too many books. Some books will get more of a push than others, but either way some of it comes back down to you.

Do you have an online presence? It doesn’t matter which publishing road you choose—you’re going to need one. A blog, a Twitter, a Facebook page, whatever works for you, but you’re going to need a way to promote yourself and promote your book.

Not only that, but this starts before you get published. So if you’re planning on publishing any time soon and you haven’t started building a name for yourself online, you might want to think about getting started.

In Conclusion…

Both are great options—what you need to decide is what’s best for you. Only you can decide if you’re prepared to do everything yourself or if you need the extra help traditional publishing can give you. Only you know if you can live with the fact that your book may never sit on a physical bookshelf. Only you can answer those questions.

But don’t deliberate forever—in the end, you have to make a decision. You have to make something happen. Your career isn’t going to start itself.

What are your thoughts—indie or traditional? Have you tried either one? What has your experience been like? 

Do You Need That Scene?

Photo Credit: E. Briel on Flickr

For me at least, one of the most difficult things I had to come to terms with when learning how to edit, was cutting. In theory, it makes sense. Not everything you write in the first draft is going to be worthy of sticking around until the final draft. I understood that.

In practice though, it was a little more difficult.

You see, I didn’t mind cutting lines or even entire paragraphs—those could be easily replaced. But when it occurred to me I might need to cut entire scenes or even characters, well, that was a little more painful.

But truth be told, editing doesn't mean cutting the occasional paragraph here and there and tweaking character traits. Sometimes editing requires that you be brutally honest with yourself and answer some difficult questions.

Questions like, do I really need this scene?

Think about it. Go through your WIP and pick a random scene. Could your book still make sense without it? Is it just there for the sake of being there?  

If you answered “yes” to either of those questions, then you have two options:

1. Cut it.
2. Make it essential.

Both are going to require some legwork on your part, but consider this: every chapter, every scene, every page and paragraph and sentence should serve one major purpose—to keep your readers reading. The moment they reach a point in your novel that is less than spectacular, you risk losing them.

Here’s a hint: Unessential scenes are not spectacular.

Whether you decide to cut it altogether or rewrite it with purpose is up to you, but if you come across a “meh” scene in your WIP, changes need to be made. “Meh” is ok for first drafts, but it has no place in your final copy.

No one said writing was easy, but the extra effort you take to make sure every scene shines will make your novel that much better.

Have you ever had to cut a scene from your WIP? Was it worth the extra effort? 

Guest Post: Why I Switched from IntenseDebate to Disqus

I'm interrupting your normal programming to let you know I had the fantastic opportunity to guest post on BloggerJet, and the post is up today. Yay!

Some of you may have noticed that I switched  my commenting system around (yet again) and if you were wondering why you should check it out.

Or maybe if you're just interested by the title and are wondering why I made the switch or even what IntenseDebate and Disqus are, you should also take a look.

Then you should hang around BloggerJet, because it's a pretty great blog.

That is all.

Talent is Overrated

Photo Credit: The U.S. Army on Flickr (Creative Commons)

I made a statement in my last post that raised a few eyebrows, so I’d like to expand on it. When talking about whether or not you can lose the ability to write (in case you missed it, you can’t), I said this:

Don’t have the talent? Talent is overrated. You don’t need talent; you need practice.

First and foremost, I’m not denying the existence of talent. Certainly some people are blessed with an advantage that starts them further off than their peers. But talent alone doesn’t get you anywhere—you need hard work, perseverance and patience. Talent without the work is a missed opportunity. Wasted potential.

But that’s what talent is—potential. It’s a starting point that says, “Hey, you’ve got something here. Imagine how much better you could be with some practice.” But without the practice, guess what? You’re no better than anyone else.

The problem I have with talent is that people use the perceived lack of it as an excuse to give up. They look at others in their field who’ve taken the time to refine their skill and say, “Look at all that talent. I will never have that.”

What they don’t realize is that what they’re looking at isn’t talent at all—it’s determination. Its years of rejection and work and more work until they too can claim success. Then people look at them and call them talented.

Here’s a little secret: J.K. Rowling and Stephen King weren’t born with the ability to write great novels any more than gold medalists are born knowing how to win at the Olympics. They worked hard for years refining their skills before they made it big and people put them on a pedestal.

There is no shortcut to success and talent is no exception. Hard work, guys. That’s what talent is.

So next time you’re tempted to chalk someone’s success up to talent, take a moment to learn about who they were before they were discovered. I’m willing to bet there’s years of work, years of failures and doubts and fears that were overcome with pure determination.

And if they can do it without natural-born talent, why can’t you?

What do you think? Is talent overrated or is it more necessary than I think it is? 

Can You Lose the Ability to Write?

Photo credit: Chris Blakeley on Flickr

A little over a year ago, I hit a bump in my writing —a few bumps, actually. You see, I’d just sent out a flurry of query letters for my most recent WIP at the time after rewriting it (again), and I needed a distraction. I was ready to start a new novel.

Except I didn’t have any ideas. Nada.

I wracked my brain for possibilities until I finally landed on a decent idea. I was relieved—for a second there I worried I might not ever think of a good idea again—until I tried to write it. The voice was wrong, the character was wrong, the idea was wrong. It was a terrible idea. I needed something better.

So I tried again. And failed again. And I began to panic.

In my mind, I didn’t have an excuse for not being able to write—I wasn’t in the middle of some huge life change, I didn’t have any more stress than usual and I was perfectly healthy. Happy even, if you discounted the not-being-able-to-write-thing. And yet despite that, the desperate ideas I came up with were crap. I could barely write a few pages, let alone an entire novel.

I decided to give it some time. It’s just a phase, I thought.

Six months later, the “phase” hadn’t ended. I felt guilty calling myself a writer—after all, I hadn’t written a thing in six months. When my family asked how my writing was going, I mumbled some sort of nondescript answer and changed the subject.

I really started to wonder if maybe I wasn’t cut out for the whole writing thing, after all.

But then I imagined another six months without writing. I asked myself how I would feel if I never wrote another novel again. I thought about my characters, about the worlds I’d created, the stories that, although unpublished, still entertained my family and friends.

Could I go the rest of my life without that?

I’m not going to be overdramatic. It was certainly physically possible for me to move on. I just didn’t want to.

So I didn’t. I sat down at my computer and I wrote again. It wasn’t necessarily the best novel idea I’d ever had, but it was something. It was proof. I’m a writer.

The point of this story though, isn’t to prove to you that I’m a writer. The point is to answer the question of the title: can you lose your ability to write?

The answer guys, is no. You can’t forget how to write any more than you can forget how to ride a bicycle. Truth is, if you have the will to write, if you have the determination to follow your dreams and make them come true, then the ability on some level is there. Your skills might need some refining, but you don’t need to be a master of your craft to write a story.

All you need is will.

Do you want to write? Then go do it. It’s really that simple.

Don’t have the time? Make time. No one else is going to do it for you.

Don’t have the talent? Talent is overrated. You don’t need talent; you need practice.

Don’t have novel ideas? Then write something else—poetry, blog posts, stream of consciousness—it doesn’t matter. Writing is writing and you’ll benefit from it either way.

If you really want to write, if you really want to see your dreams come true, you have to go out there and do it yourself. Fulfilled dreams don’t just land on some lucky person’s lap—they’re chased down and snatched up by the ones who aren’t afraid to put in the extra work and won’t stop until they see them realized.

Is that person you?

Have you ever encountered a non-writing period? How long did it last? How did you break out of it? 

Taking a Leap of Faith

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It’s easy to talk about not being afraid. To encourage others to push their fears aside and chase their dreams with the passion of a thousand suns. That part is simple. I’ve even done it myself.

Reading about it is easy, too. Nodding along and thinking yes, they’re right, I need to do that is secret and safe. No one will know if you actually go for it, and so no one will ever know if you fail.

Easy.

But doing. Actually going out there and taking a chance, actually leading by example and ignoring the resistance and the fear—that’s another matter entirely. It’s hard and it’s scary. Hell, it’s downright terrifying.

I know, because I’ve been there—scratch that, I’m there right now. But it wouldn’t be fair for me to tell you guys to chase your dreams and shove fear aside if I didn’t do it myself.

So I’m doing it. I’m taking a leap of faith. I’m going to be brave and take a risk and do something I’ve been putting off for months.

I’m going to design book covers. For you.

Starting today, I’m taking on commission work. If you’d like to see what I can do you can check out my deviantart page or the pretty new Cover Design page up top.

So there you are, guys. I’m taking a chance, a leap of faith, and I hope it’ll encourage you to do the same. Because I’m done letting fear dictate what I can and can’t do. And you should be, too.

And for that, I think we all deserve some confetti.

Photo credit: ADoseofShipBoy on Flickr

What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? What’s stopping you? 

Unleashing Your Voice

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When I announced I’d be writing this post a week ago, I immediately knew it was going to be one of the hardest posts of the four-post series to write. But of course, I didn’t have to worry about it for a week, so I didn’t really think about it.

Until, you know, I had to actually sit down and write the thing.

I suppose what makes this post so challenging is that I don’t really have any secrets to share with you except this one: there is no secret. There isn’t a formula or a magic exercise or a yoga pose that’ll suddenly unlock your voice so that you can release it onto the page.

The truth is guys, you already have a voice.

I don’t care if you’re 13 or 57, if you’ve never written a novel or if you’ve written more than 20—you have a voice and the moment you put a pencil to paper or your fingers to the keyboard you’ve released it. You’ve pushed the first domino, taken the first step towards what will eventually be a prose that is uniquely you.

And that’s what makes writing—any writing—special. I could ask all of you to write a short story with the same characters, same plot, same settings and themes and dialogue and in the end, every single one of you would come out with something different. Why?

Because you each have a voice.

It bothers me when I read or hear advice about trying to find your voice. There isn’t a form of laryngitis in writing—you can’t lose your voice, so there’s nothing to find. If you’ve written anything at all, you have a voice. Period.

That’s not to say you can’t develop your voice. Your first WIP will sound nothing like your sixth and your sixth WIP won’t look anything like your twenty-fourth simply because your voice develops as you mature as a writer. The more you write, the better your writing will be—and the more consistent and confident your words, your voice will become.

So how do you unleash your voice? The answer is one word. Can you guess it?

Write.

That’s it. Go out there and write and your voice will come naturally. Remember that every word you put on the page is unique because you put it there.

You already have a voice. Go use it.

To celebrate the end of this voice series, there will be an exciting announcement on Wednesday. Expect lots of confetti and pretty artsy things. J