I got (or will soon be
getting) the rights back to two books originally published in 2011. My reasons
for getting the rights back are complicated but boring, so we’ll gloss over
that part. Originally I wasn’t going to self-publish because, honestly,
self-publishing looks like a lot of work, and I have enough on my plate. My
agent and I talked about trying to sell these old books to another publisher,
instead.
The problem is that with
so many digital and small presses going defunct, there are now quite a few
authors with old books to put back out, and publishers are getting pickier
about what they pick up. Most, in fact, only want your book if you will also
write a sequel, or give them something new in addition to the old book. And I
was on board for that. I had a sequel to The
Boy Next Door half-written already.
But then what I had
written turned out to be kind of terrible, and writing new stuff this past
spring when everything was crazy with my schedule turned out to be nearly
impossible, and there was no way I’d ever hit the deadline my agent and I had
worked out unless I could reach into the Harry Potter universe and borrow a
Time Turner.
Unfortunately, while I
stalled, The Boy Next Door went
out of print. The book is coming up on five years old, so it’s not like I was
selling droves of copy, but its unavailability definitely put a dent in my
royalty statements.
But, I thought, I could
totally put the book out myself.
Look, self-publishing
scares me still. There’s so much to do! At the national RWA convention, I sat
through Courtney Milan’s presentation on metadata and thought the whole time,
“Crap. I have no idea what I’m doing. I never considered any of this. There’s
so much I don’t know that I don’t know what I don’t know!”
There is a lot I do
know. I’ve worked in book production for more than eight years. I know how a
book is made. I can do page layout. I knew exactly what I wanted this cover to
look like. I don’t have a lot of experience with ebook formatting—I still work
mostly in print books at my day job—but I could figure it out.
But, geez. Metadata and
front matter and ISBNs, oh my!
A friend pointed out
that many people who are way less tech savvy than I am have self-published
books to great success. So, really, I should calm down.
So far, all I’ve got is
a self-imposed deadline, an edited manuscript, and a new cover. So next, I have
to figure out formatting and distribution. The hard part in other words. I’ve been
getting recs and advice from people who have gone this route before, so I know
what I have to do (kind of) but I’m still finding this daunting. And what if I
put the book up everywhere but nobody buys it and I don’t recoup my expenses?
(I mean, just as an anxiety-prone control freak Type A, I’ve spent a lot of
time researching and considering worst-case scenarios, full disclosure
So then: marketing! It’s
become conventional wisdom that publishers don’t really do much
marketing/publicity, so if you have to do it all yourself anyway, you might as
well self-publish! I hear this all the time. But I disagree wholeheartedly.
The BARE MINIMUM a
publisher should do is send your book out for review to blogs. Reviews are
worth their weight in gold because word-of-mouth buzz is the key to selling
books. Publishers may or may not also send your book to trade publications like
Library Journal, Publisher’s Weekly,
and RT Book Reviews. (They SHOULD, in my humble opinion. Sending a book
doesn’t guarantee a review, as it’s sort of up to the whims of available
reviewers, but even a so-so review in one of those publications is great
exposure for you.) Many publishers will also do some or all of the following:
buy ads featuring your book (on the Internet and in trade publications), some
social media related to your book, feature your book on their website, organize
blog tours, pitch you to media outlets, and similar things I’m not thinking of.
(If your publisher does not do these things, it might be time to consider whether
you’re at the best place. Because if they aren’t offering you some kind of
marketing and publicity or at least sending your book out for review? Then,
yeah, you are probably better off self-publishing. But a lot of publishers DO
these things.)
So, basically, I’ve done
my own blog tours before, but I’m finding the prospect of having to do all this
other marketing exhausting in advance. I normally don’t really mind marketing,
but this is on a different level from what I normally do.
The thing is that, yeah,
these days, authors have to do some legwork beyond just writing the book, but
self-publishing authors have to do everything.
Some authors thrive on that and want complete creative control. I am not one of
those authors. So that’s something to think about when you’re considering
various paths to publication.
I think it’ll be fine,
but my take away is that I will not underestimate all the work my publishers
do, and also that this is not a decision to make lightly. That, yes, depending
on your avenue toward self-publishing, it can be simple and easy, to someone like
me, it can feel pretty daunting, too. So
do your research and know what you’re getting into. ♥
RWA/NYC
VP Kate McMurray is an award-winning author of gay romance and an unabashed
romance fan. When she’s not writing, she works as a nonfiction editor, dabbles
in various crafts, and is maybe a tiny bit obsessed with baseball. She has
served as President of Rainbow Romance Writers, the LGBT romance chapter of
Romance Writers of America. She lives in Brooklyn, NY. Visit her at
www.katemcmurray.com.
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