So, a few weeks ago, I decided to bite the self-pubbing bullet and start up a gofundme.
That’s a lot to unpack there, so let’s back up a few steps, and I can explain what’s going on and why I decided to do things this way.
I’ve spoken about my querying journey on twitter in the past, and to be honest, I still have a few queries out there right now. I still have my list. But this isn’t about giving up on querying, and this isn’t about self-publishing as a consolation prize, or lesser method, or something to resign yourself to. Self-publishing and traditional publishing are simply two different routes to the same end: getting a book published.
But still, I know a lot of people—myself included, in a sadly internalized manner which I’ve been beating back with a shovel these past few weeks—view self-publishing as some sort of lower form. And let’s be real, a lot of this comes from classist undertones: oh you weren’t good enough to jump through all of the hurdles that come with obtaining an agent and a publisher? Oh, you didn’t have the connections in the industry, or the availability/finances/ability to go to conventions and meetings to network for them? Oh, you don’t fit into the mold of what’s a “marketable” author? Oh, you write about things that aren’t mainstream enough to be “marketable”? (That “marketable” is what I’m going to be coming back to later.)
Traditional publishing has a long history of… a lot of not great stuff, let’s be real. It’s been a very privileged clique for a long time. It is getting better, and with smaller presses able to pop up, we’re diversifying in the best way. But there are still a lot of invisible hurdles to overcome based on decades and centuries of tradition with these supposed industry norms.
(Of course, self-publishing also has a huge host of its own issues. But again, later!)
The novel I’d been querying, titled How To Kill Gods & Make Friends, is not “marketable”. It’s longer than industry standard. It straddles a couple of genre boundaries. It’s mostly NA, but only mostly. It’s a genre novel, but it’s also LGBTQ+—which wait, that’s supposed to be its own genre! Nevermind that anything can be gay. I want there to be more queer genre novels. I’m doing my part to throw another (series) into the ether.
So rather than sit on this manuscript for even longer—I did what I always do. I got impatient.
Self-pubbing is not the walk in the park that critics say it is. (Well, it can be, but you’re very much not doing it properly at that point, and you’re likely the one giving the rest of us a shitty name.)
Yes, very technically, you can throw a manuscript at Kindle. You can let it automatically format it for you, you can let Amazon assign it an ISBN, you can use any number of free book cover creators to slap something together, and you could even keysmash the description (and title!) if you truly desired. Since Kindle is largely automated, you could probably get it through to the “published” stage.
But that’s not a book. And it would be an insult to both writers and readers to look upon it.
You have to pay a graphic designer for a decent cover. You should pay for editing and formatting (though you can squeak by if you’re smart without professional services in those sections). You should understand Amazon’s keyword algorithm nightmare, on some level, to ensure that you’re representing your book properly and stand a chance at selling a copy or two. You should have a completed, polished, beautiful manuscript, with an equally well-chosen title, and a stunning, attention-grabbing description.
But that’s just the book. Self-pubbing involves a lot more than throwing a book into the internet void these days.
What if you want a paperback version? What if you want a hardcover version? What if you have illustrations, tables, graphs, maps, or more to contend with? What if you want to make an audiobook? What if you want to have it translated into another language?
And what about getting it sold to more than 5 of your friends and family members?
Self-publishing means taking on everything that a traditional publisher would do for you. (Hopefully would do for you, anyway. Apparently, they’ve fallen behind quite badly in marketing anything but the biggest names.) You have to hire professionals to fill in the gaps that you can’t cover, that that’s not cheap, but it is necessary. You have to claw your way through learning about marketing, which is changing every minute, usually in progressively worse ways. You have to come up with graphics for ads. You have to come up with blurbs for ads. You need to assemble an ARC team, figure out what channels to pass out books through, and which channels to publish through.
Yes, a lot of these processes are automated. It is simple to get an ebook up on Kindle, and to set up IngramSpark for print options. They want to help you use their platforms, because then they get money, too. It’s almost too easy to search for a cover artist, because there are so many options these days, at a huge variety of price points. You can even use free programs like Canva or Lunapic to make your own cover! (Note: the Canva is a referral link, but it IS a free site to use.)
But self-publishing is not the easy way to publish. It’s more freedom, with its advantages and disadvantages.
Yes, I’ll get higher royalty per book. Yes, I have absolute veto power over any part of the process. Yes, the timeline is light speed compared to what trad pub usually runs on.
But you have none of the support and infrastructure, either. You get to build everything yourself. A lot of people can do that, and a lot of authors are very successful at it. If you game the system, I’d say you really don’t even have to be that good of a writer.
But I am a good writer, and I’m facing a steep learning curve for everything else, so we’ll see where I end up.
