I recently conducted a writing seminar at MCM
Comic Con in London. The topic was “How to Make Your Characters Your Secret
Weapon,” but during the seminar, I also touched on the differences between
“indie” publishing and “traditional” publishing. There was a lot of interest
from people about why I chose the indie path over pursuing traditional
publishing. From those conversations, I realized that there are still a lot of
misconceptions about both traditional and indie publishing. Before I get into
that, let me give you a little bit of the backstory.
I have been a writer, in some form or another, for
most of my life. I’ve been a rock musician, a scientist, a lawyer, and a travel
writer before taking on novels. In each of these arenas, I’ve been “published.”
When I decided about ten years ago to start writing a fictional series, I
didn’t realize the extent to which the publishing world was in flux. It was
only once I had finished writing all eight books, which was in 2022, that I
decided to look for a way to publish. After a few rejections from literary
agents, I got interest in my first book, “Caio,” from a romance publisher, but
I was told that I needed to change key elements of several characters. These
were changes that I couldn’t make because it would impact the arc of the
series. I was told, in no uncertain terms, that if the publishers bought the
rights to the book, they could basically do what they wanted. This was when I
really started looking into the differences between traditional and
self-publishing. So, let me break down what I discovered by element.
Author Rights: In traditional publishing, all rights are with the
publisher. They own your character, fini. Within the context of the book, they
can change things, move them around—whatever they want. They bought that right.
With self-publishing, the author keeps all intellectual property rights.
Time to Publish: For traditional publishing, it takes 18 to 24 months to get
your book out there. They have to fit it into their publishing schedule, which
includes a lot of other books they are releasing. For self-publishing, it's six
months or less.
Royalties: With traditional publishing, the author gets between 4% to
10% of the net. With self-publishing, it can be between 30% and 100% based on
what services you use.
Advances: This is where traditional publishing outweighs
self-publishing. They can offer you an advance. They don’t have to, but it's an
option. If you are self-publishing, in the beginning, all the costs are on you.
Design: For traditional publishing, they decide the design and
cover of your book, but they pay for it. For self-publishing, you design it
yourself or hire someone to design it.
Editing: For traditional publishing, they have final control over
all changes and edits, but they pay for these services. Self-publishing means
that you need to hire an editor. Good editors aren’t cheap, but they are
absolutely a requirement, no matter how good you think you are.
Minimum Purchase Requirement: In traditional publishing, authors may be asked to buy
copies of their own book. This can be as much as 5,000+ copies at about half
the retail price. The idea behind this is that the author has “skin in the
game.” If you self-publish, this doesn’t apply.
PR: This is one of the things that really got me. There is
usually no requirement for PR when a traditional publisher takes your book. If
it's your first book, you won’t get any PR. Even later, you are unlikely to get
it if you aren’t one of the top 5% of their authors in terms of revenue. If you
self-publish, you can hire your own PR firm.
After discovering all of the above, I realized
that the one thing traditional publishing provides is money up front. If you
can do that yourself, then you have a lot more control and freedom than you do
with traditional publishers. I also think you are more likely to actually make
money in the long run if you self-publish. For me, the idea of giving control
of my characters over to someone else was anathema. I’m also impatient, and the
idea of waiting around for some literary agent to decide to take a chance on me
seemed like a waste of time, effort, and a detriment to my feelings of
self-worth. They want all of the benefit with none of the risk. So, my whole
family and I opted to self-publish. We created our own publishing company and
found people in editing, marketing, design, and PR who were willing and happy
to work with us. We have a team. We have the freedom to try anything and
everything. Are we making millions? No. Will we ever? Who can tell. Are we
having fun? Tons of it. We have only been doing this for a year, and we’ve
published, made video book trailers, appeared at events, and even been on the
Gaby Roslyn show in the UK. If you are self-publishing, you are a startup, and
that’s the mentality that works best.
I’m not saying that traditional publishing is bad.
Clearly, it works for some people. What I am saying is that you aren’t a better
author simply because you get a traditional publishing deal. That’s a bit of an
antiquated myth that some people would like everyone to still believe. You will
also still have to do a lot of your own marketing and PR.
Bright Midnights
Excerpt:
“Everyone, could you pass your weekly journals forward,” Ms. Pryll announced. “And I think, perhaps, today I will pick a few of you to read your entries to the rest of the class. Ms. McCormick, you always have such interesting entries. How about we begin with you?”
Ms. Pryll motioned her forward. Ah, her eye rolling had been noticed. Amelie really wasn’t off to a good start today. On top of her intestinal grumbling, she was feeling the beginnings of a tension headache creeping up the back of her neck.
Just as she was standing up to assume the position at the front of the classroom, someone stumbled through the door. It was Hudson. He was slumping, holding on to the doorframe. Hudson wouldn’t be drawing attention to himself in normal circumstances. Something was wrong. Ms. Pryll was finally pulled from her flirting by the fact that the rest of the class was staring at the doorway. As they watched, Hudson slid down the doorframe into a huddled position.
“Now Mr. Crowe, please come in and sit down,” said Ms. Pryll, with exasperation.
Hudson managed to hold up a small blue object, before slumping forward.“Dude’s been drinking?” Ryan laughed from the back.
Hudson tried one more time to raise his head and lift the thing in his hands. Everyone in the class just stared at him. The front of Amelie’s forehead suddenly exploded with images, and the lighted words from the cereal box this morning made sense.
Low. Sugar. Bad.
“He’s not drunk,” Amelie snapped. “That’s a glucose meter. He’s diabetic.”
Amelie dropped her notebook and ran to the door, falling to her knees beside Hudson. She had a vague notion that this hurt and she would be bruised later, before she grabbed Hudson’s head. She didn’t know if people in insulin shock had seizures or not, but that didn’t matter. She knew what to do. She had been told by something more reliable than memory. Low blood sugar was bad.
What to do? Okay, Elodie had her phone. What else? Jack, he always ate breakfast at his desk. Today it was a bottle of orange juice. Thank god.
“Elodie, call 911—now! Jack, throw me your OJ,” Amelie snapped.
Jack just smirked at her, completely disengaged in the fact that another human being was in crisis. A wave of fury replaced the images in Amelie’s head, making everything around her look shiny, sharp, and red. The world began to move in slow motion. She turned, her eyes met Jack’s, and she let her well-constructed shields drop … just… drop. The energy that flowed out of her felt glorious.
“Jack, throw me your OJ, now,” she said, softly this time. She saw the shocked look on Jack’s face, but he immediately grabbed the OJ and tossed it to her. The chemical wave that seemed to be her birthright rolled over him, through him, past him and across the class … person by person, face by face.
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