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Friday, July 5, 2024

Author Advice with LS Delorme #AuthorAdvice #WritingAdvice

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
The Limerent Series 
Book Three
LS Delorme

Genre: Paranormal Romance, YA, Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Limerent Publishing
Date of Publication:  Oct 2023
ISBN:979-8-9874880-2-7
ASIN: B0CD4FTYDF
Number of pages: 301
Word Count: 119000
Cover Artist: Brittany Wilson

Tagline: "In a world where viruses possess and dreams unlock new realms, a young girl must navigate love, danger, and her own dark powers to survive."

Book Description:

Most high school students find life challenging, but 17-year old Amelie has a lot more to contend with than typical teenage angst. Ever since she turned 11, others have been irresistibly, almost chemically, drawn to her-with tragic consequences. Her only escape is at night when she flies to different times and places through her "dreams". Her life begins to change when, on one of her flights, she meets Clovis, an alluring and mysterious young man who hides a secret.

As Amelie finds herself increasingly drawn to him, she learns his story, how it intertwines with her own and finally discovers how to live her life in the real world. Until her own secrets are revealed to the wrong people and that world turns upside down.


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.


About the Author: 

Lexy is the Author of the Limerent novel universe.  The first two books in this universe were Caio and Bright Midnights. They are two of the three foundation books of the Limerent Series, and as such can be read in any order. 

Bright Midnights was picked as an Editor’s Choice by Booklife and received a Golden Wizard award in the UK in the category of YA.  

Lexy has also been a travel writer and author of The Unofficial Guide to Disneyland Hong Kong and An Expat Mom’s Unofficial Guide to Disneyland Paris. She is an ex rock musician, ex science grad, recovering attorney and now an expat writer.  Her love of writing stems from an eclectic life.  As a navy brat, she grew up in various states across the U.S. until her father retired to North Carolina when she was a teenager.   

As an adult, she has continued this tumbleweed life, having since lived in 3 countries, 9 US States, and 21 cities around the world. But, through all this change, her love of writing has been the one constant. Writing the Limerent Series allows her to use her unusual past to help create new worlds.  

Lexy now lives in Paris with her husband and two very cool sons.  
 
“Writing fiction gives you a place where you can put all the attractions that you probably shouldn’t feel, all the thoughts you are afraid of saying out loud, and all the rage that you can’t vent because you would kill people.  While we live, these moments stay with us, but when we die, they die too. When you put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, you put these things out there in the world where they can be read by others.  This means that they have a life outside of you and outside of your own head, and that’s something that is really compelling to me. I like the idea that these amazing moments that I’ve had in life don’t disappear when I disappear.”  - LS Delorme 
 
“For me, writing is like therapy…just cheaper.  As most writers are not really individuals but a collection of individuals trying to find a way to live together in one brain, fiction allows them to make a home for all these people who live rent free inside their heads.  It’s also place that you can capture unique moments in life that impact you or that make you feel deeply.”  - LS Delorme  









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