Publication thoughts
It is much more efficient for me to gather all my thoughts on publication into a new journal entry rather than to scatter them through the comments of my previous entry.
A vanity publisher takes lots of money, provides little or no editing help, sometimes promises promotion without actually providing it, and hands piles and piles of inventory to someone who then has to unload it.
The traditional self published route is to contract with a printer. The printer provides no editing or design help. The author merely pays to have books printed and then has to store and sell the inventory. The larger the run of books the smaller the price per book, thus self publishers often end up with thousands of books gathering dust. The author has to do her own marketing and distribution.
On demand publishing is new. The technology to support it has only been around for about 5 years. With an on demand publisher like Lulu.com the author uploads files and then can order as many or as few books as desired for the same price per book. Price per book is usually higher than you can get with traditional self publishing, but you only pay for what you sell. Also people can order directly from the on demand publisher, so the author doesn’t have to do mailing. However, the author does have to do the promotion and advertising to try to create demand for the book.
Traditional publishing is much harder to break into. The author has to convince someone else of the value of her work. Once accepted, the work will get edited. Art will be provided for the cover which may or may not fit the book. Then the book will be mass produced and sent to stores. Unfortunately that is only the beginning. The publisher may or may not provide publicity for the book. Having books on the shelf at Barnes & Noble is no guarantee that people will buy the book. Having a previously published book that performed poorly can be an impediment to having future books published. With a traditional publisher the potential rewards are high, but the author can do very little to affect the outcome.
There is a place for all three forms of publication. (but not for vanity press which is just slimey sharks trying to suck the blood out of someone else’s dream.) Most people say that traditional publishing is “the best bet” because it doesn’t require the author to learn marketing or advertising. No matter which road you choose to walk, getting published is lots of work and all roads have pitfalls and frustrations.
As far as publishing my work goes, I’m not in any hurry. Right now it is far more important to me for Schlock Mercenary to suceed than it is for me to have a writing career. At the moment my writing is a hobby that fits into the space around the larger things in my life. Because of that I won’t be submitting to very many contests or for publication very much. Mostly I just want to get the stories sufficiently critiqued that I can be fairly confident that I’m not deluding myself about their strength/quality. They feel strong to me, but all mothers think their babies are beautiful.
When I do choose to publish I will probably choose on demand publishing through Lulu.com to start. My situation is somewhat unique because I already have a big advertising venue. The minute a book by me exists, Howard will mention it on his front page and 20,000 other people will also know it exists. Only a tiny fraction of that number will look at it, even fewer will buy it, but it’s still a jump start. Before I get around to publishing, that 20,000 number may be even larger. We’re certainly aggresively working to grow that number. As part of marketing Schlock Mercenary Howard attends conventions regularly. My book could piggy-back there too.
Using this method I can only expect to sell small numbers of copies. If I decide I’m not happy with that, I can then pitch a book with a small track record to publishing companies. Large publishers are starting to be more open to picking up previously self published material. Eragon by Christopher Paolini is a perfect example, he hawked his book at conventions for a couple of years before a large publisher snapped it up.
Anyway, those are my current thoughts on publishing. All thoughts are subject to change, without notice, upon acquisition of further information.