To live outside the law you must be honest.
—Bob Dylan, “Absolutely Sweet Marie”
Okay, guys, this week we’re going to focus on independent publishing. Because independent publishing has problems.
The biggest one is that people don’t take it seriously. And I don’t mean the people who don’t do it. I mean the people who do.
Hey, people—you people, the ones who jump into self-publishing your first draft first novels the same year you decide to be become a writer because, you know, everyone’s getting rich on it these days, so you might as well, too—GET A GRIP.
I know we all adore our own fiction. It’s like Phantom of the Opera around my house, all these stories and half-novels and full novels and bizarre fictional forays only a mother could love. You bet. I’ve been doing this for decades. I could bathe in my stuff. I could spread it all over the floor and roll around in it, and chances are I’d actually disappear. I’ve got that much unpublishable shlock around. And you know what? I heart that crap!
However, I’ve also been around long enough to know something really, really, really important about it. It is Number 1, Class A, Best-of-the-Breed Humiliation Inducer.
Publication isn’t necessarily about getting admiration and flattery, my friends. Publication is about eyeballs. Strangers’ eyeballs. Lots and lots of strangers’ eyeballs. Lots and lots and lots and lots of indifferent or even hostile strangers’ eyeballs.
Not the eyeballs of love.
The world is not populated by your mother. Or your father. Or your spouse, best friends, or kids. Not all of us out here have your personal best interests in mind.
I saw Jamie Lee Curtis on the Tonight Show once (was it the Tonight Show? who knows? who cares?) complaining that the last time she’d been on her host had not been sufficiently adoring of her new children’s book.
“My kids were really mad at you!” she said in all sincere affrontery.
Oooh. You really don’t want Jamie Lee Curtis’ kids mad at you for not being sufficiently adoring of her new children’s book. Because they are certainly the ideal objective audience for such a thing. Is it a real blockbuster, a guaranteed Caldecott winner, the kind of book no half-way intelligent child could possibly put down? Well, those guys would know.
WAKE UP!
We’re standing on the threshold to a whole brilliant, revolutionary, unexplored panorama of the publishing future right now. Anyone can publish. And this is an opportunity that has rarely ever occurred in the history of literacy before. We are so damn lucky to be alive and writing right now!
But the more the reckless amateurs keep peeing in the pool, the harder it makes it for talented, hard-working, long-term dedicated writers to bring serious quality and large-scale respect to the world of independent publishing. If you want to become one of those talented, hard-working, long-term dedicated writers. . .yeah. You have to spend some time developing your talent, putting in long hard-working hours, dedicating yourself to the craft of writing over the long term.
Becoming a writer isn’t something you just go out and get, like a new pair of shoes.
I read a fascinating piece this morning by Henry Baum on the Self-Publishing Review about why self-publishing isn’t taken seriously. He’s talking about Lulu’s marketing of Poetry.com, which they just acquired. (I’m sorry—“Need Help Rhyming”? Are you kidding me?) I’m really fascinated by his comparison of independent publishing to the punk rock movement of the late 1970s. Does indie publishing have the same potential for greatness as indie rock and filmmaking? I think so.
I also read the piece by MCM (why the pseudonym?) this post links to. I love the idea that independent publishing can become—not a stepping-stone to traditional publishing—but a viable literary form in its own right. Are we writing in the best of times, or what?
Is there more money in traditional publishing? Yes, there certainly is. Boy, howdy. Are there more eyeballs? Absolutely. Is it a better reflection of the very best literary production of our times?
Is it, really?
What do you guys think?
(And stay tuned for my interview this week with Michelle Davidson Argyle and Davin Malasarn of the Literary Lab, who just brought out Genre Wars, along with Scott G. F. Bailey, and will be describing their experience of working with Lulu.)
While I think I take your meaning to a point, I’m not sure I fully get the whole argument your driving at, or even if such exists.
However, as for Jamie Lee Curtis, a few points. First, you mention her “sincere affrontery”; are you certain? Because she is an actress, after all, and a damned fine one, at that, and let’s be honest, those sorts of situations (i.e., late-night talk) are about chat. Casual. Humor. Because it sounds to me like she was making a joke, and it sounds like you don’t think she was.
Also: “You really don’t want Jamie Lee Curtis’ kids mad at you for not being sufficiently adoring of her new children’s book. Because they are certainly the ideal objective audience for such a thing. Is it a real blockbuster, a guaranteed Caldecott winner, the kind of book no half-way intelligent child could possibly put down? Well, those guys would know.”
I can’t get your meaning there. Are you saying that the most ideal and objective audience is the Caldecott award committee? I mean, if you’re writing a children’s book, isn’t it important to make sure, first, that your children love it? Sure, you hope for an audience beyond those, but aren’t all children ideal in their own parents’ eyes?
After several rounds of futile querying, my college-aged son said I should self-publish. He said it was how Christoper Paolini got his book off the ground. My son is also interested in meditation. He was probably one of the few people who knew the entire background of the movie, “Men Who Stare at Goats”. He has purchased books from Lulu that have a very specific audience. To him, and maybe to people his age, there is a very thin barrier between writing and publishing.
As convincing as his reasoning was, as much as it would have helped soothed my wounded pride to by-pass those vampire/wizard obsessed agents, I shudder to think of the novel that would now be available to the public if I had pursued a self-publishing route. My novel had the bones when I completed it, but the flesh has come from the improvements I have made as the result of rejection. As sadistic as it sounds, I know I’m a better writer because of this very demanding publishing process.
I’m not trying to follow some format that “the man” is imposing upon me, I am writing to a standard set by the greats who have come before me – Wilson Rawls, Walter Farley, Frances Hodgson Burnett -authors who have inspired me. I want to be in their ranks and I’m willing to do the work to get there. I’m confident, when I’ve achieved their level of writing, I will become published.
Some books, due to their narrow audience, should absolutely be available for self-publishing. But using that route as a short cut to getting published is selling yourself out.
As for Jamie Lee – there’s always some truth in humor. She only wanted you to think she was pretending to be affronted, when actually, she was.
My children won’t read my book. They beg me to stop talking about it. Darned teenagers.
K
Yeah, Kathryn, Jamie Lee was mad. She wasn’t even pretending. But, you know, whatever. The point is that your children are not objective judges of the quality of your writing, even if you’re a famous movie star hanging out on talk shows.
And you’re absolutely right about the rigors of producing publication-quality work. Fortunately, the authors who are succeeding with independent publishing are pretty much all extremely clear at this point: Hire an editor. Hire a designer. Spend the money you need to spend—that a traditional publisher would have had to spend—to make your book publishable. And, yes, you also have to work your butt off, yourself.
That’s hilarious that your kids beg you to stop talking about your book! We used to hear the same thing about the children of private pilots, when my husband was getting his pilot’s license and talking fondly of the day his own son would be old enough to join him in his passion for it. Raised eyebrows from everybody all ’round.
I know.
It wouldn’t surprise me a bit to find that Jamie Lee was behind the whole Leno/O’Brian thing.
K
Hey, Dick Cavett wrote a great piece about that brouhaha on his blog on the NY Times Opinionator.