In 2012, when I was preparing to write Balor Reborn, I had to make a decision - write and prepare a book for publication in a week, or do the whole thing by myself. The first option would have only been exciting if (a) I had written a full-length novel that (b) was accepted by a publisher in (c) a short period of time after the writing.
The second option at least allowed me to publish by the end of week.
But that wasn't the only reason I decided to self-publish. It wasn't just a time issue. It was also a case that there weren't, at the time, many publishers of novellas that excited me. There was no one there to take my book seriously, that I knew of, because of its length.
I was aiming for short and snappy, and I could only provide that publishing service myself.
The same reason stands for why I continue to self-publish some books, and why I don't self-publish others. At the end of the day, I still want my first full-length novel to reach publication to be through a traditional publisher.
However, self-publishing, for the time and books that are in it, is ideal for me. It gives me complete control over everything I want to do with particular stories, and allows me to figure out what does and does not work in an actual marketplace - not just in terms of what books sell and what books don't, but also which marketing methods I can pull off, how I can run a business, that sort of thing.
All in all, I like the control I can get from self-publishing, and I like that I can bring certain stories into the world without going through a gateway.
This isn't to say I don't appreciate the work of publishers, because I do appreciate it, but when it comes to new projects that require particular care in terms of pacing and publication, I'd like the risk of not meeting publication deadlines to be entirely on me, and not down to a department in a company not being ready to deliver, or doubting the decision to publish at a particular time.
(Some context: I plan on releasing a series of books with publication dates at very particular times of the year - several books per year. Only big-name authors can get away with that in the traditional publishing field, because of the cost involved in printing the books. This is why I'm sticking with ebooks, for the time being, too, because I don't have to worry about finding the right price from a printer, while trying to balance several other aspects of life.)
All in all, the decision to self-publish comes down to my lifestyle. I work three days a week, and mind my niece every week, too, and this is on the back of spending my entire week either in college or working. I have a limited amount of hours free in the week, one way or another, and that's all about to happen again - I need to know that the deadlines are mine to impose, around everything else I've had to do in my life for the past few years. To be perfectly honest, I'm still striving for the right balance in my life. I'm not ashamed to admit that. But I'm getting there. I'm figuring things out. And at least I get to do it on my own time.
Showing posts with label self publishing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self publishing. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Friday, March 15, 2013
Technical Error
Since publishing Balor Reborn in August (through my website, Smashwords, and Amazon), I haven't had any problems with its availability. Until now. Amazon let me down.
Now, I will add: this wasn't a case of Amazon sweeping in with a mighty iron fist and stamping out my rights to publish my own books. This was something much less interesting: an unexplained technical error that cleared my books from the search function of Amazon, and made them unavailable to purchase even through a direct link.
You can see my predicament.
Amazon is the site through which I sell most of my books. At the start of the month, I noticed that neither Balor Reborn nor Writing Gifts, on a Shoestring were visible. Both were still visible through Kindle Direct Publishing, and set to Live, but that meant nothing in the real world. I was down two books, one of which was fairly new, the other of which has sold more copies than any of my other books.
Not good. And worse still: I was due to publish Planning Before Writing at the end of the week.
I decided not to get disheartened or bloodthirsty. I contacted Amazon, explained the problem, and they got back to me fairly swiftly. I confirmed that though they had managed to turn the books up in searches of their own (as my friend Ian managed, too), they were not showing up for me, and when I went through KDP to access them, they weren't available.
Planning Before Writing was still published, as planned, last Sunday. It listed live and was available, though my two vanishing acts failed to showed up.
Today, things picked up. I checked KDP to see if there were any updates on sales figures. This is something I do regularly, sometimes to feel like I'm doing work, mostly out of curiosity. That was when I found out that Amazon had solved the technical error that they had gotten some people working on. I knew, because Balor Reborn had sold a copy. It's been a long time since I was so happy to sell a copy of that book!
Why am I telling you this story? To put it simply, I think Amazon did something right, and to point out that these things can happen easily. It wasn't a malicious assault by Amazon, though they sometimes pick up bad press with Indie authors, and they fixed it. It took a while, but I imagine their servers are fairly busy.
Plus, I mentioned this on a couple of social networking sites, and I think it's only fair to make it official: everything's sorted now. I'm back in action, and my author page on Amazon has never been more pleased. Four books with my name on them are now floating around the wonderful land of online publishing. Setbacks like this aside, I think things are going quite well.
Now, I will add: this wasn't a case of Amazon sweeping in with a mighty iron fist and stamping out my rights to publish my own books. This was something much less interesting: an unexplained technical error that cleared my books from the search function of Amazon, and made them unavailable to purchase even through a direct link.
You can see my predicament.
Amazon is the site through which I sell most of my books. At the start of the month, I noticed that neither Balor Reborn nor Writing Gifts, on a Shoestring were visible. Both were still visible through Kindle Direct Publishing, and set to Live, but that meant nothing in the real world. I was down two books, one of which was fairly new, the other of which has sold more copies than any of my other books.
Not good. And worse still: I was due to publish Planning Before Writing at the end of the week.
I decided not to get disheartened or bloodthirsty. I contacted Amazon, explained the problem, and they got back to me fairly swiftly. I confirmed that though they had managed to turn the books up in searches of their own (as my friend Ian managed, too), they were not showing up for me, and when I went through KDP to access them, they weren't available.
Planning Before Writing was still published, as planned, last Sunday. It listed live and was available, though my two vanishing acts failed to showed up.
Today, things picked up. I checked KDP to see if there were any updates on sales figures. This is something I do regularly, sometimes to feel like I'm doing work, mostly out of curiosity. That was when I found out that Amazon had solved the technical error that they had gotten some people working on. I knew, because Balor Reborn had sold a copy. It's been a long time since I was so happy to sell a copy of that book!
Why am I telling you this story? To put it simply, I think Amazon did something right, and to point out that these things can happen easily. It wasn't a malicious assault by Amazon, though they sometimes pick up bad press with Indie authors, and they fixed it. It took a while, but I imagine their servers are fairly busy.
Plus, I mentioned this on a couple of social networking sites, and I think it's only fair to make it official: everything's sorted now. I'm back in action, and my author page on Amazon has never been more pleased. Four books with my name on them are now floating around the wonderful land of online publishing. Setbacks like this aside, I think things are going quite well.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Life and the World to Come
Way back in July, I made a few decisions that would, inevitably, change the way I lived my life. Almost five months have passed since I made the choice to do a massive writing challenge to finish Bliss's Camp NaNo 50K. That, in itself, wasn't massively life-changing, except that it made me realise how much I could do if I stopped messing about, and if I put aside whatever was happening in my life that might distract me from my work.
In that same week, I made the decision to set up a website - which I worked on from then until the middle of September, when I launched the site. That involved a lot of planning, of course, and a lot of mulling over what would eventually end up on my site on Day 1. Over the next month and a half, I edited Stepping Forward, fixing up a novella I was already pretty happy with to give away for free.
That's been the first big change in my life: I now have a book out in the public domain.
The website has, since, been host to a number of articles, poems and short stories. While these haven't exactly changed my life, they have gotten me thinking about the different ways I live my life, and the way in which I write. I also decided to use the website to play host to a couple of projects in the New Year, one of which is an X-Men story I've been planning for some time. (I've checked, and given the fact that Marvel pick up writers and stories from self-published works - and that's the only way they will now consider someone new - I am perfectly within my rights to release this story as I see fit.) That one doesn't have any immediate effects on my life, though it will at least encourage me to stick to creative deadlines.
The other project is an adaptations ezine, which will help me (a) hone my critical writing and (b) review books, films and the adaptation process. Again, no immediate effect, but it will involve, once again, sticking to deadlines.
Aside from my website, I also decided to apply for a writing position at The Phantom Zone. While the rush of college work has stopped me writing for the site in some time, I still have this job. More than that, I still have my first ever writing job. It was something for me to be proud of.
In the two months that followed, I wrote and edited a play, The Rest is Silence. This is where things took another big turn: as a result of this play, I'm going to have something performed on-stage. More than that, it will, hopefully, raise some money for a worthwhile cause.
At the same time, I've set up an ezine in college, which has gotten someone else writing. He's a good friend of mine, and he's decided to put his quirkiness to good use. The immediate benefit for me? I can have a good laugh reading his blog when I'm stressed; he has all of these really funny observations and stories that aren't as noticeable in a group of ten (yes, there are ten of us... we're a bit of a mob.) It's also fun to be able to talk about writing with someone who's only just started to think of it as having potential to be more than a hobby.
The driving force behind a lot of this work was an old friend of mine. Whether I was trying to make him proud or merely using that as an excuse to make myself do something with my life, I mustered up the courage to finally put my name out there. As I said in my dedication in Stepping Forward, he taught me there's more to life than just existing. No matter what happens between us, I will always remember that I was too scared to do any of this on my own. Having a reason to get going has made the past few months some of the best of my life.
That's the immediate effect of knowing him; after so many years writing, and so many years living the same mundane life, I ceased to just exist. As a result of that friendship, I started to live.
In that same week, I made the decision to set up a website - which I worked on from then until the middle of September, when I launched the site. That involved a lot of planning, of course, and a lot of mulling over what would eventually end up on my site on Day 1. Over the next month and a half, I edited Stepping Forward, fixing up a novella I was already pretty happy with to give away for free.
That's been the first big change in my life: I now have a book out in the public domain.
The website has, since, been host to a number of articles, poems and short stories. While these haven't exactly changed my life, they have gotten me thinking about the different ways I live my life, and the way in which I write. I also decided to use the website to play host to a couple of projects in the New Year, one of which is an X-Men story I've been planning for some time. (I've checked, and given the fact that Marvel pick up writers and stories from self-published works - and that's the only way they will now consider someone new - I am perfectly within my rights to release this story as I see fit.) That one doesn't have any immediate effects on my life, though it will at least encourage me to stick to creative deadlines.
The other project is an adaptations ezine, which will help me (a) hone my critical writing and (b) review books, films and the adaptation process. Again, no immediate effect, but it will involve, once again, sticking to deadlines.
Aside from my website, I also decided to apply for a writing position at The Phantom Zone. While the rush of college work has stopped me writing for the site in some time, I still have this job. More than that, I still have my first ever writing job. It was something for me to be proud of.
In the two months that followed, I wrote and edited a play, The Rest is Silence. This is where things took another big turn: as a result of this play, I'm going to have something performed on-stage. More than that, it will, hopefully, raise some money for a worthwhile cause.
At the same time, I've set up an ezine in college, which has gotten someone else writing. He's a good friend of mine, and he's decided to put his quirkiness to good use. The immediate benefit for me? I can have a good laugh reading his blog when I'm stressed; he has all of these really funny observations and stories that aren't as noticeable in a group of ten (yes, there are ten of us... we're a bit of a mob.) It's also fun to be able to talk about writing with someone who's only just started to think of it as having potential to be more than a hobby.
The driving force behind a lot of this work was an old friend of mine. Whether I was trying to make him proud or merely using that as an excuse to make myself do something with my life, I mustered up the courage to finally put my name out there. As I said in my dedication in Stepping Forward, he taught me there's more to life than just existing. No matter what happens between us, I will always remember that I was too scared to do any of this on my own. Having a reason to get going has made the past few months some of the best of my life.
That's the immediate effect of knowing him; after so many years writing, and so many years living the same mundane life, I ceased to just exist. As a result of that friendship, I started to live.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Rebecca 'The Randomer' Woodhead
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| Available from rebeccawoodhead.com |
Impressive enough, before you even take Rebecca's biography into detail. She lives in the Cotswold, in England, has a degree in English literature and has written three novels. Fair enough, there could be any number of people in small settings that have done this. Except for one key difference: Rebecca was in a car crash as a child, left in a coma, and taught herself to read and write against the odds and against tides of bullies. Reread that: taught herself. No professionals to help her along the way. Suddenly those three novels and that degree in English literature are even more amazing. She's an inspiration, not just to me but to so many of her (thousands) of followers on Twitter.
She's been starved and freezing the first Winter I knew her, and now she has a place in Writing Magazine writing about social media for writers. She's writes for Groupon every week. And, most importantly, she's now a self-published author. Her first novel, Palaces and Calluses, was released on April 6th, and since then she's song enough copies at a temporary reduced rate to make a profit. In one week, she's made her advance.
This is so important because Rebecca's not just selling the novel to make a living; she's testing the market so that other people can do what she did. She's taking the risks, figuring out what works, and doing it all alone. She told me earlier today that the point was to offer an alternative to writers. Many traditionally published authors get dumped by their publishers if they don't make their advance back. This can be what they turn to next if they so choose. It's a lot of work, but it's also a rewarding process.
At the present moment, the book is only available through Rebecca's own website. No Amazon, no Smashwords, no distributor but the very people who have been following her from the beginning, and the website she set up. Up until April 20th, the book is priced at £2.99 (£4.99 after). The simple facts: this is cheaper than a decent sized Easter Egg. Rebecca wants to start a tradition of giving ebooks are presents at Easter instead of chocolate eggs; they're healthier (won't overdose you on sugar, and fiction is shown to improve your IQ!), they last longer, and you can use it again and again.
How does it work? Rebecca has no restrictions on her book. When you buy from her website, you'll get a download link emailed to you. You can print this email, put it in a nice card and give it to a friend and/or loved one. It's as simple as that.
I'm yet to read her book in its entirety, but the first three chapters, available for free here, are a fantastic teaser to what I am assured by the many responses from readers as being a brilliant book. It's well-written, funny and heart warming, and as soon as my exams are over I'll be tackling this beauty! So far it's only available as an ebook, though a print version may become available in the future, based on the sales of the ebook. There's also some thought going into releasing it on Amazon, though that's Rebecca's call.
All in all, a pretty fantastic story. I was so happy to hear about all the successes Rebecca was having with writing and with marketing herself. She really knows her stuff, she's always very friendly and she only ever means the best for everyone. Please support her in this. I know you won't be disappointed.
____________________________________
Palaces and Calluses is available to buy from palacesandcalluses.com and rebeccawoodhead.com. You can follow Rebecca on Twitter at twitter.com/rebeccawoodhead. Highly recommended if you're: (a) a reader who likes good books, (b) a writer looking into self-publishing, (c) working in the industry and looking for a remarkable writer who's showing how successful one writer can be and/or (d) someone who just loves a great life story/novel/person/outlook on life.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Change of Heart
Yesterday's blog post painted a picture of wanting to write The Jump... well, I've had a slight change of heart. That series won't be what I pay most attention to (in terms of writing) for the next while. It's not that I won't be writing it ever, I just don't want to write it right now. See, shortly after writing the blog post and talking to my friend about all sorts of random crap (that's a technical term), I started writing a Young Adult Urban Fantasy...about the apocalypse.
That sounds weird... good. It's a parody novel, with the narration taking the piss (again, technical term) out of everything. Well, not everything. But as serious a theme as the apocalypse is, that didn't stop me including a penis related joke within the first 1000 words. That's the sort of high brow humour I'm going for, folks. Well, not just penis jokes, but you get the point - it's not a work of serious comical merit, but that doesn't mean it won't be written well. I won't give away too much, but hopefully in reading it people will like the main character and all of his oddities. Let's face it, when you're writing about the apocalypse using low brow puns (That Guy I Am can attest to how poor they are) and penis related jokes, you've got to have a weird protagonist.
As well as that, I will be seeking to get a work on non-fiction written. I am not publicly announcing what it will be about, though I have told a few people in private already (family and a couple of friends). It's not going to be a work of absolute genius, it most likely won't challenge any accepted norms, but it will do as I aim for it to do: give a clear and easy to read account of the topic at hand, using language that anyone can understand. I will be doing my research on the topic shortly after exams (so, in June) and when I've plotted out my notes on writing the book, I will be going to a small e-publisher about it. Or possibly going it alone. I will see. (Thoughts on this greatly appreciated, particularly if you know about this sort of stuff).
About the "going it alone" thing. I've been reading a lot, lately, about self-published authors. With my friend Rebecca Woodhead self-publishing her first book, Palaces and Calluses, within the next couple of weeks, Barry Eisler turning down a half-a-million-dollar book deal to self-publish instead and Amanda Hocking having made two million dollars self-publishing and now selling a four-book series to St Martin's in the US for a contract rumoured to be worth over two million dollars, the whole thing has been getting me rather... I don't even know the word for it! Anxious? Excited? Wantingtotryitmyself? I'm baffled by the figures involved.
Anyway, that's something to mull over. In the meantime, I have to study for exams, write my apocalyptic book (this will be my de-stress hobby for the next two months) and sort out a schedule for during the summer. I need to shuffle about:
- Research for non-fiction book
- Editing of Meet Sam
- Writing of the new book
- Writing of short stories
My summer is going to be weird! It seems like every time I bring it up I have a new plan for it. Seriously. Have you noticed that? I always seem to come up with new plans for the summer every time I look at it in terms of work I can do. I mean, the list above, if I was to include everything I planned on doing, would get a lot longer. I can think of at least two other significant things I have to do that I haven't put on that list!
*headdesk*
Moving on... and back to where I got started. The book, the apocalyptic book, is set in the American Bible Belt. We've been looking at one case of how crazy some of the people there are, so naturally my story is being set in an overly religious area with a school that almost breaks the law. It's fun! Within time, I will be harassing friends to read this book to get an impression of what they think of it.
Oh, and a friend commented on my Facebook status about it saying "ZOMBIES". All I'll say is... not this one.
That sounds weird... good. It's a parody novel, with the narration taking the piss (again, technical term) out of everything. Well, not everything. But as serious a theme as the apocalypse is, that didn't stop me including a penis related joke within the first 1000 words. That's the sort of high brow humour I'm going for, folks. Well, not just penis jokes, but you get the point - it's not a work of serious comical merit, but that doesn't mean it won't be written well. I won't give away too much, but hopefully in reading it people will like the main character and all of his oddities. Let's face it, when you're writing about the apocalypse using low brow puns (That Guy I Am can attest to how poor they are) and penis related jokes, you've got to have a weird protagonist.
As well as that, I will be seeking to get a work on non-fiction written. I am not publicly announcing what it will be about, though I have told a few people in private already (family and a couple of friends). It's not going to be a work of absolute genius, it most likely won't challenge any accepted norms, but it will do as I aim for it to do: give a clear and easy to read account of the topic at hand, using language that anyone can understand. I will be doing my research on the topic shortly after exams (so, in June) and when I've plotted out my notes on writing the book, I will be going to a small e-publisher about it. Or possibly going it alone. I will see. (Thoughts on this greatly appreciated, particularly if you know about this sort of stuff).
About the "going it alone" thing. I've been reading a lot, lately, about self-published authors. With my friend Rebecca Woodhead self-publishing her first book, Palaces and Calluses, within the next couple of weeks, Barry Eisler turning down a half-a-million-dollar book deal to self-publish instead and Amanda Hocking having made two million dollars self-publishing and now selling a four-book series to St Martin's in the US for a contract rumoured to be worth over two million dollars, the whole thing has been getting me rather... I don't even know the word for it! Anxious? Excited? Wantingtotryitmyself? I'm baffled by the figures involved.
Anyway, that's something to mull over. In the meantime, I have to study for exams, write my apocalyptic book (this will be my de-stress hobby for the next two months) and sort out a schedule for during the summer. I need to shuffle about:
- Research for non-fiction book
- Editing of Meet Sam
- Writing of the new book
- Writing of short stories
My summer is going to be weird! It seems like every time I bring it up I have a new plan for it. Seriously. Have you noticed that? I always seem to come up with new plans for the summer every time I look at it in terms of work I can do. I mean, the list above, if I was to include everything I planned on doing, would get a lot longer. I can think of at least two other significant things I have to do that I haven't put on that list!
*headdesk*
Moving on... and back to where I got started. The book, the apocalyptic book, is set in the American Bible Belt. We've been looking at one case of how crazy some of the people there are, so naturally my story is being set in an overly religious area with a school that almost breaks the law. It's fun! Within time, I will be harassing friends to read this book to get an impression of what they think of it.
Oh, and a friend commented on my Facebook status about it saying "ZOMBIES". All I'll say is... not this one.
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