I’ve been putting stuff I write in the public eye for more than ten years now.  I’m unabashedly indie; the main reason is that I wouldn’t have been able to write so many books otherwise.  I started out running the traditional publishing gauntlet, reaping over one thousand rejections from many agents, feeling elated when some asked to read a MS, feeling down after they sat on it for months only to say something like, “sorry, it’s just not for me,” and wondering what it took to get past these gatekeepers.  In their defense, they’re just doing the bidding of traditional publishing houses, giving their editors what they think is marketable, and currently restricted by the fact that those same publishers only want to bet on sure horses (authors often ready for the glue factory because they’re so formulaic—what’s Grafton going to do when she runs out of the alphabet?).

POD (that’s print-on-demand) saved me from throwing in the towel at the start of my publishing journey, but that soon became too costly for my meager budget, so my indie adventure turned to ebooks.  Amazon made it possible for almost anyone to go indie and DIY their way to publishing an ebook.  Yep, you can DIY the whole thing, but readers might not like what you offer.  The fact that you can offer a poor product to the reading public doesn’t mean you should.  Your readers won’t like it, and other indie writers won’t like it either, because your poor product makes them look bad too.  You should always make your ebook the best it can be, but, if you DIY, that best still might not cut it.

Let’s consider the steps needed to produce an indie ebook (most of these are also steps for producing pbooks, i.e. hardbounds and trade paperbacks).  First, consider editing.  There are three different editing procedures required: content editing, copy editing, and proofing.  I’ll begin with the middle one.  Most people who write a novel (I’m already assuming you have a story worth telling, which is a big assumption) can write reasonably well (why bother if you can’t?), but many people need a copy editor.  I think that’s DIY-able after a while—if you don’t know your own quirks and common glitches after writing a few manuscripts, you shouldn’t be in this business—but multiple pairs of eyes on your MS often come up with gotchas.

What about content editing?  That’s definitely DIY-able: cut and paste is your friend these days, so content editing should just be part of your writing experience.  It’s questionable, in fact, whether you should trust any editor to do that!  It’s a bit like those online critique groups or MFAs in writing based on the same paradigm: by the time you satisfy all your critics, your voice is often a colorless mishmash of bla-bla-bla.  If you hire a content editor, give her or him a good MS written in your own voice and be reluctant to accept changes—you’re writing the book, not the content editor.

What about proofing?  Between MS and formatted ebook, a lot can happen.  I don’t format my own ebooks, but it’s straight-forward, non-trivial, and time-consuming.  (I formatted my old POD books, though—it was a pain.)  You and others should look at the final product to make sure there are no glitches (italics are often lost, paragraphs and/or dialogue run together, section endings disappear—you get the idea).  Again, even more pairs of eyes can help if you’re doing your own formatting.  But maybe you should pay for formatting too, especially if you’re going beyond Amazon to other ebook formats or even adding pbooks (e.g. Createspace) to your mix.

Covers are important.  They don’t make a bad story into a good one, but they can help sell a good one.  Let’s face it: if you’re a writer, you’re not likely to be a cover artist.  Most writers are lucky enough to be artistic in one way, and presumably that’s in their writing.  I’m not counting dabbling in oil painting or jotting off a tune while noodling at your upright.  I can do that, but there’s nothing professional about it!  In other words, you should pay for your cover art; whether you’re just downloading some stock photo or cover or paying an artist for original work, a good cover will make your book look professional.

When you start adding up the tab, the question in the title has to leap to your mind.  But I haven’t come to the most expensive part yet, PR and marketing.  Here you can pretty much spend what you want—even take out a second mortgage on your house—but it might not do any good.  Never let a PR and marketing person tell you they own the secrets to making your book a resounding success.  There are no sure-fire techniques.  All the techniques are just things to try—I guarantee you that even if Joe claims a technique worked for him, if it works for you, it’s a happy coincidence.  (I’m talking beyond the usual things like having a website and trying to scrounge up a few reviews.)  And, the more techniques you try, the more you’ll spend, unless you DIY because you’re a PR and marketing expert who just happened to write a novel.

You can DIY as much as you want and Amazon will be happy to try to sell your product.  That’s a vicious circle, though, because Amazon only helps with PR and marketing when your ebook takes off (however they define that—their definition isn’t all that clear), so you have to do some PR and marketing to start the circle rolling, whether you pay for it or not.  Most authors aren’t very good at doing that DIY.  They can probably do lots of social media stuff, even if they’re shy nerds like me, but it’s never clear how effective that is, and there are many other aspects to PR and marketing that pros can handle better.  But can you afford that?

Consider BookBub.  Last time I checked, they charge $400+ per ebook for promoting a mystery or thriller (their charges are genre specific, by the way).  That’s more than the rest of my production costs per ebook! (By the way, I pass that savings on to my readers—most of my ebooks are $3.99 or less without any sacrifice in quality.)  BookBub also insists that your ebook is currently at a reduced price or free, so you’re not getting many royalties from that marketing campaign!  Generally speaking, you need some kind of launch marketing, some follow-up marketing, and later marketing so people don’t forget about your ebook (online retailers often don’t help there—for them, any book more than a year old is “off the shelf,” so they’re only a wee bit better than old mom-and-pop bookstores, who can jerk your book off the shelf in a few weeks).

The PR and marketing pros are willing to grab up all the money you toss to them, of course, so you have to be wary.  One of these days, I hope to afford a BookBub campaign—some writers swear by them (do they think they’ve found the silver bullet?).  Beyond what I do on this website and on social media, about all I can afford is a small launch campaign, which is effective as far as it goes (it lets people know I’ve published a new ebook, whether it’s part of a series, and so forth, and even gets things off to a good start with reviewers, especially if I add the ebook to Net Galley for a while).

After ten-plus years, I’m still running in the red.  OK, that’s partly due to the fact that I pump all my royalties into publishing the next ebook, but no ebook has ever run in the black.  It’s like being in a rowboat rowing with an oar in one hand and bailing water with a bucket in the other hand.  In other words, if I were trying to make a living doing this, my family and I would be starving and wondering if Bill De Blasio was ever going to do something about recognizing the plight of the poor homeless.  I’m not adding any cost for the time I spend doing this either, but most writers are in that same boat, at least at the beginning of their careers.  After ten-plus years, of course, I’m far beyond the beginning.

Is my case unusual?  I don’t think so.  There are many good books and good authors looking for readers now; the competition for readers is increasing every day.  It’s a slog going indie, but I don’t want to stop.  I love to tell a good story far too much, and, if I can entertain at least one reader with each ebook, that book’s a success as far as I’m concerned.  But I can’t really afford to publish books the right way, especially in PR and marketing, either from the money or time required.

And don’t think you can avoid all this cost by traditionally publishing your books.  Their contracts are egregious exploitations, with their 15% royalties, requirements to return advances if the book doesn’t sell, and loss of the rights to your book forever unless you pay them dearly.  Moreover, those PR and marketing promises often reduce to setting up a few book signings or the like—those full-page Times’ ads and prime-time trailers on TV are for those sure bets in the publisher’s horse stable; you’ll probably never see that kind of treatment.

I’m not discouraging you from writing that novel.  Just go into it without stars in your eyes.  It’s going to cost you in both money and time.  There’s no way around it.  Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.  If you love to write, bite down on the bullet and endure the financial pain and put in the time.  You have to be something of a masochist.  Who knows?  One of your books might take off, and you can waltz down the yellow brick road to fame and fortune.  I’m personally not holding my breath, though.  It’s still a slog.

In elibris libertas….

 

 

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 5th, 2015 at 4:00 am and is filed under Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.