Heaven to Betsy (Emily #1) (35 page)

My personal description of an indie-publishing Loser:

—Willing to work hard to make little or nothing

—Comfortable having people whisper “he couldn’t get a real book contract” behind his back

—Under the right circumstances, would run naked on a beach

Seriously, y’all, any writers out there? If you’re a writer, chances are you’re not in the game expecting a Spindletop-gusher payday. Sure, it would be nice, but we all know most writers—most traditionally published authors—are working stiffs like the rest of us. For every J.K. Rowling, there’s a legion of also-rans slodging away at day jobs they might not even like. English teachers. Air-conditioner installers. Attorneys by day, like me, and night-and-weekend artists, like most of you reading this book.

For every traditionally published author working a day job, there are millions of writers who haven’t wrapped their hands around that solidly satisfying brass ring—true writers, writers called by their hearts to lay their souls or their wisdom on the page, yet writers who haven’t earned a single cent on a book sale in any form of publishing. Maybe they’re already living the life, working as journalists, Hallmark-card poets, writers of jingles, dishwasher ads, and Viagra commercials, but the bulk of them aren’t summering in the Hamptons.

Have you ever met anyone who worked harder than a writer trying to make a living off writing alone? Yeah, me either.

So why do we write, and why do we seek to publish, if it isn’t a sure path to riches? I can’t speak for you, but I can repeat what writers around the country tell me. It’s the same thing that drives me, and it’s easy to sum up: we can’t stop writing and dreaming of sharing our work with other people any more than we can stop breathing in and out. We just can’t help it. Nor can we help dreaming that someone is going to come along to take the whole mucky, scary business of publishing off our hands—or at least make it very easy.

Because make no mistake, while writing is an art, publishing 
is
 a mucky, scary business, complete with supply chains, distribution networks, profit and loss statements, and inventory issues. It’s a business of relationships, contracts, and figuring out how to get the customer what she needs. It’s a business where, in essence, the decision about which books to publish usually hinges on whether or not they will be profitable; in other words, whether they will earn more money than it costs to put them into the customers’ hands.

It’s a business, like all businesses, that relies on the almighty dollar (or euro or deutsche mark or whatever). Can we afford to keep the lights on and the doors open? Can we pay our employees? Can we assure the owners that their money isn’t better spent elsewhere?

That doesn’t sound very artistic, does it? It isn’t. No wonder many of us would love some publishing company to swoop in and take away the risk, the effort, and the sheer messiness of it all. Plus, gosh, doesn’t it mean you’re somebody special if a big publisher takes on your book? It’s validating, at the very least.

But signing yourself and your art over to a publisher comes at a price. For all that help—valuable help—you give up a hefty piece of your future earnings and a large measure of control. Make no mistake: you pay the publishing company to publish your book. They choose your book(s) because they think they can make money off of you. They provide services and call most of the shots, like what (if any) budget they will allot for advertising, marketing, promotion, and publicity. Like what your cover will look like. Like whether they’ll ever let your book see the light of day without the revisions they deem necessary. Whether and which reviews they will seek for it, and what kind of weight they’ll put behind those requests. How they’ll promote it. When they will release it, and which other possibly competing books they’ll be handling as well.

Shall I go on? I could, and it’s a pretty sobering list, considering you thought you’d come up sevens when the publisher bought the rights to your book.

“You mean it still might not get published? Or it might be published in a way that doesn’t maximize its chance of success, even in my own eyes?” you ask.

Yes. That’s exactly what I mean.

Shee-yut.

And working with a major house doesn’t guarantee your financial success, either. Herman Melville sold only fifty copies of 
Moby-Dick
 before his death. In fact, most authors with major houses never earn out their advances, meaning they never get another cent after their initial advance check. The average debut novelist with a major house, according to Gary Smailes of The Proactive Writer (
http://proactivewriter.com/blog/
), sells about 2,000 books in the first year. If he sells 10,000 in the first year, chances are the house feels he is doing quite well. If he sells 14,000 or more in the debut year, the book will probably be deemed a big success to the house, but likely not earn the author much more than a pat on the back.

A few years ago, I stood at a crossroads in my own writing journey. I had three novels out with three great agents. I had their cell phone numbers on my iPhone. I didn’t have offers of representation, but I did have phone dialogues going and requests to see rewrites. I wasn’t there, but I was 
this close
.

At the same time, the publishing industry was at a crossroads of its own. E-books seemed poised to take over the world. Profit margins were tight. Major authors like Stephen King (gasp, the moneymakers) were discovering self-publishing. And it wasn’t just them. There were the indie authors. Amazon was offering 70% Kindle royalties. E-commerce was truly accessible, and print on demand (POD) had become almost easy. Gone were the days when a writer’s only alternative to traditional publishing was an expensive vanity press. Amanda Hocking had burst onto the scene, making millions off books spurned by agents and editors. J.A. Konrath had shown that a middle-of-the-pack author could turn his backlist (backlist = all an author’s books but the newest one) released from contract by his publisher and future indie-published writing into a more than respectable income.

A steady stream of authors began making their way over to Amazon. Their dribs and drabs of sales plus the sales of self-publishing rock stars summed up to something significant that the publishers felt in their wallets and in the deepest, darkest, most scared places in their hearts. The indie sales didn’t, however, make much money for the self-published authors themselves, who tend to have trouble selling a copy outside of their immediate families. And 70% of nothing is, well, 
nothing
. Or rather, it’s nothing in terms of money, but if your goal is to share your words and your worlds, it’s a whole heck of a lot of

something—and to the major houses, all of that something started taking a bigger and bigger toll.

The publishers needed to figure out how all this change would impact their business model, but frankly, at the time that I was deciding whether to indie publish, they hadn’t yet. Writers discovered the concept of disintermediation, where the only truly necessary players in the game of book sales were author and reader, save possibly a freelance editor, a digital artist, a publicist, and a business consultant, all of whom an author could retain for herself if she chose to.

Slim publishing-company profits narrowed further while I went back and forth over many months in dialogue with agents, and I had a decision to make: Should I keep chasing after a possibility that kept getting less likely and would cost me control of my work? I mean, who really knew what return I would get on my three novel rewrites? I certainly wasn’t guaranteed representation, and even if I got it, a book sale was not an automatic. Until I signed a sales contract, the size of my potential advance would be shrinking daily, and the other terms of my deal would be growing less favorable as well, because this was business, and a business on the rocks. That potential deal would still require me to promote and market my own book on my own dime and my own time. Bottom line: I had no guarantee of a return, or even of ever traditionally publishing.

I started seriously considering throwing my hat into the ring of indie publishing. I’d still have no guarantee of a return, and I could lose my own money, at that. But the rewards were huge. I’d get the chance to share my works with whoever wanted to read it. I’d retain control—beautiful, blessed control—and publish the book of my heart, not the book of someone else’s balance sheet. And that was the crux of it to me: control. I’d been an entrepreneur for nearly twenty years. I knew how to run a successful business. And promotion was a wash; I’d be doing it whether I went indie or stuck to traditional. How big a stretch was it, really, to move from entrepreneur to authorpreneur? Bottom line: I had no guarantee of a return on my investment as an indie, but I 
did
 have a guarantee of publishing, and I could do it my way, which is what really drove me.

You’re in control

“You can make no money with someone telling you what to do, or you can make no money calling your own shots. Which one would give you more joy?” my husband asked. “And don’t answer that, because I already know. So I’ll help you.”

And he did.

I’d love to say the result was a gusher, but I’d be lying. It was a smashing success to us, but modest by major house standards. I sold 5,000 copies of my debut novel in the first six months, and almost half of those sales were of paperbacks. Combined with Kindle giveaways during that time period, 50,000 people got a copy of 
Saving Grace
. It was picked up nationwide by Hastings Entertainment for their 137 stores, and regionally by Barnes and Noble. It led to greater exposure and sales of my backlist of relationship humor books. It paved the way for my future books. It beat the performance of most debut novelists with major houses. For all of that, I am grateful and excited, but not rolling in money. What I am rich in, however, is information, tons and tons of information on indie-publishing successes and failures, good moves and missteps.

You’re not alone

So here’s something I know: if you indie publish, you are a needle in a haystack. In 2012 alone, 235,000 indie titles were published, representing about 43% of books published that year, according to Bowker, a company that provides bibliographic information on published works to the industry. There are more than one million Kindle e-books in publication as I type this manuscript, and that number is growing quickly. According to Penguin-owned Author Solutions (not my top choice as a service provider for indie authors, but a valid source of data), its average indie title sells 150 copies. That’s not an annual number, folks, that’s a forever number.

The number of competing titles is growing exponentially. Not only are individuals indie publishing, but so are businesses like 
AskMen
 magazine, which has launched a line of books to meet the perceived needs of its customers. And successful traditionally published authors like James Patterson are turning their brands into title-churning franchises, handing over writing duties to flocks of co-authors. So you’re competing with an incredible volume of titles, traditional and indie, individual and business, and it’s increasingly difficult to stand out from the crowd.

Be careful basing your “go indie” decision too heavily on widely touted indie-riches stories. For instance, 
Fifty Shades of Gray
 was originally indie published, but it became a massive commercial success only 
after
 Random House picked it up. From my perspective, it was still a huge coup that Random House discovered it.

Before you decide whether to indie publish, ask yourself:

—Can I deliver the quality needed to make sales?

—Do I have the necessary business skills?

—Can I promote my books to the point of recognition and sales?

—Will I still have time to keep writing my next books?

And, most importantly,

—Why am I choosing to indie publish?

If you only want copies of your book for yourself, your friends, and your family, and you don’t care about making money, it may not matter to you if you ever sell a single book.

For some of us, despite the odds and the cons, our goals reflect our desire for independence. If you’re one of those intrepid souls, stubborn to the bone and yearning to work like a pack mule, then you’re just the kind of loser who’s right for indie publishing.

If that’s a “hell, yeah” or even a “hmmm, maybe,” read on.

To continue reading 
Loser
, 
click here
.

Once upon a time a bright-eyed Amarillo girl took a course on persuasive speaking at Texas A&M University. She wrote and delivered an assigned speech in support of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. A class member of Mexican descent argued passionately against IRCA and the girl’s points, using personal, family examples and pointing out, correctly, that all Americans descend from immigrants, except Native Americans. The girl, appearing calm and cool on the outside, debated with her classmate and walked out with an A+ as her grade. But the girl never forgot that exchange and the shame she covered up in that moment, as she was confronted with the ease and privilege in her own life. And for failing to see the perspective of her classmate’s family, even though she never knew their names. The girl—me— grew the heck up, and eventually she wrote this book.

Thank you to my classmate at Texas A&M, for your passion, courage, and eloquence in speaking your truth.

Thanks to my husband, Eric, for brainstorming the
Emily
books with me over many miles hiked in Pedernales Falls State Park and on our property in Nowheresville, and during 11,000+ miles logged in the Bookmobile. Eric gets an extra helping of thanks for plotting, critiquing, editing, listening, holding, encouraging, supporting, browbeating, and playing miscellaneous other roles, some of which aren’t appropriate for publication.

To each and every blessed one of you who have read, reviewed, rated, and emailed/Facebooked/Tweeted/commented about the 
Katie & Annalise
 and
Michele 
books, I appreciate you more than I can say. It is the readers who move mountains for me, and for other authors, and I humbly ask for the honor of your honest reviews and recommendations.

Blessings and hugs to my friends Stephanie, Betsy, and Walt, who inspired me to write about my own hometown.

Editing credits go to Rhonda Erb, Sara Kocek, and Emily Kristin Anderson. The beta readers and critique partners who enthusiastically devote their time—gratis—to help us rid my books of flaws blow me away. The special love this time goes to Patty, Gay, Melissa, Nandita, Dina, Stephanie, Ginger, Ridgely, Melissa, Terry, Rebecca, Susie, and Ken. Thanks to Walt for expert assistance, as well.

Kisses to princess of the universe, Heidi Dorey, for fantastic cover art. Thanks for evolving with us as we evolve with the world of publishing. Credit for the photo on the cover goes to Beau and Shirlene Baer. Isn’t it amazing?

Finally, my eternal gratitude to Eric and our kids for teaching me the ways of blended household love.