Why did I decide to self-publish? I’ve had ten novels released by
“conventional” publishers. Honestly, my posture has always been, “I’d rather
have someone pay me to write. After all, that’s what I do. I prefer to leave
the editing and marketing to them.” But things are changing in the world of
publishing. You may not have noticed, but authors have.
It’s been about ten months since
the release of my last novel, Medical Judgment. It’s not that the novel was bad—actually, it’s been nominated for
a couple of neat awards—but there have been holdups with my next. Since an author
is always one phone call or email away from not having a publishing home, they
fear that if there’s not a book out there, readers might forget them. Because
the publisher of my next novel has hit a snag, I decided to write and
self-publish a long novella to put something out there. That’s why Doctor’s
Dilemma will release next week.
What does an author have to do when he/she decides to self-publish? The
first thing a writer has to do is get over their fear of the unknown. Many
authors have told me that, for one reason or another, they have jumped (or been
forced) into self-publication. Some, like me, have primarily depended on a
conventional publisher to handle things like editing and cover design, along
with marketing. Self-publication means you’re responsible for all those things.
And it’s frightening.
How do you do it? The most important thing, of course, is to write the novel
or novella. Never, ever put something out that you can’t honestly say is your
best work. Because once it’s published, it’s there for everyone to see. One of
the hardest lessons I’ve learned is to resist the temptation all authors have
to send off the manuscript once its finished. That way lies disaster.
After the writing comes the editing.
I have an excellent first reader who does what amounts to a macro edit of
everything I write. And I’ve reached the point where I don’t hesitate to take
her advice. On her suggestion, I’ve even rewritten a book that was 10,000 words along in order to
make it better. And it was. But having learned this lesson with my first self-published novella, I spent the money for professional
editing of my manuscript. Cost varies with the editor and number of pages involved.
But to me it was money well spent.
At the same time, there’s the
matter of design of a book cover. Again, I chose to have a professional do it,
and the expense was worth it. Perhaps I could have found a template or
ready-made cover that worked, but in this case an individually designed one was
well money well-spent. Of course, don’t forget that it’s up to you to also write the
back cover copy. Since I’d always offered at least a suggested version of mine (which was generally accepted),
that presented no problem.
Then what? There are a number of options here. Many individuals have
set themselves up as small presses that handle all or part of the process. Agents
can assist with self-publication if it’s a valid option. I’ll leave it to the
authors to check into all these for themselves. My process involved my agent
and Amazon, choosing a path I’d followed with my two previous self-published novellas.
By doing this, I gave away a small percentage of the money coming in, but I
never felt alone. There are a lot of decisions, and it’s all up to the author. I liked having someone to lean on here.
After I set up the schedule for Doctor’s Dilemma with the lady who is my
liaison in all this, it was up to me to decide a cost for the book and arrange
publicity. That’s done, and you can benefit from one aspect. My novella is available for pre-order on Amazon by the time this “interview” is posted.
The Kindle version will be available for a pre-order price of 99 cents. Unfortunately,
there’s no “pre-order deal” for the print version. This special price will be
in effect until March 13, at which time the book is to be released, and the regular price goes into effect for
both versions.
If you want to be in the running
for a copy of the novella (Kindle format for anyone, print copy for US addresses only), leave a comment with your
email address. I’ll choose a winner on the evening of March 12 and post that
name in the comments section, so the non-winners can still take advantage of
the special price.
And if you have questions, please
include them in your comments. See? I told you to read to the end.
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