There are some discussions that really piss me off and make me want to pull out my hair, but there are some I really enjoy. I really have enjoyed one on JA Konrath’s blog recently. It wasn’t all roses and gumdrops, but it was still pretty fruitful, IMO. Probably part of the reason I debate topics endlessly is that it helps me to crystallize my own view and helps me to better understand my motivations for doing things.

One of the issues that I was able to figure out better in my head from this is something that’s been niggling in the back of my brain for awhile but I didn’t how to give the idea form.

There is the popular saying: “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” Nowhere do I find this more applicable than in the publishing world and it’s part of my frustration with the debates that go on sometimes about self-publishing pros and cons. At some point in the conversation you’ll always hear two things:

1. Most self-published work sucks. (Yeah, doesn’t matter, cream rises to the top, no one sees the crap on the interwebz for the most part or they just click away. Problem solved. Irrelevant. Next!)

2. NY has better distribution and you’ll never do as well as with a NY contract.

Well this is probably true. NY does have great distribution channels at this point. (I say “at this point” because we don’t know how the publishing landscape will change in the next 10 years or if bookstores will ultimately survive whatever happens.) But what I find frustrating in these discussions, especially with unpubbed writers is the “I’m going to get better distribution than you because I’m going through NY channels.” Maybe they don’t come right out and “say” that, but in arguing for the supremacy of NY distribution as to why they’re chasing it, it kind of stands to reason they expect to outsell you and your piddly little self-publishing venture.

Arguing with me from a hypothetical contract proves nothing. The bottom line is, as a self-pubbed author I get better distribution than an unpubbed writer who has no work out there. It doesn’t matter if this person later gets a NY contract. They don’t have one now. (I have less of a problem when a NY pubbed author plays the “NY publishers have better distribution” card, but at the same time, while that’s great for them, it doesn’t really benefit me.) The odds for getting one, not to mention a second book contract with NY are astronomical anyway, even if you’re a good writer.

There are a limited number of publication slots. etc. etc.

Unpubbed writers who don’t favor self-pubbing tend to like to talk about how rare it is for a self pubbed author to get a NY contract. (Which I think is probably a hint they think we’re trying to cut line or something.) While it’s true not a lot of indie authors get NY contracts, I think over time more self-pubbed authors will get NY contracts, assuming they do well self-pubbing, but even if they don’t…

The few indie authors who get NY contracts, usually get better first contracts than those who started out in trad channels. It’s apples and oranges. And many self-pubbed authors who never get a contract offer may still make the same amount of money one year as someone who just got their first or second contract. Over time, that same self pubbed author with a backlist growing, may start to make close to the average amount published writers make or more. (average is $10,000 a year. Yeah that’s lame money, but it’s also a realistic goal as an indie to aim for, IMO. Maybe won’t be the first year, but, it’s a mile marker to go for.)

The bottom line is, publishing is insane. There are already way too many books out there. WAY too many. The odds that any author, through any channel will make enough money from writing fiction to make a living at it are really really bad. I’m not sure how self publishing could possibly make your odds any worse than what they already are. (Boy I’m cheery today.)

Those who argue for the “NY has better distribution” as if Self-pubbers don’t know this, make me think of people who talk about what they’re going to spend their lottery winnings on. I used to work in a convenience store where I sold lottery tickets. And several times a day someone would joke with me about what they were going to buy when they won. Only they weren’t really joking.

They knew the odds were bad, but it seemed that deep down they held out this hope they were going to have the winning lottery number. The money I was making at the gas station wasn’t great money, it wasn’t even good money, but at least it was REAL money, not hypothetical money.

So NY’s fabulous distribution aside, indie authors may not make great money, we may not even make good money (and if we do, it’s a long hard climb) but it’s real money, not hypothetical money for our writing. It’s also real readers/fans, not hypothetical maybe someday readers/fans.

Of course I’m bringing up that NY/indie author dichotomy again. A commenter brought up small press and digital press with me the last time I did this. I think small or digital press is a valid option (I also think NY is valid, it’s just A. hard to get into and B. not everybody’s goal), and it’s definitely a better option for many writers than self publishing, because many authors just plain don’t really “want” to be in control of everything like that. Nor is everybody suited to it.

Nevertheless when talking about self-publishing, no one says: “Dude, you could make so much more money if you were writing for a small press.” I think maybe because they know that isn’t true.

The average small press book sells 500-3000 copies, most authors don’t get more than their advance from any publisher, let alone a small press. I’m thinking even if you’re doing well with a small press you aren’t making more than $2,500 (and that would be at the high end of that scale, definitely not the low end.) You’d have to sell around 600 copies to make that much as an indie. Something I think is doable. (And I would hope much higher than that is doable. In fact I know it is, it’s just not “easy.”)

While we’re often told the average self published books sell 150 copies, you have to remember we’re talking out of ALL self-pubbed books, and as we’re reminded quite frequently… most self-pubbed books suck. If yours doesn’t, and you market yourself, chances are good you’ll sell much better.

I’m starting off our weekly review the way I was planning to last week, by drawing attention to a contest being held by LLBookReview. They’re due to review their 100th book very soon and are celebrating that fact by holding a contest wherein readers can decide which (from a list of six books) will be the Lucky 100th reviewed. In addition, everyone who posts a comment here is eligible to win a copy of that 100th book. Pretty cool, right?

So, where’s the quandry? Well, my novel is one of the six in the running, a fact I wasn’t aware of until last Sunday afternoon; a full four days after I had written up my original notes for this post. I decided to risk looking like a self-serving ass by going ahead and drawing attention to the contest anyway, because I think it’s a great way for our readers to be exposed to some good self-published books - and possibly to win one of those books. Also because I really like LLBookReview and want to send our readers their way. So if you get a chance, head on over and vote for your favorite book. And don’t forget to comment.

And now on to the remaining quandry-less 4/5 of my weekly review.

•  Our own Moriah Jovan was moonlighting over at Teleread with a review of Atlantis Word Processor. ( “I don’t demand things for free, but if they’re out there and they’re free and they work right, I’m all for it.”)
• Over at Writinghood, John Harmon gives some sage advice with To Succeed At Writing, Develop A Thick Skin.  ( “Sometimes the spark will be lit and you’ll feel everything is going just right and every word you’re putting down is perfect, perfect, perfect. Then you finish the piece and set it aside for a month or so. You look at it again and, lo and behold, it sucks. I mean it sucks big time.”)
• We all know how important social networking is to indie writers. But what if we spend so much time with the networking that we don’t get any writing done? Mary Jaksch has some suggestions of how to overcome this problem in her post How To Stop Digital Fiddling and Start Writing.
• And finally, Joanna Penn posted a video in which she evangelizes about the wonders of Print On Demand.

As always, feel free to drop any relevent links you’ve discovered in the comments section of this post.

Just a reminder that submissions for July’s Creative Works is still open. For more information on how to submit a piece, click this pretty link.

Have a great weekend!

What frustrates me often though is how few people in the grand scheme of things seem to have ever heard of Lightning Source. I will be forever grateful to Morris Rosenthal for writing the book: Print-on-demand Publishing, or I might just as easily still be in the dark on the issue. This book was where I learned about Lightning Source and it changed the entire way I viewed self-publishing.

Often when I hear discussions about self-publishing options I hear two things:

1. POD self-publishing companies like Lulu.com or Authorhouse.

2. Starting your own imprint and doing an offset print run.

As if there is no third option lying anywhere in the middle which *may* just be the best of both worlds, and I happen to think it is. That option is Lightning Source. Due to the fact that it seems so few self-publishing authors know about Lightning Source, I wonder if it’s not supposed to be a well-kept secret and that my spilling the beans might result in some kind of publishing hit being put out on me.

I’m going to take the risk to explain this option. (I’m pretty sure I’ve explained it before, but it was months ago.)

Lightning Source is a POD printer. As opposed to a POD publisher. This company is used by many NY publishers for parts of their backlists, university presses, small presses, and even authors set up as micropresses. In order to use them, you must have your own publishing company and own your own ISBN’s. So you will have chosen the “start your own imprint” option. There is a learning curve to working with LSI and creating files in the appropriate formats for them.

You’ll have to get your interior layout and book cover design taken care of elsewhere. Whether you do this yourself or hire out, you’ll have to adhere to the LSI file creation guide. If you don’t understand the LSI file creation guide, you will have to seek out someone who does for help because LSI expects to work with people who understand this… i.e. publishers.

And if you’re going to be a publisher, there is a learning curve. I get frustrated seeing time after time how “easy” it is said to be to self-publish your work. In some cases, yes. It’s easy if you use Lulu. It’s easy if you publish on the Kindle. There is very little learning curve to these two options and you can easily get someone else to take care of all the confusing parts for you.

But self-publishing in the sense of starting your own imprint is not “easy.” It’s not the hardest thing in the world either. It doesn’t require a degree in physics, but it does have a learning curve (let’s make a drinking game out of how many times I use this phrase), and it’s not for everyone.

But if it is for you, you might consider the POD through Lightning Source option.

So briefly I want to run through why I favor using LSI as a small imprint instead of doing an offset print run and instead of using something like Lulu.com

Why I prefer LSI to something like Lulu:

1. Lulu.com is a middle man. They get a large portion of their printing done by Lightning Source. With a little extra study and legwork, you can cut out that middle man and make a higher per book profit. (The exception here may be CreateSpace, but CreateSpace doesn’t hold your hand like Lulu does. You DO keep a much higher profit per book, but your only distribution option is Amazon.com. Not a bad option, but still only one place.)

2. You own your own ISBN’s; you are in total complete control of everything. You bring in all your outside vendors for editing/cover design/interior layout, however you get that done, and LSI just prints and offers distribution.

Why I prefer LSI to offset printing:

1. You don’t know how many books you’re going to sell. Doing a print run of almost any size is usually a losing proposition unless you know a LOT about publishing. Even then sometimes it is. With POD through LSI you never have to do any guesswork.

2. The investment is much smaller. You’ll pay a little bit over $100 to get your book uploaded into LSI’s database, pay the listing fee for the first year, and get a proof copy. As opposed to the thousands you’ll easily spend doing a print run. (If you do a short run print option that doesn’t run you into thousands, you will be cutting significantly into your profit margin since the cost per book might get about as high as POD through LSI would anyway. Then it’s a draw, except for the hassle/expense of the points below.)

3. NO Shipping and Warehousing. You can order super short runs (like say 25-50) directly from LSI to your door for when you may need them, or for selling some signed copies from your site or as giveaways, etc, but you don’t have to pay to warehouse a bunch of copies and then ship them out to whatever channels you’re selling through. There is no shipping charge for books sold into distribution through LSI (though there is shipping for what you order shipped directly to your house or to some other location not in the distribution network.)

4. Distribution. Okay so if you are still hung up on this offset printing model… great but how are you selling these books? Off your website? Even to sell through Amazon you would have to sell through Amazon Marketplace, which would eat up a chunk of your profit margin that you don’t need eaten when there are other ways. But where else are you selling the book? Unless your book is in Ingram, a bookstore is unlikely to be able to order from you. And what happens if/when someone walks into a bookstore and for whatever reason wants to order your book? (Yeah they can order it off Amazon, but not everybody is like that. Some still don’t trust shopping online even Amazon, and some want to go pick it up from the bookstore when it arrives. Not how I shop, but it doesn’t matter, some do.) Those are lost sales opportunities. And it is *tough* to get into Ingram (or Baker and Taylor) as a micropress. The discount you have to give them is greater as an individual micropress, assuming they even let you through the door.

LSI on the other hand has distribution partnerships with Ingram, Baker and Taylor, Amazon.com B&N.com as well as several others… including major distribution channels in the UK. And why would you sell only in the US when you can just as easily move books in the UK too? If you can tell me a coherent plan for doing this with an offset print run, I’d love to hear it.

5. LSI is a huge operation. They print hundreds of thousands of books daily. There is no way on God’s green earth that you are going to sell enough books that you overload their capabilities to produce. This means, you can use LSI indefinitely unless you start selling so crazy big that you want to do a large print run. But how many indies is this going to be a problem for? And won’t most of them just accept a traditional publishing contract if it gets that out of control anyway?

You better believe if you’re selling enough you feel LSI can’t keep up with it, every publisher on the east coast knows who you are and is courting you already. And they can take care of mass market rights.

This last point is a point of contention for me because I often hear: “Unless you are planning on selling less than 500 copies, you need to do an offset print run instead of POD.” I don’t agree on any level with this point. While the cost per book may be a bit higher than a larger print run even with LSI, you’d eat up that extra profit with shipping, warehousing and returns. It’s important to look at the big picture.

You could easily sell 20,000 copies in a year (and is this really a concern for you right now?) through LSI without any problems at all.

In short, LSI makes sense from every financial and distribution angle I can think of. I can understand those who would prefer to use Lulu or Authorhouse or CreateSpace because they don’t want to get over their head in publishing minutiae. “That” makes absolute sense to me, it IS a big learning curve (drink), but I don’t understand those just starting out self-publishing, wishing to create their own imprint, who are jumping right into a print run, unless they don’t fully grasp the difficulty and hidden costs of what they’re getting into, or they’ve never heard of LSI.

I have to get on a plane and leave the country now so the LSI people don’t get me for revealing this secret. I’ll let you know when it’s safe for me again.

Therein lies the rub. Convincing people that my books are really worth reading is the hardest part of indie publishing, especially when they cost around $15. I currently have two novels out – RealmShift and MageSign. Neither of them have yet received a bad review – a few negative or lukewarm comments in otherwise positive reviews is as bad as it gets. I don’t think they’ve ever been reviewed at less than 3 out of 5. I’m ecstatic about that and it proves to me that people think my books are as good as I do. But it’s still hard to convince the buying public to give them a go. As indie publishers we’re always going to be hard up against three primary walls of resistance:

1. The recognised author name
2. The trusted publisher brand
3. The low price of light stock paperbacks

The price is something that we’re always going to struggle with. The recognised author is something we hope to become, but in the meantime have to struggle against. The trusted publisher is something that is becoming less and less of an issue. In all honesty, how many people check up on the publisher before buying a book? How many people would decide against a purchase on the grounds of not knowing the publisher? But whether that affects a buyer’s decision or not, that publisher will always have the massive marketing department and distribution reach that we can only dream of. So what to do?

Well, we have to embrace the new. Big trad houses are just starting to get on board with the idea that ebooks are becoming more popular. The Kindle 2 from Amazon has recently been released, the Sony Reader is very popular outside the US, the iPhone has a Kindle app. My novels are now selling better in Kindle editions than any other format. The trouble with the big houses is that they’re still charging at least $10 for an ebook. Talk about missing the point! My books are $3.19 on Kindle and $3.50 at Smashwords and I thought THAT might be a bit overpriced. But they’re selling and that means people are reading my books, hopefully enjoying them and, also hopefully, telling friends and colleagues all about them. So my writing and my name are being disseminated among a larger audience.

It bothered me before that my books might get copied and passed around like MP3 music. These days I think, So what? People are reading my work. If they really like it they might even buy a paperback edition for their shelf. I know people that have done that already. I’ve done it with music – a friend gives me a handful of MP3s and I end up going out and buying the CD. So now I promote my books as much on Kindle at Amazon and in other formats at Smashwords as I do in print.

And that’s why I also give books away. I ran a contest recently on my website where I gave away a signed trade paperback copy of RealmShift. The contest required people to download the sample chapters and read them to find the answer to a trivia question based on one of the secondary characters. I got a massive response from all over the world. In the end, a lady called Jennifer in the US won the prize, but dozens of other people read the first three chapters of RealmShift in the process. Hopefully one or two of them enjoyed it enough to go out now and buy a copy as they didn’t win. I emailed everyone after the contest and told them that they hadn’t won this time, but thanks for entering and listed all the places they could get a copy of the book if they wanted to read more. Sales have spiked since the contest, so it looks to have been a positive step.

I’ll gladly give away copies to reviewers and awards judges – anything to get the books read and raise my readership and my profile as an author. If I get a review or, better yet, an award from the effort then all the better. Cory Doctorow, a massively popular author, is famous for giving his stuff away and he’s selling in enormous numbers. Look on it as marketing expenses – it doesn’t have to be much in cost, but it can be massive in results.

And how about putting my money where my mouth is? Here’s a shameless example of the kind of promo I’m talking about. If you want to read RealmShift as an ebook, go to the Smashwords page right now and you can buy a copy for the discounted price of $1 by entering this code at the checkout stage: TM99X

That code will be valid for two weeks. An entire novel for a dollar – can’t say fairer than that. Tell all your family, friends and colleagues and let me know what you think of the book. If you really like it, you can get the paperback version from Amazon and that’ll look sweet on your bookshelf. And the sequel is available now in all formats.

See how easy it is?

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I was born in the UK and have always been a writer – it just took me a while to realise that. I got into trouble at about age 7 in school as my teacher was convinced that my parents had written a short story that had been set for our homework. After much protestation on my part, and a call home, my teacher was eventually convinced that it was all my own work and I had to read it out to the class. It was an epic (for a 7 year old – about three pages) about this guy that goes back in time and has a hard time escaping the dinosaurs he comes across – I was always destined to write speculative fiction. After the class a number of classmates came up to me saying how much they enjoyed my yarn and I learned just how satisfying it was entertain people with a tale of your own devising.

I continually wrote stories and poems from then on, all of which were, naturally, bloody awful. But it was good training. As a teenager I played role playing games with a fervour and loved writing game campaigns for my friends. I started on my first full length novel at about 15 and began many others since, but never seemed to finish one.

By my mid-twenties I’d had enough of working in crappy nine to five jobs. My other passion in life is Kung Fu. I’ve trained since I was about 12 years old in various martial arts and, having not done well in school and quitting at 17, I got a series of low end jobs that gave me enough money to pay my training fees and that was all. Eventually that wore pretty thin and I headed off around the world, travelling. Or, as I prefer to think of it, walking the Earth like Caine in Kung Fu.

While travelling I decided that I wanted to actually be a writer and pursue my Kung Fu training – those were the things that were important to me. During those travels I also met the lady that was to become my wife. Skip forward to now and I’m married to a wonderful girl, I teach Kung Fu and Qi Gong for a living and I write.

I started my first complete novel, a contemporary dark fantasy called RealmShift, while travelling and finished it several years later, once I’d settled in Sydney, Australia. I got myself an agent, shopped the book around and was very nearly picked up by one of the big trad houses. They changed their mind at the last minute and decided against publishing me. I was over it for then and decided to shelve the book and work on the next one. Maybe some more writing would give me the incentive to get back out on the submissions trail.

Then I discovered the wonders of POD and learned how easy it was to produce your own work. I thought I’d give that a go. So I self-published RealmShift through Lulu.com. I sent it out for reviews, got some great responses and sold a modest amount of books. And I really enjoyed being in control. My biggest issue was the high cover price that companies like Lulu enforce. When everyone gets their cut, the book is expensive – especially for a 130,000 word (nearly 500 page) novel like RealmShift.

So when the sequel, MageSign, was written and ready, I decided to take one step further. I set up my own indie publishing company, called Blade Red Press. I signed up directly with Lightning Source (cutting out the Lulu middleman) and issued a new edition of RealmShift along with the first edition of MageSign in January this year. After everything I’d learned through my Lulu experiences I was able to make these new books a far better product and the cover price came down from $23.95 to $15.95 for the trade paperbacks. They are both also available as Kindle editions for just over $3 and a variety of other ebook formats at Smashwords.com for $3.50. They look great, they’re getting really good reviews and they’re selling pretty well. I couldn’t be happier. Well, I could be happier, if they were selling in even bigger numbers, but you know what I mean.

Blade Red Press has since produced the novel of another Sydney writer, Michael Fridman, in the form of his alternate history story of ancient Baghdad, Maggots Of Heresy. We’ll soon be opening for short story submissions to produce our first anthology of emerging writers and will be looking to pick up some more novellists before too long. Blade Red Press is going to publish quality dark speculative fiction, using all the modern tools such as POD and Amazon. Rather than act like a trad house, we’re going to act under a similar model to Lulu, iUniverse and the others but with some important differences. We won’t publish just anything – only things within our chosen genre and only things with real merit in the writing and story. We’ll make a more affordable route of self-publishing available to writers, but they’ll have to produce quality books and stories before we’ll take them on. Then they’ll have to promote and market their stuff. We’ll help by promoting the press as a whole, but individual authors will see success or failure through their own efforts. I firmly believe that models like this are going to be the way of the future and I’m very excited to be a part of this fast growing indie publishing world.

I’ve been traditionally published in some forms – I’ve written for print magazines, freelanced for websites and had a few short stories bought and published in various places. I’m still regularly writing and submitting short stories as I’m a massive fan of the short and I’ll always get a buzz out of selling a story. It also helps to build my profile as an author. Meanwhile I’m going to continue to produce my own work through Blade Red Press and hopefully help other good writers out there produce theirs.

You can learn all about me and writing at my website, which also has a number of short stories, a novella and the first three chapters of RealmShift and MageSign, along with my blog. Drop by and have a look – feel free to leave me a comment. I’m looking forward to contributing here at PubRen in the future and sharing my publishing stories and experiences with all of you.

Feel free to ask me about anything – if I don’t know the answer I’ll make one up. I am a fiction writer, after all.

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Fortunately there’s no reason to doubt the existence of talented indie writers; they’re all over the place. And I’m pleased to announce that we’ve talked one of them  into becoming a regular contributor here at Publishing Renaissance (I think it had something to do with the cookies) – Mr. Alan Baxter. His introductory post will go live either sometime this weekend or early next week, so you can all get to know him better then, but right now I’ll give you the basics: He’s a talented, prolific author from Australia (so his posts will, no doubt, be written in a cool accent), he teaches Kung Fu, and he rides a SWEET bike. Welcome aboard, Alan!

And now on with The Rainy, Dreary Week in Review…

• Seth Godin posted a video at his blog this week that was taken at a music festival, and he uses it (effectively!) as a call for action in his post entitled Guy #3. ( “Initiators are rare indeed, but it’s scary to be the leader. Guy #3 is rare too, but it’s a lot less scary and just as important.”) It’s a must-see for indie writers.
• April Hamilton has kindly posted a helpful Author’s Field Guide to Internet Trolls. (An internet troll  “frequently drives off larger, but more peaceable, local populations. While all Trolls are destructive, there are perhaps none so pernicious as the subspecies which target author websites and online writer communities.”)
• If you like posts like the one you’re reading now, you should check out The Creative Penn’s Great Links on Writing and Book Promotion. She’s got about a million of them. Yeah…I’m a little jealous of ya, Joanna.
• In the We’ve All Been There category (at least, I know I’VE been there) is author Kristen Tsetsi’s post, Taking It Personally. ( “Then I clicked on her name, read her profile, visited her blog, all the while wondering, “Who is this person? Why, why doesn’t it ’sit right’? Why didn’t she use more detail? Wah! Why won’t she read my BOOOoook!?”
• We conclude today by continuing our quest to improve the quality of self-published books with the post, The 32 Most Commonly Misused Words and Phrases. ( “Alright- If you use ‘alright,’ go to the chalkboard and write ‘Alright is not a word’ 100 times.”)

Have a great weekend! As for me, I’ll be spending a goodly portion of it in front of the chalkboard…

I just want to explore this whole “traditional publishing in this economy” concept. Many months ago, several folks like myself were talking about how the landscape of publishing is changing. That ebook technology rising, barriers for POD lowering, and the economy tanking, taking trad publishing with it… was a bad combo for those who are trad published, let alone for those who want to be.

This is a Titanic, and some of us have been pointing to the life boats, but some want to stay and hear what the band plays at the very end, so they can say they didn’t miss it.

The definition of insanity has been said to be doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. Never has this been more true than in the current climate of publishing. While folks like Nathan Bransford are still giving pep talks to show people how to be better than perfect (not a bad thing, just not the only option here. I will always and forevermore be a Nathan Bransford fangirl), the odds are still just as crappy, because everybody that reads industry blogs are stepping up their game. And let’s be honest, for the most part, the really savvy industry blog followers and such are about the only people *in* the game at this point. Ignorance and brilliant writing doesn’t cut it anymore.

Many have gotten it into their heads that somehow self-publishing is “giving up.” It isn’t. It’s strategy. The strategy is called: “Oh look! There are some readers. Let’s go talk to them.” Further, indie-producing some of your work doesn’t mean you have to indie-produce all of your work. You can always continue to shop other work to a trad publisher. It’s not either/or if you don’t want it to be.

It might be about now that many unpubbed writers will have to make a hard decision: “Do you want to be read, or do you want a publisher?” Because while you will certainly be read with a publisher, it is increasingly becoming a literary lottery. And all the perfection in the world is not going to change the overall odds. Especially since this business is subjective.

Nor will it change the increasingly leveled playing field and the increasing number of writers out there putting great work out on their own. (Yeah, we could look at the crap that’s self-published, but really you should fear the good stuff, not the crap. The crap isn’t your sales competition.)

If there was an objective litmus test for perfect, it would be different. But there is not.

If editors want a sure thing, what is more of a sure thing than an author who has already built a platform, and has sales numbers to back them up? I’m not saying a trad contract should be the goal of every indie author. It’s barely on my radar. Someday if I did something impressive enough and someone wanted to take some of my rights off my hands for a healthy advance, sure I’d consider it… but it’s not the prize I’m chasing.

What I want is to create and publish and reach readers and grow my little fan base, without all the “noise” surrounding NY publishing and the growing desperation on the part of authors trying to get into it.

Self-pubbing really is not “giving up.” We’ve got cookies over here, if you ever decide to join us. (And they’re homemade! Yum.)

Submissions for July’s Creative Works (which will be posted on Friday, July 3) open today and will close on Wednesday, July 1. Submissions for guest bloggers are always open. For more information, check out our submissions’ page.

And now on with the wrap up.

• Forbes shines a spotlight on Paul Young’s journey in publishing his novel, The Shack. ( “No one wanted to publish the book; 26 houses rejected it. So each of the trio chipped in $5,000 to do it themselves via a new company, Windblown Media.”)
• Publetariat posted an interesting interview with Mainstream/Indie writer, Cliff Pickov. ( “All indications point to the fact that the Kindle is taking off in terms of popularity and importance. It may be a turning point in the history of book publishing.”)
• And finally, Joanna Penn shows authors five reasons they need Skype.  ( “Authors need to promote internationally so you can use Skype to connect internationally without being worried about the cost.”)

As always, we encourage our readers to let us know about any relevent articles or blog posts they have come across in the past week. You can either leave the links in the comments section of this post or email them to us directly at pubrenaissance@gmail.com .

Today is National Doughnut Day in America. I encourage our readers around the globe to take a few minutes and celebrate this most auspicious of holidays in high style.

Authors are a sharing lot. They want to reach out and touch someone, specifically a reader. However, if you ask any author how they do that, you will get a variation on a theme — some responses filled with passion, while others chock full of hooey. They will disagree on basic aspects. Some feel that novels should be plot driven, while others favor characters. Some like spare writing, while others favor a detailed revelation of their research. Sometimes the genre dictates the approach. Sometimes not. In any event, there are as many approaches as there are reader preferences. Once an author settles into a style, that style can develop into a brand that permeates a bookshelf at a hundred yards.

I am not peculiar in this respect. I have been writing for over fifty years and authoring for over forty. Through trial and error and exposure to the masters and the wannabees (editors, agents and publicists), I have developed a flexible style in creating a story that reaches out to touch someone. I believe a story sits at the base of a novel and is developed, not plotted. In fact, the word plot is a misnomer. It emerges when an author builds a strict set of tracks for the readers, the characters and the story to follow. This comes from outlining, and in many cases, over development. Plot is a misnomer because overdevelopment of plot usually underdevelops a novel. Characters are constrained or forced to arc by the author’s command rather than by their natural inclination. Readers are constrained, their imaginations dampened by the one-way street of plotting instead of the two-way street of creativity. Dialog forwards plot and not character. Description is anchored to one or two senses (usually sight, and occasionally touch) instead of the five that make the story vibrant. Narrative becomes a matter of point A to B, instead of an opportunity to engage the reader with humor and irony. Story is the product of character, settings and events, and all the interaction between these. The author is a conductor, waving a baton over a score of knowledge and sturdy craft, orchestrating that time frame when the elements come together and resonate into a story. The finished product is the sum of that time frame (the Zone) and several revisions whereby the author polishes the whole with a gemologist’s skill.

The final result — the part that reaches out and touches the reader, is an amalgamation of draft, revision and refinement. If the reader is lucky, much of the draft — the heart and soul of the work, will remain and not be whittled away by the necessary cuts, the logical balance, the thematic implantation and the grammatical corsetry that revision and refinement entail. The draft is born in the Zone, and if some of the Zone touches the reader, there will be a heightened sense of allegiance to the work. However, and this is unfortunate, no matter how hard authors try, the reader can never experience the Zone.

The Zone is a place where true authors dwell. Getting there is a journey. It is where the story world becomes so real that the characters write their own dialog and rain can be felt and the sea can drown you. There is an accentuation — a narcotic, if you will, that allows the mind, heart and soul to unite and slay page after page with the rich cream of virtual reality. In fact, virtual reality is the closest I can think of to describe the feeling. Authors use different methods to get into the Zone (and we don’t always get there in every writing session). Stephen King uses heavy metal music. Jane Austen used isolation. Hemmingway used hard alcohol. I use classical music, isolation and . . . well, no alcohol, but cookies, preferably Veronas (Apricot) and Milanos. Most authors that I know prefer isolation or a special place. I can write anywhere, and have gotten into the Zone without the music or the Milanos, but the experience is different, akin to being on the edge of the forest, peeking in rather than frolicking with the flora and fauna. A good sign that an author is in the Zone is that we speak in the voices of our characters. Dickens did a mean Sarah Gamp. I do a wonderful drag queen.

So if you should pass by my window while I’m in the Zone, don’t report me as being some Son of Sam crazy, who hears voices commanding me to write novels. It’s just a symptom of the art and thankfully, it’s incurable. However, as much as I try to reach out and touch readers, I, like my fellow authors, jealousy guard the gates to the forest, where our children are born and the stories gush from the rocks and rills without plot. We are not gods and goddesses after all, but mere artists high on music and chocolate covered cookies.

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Edward C. Patterson has been writing novels, short fiction, poetry and drama his entire life, always seeking the emotional core of any story he tells. With his eighth novel, The Jade Owl, he combines an imaginative touch with his life long devotion to China and its history. He has earned an MA in Chinese History from Brooklyn College with further post graduate work at Columbia University. A native of Brooklyn, NY, he has spent four decades as a soldier in the corporate world gaining insight into the human condition. He won the 1999 New Jersey Minority Achievement Award for his work in corporate diversity. Blending world travel experiences with a passion for story telling, his adventures continue as he works to permeate his reader’s souls from an indelible wellspring.

Published Novels by Edward C. Patterson include No Irish Need Apply, Bobby’s Trace, Cutting the Cheese, Surviving an American Gulag, Turning Idolater, The Jade Owl, The Third Peregrination and The Dragon’s Pool. Poetry includes The Closet Clandestine: a queer steps out and Come, Wewoka – and - Diary of Medicine Flower. Non-fiction includes Are You Still Submitting Your Work to a Traditional Publisher?

Edward C. Patterson is a proud member of Amazon’s Shameless, Kindleboards, Publetariat, The Independant Author’s Guild, The Gay & lesbian Writers and Readers Group, and has guest bloged extensively. He has also appeared on the Bobby Ozuna – Soul of Humanity Show which can be accessed here.

http://www.dancaster.com/

Other people have put their money into her, and so therefore we can trust her far more than we can trust a garage band we’ve never heard of. Why doesn’t the garage band have a recording contract? There is SO much music out there and so much of it self published now, that we have all this crap we have to wade through. I mean do you seriously seriously think that people have the time to listen to a full song before deciding whether or not to buy your self-produced CD?

And with all the vanity self-publishing music companies out there that allow people to put their music up, well it’s a problem. Youtube anyone? Holy crap what were people thinking there? And now even iTunes just lets any joker who thinks he can write and play music to just… put it out there for SALE!!!! OMG

And here we, the unsuspecting customer are supposed to just trust it. There are even some bands who go so far as to make up their own record label. And that’s lying. Because you’re not allowed to start a business with a business name. Even though it’s perfectly legal. If you start a flower shop and you name it Awesome Flowers instead of your name, then that’s lying. Cause we think it’s a real legitimate flower shop instead of just someone who started their own business. If I don’t know who your recording contract came through, I can’t trust your music. I can’t just test it out cause that would be too hard to do. Why should a consumer be responsible for checking out a product before purchase?

Now, I will admit that it’s become increasingly difficult to get a BIG recording label (even though that’s the ideal we ALL strive for and no one has any other goals or dreams), and so sometimes it’s a little bit respectable if you have a small recording label, but the most important thing is… you can’t be your own label. You need to get a neighbor down the street or something to start a record label and sign you. Then it’s legit see? Cause a different person from you is running the show and paying the bills. If you’re the one paying the bills and investing everything in your own work, how can we trust you? How do we know you aren’t just self-absorbed and delusional? I know other businesses work on this initiative principle, but music isn’t the same. Music is different, just trust me on this one.

Self published music just isn’t the same as big record label music. And no matter what any of these “indie musicians” (like who do they think they are calling themselves that? Like we can’t see through that) say, it’s just always going to be this way. They don’t have respect, they’re never getting respect, so they may as well give it up now.

And do you know why they aren’t getting respect? Because most of them suck, and most of them think they automatically deserve respect, just for creating something and working hard to package and distribute it. Well get in line buddy! I am making my music the legit way, and you should too.

Who ever heard of a world or culture where a mega-corporation didn’t first approve all artistic expression and turn it into a mass consumer commodity? That’s how shit should be done, dude. And if you don’t agree, well, you’re just delusional. This country was NOT founded on any kind of dreams of independence or doing your own thing. We are all supposed to follow. So get back in that line and follow. Some day if you’re good enough, a big record label will smile down upon you and make all your dreams come true. And then we’ll respect you, because you will have done something respectable. Instead of this fake self publishing music stuff you’re doing now.

Anybody can get a guitar and a few friends and make a CD. And it’s just crazy. They can use Myspace and all this social networking, but the bottom line is, they’re just being lied to when people tell them they can get somewhere. And they are lying to others when they pass those delusions along. Most of them won’t become famous or even make a full living ever from their music. So therefore the entire self publishing model as a concept is wrong. Immoral even.

And oh yeah, if/when they ever get recognized from their self published music efforts and get a ‘real record label’ that automatically proves that the real record label is the only thing that matters, because clearly if self publishing music really worked on a bigger level, no one would ever work with another company, ever. For any reason, even if just to widen their distribution reach. Because making business decisions is silly.

Self producing music is not artistic freedom. It isn’t escaping from an evil corporate music scheme. There is no evil corporate music scheme. All corporations are fluffy bunnies that have only the interest of the artist at heart. All contracts are written in the best interest of the artists, and artists are never dropped if they turn out not to be as “commercial” as the loving corporation thought. Don’t you realize corporate music is love, man?

Plus, we all know that if music only reaches and touches a few hundred people, it’s worthless and should never have been made to begin with. Even though at earlier points in history most musicians had smaller audiences, that is no longer valid today since our lives revolve around American Idol and it’s massive importance in our cultural understanding of music and what makes it great, and most importantly… commercial.

I will grudgingly concede that there are a few decent self produced bands. BUT… they are extremely extremely rare, like golden eggs coming out of a duck’s vajayjay. So you know… they should still really be flogged for doing it, because they just get untalented unsigned musicians thinking they can do this independent thing too. And independence in artistic expression is just plain evil. Really, it’s the devil.

Now I wish anyone who self publishes their music all the luck in the world, they should just know it’s never really going to amount to anything but noise. And I can get that when I turn my radio to a station that doesn’t come in properly. I’m sure as hell not going to pay for it with real money that I got from doing real work.

* And of course, this is an entirely tongue-in-cheek parody. But really folks, this is what many arguments against self publishing are beginning to sound like. And I thought we needed a laugh. There are days when I run into these kinds of arguments and they piss me off, and days when I can rise above that and laugh at it. Then there are days I start out laughing and then I get pissed off.

My one question though is… if self publishing is by definition evil but at the same time completely pointless and ineffective for even the talented and savvy, then why are you talking about it? Don’t you have a query letter to write?