The last few weeks, because I have not been able to maintain the terrific sales numbers I achieved over the Christmas holidays for my historical mystery, Maids of Misfortune, I have noticed a growing sense of disappointment. In addition, two of my friends who have recently self-published books, encouraged to do so by my solid sales, have sold very few of their books. Naturally I feel partly responsible for their frustration. Finally, the author Facebook site I started last month only has 74 “likes,” most of them other authors who “liked” my site in exchange for me “liking” their sites, instead of the fans of the book I hoped to attract. I confess these three things were beginning to undermine my generally enthusiastic state of mind towards self-publishing. A few days ago, however, I experienced an interesting “attitude adjustment.”

First of all, I read a guest post on J.A. Konrath’s blog, A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing, by an author Guido Henkel where Henkel described how, despite all the changes he had made to his book Demon’s Night, (new cover, new description, better editing, etc), after a relaunch of the book four weeks ago he hadn’t seen any great improvement in sales.

I found myself mentally chiding Henkel for being so impatient. Four weeks, particularly if he hadn’t been doing anything to let the potential readers out there know about his new and improved book, is a very short period of time in the self-publishing world. And one of the wonderful benefits of self-publishing is that there is time to build a market for our work. Unlike traditionally published authors, we aren’t facing the 6-8 week window, where one needs to achieve enough “sell-through” before your book is remaindered and your book is labeled a failure. (Of course today, when I checked Henkel’s ranking on Kindle, Demon’s Night was now in the top 100’s of several categories. This should help improve his sales dramatically, which I am sure was his hope, and Konrath’s plan; so he is probably no longer feeling so discouraged.)

However, thinking about Henkel reminded me that it took me seven months to reach the point where my book was selling enough copies so that it was high enough in the rankings to reach its potential market. Seven months and a whole series of actions on my part to increase my sales.  This also reminded me if I had expected to make a lot of sales instantly that I might very well have gotten discouraged and not taken the actions that did ultimately achieve success.

Fortunately, when I first published in December 2009, I really hadn’t heard of very many previously unpublished indie authors hitting it big, so my expectations were very modest. I was honestly delighted after four months of sales to discover I had sold 158 books, because this meant someone besides my circle of family and friends had actually bought my book.

A second occurrence again brought home how changing expectations can be a trap for an indie author. I was rewriting a talk I had given in November about the new opportunities in ebook and independent publishing and I ran across the statement that as of October 2010 I had sold over 2100 books, and that since I was then averaging 14 books sold a day, I estimated that in the next twelve months I would sell over 5000 books. I remember being so proud of this, and it eliciting a distinct gasp from my audience of academics. (Academic monographs seldom sell more than 600 books in a title’s lifetime.)

That was my expectation five months ago, but when I sold nearly 3000 books in one month (January) my expectations changed. Now, even though I have sold over 8000 books in just six months-way over my estimate, I was discouraged because my average sales for March was down to 42 books per day, a number that would have made me ecstatic five months ago. Objective reality hadn’t changed, my expectations had.

Hence my need for an attitude adjustment.

As an indie author I needed to remember what the process would be like if I was going through the traditional (commercial) publishing process. How long it takes to get an agent. How long it takes an agent to find, if they ever do, a publisher. How small most advances are. How long it takes to get the book actually in print. How short the time period a book stays on the shelf, and how seldom the book pays back its advance so that it will start to pay out royalties. Finally, how short a time most books stay in print.

As an indie author I needed to remember that in self-publishing the time line is reversed. It takes very little time (from a few days to a few months) to get your book published (cover designed, interior formatted, product description written, files uploaded) but you have forever to sell it-particularly if you have written fiction, or in my case an historical mystery that is never going to seem “dated.”

As an indie author I needed to remember that indie publishing and ebook publishing are transitioning so rapidly that expectations built on today’s experience are probably going to be outdated tomorrow. Experimentation not expectation needs to be my watchword. For example, I know one of the reasons my author site hasn’t yet attracted many fans is that at the start I didn’t set up any mechanism to connect up with people who bought my book.

I did have my website listed at the end of the book, but this website has remained static, and I didn’t even have a contact email on it until recently. Truth was, I really didn’t expect to have fans! Now I have an email address, I am careful to respond when someone reviews my book on GoodReads and other sites, and I plan to update my ebook with a link to my facebook author site at the end, to encourage readers who liked the book to go on and sign up. Maybe I will even institute my first contest and giveaway to get more people signed up! A drop in sales doesn’t mean the market has dried up, it means I need to be more experimental in expanding my reach to the market that exists.

These tactics may work or they may not. My sales may go up again when we hit the summer holidays, or they may not, my sales of my second book may match or exceed that of my first, or they may not. But the point is, I needed to regain the perspective I started out with, that the benefit of self-publishing was that a book I had worked hard on and believed was good got to see the light of day and wasn’t stopped by some gatekeeper. I needed to remember its success or failure to sell was contingent on the work itself and my efforts to market it (not some corporate marketing department or book store purchaser).

With that perspective I can once again rejoice whether 40 people (my sales number last night) or only one person buys one of my books or stories. Because without self-publishing, no one would have been reading Maids of Misfortune, or Dandy Detects, and that would have been the real disappointment.

This is a reprint from M. Louisa Locke‘s The Front Parlor.

The title says it all. You just can’t. I won’t allow it. I hear it so often and I find it baffling. I know what it means to love books. I love books to a degree most would consider unhealthy. I’m a bibliophile of the highest order. The feel, the weight, the smell, the sound of a page turning. Awesome. And there will always be books. But they will be less and less common, as I’ve said here so many times before, and ebooks will be the mainstream before much longer. And that’s okay.

You know what I like more than books? Stories. I love stories. I love to read the tales of others, to marvel at a great writer’s turn of phrase, to be transported by a great author’s incredible ideas. Rarely do I ever find that sense of wonder so much as I find it in science fiction and fantasy.

Now, I know there are fantasy fans out there who don’t really like sci-fi. They’re the kind of people who wish we all lived in castles and rode horses and wore sack-cloth vests and said things like verily and thou art. I get that, I really do. Those people lamenting the slow demise of books as a mainstream delivery system for stories is fairly understandable. The hardcore fantasy fans lament all technology and yearn for an older, more agrarian society. Of course, they also yearn for magic and dragons, which is fine, but unlikely. About as unlikely as them surviving in a truly medieval world. Even the most hardcore fantasy fans would be chafing at the bit for some modern technology when they badly needed a bath to wash off the flea bites and smallpox.

But I digress. On the whole, most fantasy fans are sci-fi fans too. You don’t have to be into hard sci-fi to qualify. That really scientifically accurate stuff you need degrees in maths and physics to really understand is very cool, but there’s other sci-fi out there too. The softer, more accessible stuff, like Star Wars or Serenity to offer some mainstream examples. There are equally un-dense sci-fi books and short stories out there too – all the sci-fi I write is very light on the sci and heavy on the fi. But regardless of your particular flavour preferences, you can’t be a fan of science fiction and then sit there all miffed and put out at the rise of ebooks.

It happens so often, people that are such big reading fans saying, “Gods, no, I’ll never read an ebook! You can’t curl up with a good ebook!” Bollocks, of course you can. Curling up with a Kindle or Nook is easier than reading an actual book, in fact.

“I like the feel and smell of a real book.” Yeah, so do I, as I said before, and an ereader doesn’t have those attributes. But not everything we read has to be a tactile, olfactory delight.

Let’s be honest about this. Why is an avid reader really an avid reader? Do they like to go and buy a new book every week and run their fingers over it, sniffing deeply? Maybe. But is that the primary reason for buying it? No, of course it’s not. You’d have to be pretty fucked up to prefer the smell of a book over its contents. People buy books because they love stories. The delivery system is hardly relevant – it’s the content we want. We want that transportative magic of well-crafted fiction.

And in science-fiction we’ve been reading about technological advancements since… well, since there’s been science fiction. When I read a book on my iPhone, which I regularly do, I’m living something that just ten years or so ago was still science fiction. The phone in my pocket does more than most of the gadgets on Star Trek – even Star Trek: The Next Generation, and that’s only twenty five years old.

Only? Merlin’s Cock, that makes me feel old! Star Trek: TNG ran from 1987 to 1994. If you watch repeats of it now you see how far we’ve come in that time, not only in television and production, but in ideas too. Though some of those shows had awesome ideas that are still fresh now. Even Classic Star Trek had ideas like that.

But I digress again. I do that.

My point is this: If you’re a fan of science fiction, you have to be a fan of ebooks. Because a pocket- or handbag-sized electronic device that stores thousands of stories, that you can wirelessly connect to other devices or locations to get more stories, IS science fiction.

Get over yourselves, people that don’t like ebooks. It’s all about the story, the wonderment, not the delivery system. Also, if you’re sitting there saying, “But, but, but!” and you have all these reasons why ebooks are shit, let me see if I can address them first:

I don’t like reading off a screen – Then buy a Kindle or Sony Reader or equivalent that uses e-ink and is essentially just the same as reading off a printed page. And before you crap on about it, have you actually tried a Kindle? They’re amazing.

I don’t want to spend money on a reading device – What, like you spend money on books? With the cost of ebooks being lower than most print editions, you’ll get your money back and then start making savings in no time.

I like the smell and feel of real books – So do I. See above. Buy a special edition hardback once in a while and get your touchy, sniffy fix. Then carry on reading on your chosen e device.

I don’t want to see real books disappear – They won’t. There will always be real books. Just fewer of them and mostly in special editions or collector’s editions. But I bet most books will be available POD as well as ebook, just for folks like you.

You have to remember to charge up a reading device – You have to remember to pick up a book. What’s your point? The Kindle, even under heavy use, has a battery life of at least two weeks. You can cope with that, surely?

Ereaders are heavy and cumbersome – No, they’re not. They used to be, but the Kindle, Kobo or Sony Reader, among others, are lighter than most paperbacks. Sure, iPads and stuff like that are heavier, but they’re electronic devices that also have the ability to deliver stories, so it’s a different situation. My iPhone is like that as well and is far lighter and smaller than any paperback. There’s lots of choice.

I like to read in the bath – Good, so do I. Go for it. You’re really careful not to drop your precious book in the water, right? Just do the same with your ereader. And if you’re worried about being electrocuted, I suggest some basic science lessons to ease your fears.

Did I miss anything? If you have some other reason to stand against ebooks, put in a comment below and I’ll address it.

I understand that some people are complete paper book purists, and I get that, I really do. Although it’s an anachronistic and soon to be redundant position. But if you’re an SF fan, I don’t get it at all. Get over your elite self and embrace the future, or forever hang up your SF fandom.

Stop struggling, all you ebook haters – in a few more years everyone will be doing it. You can’t stop change or hold back the future. If you’re an SF fan, why would you want to?
 

This is a reprint from Alan Baxter‘s The Word.

This post, by Jami Gold, originally appeared on her Jami Gold Paranormal Author site on 3/31/11.

The comments for my last post were fantastic—thank you!  The range of opinions really got me to think deeper about the traditional vs. self publishing issue.

Many people wrote in with circumstances for when self publishing works (and possibly works “better”).  Others noted situations where traditional publishing is the only way to go, one being category romances (where the readers do buy based off the publisher or imprint) and the other being literary novels (where it’s harder to find and connect to readers).

Tom Honea wondered in the comments of the last post:

[I] can’t imagine that a writer who has the choice will go the self-publication route…

I understand his point.  If we really love writing, why would we take on the designing, promoting, and distributing that would negatively affect our writing time?  This was the main reason Amanda Hocking cited for her choice to pursue a contract.  But then you have Barry Eisler’s choice…

Can you hear the wheels turning in my head?  I love when comments force me to think, so thank you, Tom!

Would You Ever Turn Down a Contract?

Let’s say you were offered a contract with a traditional NY publisher.  What would make you choose not to sign that contract?

• Mid-list Author

In the last post’s comments, Laura Pauling said her takeaway from Nathan Bransford’s analysis was ”[I]f you’re writing a midlist book … you’ll do better profit wise by self publishing. That’s huge.”

She’s right, that is huge.  This one probably depends on the imprint.  Some imprints are almost all mid-list releases, so they’ve learned how to promote and distribute those better than an individual author could do.  I’ve already mentioned the Harlequin situation, and I think MacMillan is trying to promote more as well, with genre-specific blogs, etc.

But if you’re looking at a contract with a publisher/imprint that doesn’t promote their mid-list authors at all, would you consider turning them down?  What if you knew there was a good chance they’d cancel your contract early (which happens with mid-list authors who don’t meet sales goals)?

• Series Authors

Read the rest of the post on Jami Gold Paranormal Author. Publetariat Editor’s note: by now, most of us are aware that bestselling author Barry Eisler has already turned down a six-figure contract in favor of self-publishing.

This post, by Marsha Canham, originally appeared on Marsha Canham’s Blog on 4/3/11.

For those of you who may not have seen the recent blog by Connie Brockway over at All About Romance, it’s here http://www.likesbooks.com/blog/?p=6169 In it Connie announces that she is excited to be joining the ebook Rogues, many of us who have been not only able to reissue our backlist books, which have not seen the light of day for decades in some cases, but who are exploring the opportunity to write the kind of books the publishers keep telling us “they” (meaning you the readers) just don’t want anymore.  They (meaning the publishers) have this big crystal ball, you see, and they know that you, the readers, only want Regencies with drawing room stories and hot sex, or vampire books with hot sex, or paranormals with hot sex, or….wait.  That’s all they (meaning the readers) want.

I went on hiatus six years ago because my proposal for the sequel to The Iron Rose was turned down flat.  I was told pirate stories were not popular anymore, this despite the wild popularity of the Johnny Depp movies, Pirates of the Caribbean, and despite the fact The Iron Rose was one of my bestselling books and readers sent scads of emails asking when I was going to write a story for the brothers, Gabriel and Jonas.

Well guess what?  Connie has had scads of mail over the years asking when she was going to write sequels to her bestselling books, All Through the Night and As You Desire.  And she has wanted to write them.  But why would she…or I…spend a year writing a book that the publisher’s won’t buy?  As Connie says in the blog:

No one was or is going to buy a book from me that is set in Egypt. Or Italy. Or take a chance on my riff on the Tarzan story. And while my Facebook page poll on where readers want their books set told me loud and clear that the publishers are right, most readers do want their historical romance set in England, there’s that hallowed  word “most” to consider. My core readers have never been “most” –otherwise I would have long ago sprung to the top of the bestseller list. I like to believe that my readers are picking up my books because they like my slightly different settings or characters or time periods.

Ditto ditto ditto.  I was told years ago if I wanted to break out of the midlist crowd of authors, I had to sit myself down and write what the publisher wanted me to write…namely:  Regencies.  Books without so much action and adventure.  Books that didn’t concentrate so much on the swashbuckling angle.  Books that were shorter, less intense.  Books that were character driven rather than plot driven.  Books that readers could read in an evening…375 pages max, preferably large print.  And don’t use too many big words.  And fill it with hot sex.

Read the rest of the post on Marsha Canham’s Blog.