How Self-Publishing is Like the School Bully

imagesOK so a blog generator came up with this title for me. (Kind of fun, though I rolled my eyes initially.)  Deep in the process of self-publishing novel #3, so I figured I’d play along:

  • He’s big — it does seem everyone has a book in them and is self-publishing it. Here’s a state of the industry report from the beginning of the year.
  • He’s an enigma. It’s very hard to know just what will find an audience (or “sell”) and what won’t. We know there are popular genres (like romance and fantasy) and one subject American readers never seem to tire of is vampires. So writing a vampire book for young women would seem to be a good strategy, for instance.
  • It’s possible to beat him. Like the stout bully tripped up by the nimble skinny nerd, there are the occasional insane stories of success. There are authors who wrote/write things like the above-mentioned vampire novel, price them cheaply and reap a huge profit on volume sales. Then, of course, everyone copies the model and it doesn’t work again.
  • If you get creamed, you still have to go down the hall. In my opinion, this process still beats the traditional model of finding an agent or a publisher and going that route. Plus, if you’ve self-published and have had less than humongously successful results, it might even be less possible to get that traditional book deal on effort #2. Or 3 or 4 or 5 etc.
  • He might be best friends with your cute, popular sister. You will probably take writing classes and join writer groups and sooner or later someone you know is going to have a huge success in self-publishing. And then, dear writer, you must resist resentment and schadenfreude. You must take the high road and be happy for your friend, and also try to find out if there’s lessons to be learned there.
  • Complaining about him will get you nowhere. What’s the alternative – traditional publishing? That model seems to work only for the very, very successful author, the household name. Anecdotally I’ve been told by friends who have traditional publishing deals that they are still expected to bankroll their own publicity tours and other marketing. So it’s really difficult all around — see the link up top, the industry report, an industry in flux.
  • He mocks you incessantly. It seems every day there’s a new “insult” hurled your way – or a new way to market, or a new social media platform to use, or a new place to advertise your book. Kind of like that bully in the hallway you can’t ever really avoid.

There’s one nice thing about school bullies, and that’s that you eventually graduate and leave school. And you move on. With self-publishing, it’s my expectation that the longer you spend doing it, the more likely you’ll figure out the pathways to success. It’s true, however, not everyone has the luxury and time of publishing book after book until finally something clicks.

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