I have a confession to make. The mission of a successful self-publisher is to not self-publish.
What? What did he just say?
It's true. The ultimate goal is to have someone else pay for professional editing, cover design, marketing, and all the other ingredients that make a good novel sell. The problem is, you could write one novel, think it's your magnum opus, and spend five to ten years trying to get a publisher interested in it. AND FAIL. That is five to 10 years that you might have spent writing something even better - or perhaps more marketable. That's five to 10 years you could have spent building your identity as a writer. As you saw in my last post, the data says self publishing is statistically more successful than traditional. Statistically.
I've used this space to take a couple of veiled shots at this page's editor, who happens to have one of those "traditional" book publishing deals I'm always wisecracking about. I know because she tends to mention it from time to (all the) time. Of course, her deal was inked during the Bush administration and the book will be out around the time Bernie Sanders is inaugurated. I exaggerate and she will correct me here: (Editor's note: Hillary Clinton Malia Obama) It could be argued that her road to a traditional book deal didn't follow the self-publishing-path-to-success. But in actuality, she wrote a masters thesis that grew into a book contract. Isn't that the ultimate in self-publishing?
I bring this up because I ran into another author/friend recently who, after having two well-regarded but commercially unsuccessful books published over a decade ago, got a huuuuuge advance for his next book. I think he was still in shock as he told me about it. He didn't hit the lottery though: He worked for it. He spent 10 years pitching ideas to his New York editor and feared his fiction career was over. I don't know if he should have self-published during that decade, but I do know that he was ready to give up. If he had given up, he would have disappeared from view, with no eBooks, no blog, no author website to be discovered by. All those years of relationship building and developing and pitching ideas would have been lost.
Ultimately, if you're on the fence, and you don't know whether to query publishers or self publish... do both. And keep in mind, the Internet contains your resume. This interesting article from Jane Friedman makes some great points about the importance of your online presence (She also notes the odd growth of the coloring book industry, but that's a topic for another day.) Chances are, if someone in the publishing industry notices your writing, they'll Google you before they email or call you. It's not a bad idea to have some sort of author page or blog for them to land on — some way to reach you. I started my blog at Well-Oiled Writer over a year ago in anticipation of my first book. I have a small audience there, but I've kept it going because if a publisher or agent does read my work and sets out to look for me, they'll find more than my time in the Turkey Trot 5K from 2006 (Editor's note: actually, it's for the Harvey's Festival of States 5K, and he clocked a somewhat-respectable 26:13) . At one point I also had an unintentionally comical landing page declaring me a "best-seller" — which was technically true, as I reached #1 in a plethora of highly specific Amazon sub-genres, such as Urban Fiction and Books By Authors With Last Names That Can Be First Names. For some, creating an online presence is a great way to get that mug shot to fall to the second page of Google search results, so think it as a win-win.
Right now I'm in writer purgatory, as my manuscript is getting reviewed by beta-readers who will come back and tell me how bad my first draft smells. So I'm using this time to consider my own meager online identity as a writer.
As an aspiring best-selling author, you are a one-(wo)man writer/marketing department/publicist/book-creating machine. Get familiar with WordPress (it is as easy or as difficult as you want it to be) and start building your Mega-Author Identity. Look around and see what your favorite authors have done, or haven't. If the technology intimidates you, find a teenager who can help you. I published a book and created a decent looking blog with zero formal training. If you can write a book, you can handle this.
