Self-Publishing in the New World

As a lot of people have pointed out, in the last two years an entire new world has evolved in publishing: Self-publishing authors on Kindle and Nook. So I'm going to take that as a given for the moment. I'm not going to discuss whether it's good or bad. What I do want to do is take a couple of steps back from where I am now and discuss the process that my co-author, C. R. Daems, and I went through to get Wings of Evil ready and on sale.

So what do I think you need to do to have a chance to be successful publishing your own novel? What did we do to try to reach that goal?

The first thing, and I hope this is a given, is pay a lot of attention to advice from people like Joe Konrath, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Dean Wesley Smith. Joe and Kris particularly led the way in this revolution. They have great advice on their blogs. They are in my blog roll to the right side of my blog. I should also give a special word of thanks to Victorine Lieske who has been more than generous with her advice.

But once you've done your research, what then. You have that novel in hand. The first thing to do, (do I need to tell you this?) is edit that sucker until it shines and get some beta readers to give you feedback on it. Pay attention to the feedback. This is no time to be defensive. No, you don't have to take all the advice, but even the advice you don't totally agree with may have kernels of wisdom.

Then you need a good cover and blurb. The problem for writers is that these are really separate skill sets. Few of us have graphics skills and writing blurbs is very different than writing novels. For this, I went to a support system. I'm an active member of both Critique Circle and the Kindleboards. And let me tell you, people there have opinions and they will tell you those opinions. Everyone hated my first try (well, not mine in the case of the cover--I do NOT do graphics) at a cover and blurb. But I learned why. I was told what to look for in a cover. I tweaked. I reposted. I got more feedback.

Did I ever get something that everyone loved? No. But I got something that a lot of people did like or love. I decided that was as good as it was likely to get, so I went with it. One advantage of self-publishing is that after a while if I get negative feedback from readers or if I don't get sales, I can change them.

I would strongly advise something like this for anyone who is going to put their novel up for sale. Don't depend solely on your own opinion, just as you don't with your novel. You need other people's eyes and opinions, or most of us do anyway.

Then there is the whole formatting nightmare. It is IMPORTANT for your novel to be well formatted when people buy it. I didn't do my own formatting. It happens that my co-author, C. R. Daems, is a total guru about things computer. He did it. (He is a wonderful person. I don't discuss him much but I owe him more than I can begin to tell you. He is patience personified)

Then and only then after what probably took months, you can open accounts with Amazon and B&N, where they want everything short of your great-grandmother's maiden name to open an account, and upload your novel, cover and blurb. It took us from 24 to 48 hours to have them go live on Amazon and Barnes & Nobles.

Then--well, getting sales is a whole different post. Maybe a lot of them.

How Does a Writer Get Started?

A friend asked me this the other day. He's always been an avid fantasy reader but now he's starting on a novel. He loves it but he's not quite sure that he's doing it "right."

Should he start on page one and write to the end? Should he worry about picking up ideas from fantasies he's read in the past? Should he edit the first chapter until he's sure he has it perfect? And these are all things that new writers think about.

The thing is that when it comes to writing there aren't any hard and fast rules. What works is what you should do, but, of course, an inexperienced writer isn't sure what works. I've always started at the front and kept going until the end, but not everyone does that. If you're getting started, give that a try. But don't be afraid to write scenes out of order if that isn't working for you. Just be aware that if you write a scene in the last chapter, by the time you get there you'll almost certainly have to re-write it. That's ok too as long as it gets you there.

I can't tell you how strongly I advise against editing and re-writing until you've finished your first draft. I have known so many aspiring writers who got stuck writing the same chapter over and over for years. Think about the fact that by the time you've finished, something you decided on later may still mean going back to change what you spent so much time polishing. When you think of something to change, make a note. MS Word has a great function called Comment that allows you to put notes into a Word document. If you write on paper, just put a sticky note on it. But then keep going.

And don't worry if you find some elements of something you've read in your work. In your work, you'll put your own spin on it, make it your own. There are no new ideas, so that will happen. But there are new ways of using the old ideas.

One last thing, read some good books about writing -- ones written by good writers, agents or editors. Most of us start out writing because we love to read, and that's a good thing. But reading really doesn't make someone a good writer. After all, you're busy reading not watching the technique the author used, so there's a lot to learn.

I'll recommend a couple that I consider essential:

"Character & Viewpoint" by Orson Scott Card
"Beginnings, Middles & Ends" by Nancy Kress
"Self-Editing for the Fiction Writer" by Browne & King
"On Writing" by Stephen King