Indie Publishing with Patty Smith Hall

When Ane asked me to write a column on indie publishing for Novel Rocket, my first thought was why me? At that time, I only had one self-published novella under my belt and even with that, I had tremendous amounts of help for some very savvy ladies who had more insights into this subject that I ever could. But then it hit me—while indie publishing isn’t anything new, more writers, both published and pre-pubbed, are moving into this exciting new arena.

Including myself. So who better to share what I learn as I jump into the fray of the indie industry?

But why chose to go indie rather than traditional? There are several reasons. For me, it was the opportunity to get my work in front of readers at a pace I felt more comfortable with. By the time my next book hits the shelves in January, it will be almost two years since my last book, twenty-four months in which my readers have had time to forget about me. That is, if I let them. So I decided to publish a couple of novellas and one full length novel on Amazon or Barnes and Noble in the meantime. One, because even if it doesn’t reach all my readers, it can reach a large majority of them and two, it helps me pick up new readers that might go back and buy my already published series.

There are other reasons too. Creative freedom, the entrepreneurial feeling of being in control of every aspect of your work from cradle to grave, setting your own deadlines and working within the scope of your ‘other’ life. There are probably a dozen other reasons, but like I said early, I’m relatively new at this so I’m still learning.

So what little piece of wisdom can I offer today in regards to indie publishing? What do I wished someone had told me before my first novella had come out? Here it is, folks:

Don’t push the send button too soon.

Just because you’ve typed 'the end' doesn’t mean you’re actually finished. Every manuscript that is on the shelves of your local bookstore has gone through the editing process, and so it should be the same with your self published works. This rush to publication was one of the reasons why indie publishing gets a bad rap, because some writers think they’ve created a masterpiece with their first draft when what they really need to do is step back, put some time and space between them and the project then look at it with fresh eyes. Or better yet, give it to a critique partner or beta reader who doesn’t back away from telling you the truth.

I recently went through this process with the first manuscript I ever wrote. It was a story I wrote during a time of great heartache and gave me so much joy at a time when joy was the last thing I was feeling. At the time, I thought it was fantastic; the writing had just flowed out of me at times so it had to be good, didn’t it? It made the rounds at a few publishing houses, even garnered a revision letter from one but no one offered me a contract. So I saved it to my hard drive and moved on. Earlier this year, I decided to dust off that old manuscript and self publish it, but when I did my first read though, I discovered something.

It was crap.

Not all of it, but it needed some re-writes before I could even think about publishing it. Now, think about that—what if I had self published that book all those years ago the second I finished it? How many one-starred reviews do you think it would have gotten? How many readers would have never picked up another one of my books after reading that hot mess? That is why, before you  even think about hitting the send button, you put it aside for a week or two, then look at it from a fresh perspective. If you can afford it, pay for a professional edit. Tape these words to the top of your computer screen so that you can see them any time you're close to finishing a book.

Do. Not. Push. The. Send. Button. YET!

Until next time!

  
Patty Smith-Hall is a multi-published, award-winning author with Love Inspired Historical and Heartsong.  She currently serves as president of the ACFW-Atlanta chapter. She currently lives in North Georgia with her husband of 30+ years, Danny; two gorgeous daughters and a future son-in-love. Her next release, New Hope Sweethearts will be available in July on Amazon.

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Genre is dead. Long live genre.

If you've read Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor--and I highly recommend it--you may recall Keillor's telling of the early church in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota. The founding church began as a single congregation, then split, then split again, until finally every church consisted of one member meeting with himself in his living room. As Christians, we can relate.

As writers, I think we can relate as well. Back when I was a young whipper snapper, I snapped up books and whipped through them faster than a prairie dog in a hailstorm (it works, visualize with me). My primary source for books was the navy housing bookmobile. The bookmobile was divided up by genre. The genres were called "Books on the bottom shelves" and "Books on the top shelves."
I'd select my books based on the title and cover. My favorite book of all time, Watership Down, was selected because I thought it was about naval battles. The cover was missing. It's a good thing I didn't see the fluffy bunnies on a cover, otherwise I may never have read my favorite book.

Now, a short thirty-some-odd years later, the two genres I grew up with have been split, and split again, and split again, until we now have genres that are comprised of a single title meeting in his living room. Wait...never mind. You get the point.

If you're an Amazon shopper like most of us, you know that we really don't have genres anymore. We have key words. You type in "Amish Vampires and Pontiac Trans Ams" and a list of titles pop up. There is no genre called "Trans Am driving Amish Vampires." There should be, but I don't make the rules.

If you follow Donald Maass and have read his Writing 21st Century Fiction, you know he alludes to this muddling of genre as well. But he, like me, is not concerned. In fact, he, like me, sees it as a huge benefit to writers and readers alike.

What does genre do?

Genres allow readers to narrow down the vast number of books available to a few that fit their tastes. That's the good side. Imagine a book store where there was no organization according to genre.

But the dark side of genre is that publishers have established rules, often restricting rules, according their definition of the genre. Now, I'm a plotter and I love having guidelines before I start the first chapter. But they're my guidelines. While I believe that the publishers set these guidelines based on decades of customer research and experience, it still doesn't discount the fact that most readers will never get a chance to try an alternative to the formula.

What indie authors have done is provide easily accessible alternatives to the formulas. What a large corporation was not willing to do because they can only take acceptable risks, the individual writer is free to do. What have we got to lose? A few months of our time and maybe a little investment on editing and a cover. If that's still too much, you can write about Amish Vampires in Trans Ams, have your friends edit it for free, design your own cover, and upload your novel at zero cost.

Obviously, we've seen some crazy stuff get self-pubbed during the recent indie gold rush. But we've seen some gems come out of it as well. Our odds of success are still about the same, whether we self-pub or submit to traditional publishers. The difference is that, with indie publishing, you're not counting on a single assistant to the assistant editor to give your manuscript a pass after she's already read six dozen that morning and just got a Dear Jane text from her boyfriend.
You can put it out there and let the readers decide. At least a few will read the entire thing. If you get a swarm of one-star reviews, you know it's back to square uno.



Okay, Ron, what does that have to do with the death of genre?

Everything. If you'll scroll up before my rant, you'll note that I give credit to this genre demise to the indies. The indies took the risks and tried different things. My Amish Vampire sold his Trans Am and went into space, but it was close enough (did you picture Burt Reynolds with fangs?). In any industry, the big players are not the risk-takers. It's the nerd in his garage building the first home computers with his stoner buddies while IBM executives were saying that no individual would ever need his own computer. It's a kid from Memphis beating out a blue-sy tune on his old guitar while swaying his hips. It'll never sell. It's a couple of brothers with a bike shop who wanted to fly.

They're all indies. Indies blaze new paths. Once the path is wide enough, the big boys follow and make it mainstream. Then the indie gets tired of staring at cubicle walls and finds a new path to blaze.

Is that who you are? Some of you reading this are quite comfortable with your publishers and agents. That's fine. I still want that for myself. But another part of me, one that says you're 48 years old Ron don't just write, write something that defies the trends. Something that would have your book seller staring at a dozen different genre shelves with no clue what to do with it. But something that a reader will pick up on Amazon or Kobo and say, "Wow...I didn't even know such books existed."

No, I don't need to sell books to make a living. In fact, I could probably retire early if I'd stop spending money on conferences and how-to-write-books books. So I have nothing to lose. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that most of us fit that category.

So why not? That should be your phrase of the week. Why not?

Put your Amish Vampires in the driver's seat. Give your gun slinging cowboy a salvation experience and an orphanage to run (and maybe a talking horse). Re-write some fairy tales with a few more explosions. This is our time. There's trails to blaze, people.

Let's throw a few genres into the blender and see what pours out. Go make me proud.

What is your most outlandish idea, the one you won't even tell your critique group about? Go ahead, your secret's safe with us.

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