Hello to everyone! Since the site is starting to come together, I’ve decided to make this first post more for posterity than anything. I’d like to outline how I ended up here, where exactly “here” is, what the plan is, and what my hopes and goals for the future are over time in this news/blog/catch-bin for mental meanderings.
First off, obviously none of my books are out yet. Over the past year I have submitted to 84 literary agents (it would have been 100, but many agents weren’t open to submissions during the window I was submitting). I got two requests for partials, and several personalized rejections, a couple of which offered real and valuable feedback. Many thanks to the agents who took the time to include a personal note! I know you’re all terribly busy and I really did appreciate it!
Many people are going to look at the above and assume that I am one of those people for whom “going indie” was purely a response to not being able to sell my book. My response to that is “partly, but in the end, not really.”
The first thing to understand about me is that I already run my own business as an artist and art teacher. I have a Patreon, I do YouTube, I do Twitch, I have a web site and social media to keep up with already. When I initially finished what I’ll call my “personal draft” of East of the Sun (which means post-beta readers but pre-professional developmental editor), I talked to a couple of indie authors I knew about what it took. I had always wanted to be traditionally published, but I also had been reading books about both sides of the writing coin, and the independence and control of the indie author road was very attractive to me. So were the higher royalties–being a creator businessperson already, for my art, I found myself becoming ever more conscious of the value of what I was creating.
But, when it came down to it, much as I was attracted to the indie road, I was already running my own business. And after talking it over with the wonderful indie writers who took time out of their schedules to educate me, I knew that starting up a publishing business (because that’s essentially what it is) to get East of the Sun and its brethren out there was going to be like running a whole other Patreon on top of what I was already doing.
At the time, that made me exhausted to even think about; therefore, I went forward with the traditional publishing road, submitting to agents, getting feedback, working on stuff.
The second thing to understand about me, though, is that I never close a door. All while I was submitting to agents and tuning my query letter and acting on feedback, that indie author thing kept poking at me from the back of my head. I started reading more books about the indie road and about what it took to succeed there. At first, it all seemed overwhelming. How was I going to learn how to do all of this, much less find the time to actually do it, while still running my existing business?
But it was interesting. And it wouldn’t stop poking at me. So I kept reading. And with every book and every helpful indie (or hybrid) author trying to give back to the community (shoutouts to Joanna Penn, David Gaughran, Rachel Aaron, Chris Fox, and Craig Martelle), stuff started settling into place. Slowly, each piece seemed not as daunting. Heck, I could even so some of it right then, as I was submitting.
That’s when I hired my first professional developmental editor. And that was a game-changer. My writing came out of that SO much tighter and more engaging. On the one hand, silly me, I thought, I should have done this before submitting to all those agents! But on the other hand, it certainly wasn’t wasted and it was going to help me make the next books even better! Yay!
And then, as I worked to make East of the Sun better, my submissions drew to their inevitable conclusions, and I waited for the one agent who still had my partial to get back to me, a curious feeling started to surface.
I didn’t want to be traditionally published anymore.
I was starting to have real and serious doubts about whether I wanted to go down that road.
I was starting to hope that the agent who still had my writing was going to get back to me with a no.
Was I nuts!? But, the huge amount of work it will take! my brain wailed at me.
Well, yes, but surely that would get easier with each book. And from the sound of things, I’d still need to built a platform and do rounds and rounds of editing and find ways to promote my book if I got traditionally published. So if I was going to be doing all that work anyway, why not go for the higher royalty?
Royalty schmoyalty! What about all the editing you’ll have to pay for, and the cover art? my brain whined.
But it would be awesome to work with other artists to get beautiful covers for my books. And, as an artist myself, I knew the value of good art and that it came with a price tag. As for the editing, my first developmental edit had been absolutely 100% worth the money. So I was paying for something valuable, not tossing money out the window.
Then the agent got back to me with the awaited “No.” Which at that point felt like destiny.
I set a new goal: Get East of the Sun and West of the Moon ready to independently publish, by 2023 at the latest. In June of 2022, I’d turn 50 years old.
It seemed a great way to kick off the rest of my life.
*
(The story will continue when I next have time…but as of this writing, we’re aiming for publication in February of 2023.)
Recent Comments