Thinking, thinking, thinking...

[naomi_jay]

Hmm.

NIGHT AND CHAOS has sold one copy this month so far. Count it, one.

UNGRATEFUL DEAD has sold none.

I promised myself a year at the indie game. Five months in, although over all my indie titles have sold more than my epubbed/small press ones (I assume; I haven't for the figures for SILVER KISS), they're not making me any more money. Other indie authors assure me that it takes six months for an author to "get out there," and of course a lot of them are making comfortable change, but they're also doing things I can't do, financially, to promote themselves.

I'm still really excited about releasing WILD, but I think the success (or not) of WILD will make or break the indie game for me. I can sell to small presses and epubs, which gives me hope of one day signing with a new agent and selling to a big publisher, because ... well, obvious I can write. But I'm growing a little more disillusioned with the indie community the more time I spend there. Everyone's obsessed with numbers - how many books they sold this week, how many followers they have on Twitter, how many negative reviews they have, etc.

And everyone's so determined to be the next Amanda Hocking or the next JA Konrath. It's dull to listen to. The constant bashing of authors who choose other paths annoys me, and the constant fawning bores me.

So yeah, I'm re-evaluating the whole deal. I'm not sure what my next move should be, but in the name of being brave and experimenting, it might have to be away from self-publishing again. It really will depend on WILD's reception. I'm so passionate about this book and I want it to reach as many readers as possible. That might be through the indie route. If not, then I'll have no problems yanking it and circulating it amongst epublishers and maybe even agents.

So here's my breakdown:

Pros of indie publishing

I feel quite liberated in being able to please myself with my writing, something I didn't always feel when I was agented.*

I like being able to set the price for my work, as I do feel ebooks can be stupidly overpriced.

 

Cons of indie publishing

I'm not doing any better than I was before, and since my whole point was that I wanted to make enough money writing to be able to at least go part-time with my day job, this is frustrating.

 

I like working with editors. It gives me extra confidence that the work I'm putting out is as good as it can be.

 

I hate dealing with cover art and formatting. Although I'm lucky that, right now, I have a fab artist working on a new cover for NIGHT AND CHAOS, and that I don't do my own formatting, I can't count on that always being the case, and I don't want to be a formatter and artist. I want to be a writer.

 

I want to see my books in bookshops. I know everyone's all "rah rah, bookshops are dying!" but that's been my dream since I was about seven

.

 

 So. We'll see how WILD does and take it from there. Maybe May is just a bad month all round and maybe I'm being too impatient.

 

*This is all in my own head and nothing the agents put on me, but it's still true.

 

 

 

 

Comments

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

There seems to be so much start-up resources involved for those people who get really successful in self-publishing -- both financial and time-wise -- not to mention the time you have to continue to put in to keep your books in the public eye. (Having said that, it seems you have to do just as much publicizing if you're bought by a traditional or small press, at least if my case is a good example.)

I'm going to continue to pursue traditional publishing, in the hopes that eventually I'll have to do a bit less selling and have more time for writing.

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

I think the about of publicizing is the same whichever route you go, based on my own experience. But unless you're really of an entrepreneurial bent (which I'm not), I think it's harder on the indie side.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Exactly -- and I'm not, either.

[spiderling.livejournal.com]

Sorry to post so much.... Make product! Postcards with the cover art- start a Zazzle store! Hand them out! Make t-shirts, mugs and whatever else you can!

And soon Night and Chaos will have an awesome new cover of awesomeness! And I will pimp you on my mealy blog and Deviant Art account!

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

I can't wait for the new cover! ^_^

[mardelwanda.livejournal.com]

Bookmarks - if you haven't already. People always can use a bookmark, and then there's the nerds like me that like to collect bookmarks with author/cover art on them.

[spiderling.livejournal.com]

do you guest blog? Pursue interviews? I dunno... The books are linked on Amazon right? Buy X+X right? Do you have giveaways Pimp fellow authors? Go to SF and F cons? Comic cons? I'm not joking about that!

Heres a link my friend sent me http://robertleebrewer.blogspot.com/2010/12/platform-building-101-for-writers.html

I'm just throwing out ideas. Theres not much I can do to help, sorry! I wish I were famous! LOL! Of course if you get there before me I'll be asking you for blurbs!

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

I do everything I can afford to do - so no con visits or products. Argh, people should probably ignore me when I'm like this. Next weekend I'll feel completely different and everything will be sunshine and unicorns, lol.

[spiderling.livejournal.com]

A Zazzle store is free but I don't know if you can set one up from the U.K. You can also sell prints for free on Deviant art but you'll have to get traffic to a DA account.

Actually, what your going through is what we are all going through and it's good to talk about it because promotion is very foreign to writers. I have a hard time even saying anything about my writing let alone anything good.

[six-old-cars.livejournal.com]

Unfashionable as this sentiment undoubtedly is, it always seemed to me that:
- the difference between a major press and a small press is that the former has more machinery for publicity/formatting/presentation
- the difference between a small press and self publishing is that the former might at least have some such machinery
- this often (usually?) shows in the quality of the product

So if you want to be an author not a publicist/artist/formatter, you need at least small press and preferably major. But obviously if someone else is doing all this work for you then the product becomes partly theirs and they need to really believe in it the way you do. And the more people are involved that way, the more it matters how many you sell.

[mardelwanda.livejournal.com]

Naomi - for the benefit of me...
I know now that Wild is werewolf characters (thanks for being so sweet and answering my questions)..so

How about these two books you're mentioning now? Chaos and Night? Are they part of a series? available in print (or only e-book)? werewolves or vampires or both?

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

Night and Chaos is the first novella in an urban fantasy trilogy. No werewolves or vampires! I'm using Hindu mythology for this one.

Ungrateful Dead is a short story that acts as a prequel to Demonised, my recent release from Damnation Books. It's about a PI and a haunted morgue ^_^ Both are just ebooks.