Self-publishing symposium: Jesse Gordon

How does self-publishing differ from traditional publishing?

Self-publishing is either liberation or self-indulgence depending on how you go about it. There's a dubious association with instant gratification. The core benefits: you retain all control over your material, you keep a bigger chunk of the profits, and, oftentimes, you're able to forge a more personal relationship with your audience. The drawbacks (which, depending on your motivation, can also be benefits): you must be your own publisher, editing, formatting, creating effective packaging; you must be your own marketing team - you must be willing and able to spend a portion of your time as a door-to-door salesperson of sorts. It's a lesson in patience and refinement, though not such an added burden considering that many traditional publishers these days require you to have a marketing plan anyway.

Regarding availability, the gap is narrowing between books sold off of a book shelf and those sold via a web site. Chain book stores are steadily closing, and while you still have Barnes & Noble, Borders, and the independents, these stores only have so much physical space. There are legions of capable, entertaining "mid-list" authors whose books are not often included between Dan Brown and Stephenie Meyer. Selling through the Internet is a way to defeat the problem of limited shelf space. It also happens to be the most accessible method available to self-publishers.

Do self-published book review blogs help to raise the reader awareness of self-published books?

Absolutely. Legitimate, critical self-publishing review blogs (like good traditional-publishing review blogs) point out the blemishes as well as the dimples. For serious self-publishers, this is what you want if you have a good, solid book that doesn't carry the reputation of being self-published because it can't stand on its own, because it can't find traditional publication. It should never be assumed that getting reviewed at a self-publishing review blog is easier than getting reviewed elsewhere.

How do you respond to the following statement?--Self-publishing is not a serious way to get one's work into print now and never will be.

I daresay a more accurate version of the above statement is: "Self-indulgence is not a serious way to get one's work into print now and never will be." If you're not ready, if you're rushed, then it will come across to reviewers and readers alike. With self-publishing, there's no editor or agent acting as a stop-gap. What I'm finding as I go along is that it's not so much the self-publishing model itself that needs to clean up its image as it is the ability of self-publishing authors to effectively promote their work. It's all in how you do it.

Has the golden age of self-publishing already passed or is it yet to come?

Bigger and better things are yet to come. I'm convinced the traditional publishing industry had to stumble before a real awareness was raised regarding alternative book markets. The technology had to improve to a point where anyone with a computer and Internet connection could feasibly create and publish. Book stores, whether they're selling print or digital copies, will continue to be country clubs for the elites, which is perfectly fine. Many authors are bestsellers for a reason: they're very good at what they do. But they're not the only kids on the block. Self-published books—good ones—will continue to fill the gaps. Eventually, when (and I do think it's a matter of when and not if) e-books become the norm, everyone will be selling via digital download. The old notion that you find professional authors' books on store shelves, and amateurs' online will hold much less water.

What about the challenges posed to the self-published writer by having to promote and edit his or her own book?

This is something many traditional publishers are requiring of their authors due to tighter budgets. In the past, you could, to some extent, get away with merely sending in your manuscript and letting the publishing team handle the rest. You only needed to be on hand for signings or interviews. Now you need a marketing plan to go along with your synopsis and sample chapters. You need to convince your would-be publisher that you're a hustler. You need an agent. And even then, a contract with a traditional publisher comes with no guarantees. Yes, depending on your contract, you'll have access to physical store shelves, but you still have to work your butt off promoting yourself. You're selling more books, but getting a smaller percentage of each sale. Not a bad thing. On the DIY side, you're selling fewer books, but keeping more of the profits; you're having to manage all your book sales yourself, whether through your web site or via consignment agreements with local book shop owners. All stereotypes aside, both traditional and self-publishing endeavors involve a lot of work. The latter is more easily attainable, whether as your sole method of publishing or as a hook to attract a mainstream publisher.

Why is it that a self-published author has yet to emerge into national recognition as a self-published author? (As opposed to being given a mainstream publishing contract after a self-published book attracts attention.)

I think a lot of it is the social stigma of someone coming up to you and saying, "My latest novel is great! You should read it!" People don't like it when other people toot their own horn—but they don't mind as much when you toot someone else's horn. With self-publishing, this is something of a challenge. You have to promote yourself without sounding like a greasy car salesman, you have to get other people to blurb you and promote you. It can be exceedingly difficult, because you're not working with a paid staff, you're working with friends, other self-published authors, family members. They all have their own lives to worry about.

Also, at this point in time, traditional publishers still carry a lot of clout. A contract with Random House can do wonders for your literary presence. I've seen numerous instances where an author will start a series of books with a mainstream publisher, and then finish the series at a smaller press, or under his/her own imprint. Whatever politics are going on behind the scenes, an audience has gathered, and they'll follow if the books are good. Bands do it all the time.

Has the experience of self-publishing changed the way you write? (If you have self-published.)

I started self-publishing because the small presses I'd been with closed up shop, and I felt my work up until that point was still relevant enough to warrant some kind of distribution. With new material I've found that I've become more daring. After all, I'm no longer having to adhere to a publisher's tastes or guidelines. I've been able to stretch out a little, blending genres and styles. I've already had to go it alone, and so I'm not worried about falling from grace, so to speak. At the same time, though, I've had to make sure I don't get too lax. Proofreaders are still important (*before* the publishing process!), honest opinions still matter, and it's still my main goal each time around to write the best book I can.

Jesse Gordon is the author of several books. He writes at jessture.com

Syfy is the New Sci Fi

Looks like the Sci Fi Channel is taking a Hooked on Phonics approach and is changing its name to Syfy. Yeah, I don’t know what it means either. It just looks like “Siffy”. Supposedly the idea is to distance the network from its hapless, bespectacled, pocket-protector-wielding image:

“The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular,” said TV historian Tim Brooks, who helped launch Sci Fi Channel when he worked at USA Network.

True, the text messaging generation is going to love this. Unlike “Sci Fi”, “Siffy” doesn’t have that extra space in the middle. It types faster. And, much like substituting “kool” for “cool”, “bai” for “bye”, it’s more social network friendly. But Tim Brooks’ dysfunction comments are a bit “meh” if you ask me. Geeks and nerds are equated with dysfunction and antisocial behavior because we’re more obvious, it’s presumably easier to point us out in a crowd, we don’t have the broad shoulders, perfect postures, or blatant sex appeal of your typical jocks / jockettes, etc. Realistically, it’s more about appearances than it is actual social quirks. “Cool people” are just as dysfunctional as “not-cool people”. How many rock stars, movie stars, or Olympic athletes have used drugs, alcohol, self-imposed starvation, over-training, or acute promiscuity to prove this point? Could it be that we’re all not quite right in the head (to a certain degree), and that we’re all in denial?

I’m not worried. Sci-fi is cool with or without Siffy. I’m cool. My mother told me so. ;)

Realms of Fantasy Folds

Depressing news from the Locusmag.com site: Realms of Fantasy magazine is ceasing publication. A partial explanation:

The closure is primarily due to plummeting newsstand sales, the problem currently faced by all of the fiction magazines. “We’re shelved in the back of the bookstores. Nobody can even find us.”

Realms of Fantasy was the last full-sized, glossy color SF magazine available at my local Barnes & Noble—before they stopped carrying it about a year ago. Now it truly is gone, over and done with, one more relic to be added to the list. That leaves Asimov’s, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (which is going bi-monthly), and Analog (all of which are, sadly, relegated to black and white digest-sized volumes easily lost at the bottom of any given newsstand). There’s not much else left. Seems everyone is feeling the pressure in these uncertain times. The optimist in me wants to believe there’s something bigger and better down the line, but Mr. Nagging Voice can’t help entertaining his worst fears. Is this an opportunity for the blogosphere to pick up the slack, or is short fiction doomed to haunt an ever smaller niche? With nowhere else to publish, will more authors start turning to their Web sites and / or blogs as a platform for storytelling? Does less print media equal an opportunity for the e-zine community—or is online fiction a wilted flowerbed, a forgotten fad doomed to remain in the shadows of a dying empire?

Fear of Pollution

In response to the recently posted "Self-Publishers Flourish as Writers Pay the Tab" NYT article, why do I feel like the elite lads are complaining their exclusive club isn't so exclusive anymore? I get a slight sense of impending doom from Motoko Rich, as if the Published Authors Club isn't feeling as important as it once did when an author was either published or unpublished—not this in-between DIY nonsense where everyone has a voice and is using it (for better or for worse). I'm not knocking traditional publishers. Their editors are (mostly) impeccable, their market penetration is very nearly absolute, and (the majority of) their authors have proved their worth repeatedly. But they can be a tad whiny at times. Especially when someone forms their own club across the way.

The lines have become blurred, and I get the feeling the Published Authors Club is yearning for a simpler time. As if, twenty years from now, walking into a bookstore—once the pristine promenade of the literary elite—will yield a barrage of printed blogs and hardbound diaries. And that’s what this is about, isn’t it? The possibility that the bright lights of the elite will one day be drowned out by those of everyone else. But is that really a possibility? As far as mainstream publishing is concerned, the odds really haven't changed (though the way we go about trying to beat those odds has). Random House's buying habits remain fixed. They’ll continue to look after their own, acquiring new members via referral (what’s a slush pile?) and meeting regularly with booksellers to ask, “We’re still best friends, right?”

I smell fear. We're becoming more visible, and it’s ruffling some feathers. In times past, just like now, everyone had a story, a book, a play in them, but you never heard about it unless you lived in the same town as the author. Blogs and the Internet have made everyone’s business your own. Who doesn’t have a blog? If I subscribed to each and every one, I'd be dead before I finished reading a fraction of what’s out there. There have always been too many writers writing, and not enough readers reading. I was an editor once; there were always more stories coming in than I was willing or able to publish. Sometimes it was because of poor grammar and punctuation. Or maybe the idea was horribly cliche. Or the writing was just plain awkward. Or else everything was great and I simply had no more free space. Regardless, I never feared "pollution" of my precious ’zine because I knew what I liked to publish, and that was that. Authors who received a rejection letter told me off and went on to have their stories posted elsewhere.

I get the feeling mainstream publishers are worried there’s too much garbage out there for prospective readers to sift through. Pollution. The elites are feeling a mite insignificant. Being published isn’t a big deal anymore because anyone can be published. Perhaps not successful, but published nonetheless. Club members are no doubt worried that as the prestige diminishes, so do the hefty advances. They’re fretting over the possibly of having to do what the rest of us do: market our own work. We’re selling through our Web sites instead of via store shelves. We’re reaching smaller audiences, but taking in higher percentages per unit. And, yes, we’re putting out a lot of noise.

Circle of life. Variety with the risk of obscurity. The midlist being reborn as the POD and self-publishing movement. The demoting of the elites by a notch or two. The publishing industry continuing to invalidate its competition. But we'll find a way to tell our stories. We always do.