Hey book lovers and apples.
In spite of the rise of the e-book and the Kindle, self-publishing is still associated with a lot of prejudices and myths. Today, we have a guest post from Lissa Bilyk, author of "The Edge of Darkness", who will talk to us a little about her experience as an indie author, her reasons to self-publish, and her favorite aspects of her publishing journey.
Lissa, welcome!
I’d like to thank Katya and the Book Lantern for inviting
me here today to talk about the nature of self-publishing.
My experience has been for the most part low-key. I’m
not super-successful, I’m not making enough money to quit my day job. But I
didn’t get into publishing to make money. I have a career I’m happy with.
Writing is a hobby for me, and when it starts to feel more like a job, that’s
when I start to resent it.
For example, in 2012 I had this grand plan of two
full-length novels and a novella for Christmas. I haven’t published anything in
2012 yet. That’s mostly because I a) moved to Australia and b) my grandfather
died, and I’m still too sensitive to grief narratives to continue with those
planned novels. I didn’t finish my first draft of Storm of Blood until the
middle of the year, despairing the whole time that it wouldn’t be out until the
second half of the year. Editing ended up taking longer than I estimated as
well. My schedule with my editor has also changed, pushing the novel back yet
again to a 2013 release. At first, the idea that I wasn’t putting out novels as
fast as possible, wham wham wham a
new book every three or four months, absolutely gutted me. According to all the
advice blogs, I was a failure. I should be concentrating on producing content
as fast as possible because that’s the only possible way I’ll be successful and
if I’m not successful and make it to the New York Times bestseller list, or
snag myself a traditional publisher to sell my self-published work, then what’s
the point?
My point is love of the craft. When I get into it, I
love writing. I love planning my novels and sticking to that plan, and upon
completion, I love revisiting the world by editing it. I haven’t published
everything I’ve written: I’ve written thousands of millions of words in my
time, and several novels that are too precious to me to part with. When I
accepted that Storm of Blood wouldn’t be released in 2012 I found a sort of Zen
calm: I’m doing things at my own pace, in my own time, and if it’s not good
enough, then too bad.
So, why did I self-publish? Well, I’d already been
querying one of my other novels, a YA high fantasy, to a good response. I had
several full requests from a handful of agents and small presses before I
pulled out, realising that it wasn’t the novel I wanted as my traditional debut
(it was part of a series and two years ago everyone was ‘advising’ not to query
series – that’s changed now). My technical writing was good enough, but I was
no good at marketing my idea. The Edge of Darkness was an adult sci-fi clocking
in at 52K words – far too small for any traditional publisher. At the time –
although my opinion has changed now – I didn’t want a small press taking it, either.
I didn’t know anything about small presses and if I wasn’t getting an advance I
wanted to retain control over everything.
So I did. I picked my cover, guided the design, wrote
the blurb and the elevator pitch, edited it myself, uploaded everything myself
and hit ‘publish’. Voila: it was done. On an absolute minimal budget.
My favourite aspect of self-publishing is being
involved in the cover creation. I absolutely love the cover for The Edge of
Darkness, and I’m seeing my next amazingly beautiful cover for Storm Front, the
prequel short story collection to Storm of Blood (which has already been
released) develop before my very eyes. As a self-publisher, I can change covers
whenever I want. I can upload new versions with fixed typos (which I have done).
I can change the blurb and the price and even the title of the book. I can pull
the book if I want, I can publish short stories. I can change anything I want.
I have all the power, which is really cool.
I wouldn’t necessarily advise anyone to take any particular
route. The reason I’ve self-published is because my work is outside of
traditional publishing’s takings. It doesn’t mean I’m not open to other forms
of publishing in the future. Because I’m not seeking fame and fortune, I’m okay
with doing zero marketing and allowing the novel to sell itself – mostly on
Amazon. The biggest downside to self-publishing is the lack of confirmation: it
hasn’t passed any gatekeepers, and although it’s the best product I can make,
sometimes I still feel cheeky for charging people to read what I’ve written. I
still toy with the idea of making it completely free, just to share what I’ve
written, but I know there’s a certain prejudice against free novels – they get
all the downloads, but they tend to be collected by hoarders who will probably
never read it anyway.
I’d still continue writing even if I didn’t publish.
It’s a need, and a hobby. I get great enjoyment from it. A running theme in my
novels is minorities. My first novel starred a heroine of Filipino descent and
the central theme, using cyborgs in deep space, stood for marriage equality, an
issue I feel very strongly about. In my second novel, Storm of Blood, even
though my heroine is white, ‘both’ the love interests (it’s not quite a love
triangle) are Asian-Australians. My third novel, as yet unnamed, will star a
lesbian teenager of Greek descent. Although these aren’t the selling points of
the novels, one has to ask: if my writing was good enough to snare an agent and
my idea marketable enough to snare an editor, would a publishing house feel
comfortable publishing non-white characters or characters with non-mainstream
sexuality? Most of the big houses like to whitewash their covers even when they
do consist of minorities. It’s rare to find a YA book about a gay boy: it’s
even rarer to find a YA book about a lesbian girl. I’m not saying these don’t
exist: but one has to wonder, if the majority of readers ‘can’t identify’ with
minorities, why are so many minorities reading mainstream fiction?
Lissa, thank you!
You can follow Lissa on twitter @lissawrites, and check out her author website at http://lissawrites.wix.com/home. Her novel "The Edge of Darkness", as well as her Tina Storm short stories are available on Amazon.
Image courtesy of Lissa's website.
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