I’ve dropped hints here and there for almost a year, but it’s time to come clean: I’m going to give up trying to get the attention of New York publishers, and begin publishing my fiction independently. One of my longest-unfulfilled dreams is having a novel from a major publisher shelved face-out in Kroch’s & Brentano’s. Ummm, no. Borders? Whoops. Barnes & Noble, then. Well, look quick.
You can see my problem here. I wrote my first SF story when I was 8, sold my first story when I was 21, was on the final Hugo ballot at 29, gave it all up for almost 20 years, and finally sold a novel at 52 after five years of shopping it. The novel was promoted very competently by the (small) publisher, and garnered a rave in Analog and a favorable mention on Instapundit, in addition to a number of other reviews in other places. However, it was a $28 hardcover, sold in the high three figures, and as best I know was never shelved in any major bookstore.
So the dream is still alive. Or it was, at least, until I took a length of black iron pipe and beat its damfool brains out. Enough dreaming. It’s time to get freaking real. I’m going to publish my SF myself. I’m going to make money doing it. I’m not going to get rich at it…but that was never part of the dream. The new dream is about spinning yarns and making myself a name for it. As I see it, the best way there is to take the process into my own hands and do it all myself.
I wrote this post to answer the obvious question, Why? Perforce:
- I am already a publisher. I jumped from programming into publishing in 1985 and remained there to this day. I attended courses and seminars and learned from the best. I know in great gory detail how the print book business works (and doesn’t work) and I’ve followed the emergence of ebooks since the ’90s. I’ve had a few ebooks on the market for five years, though most of what I’ve published through my Copperwood Press imprint has been print.
- Manhattan SF publishing has made its preferences known to me. Some houses were encouraging and polite even when rejecting a manuscript (Betsy Mitchell, you’re an ace!) and some never even answered my emails, much less returned the manuscript. (If He’s reading this, He Knows Who He Is.) A couple of houses strongly and inexplicably believe that humor can’t sell because nobody can beat Douglas Adams. (Huh?) Well, go in peace and try not to become extinct. It worked for the coelacanth, after all.
- I don’t have all damned day. I’m 63 years old. I can’t wait for five years to see if one of my books will ever appear.
- Traditional publishing contracts have gotten nightmarish. Much has been written about this. (I sure hope you aspiring authors follow Konrath, at very least.) I’m not that desperate.
- The tools are now acceptable. They’re not great, and certainly not what I think they should be. But I’ve used Jutoh enough to be comfortable with it. (Tip to aspiring software developers: There is still money on that table.)
- Everybody has an ebook reader. Everybody. Some are even called “ebook readers.” Most of them are phones. Many are tablets. A few are laptops and desktops. Anybody who wants to read ebooks can. The market for ebook genre fiction is staggeringly large.
- Amazon has pretty much figured it out. The original Kindle Unlimited payment algorithm seemed kind of gonzo: The same amount for 1,000 words as 100,000 words? As of July 1, it’s now about pages read. We can quibble about the per-page payment, but my spreadsheets tell me that at current rates, an indie author gets more per sale from Amazon than authors get per sale from tradpub imprints.
- Authors are making money with indie ebooks. I’ve been told one-on-one that a fair number of people are making a good living off their indie ebooks, and a few are making more than I made as co-owner of a $30M publishing firm. I may have to learn to be prolific, but I’ve learned harder things, like contra dancing (natch!) and dealing with online tribalists.
- I already have a fanbase. Admittedly, it’s a fanbase for technical nonfiction, but anybody who says that computer guys don’t read SF (as several people in SF publishing have tried to tell me) is blowing steam. There are just short of 500,000 technical books in the world with my name on them. If two tenths of a percent of those readers buy my SF, I can probably live on it.
- I can control the whole damned thing. This is key. I’ve seen some of the most incredible self-destructive behavior among traditional publishing firms. If I weld my future to a boat like that, I’ll go down with it when (not if) it sinks. I want the freedom not to do stupid shit. (Alas, if your publisher does stupid shit, in effect you’re doing stupid shit.) I want to be able to try new things to see what works, and stop using techniques that don’t work. Bottom line, if I fail I’ll have no one to blame but myself.
Wouldn’t I sell more books if I went the tradpub route? Possibly. Would I make more money? Almost certainly not. The tradpub houses are suffering. They’re squeezing everything in sight to save pennies, especially authors. They’ll do anything possible to cut their costs except move from Manhattan to Middle America. To me, this means that they’re doomed, granting that sooner or later we’re all doomed. I’ve personally outlived vacuum tubes, glass-screen TVs, disco, wingtip shoes, Radio Shack, and several biggish bookstore chains, among many other things. I may well outlive traditional genre fiction publishing.
I’m certainly going to try. And I’m going to have a fine, fine time doing it!
