Brave New eWorld

Over the last three months or so I have been doing a lot of soul searching. I’ve been wondering how best to publish my book, Lady Scarlet. Should I go the traditional way or become an independent using the ebook format?
If you’re like me, the choice should be obvious. The only legitimate way to go is traditional publishing. You write a book, find an agent, the agent finds a publisher, you sign a contract, they print the book, ship it to stores, and the store sells it to an audience. This is the way it’s been done for more than a hundred years.
Anything else is vanity printing or just flooding the market with junk that didn’t cut it in the real world.
But is that true?
There is a stigma about indie publishing. We wonder why the writer didn’t follow the existing traditional path to publication. Readers want to know why they should slap down money for a book if a publisher wouldn’t take a chance on it.
Is the writer too lazy to follow through with the process and see the project through to the end? If so, what does that say about the book? Is the book poorly written and that’s why it couldn’t get published by a big name printer? Is the story just a cliché-filled schlock-fest with flat stock characters, wooden dialogue, and stale situations that come together in a predictable ending readers have seen a hundred times?
Maybe.
But there are reasons to consider indie publishing, most of which have nothing to do with the quality of the story in question.
First, by skipping the traditional process, a story can reach the readers much more quickly. Publishers will shuffle books around in a release schedule to maximize their profits. This means a first-time writer’s book can get swept into an unfavorable slot to fill a gap or delayed when someone’s new tell-all biography gets shuffled forward. Anything can delay the release of that “little” novel from the death of a celebrity to a major political scandal. It may also happen that the book will get released on time in the wake of a big world shakeup and will be lost in the mix. Ebooks can be quickly formatted once the writer has finished it and released over the internet almost immediately.
Second is creative control. Maybe one publisher doesn’t want one character to do a particular thing or they ask that a character be added or removed. Maybe the story shouldn’t be set in Denver, but rather Vancouver. Sure, the writer can resist making changes and run the risk of being known as difficult or uncooperative. Personally, I say stick to your guns, but after several months of editorial interference it’s going to be tempting to make some minor changes to “make a better product for the reader.” Editors want these changes so the book will appeal to a larger audience. The trouble is it’s probably not the right audience for the book.
Third is marketing. Without some sort of an ad campaign, a book simply pops into being on the bookstore shelves. If someone sees it on display AND is snagged by the cover AND is intrigued by the title AND picks it up to thumb through some pages, that person MIGHT buy the book. Publishers don’t spend much money promoting books with major advertising. Mostly what happens is they pay the stores to put new titles on special tables right up front by the doors or the register. Sometimes they pay a little more to have the books stacked cover out rather than spine out.
We’ve already seen that other forces of bad timing can overshadow an unknown author’s first release. If the displays near the store entrance are flooded with books about a newly-departed celebrity or an established author’s newest book, there is no place for that rookie writer’s work.
Some writers are tempted to pay an outside company to promote their book since the publisher won’t. Sometimes this can work, but it’s expensive and there are scammers out there ready and willing to take your money in exchange for running cheap ads or doing nothing at all. Also remember that no marketing plan is ever going to be as effective as one reader telling another that this is a great book. This will only happen when someone actually reads it.
Now comes the most horrifying fact of all.
A book has somewhere between two and six weeks to live or die.
That’s right. If the copies don’t start moving quickly, they never will.
Bookstores sell books on a consignment plan, not a purchase plan. Even though one store has a hundred copies of a writer’s masterwork on the shelves, it’s possible not a single copy of the book has been sold. The stores are in business to sell books. They are not in business to sell your book.
Books that don’t sell get sent back to the publisher for a refund. When this happens, there are no more print runs. The book goes out of print and falls into obscurity. Barring a miracle where the writer turns out a bestseller and people want to go back and read the earlier works, the book is not coming back.
Going independent gives the writer more control over the book. Even more than creative control and a reasonable release schedule, the writer can promote the book the way it needs to be done. With electronic listings, the writer is free to market a book under each category that fits. Just because the last book was sci-fi, the second book (a straight thriller) doesn’t have to sit misplaced on the shelf just to be next to the other book by that author.
It also means that the writer can list the book with multiple distributors and keep the book listed despite slow sales. When and if the writer releases another book, there is no push to get copies of earlier works to market in case sales spike. The book has been sitting on the server for months. No one has to worry about selling out if it gains momentum.
With ebooks the writer can run multiple promotions on any of the books. If there are interview blogs, trade shows, or anything else that might garner attention, the writer can adjust the price of the book to support sales and sell more copies from a single dashboard.
With all this available to a new writer, it’s hard to see why anyone would take the traditional route when so much can be done with new technology. Even established writers are opting to have their new works released exclusively on ebooks, through independent distributors rather than big name houses. It’s an amazing way to get a book out there for readers to see.
And it’s not just a steppingstone to attract a traditional publisher. If anything, I see going from ebook to printed as a step backwards. There is something to be said for holding a copy of your very own book in your hand, but with what you give up to do it...I wonder about the cost.
Maybe traditional publishing is the vanity.