One of the main things that those who caution people against self-publishing bring up, is distribution. You are presented with two things which will supposedly make it “impossible” for you to reach an audience, which I’ll unveil in a minute (do the drum roll part now pls.)

This for some reason reminds me of the Screen Actor’s Guild SAG card paradox. You have to have a SAG card to be in a SAG production, but you have to have been in an SAG production to get a SAG card – unless rules have changed. There was a time I wanted to be an actress so I looked into it. And yet… despite this seeming paradox, every actor with a SAG card managed to jump this hurdle.

To me there is a parallel in self-publishing. Okay so here are the impossibilities you are presented with by limiting you to two options and acting as if they are the only ones.

1. Off-set printing: If you print off-set they tell you it is nearly impossible as a self-publisher to get into distribution channels. There is a lot of truth to this. Ingram doesn’t want to hear from you and Baker and Taylor last I checked wanted a larger discount to carry you in their catalogs, than those with more books out. (Ingram is a wholesaler mainly to bookstores, and B&T is a wholesaler mainly to libraries.) But with the returns system you’re not really going to want to mess with bookstores most likely unless you like cannibalizing your sales. And they most likely don’t want to mess with you either. So it’s mutual avoidance.

You can get into Amazon.com but you have to join as a marketplace member which is a big pain in the ass and cuts into your profit margin. Pretty much every channel you want to sell your book through has this kind of issue. In addition to that you have to have enough upfront money to do a print run, and then warehouse and ship, or go through a fulfillment company. It’s just a big pain in the ass and a lot of money that you have no guarantee of getting back, especially if you’re publishing fiction.

You’re also conditioned to believe that all “real self publishers” do it this way, even though this way is not anymore fiscally sound than the problems inherent financially in “traditional publishing.”

2. POD Vanity press. With a POD vanity press you can generally easily get into Amazon, the POD vanity press’s store, and get listed at least in Ingram (you still aren’t going to be on bookstore shelves, but you can get listed in the catalog with this option. It’s sort of like how you can get health insurance more easily in a group than you can as an individual.)

POD vanity is expensive (or can be with all those silly packages they offer where they inflate the cost of everything), but it’s less expensive than offset press. But generally you can’t make a profit without inflating the retail cost of your book outside of the standard market range. You also just aren’t likely to sell that many copies cause the system is sort of built for you to fail.

I’m really not sure if people are purposefully leaving out the most obvious and sane solution here, or if they just really don’t know about it. I’m not sure how, but somehow Lightning Source continues to be Self-publishing’s best kept secret. Lightning Source is not a vanity POD press. They are a PRINTER. But most of their printing is POD printing. (Though they do offer offset printing should you ever for some reason need a lot of books at one time… such as if you’re able to get a bulk order somewhere. And the benefit here is you are already in their system so set-up is easier.)

They do a lot of the printing for a lot of the vanity POD presses. (yes, that’s right, vanity POD press is a middleman. Go straight to the cow for your milk, you’ve been getting screwed.) They also do printing for some small presses, university presses, and some backlist titles for larger presses. They only work with publishers.

But… that doesn’t mean they won’t work with self-publishers. Unlike many in the publishing industry, LSI doesn’t make up it’s own rules about who is a “real publisher” and who isn’t, but uses the actual definition of what a publisher is. What you have to do to qualify to work with them is:

A. Own your own ISBN numbers and have your business set up. (i.e. you need an imprint name and to be legally set up as some type of business entity according to your local government regulations.)

B. You have to be able to follow their instruction guide and provide your files to them in the way they request. They aren’t going to hold your hand and explain to you what ppi is (pages per inch, used to figure out spine width on your cover template), or CMYK (color processes used for printing things in color and ending up with “true color” i.e. it looks the same on the screen as it does on paper) etc. They aren’t going to teach you how to format your document, or embed your fonts to make your PDF. These are things you either have to learn, or pay someone else to do for you. Or you’re going to have to go with a POD vanity press. (With offset printing you’d have to learn this stuff too.)

But if you really want to self-publish, and not just as a hobby, this is part of it. You can’t start any type of business without learning the ins and outs of how to run that business. You wouldn’t open a flower shop if you didn’t know anything about flower varieties. You shouldn’t self-publish if you’re not willing to learn the terminology and the ins and outs of publishing.

Working with LSI allows you to get into MANY distribution channels in the US, UK, and Canada, at least 4 of them “direct-to-reader” channels like Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk (good luck getting into all of these by yourself and still managing to keep a decent profit and not pulling your hair out trying to do your own order fulfillment) and Barnesandnoble.com You also have access to many ebook distribution channels for your ebooks.

Keep in mind that many many people do a lot of their book shopping online now. I personally almost never shop in brick and mortar bookstores for my books anymore because even the big chain bookstores never have most of the books I want to read. I order on Amazon. As do a lot of people now. So don’t poo poo or underestimate the power of online distribution as your main distribution options, especially if you are marketing and building most of your platform online anyway. (Think about it this way: is it easier to connect with a reader online and then get them to drive to a store to pick up your book, or is it easier to get them to click a link to buy right then?)

So yes, you can get good distribution that allows you to be actually IN the marketplace, with your self-published book. You’ve still got to market it, but distribution is the first step. The false “A or B” of Offset vs. Vanity POD are not your only options and they aren’t even the best options, in my opinion. If someone is trying to tell you what you can and can’t do with self-publishing, consider two things:

1. ARE they a self-publisher? Are they actually engaged in this process enough to know what’s out there and what all the options are? If they aren’t actively engaged in this process, they probably know little about it.

2. If they don’t self-publish and never have, do they at LEAST gather their information from people who DO self-publish and know about all the options? Or are they just going by what the easiest to grab sound bytes of the issue are?

People have criticized me for speaking on trad publishing when I’ve never trad published. But the problem with that is, I’m not pulling my info out of my butt. My views come from reading industry blogs. People who are well-known publishers and agents. So if what I’m getting is wrong, it’s wrong cause the people at the top misled me, not because I just made something up cause it sounded cool.

Also, in order to decide to self-publish, I kind of had to know why I didn’t want to trad publish, which means I couldn’t be completely ignorant about the state of trad publishing. Many of those trad publishing don’t feel it’s necessary to truly educate themselves about the option of self-publishing because they automatically feel it’s not the best option.

Most of the people who talk about self publishing seem to not even be AWARE of the existence of Lightning Source as a printing and distribution option for the self-publisher. If you’re not aware of LSI, you’re not aware.

A few people have requested my short story A Safer Life, so I’ve put it into a PDF for people to download. This isn’t “fancy formatting” like I normally do because it’s just a short story and I’m going to assume you can make it through 8 pages without losing your place.

Note that this is not the normal fare under the “Zoe Winters” name. This is more “erotica” than romance, though I don’t consider it super graphic. And there are no vampires or werecreatures. It may not be to everyone’s taste so fair warning this is definitely for adults.

If you like it, be sure to leave me a comment. (And if you don’t you can leave a comment too, lol.) Also I’m not sure if this was my “final draft” or the draft just before it where there were two typos. So if you find a typo let me know so I can edit and re-upload the better version.

Thanks!

a safer life

Sorry folks, but I find it completely insane that I’m going to be harassed and badmouthed all over the internet for “annoying Nora Roberts” while being personally attacked simultaneously. I mean give me a break. If you can’t see the hypocrisy or bad form in that, no one can help you. And if my simply HAVING a dissenting opinion and expressing it, while you read offense into it that I didn’t put there is enough for you not to read my work, then please, don’t read it. So under the cut is my final post to Smart Bitches. May I never darken their door again.

@Jane (who referenced me specifically),

People have repeatedly on this thread inferred things I NEVER intended nor was trying to say, pulling offense out of opinions that weren’t meant as personal attacks in any way, shape, or form. Despite my repeated mentioning of this, and despite the other individual giving well past “as good as she got” and not needing any defending, the perception has continued of me as a “moron” at best and a “bad person” not worthy of your reading patronage at worst.

I’ve heard about the snarky blog posts referencing me from this stupid drama, but except for one, I haven’t read them, because if the first example proves to be the rule, it’s a bunch of people not reading what I’m actually saying (who already have a clear bias in the matter) and taking pot shots at the length of time I’ve been around, as opposed to the validity of my arguments. Which is funny considering that not once did I preach any type of “one true wayism.” So I’m not exactly sure what the threat is in the viewpoint that “self-pub is right for some people and trad pub is right for others.” or “most people aren’t making career-level money in this business.”

I’m going to unsubscribe from this thread now to save me continued frustration. Should anyone have anything to say to me in reply to this, click on my name, and fill out my contact form on my site.

Those who have decided never to read me, let’s get real, you weren’t going to read me anyway. So making rude threats of not reading me for simply having an opinion and not expressing it with enough doe-eyed deference, isn’t really a threat.

Whether or not I am for “PC bullshit” I don’t ever just jump on and attack people personally because they disagree with me, but that has not been the treatment I’ve received. There is a heavy hypocrisy in accusing me of attacking someone despite my repeated defense that those were never my intentions, while jumping on and attacking me.

You can have your thread back now. Hope it’s as interesting with everyone agreeing with you.

At the end of the day, I can be a very pragmatic and mercenary individual. Some people deeply admire this about me, some think it makes me a bitch or naive. But it is what it is. When I was a little kid, I wanted to be a published author. I wanted my book to be on bookstore shelves and I wanted to be famous.

At that time, I believed that everybody who had a big publisher publishing their books, who had a book on bookstore shelves, was making a living doing it. Hell, even into adulthood as I started to seriously begin the undertaking of writing novels I still believed this.

So naturally, in the beginning I was all about traditional publishing for myself. I read all the standard magazines and books and knew all about how to query an agent. I was confident I was one of the smart ones because I wasn’t like these other little boob wannabes who were sending in their submissions on pink scented paper and telling the agent that their grandmother loved it and their grandmother’s dog took a nap on it which meant that the dog loved it too.

At some point I don’t know how or why, I started to wake up. I mean let’s be real here, this may not be the truth for everyone, but I am not working my ass off to give up control of my work and get paid shit for it. Period. dot com, dot net, dot org. It just ain’t happening. I don’t really care what everybody else is doing, or what the socially approved standard path is, or what is “respectable.” “Socially acceptable” has never paid a single person’s bills.

I think my eyes were opened when I started talking to a published author on LiveJournal. It was my first actual back and forth real written contact with a published author and I was thrilled that she’d taken time out of her glamorous life to help me. (Though later when I decided to self-publish, she heavily encouraged me not to cause I wouldn’t make any money self-pubbing, but on to that in a minute.) I won’t mention this author’s name because I’m not dragging her into my diatribe, and I admire her and her writing very much, but suffice it to say, her posts were candid enough that I could read between the lines.

Even though she had a major name brand publisher that we’ve all heard of, she still had a full-time job and wasn’t able to live solely on her writing income. This gave me considerable pause. As I studied more, and read between more lines of what authors were saying and specifically what they weren’t saying (the exact dollar amount of their advances), I began to realize that this author was in no way unique.

I felt like I’d been Mary Kay’d. I might need to explain that reference. When I was eighteen I signed up to sell Mary Kay. I was lured in with the promise of the pink car. I knew I was motivated and could sell things and surely I could have the pink car. But once I was inside I started to see all the downfalls of multi-level marketing and why most people can’t make a living at it. And why the pink car, was not going to be a part of my future most likely.

It seems this is the same thing that has gone on forever in the publishing industry. Hopeful writers believe at first they’ll make a living just by being published by a big name publisher. Then once they’re in, they realize they need to have a backlist first (though please explain to me how an author can gain any traction in this way when so many times they only can manage to keep 2-5 books “in print” at any given time. I prefer a treadmill that makes my ass smaller, thanks.)

Then of course the realization starts to sink in that MOST published authors, including many who have reached that pinnacle, the NYT Bestseller list, are not making a living doing this. Only those with huge prolific outputs that are fairly successful along with the famous ones, are making a living doing this. (And I really just don’t want to put out more than one novel a year on average. I want to put out better quality books not more of them. And normally quality suffers with quantity. We’ve all seen it happen.)

Once I learned these financial realities, I was off the trad train. Fuck that. If I’m going to make peanuts, I’m keeping full creative control. I’m going to be able to approve or deny my cover. I’m going to pick how my book is laid out, and how it’s marketed and distributed. I’m picking the formats. I’m picking the editors, I’m titling my own books. (i.e. I’m not coming up with a great title just to have someone’s marketing department shoot it down and rename it.)

I am not your commodity.

I belong to me. My words, thoughts, feelings, and art belongs to me. And I will create it, package it, and distribute it the way I see fit. The ONLY people that matter in this equation outside of myself, are my readers. Not the talking heads in the publishing industry. I don’t need a publisher to get my words in front of readers. I don’t need a publisher to make a little money. And I certainly don’t need the drama, politics, and headache of the whole treadmill if I’m only going to discover that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for most is fool’s gold.

With authors doing so much of their own marketing now, and fewer people buying most of their books in brick and mortar bookstores anyway… with so little money on the table for most even after years of grueling work and many books… exactly what the hell could possibly be in it for me besides external validation from the other writers and the “publishing industry” as a whole? Why is that validation worth my soul? It isn’t.

So many discourage those who want to self-publish with the warning: “You’re unlikely to make money self-publishing.” As opposed to what option? And how are we quantifying the phrase “making money” here? Because a tiny bit of money is still a tiny bit of money even if your publisher handed it to you.

Will I “make a living” self-publishing? Well… that’s hard to answer because I’m thinking inside a different box. I have the MPC-mentality (multiple-profit-centers.) My “business” is basically finding every way in which I can make money from my writing and making use of it. This includes writing websites that I monetize, selling fiction in print and ebook, selling nonfiction/infoproducts in print and ebook, copywriting, a bit of freelance work, and any other ideas I come up with.

This little mini writing empire is on a 10 year plan, of which I’m in year 2. Some of the plates I spin are more for passion than for profit, like fiction. But considering the fact that I can keep my ENTIRE backlist in print, I’m writing a series, and I keep ALL the profit and not just a royalty, the concept that I could “make a living” just from fiction in ten years isn’t so outside the realm of realistic that I can’t even entertain the possibility.

I do understand that writers are part of a community and in some ways I purposefully alienate myself from this community. But at the same time, most of the politics and drama is unnecessary to my life. And I always get burnt because what I’m saying is not what people want to hear. Even if I say it nicely and temper it with many caveats. I have my own tune, my own plan, and I’ll follow it succeed or fail. But what I won’t do is jump on a treadmill that to me isn’t worth the small payment at the end.

Self-publishing, even if at the end of the day I make little money, IS worth it to me, because it’s MINE. There is a pride of ownership there. Even if it’s not considered as socially acceptable yet as say opening a flower shop, it’s not like I’m running a brothel here. Social attitudes will catch up (and if they don’t you know I’m still doing it, because that’s just me.)

And on the money issue. KEPT has sold 2,500 copies on Amazon and has had 15,000 readers otherwise in the past year. It’s only a dollar on Amazon because they wouldn’t let me give it away for free. It was initial test marketing, not a money-making enterprise. Nevertheless, I’ve already in one year made more in royalties from the novella on the Kindle than I likely would have been paid as a first-time author, had I had my novella accepted for a print anthology.

I don’t write “for the money.” But if money wasn’t any piece of the motivation for me, I would just give all my work away for free. What is the point of selling it for profit if you don’t intend to actually MAKE a profit? I intend to make a profit. There is no crime in this. But I realize I can’t make a profit worth my time inside the standard publishing system. Your mileage of course may vary and it’s okay if it does. I don’t require a bunch of bobble-head yes-men in my life. You can disagree with me and I won’t call your momma names.

So yes, self-publishing for me is a business decision and a personal decision.

Also, just in case you think I’m talking out of my ass and can’t possibly know anything cause I haven’t been inducted into the standard publishing system, here are some posts for you to chew on… two traditionally published authors, both saying basically the same things I am, they just draw different conclusions for their own lives (i.e. not self-publishing), and say it a little differently. But it’s the same bottom line truth.

More on the reality of a times bestseller

The Big Lie

For some reason for awhile there has been this little quiet war going on between self-publishing and traditional publishing as an option. I actually hate to refer to commercial publishing as “traditional publishing” given the fact that commercial publishing wasn’t the first show in town. For a long time in the history of publishing, books were published by the author, the author’s family, sometimes with the help of a patron of the arts. There was no large publishing company looking for “commercial value” in it.

But since the term “traditional publishing” has stuck and those on that publishing track seem happy rather than offended by it, we’ll just stick with what’s easiest.

Whatever we call it though… self pub and trad pub are NOT in competition. They are two totally different tracks and mentalities/methods toward publishing. There truly doesn’t have to be a “right” and a “wrong” path here. When I say trad publishing is better for some authors and self publishing is better for others, I REALLY mean that.

I’ve seen people who while they can write, they really aren’t suited to self-publishing. Or who aren’t ready to be published at all. And I’ve seen people who are trad publishing who if they wanted to probably could self-publish and be a success at it.

But make no mistake, self-publishing is a threat to some people. The very idea of this kind of independence and publishing democracy gets under the skin of some. People will deny this up and down, but if that’s true, why attack it so much? It’s one thing to point out flaws in self pub or trad pub, there are flaws and problems with both models, but when there is anger against it’s very existence… then why the anger? What’s the threat? Where’s the fire?

This situation is almost always spin-doctored into the self-publishing author being so insecure they just “need” everyone to validate them. But it was my understanding that if I really wanted “validation” at this stage in the game I’d be on the more socially approved publishing track, which right now is traditional publishing. I knew what I was getting into when I got into it.

I knew the stigma, I knew the protests. So it’s not like I started this and then got all shocked and amazed and cried myself to sleep over it. I mean come on. I knew what some people’s attitudes about the whole affair were going to be. And while I find it mildly annoying that some people think I “must” suck as a writer or else why would I sully myself like this with self-publishing… or that I’m looking for some “short cut” and don’t want to work at my craft or any of the rest of it as much as they do… I for the most part just ignore that shit because it’s clearly coming from an uninformed mind that can think inside of exactly one type of box.

My “validation” comes from the readers who love my work, from the fan mail I get, from the unexpected positive reviews I find in various venues. Now does everyone love my work? Of course not. And that’s true for everybody. But I’ve had enough feedback from total strangers and in some cases fellow writers, some of them who have gone through the gatekeeper system, that I know I can write. I’m really not so insecure I need constant validation and back-patting.

Any further validation will be from my own effort and the sales record I intend to build for myself along with continually working to improve my craft further (because despite the stupid stereotype I want to always improve at my craft and give the readers and my fans however many or few I have, work that is worth both their time and their money to read.)

What it comes down to for me is this: If I suck as a writer, fine. Let the public decide. If I can’t market my way out of a paper bag, fine. Let me fall on my face under my own efforts.

But don’t tell me that you have the right to decide whether or not I can even play the game. I won’t give someone else that kind of power over my publishing future.

I won’t stand in someone else’s line to determine whether I’m even allowed to play. Not in a free market.

So, it’s floating around a lot of the internet that I got into a cat fight with Nora Roberts on the Smart Bitches blog. This is true. At some point Ms. Roberts decided to take something I said as a personal affront when it was never meant to be, and as a lecture from me to her on how publishing operates, again, which it was never meant to be.

My opinion continues to stand that ANYONE who is famous and at the top of publishing and hasn’t been a newbie for decades, does not fully comprehend the issues that newbie authors face NOW. It is a different publishing world. This is not meant to discredit or diminish anything about Ms. Roberts, what she’s done, where she’s been, or where she’s started out. (Though funnily enough another blogger on another site felt it okay to poke me with a stick because I’m new. I guess our “starting out stories” really only become inspirational in hindsight huh? Believe me, I’m saving up material for twenty years from now.)

My views on the state of the publishing industry are not something that I have pulled out of my butt. I have been following developments very closely for awhile and if random bloggers can commentate on it, I’m not sure why the hell I can’t as well. My opinions come from things said by many who DO know about publishing from the inside and in the top strata. Prominent agents, folks in the publishing industry like Mike Shatzkin, Booksquare blog, etc.

I’m not exactly sure what is so upsetting or controversial about my view that:

A. Self publishing is right for some authors but wrong for most and WILL position the authors it is right for, for a better publishing future later. (i.e. the ones it is right for are the ones who can really succeed at it.)

B. It’s much harder than it used to be to land a traditional big name publisher.

C. Most authors on the midlist aren’t making that much money for the hours expended.

D. Most authors are paying for their own marketing and other author-related expenses like conferences and classes and such which is STILL money spent even if they aren’t “paying to publish” in the exact same way a self-publisher would.

E. Publishing is CHANGING.

Is there anything in this list that is so offensive or upsetting that I need to be lynched for it?

Perhaps it’s my tone? I am very passionate about my topic, and it is true, sometimes I come off in ways I don’t intend. But when I state over and over again in a thread, practically fucking groveling to someone who has stated they are merely “annoyed” with me, that I didn’t mean any offense, I didn’t mean to come off that way, you’re reading shit in that I’m not saying, etc. etc. You would think I’d be given a fucking break.

Well no, not on Smart Bitches. I once had an issue like this on Dear Author as well. I’ve concluded that once this particular thread dies down that I will not darken the doors of either blog again. Clearly this is not a very receptive audience to what I have to say about publishing.

Many went on about how they’d rather listen to Nora Roberts than me since I’m a nobody. Fine. But appealing to authority is not a valid debate tactic. A fact doesn’t become a fact once a famous person says it. Nor does it cease being a fact just because someone you don’t know says it. And if trad publishing is right for you, great, listen to Nora. I don’t need converts. If self-publishing is right for you, you’re going to want to listen to me (or if you find my tone so appalling and screechy you can’t stand me, then listen to a prominent self-publishing advocate that you like better.)

This is not about “who is best” or “what path is best.” Despite my repeated statements that I wasn’t trying to have a discussion like that, it kept being turned into a discussion like that until it ended up as a pissing contest between myself and Ms. Roberts.

And I really don’t care how famous you are or how long you’ve been in the business. Much of what I’m saying is coming directly from industry insiders, so being famous doesn’t make you a priori right and me a dog turd. It also doesn’t give you the right to drag on drama on and on about one or two lines of what I’ve said taken out of context and twisted in order to find offense.

Unfortunately all the collateral damage here is mine. Though I will never read a Nora Roberts book (and a few people who emailed me about the thread claimed they won’t either), she’s famous, so it really doesn’t matter. She’s got enough readers that a few of us saying we won’t ever touch a book of hers because of drama like this, doesn’t really make a dent.

A few people stated publicly they wouldn’t read me (it appears that both Nora and I had detractors that won’t read us, but people only had the balls to state it publicly to me because I’m a nobody right now) and yeah, that is my loss. Which is the primary reason I try to stay off blogs like this and out of discussions like this. Because no matter what I say, if someone doesn’t want to hear it, they’re going to take my “tone” and assume shit I didn’t say and never intended.

But it won’t matter, because once the mob effect takes place and people have their scapegoat they don’t care. The only real upshot to this is there is always some stupid drama going on in Romancelandia on the blogs. This will fade into the cosmic past drama file if I avoid future drama.

And the real truth here folks is, if you want to enjoy an author’s fiction, never ever read their blog comments, because at SOME point, everybody gets into disagreements, and if you’re going to give up or not read an author based on that, you might end up switching to TV for your entertainment.

I will say this. In 10 years when I’m farther along down my path, assuming I haven’t alienated too many readers from pointless drama that I bear the brunt of the fallout for, then my views are still going to be the same. You’ll find them more valid then of course if my sales are high enough and my books are good enough, but it will still be the same shit I was always saying.

Anyone who wants to take ten years to benefit from perfectly valid knowledge, be my guest. See you in ten.

ETA: I actually went back and re-read every post I made in the smart bitches thread, and I can’t see a single thing that was offensive (aside from my long-windedness. That I genuinely apologize for), up until the point where Nora started kicking me in the head and I started defending myself. Even then I was trying to keep it light and tongue-in-cheek, but I think some people on blogs like DA and SB want to take themselves WAY too seriously to the point that they want to infer subtext into everything that isn’t there.

I really think there needs to be some kind of reading comprehension test to be allowed on the internet because it’s extremely tiresome to try to have a civil discussion and have everything you say taken completely out of context and motives attributed to you that were never there. (i.e. asking for validation, jealousy, bitterness, etc.)

Why can’t I have and express a viewpoint I believe in without there being a need to assume I need you to validate it or me, or that I’m somehow jealous of you or bitter about my experiences so far as a writer, or some other nonsense you’re just pulling out of the ether?

My cover art is complete for the first print release. The artist is Anne Cain. I think she did an amazing job! Here is the front of the cover. I may upload the full wrap here in a minute.

Today my kindle stats were the highest they’ve ever been. I’m now at 1,102 in the Kindle store for KEPT. (And I figured out how to do a screen shot finally. Click on the image to see it full size.)

I changed the product description which I believe has directly affected my stats. Since this is the highest I’ve ever been. I would love to get into the under 1000 mark. That would be awesome.

I’m working right now on Blood Lust, which is the first print release in this series. Doing the final edits right now and almost have final cover art to show off. yay! Soon I’ll change things up so that the KEPT free release is reworded as a sample from Blood Lust, so it’s clear to people that Blood Lust is what they want if they want to read the first full book. I have Blood Lust slated to release by the end of February (hopefully, depends on how long these edits and formatting takes), and then SAVE MY SOUL, which is book two (full-length novel in same verse), is slated for release in October of 2010 (because it’s already been through two drafts and is getting close to being done.) Book three I’m writing the rough draft of this month for Nanowrimo.

In My Publishers Weekly daily email update I got a link to the following: HCI Author Gets Own Imprint

So a publisher is now giving an author their OWN imprint. i.e. their own publishing identity. Interesting.

The lines are beginning to blur even more. Ebooks already blurred the lines, as has POD, since the line between the big boys and the small boys became non-existent. And now this. Very very interesting.

I’m trying to basically keep my head down, keep my eyes on my own paper, and do my thing. Stuff is changing in the world of publishing and if I just go about my business, by the time I get myself positioned where I want, stigma won’t even be an issue. And I’ll have been active, doing the things I know need to be done during the time while everybody else was still arguing over whether it should be done at all.

Screw that. Once absolutely everybody agrees self-publishing is a really great idea… it’ll be too much overwhelming competition. Right now we still have a few really talented people who self-publish, but mostly people who are decidedly unsavvy and shouldn’t be self-publishing. While I appreciate that the good self-publishers take away some of the stigma, I have my own imprint. The average reader just isn’t going to know or care I’m self-published, so all the crap out there has nothing to do with me.

I’ve posted a blog post over at Publetariat.com called: Running a Mile in Under Four Minutes.

It’s mostly for self-publishing authors, but really it’s about believing in yourself and the fact that if you don’t, you really cannot achieve your goals/dreams, even if you “take some action” toward them.