I would love to go indie but I don't have the time, funds or bandwidth to take that on in a way that would satisfy me. Trad publishing is therefore the goal right now but I go into it a bit seasoned in the trenches and knowing the chances are hugely slim. I'm hoping by publishing a shelved project here will give people a taste for my writing and an audience who might be eager for my next project.
I totally get this! However, I'm learning just how many resources and people there are to support you on the indie side. If you build an actual team, I think it can feel wildly more rewarding. But there's nothing wrong with starting on the traditional side and then seeing what unfolds. I always tell my clients to give themselves a deadline for pitching. If you haven't gotten an agent or deal by X, then maybe it's time to look at other options.
There are ways to ease into indie, which is the best way to do it. It takes time to learn who knows what they’re talking about and who doesn’t, plus, just like tradpub, there are multiple different paths to take in indie.
The time, funds, and bandwidth that indie takes is just a more obvious version of what writers who aspire to tradpub should be doing.
And I think gathering a team of people to help is key too. Figuring out what your budget is, timeline, what you want to do and what you don't... great advice!
And setting priorities. I strongly suggest finding a reliable editor as the foundation, then go from there. I was lucky that I have a couple of options because I have two friends who are formerly tradpub (though one will be submitting again soon) who I do beta swaps with which...saves me big time on editing costs.
Too many people in indie focus on spending for covers, or character representations, or the like. No. Covers are important, but editing comes first (and will be the most costly if you don't have reliable and proven swap partners).
And above all else, AVOID USING AI. Period. Not in your cover; not in your editing or in your drafting/worldbuilding/plotting. That will blacklist you amongst a significant group of indie influencers.
I absolutely get this but I think my point is that this takes a huge amount of time - alongside a full time job, a young and blended family, and time for actual writing, exercise, chores...life. I'm not saying it's impossible but I do really value my sleep 🤣 I know trad also comes with its deadlines and marketing responsibilities but I do see the big difference between friends who doing indie the way I'd like to and friends who are trad.
What concerns me is being trapped between the unlikelihood of getting an agent, let alone a book deal, and the covering the expenses of editing, covers, ads with an even greater unlikelihood of making that money back self-publishing.
I’m going to try trad first, just to go through the experience, but will go indie to get my book out there, but I’m nervous dropping thousands of dollars on it. I like @Joyce Reynolds-Ward’s advice on editing; that’s probably where my money will go. It’s a lose-lose either way since conventional wisdom is book 1 is a loss-leader for subsequent books.
Couldn't agree more! Spending on a good dev editor is an essential. (I'm literally dev editing 4 client novels as we speak!) That way, when you go to pitch it traditionally, you will have gotten it as polished as you can. And if it doesn't get picked up, then you already have a pretty "ready-to-go" ms for indie publishing. Keep me posted on how it goes!
Are the tradpub friends signed with a Big Five publisher? Are they querying or are they with a smaller press?
Are the indie friends doing the 20Booksto50K rapid release program?
These questions are relevant, because in my opinion it's easier to juggle indie with a full schedule IF you are not doing rapid release and spending a lot of time promoting and doing the A/B advertising test analysis stuff which requires a high ad spend. Or if you are not doing Kindle Unlimited and again, needing to rapid release and do a high dollar ad spend. Indie does not come with the same strictures of needing to have high sales in that first week that tradpub does, depending on the path you choose (which is also impacted by genre). It's a lot more feasible to build up to the type of program you want to do in indie without it impacting your sales record because as an indie you're only trying to impact readers, not the Sales Committee.
I understand what you are saying, but early in my current phase of writing and publishing, I was working full time as a special education teacher and case manager plus training a young horse, launching a neurodivergent child into adulthood, and commuting one hour each direction to work (the barn was between work and home). I had to deliberately get up at 4:30 am to write in order to make it all fit and--I was not young at the time, plus I am not at all a morning person. It is doable but requires that you cut out some things such as TV, plus be ready to snatch what time you can to write, edit, and so on--which is not that different from being in tradpub.
I found the post and comments helpful in thinking about my next steps.
I'm at the beginning of the querying process and have been surprised by how rare a personal rejection is. Of the twenty agents who've had a month to respond to my package, only one bothered to write such a rejection. He's the only agent I'm sure read my package.
Three other agents rejected it with a perfunctory note. The rest simply didn't respond.
Hybrid sounds wonderful to me in theory, but in practice? Ooof! It's so much work and I don't think I could do it well. The learning curve is intimidating. And I also have a day job so I will probably keep seeking trad publishing for as long as it takes to get my next deal. On the bright side, my agent still believes in me. But I also never say never. I'd probably have to pay for a team to help me!
100%! Herein lies the conundrum. I think authors already have to do so much more than they should. We signed up to write. Why are we ALSO doing everything else??? But trad makes sense when you have a day job. And all it takes is one yes!
I went hybrid while trying the classic way. I met my editor, who became my publisher/ partner in business and that’s how my first book was recently published. It can be expensive and consuming but it allowed my work to reach others and that’s really valuable 😊
Shrug. I stopped chasing tradpub and tradpub awards years ago. I don’t write what tradpub editors want nor what they award, either. It’s not that hard to move into indie, especially if you’ve been managing your tradpub writing like a business already.
And that last bit is what too many people overlook. Even in tradpub, you can’t just focus on writing and craft while letting the business side slide. You need to keep up with publishing trends (even as an indie I keep an eye on tradpub because some of those trends show up in a different form in indie) and be prepared to promote your own work because…tradpub more and more is shoving that off on authors.
All writing has a business side, and it behooves any author, not just indie, to master that side of their creative work. Otherwise, you’re going to end up wondering just what happened.
I completely agree. You are basically a CEO if you're an author. I think the misconception is that with trad publishing, you'll have a team, but in my experience, authors are still often left in the dark. I think there is so much benefit to indie publishing, but I often see authors rush into it without a launch strategy. It's all a bit of a balancing act, no matter which path you take! But staying up to date on the business is key.
Oh, I can be one of the big offenders about publishing without a launch strategy! However, what I've learned over the years is that for my work, it's more about long-term than launch. I've done the preorders, arranged for interviews, had all sorts of stuff lined up for launch and then...crickets chirping. But...this is something I've learned over 32 books since 2011. There are so many factors that can go awry (I have stories! In one case the bookstore ceiling collapsed before I could do an author event that would have gotten me attention in a new market...followed by Covid).
I'll still do my best to get a launch set up, but anymore, I don't put much faith in the first week of sales. I tend to be like one of my mentors, who was also a slow launch in tradpub. Yes, she'd earn out and do well...but not in that first week. Alas, current tradpub still seems to be focused hard on that first week and not as much on backlist promotion.
I love this idea of a slow launch. I say it all the time. You don't have to do everything in the first few weeks of sales! I am a long sales tail author. And I WANT time! That's the whole point!
This is exactly the kind of space we’re hoping to create with Hushmarrow Press. Somewhere between traditional publishing and having to figure out absolutely everything on your own. We’re a new independent press and currently accepting short fiction for our first anthology, so I’m sharing our submission call here in case any writers reading this are looking for another option.
Lovely advice. From someone who has found querying taxing on my already strained nervous system, I am listening.
I wonder if there are others like me writing upmarket/literary who worry that the indie infrastructure just isn’t there for this type of book.
I’ve been dreaming of forming a cohort of novelists who workshop their books together, develop, edit, design, distribute, and market together (or encourage each other during the query process if trad feels like the most viable route). If that might make the process less lonely.
I’ve also been dreaming of finding new ways to bring legitimacy to these types of books. To get rid of the “if you can’t get a trad deal, your book must not be good” mentality, because that is just not the case, and I think lots of genuinely beautiful books are being put in drawers instead of published because of this.
Hi, Molly! YES TO THE COHORT!! I just wrote about this very thing in another essay! I wrote, and I quote: Pivot to the Collaborative Enterprise Model
Find two or three authors in your exact genre who are also sitting on high-quality, unpublished manuscripts. Instead of self-publishing in total isolation, pool your resources to create a shared boutique imprint. Share the costs of a professional publicist, cross-promote to each other's email lists, and launch your books as a curated seasonal catalog. You get the operational scale of a small traditional house while retaining one hundred percent of your creative ownership.
What to do next: Reach out to your writing group or mutuals on social media who write in your exact sub-genre, whether that is cozy fantasy, psychological thrillers, or dark academia. Form a legal partnership or collective. Together, you can hire one top-tier freelance editor and a single high-end cover designer, split the cost of a comprehensive PR push, and approach book influencers on TikTok and Instagram as a cohesive, curated indie collective rather than a single lonely voice in the wilderness.
Great minds!! I think this makes such incredible sense on every level. This way, you are all in it together, sharing the cost, the gripes, and the process together.
And you are SO right. In my experience, editors are looking for reasons to say no, not yes. It does not mean your book isn't valuable. My dream is to build a publishing company where books are published based on the work--not the follower count, not how busy an editor is, not what's "trending"--but really giving authors a chance who have been turned down at every turn.
Oh wow! Great minds indeed! That's exactly what I was thinking! I haven't given up on trad just yet -- but the possibilities outside of the system seem exciting. I like your dream a lot :)
I've more-or-less given up on my novel, at least until I can figure out what format I should write it in. It's the book that everyone has been telling me I should write, my whole life. 🤔
Meanwhile, I finally encouraged my wife to start writing! That's the exciting news. 😀
She is so smart and creative!
Every time she has "employees" under her, they always regard her highly, as if she were a god. I see it, even if she doesn't. And it's for good reason.
But, for years she hasn't opened up to me about her "deep thoughts." I want in!
Meanwhile, she's "counting the days" until retirement, and I finally had "the talk" with her.
"Are you planning to just sit and watch grass grow?" I asked.
A few days later, she proudly announced she would write a book. It's about trains, of course (her fav theme) but with a twist - she's examining the early days of Central Pacific RR (and the one starting on the west coast, pushing East through the mountains to meet the one going West).
She's focusing on the characters who ripped off the government, and exploited the land & various populations for their own profits.
Anyway, we've been learning about indie publishing.
I'm familiar with graphics, designing a book cover, and I'm also a good editor.
I also know about making a book salable, not just a "good read."
But, here's the problem: we have spent our lives avoiding social media. So, we're just not "hip" to using it for generating excitement and lots of followers, etc.
I REALLY like your ideas! I can see you've been industrious about figuring workarounds.
I'm going to try a in few. I didn't know about the contests you mentioned.
I've sent her a link to this article, I suspect she'll 'scribe to your 'stack (like I did). 😁
What a lovely message! I don’t think you have to be on social media (and I feel like more and more people are going to be finding different places to land, like here, than the usual places). I’d say figure out other places your readers are—in person and online—where you can connect with them. Many people who don’t love social media use ads as their main strategy too. There are so many great ways to connect with readers that have nothing to do with social media! Rooting for you both!
I've just published my first novelette to Amazon KDP yesterday. I agree that you have to be good with technology to self publish, but I disagree that you need capital. I used Google Docs and Kindle Create, then used social media to market it, all free. I'm happy to say that it's had a good start and is selling well so far. I will definitely self publish again in the future.
You can definitely self-publish with very little funds! But if you want to plan more of a “traditional” launch, there are definitely some expenses: dev editing, copy editing, proofing, cover design, digital marketing, etc. But not everyone has to go that route! So glad it’s working well for you.
Yes! I want more writers talking about this. I am right there - in the middle. My first book came out last year (after 12 years of on and off querying). I went traditional with a small press and no agent. Three of my books have placed in contests locally and internationally, so it was not the writing or the concepts that didn't stick. I got lots of lovely rejections on fulls and partials.
The current WIP I am working on is my best work yet. (I still have another year of revisions ahead of me though!) When the time comes I want to be prepared will information on all the options because this book is going to absolutely rock it!
Yes! And even friends who have books with ‘the big 5’ are talking with me about this. Erin Dionne is a good resource too. Her kidlit is traditional (and she got the rights back to re-release some books), but she is self-publishing her adult mysteries with a group of friends. That may be another way to offset the cost of self-publishing. Cheers to Options!
Exactly! I LOVE the idea of sharing resources with friends. I'm doing a self-pub collab with another author, and I'm just having so much more fun sharing the load!
Very interesting, thank you, this is one of the best summaries I've seen of the current publishing environment.
I've chosen option 3: Build Your Minimum Viable Audience on Substack -- I feel an interactive cooking blog is a great way to get going. I would be most interested to know what you think.
I wrote a scientific book in 2012 on evolution, a genuinely new approach, which I know for a fact is not worth trying to push through the academic system. My day job is professional scientific editor, I've edited about 700 papers for journal publication, so I know all, all about that route.
I spent a year trying to find an agent before a retired literary agent told me, don't waste your time, create some kind of real buzz online and they might be interested. I thought this was excellent advice, it's much more constructive to engage on Substack than to spend hours writing careful emails that never get a reply.
The cookbook is an entirely different venture. I put out a note, "Are you in a liminal space? The Unemployed Cookbook is of you, by you and for you." There's a growing army of us out there, isolated and apprehensive and trying to work out a viable future. In the meantime, you need to eat. So these are ultimate survival skills. Survival is the theme of my latest piece.
Thanks so much, I'm placing all my energies here, so I truly appreciate your encouragement. The environment is very tough but that's exactly why I launched The Unemployed Cookbook. Its time has finally come and I don't mean that in a good way.
Thank you for these great ideas! I'm still in the drafting phase for my novel, but trying to best prepare myself for what's ahead. Writing an essay that centers on themes from the story (and gives interested readers more to chew on) sounds incredibly fun.
Thank you for this post!! it is really speaking to me and where I'm at right now (querying my 4th manuscript, but starting to more seriously consider an indie path)
You are so welcome!!! I think it's great to query and go after your goals, but I always say it's also good to have a deadline and know when to pivot. Either way, I'm rooting for you!
In 2007, at a Slice writing conference in Brooklyn, I listened to one young agent say "if it doesn't move me in 5 pages while riding the F train, I'm not interested." Then later an editor in a publishing house, explained how they choose which books get the most marketing money. Those who get the least "if they don't sell in the time it takes yogurt to go bad then we don't invest more money." I thought "why should I hand over my hard work to them? Still I queried and was declined or ghosted over and over.
In 2015/2016, when there were few resources available, I self-published two novels and a memoir. I was in a high pressure job and couldn't market like I should. Sales were low, but they happened. Ten years went by as I worked on another book. I retired, signed with a small press publisher, and published in 2024. Two months later, the small press sold to a young couple with no experience. My book won 5 awards and was a finalist for 3 more, but sales were low and transparency into what was selling where even lower. So I took the rights back and re-published on my own. The book is doing much better and, in the process, I learned from many authors who had done the same. There are a lot more resources now - Canva, Vellum, Publisher Rocket, etc. I have four novels out, all self-published. Sales wouldn't meet a publishers standards but no one can drop me either. Cost depends on you - what you will do on your own and what/how much advertising you want to do. The nice thing is you can market it and then take a break and then bring it out to a new market months later. You build the car and you drive it - 100%. It's not easy, but the writers I know with trad or small press publishers have to do just as much work marketing and advertising as I do. It's really what makes you happy, what your goals are, and if you think the publisher or agent can do more for you than you can do for yourself.
I couldn't have said this any better! The thing that appeals to me about self-pubbing is that, just like you said, I get to control my marketing efforts, how I launch, when I launch, what I do... and I don't have to meet anyone's standards but my own. The good thing is, I do have a readership. It's just about connecting with them and making sure these books are visible! I'm excited to have such a contrast to what I've done for the last 9 books. Thank you for sharing this story!
I’m a writer, an artist, I am not built for promotion. I can barely promote my own work here on Substack. Indie publishing is not a magic fix for everyone. The truth is some of us either will finally be accepted by traditional publishing, or our work will never extend beyond here.
I would love to go indie but I don't have the time, funds or bandwidth to take that on in a way that would satisfy me. Trad publishing is therefore the goal right now but I go into it a bit seasoned in the trenches and knowing the chances are hugely slim. I'm hoping by publishing a shelved project here will give people a taste for my writing and an audience who might be eager for my next project.
I totally get this! However, I'm learning just how many resources and people there are to support you on the indie side. If you build an actual team, I think it can feel wildly more rewarding. But there's nothing wrong with starting on the traditional side and then seeing what unfolds. I always tell my clients to give themselves a deadline for pitching. If you haven't gotten an agent or deal by X, then maybe it's time to look at other options.
Oh there's no doubt I would love doing indie and find the whole process hugely rewarding. It's the resource that's the issue for me right now.
I'm going to do a whole post on doing this step-by-step!
There are ways to ease into indie, which is the best way to do it. It takes time to learn who knows what they’re talking about and who doesn’t, plus, just like tradpub, there are multiple different paths to take in indie.
The time, funds, and bandwidth that indie takes is just a more obvious version of what writers who aspire to tradpub should be doing.
And I think gathering a team of people to help is key too. Figuring out what your budget is, timeline, what you want to do and what you don't... great advice!
And setting priorities. I strongly suggest finding a reliable editor as the foundation, then go from there. I was lucky that I have a couple of options because I have two friends who are formerly tradpub (though one will be submitting again soon) who I do beta swaps with which...saves me big time on editing costs.
Too many people in indie focus on spending for covers, or character representations, or the like. No. Covers are important, but editing comes first (and will be the most costly if you don't have reliable and proven swap partners).
And above all else, AVOID USING AI. Period. Not in your cover; not in your editing or in your drafting/worldbuilding/plotting. That will blacklist you amongst a significant group of indie influencers.
I absolutely get this but I think my point is that this takes a huge amount of time - alongside a full time job, a young and blended family, and time for actual writing, exercise, chores...life. I'm not saying it's impossible but I do really value my sleep 🤣 I know trad also comes with its deadlines and marketing responsibilities but I do see the big difference between friends who doing indie the way I'd like to and friends who are trad.
What concerns me is being trapped between the unlikelihood of getting an agent, let alone a book deal, and the covering the expenses of editing, covers, ads with an even greater unlikelihood of making that money back self-publishing.
I’m going to try trad first, just to go through the experience, but will go indie to get my book out there, but I’m nervous dropping thousands of dollars on it. I like @Joyce Reynolds-Ward’s advice on editing; that’s probably where my money will go. It’s a lose-lose either way since conventional wisdom is book 1 is a loss-leader for subsequent books.
Couldn't agree more! Spending on a good dev editor is an essential. (I'm literally dev editing 4 client novels as we speak!) That way, when you go to pitch it traditionally, you will have gotten it as polished as you can. And if it doesn't get picked up, then you already have a pretty "ready-to-go" ms for indie publishing. Keep me posted on how it goes!
Are the tradpub friends signed with a Big Five publisher? Are they querying or are they with a smaller press?
Are the indie friends doing the 20Booksto50K rapid release program?
These questions are relevant, because in my opinion it's easier to juggle indie with a full schedule IF you are not doing rapid release and spending a lot of time promoting and doing the A/B advertising test analysis stuff which requires a high ad spend. Or if you are not doing Kindle Unlimited and again, needing to rapid release and do a high dollar ad spend. Indie does not come with the same strictures of needing to have high sales in that first week that tradpub does, depending on the path you choose (which is also impacted by genre). It's a lot more feasible to build up to the type of program you want to do in indie without it impacting your sales record because as an indie you're only trying to impact readers, not the Sales Committee.
I understand what you are saying, but early in my current phase of writing and publishing, I was working full time as a special education teacher and case manager plus training a young horse, launching a neurodivergent child into adulthood, and commuting one hour each direction to work (the barn was between work and home). I had to deliberately get up at 4:30 am to write in order to make it all fit and--I was not young at the time, plus I am not at all a morning person. It is doable but requires that you cut out some things such as TV, plus be ready to snatch what time you can to write, edit, and so on--which is not that different from being in tradpub.
I found the post and comments helpful in thinking about my next steps.
I'm at the beginning of the querying process and have been surprised by how rare a personal rejection is. Of the twenty agents who've had a month to respond to my package, only one bothered to write such a rejection. He's the only agent I'm sure read my package.
Three other agents rejected it with a perfunctory note. The rest simply didn't respond.
This is super helpful. Thank you. I hadn’t thought about essays etc to build profile
I'm glad it was helpful!
Hybrid sounds wonderful to me in theory, but in practice? Ooof! It's so much work and I don't think I could do it well. The learning curve is intimidating. And I also have a day job so I will probably keep seeking trad publishing for as long as it takes to get my next deal. On the bright side, my agent still believes in me. But I also never say never. I'd probably have to pay for a team to help me!
100%! Herein lies the conundrum. I think authors already have to do so much more than they should. We signed up to write. Why are we ALSO doing everything else??? But trad makes sense when you have a day job. And all it takes is one yes!
I went hybrid while trying the classic way. I met my editor, who became my publisher/ partner in business and that’s how my first book was recently published. It can be expensive and consuming but it allowed my work to reach others and that’s really valuable 😊
Shrug. I stopped chasing tradpub and tradpub awards years ago. I don’t write what tradpub editors want nor what they award, either. It’s not that hard to move into indie, especially if you’ve been managing your tradpub writing like a business already.
And that last bit is what too many people overlook. Even in tradpub, you can’t just focus on writing and craft while letting the business side slide. You need to keep up with publishing trends (even as an indie I keep an eye on tradpub because some of those trends show up in a different form in indie) and be prepared to promote your own work because…tradpub more and more is shoving that off on authors.
All writing has a business side, and it behooves any author, not just indie, to master that side of their creative work. Otherwise, you’re going to end up wondering just what happened.
I completely agree. You are basically a CEO if you're an author. I think the misconception is that with trad publishing, you'll have a team, but in my experience, authors are still often left in the dark. I think there is so much benefit to indie publishing, but I often see authors rush into it without a launch strategy. It's all a bit of a balancing act, no matter which path you take! But staying up to date on the business is key.
Oh, I can be one of the big offenders about publishing without a launch strategy! However, what I've learned over the years is that for my work, it's more about long-term than launch. I've done the preorders, arranged for interviews, had all sorts of stuff lined up for launch and then...crickets chirping. But...this is something I've learned over 32 books since 2011. There are so many factors that can go awry (I have stories! In one case the bookstore ceiling collapsed before I could do an author event that would have gotten me attention in a new market...followed by Covid).
I'll still do my best to get a launch set up, but anymore, I don't put much faith in the first week of sales. I tend to be like one of my mentors, who was also a slow launch in tradpub. Yes, she'd earn out and do well...but not in that first week. Alas, current tradpub still seems to be focused hard on that first week and not as much on backlist promotion.
I love this idea of a slow launch. I say it all the time. You don't have to do everything in the first few weeks of sales! I am a long sales tail author. And I WANT time! That's the whole point!
This is exactly the kind of space we’re hoping to create with Hushmarrow Press. Somewhere between traditional publishing and having to figure out absolutely everything on your own. We’re a new independent press and currently accepting short fiction for our first anthology, so I’m sharing our submission call here in case any writers reading this are looking for another option.
https://hushmarrowpress.substack.com/p/submit-to-hushmarrow-press?r=5691cc&utm_medium=ios
I love this so much! Thank you for sharing!
Lovely advice. From someone who has found querying taxing on my already strained nervous system, I am listening.
I wonder if there are others like me writing upmarket/literary who worry that the indie infrastructure just isn’t there for this type of book.
I’ve been dreaming of forming a cohort of novelists who workshop their books together, develop, edit, design, distribute, and market together (or encourage each other during the query process if trad feels like the most viable route). If that might make the process less lonely.
I’ve also been dreaming of finding new ways to bring legitimacy to these types of books. To get rid of the “if you can’t get a trad deal, your book must not be good” mentality, because that is just not the case, and I think lots of genuinely beautiful books are being put in drawers instead of published because of this.
Hi, Molly! YES TO THE COHORT!! I just wrote about this very thing in another essay! I wrote, and I quote: Pivot to the Collaborative Enterprise Model
Find two or three authors in your exact genre who are also sitting on high-quality, unpublished manuscripts. Instead of self-publishing in total isolation, pool your resources to create a shared boutique imprint. Share the costs of a professional publicist, cross-promote to each other's email lists, and launch your books as a curated seasonal catalog. You get the operational scale of a small traditional house while retaining one hundred percent of your creative ownership.
What to do next: Reach out to your writing group or mutuals on social media who write in your exact sub-genre, whether that is cozy fantasy, psychological thrillers, or dark academia. Form a legal partnership or collective. Together, you can hire one top-tier freelance editor and a single high-end cover designer, split the cost of a comprehensive PR push, and approach book influencers on TikTok and Instagram as a cohesive, curated indie collective rather than a single lonely voice in the wilderness.
Great minds!! I think this makes such incredible sense on every level. This way, you are all in it together, sharing the cost, the gripes, and the process together.
And you are SO right. In my experience, editors are looking for reasons to say no, not yes. It does not mean your book isn't valuable. My dream is to build a publishing company where books are published based on the work--not the follower count, not how busy an editor is, not what's "trending"--but really giving authors a chance who have been turned down at every turn.
I'm rooting for you.
Oh wow! Great minds indeed! That's exactly what I was thinking! I haven't given up on trad just yet -- but the possibilities outside of the system seem exciting. I like your dream a lot :)
Keep me posted and let me know if I can do anything to help you out on your trad pitching journey!
Hi, Rhea!
I've more-or-less given up on my novel, at least until I can figure out what format I should write it in. It's the book that everyone has been telling me I should write, my whole life. 🤔
Meanwhile, I finally encouraged my wife to start writing! That's the exciting news. 😀
She is so smart and creative!
Every time she has "employees" under her, they always regard her highly, as if she were a god. I see it, even if she doesn't. And it's for good reason.
But, for years she hasn't opened up to me about her "deep thoughts." I want in!
Meanwhile, she's "counting the days" until retirement, and I finally had "the talk" with her.
"Are you planning to just sit and watch grass grow?" I asked.
A few days later, she proudly announced she would write a book. It's about trains, of course (her fav theme) but with a twist - she's examining the early days of Central Pacific RR (and the one starting on the west coast, pushing East through the mountains to meet the one going West).
She's focusing on the characters who ripped off the government, and exploited the land & various populations for their own profits.
Anyway, we've been learning about indie publishing.
I'm familiar with graphics, designing a book cover, and I'm also a good editor.
I also know about making a book salable, not just a "good read."
But, here's the problem: we have spent our lives avoiding social media. So, we're just not "hip" to using it for generating excitement and lots of followers, etc.
I REALLY like your ideas! I can see you've been industrious about figuring workarounds.
I'm going to try a in few. I didn't know about the contests you mentioned.
I've sent her a link to this article, I suspect she'll 'scribe to your 'stack (like I did). 😁
👍 Cheers!
What a lovely message! I don’t think you have to be on social media (and I feel like more and more people are going to be finding different places to land, like here, than the usual places). I’d say figure out other places your readers are—in person and online—where you can connect with them. Many people who don’t love social media use ads as their main strategy too. There are so many great ways to connect with readers that have nothing to do with social media! Rooting for you both!
I've just published my first novelette to Amazon KDP yesterday. I agree that you have to be good with technology to self publish, but I disagree that you need capital. I used Google Docs and Kindle Create, then used social media to market it, all free. I'm happy to say that it's had a good start and is selling well so far. I will definitely self publish again in the future.
You can definitely self-publish with very little funds! But if you want to plan more of a “traditional” launch, there are definitely some expenses: dev editing, copy editing, proofing, cover design, digital marketing, etc. But not everyone has to go that route! So glad it’s working well for you.
Yes! I want more writers talking about this. I am right there - in the middle. My first book came out last year (after 12 years of on and off querying). I went traditional with a small press and no agent. Three of my books have placed in contests locally and internationally, so it was not the writing or the concepts that didn't stick. I got lots of lovely rejections on fulls and partials.
The current WIP I am working on is my best work yet. (I still have another year of revisions ahead of me though!) When the time comes I want to be prepared will information on all the options because this book is going to absolutely rock it!
YES! I love this attitude so much. The biggest thing I keep learning and relearning as an author is that we have options! Oh so many options.
Yes! And even friends who have books with ‘the big 5’ are talking with me about this. Erin Dionne is a good resource too. Her kidlit is traditional (and she got the rights back to re-release some books), but she is self-publishing her adult mysteries with a group of friends. That may be another way to offset the cost of self-publishing. Cheers to Options!
Exactly! I LOVE the idea of sharing resources with friends. I'm doing a self-pub collab with another author, and I'm just having so much more fun sharing the load!
I think that’s the direction my critique partners and I will be going g in a few years!
The title of this article sums me up exactly.
SAME.
So grateful for the small presses and university presses publishing literary fiction 🤗
ABSOLUTELY!!!
Very interesting, thank you, this is one of the best summaries I've seen of the current publishing environment.
I've chosen option 3: Build Your Minimum Viable Audience on Substack -- I feel an interactive cooking blog is a great way to get going. I would be most interested to know what you think.
I wrote a scientific book in 2012 on evolution, a genuinely new approach, which I know for a fact is not worth trying to push through the academic system. My day job is professional scientific editor, I've edited about 700 papers for journal publication, so I know all, all about that route.
I spent a year trying to find an agent before a retired literary agent told me, don't waste your time, create some kind of real buzz online and they might be interested. I thought this was excellent advice, it's much more constructive to engage on Substack than to spend hours writing careful emails that never get a reply.
The cookbook is an entirely different venture. I put out a note, "Are you in a liminal space? The Unemployed Cookbook is of you, by you and for you." There's a growing army of us out there, isolated and apprehensive and trying to work out a viable future. In the meantime, you need to eat. So these are ultimate survival skills. Survival is the theme of my latest piece.
https://fredmalherbe.substack.com/p/self-defence-in-the-kitchen
I love this for you!
Thanks so much, I'm placing all my energies here, so I truly appreciate your encouragement. The environment is very tough but that's exactly why I launched The Unemployed Cookbook. Its time has finally come and I don't mean that in a good way.
Thank you for these great ideas! I'm still in the drafting phase for my novel, but trying to best prepare myself for what's ahead. Writing an essay that centers on themes from the story (and gives interested readers more to chew on) sounds incredibly fun.
I'm so glad! Writing essays around a book's themes is one of my favorite things to do. Can't wait to see what you come up with.
Thank you for this post!! it is really speaking to me and where I'm at right now (querying my 4th manuscript, but starting to more seriously consider an indie path)
You are so welcome!!! I think it's great to query and go after your goals, but I always say it's also good to have a deadline and know when to pivot. Either way, I'm rooting for you!
In 2007, at a Slice writing conference in Brooklyn, I listened to one young agent say "if it doesn't move me in 5 pages while riding the F train, I'm not interested." Then later an editor in a publishing house, explained how they choose which books get the most marketing money. Those who get the least "if they don't sell in the time it takes yogurt to go bad then we don't invest more money." I thought "why should I hand over my hard work to them? Still I queried and was declined or ghosted over and over.
In 2015/2016, when there were few resources available, I self-published two novels and a memoir. I was in a high pressure job and couldn't market like I should. Sales were low, but they happened. Ten years went by as I worked on another book. I retired, signed with a small press publisher, and published in 2024. Two months later, the small press sold to a young couple with no experience. My book won 5 awards and was a finalist for 3 more, but sales were low and transparency into what was selling where even lower. So I took the rights back and re-published on my own. The book is doing much better and, in the process, I learned from many authors who had done the same. There are a lot more resources now - Canva, Vellum, Publisher Rocket, etc. I have four novels out, all self-published. Sales wouldn't meet a publishers standards but no one can drop me either. Cost depends on you - what you will do on your own and what/how much advertising you want to do. The nice thing is you can market it and then take a break and then bring it out to a new market months later. You build the car and you drive it - 100%. It's not easy, but the writers I know with trad or small press publishers have to do just as much work marketing and advertising as I do. It's really what makes you happy, what your goals are, and if you think the publisher or agent can do more for you than you can do for yourself.
I couldn't have said this any better! The thing that appeals to me about self-pubbing is that, just like you said, I get to control my marketing efforts, how I launch, when I launch, what I do... and I don't have to meet anyone's standards but my own. The good thing is, I do have a readership. It's just about connecting with them and making sure these books are visible! I'm excited to have such a contrast to what I've done for the last 9 books. Thank you for sharing this story!
Great ideas! I will share this with people I know as really important to consider all the options and not get too down about rejections!!
Yes!!!! We have so many other options when we hear no. I think it's a great opportunity to create something new.
I’m a writer, an artist, I am not built for promotion. I can barely promote my own work here on Substack. Indie publishing is not a magic fix for everyone. The truth is some of us either will finally be accepted by traditional publishing, or our work will never extend beyond here.