Am I glad Resurgence was rejected by those 5 agents in 2006.
It lacked quality, my Auros fantasy world wasn’t mature enough, and I am forever grateful I was able to go back and change story details in it.
But now I’m at a point where I have to get Resurgence published so that readers (other than a few first readers) can enjoy it as much as I loved writing it (and the books that come after).
Which brings me to another reason I’m glad it got rejected.
It allows me to self-publish Resurgence and my other completed books almost as easily as I created this website.
I won’t go into the pros and cons of traditional publishing compared to self-publishing. There are plenty of sites that provide enough information that helps writers make that decision. What I will go into is why I, personally, decided to self-publish.
Traditional publishing is long and tedious
Anyone who has done any research into what it takes to publish probably already knows that most publishing houses don’t accept unsolicited submissions. They expect the author to use an agent (yes, exceptions do exist).
That means spending time looking for agents who specialize in my genre. I did that in 2006. Just finding the agents took a lot of time, not to mention the time it took to personalize each submission based on the agent’s guidelines. I only sent to 5 agents.
And then waiting for a response depending on how long the agent said it will take, if they send a rejection at all.
Let’s say an agent was interested. They can still reject me after they read the completed manuscript.
So more time elapses as they ask for and read the manuscript.
Let’s say luck strikes again and they want to have me as a client. They now turn around and shop my project around. Oh wait, they don’t. I need to sign a contract with the agent first. And before they send my manuscript out, they will likely ask me to make revisions.
If I’m lucky, after that, the agent finds a home for my book with some publisher who hasn’t just signed an author with a similar project as mine. But how long will that take? Certainly months, probably years, have gone by already.
And no reader has seen it yet.
So I land a publisher and sign a publishing contract.
It’s the second contract I would have to sign. To protect my rights, feel like I should take a few courses in contract reading, or at the very least, spend hours doing research online to avoid pitfalls, and maybe hire a lawyer to look it over. Hours better spend writing, money better spent elsewhere.
My book isn’t out yet. How long has passed since I submitted my manuscript? A year or two by now? Probably longer.
There’s more.
If I get an advance, great, but it will be all I see for a long time. It takes book sales to pay that advance back. And it’s not even out yet.
So now comes the back and forth with the editor, the copy-editor, maybe the book designer, and who knows what else has to happen before my cherished story makes it into readers’ hands.
I think I’ve made my point.
Traditional publishing takes time, a lot of time. I’m not willing to let that much time pass. I am glad I stopped sending submissions to agents after 5.
Traditional publishers don’t like eBooks
Many traditionally published authors have spoken out against publishers who don’t embrace the digital age. I’m not even going to quote any of them. A simple online search will get you plenty of hits on this subject.
Instead, I’ll speak of my experience, but this time, as a reader.
It was only a few years ago that I bought a Kindle. It was more a question of saving physical space and it has the added benefit of being good for the environment. Since getting it, I learned to appreciate it and I prefer to read with it.
Traditional publishers don’t like that. It’s clear they push the paper version of a book more than the electronic version. I read a lot less now because whatever time I spend reading, I can’t spend writing, so I tend to stick to only a few authors.
And like I used to do for physical books, I wait until the price of the eBook goes down.
Except it doesn’t. It’s actually worse than that. When the paperback version comes out, it is often less expensive than the eBook version. And bookstores often have sales on books.
What? I already invested in a Kindle but if I want the book at the same time as I would have gotten the paper version, it will cost me more? A digital book costs very little to print and ship, and yet I have to pay more? Really?
Are you kidding me?
One author I love often puts his eBook on sale for a day a few months after the hardcover book comes out, at a price less than the paperback would be (a true bargain). What I started doing is putting the books I want in my Amazon wish list and I check the price of the books I want every day.
I kid you not, I check every night. And it paid off.
That first author has even put some of his back list on sale. I actually replaced about ten or so of his paperbacks with the electronic version. I’m waiting for six of his series to be on sale.
But another author I like who published a hardcover almost a year ago has a paperback version at $13.50 while the eBook version is $15.99. Well, he and his publisher will wait to get my sale until that eBook version goes down, or I’ll find a new author to read. I considered buying his back list as eBooks when one I own and reread fell to pieces but it cost the same as what I probably paid years ago when I first bought the paper version.
Traditional publishers are losing my sales. And they’re ticking me off while doing it. And who suffers? The author more than the publisher. But if I cave because the author is not at fault, then the publishers won’t learn.
If the eBook versions were reasonably priced, there would probably be a lot less cases of people getting a pirated electronic version of a book. Publishers create the problem they complain about. And I also find it’s harder to share my eBooks with my family compared to passing around the paper version.
Publishers are also losing volume sales. They seem to think that selling less books at a higher price is better than selling more books at a lower price. The first author I mentioned? He got double sales because I bought as electronic versions books I already had in a paper version.
Go the traditional publishing route? Why would I want to do this to myself and my readers?
Not if there’s a faster and easier way to get my book into my readers hands.
Traditional publishers still expect you to market yourself
There are exceptions, of course, but most unknown writers without a following, will have to market themselves regardless of the route they take. Sure, there is likely space for an author bio on the publisher’s site but how many readers actually look for books and information about an author on a publisher site?
A publisher will rarely help you become known. So I would get little benefit in that regards from a publisher.
Yet one more reason I decided to self-publish.
A higher percentage of book sales goes to the author by self-publishing
When it comes down to it, in the traditional route, from the time my book would leave my hands and get into readers hands, it would pass through a lot of hands. Those hands take their cut out of each sale I would make, leaving me very little in the end. There are variations, of course, depending on your publishing contract but for most authors, that's the reality.
I’m not interested.
Self-publishing is right for me
I prefer investing my time and a bit of money in myself to get published than giving away, forever, a big portion of each book sale to others. Not when there are better options for me out there.
I’m not a literary writer. I’m not trying to become the next J. K. Rowling or a Tolkien. I’m not looking to qualify for some kind of writing award. I write because I love the stories I’m telling and I want others to enjoy those stories too. I’ll be happy if my readers are happy. At least they will get to read my stories much sooner if I stay away from traditional publishers, even if it means it might be more effort on my part to make it happen.
But then, is it really more effort? After all, I don’t have to spend hours preparing personalized submissions to agents (and agonizing over what to write), nor hours doing revisions to meet an editor’s idea of what should be fixed in the story (and maybe the agent too). I don’t have to stress for months and years waiting to see my book in physical or digital print.
So I decided to self-publish.
There are different ways of doing that and that’s a topic for later.
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