Yesterday I told a friend, a fellow writer, that I am giving serious thought to self-publishing my recently completed novel. She gave me a look of intense concern, and went on to tell me that I have a “track record,” and that she is sure I can get my novel published traditionally, to “not give up.” What I read in my friend’s concern and comments was a belief that traditional publishing is superior to self-publishing. A more severe, but I do not feel any less true, interpretation is that self-publishing is for losers and traditional publishing is for winners. Neither is true. The fact is there are good novels and crappy novels published under both umbrellas, as well as rich writers and poor writers.
Besides, my decision to take a different track does not mean that I am giving up. I have never given up. But I am thinking that I need a new experience in the publishing of a book. The fact is I dread traditional publishing. In the past I have felt that I am either not being groomed for success, or being groomed for success, and that these two extremes are the only options. Either way I am told that I need to produce a book every eighteen months, or fewer (to continue the success or as an example of why success has eluded me).
I don’t respond well to a crack-the-whip literary world. And I know that about myself. So the question is, how do I create an experience that best supports my needs as a writer?
Indie publishing can be a wonderful thing for the right writer at the right time. And if you’d asked me five years ago I would have turned up my nose at the thought. Times change. Different strokes for different folks is my current philosophy.
I agree Beth. Lots of authors who have been traditionally published are moving toward indie publishing (Don’t you love that phrase – indie publishing?) I hear that traditional publishing houses are in trouble these days. I wonder if it has to do with the fact that so many of them are now owned by so few corporations? It seems that literature is measured mostly by a bottom line, and that editors, no matter if they wanted to, aren’t able to nurture a writer’s career as they once did. I wonder what literary legacy we’ll be leaving behind from these times.