on Mar 19th, 2010I knew him when…
One of the most exciting, and most pleasant, parts of writing is celebrating the success of fellow scribes. Lamentably, I’ve yet to break into the big time (or small time), but I have friends who now appear on the shelves of Barnes & Noble, Borders, Amazon, and our local libraries. Knowing just how much work went into that accomplishment makes it all the more worthy of celebration.
Yesterday I opened an email from a writer – Peter Hoffman – I met a couple of years ago at the NYC Pitch & Shop. Like me, Peter had a completed manuscript but was having no luck finding an agent. After working with an independent editor, it appears he decided to self-publish, and his book Carnal Weapon is now out. A pathologist by trade, Peter has taken his protagonist is a totally different direction — something many of us think about doing with our own lives after stuffing one more rejection into the box we’ve set aside for that purpose.
I have to admit that I’ve considered the self-publishing route myself, but have been advised that it is the KOD (kiss of death) if you ever want to be taken seriously by the “legitimate” press. Others say “go for it” and do whatever you can to get your manuscript out there. I admire Peter’s confidence in his writing to go it alone — not sure I’d have the guts to do it myself. Self-publishing is one of those very personal decisions most writers face — like whether to write in first person or third — which means considering the pros and cons.
Let’s look at the pros:
- You have total control:. Every decision – right or wrong – is yours, from the look and feel of the book, how it is marketed, whether to reprint or sell to foreign markets or a movie studio…. We should be so lucky!
- Marketing: If you’re blessed to have a niche market, then why not. If you write about low carb, high fiber diets for international travelers, you may find such a market. Or, if you wrote a family or town history, you can probably sell out a very small print run. Go for it.
- Time: If you self-publish, you can get your book out much more quickly. (See below for the down side of time).
- Self-Esteem: If you want to see your name on a book jacket, and you’re already spend years a manuscript out to innumerable agents/publishers, getting rejection after rejection, well then it might just make you feel good. And there’s nothing wrong with feeling good.
- Money: When a book is sold traditionally, you can expect to receive about 10% of the selling price; if you self-publish, you can get 40-60% of the selling price. That’s the up side financially, but keep reading — remember someone has to actually pay for that print run.
Now on to the con side. If you decided to self publish, you’re on your own. LIterally.
1. You have total responsibility: A traditional publishing house already has a staff of editors, layout people, printers, packagers, sales people, distributors, lawyers, accountants, publicists, artists, and a whole slew of others. If you self publish, you have two options: do it yourself or hire someone who can. That can add up to a tidy sum unless you have some very talented friends and/or in-laws.
2. Marketing: Have you looked at all the books vying for shelf space in book stores? And the price of a paperback these days? Readers are going to think twice before plunking down $8.95 for an author they’re never heard of before. How are you going to convince a reader to buy your book instead of another book just like it?
3. Time: You’ve finished writing your book, and that’s a good thing, because now you have to oversee everything else from production, to distribution, to publicity. Oh, and potentially returns, but we won’ dwell on that. The first book tour is going to be a blast, the thirty-seventh, probably less amusing.
4. Self-Esteem: Let’s be honest, there is a prejudice against self-publishing. A chauvinism held not only by agents and publishers, but by many readers, and even some other writers. It your book looks professional and sells well, you will be able to overcome this bump in the road, but it’s something to keep in mind.
5. Money: Remember that bigger share of the pot you’re getting because you’re cutting out the middleman? Well, you have to spend money before you get anything. And there is no guarantee that you will ever get a return on your investment. All the risks are yours.
Now that I’ve thoroughly depressed you, let me list just a couple of authors who began their careers by self publishing: Charles Dickens, William Blake, Virginia Woolf, Walt Whitman, William Morris, and James Joyce.and Margaret Atwood, Stephen Crane, E. E. Cummings, Deepak Chopra, Benjamin Franklin, Zane Grey, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, Thomas Paine, Edgar Allan Poe, Ezra Pound, Carl Sandburg, George Bernard Shaw, Upton Sinclair, Gertrude Stein, Henry David Thoreau, and Mark Twain. And, of course, my friend, Peter Hoffman.
So, for the moment, I’m not even considering self publishing. I’m just stocking up on chocolate (the universal cure all), a larger rejection box, and a friends who will help me weather the storm.
BTW, If you’re interested, the Kirkus Review of Carnal Weapon is below:
A femme fatale lures a naïve lawyer into a stock swindle in this jaunty Eisenhower-era caper.
As a hotshot young Wall Street mergers-and-acquisitions lawyer with a lovely fiancée, Jack Preston is living the American Dream circa 1954. Alas, something is missing from his life—namely sex. The 27-year-old is still a virgin, and he can’t muster much heat for his frigid bride-to-be, who makes it clear he’ll get no more than a kiss on the cheek until their wedding day, which is a year away. Enter bombshell Alice Mercer, who wears tight sweaters and clingy skirts, has a passion for boxing and baseball, and tears Jack’sclothes off whenever they’re alone. Jack never thinks to question her sexual ferocity, even when she ties him up, subjects him to exquisite erotic torments and forces him to blurt out the confidential details of the corporate mergers he’s working on as the price of relief. It’s only after federal investigators probing stock manipulations surrounding said mergers charge him with insider trading that Jack realizes he’s been bamboozled by a woman whose murky past connects her to industrial espionage, Vietnamese communists and the brothels of Hanoi. Hoffman’s fizzy plot, which culminates in a crackerjack courtroom duel, makes no more sense than is strictly necessary, but the novel works as a canny, exuberant homage to the ’50s. The characters are energized by a new economy of easy affluence, electronics and advertising (financier Joseph P. Kennedy plays an odd but appropriate presiding role), and they navigate a cultural sea change as propriety and sexual repression give way to a tantalizing new ethos of sexual fulfillment. Hoffman’s overripe sex scenes—“place mylips where it pleases you most, and I will worship you there”—make one long for a bit more sexual repression, but otherwise the well-tuned prose makes Jack’s wising-up an enjoyable romp.
A funny, energetic tale about the war between primness and hedonism.