Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker: Self Or Not?

by | August 11, 2013 | Confessions of a Literary Streetwalker | 4 comments

Before I begin, a bit of disclosure: While the following has
been written in an attempt to be professionally and personally non-biased I am
an Associate Publisher for Renaissance E Books. 

Now, with that out of the way…

So, should you stay with the traditional model of working
with a publisher or go the self-publishing route?

I’d be lying if I said I haven’t been thinking – a lot — about
this.  The arguments for stepping
out on your own are certainly alluring, to put it mildly: being able to keep
every dime you make – instead of being paid a royalty – and having total and
complete control of your work being the big two.  

But after putting on my thinking cap – ponder, ponder, ponder — I’ve come to a few conclusions that are
going to keep me and my work with publishers for quite some time.

As always, take what I’m going to say there with a hefty
dose of sodium chloride: what works for
me … well, works for me and maybe not you.

Being on both sides
of the publishing fence – as a writer, editor, and now publisher (even as a
Associate Publisher) — has given me a pretty unique view of the world of not
just writing books, working to get them out into the world, but also a pretty good
glimpse at the clockwork mechanisms than run the whole shebang.  

For example, there’s been a long tradition of writers if not
actively hating then loudly grumbling about their publishers.  You name it and writers will bitch
about it: the covers, the publicity (or lack of), royalties … ad
infinitum.  Okay, I have to admit
more than a few grouches have been mine but with (and I really hate to say
this) age has come a change in my perspective.  No, I don’t think publishers should be
given carte blanch to do with as they
please and, absolutely, I think that writers should always have the freedom to
speak up if things are not to their liking, but that also doesn’t mean that
publisher’s are hand-wringing villains cackling at taking advantage of poor,
unfortunate authors.

It took finding a good publisher to change my mind … that
and seeing the business from the other side.  While there are a lot of things that separate a good
publisher from a poor one the most important one is that a good – and maybe
even great – publisher understands the business.  

Case in point: authors love to bitch about their covers –
but a publisher that takes the time to look at what is selling, what isn’t
selling, what distributors will and won’t accept, and creates a cover
accordingly is actually doing the author a service.  Yes, the cover may not be an accurate scene from the book,
but it – if it works — should tease and tantalize enough to get people to buy
it.  By the way, since this is
supposed to be about publisher versus self-publishing keep in mind that you
would not know what sells and what doesn’t – by the way, the amazon best
sellers list is not a good indication – and so will be operating pretty much in
the dark.  

Authors often work from ego – and there is nothing wrong
with that – but far too often what they want, and what will actually sell, are
polar opposites.  They want to see
their work like books they admire … but they also may be completely ignorant
of the fact that while those books look nice they simply don’t leap off the
shelves. 

Being in the trenches of publishing, looking at the numbers
myself, is very sobering.  Just
take social networking.  For people
in self-publishing it’s the end-all, be-all — you can’t succeed, they say,
without it.  But while exposure is
important, many of your FaceBook friends will not buy your book.  The people who will buy your book are
looking for erotica they will enjoy – and if your cover, your marketing, your whatever,
doesn’t speak their language then they simply won’t cough up the bucks.  It’s a sobering though that many
bestselling erotica books are written by authors who don’t play the social
networking game … at all.

Yes, when you self publish you have complete and total
control – but that also means you have no access to a publisher’s experience:
you will have to do everything from scratch, from learning how to get your book
on amazon, iTunes, etc. to dealing with cover art specs and ebook
formatting.  Sure, when you
self-publish you keep every dime – but you could very well spend it and more in
time doing what a publisher does.

And marketing … I totally agree that publishers should do
more of it, but publishers have never been good at that, even before the ebook
revolution.  But even a little
publicity from a publisher can work wonders: many authors are discovered not
via advertising or marketing but because their book was put out by a publisher whose
catalog had a best seller in it.

If you self-publish then you are a single voice yelling as
loud as you can – and these days there are a lot of single voices yelling as
loud as they can – and against this din a lot of readers, and reviewers, are
turning a bit deaf.  It may be hard
to hear but being with a publisher still carries a lot of weight when it comes
to getting noticed.  

Sure, if you’re a huge author then going the
self-publishing route may make a lot of sense, but think of it this way: huge
or not, with a publisher your mailing list, fans, and miscellaneous contacts will
not be the only way people will hear about you and your book – and the cost of
getting more would probably be the same as the bucks a publisher would take.  

In the end, though, the decision is yours.  If I could leave you with anything,
though, is that while there are many publishers out there worthy of scorn there
actually are many that not only know what they are doing – though experience
and observation – and who can do a lot for you.  Often their advice may be hard to take, but if you trust
them they can be a great help – and perhaps the difference between writing a
book that doesn’t sell … and one that does.

M. Christian

Calling M.Christian versatile is a tremendous understatement.
Extensively published in science fiction, fantasy, horror, thrillers, and even non-fiction, it is in erotica that M.Christian has become an acknowledged master, with stories in such anthologies as Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Bisexual Erotica, Best Fetish Erotica, and in fact too many anthologies, magazines, and sites to name. In erotica, M.Christian is known and respected not just for his passion on the page but also his staggering imagination and chameleonic ability to successfully and convincingly write for any and all orientations.

But M.Christian has other tricks up his literary sleeve: in addition to writing, he is a prolific and respected anthologist, having edited 25 anthologies to date including the Best S/M Erotica series; Pirate Booty; My Love For All That Is Bizarre: Sherlock Holmes Erotica; The Burning Pen; The Mammoth Book of Future Cops, and The Mammoth Book of Tales of the Road (with Maxim Jakubowksi); Confessions, Garden of Perverse, and Amazons (with Sage Vivant), and many more.

M.Christian's short fiction has been collected into many bestselling books in a wide variety of genres, including the Lambda Award finalist Dirty Words and other queer collections like Filthy Boys, and BodyWork. He also has collections of non-fiction (Welcome to Weirdsville, Pornotopia, and How To Write And Sell Erotica); science fiction, fantasy and horror (Love Without Gun Control); and erotic
science fiction including Rude Mechanicals, Technorotica, Better Than The Real Thing, and the acclaimed Bachelor Machine.

As a novelist, M.Christian has shown his monumental versatility with books such as the queer vamp novels Running Dry and The Very Bloody Marys; the erotic romance Brushes; the science fiction erotic novel Painted Doll; and the rather controversial gay horror/thrillers Finger's Breadth and Me2.

M.Christian is also the Associate Publisher for Renaissance eBooks, where he strives to be the publisher he'd want to have as a writer, and to help bring quality books (erotica, noir, science fiction, and more) and authors out into the world.

4 Comments

  1. vbonnaire

    <3!

  2. Skye Warren

    I'm seeing some claims here that aren't backed up. A few of them, but I'll focus on the idea that I, an author, can't figure out what types of covers sell well. I admit that for a debut author, it can be overwhelming. This person may have some idea of what they like (which a good publisher will also take into account) but they won't have cold hard data backing up its salability. However, once an author has a solid backlist, they DO have that data. They also have something even better: the ability to test new covers.

    While publishers could test covers, they don't. Different books aren't really comparable. How many books have gotten new covers six months, a year after release? In particular, how many books that aren't selling well with publishers get new covers? Hah! If a book tanks, they consider it a loss and move on. The only publisher I know of who's been pretty regularly testing new cover styles is Entangled, so brava for them (and it pays off in more ways than one, more sales and a higher influx of quality submissions, AKA everyone's subbing there!).

    But the bottom line is this: when my new books come out, they now sell more than the *average* release from any digital publisher. Period. How do I know this? Simple. I look at the Amazon ranks. While they aren't perfect indicators of the number of books sold, they are perfect indicators of relative sales. Meaning, if mine is at rank 1000, it's selling quite a bit more than the new release XYZ from digital publisher debuting at 40,000. So… yeah, I think I can figure out which covers sell. The numbers prove that.

    By the way, I'm aware that a lot of things factor into sales numbers–primarily, the book itself! However, I think it's fair to presume that the books coming out of these publishers qualify as "pretty good" or they shouldn't been accepted, right? And I'm not just referring to teeny tiny niche publishers, but all the big digital publishing dogs, even branches of the Big 5.

    Publishers *have* a lot of data and the ability to use it. But they don't. That's what kills me about the situation. I wish publishers were more successful. I wish they cared enough to be. In fact, I'm still publishing with them under a different pen name, so I have a vested interest in them doing so! But I don't see that happening, and it's a fundamental logical flaw in this article, the idea that they could do better, so they will. In practice… well, they don't.

  3. vbonnaire

    Skye, gorgeous design on your site and your covers…

  4. Lisabet Sarai

    To follow up on Skye's comments – a lot of publishing companies these days are run by amateurs. I'm sorry, but that is a fact. The mechanics of publishing have become so much easier, and the numbers about ebook sales are so amazing, that everyone and his brother thinks he can create a website, start taking submissions, and make big bucks. It doesn't work that way, though.

    The two publishers I work with at the moment are both very proactive about gathering data and trying to adjust sales and promotion strategies to fit the latest Amazon algorithms and genre fads. My past experience suggests, though, that this is rare.

    I'm not saying that self-publishing is a bad route for some authors, or for some books. It's especially relevant if you have book that really doesn't fit into the genre niches publishers love. It's great for risky content.

    As for me, though, I'm delighted to pay part of my take to a publisher who is serious about quality, marketing and business. That allows me to devote more of my scarce time to the process of writing.

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