It’s just after 5 AM, and I’m supposed to be in bed. Hell, truth be told, I shouldn’t be writing because I was supposed to go on vacation. That promise lasted all of one day, and then I spent most of today working through a proof of a novella before sending it off for a professional’s opinion. (Not to be confused with submitting it for publication. I don’t think it’s ready for that stage yet.) I haven’t had a real break since last August, when I went to Amsterdam for a week, and there I kept a travel journal, writing by hand in a Moleskin.
After I got done with that proofing project tonight, I went around reading music blogs, and the message coming out of this industry is “don’t trust the corporate hype.” Which on a certain level makes me say “Amen.” On the level of a music fan, I appreciate a raw talent over some auto-tuned, perfectly groomed corporate “package” band.
But as an indie writer, I wonder if it will ever come time for people to embrace a similar message about written fiction. Some people argue that there’s a “time factor” in that you consume music far faster than you do fiction. I don’t know if I understand that logic. You pay 0.99 cents for a song that lasts 3 minutes, but you won’t pay the same price for a book that takes 3 hours to read? You’ll pay $9.99 for a 45-minute album after sampling one song, but $4.99 for a eight-hour book from an unknown author is too much, even if 25% (two hours) of the book is available as a free preview?
Seeing weird logic about value like this, I wonder: will it ever be safe for someone like me to promote fiction with a message similar to the kind used by musicians? Right now, I know it’s not.
People get this impression that going the self-published route means that writers are “being lazy,” or that we’re somehow cheating readers and other writers by not going through the system of checks and balances that make up proper submissions. But some of us are not interested in competing for a mainstream market share to begin with, and we work every bit as hard on our stuff as the writers who work with the publishers. Speaking for myself, I’ve spent a lot of time on editing and proofing my e-books, and certainly way more time than a musician will spend recording and editing a song track. But the musician gets to charge more for his work in relation to the effort that he or she puts into it.
Neither path in fiction publishing is easy. Submissions with publishers means letting go of creative control over the cover and blurb, but the bulk of the marketing still falls on the writer. The bulk of the editing still falls on the writer too. They have to polish a story before it goes in, and still deal with multiple rewrites, revisions, and edits. Then there’s final proofing and letter writing to ask reviewers to check the title out.
The writer who works with a publisher gets to wield a huge weapon in the sales department: legitimacy. They can write whole blog posts about how I’m a shitty, lazy motherfucker, and no one should even look at me, and no one bats an eyelash for all that negativity. What’s more I can’t fire back a response without fulfilling half a dozen negative stereotypes. I have to smile and take the bashing silently, and the publishers give the writer that weapon and encourage them to use it.
So what do I get to use to level the play field? Nothing. Nothing works with readers to get them over that air of legitimacy. Not free samples, not good looking covers, and not favorable reviews.
I may bust my ass all week, all month, and all year, but my big release blog party won’t have major reviewers adding me to their TBR pile. In fact, I’m sure to be pushed to the bottom of most TBR piles because I don’t have any name power or clout with reviewers. I can’t hold a contest to give my print books away, because nobody cares if they get my books for free or not. My e-book sales may be doing good, but my print sales were so bad last year, I’m taking a loss by printing up my next Wendy Stoffel novel. I still have to do it, because otherwise, there’s another stereotype I’m fulfilling, that I’m too cheap to risk an investment in print. And besides, now that I’ve bought a block of ISBN numbers under a company name, I have to use them even if I don’t expect any sales.
When I can get reviews, most of them are good. People describe my stuff as being different, or fresh or unique. There, I can bask in the glow for a few days and remind myself that someone, somewhere knows my stuff isn’t pure shite. But those reviews are never followed by a flood of new buyers, even if and when I can stagger multiple reviews and interviews in the same month.
So yeah, this lack of faith from readers is hard to overcome, and I can’t see how to move past it. I can’t use hype, since that doesn’t work anyway. I can’t use reviews since I don’t get enough of them, and I never get reviews from the right people.
Since I’m trying to figure out how to get past this, I still find myself reading blog posts about online marketing, but most of this “advice” is either written to market POD publishing, or it’s written by a writer who’s selling a marketing book.
Of course there’s advice from J.A. Konrath, whose indie e-book sales can only be called phenomenal. But his success comes from already having sold work internationally with the mass market publishers. Now people know his name, know what his writing is like, and know that he is worth taking a risk on.
I’m not sure how an alternative writer like me gets to that point. I’m still submitting my stuff, and still not getting back replies, not even form letter rejections. Maybe I have a venue to bypass the so-called gatekeepers by working online, but even with me giving away my fiction in huge numbers (10,000 downloads for one title is nothing to sneeze at) the public reaction is decidedly cool.
So, offering free or low-priced fiction isn’t the answer. Working with a shareware model isn’t leading to more sales, or to more reviews. Honest reviews from regular folks aren’t working either, and using hype isn’t going to win new readers or reviewers over to my side. Being real may work for musicians, but it doesn’t seem to be working to sell books, even when those books are the same $0.99 cent price as a single song.
So what’s the answer? How does someone like me use online tools to make J.A. Konrath-sized sales figures? How do I bypass the system when the system is so deeply ingrained in reader’s minds as the only right way to buy fiction? And how do I brand myself honestly as a hard working writer without dissing the companies and other writers?
I don’t know. Which is why I still maintain my claim to fame as the world’s lousiest marketer. But I’ll let you in on a secret. I can’t wait for the day when I have to give up that title.
I am a bisexual transsexual with bigender tendencies, a former resident of Texas, but now live in Milan with my husband. I used to write in a variety of genres and published my work through 
IMO, the big difference between the two mediums is, you put nothing into listening to music (or, conversely, watching a movie). All the work is done for you. Whereas, you have to work to get the story out of a book by actually investing reading time into it. And most books don’t fly by in just 90 minutes–another factor, because people have less time to spend on entertainment. Anyway, that’s the reason I believe writing has become simpler and simpler over the decades–the new Hemingway style, which is more or less See Jane run. It’s just far easier for the vast majority of consumers to read a romance novel or the latest LKH than to take a chance on a new author who put, yanno, actual thought processes behind the story.
I can’t really accept that. People have aweird sense of value these days. 90 minutes of shit writing and pew-pew special effect costs them $11 a person. (Before snacks and not including taxes) Is reading really so much work that people are now incapable of using their imagination? is an eight hour print book with good writing for $11 a “lousy deal,” while a shitty 90 minute movie for the same price is a “great value?”
I’m a major music fan. I can listen to music all day long, and every trip to the store ends at the music section to pick through new CDs for artists I haven’t heard before (both new and old). But when I’m listening to music, I write, or I read. It’s a passive activity that doesn’t require my full attention. Am I unique in this? Do other people need to devote their full mental reserves to listening to music, so that reading is impossible?
I guess I’m just feeling frustrated because in spite of people saying they want cheaper entertainment that lasts longer, they’re still opting to pay more for less.