All I seem to be able to think about at the moment is the world of publishing; which, considering I haven’t written anything yet, is a bit odd. Everything I’ve read recently has been about the pros and cons of self-publishing and so as a budding writer I thought I’d discuss it myself in this blog.
Every writer dreams of getting published and the majority of us would love to get an agent, who then gets our novel picked up by a publishing house and tells us to relax whilst they’ll do all the work. I know I’d love to find an agent who had that much faith that they could sell my work, but in reality that’s unlikely to happen. In October 2011 I attended a talk by “And this is True” author Emily Mackie and she discussed with us some of her concerns over getting published. Obviously Mackie was thrilled, but she admitted that the title had been chosen by someone else, as had the blurb on the back, and she didn’t like either of them. This worried me. Though I’d love to get published, the idea of you not liking a part of your novel seems alien to me; I suppose it all comes down to how much you trust your publishing team. I regularly post on writing forums and something that shocks me is the amount of people who are lucky enough to get signed by small independent publishing houses and only realise afterwards that there are major problems with their contract, such as low royalties or their novel will being in e-book form when they wanted paper. I can only assume that these people were so desperate to get published that they accepted the first offer they were given without even reading the contract.
Some of the novels only published as e-books, in my experience, aren’t ready to be published. I’m not saying they’re not great stories, but some of them feel like the writing could be more experienced and they could do with another shot of editing or two. I suppose that’s one of the big problems with self publishing; how do you know when your work is ready to be published? If it were me I would edit it several times, pass it on to a fellow writer to edit and then maybe ask a few friends and writers to read the final product, and if they all agreed it was ready I’d self publish it. Sounds simple, but it’s not. When your family /friends critique your work they’re always going to be kinder than a fellow writer, plus they won’t necessarily pick up technical faults with your writing. But is sending it to fellow writers any better? It depends. It would make more sense to send it to a writer who writes the same genre as you but then how do you know they won’t unconsciously view your work as a threat and advise you badly because of this. When self publishing there isn’t a way to guarantee your editing and feedback won’t be biased, whereas with traditional publishing the editors and the publishing teams job is to sell your work, so you know they have your best interests at heart.
So which way is for me? When I have completed my first novel, whatever it will be, I’ll try to get published the traditional way, but if it doesn’t work? Well I’ll rethink things and if I truly believe the novel is good enough to be published, I’ll try self publishing. I’ll self-promote and do whatever it takes, and then when I finish my second novel I’ll start the cycle all over again.
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