Self-Publishing might be for failures and wimps. I won't deny it. I recently went this route for many reasons, though.
I did write and send out a dozen query letters. In the industry, a dozen is not very many. Rejections were form letters, one even printed and cut out into a four inch strip as though I didn't even deserve a whole piece of paper. It's harsh, but I was prepared so it didn't hurt. I did not stop querying because it broke me. I was just bored by the process and probably biased by the truths I had learned. Look at the author bio of most new authors (not new books from authors who have been writing for decades. Only brand new first-time authors.) The majority previously wrote for Vanity Fair, Oprah, HuffPost or are viral bloggers. I don't live in New York and have no desire to do so. My area of expertise is History, not fashion or (obviously) blogging. I realize that there are a million and one places out there telling you to get published in a literary magazine to launch yourself, but everyone has their strengths and their weaknesses and writing for someone else bores me.
So I have always written stories I want to read.
Believe me, I spend endless hours between thoughts wasting time reading about how to be a better writer, how to get published, what experiences others have had, or actually writing in my own blog (which is what I am doing right now. Wasting time between thoughts.) Things I have learned that are more or less discouraging:
1. People will tell you they didn't know anyone in the industry before they got involved. Often, upon closer examination, I will find that they forgot to credit a link where credit was due. In other cases, they won a contest. While that is completely awesome for them, I have to ask myself "what about the person who came in second?" You know, hundreds of entries and you judge them all and it's like modern game shows. They weed down the hundreds to ten good ones, like, say, Skin Wars or American Idol. Now they look at them again and again and narrow it down to, probably, three. Have you ever seen the last episode of these shows? (I have seen Skin Wars and Project Runway final eps. I assume Idol and others are the same.) You're watching and thinking these three are absolutely amazing! You hear the judges discuss for a moment and you think "yeah, I can see that, but really it's such a minor thing." In more than one case, it came down to the judges personal bias. You see the flaw they talk about, but you also see a flaw in the piece that won the contest and though it may have been discussed off camera, you realize there can only be one winner even if the three finalists were equal.
Now, I'm not saying I'd even be second, but I have full faith that my stories would not be in the first rounds of cuts. I have learned so much, I reread and edit myself to death, I take 100% of the responsibility of researching every tiny thing and try to make each page keep you wondering what's next. If I bore myself when I'm rereading, I rework or cut out what I can.
When I read other authors, I tend to see it from a writer's perspective. I find so many best selling authors who are boring or have plot holes. I tell others my frustration and while they see those things, they usually are capable of overlooking them. I am not. I see it because I use it to make myself better than I was yesterday. I practice. I put in so much time and energy, it overwhelms me a lot of the time.
I don't think I suck. I just don't think I'm going to be winning any contests anytime soon.
2. Yet I persist. I learn that people who try to publish stories with LGBT? etc characters are sometimes told to remove the character. I learn that the publishers looking for those characters want a story centered on their lives, crises, and written for a purpose.
Some of the characters in my head tell me their orientation, but it is only an aspect of who they are. Exploring those things ad nauseum is for someone else. I won't "out" a very significant person in my life, but when he said he was bi, my response was "I know." Because it was obvious to me, but didn't change how I felt about him in the least. Now it sounds like I just know the one person, but frankly we all know lots of people who are living alternate lifestyles and usually my answer is "Oh," because, like, what do I care? I like you because of who you are. The news doesn't change that for me. I don't set up people on dates so it's not really information that will change how we interact. Now it sounds like I'm trying to be all open minded and accepting and to prove it to you. It's not that, either. It's just that in my writing, you might see those characters, but it's because that's who they are and I won't change that for a publisher. I can't make them more or less of who they are to fit a standard.
But the orientation is just an example. My characters sometimes swear a lot. Some of them smoke more than they should. The stories may relate to what's out there, but is told differently. I like to read things that don't fit a formula, but agents and publishers want to sell A LOT of books so they are LOOKING for the formula. If a great idea doesn't fit the formula, they edit until it does. Yes, we think we are reading things that are unique all the time, but I find that unless the person has MAJOR credentials for the unique already built in (Quentin Tarantino) there are definitely codes that new authors follow.
I know the rules. I just choose to break them. (Variations of this quote are credited to the Dalai Lama and Pablo Picasso, but may have come from this quote: "Learn the rules before you break them." from The Bookman; a magazine from the early part of the 20th century.)
3. I learn that people don't read like they used to. Why should they? We have a steady stream of games, Facebook, movies, and more to divide our time. It has finally become acceptable to binge watch television and play endless hours of video games. Why on earth would people want to (gasp) read!? Don't care. I still read. I still write. I cannot stop. When I do, I feel dead inside. Who wants that?
Look, the point is that I *know* people don't think much of me because I self-published. I *know* that my friends are supportive because they are nice, but deep down they are thinking I'm not a "real" author. I *know* it's a cop out and I'll never be a best seller. Don't point out to me that the Fifty Shades lady defied the odds. I also know that the majority of self published is garbage, but I've also found a lot of amazing works out there! You might be surprised if you took a chance. They might have a typo or two (which I have found more often in large publishing house releases lately, as well. WTF is up with that?!) more than what you normally see, but I have also read really good, really unique stories.
And I hope that mine can live up to the top end of self-published works. That's all I really ask.
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