The Publishing Failure Post
Mar. 19th, 2019 11:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thesnytheSo what happened was my series bombed like fuckin' WHOA. Like, my agent dropped me a note before publication of the third book to say, hey, no bookstores are ordering this damn thing, so Roc isn't going to print a physical copy at all. As for them picking up a fourth book: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Ha.
Following that, a highly inconvenient thing happened which is that my agent retired from agenting. That left (leaves) me bereft of an agent and coming off a series for which "tanked" is a grotesque understatement as a description of sales performance.
I am now authorial nuclear waste. Radioactive.
My options at this point would seem to be one of the following:
1. Continue to pursue traditional publishing, recognizing that this will likely mean taking a pen name and essentially starting over from absolute scratch, agent search and all.
2. Self-publish.
Having done both traditional and self-publishing before, I at least have some basis to compare the two experiences. Thoughts, in no particular order.
1. I fuckin' hate working with a pen name. Before my book deal, I self-published under a pen name, and it is a giant pain in the ass.
2. A nasty surprise on the traditional publishing front was the level of anxiety that came with it. I remember checking out Goodreads and Amazon shortly after PREMONITIONS was published and thinking with a sense of sinking dread, "I'm not sure what I should expect here, but this looks like a very, very small number of reviews compared to books of recent vintage in a similar space. I think I'm about to have a problem..." And the biggest thing that worried me was that my editor, my agent, and a big damn book company had invested time and money into my book, and it (I) was about to let them all down. That's a stomach-churning, puke-inducing place for me to be, and I didn't dig it.
3. A thing I liked about self-publishing was choosing who I worked with. I worked with some great freelance editors, who were insightful, thoughtful, and timely. I had uniformly great experiences with copy editors as well.
4. The expense of self-publishing is, um, let's just call it "nontrivial," at least if you plan on working with professionals. It's practically free if you choose not to use any editors, but holy shit that is such a bad idea in my case I get the shivers just thinking about it.
5. Having promotional assistance through Roc was pretty cool. Hey, look! Starred reviews in Library Journal and Publishers Weekly! Woohoo!
6. I suck at/hate most forms of social media. That seems important in this day and age.
7. I have what you might call "poor commercial instincts." Maybe the best example of this goes back to just before I sold PREMONITIONS, when my soon-to-be editor called me up and said, "I love this book! But, um, dude? YOU KILLED OFF THE MAIN CHARACTER AT THE END. You know, the main character of the series you're talking about launching? How in the hell do you launch a series based on a particular character when that character is DEAD AT THE END OF BOOK ONE?" She was a lot more polite than that, but the point was pretty valid and led to some important revision. I'm not sure my commercial instincts have improved any since then, though.
8. I got paid a hell of a lot more with a traditional publishing contract.
9. However, I did not sell a hell of a lot more books. I sold more of Book 1 than I have any of my self-published books, but that is not true for Books 2 and 3.
10. There's also the small matter of what my overall goals with respect to publishing are. Do I intend to make a living off this? Make a meaningful stream of side income? Keep it as a low(er)-stress hobby? Reach a wide audience? Write stuff for friends? Simply make art I enjoy and find meaningful? Some of these turn out to be mutually exclusive in ways I had not anticipated.
No conclusions here yet. Mostly this is just a brain dump as I evaluate my options.
Following that, a highly inconvenient thing happened which is that my agent retired from agenting. That left (leaves) me bereft of an agent and coming off a series for which "tanked" is a grotesque understatement as a description of sales performance.
I am now authorial nuclear waste. Radioactive.
My options at this point would seem to be one of the following:
1. Continue to pursue traditional publishing, recognizing that this will likely mean taking a pen name and essentially starting over from absolute scratch, agent search and all.
2. Self-publish.
Having done both traditional and self-publishing before, I at least have some basis to compare the two experiences. Thoughts, in no particular order.
1. I fuckin' hate working with a pen name. Before my book deal, I self-published under a pen name, and it is a giant pain in the ass.
2. A nasty surprise on the traditional publishing front was the level of anxiety that came with it. I remember checking out Goodreads and Amazon shortly after PREMONITIONS was published and thinking with a sense of sinking dread, "I'm not sure what I should expect here, but this looks like a very, very small number of reviews compared to books of recent vintage in a similar space. I think I'm about to have a problem..." And the biggest thing that worried me was that my editor, my agent, and a big damn book company had invested time and money into my book, and it (I) was about to let them all down. That's a stomach-churning, puke-inducing place for me to be, and I didn't dig it.
3. A thing I liked about self-publishing was choosing who I worked with. I worked with some great freelance editors, who were insightful, thoughtful, and timely. I had uniformly great experiences with copy editors as well.
4. The expense of self-publishing is, um, let's just call it "nontrivial," at least if you plan on working with professionals. It's practically free if you choose not to use any editors, but holy shit that is such a bad idea in my case I get the shivers just thinking about it.
5. Having promotional assistance through Roc was pretty cool. Hey, look! Starred reviews in Library Journal and Publishers Weekly! Woohoo!
6. I suck at/hate most forms of social media. That seems important in this day and age.
7. I have what you might call "poor commercial instincts." Maybe the best example of this goes back to just before I sold PREMONITIONS, when my soon-to-be editor called me up and said, "I love this book! But, um, dude? YOU KILLED OFF THE MAIN CHARACTER AT THE END. You know, the main character of the series you're talking about launching? How in the hell do you launch a series based on a particular character when that character is DEAD AT THE END OF BOOK ONE?" She was a lot more polite than that, but the point was pretty valid and led to some important revision. I'm not sure my commercial instincts have improved any since then, though.
8. I got paid a hell of a lot more with a traditional publishing contract.
9. However, I did not sell a hell of a lot more books. I sold more of Book 1 than I have any of my self-published books, but that is not true for Books 2 and 3.
10. There's also the small matter of what my overall goals with respect to publishing are. Do I intend to make a living off this? Make a meaningful stream of side income? Keep it as a low(er)-stress hobby? Reach a wide audience? Write stuff for friends? Simply make art I enjoy and find meaningful? Some of these turn out to be mutually exclusive in ways I had not anticipated.
No conclusions here yet. Mostly this is just a brain dump as I evaluate my options.
