When I began the journey writing prose, I had two ultimate goals—one, to write the Great American Novel, and two, publish it through a traditional NYC publisher. Let’s face it. There’s no point in trying to deny it. NYC is the publishing capital of the world. There is a reason the Writer’s Guild East is headquartered there. For me, it was a pride thing—getting published through a traditional, NYC publisher.
So, I wrote prose and sent prose in, only to receive an avalanche of rejection letters. Round after round, I sent prose in, and round after round, I received avalanche of rejection letters. Not enough to wallpaper an entire room but enough to fill a few shoe boxes.
I was determined to become a published novelist—nothing would do but a traditional NYC publisher.
I felt I had no other option—I turned to the necessary evil of self-publishing. For around $250, they published a collection of three novellas.
Reality check.
I assumed—and you know what happens when you assume—this publisher edited manuscripts.
My collection was published “riddled with errors”—typos, misspelled words, and an onslaught of semi-colons. It was embarrassing!
Lucky, I corrected the problem before the book had been on Amazon for too long.
Then KDP emerged, and I went with it, in the meantime, still receiving landslides of rejection letters from literary agents and traditional publishers. Yes, you guessed it—from NYC.
KDP, as most of you know, is a Print-on-Demand publisher. They do “not” edit your manuscript, they do “not” design your book cover, and they certainly do “not” market your book. Just publishing your book, throwing it up on Amazon, and hoping for the best is “not” book marketing. It is more like pinning your book up on a bulletin that looks like a pinata of Post-it note—which will eventually be buried under other Post-it notes.
To be a self-published author, you cannot underestimate your readers, believing your story is so good that they’ll let a book “riddled with errors” ride. There is the suspension of disbelief—not “the suspension of bad grammar”.
It turned out I still had not edited my novellas well enough. You have to edit the shit out of you books, over and over again. You have to design a book cover that is good enough for an art gallery—”not” your refrigerator door. But that still is not enough. You have to keep the book in their hands by writing a bad-ass book blurb—from the first sentence to the last. It has to arouse the reader!
My strategy still hasn’t changed—I still believe that sometimes, the road to traditional publishing goes through self-publishing. You won’t write a story for everyone. Writing a story for everyone is simply impossible. Some readers will love it, and some will hate it.
What you “do” have to do is make sure your book is reliable and readable, edited as close to perfectly as possible. You have to make sure your book is wrapped with a book cover that is worthy of a work of art, something seen in an art gallery, and the blurb—it must arouse your readers.
Then if “that” does not land you a traditional book deal, then maybe you are not meant to be a writer.