Showdown
October 3rd, 2006 | Published in Writing | 2 Comments
I’m just about finished with the third draft of my novel. Just in time for this year’s Nanowrimo too, where I plan to start the next one (a new story featuring the same main character). The original goal, when I started this one, was to finish it in time to start on something fresh one year later.
When I say ‘finishing’, I mean writing three drafts. One to get the bare-bones plot down, a second one to basically see if the story works, fix any obvious mistakes and add more characterization and background. Then it’s time to let others take a look, wait for their comments and do some more polishing. Polishing, in this case meant adding about 20,000 words. Granted, if someone wants to publish my work, there will most likely be additional editing to be done, but at this point, I feel that the book is basically finished.
By the end of this week, that’s what I’ll be. Finished. It is a strange feeling, when you’ve spent so much time on a project such as a book, to reach the end. And then what? First of all, I have a small team of readers, who will get to read it and point out any outrageous oversights on my part (that was missed by me and those who read the second draft). But hopefully any needed changes will not turn into any substantial re-writing.
But what about publishing? It’s the big question, isn’t it? Can I get it sold? Should I get an agent (how do I get a good one)? What about self-publishing? I can answer the last of those right away. I don’t like self-publishing for two reasons: It’s too expensive and too time consuming.
Too expensive means that the book ends up being too expensive for potential readers to buy. The average paperback costs $7.99 in the US. Using lulu.com for print-on-demand, my novel would end up costing around $10+. And that’s just the production cost. I realize there are alternatives to lulu, but from what research I’ve done, the differences between them are too small to mention. Also, there would be additional expenses for promotion, which leads me to the next point.
Too time consuming refers to the time I would have to spend promoting my book, if I were to self-publish it. I am not a world famous writer and do not have a faithful following of readers already pining for my next work. In other words: I would have to do a crapload of promotion. Organizing that kind of work is not something I am very good at. And I don’t like doing it either.
They say the royalties are potentially bigger in self-publishing, but I have a very hard time believing it. So in conclusion, I am probably going to try and get someone else to publish it. If no one wants it, I might consider alternatives, if I don’t end up being disillusioned and bitter. I do think that it’s important to put my work out there, though. Two or three of you might be curious enough to actually read it by now.
October 3rd, 2006at 10:44 am(#)
Congratulations on getting through the third draft. That’s quite an accomplishment and a true test of endurance.
I work in a bookstore and can tell you that a lot of the tricks of self-publishing that used to work don’t anymore. Everything keeps changing so fast, and the very good advice of yesterday is rotten advice today.
My friend Jeff self-published and did most of his promotion through the internet. He actually offered the book as a free download at first. Once he had 5,000 downloads it was much easier for him to approach publishers, and Warner snatched him up quickly. John Grisham sold his firt published novel from the back of his car, but I think the same thing can be done with internet these day, so long as the presentation is like a movie trailer with Flash and all that hoo-ha. Check out http://www.jeffrivera.com to see what he’s done. With your rooting on iStock you have a lot of resources to chose from in creating something just as tantalizing.
Best of luck with this.
October 19th, 2006at 11:07 pm(#)
[...] I’ve previously explained why, I do not wish to take the route of self-publishing with my novel, but what you see here is a picture of a printed version of my new book side by side with some of the notes from writing it. Confused? [...]