Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

In my years here on Earth, I have reached for the brass ring many times. Literally.

Spinning ’round the carousel, the calliope loud and manic, I rode a pole-skewered pony, my butt sliding on the polished saddle. With one hand gripping the spiraled pole, I extended my other hand, reaching out into the canvas-covered darkness, reaching, reaching, finger hooked, ready to pull, here it comes, then snatch! and I have the bracelet-sized ring of finger-thick metal. Back in the light, I see that it is not brass, but mere iron, and toss it at the clown face on the wall, the crazed calliope Dopplering as I slew past, positioning myself for another turn, another try, another chance at the brass ring.

The stuff of childhood memories, yes, but a piss-poor business model. Yet, having spent a couple of days exploring the writers’ groups over on LinkedIn, that’s exactly what I’m seeing. Writers, reaching for the brass ring, oblivious to the mechanics of the business they want to enter.

Let me put it this way: Don’t shoot the horse you’re riding. If you intend on self-publishing, be aware of the ramifications.

There are many questions a writer should ask her/himself, but one of the big ones is this:

Do I want to sell my work?

It’s a simple, yes/no question, and there are many other follow-up questions that go with it, but basically, if you answer “Yes,” then it is incumbent upon you to learn something about publishing and how it functions.

Many unpublished writers think that they can self-publish their work and then go on to sell it to a Big House publishing firm when, in fact, the very act of self-publishing shuts many, many doors, and opens none. In their own defense these writers always trot out the same stories about how Paolini self-published Eragon and landed a Big House contract; so did Amanda Hocking and James Redfield. They self-published and then they got big contracts, right? Why shouldn’t I?

These stories, my friends, are more than just the brass ring; they’re the brass ring with a dead horse, and using them as your business model is Just. Plain. Nuts.

The hard truth is, if you self-publish your work (as I’ve done), no major publisher will look at it. Why? Because it’s already been published and (chances are) it hasn’t done well. Think about it: If it’s been self-published and hasn’t done well, why would a publisher invest money in it? Now, if you self-publish and manage to sell a lot of books (and I mean a lot of books), publishers might see a way to make even more money from you than you have already. But realize this: there are nearly 250,000 self-published books out there (according to Bowker), and we can probably name only three authors who’ve parlayed their self-published work into a Big House contract.

Not great odds. Not a good business model.

Does that mean I think all self-published books are crap? Not worthy of seeing print? Absolutely not.

Publishers have limits. They cannot publish every decent book that gets thrown over their transom. A book can be good, but may not have the chops to sell well enough to justify their investment. To be sure, a lot of self-published work is crap, most could use a really good editing, and some aren’t worth the bytes it takes to store them. But not all. There are a lot of good self-published works out there, fiction and non-fiction. Unfortunately, “good” does not mean “capable of making a profit,” which leads us to the one essential truth about publishing.

Publishing is a business, not an artists’ commune.

Self-publishing, for all I’ve used it and for all its democratic egalitarianism, is my last stop on the publishing merry-go-round. I only use it when it is clear that agents and publishers have no interest in my novel. When I finish my next novel, it will go first to agents, then to Big House publishers, then to small press publishers, then (perhaps) to e-publishers, and then (and only then) will I self-publish it. This is a long–sometimes years-long–journey, but it’s the way the industry works.

My books are hard to sell. They’re unusual, they blend genres, and they’re hard to market. Finding the right publisher will take time. But I know for a fact that many people love my writing (including people I haven’t met!), and I can be objective enough to know that I create well-written, well-constructed novels. I’m also sanguine enough to accept the realities of their chances in the business of publishing, and thus, many of my works end up being self-published.

My goals in writing are not to be rich and famous, not to win prizes and accolades. My goals are (a) to write the best books I can, and (b) to get them read by the greatest number of people. To achieve that second goal, it would be silly not to try Big House publishers first because, for now, anyway, they still do that better than anyone else. And it would be just plain stupid for me to reduce my chances with a Big House publisher to damned-near zero.

It’s hard enough to sell a novel without shooting my own carousel horse.

k