This will be the last essay on self-publishing, something by way of a summary organised under the original set of headings.
Earnings as a self-publishing author - are there any?
There is no easy way of making money writing fiction. That said, you will make a modest amount of money if what you write is good enough. If it isn’t good enough, no amount of hard selling will make people want to read it. The golden rule is to avoid being exploited. Don’t pay people to “self-publish” for you, don’t be taken in by offers of “publishing deals,” don’t bother buying books with titles like “how to become rich publishing your own books.” I don’t intend to be depressing – there is in fact a rainbow (see below), the point is there is no crock of gold.
E-book or print?
This is really a question about setting a price on your work. Even the cheapest print-on-demand paperbacks are relatively expensive to produce, placing you in direct competition with normal commercial publishers. To make even a little money from a 250-page paperback you will need to set the price at around twelve pounds. The e-book market allows you to set a much lower price. The advantage this confers on self-publishers has not been lost on mainstream commercial publishers who now typically sell e-books at rip-off prices (i.e only a few pence less than the cost of a hardback). This is done with the aim of defining self-publishing as artistically inferior. Who said life was fair?
Self-publish or real publisher?
This choice doesn’t really exist. It is virtually impossible for a first-time author to get a contract with a commercial publisher. Even then, you may find you have committed yourself to a life on the road, pushing your own work. Sales otherwise may be disappointing. You will still read stories about up-front payments of hundreds of thousands (I read one only a week ago). Believe them if it cheers you up, but they are just that – stories, fiction. If you’re taken with that plot, why not write it?
Do I need Facebook, twitter, website, blog ?
You need a web presence as a self-publishing author. It has to offer something (e.g. essays on self-publishing) other than a list of your books. On balance, I think twitter is a good way of wasting your life. Facebook seems to be a good way of presenting your work, but it will exploit you and your contacts for its own commercial interest. Maintaining a website represents a reasonable compromise. I find writing a blog quite therapeutic, particularly if you can avoid “comments.”
Shall I enrol in a creative writing course?
No, not unless you have quite a lot of spare money. You need to read my post on the question, but generally my concerns focus on the need for formal assessment in a university (judging creative writing is too subjective); the fact that writing is not a group activity, whereas most courses are; and the fact that you will probably never earn back the outlay.
Why write fiction?
If you are very young you probably write fiction because you possess some mysterious creative spark. You’ll have to discover it’s a curse to have been touched by God that way, but you’ll no doubt find consolation. If you’re old, you probably write to justify your existence and hold death at bay. There is consolation in that as well. Writing fiction can be life-enhancing . And it will be that whether or not anyone else thinks your work interesting. Don’t ask whether it’s worthwhile, because nobody has found a way of answering that question: it’s like asking what life itself is for.
How do I get an agent?
If you are young and innocent and if you move in the right circles (particularly if you live in London, Paris, Madrid, Rome) you may bump into agents at a drinks party and they may make you an offer. You may wake up wondering whether tequila really is a soft drink. All sorts of questions then arise, not the least being how on earth your new friend is going to sell your book. Otherwise, please note literary agents in general will seek you out (it works that way round). The dreary activity of petitioning them is time-consuming and almost certainly pointless.
How do I market my book?
I don’t know.
What software should I use? Does it matter?
Possibly Scrivener or something like that. But don’t get sucked too far into software. Microsoft Word is a nice bit of software.
How long does it take to write a novel?
At least a year, possibly a lot longer. My own experience might be of interest. I’ve never managed to write more than 3000 words in one day. I look back on that day with affection. It really was like living in another magical world. Usually, I manage about 1000. That doesn’t mean a book in 90 days, because those 1000 words get worked over and over again day after day. Once the same chapter had to be revised seven times. I can comment from experience on another major influence on the time-scale of a novel. You will reach a point (at least, I have always reached it) when the characters don’t want to go where you intended. There’s nothing too mysterious about this: they are fictions, after all, and only exist as thought processes most of the time. You will inevitably reach the point where the whole book has to be restructured somehow. I have written a whole 100,000-word novel only to discover that one character serves no purpose. She had to be removed. It was pointless to resist.