Creating, the Ego, and Self-Publishing

Kansas City Library, Downtown KCMO

I've been having an interesting summer. Really, the last few years have been a long bit of a hard education in terms of how I approach my writing, how I *should* approach certain aspects of the writer's life, and learning the ins and outs of publishing in general.

Getting Individual Stories Published

My grad school program was great at offering up two end-of-semester talks about "Life after the MFA." Many of these were about finding an agent and how you find gainful employment with a writing degree, other kinds of work out there for writers, etc. All good things to know and many of the writers on the panel gave great information.

I don't recall, however, a panel that ever discussed the nature of publishing stories. I may have missed that discussion or it never happened during my tenure. Regardless, I have an incredibly arduous process for this now that's taken me a couple years to perfect and implement. It works REALLY well for me, but may be too much "muchness" for some. I'll go into that process in a future post.

But, I've been fortunate to have five stories picked up for publication just this year, with another 30+ published over the last 6. So, clearly I'm doing something right in that regard. Not only does this kind of publishing success fuel my fire to write more, it also strokes my ego a bit (see: a LOT). And EVERY creator has an ego, even if they don't outwardly express it in stereotypical ways. Though I'm not a cat person, creators are very cat-like; we're kind of dickish, we don't want to be bothered, but then we also want your attention, but only on the specific things we want you to pay attention to. Sometimes we'll knock shit off the counter unnecessarily too. It happens.

This is a pretty decent bedrock of one's publishing career. Not everyone writes short stories, but they're a good way to understand the process of attempting to get things published by people who have the power to do so. If nothing else, it makes for excellent practice getting your author bio correct and making sure that you follow distinct and specific formatting guidelines correctly. Publishers do NOT fuck around when they ask for specific formatting; always follow it to their stated specifications.

The more you get published, the more your ego inflates. The more your ego inflates, the more danger you put yourself in when parts of the writer's life disappoint you. We'll get to that farther down the post.

Self-Publishing a Book and the Sales That Follow

Part of my desire to have stories published is so that there is some kind of outside approval process happening. When I put a book together to be released, I do so AFTER at least 80% of the stories have been picked up for publication elsewhere. Because I self-publish, it's important that I have other metrics for future readers to fall back on. Is it better to simply say "here is a collection of stories I wrote; you'll probably like it"? Or is it better to say "here is a collection of stories I wrote; x number of the x number of stories in it have been published elsewhere first"? I find the latter gives me a little more legitimacy to the uninitiated reader of my work. If someone sees that many other people have published my work first, that subconsciously lets them know that there is a certain level of quality within the work itself. 

Does doing this give everyone the idea that you're worth reading? Not even a little bit. I knew it was going to be an uphill battle with almost everyone when I chose the self-publishing route. I would have to find an artist to create my covers, I would need to learn how to format all my texts correctly, edit them over and over and over, create the style and appearance of the text on the page, do the advertising and the salesmanship...EVERYTHING. I also knew that I'd have to combat the stigma that permeates most of the self-publishing world - that self-published books are badly/poorly written or, worse, poorly edited. I've tried to set up reading events with local bookstores in the immediate states surrounding KC and have found that even local bookstores who supposedly hype authors won't give me the time of day simply because I am self-published. One bookstore replied to my initial email with "Yeah, that doesn't sound like something we'd be interested in." No reason as to why, just...no. 

So understand that if you take that route, you have a long way to go. And virtually no one will respect you for going that route. They'll barely give you the time of day, so you had better make sure your writing is tight, edited well, and knocks the socks off of anyone who reads it. You're going to need to be four times as good as the worst writer on an agent's call sheet just to get anyone's attention, which is infuriating at best and exhausting at worst. 

And not being on a publishing house or repped by an agency means you have to rely on your most immediate network of peers and friends to help sales of your book, which will probably be impressive with your first book, but may be less so with your second. It's easy to support someone on their first big project release; it's less interesting when the second release comes around, unless you've simply blown everyone away with your work. But until your reach grows, this is your audience. These are the people most likely to read your books. 

You also have to rely on them to leave your honest reviews and to tell others about your books. I can assure you that the number of people who will do this is smaller than you think, but you damn well better remember the people who do this for you. Those are your READERS, the people who enjoy your work, understand your aesthetic, and who will probably (hopefully!) tell you when you've missed the mark with a story. Keep them around at all costs. Not because they can help you sell books, but because they are truly invested in the work that you're creating. They want it to be as good as possible the same way you do. Find them, keep them, show them you appreciate them. 

I currently have three or four people I can count on who do this and they are perfect readers for me because they love the dark, they love the weird, and they know they can rip my stuff apart where necessary and not have me get butthurt about it. I NEED to hear that kind of stuff from readers and they know it. 

Advertising the Full Book and Handling Disappointment(s)

I can't lie, my latest book has not done well, sales-wise. And that's a bit of a kick in the dick considering how much harder we tried to make this one a real "event"-type experience. Couple that with all the published stories and minor successes along the way, it certainly eats away at one's self-confidence. I'd be lying if I said it didn't. 

But, you press on anyway because this is the life you chose. Is it better to release a shitty product and have it go over well? Or is it better to release a great product and have it flop? As a creator, I choose the latter (again). I'm really happy with the entirety of this latest book. I love the cover art, I love the page layouts, I love the stories, and I love the extra audio easter eggs we've buried in the pages. I love all the creative rivulets that came together to create this one, singular literary river of pages. It is the best thing I've ever done and I fully intend to make the next one even more of an experience. 

Though I love the entirety of the book, it's easy to fall down the rabbit hole of self-deprecating thoughts. Don't do this. Fight it every time. If you've put out something that you feel is some of your best work to date, then it probably is. The work should be the most important part, though that's a hard truth to come to. I may never sell another copy of this book again, but I hope that's not the case. I think a lot of people would actually enjoy this more traditional story collection, but I think there's also a lot of people who've never experienced a book with these kinds of interactive parts to it, which may really get them twisted up in fun ways. 

One of my favorite bands, Jawbreaker, has a great lyric that doubles as phenomenal life advice here: "Expect the best, accept the worst." 

So people aren't buying your book. It happens. Write another. And another. And another after that. If you let every little failure dictate your life, you never end up living. If absolutely no one buys my next book, I'll have spent a crap-ton of money making it (as I'm paying for ink drawings and short films to be added to it), but...I'll also have created a truly worthy reading experience for those who chose to get on board and enjoy the ride. Hell, the whole book will be a multi-media art project, which is pretty fantastic.

The product will be enough in and of itself. It has to be, because that's why we started doing this in the first place, right? And if you're not doing it for the end result, for the final product, then you're probably doing it for the wrong reasons and I refuse to feel bad for you if that's the case. 

I don't have room to be sympathetic for those that aren't coming correct with their art. But you should know what you're getting yourself into from the jump-off. There's a lot of disappointment found along the way and you should be prepared to not be the "next big thing" that rockets out into the public eye.

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