What's With That?

The Give Books for Christmas Giveaway Hop is still going on. 
Click here to remember the details.

Have you seen this article in the Huffington Post about Amazon's new Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)? It's been getting a lot of talk among folks in my writing organizations.

The implications are huge.Whether you've ever considered self-publishing or not, this is something to watch.

Is this a good thing for publishing? What do you think?

What Do You Think?

Joe Konrath wrote an interesting counterpoint yesterday to an article by Ewan Morrison article about the condition of the publishing industry. Ewan suggests that no only will traditional publishers go the way of the world, but the new digital world won't be one where writers and artists get paid for their work.

Joe disagrees.

Vehemently.

What do you think?

Superlatives?

I need to thank Carrie Butler over at So, You're a Writer for an award I'd never seen before:

Thanks for thinking of me, Carrie. I agree with you in your post here. This award is a little more complicated and, for me, difficult to assess. Recipients are supposed to provide links back to a few of their blog posts based upon seven categories. 

How the heck am I supposed to determine "seven post superlatives"? For example, is a post most popular because it had the most comments, that it had the power to get people to take the time to respond? Or the number of visitors who, perhaps, left too stunned by the quality of the post to comment (yeah, and then I wake up). How do we quantify someone else's experience when they visit our blogs?
I can't. So you're stuck with my interpretation. And I'm biased, either for or against.

1. Most Beautiful

Tribute
The post I wrote after my father died last march.








2. Most Popular

According to my blog stats, it appears that my Fun & Games Blogfest post had the most page views. By a substantial number.


3. Most Controversial
This one was easy to decide on. It was the post about self-publishing.

4. Most Helpful
Okay. Now it's getting hard because this is so subjective. How do I really know if something I've written about turned out to be helpful to someone? 

Source

So, I'll go with one of my Grammar Friday posts and hope that I'm right. I like the one dealing with punctuation because I love the example so much.



5. Most Surprisingly Successful

I think this has to be my unmentionables post. I'm not into risque posts, and most of the ones I'd seen were definitely that, so when I was tagged for that meme, I was conflicted. However, I decided there was room for some potential humor there while still maintaining my propriety.



6.  Most Underrated
Once again, how can I even guess at this? I suggest it was my review of Natalie Palmer's book Second Kiss, which I dearly loved.









7. Most Pride Worthy
I'm not sure what to put on here, either. I was tempted to leave it up to you guys, but I decided to list my book review of the I Am Not a Serial Killer series by Dan Wells. Perhaps because this is not a genre I read anymore. Perhaps it's because of the way Dan managed to make me love the terribly flawed, icky fantasizing, wanting to be noble John Cleaver that makes me gush about this series. John is no Dexter to try and justify his atrocities by targeting an "appropriate" kind of victim. Seriously. I can't gush enough about this series. It really struck a chord with me.

So, there you have it. My 7 (presumptuous) superlatives. Now I get to select seven others to pass this on to. Be sure to check their blogs out:

An Alleged Author

Cindy M. Hogan

Dianne K. Salerni

Ellie Garratt

Laila Knight

L.G. Smith

Mark Noce

Here's to a great week everyone. I need to get through another poll worker training session (hopefully not an epic fail this time) and then I have a four-day weekend. And my mind is buzzing with ideas for WIP #3!

Self-Publishing .... Decisions, Decisions

I've talked about self-publishing before (here), so this isn't a new topic for me. But I've been thinking about it a lot more seriously lately, especially after Marsha Ward's blog post here. She raises some issues that, for me, are compelling.

• I'm kind of old to have started on this journey, and I sincerely worry that I could die before I have a chance to publish traditionally.
• I'm not in this for a new career. Because I'm older, I've already got one I like just fine, and I can retire in less than ten years.
• This is supposed to be fun for me. I worry that the whole query/rejection process will suck all the joy out of what I'm learning and doing--recognizing that if I put my stuff out there before it's ready, there will be plenty of people who will be happy to help suck all the joy out of what I'm doing--but that's true even of people who publish traditionally.
• A lot of people believe self-publication is the way to go, including David Farland, who's spoken to this issue in several of his Daily Kicks.

On the other hand, there are some compelling reasons not to self-publish.

• You have to do all your own marketing. I can't tell you how much I hate sales. I realize authors are the true salespeople for their work. Readers don't come to book signings to meet the publisher or the agent or the printer; they come to meet the author. It's just hard for me to consider trying to pimp my own work.
• At LTUE, self-published author Anna del C. cautioned writers considering self-publication to get a lot of books written before beginning. She said she spends so much time now marketing her books that she has little time to write. Considering I have a full-time job and limited time available for writing already, this is a huge concern for me.
• As Marsha mentions in her blog, she thinks she's had success so far without marketing because she has so many finished works and could get them out there quickly, that having several books for readers to select from is a big advantage. I don't have a bunch of books to throw out there. I have one WIP close to being "ready" (I know, define ready), two partial WIPs, and lots of ideas. I've spent a ton of time on this first book because it's my on-the-job training, so to speak.
• Many people who, for good reason, haven't made it out of the slush pile are now publishing and flooding the ebook market with dross. Readers could become jaded about the quality of self-published books, and (assuming my book is not just more dross) mine could get lost in the trash.

My friend Laura Josephsen just bravely self-published her book Confessions from the Realm of the Underworld (Also Known as High School  (I read it this weekend and loved it, but I'll write more about it on Friday).  She's already published traditionally and had a publisher interested in this book, and she opted to self publish. Does it help that she's already published and has a fan base? Is it better for someone like Laura than it is for fledgling beginners?

A comment from the LDSStorymaker conference really struck me. Someone reported that author Larry Brooks said writers are too worried about getting published. What we should be worrying about is getting read. When I heard that, it gave me pause.

So what's a girl to do? 

• What are your thoughts on self publication? 
• Have you ever considered it? If so, what did you decide and why? 
• Do you feel like you'll be taken more seriously as a writer if you have the endorsement of the gatekeepers and stick with traditional publishing? 
• Or do you think self-publication is the wave of the future?

Publishing ... Do It Yourself?

Lately there's been a lot of talk about how well some authors like Amanda Hocking have done self publishing electronically. Check out this article.

It sounds incredible! Her numbers are jaw dropping. Why wouldn't writers who are confident in their craft, but haven't had the luck of good timing in their genre/theme or been able to convince the right agent to champion their books, desire this?

I've had my own reservations because last September I attended a seminar at UVU that that provided some great information about self publishing, which I talked about here. One thing I took away from the training was how much work is involved in self publishing. Not just in being your own publisher but also being your own marketer.

Well, Amanda Hocking addresses that issue in her blog here. I especially like this comment

So much of what people are saying about me is, "Look what Amanda Hocking accomplished in a year," when they really should be saying is, "Look what Amanda Hocking accomplished in twenty years." Because that's how long I've been writing, that's how long I've been working towards this goal.

Sounds a little familiar to me. Like the old Hollywood stories of the actor or actress who was discovered and becomes an overnight success ... but fails to mention the years and years of hard work in training and taking small roles that led up to the discovery.

Committed writers shouldn't give up their dreams of self publishing, but it doesn't hurt to go into the effort with your eyes wide open.