{"id":8938,"date":"2013-10-31T13:08:59","date_gmt":"2013-10-31T19:08:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=8938"},"modified":"2013-11-01T00:55:24","modified_gmt":"2013-11-01T06:55:24","slug":"publishing-is-as-easy-as-the-irish-tinwhistle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/publishing-is-as-easy-as-the-irish-tinwhistle\/","title":{"rendered":"Publishing is as easy as the Irish Tinwhistle"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Gaughran has another excellent blog post up<\/a>, this time about publishing in general and something that most newbies don’t realize when they first start out.\u00a0 From his post:<\/p>\n

I\u2019m saying that when a newbie has been convinced that self-publishing is hard<\/i> or expensive<\/i> the chances of them falling into the clutches of a third-party which will result in a poor outcome increase exponentially. Because they\u2019ll take any kind of deal, or sign up with any fly-by-night outfit, or engage one of the vanity presses masquerading as a self-publishing company.<\/p>\n

So we need to get the message out. Yes, writing is hard, but these third parties will give you no help there. And yes, marketing can be tricky, but that\u2019s probably going to fall on you no matter what path you choose<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Publishing, on the other hand, is easy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’ve found this to be exactly the case, and it’s one of the reasons why I’ve decided to stick with the indie publishing path.<\/p>\n

Publishing is easy.\u00a0 Publishing is fun, in fact.\u00a0 There’s a lot of hair-pulling when you first start out, but once you get over the initial learning curve, it’s a blast.\u00a0 These people selling “self-publishing packages” are almost all scammers, especially if they’re charging more than $1,000.<\/p>\n

Marketing is an aspect of this business that currently eludes me.\u00a0 Even so, I’m still doing all right.\u00a0 I’ve been making a profit since 2012, and I’m currently about halfway to making a full-time living at this.\u00a0 With the whims of the market, that could change at any moment, but there’s still a lot of room for things to go up so I’m not too worried.<\/p>\n

As for writing, well, that’s probably always going to be hard.\u00a0 I tend to self-edit a lot as I write, so hopefully nanowrimo will help me out with that.\u00a0 Once you’ve found your voice and gotten the basics of your craft, you have to learn to let go and let the story happen, which is something I struggle with.<\/p>\n

Right now, I’m having a hard time with putting out a consistent word count.\u00a0 That’s probably the hardest part of taking the indie path–keeping yourself from getting spread too thin.\u00a0 I’m trying to get print versions of the Star Wanderers<\/strong> novellas out on Amazon (Outworlder<\/strong> is already out!\u00a0 Get it here!<\/a>), so that’s taking a fair amount of time and energy, even though I’m taking it slow.\u00a0 Really, though, I wonder how much of it is just fear or self-doubt or other writerly angst that pops up from time to time.\u00a0 It’s a constant struggle.<\/p>\n

But publishing?\u00a0 Publishing is easy.<\/em>\u00a0 Give me a manuscript, and I can turn it into a fully functional, well formatted ebook in less than an hour.\u00a0 For a print book, I can do the typesetting and cover design over a long weekend if I’ve got nothing else going on.\u00a0 Easily.\u00a0 And from there, it’s just a matter of uploading to Amazon \/ Smashwords \/ wherever, filling out the metadata fields, and clicking the button that says “publish.”<\/p>\n

There is nothing about the technical aspects of publishing that a writer can’t learn how to do for himself.\u00a0 If you can publish a blog, you can publish an ebook.\u00a0 The only reason to pay someone to do it for you is if the opportunity cost of taking the time to learn is too high, which is only really the case if you’re a highly paid professional at something else and writing isn’t your main career.\u00a0 Even so, it’s not hard to find someone (like me!) who can do a good job for $50 or less.<\/p>\n

It’s kind of like the Irish tinwhistle<\/a>.\u00a0 Sure, you can pay through the nose for a limited edition collector’s piece (which probably has a very generic sound), but the best ones cost less than $20 and look like they’ve been used as a doorstop for a while.\u00a0 The quality of the sound does not correlate at all with the price–in fact, you’re more likely to get a better instrument if you don’t<\/em> pay through the nose.\u00a0 You can even make your own<\/a>!<\/p>\n