Letters to a Young Novelist

Finding Your Path in Publishing

The young writer of fiction today faces a very different publishing landscape than even a decade ago. You can take a far different path in publishing a novel than when I started out, decades ago.

Choice! A new writer has so many more choices than existed in the past — which consisted mainly of submitting manuscripts directly to a publisher, if you had connections, or to an agent.

Many Publishing Choices

One of the newest choices considered as valid and respectable is self-publishing, or becoming an indie author. This is a publishing path that didn’t really exist as a viable choice when I wrote my first novel (unpublished) in the 70s. Now authors can make six-figure incomes on this route.

The several basic publishing routes are traditional (getting an agent & a deal with the Big Five publishers), small press publishing (doesn’t require an agent but also doesn’t pay advances), ihybrid publishing (where you co-venture with a publisher, requiring you to pay upfront some costs), and indie publishing (self-publishing). In indie publishing you can hire contractors for anything you don’t have skills or time to do, from editing to cover design and interior layour, to advertising and social media promotion. You can hire people to write your advertising copy, even to create and upload your ads on various platforms.

How to Choose A Publishing Path THAT WORKS FOR YOU

How can you choose well? Of course, you should start with a dream. A big dream. Mine was to get fabulously published. I think if you don’t imagine yourself as a best-selling author, you’re doing something wrong or maybe should find a good friend to talk it out with. You have to deeply believe in your creativity — and often to an unrealistic degree — to do this crazy thing called writing a novel.

Self-publishing puts all the reins of the team of four horses into your hands. If you like control, have some skills with writing advertising or promotion copy, like to learn new skills and platforms, and enjoy the process of building your own author business and brand, this lane is four you. It’s definitely my lane. I like control, have worked in marketing, and enjoy the thrill of testing different ads and learning new tricks. Marketing my books is sometimes frustrating, but always exciting — my kind of fun. If it’s not for you, look to other lanes in publishing.

Here are some great resources to learn more about the different publishing avenues:
Jane Friedman on Self-Publishing
Reedsy on Hybrid Publishing — Different Models
Traditional Publishing – Best Practices on Finding an Agent
Independent Press Publishing – Without an Agent

My Publishing Experience

Four books in, I’ve found my creative/publishing lane. I’m an indie novelist and likely to continue this way. I’m an oddball in that I love the marketing part. Sometimes it’s what makes me want to get to my desk in the morning, the challenge of finding readers and having control over how I do that is heady. Writing monthly newsletters, creating ads, having the ability to change my Amazon page book descriptions — it’s all my kind of fun.

But it may not be yours.

I had a checkered career in choosing the right publishing path. First I followed a longtime dream: I tried to get a traditional, Big-Five book deal with my first novel.

Here’s the story of how my search for the right publishing path:

I found a marvelous developmental editor, then lucked out with a revise-and-resubmit with a top agent. That odyssey last way too long, gave me great edits for free, but ended unsuccessfully. I didn’t get the agent, tried more agents, and then signed with a small press. The publisher  turned out to be a crook, withholding royalties, failing to keep contractual promises, which gave me the cause to terminate the contract.

Then I had to choose: I could either let this book die or self-publish. I assessed my skills and interest. I wanted to keep gaining an audience for the novel. I wanted to regain control of marketing and redo the cover. I wanted to create my own advertising and promotions.

End of the story: I’ve sold more than 2,000 books in my last four years of self-publishing three novels. It’s not a fortune, but I’m building a solid base of readers. With more than 1,000 readers of my newsletter, I even now have fans! And I love it. This is my best publishing path, the one that nurtures my creativity.

The best piece of advice I received along this path was to decide on my most important goal. Just one. For me, the dream got adjusted. I now have the goal of writing what I want and finding the readers for it, not writing to the existing hot markets, which is what traditional publishing is essentially looking for.

So I’m now living my publishing dream. I have many ideas for new books! And I have the luxury of navigating my own course.