Useful Writing Junk 1: Blurb.com

Welcome to the first of a series of posts about sites, tools, techniques, and probably even foods that I've found useful while writing. A number of people have asked about how I do what I do (not that I do terribly much), so I've collected a few of the things that have served me best in my writing journey. Hopefully, you can get some good use out of this stuff too!

In an earlier post, I talked about my decision to self-publish Necessaries. I didn't really touch on the how part of it. To be honest, I didn't put a ton of thought into the platform I chose. I'd heard good things about one site in particular echoing around on tumblr, and after glancing at some other awkwardly-designed websites, I gave Blurb a chance.

On Blurb, you can design photo books, ebooks, magazines, and (obvs) trade books like my novel, then publish those directly through the site or make the books available on the Global Retail Network. It's a pretty straight-forward process, and if the help section of the website doesn't get you out of a jam, their customer service department certainly will.

I like lists, so let me lay out the pros and cons of my experience with Blurb.

PROS

• Ridiculously affordable. Let's be real. If you're a writer, you're probably not swimming in a pool of gold coins a la Scrooge McDuck. On Blurb, the software and the publishing system is free... ish. In order to keep your book on the site, though, you have to buy a copy. But considering your copy of the book will probably cost about $7 and there is almost always a 35-40% discount running, you won't be breaking your bank. Once it's on the site, it's there forever (if you want it to be!).
• Decent free book-formatting software. Blurb uses a program called Bookwright for book designing. It's a handy program, though it takes some getting used to (see cons). Once you understand the program, you can make some snazzy, very professional books.
• Access to the Global Retail Network (GRN). This is a huge plus if you want your books distributed as widely as possible. Once you've uploaded your book to Blurb, you can submit it to the GRN, which will make it available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Ebay, anywhere you can think of to get a book. I just Googled myself (hush, you) to see make sure I wasn't making stuff up, and found more people reviewing Necessaries than I previously knew of on different sites. Which is pretty damn cool. The more places you sell your book, the fewer excuses your audience has not to buy it.
• No minimum orders. You get discounts for bigger orders (starting as low as 10 books), but you don't have to buy cases and cases of your book just to have some copies on hand. 
• Great customer service. When something goes wrong, real people are there to straighten things out. However, things do go wrong, which leads me to...

Cons

• Things go wrong. Big time. Maybe my wack-a-doo luck has been working against me when it comes to my book, but I've had several BIG printing issues. The very first order I made vanished in the mail, and it looked like I wasn't going to have my books in time for a book fair. It was a panicky time, and though eventually customer service got it sorted out for me and reshipped, I nearly missed my first author event.
• Bookwright can be devastating if you don't watch it very carefully. I had a massive printing issue with the edition of Necessaries I was trying to get on Amazon. I'd made some small changes to formatting after getting some feedback on the first printing, and though I read through several pages to make sure all was well, all was not well when I got the books and discovered a series of out-of-order pages. I think I lost a decade of life in the ensuing panic as I tried to pull the thing off of Amazon. Bookwright is great when it wants to be, but dangerously fickle. 
• No editors. This is a given with self-publishing, but you don't have a professional who will look at your book design and OK it for distribution. Printing errors can go unnoticed, weird page designs won't be questioned. Everything about your book and its appearance relies on you.
• Page limit. At least for trade books (paperbacks, hard cover novels, things that aren't picture books), you only have about 400 pages available. That may seem like a big number, but any sci-fi or fantasy writer can tell you it's not. I had to mess around with fonts and margins for a few days in order to get the right number of pages. Your LOTR-style epic isn't going to fit unless your font is so small that it requires a magnifying glass.
• No marketing. Again, another self-publishing given. It's all on you, kid. However, you can purchase advertising on Amazon or Facebook, and those campaigns can be successful if you do your research on running them right.

All in all, I do recommend Blurb, but recommend that you first be very familiar with their Bookwright software, have several friends who are willing to critique your book design, and budget in extra time in case you need to re-order a set of books. I also suggest you hold your horses before submitted to the GRN. Sell or give some copies of your prototype book to your friends and family first. Then, if they find a glaring mistake, you don't have to go through the hell that is trying to strip the screwed up book from Amazon.

Next time, I might try traditional publishing. Or if I do self-publish, I may try going directly through Amazon, because I've heard good things about that system too. How about you? Any writers out there who have used Blurb or another publisher for their books? Tell me about it in the comments!

What I Learned in Self-Publishing School Is:

(In case you missed the reference) Source

If you came by my booth at Pride, you probably noticed that there were 3 of me. There was Capital M Me (the me with the snaggly teeth and dangerously high levels of enthusiasm, given the heat index), then a blue-haired me (who was holding Capital M Me on a leash, but not the kinky kind, just the "keep calm and actually sell your product" kind), and finally, a super hot but moderately confused me (bless her soul). 

OK, so we're 3 different people (probably, hopefully), but my 2 companions served as extensions of myself and my product (my novel, Necessaries) at my booth. Without them, I would have crumpled in front of the crowd. I wouldn't have sold nearly as many books, I wouldn't have met the interesting people I did, and I guarantee that fewer people would have even approached my booth, much less tried to interact with me. I know these things because while the 2 of them took a break, I felt totally swamped by people coming up to spin the prize wheel and ask about the book and request business cards. I couldn't keep up with the (unexpected but extremely appreciated) crowd. People noticed that, and walked away rather than wait for a chance to chat.

TL;DR: Having multiple people at my booth was lifesaver.

BUT.  They also made me realize that I don't know how to explain my own content.

As I mentioned in my melancholy follow-up Pride post, being self-published means you are your own marketing team. In my efforts to market myself and my writing, I've created things like this website, and a Facebook page, and who knows how many author pages on other websites. In the process, I've shared boatloads of information about myself, and also random reviews, and goofy commentary on my life, and even some serious writing about modern social issues. My content is a strange mish-mash of experience, opinion, and art.

So, when promoting my website, my other "me's" had to come up with a way to succinctly describe what I do. One of them mentioned that I write about my experiences in self-publishing. At the time, I was like, "Yeah, I've totally written about my self-publishing journey. That seems legit." But now, I'm not so sure. 

Which means it's time to remedy that! Today, I'll give you an introductory post on where I am with my writing and why I chose self-publishing. I'll go into greater detail on specific topics in future posts, so if you are curious about anything in particular, now is the time to bring it up to me so I can plan to address it.

How I Got Here (and Where Is Here?)

Imagine it. A grid of identical cubicles, gray and tomb-like under the sour glow of the overhead lights. The constant electronic chatter of ringing phones, the overlapping voices of the damned souls who must answer them. The faint but acrid odor of burnt popcorn. 

There, sitting in one of the sad little boxes, is me, about 2 years ago. 

I was a total loss claims representative. I was charged with telling people in crisis that their car - a huge portion of their asset pool, often the most expensive item they own - was a total loss, and that I had a non-negotiable settlement amount for them. And most people really didn't want to have that conversation. And as the insurance company I worked for increased mandatory overtime and created actual "shame lists" to punish people who took the time to do their jobs right, I stopped being able to let the awful things customers said to me slide off my back. I stopped feeling quite as numb when I saw pictures of blood-covered cars. I became a raw nerve. Panic attacks, nightmares, drinking huge amounts of alcohol to quiet my eternally racing heart and knock myself out before I could do real damage to myself.

I did have one good coping mechanism, and that was writing Necessaries.

I've always loved telling stories. I started drawing comics as soon as I could hold a pencil. I invented dozens of deeply involved, character-driven games to play with my brother (Dr. Faustus in space was a particularly... interesting one). But it took working a shitty, nightmarish job to get me to focus on writing a complete novel. I could escape into another world for a while, and the act of concentrating on the writing helped me to stop thinking about the stress of my job.

Eventually, things came to a head at work. Some dark stuff happened. There are several months of my life that are just blurs in my memory. I left that hell, and wound up with a better job at a small wealth management office. And I published Necessaries.

Why did I go the self-publishing route? These are my personal reasons:

• This is my first novel. I believe it's good, and my pre-readers had positive things to say about it. But it has a long way to go. I didn't have the money for an editor, so the polishing that my friends and family and I did to the book were enough for me, but probably not enough for a larger publishing house. So, I didn't have the funds to invest, and since I had no previous writing out there for people to see and give feedback on, I was hesitant to waste a lot of time and money on a first project. In a way, I'm testing the waters with this novel, and the waters are feeling pretty fine.
• On an emotional level, I needed to be done with this book and make it immediately available to my friends and family. I wrote this book during the worst few years of my life. It was a lifesaver for me, but it also carries a lot of painful baggage. Making Necessaries so easily available was cathartic for me, and served as evidence that I'd come through a terrible time but had come out on the other side with something valuable. It was like a message to my friends that I was OK, and it was an invitation for them to come close again and look at the pieces of my heart I'd preserved in the book.
• I wanted to develop a readership. A lot of literary agents won't consider an author unless they have a following. Having Necessaries out there, marketing it myself, and writing regularly on this site and others make me more visible. For my next book, I'll be able to show the agents I query that there are interested readers out there, and I wouldn't have those readers had I not published Necessaries.
• I still consider writing a hobby. Kinda. I'd like to change that, but as it stands, writing isn't my day job. It's getting harder and harder for writers to survive as career authors. Self-publishing gives me full control over my book. How it's presented, what's on the cover, everything down to the price. I can organize special events like giveaways because of my status as a self-publisher. I'm free to experiment without someone taking a cut of my profits, and I don't have to worry that my publisher will slack in their marketing, since I'm the one in charge. A sloppy publisher can kill their own books, and if sales plummet, my chances of getting back on board with them could be slim.
• Self-publishing may be the way of the future. More and more authors are putting their work out there like this, which means the book market is becoming more diverse. It also means more competition. However, in an increasingly self-serve society, it wouldn't surprise me if the tides turn away from traditional publishing soon. In fact, the turn has already begun.
• I can always traditionally publish in the future. For now, I can bring in a little cash, get my name known, and acquire some feedback. Perhaps in the future, I'll be able to afford that editor, and will have developed the industry know-how to sell a publisher on the story. (By the way... I never approached a publisher with Necessaries, so I don't know how it would have been received.)

In summary, emotional, financial, and self-branding reasons drove my decision. My name is out there now. I have a book under my belt, and I'm learning about how to sell my book and myself, because you really do have to sell both. 

I'll be honest. I've put a lot more money into this thing than I've gotten out. I've taken the book to a self-published book fair and to Pride, and I'm constantly seeking out new places to show Necessaries off. Despite the expense, every time I do something like run an ad on Amazon (also a benefit of self-publishing) or do a reading at a writing conference, I get a little boost in sales, I make new connections, and my name gets spread a little further.

This is where I am. My first novel is in print, and has sold a few dozen copies, nothing wild. But I have readers on my blog, and folks who interact with me on Facebook, and complete strangers who came across my book online and wrote wonderfully encouraging reviews. 

And I'm having a terrific time. I'm learning some strange and fantastic and frustrating things about the book industry. I'm getting a better idea of how I want to handle publishing my next book. Even the way I write is improving thanks to meeting other writers, reading other self-published fiction, and explaining/selling my book to potential readers.

In future posts, I'll go into greater detail about what I've done, whether the stuff I've done has worked, my general observations on the world of self-publishing, the unexpected lessons I've learned, and where I plan to go from here. If you have a particular question or topic you want to know more about, comment and ask me! Or you can message me on Facebook. 

Until next time! Much love! :D