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If you have back-list books from being traditionally published, you're going to want to read this post!
Lorna Fergusson explains the lessons she's learned in self-publishing The Chase.
Here’s a moment: I’m in Soho, London, on a summer’s day.
I’ve been treated to an excellent lunch and a signing-tour of London bookshops by my publisher, Bloomsbury. It’s been, as you can imagine, one of those rare days, those days when every effort, every knockback, every long dark night of the soul seems worth it. It’s publication day. My editor is wonderful. My book-cover is gorgeous. My publishers are respected. Everything is perfect.
Except for one thing: like a fool, I’ve forgotten my camera. So I ring up, a couple of days later, to ask if somebody can take a photo of the lavish display of The Chase – my novel! – in Bloomsbury’s window.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ comes the answer, ‘it’s somebody else’s book in there now.’
Lesson learned from traditional publishing: how brief one’s moment in the window is.
Pre-publication, there’s a long build-up where marketing and publicity plans and promises are made – some are followed through. The book appears, but it’s being pushed from behind by the next one … and the next. Like Bede’s sparrow flying through a brightly-lit hall, it passes from darkness to darkness.
So, in the fullness of time The Chase progresses from hardback to paperback … to out of print. My editor leaves Bloomsbury. My agent retires. The publishing industry goes through huge changes. Digital publishing arrives.
More than ten years on from that day in Soho, I decide to take charge of my own fortunes.
I retrieve my rights – a protracted process – and set about republishing my story under my own imprint, Fictionfire Press. The Chase is mine again. Scary. Exciting. Utterly fulfilling.
After several months of frenetic activity, The Chase is out in the world once more, as an ebook and a paperback. I’m now getting ready to bring out a collection of short stories … then there’s the thriller that’s been languishing, two-thirds complete …
The bit is well and truly between my teeth.
So, what have I learned from the self-publishing experience? So many things – among them these key lessons:
No book need die
Of course, The Chase was never really dead; people had it on their bookshelves. You could still dredge it up on Amazon and Abebooks, secondhand. But it had had its moment in the sun. I felt distant from it, as if I were no longer the person who’d written it. Now, with the ‘long tail’ of e-commerce, the ease of downloading books, the convenience of print on demand, my novel can enjoy a second life. This is the kind of flexibility of access and supply none of us could even have dreamed of a few short years ago.
If you’re going to self-publish, you need to do it right
That means being professional and taking responsibility for your work. This is your baby – don’t send it out in rags and with a snotty nose. I discovered the enormous satisfaction to be had from commissioning a beautiful cover (thanks, Jane Dixon-Smith of www.jdsmith-design.co.uk!) and having the text properly formatted for both the ebook and paperback versions (thanks again Jane!).
You need to be prepared to pay for certain services if you’re not able to cope on your own or if you’re not prepared to take the time to learn. I was happy to edit my own work (it’s part of my profession, after all) but formatting is beyond me. So I paid for that. I wanted a cover that readers would want to reach out and touch: I paid for that too. As an independent publisher you need to be answerable to your work and to your readership: treat both with respect.
Words are not set in stone anymore
Digital publication means that your text is more like a palimpsest: even after publication you can unpublish, erase and adapt as you wish before republishing. As I was bringing The Chase out on Kindle in the first instance I edited the original opening, making it briefer and pacier, knowing that readers often download that free sample section and make a buying decision based on it.
You need help
Truly. If you’re going to go into the self-publishing game, you will need support – and the extraordinary and joyous thing is that there’s such a lot of support around, from individual writers who’ll share their experience and recommendations, through to organisations such as the Alliance of Independent Authors. I joined ALLi when it launched in spring 2012 and have found membership invaluable. I can ask questions on the ALLi Facebook page and a stream of helpful advice will flow. I’ve met many wonderful people, including novelist Linda Gillard who was the first to tell me I should republish The Chase and set me on this indie-publishing path.
I’ve consulted Ali Luke’s clear and user-friendly Publishing E-books in the For Dummies series, ALLi’s Choosing a Self-Publishing Service, David Gaughran’s Let’s Get Digital and Let’s Get Visible, plus Joanna Penn’s excellent new How to Market a Book. I’ve followed so many blogs – from The Creative Penn to Catherine Ryan Howard’s Catherine, Caffeinated (don’t even think of applying for your EIN or ITIN number from the American IRS service without the crucial post about it on her blog!)
The learning never stops and the To-Do List never shortens!
I’m still trying to get to grips with the Byzantine complexities of Goodreads … I don’t have a Pinterest board yet … I need to get my paperback into bookshops. You just have to keep checking those items off the list, even when two more spring up for every one you deal with …
Sometimes you need to step back
The constant sense that you should be selling can weigh heavy, so it’s important know when to back off from social media, when to be silent, when to let the well fill – because after all, you do have other books to write, don’t you!
Have you got a backlist you could re-publish? Do you have any questions about this or anything to do with self-publishing when you've been traditionally published before? Please do leave a comment below.
Lorna has taught creative writing for many years, including for Oxford University’s various writing programmes. She has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize, longlisted for the Fish Short Story Prize and was a finalist in the Historical Novel Society’s short story prize 2012. Currently her unpublished children’s novel Hinterland is on the shortlist of four for Pan Macmillan’s Write Now Prize, so she hopes her future will be that of a hybrid author, part traditionally published, part indie!
Lorna’s literary consultancy is at www.fictionfire.co.uk and her blog about the business of books and the writing life is at http://literascribe.blogspot.com. You can sign up to be updated about her publications at www.fictionfirepress.com.
Follow her on Twitter at @LornaFergusson and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/LornaFergussonAuthor
Top image: Flickr Creative Commons CookieMonster New Life
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1 2 3 Next »Great post, Lorna! And for anyone new to self-publishing I'd say read the sections 'If you're going to self-publish you need to do it right' and 'You need help' at least three times!'
I'm only self-published, as you know, but I still have a 'back-list' of yet more children's book manuscripts from the time I wrote The Secret Lake, Eeek! The Runaway Alien & Ferdinand Fox's Big Sleep. In due course I shall be dusting these off for review - and if any still pass muster I shall certainly be applying these rules...
Hi Karen, this is my third attempt at posting a reply! I'm glad you enjoyed the post. There's certainly no 'only' about self-publishing these days, when writers take care to produce their work well, as you do. I really enjoyed talking to you at the London Book Fair and your advice and knowledge was invaluable. Good luck with dusting down those other books! (And good luck to me as I try again to submit this comment!)
Absolutely spot on. Taking control of my own backlist kick started my stalled career and that is a cast iron fact.
Hi Dougie, glad to hear it's worked well for you. Yes, the key word is 'control' - it's a great feeling!
It is indeed! Although I didn't actually need to recover my rights, Headline gave them back to me!
Two days later, I received an email from an epublishing company and the rest is history. I've had one book at #1 on its Amazon chart for two years because for the first time, I've been able to target market my audience. Something I was never able to allowed to do previously.
The irony is that as a result, four of my biggest selling books are actually going back into print this year and one will even make the leap to the big screen!
That's brilliant news, Dougie! I'm delighted this has worked out so well for you.
Great post, Lorna. My first two books (non-fiction) were published by a quirky independent publisher back in 2006 (seems so long ago now).I had high hopes of updating the titles every couple of years.....But just three months later the publisher retired and sold the company on. The new publisher was only interested in business books and not the travel and lifestyle titles. I only found out that I'd been dumped when I couldn't find my bio on their website.... I too got my rights back but the market has changed so much that the only viable option is to republish - as an app. Thankfully the indie revolution arrived and I'm enjoying co-writing and self-publishing fiction thrillers.
Alison LN
Hi Alison,
What a frustrating experience! Not only did the publisher retire, but you had to find out in a brutal way that you were no longer on their books. Lack of communication is one of the huge annoyances in the traditional model. I'm glad to hear you got your rights back and you're now publishing yourself - wishing you wel las you continue.
Very timely post for me as I'm shortly going to be reissuing my novel The Man with the Horn as an ebook. Published over ten years ago by a short-lived small press, it needed quite a bit of editing (how did all those adverbs get in there!) but it should soon be ready.
Hi Barbara,
Good luck with your own self-publishing enterprise! Yes, it's amazing that even a book that's gone through the traditional process still, when you come to look at it, needs further editing. I had to stop after four passes through The Chase (after it had been 'out there' for years too!) because I felt I could have gone on endlessly, nipping and tucking. However, I do feel the new edit improved aspects of the original and was worth doing.
What a great post. I think hybrid authors will become the new norm. This is a great reminder for everyone who is dealing with a traditional publisher to pay attention to the revision of rights clauses in their contracts.
And since we all improve as writers as we go along, the opportunity to improve an old book for a new audience is an exciting aspect of self-pubbing.
Hi Leslie,
Thanks so much. Yes, I agree that the hybrid model is the future and is the ideal for us. I'm very glad that my original contract was so old that there were no complications over e-rights when the time came to retrieve the rights, because digital publishing had scarcely been thought of back then! You mention improving old books - when I was editing The Chase it definitely struck me how much I'd learned about the craft of writing since I'd first written it. I was so much more market-aware too and this helped me with writing the blurb and choosing how to present the book too.
How do you go about the "retrieving your rights" part of the process? You say it takes time (and isn't easy from what I gather) but how do you go about it?
Hi Colleen,
I discussed the situation with my agent who wrote to the publisher requesting reversion of rights. The publisher was very dilatory about responding, so more than one request was sent. The process itself when it happened was easy: the publisher sent a letter confirming reversion. So the lesson is to be persistent - and for me it did help to have an agency speaking up for me (my agent had retired but the agency rights department dealt with it). You could also ask the Society of Authors for advice on this matter, I should think . I hope that helps!
I've seen some posts from agents who are asked about getting the rights reverted back to your books, I would love to see a post somewhere, from someone who did that about the process. Thanks for your tips!
Hi Heather,
You're very welcome! See also my comments on Colleen's question above.
If your publisher doesn't keep your book in print then rights revert to you after an agreed period of time. (These details should be in your original contract.)
I think Lorna was unlucky. I had no trouble getting my rights back to two of my novels. It shouldn't be difficult. If it is, it probably means your publisher doesn't feel very motivated to co-operate, so you'll have to nag. (This is why indies don't need publishers, do need agents.) Basically, if your book's been out of print for 6 months (or whatever it says in your contract) & the publisher has no plans to reprint, you ask for your rights back.
Hi Linda,
Yes, you're absolutely right - and what this does is stress how important it is to have a carefully-worded contract and be fully aware under what conditions reversion can happen. The big problem is not so much with print as e-rights. I do want to make it clear that I didn't have an obstacle to regaining my rights other than the dilatoriness of response from the publisher. They originally asked if they could make it available on POD, but when I agreed, the book was sold at a very high rate and was buried on their website - no visibility. So I decided there was no benefit to me in this and asked for reversion, but, as I said, a few letters had to be sent and that all took time. Everything about the traditional publishing world takes time. Writers are increasingly unwilling to hang about while months go by ...
I would be interested in knowing the ballpark cost figure for getting a great cover made and for formatting for both ebook and paperback versions. (I do understand that costs would vary for individual cases, but as I said, just a ball park figure).
Costs do vary widely, Ventakesh. You could try The Alliance of Independent Authors for advice and for trusted cover designers and formatters. I used JDSmith Design for both cover and formatting and costs were very reasonable.
Excellent post, Lorna! I constantly question why I would ever change from being indie published. What I would like to find though is a highly-recommended virtual assistant service. Any suggestions?
Thanks Patricia! I'm afraid I have no suggestions, though!