by Alex Langley
AUGUST:
Complete creative control—you own every word in your work, and only you can make the decision to cut, keep, or change the copy. Money—you set your own price and your own royalties, plus you get paid on a regular basis (monthly vs. quarterly or every six months). Flexible timeline—if something happens to interrupt your work schedule and you have to push your book launch back a week or month or quarter, you can do that. You are not busting a publisher’s timeline (thereby gaining an unreliable reputation with them).
LINTON:
The most obvious advantage of online publishing is the ease with which it can be done. If you have a completed manuscript, you’re a button press away from publication. With traditional publishing, you have to first survive the slush piles, rising to the top among the sea of other hopeful authors. Once selected by an agent or editor, you then face rewrites, content edits, marketing team approval, and finally finding a slot on their often-packed publishing schedule. A process that takes minutes could take years on the trad pub end.
With a smaller overhead, fewer commitments to massive distribution channels and the bloated, and increasingly expensive, paper book trade, you won’t need to sell thousands or tens of thousands of copies to be a “success.” You can get by with much smaller profits simply because you aren’t trying to support a massive machine that constantly churns out more books and relies heavily on blockbuster sales to even be viable. Only you decide when a book has failed.
LANGLEY:
What do you feel are the disadvantages of online publishing versus traditional publishing?
AUGUST:
Lack of editing—editing is so important, and it needs to be done by a professional, someone you must pay, someone who doesn’t have a dog in your race. A good editor will help you round out your books, finding the issues you may not see, or suggesting changes that only strengthen your book.
Also, it’s all on you to market your book. Besides finding the time to do a book launch, you’ve also got to find avenues to launch it, and they continually change.
HAMMOND:
The high volume of crap novels you’re competing against.
LINTON:
One of the most obvious disadvantages of online publishing is the ease with which it can be done. . . . That completed manuscript you are one finger-twitch away from showing off to the entire world, are you sure it’s complete? Has it received a thorough, paid, and professional edit? A proofread? Has it even been put through the authorial paces of multiple, gut-wrenching drafts? Did you pay a pro to design your cover? Have you gotten feedback from beta readers and fans of the genre or sent Advance Reader Copies to well-regarded critics and bloggers? Do you have a marketing plan in place and a solid launch strategy? Nine out of ten times, the answer self-publishers give to the majority of these questions is “no,” and this is far from an exhaustive list. But you need every single box checked before you hit PUBLISH if you plan to succeed.
LANGLEY:
What tips might you recommend to newcomers looking to get into the business?
AUGUST:
Write regularly. Guard your writing time. Treat it like a job and make sure those around you do the same. And don’t put your writing on the back burner because you feel guilty about closeting yourself away for an hour or two a few times a week. Find a critique group or critique partners. For partners, make sure you can work together. Don’t be afraid to walk away from a partnership that doesn’t work or becomes toxic. For a critique group, look for something that is convenient for you and that you will attend regularly. Even if you don’t have work to bring in, you can offer your own advice and usually learn from the advice other members are giving to the works being read.
Join a craft organization if possible. There are many writers’ associations such as the Romance Writers of America, Fantasy & Science Fiction Writers, Novelists Inc., Sisters in Crime, Horror Writers Association, and plenty more. Find a professional group, attend their lectures, seminars, and conferences. Join in on chat loops and e-mail exchanges. Absorb everything you can from these people, because they have a lot of wisdom to impart.
Don’t give up. Your first book might not work out (mine is hiding in an impenetrable safe protected by a black mamba and Pee Wee Herman), but each project brings about better skills, better writing.
Define your own version of success. Publishing is not a one-size-fits-all industry. What someone else considers the barometer of success might not be what you consider it to be. Find your own path.
NEUGEBAUER:
Learn to listen to and implement feedback. Research your genre, the industry, and how to be professional in this field. Be persistent in your submissions, querying, etc. Don’t give up, but don’t get stuck on any one project, either. Keep producing, because the more you produce, the better it will get. Go to some events when you’re new: conferences, meetings, workshops, whatever you can find. You don’t have to hit the pricey ones; some are even free or offer scholarships. You’ll learn a lot and meet good people, so you won’t be alone in this difficult journey. (Bonus: Writers are the best people.) And definitely don’t quit your day job without some kind of backup finance in place; everything in publishing takes ten times longer than you think it should. On that note, work toward patience and enjoy the ride, because it will be a long one, but it will also be crazy fun.
BUBERT:
Start slow with the right perspective. You are very likely not going to become a billionaire by being a writer of fiction. You are probably not even going to make a living wage without some other kind of supplement like a part-time job, speaking engagements, or other paid writing along the lines of marketing copy or nonfiction freelance work. And if you do manage to make a living wage, it is going to take some time. Like years, maybe even decades. If you start the work in order to fund your escape from the world of working stiffs, you’re very likely not going to like what you write (or what you find yourself agreeing to write).
RICHARDS:
Spend time with other writers, but don’t spend all your time with just writers. You need a non-writing community to keep you balanced . . . and to get ideas you’ll never get if you only hang around with other writers.
Don’t spend much time on studying the business of writing until you’ve spent a lot of time studying the craft of writing. Have two or three books under your belt before you become too involved in the business side of things, because it changes so rapidly that what you learn today could be obsolete by the time you’re ready to use it.
Don’t sit too long. Write on a timer and take plenty of breaks so you don’t destroy your circulation or give yourself a too-broad backside. Too late for me, but save yourself!
Love the process or quit. There are so many things to do in the world. You should only sit alone in a room making up stories if you truly enjoy it. Otherwise, get out there and find the thing you truly love to do.
Don’t wait. If you want to write, start now, even if it’s only for a few minutes a day.
LINTON:
Don’t. No, seriously. There are some critical supply-and-demand issues. With online publishing’s explosion, those issues have gone from bad to worse. Likely, there aren’t any more writers in the world since the gates came crashing down, but there is no control on the flow. In truth, it’s a wonderful curse. At no point in history has it been easier for a person to take their lovingly crafted novel and put it in front of the teeming masses. But at no point in history has it been easier for the unprepared, the hopelessly untalented, to clog the works with their monkey-at-a-typewriter drivel.
To be clear, though—one person’s monkey at a typewriter is another person’s Shakespeare.
So if you’re dead set on the idea of being an underpaid, overworked seller of lies in a world already full of half-truths and nothing I say will dissuade you, then you’ve probably got the right attitude to succeed.
STARTING POINT: SELF-PUBLISHED WRITING
Becoming a self-published writer requires a writer to be all thing
s in fostering the growth of their career: creator, editor, promoter, market analyst, web designer, tinker, tailor, soldier, spy. It’s a road that starts smooth and gets rockier as you continue driving, requiring powerful determination if you expect your book to do anything other than clog up your hard drive.
THE SELF-PUBLISHING COMPETITION IS VAST, WEIRD, AND GENERALLY NOT VERY GOOD
Since anyone can self-publish their books, everyone is self-publishing. There’s an absolute mountain of garbage out there dragging down the overall quality of works to be found in self-publishing. For every competently assembled bestseller—like H. M. Ward’s Damaged series or Amanda Hocking’s Trylle Trilogy—out there, you get a thousand overly ambitious genre romps with titles like Salandris Reborn: Book One of the DarkSyde Chronicles: A Revengeance Best Served Cold or boring rehashes of the author’s family history with generic titles like Jack’s Journey.
To help beat the competition, you’ll want to out-professional them. This also means taking a critical eye to your work where others don’t. If you read most self-pubs, it’s clear that the only people who’ve read the work were the author, their close relations, and maybe an editor who has a financial investment in trying to get along with the author and not tell them that their 900-page magnum opus about a guy who discovers he’s a blood descendant of Sonic the Hedgehog is, in fact, garbage. Find some good critique partners and have them check out your work before you put it out to the world; not only will it help you find your weaknesses, but critiquing the work of other interested writers will also help hone your skills.
Out-professionaling the competition also means paying some professionals to help get your book in good shape. Firstly, you’ll likely want an editor. Search long and hard to find someone good, someone whose interest is in helping you make the best book, not in making you a happy panda so you’ll keep throwing them business even if your book has gargantuan flaws in it. Secondly, unless you have extensive knowledge in graphic design, you should probably fork over the bucks to get a professional to make a cover for you. Despite the adage telling them not to, people can and should judge a book by its cover; after all, it’s the first thing we see of the work, and if that cover stinks it implies incompetence on the part of the author.
STAY CURRENT ON SELF-PUBLISHING STRATEGIES
The zeitgeist of self-publishing strategies is a capricious spirit. The strategies that are cutting-edge ideas on how to market your book could become the go-to strategy of next week, the over-saturated strategy of the next, and a waste of time after that. To market your book well, you’ll need to stay on the cutting edge of how people are marketing their work, which means talking to others, watching trends, subscribing to newsletters, and doing as much research as you can.
“Every marketing strategy has a life cycle, and, from what I can tell, those life cycles keep getting shorter and shorter. I watched a proven strategy degrade over six months as a host of ‘authorpreneurs’ selling marketing classes singlehandedly flooded the space with new students. [The strategy] was long in the tooth already (marketing funnels that offer free books, collect e-mails, and send readers through a drip marketing campaign designed to encourage engagement and weed out non-fans). It’s been a go-to for about three years now, and that’s pushing the shelf life pretty far.
The real thing is that you have to be flexible and adjust to whatever comes along, and find some other way to make direct contact with your readers and not rely on Amazon or some third party to contact them for you.”
—Russ Linton, author
DIGITAL PUBLISHING WILL PROBABLY BE WHERE YOU MAKE MOST OF YOUR MONEY
The price point on digital publishing, for both you and the consumer, is considerably lower than that of physical publishing, so most of your income is probably going to come through electronic sales. People are a lot more willing to experiment with new authors when their books cost ten bucks or less.
NICHE NOVELLAS AND SHORT STORIES ARE A BIG MARKET
Oddly enough, while traditional publishing doesn’t offer much of a market for niche novellas and short stories, the low cost of entry and quick read time of these works make them perfect for an online market—doubly so if your work could even tangentially be qualified as niche erotica.
WORDS FROM WORKING NERDS
The man, the myth, the legend: Chuck Tingle. Who is this mysterious Dr. Tingle, whose works of erotic satire blend surreal humor, biting wit, and hardcore gay sex? No one knows for sure. His works include Pounded in the Butt by My Own Butt, Buttception: A Butt within a Butt within a Butt, Pounded in the Pound: Turned Gay by the Socioeconomic Implications of Great Britain Leaving the European Union, and the Hugo award–nominated Space Raptor Butt Invasion. Thanks to his impressive bibliography and strong online presence, Dr. Tingle has appeared on comedy shows and television and has earned the elusive position of successful, sought-after online author. In a rare interview with the elusive author, I got him to open up in his own special, grammatically unique way about who he is and how he writes.
How would you describe yourself?
hello name is doctor chuck tingle and i am known as the worlds greatest author but also as a proud dad of my handsome son (name of jon) also as big time man about town in billings this is a place in montana so that is my way thanks
What is your workday routine?
well first things first gotta wake up and have some spaghetti maybe a chocolate milk then i get out of bed and start MORNING MEDITATION this is where i think about my way and the way of others and maybe even the way of the world. then i think ‘HOW CAN I PROVE LOVE TODAY?’ this can seem like a really big time question but when you think about it it is not that way because we can ALL PROVE LOVE IN OUR OWN WAY. so i would say most buckaroos should start there day like this and think about how they can make a positive way for their timeline (in their own unique way that we all have) so maybe they could trot to the store and get a present for their bud or maybe they could let someone else go in the door before them or maybe they could donate money to a nice charity these are all great ways to prove love is real for all who kiss
Where do you get your ideas for your writing, and how do you keep from procrastinating?
most ideas come from meditating just thinking on the world. sometimes when i am watching news with son jon and KLOWY i see a story and think ‘this is a perfect tingler’ so then i will start writing like that it all depends i think best advice is listen to your timeline it will have a flow and it will point you in the direction of ideas you don’t have to fight it
well for man name of chuck there is opposite problem to say HOW THE HECK DO YOU STRIKE BACK (LIKE A STARS WAR HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA) when you WRITE TO MUCH? this is my problem as a working man sometimes i write so dang much my brain starts to hurt and makes me feel like a hog in a hog bin. so procrastination is not my enemy most of the time it is my bud. so i like to fix this way by walking to the park or talking to my son jon (he is handsome). I am sorry that this is opposite answer to question
Who or what are your inspirations?
STEVES KING is a real big timer i like to enjoy his way mostly storys like THATS A DANG BIG DOG or GET THESE BONES OUT OF THE LAKE YOU DUMMY or JACKS BACK: MY DAD IN THE MAZE so these are some of my favorites also R L STIME has many good books mostly where you think its a monster but then its actually a cat and you think wow what a relief but then later its actually a monster
In today’s busy society, full of living objects and bigfoot pirate ghosts, how do you find the time to balance your schedule of writing, social media, and spaghetti?
i am working a lot it is nice when jon and KLOWY go to work because then i get the house to myself and i can get a lot done so that is mostly how i spend my time. it is easy because i get to decide ‘oh i would like to go do this now because this is my butts heart’ and then i go and make my way through the day. so because i am on my own schedule as a buckaroo that part is pretty easy no problem so far unless i slip into another timeline but that is a tale for another d
ay buster
Your works feature many recurring elements—meta self-awareness, living objects, bigfoots, void crabs, etc. What is it about these elements that drew you to using them as writing motifs?
well after traveling through many layers of THE TINGLEVERSE i have learned that meta power is very good energy source not as good as love but it can work sometimes if you need to move through layers. so when i explore timeslines i remember that way and i think this influences my writing as a buckaroo.
Do you feel your approach to writing has changed over time?
now when i write i do not need to hide my words under the floor like when i was in HOME OF TRUTH UTAH those were sad days ahead mostly and then when there was the big fire it was also a sad day but then i got to LEAVE THE HECK OUTTA DODGE so then i left and then son jon entered this timeline and that made love real and i am so happy about this way and so proud of my son he is the coolest guy on the block. so my writing has changed because now i do not need to hide it under the floor son jon and sam rand help me make it into the Internet
You project encouragement and positivity through your online presence. How do you keep such positivity in the face of negativity and void crabs?
as a doctor i have seen maybe buckaroos who battle with GVM (GREATEST VOID MADNESS) and that is NOT A FUN WAY so i understand how important it is to avoid this way at all costs sometimes it is hard when i hear the lonesome train or if i stare between layers of the tingleverse to long but mostly it is okay. so then you think ‘what am i thankful for in this world?’ and there is just so dang much i am so lucky and grateful so i think that makes proving love easy