The Official Website of Author Tarah L. Wolff Just another WordPress site

So, my book is almost complete. Ordered three on Monday from Lulu with the complete (finished) cover and everything; one for me, one for my editor, one for my mom. We’re all gonna read it and make the joint decision on whether or not something still needs work etc. So, after all these years (yes, wow, years) I am a nose from the finish line and really trying my damnedest not to just freak the fuck out. Why am I freaking out? Well, there is the money thing. If I am going to “go” with my book where do I put my money that will be the most profitable for sales? What if I put all of my money into it, make the best marketing decisions possible, and still sell nothing? What if, simply put, everyone who reads it says its trash? What if I can’t get anyone to read it? Life was simpler when I had this book I was working on and it would never be finished.

But, wait, isn’t this my dream?

Fair Enough. But, no, not exactly, my dream was for a big publishing company (let’s say for shits and giggles: Random House) to call me out of the blue and offer me a several million dollar contract to do nothing but write for the rest of my life. Sure, yeah, that would have been nice. Not likely… but nice. However, having delved now into publishing as I have over the past few years as an Editor for the Jackpine Writers’ Bloc and several books that were not my own, I have some experience now with these things. Experience that now actually makes me exceedingly leery of regular publishing houses because if its not Random House (or one of those other huge New York publishing houses) than its just a baby in comparison and that means a baby’s marketing strategy and a baby budget for new books and new authors (especially first time novels).

What that all translates to is that if my book did get published by a real publishing company (allbet a small one, let’s be honest here) and it did poorly (because it probably would, it is in a niche market etc.) they would keep rights to my book and in the publishing world, after the first year of publication, that book is quite literally considered “dead”. And “republishing” a book (once their rights ran out and I got the copyright back on my book which could possibly take years) that did poorly on its initial run is basically starting five miles back missing a leg on the race track.

But there are other ways of looking at this. There is the first one that is very popular which is: “Who cares who the publishing house is, it’s a publishing company and that automatically gives your book merit” Fair enough, most book reviewers aren’t even willing to read self published books, they don’t even care if you own the publishing company just as long as it looks like it was published by a REAL publishing company. This is nuts in my opinion and I don’t think it’s going to last long. This is, very simply put, a society of old school papers and editors and reviewers who refuse to acknowledge the world of self publishing as of yet. Silly, silly, silly people: just because you pretend something isn’t there, doesn’t mean its not taking over.

But I also don’t blame them. I love books, always have always will, but I’m a digital girl (if you hadn’t noticed. . .) and how I see the new ebook market is that more people will be reading than ever because it is simply easier. And that is fucking fantastic. On the other hand there is another reason I don’t blame them: because of the 100% of self published books out there only about 15% of those are even edited properly and of that 15% there is only a tiny amount of actual quality writing. Ebooks and self publishing houses like lulu have made it very easy for writers to publish, problem is there is no filter for bad writing now and the market is flooded so getting a quality book out there now is more impossible than ever.

So anyway . . .

Where does that leave me? Well, there is the argument that I should find a publisher and go with my current marketing plan with their book launch and that would both give me credit and merit. however, I am giving up all rights and a ton of royalties by doing such a thing. That means, book covers, editing, EVERYTHING. And, as you might have heard, I’m a book cover designer and a editor already so giving that up is not easy. There is also who I am to take into consideration. I have been helping and encouraging self publishing other people for years and at least have to admit I’ve got a tid bit of reputation to consider (though in the big picture that doesn’t really matter at all) not to mention I’ve never really been the type to do things in any traditional manner whatsoever. This is all under the assumption that I could even find a publishing company even interested in my beast. And, frankly, as much as I don’t want to go this alone, it is far more my style.

My other argument on the line of getting my book published normally is the time line. I would then be piggy backing on this publishing company, which means waiting for them, doing whatever they want when they want it and waiting for the publishing date: which will take months if not years. And that means a real print run and, if I don’t sell, that means losing my publishing company a whole helluvalotta money and getting myself a big black mark. If I self publish with Lulu’s global marketing I’m looking at having my book in Barnes & Nobel and Amazon within 8 weeks, yay. And if I do the ebook thing, that is almost immediate and, if I don’t sell,  nobody knows and nobody cares accept me. The only person out any money then is me and I like that just fine.

However, again, I’m losing all credit and my book is now bulked into the hundreds of thousands of other self-published books on the market with no agent and no publicist accept myself. Now that is daunting as shit. But another great thing is that there is no time-line before my book expires. Where in the real publishing world you really only have so much time for success after the initial launch, I can keep selling my book with no expiration date forever.

So, it’s decided, I’m going with lulu (and their global marketing, cheap as can be) I’m going with publishing on Amazon Kindle (free) and in Smashwords (also free). I’ll wait to publish the ebooks until Amazon and Barnes & Nobel have my book for sale, in the meantime I’ll get the website for Embraced by Darkness up and running (it will be linked here so check back soon). And then I’m planning some marketing in Deviantart (because my cover I think will appeal to a lot of the artists on there) but most of my marketing cash will go to paying and begging for reviews from anyone willing to write about a self-published novel, I may even contact my local newspaper and one of our local magazines called Northwoods Woman. How much marketing cash do I have? Let’s just say its not much and that’s selling basically everything I own and leaving me with no means to pay the bills if my book doesn’t sell. And that’s not even a thought I can stomach to think about. This is my best chance to make my book a success, it’s time for me to risk everything.