Give us your poor, your rejected, your tired writers yearning to publish indie.
Hi, guys. This is Sarah. Some time, now about two years ago, I realized that I was now free to write whatever I wanted and that I could sell whatever I wrote, without having to go through a publisher.
To explain what this means, I have to tell you how I used to sell. The process went something like this: I had an idea. My first procedure, when confronted with an idea is to try to forget it. You see, I already have … a lifetime worth of ideas.
When this didn’t work, I’d sit down and write the first few chapters. If the idea still wouldn’t die, I would then write a proposal for the book, explaining why it was marketable, (in my opinion) and what the rest of the plot was.
Then I would send it out. And wait.
One summer, while I was unemployed, I wrote seventeen proposals. Of those I sold eight, but not all at once. I sold one that summer, and then the sales trickled in.
The most time that passed between a proposal and an acceptance was eight years, and finishing that book was fun, since the long-dormant characters no longer were pushing to be written and I had other projects I wanted to do.
In case this doesn’t come across in the description, this was far from a normal process for writing, particularly for someone like me who, while not being a pantser, approaches books like all-consuming obsessions. (I’m very lazy. I’m also obsessive. I use the obsession to write.)
But for ten years, that’s how I made a living. There was no virtue in finishing books the publishers wouldn’t buy, and I had to write books as fast as I could to survive.
So the realization that from now on whatever I wrote I could sell directly to the public, felt like… like utter relaxation.
And then the writing stopped. Not just on indie, but on the books due at Baen. For a year and a half now.
Now, part of this was that I was doing a weekly column for Lifestyle, and trying to work at other things, and it was simply too much.
The other part, though… Ah, the other part.
I realized, sometime ago that part of my problem was that I had a lot of novels in process of completion that needed to be written now. The problem … is not a problem. I can write six novels a year. Though the last time I did that, I was also homeschooling and that’s a bit much. I can do it – have done it – while also writing five or six proposals which easily take the work of half a novel.
So, why the stop?
And then today I realized I was stopping myself. You see, while my front brain KNOWS that the novels can be sold – by being put online and sold to the public – and that, in fact, Witchfinder is close to earning out a normal advance for me, the other part of me, the backbrain taught through years of experience in the field, tells me that I can’t do that. I’m just wasting my time and no one will buy this and wha—
And the fight between me and the backbrain is stopping everything, even novels already sold.
Do I know how to solve it? No idea. I’m hoping writing this helps.
Sometimes it’s hard to be free. I understand tigers kept in tiny cages and then moved to large, more natural habitats have been known to pace within the confines of imaginary cages.
The way the book business is changing, we’re going to need to learn to tear down a lot of cages and teach ourselves we’re free.
Remember: Tell your friends to send an email to [email protected] for submission guidelines. For submissions, please include author’s name, book title, a short blurb (no more than about 100 words) and a link to Amazon, preferably to a Kindle book as those are easier to list. Please don’t bother with fancy formatting, shortened links (like amzn.co), review copies (neither Sarah nor I have the time right now) or cover art (I get it directly from Amazon in the HTML.)
Survival Test
By David L. Burkhead
War!
A series of diplomatic crises precipitate a limited nuclear war on Earth. Missile defenses block access to space. Nothing goes up and nothing comes down.
The people of the various space stations, the moon base, and a space colony whose construction had just begun must find a way to survive until the war is over.
The ultimate survival test.
Witchfinder
By Sarah A. Hoyt
In Avalon, where the world runs on magic, the king of Britannia appoints a witchfinder to rescue unfortunates with magical power from lands where magic is a capital crime. Or he did. But after the royal princess was kidnapped from her cradle twenty years ago, all travel to other universes has been forbidden, and the position of witchfinder abolished. Seraphim Ainsling, Duke of Darkwater, son of the last witchfinder, breaks the edict. He can’t simply let people die for lack of rescue. His stubborn compassion will bring him trouble and disgrace, turmoil and danger — and maybe, just maybe, the greatest reward of all.
Nocturnal Lives (Box Set)
By Amanda S. Green
Special price of $2.99 though September 5th.
This “box set” includes the first three novels in the Nocturnal Lives series.
Gentleman Takes a Chance (Shifter Series Book 2)
By Sarah Hoyt
Shape-Shift Into Adventure!
Shapeshifters Kyrie and Tom try to live a normal life in a small Colorado town—normal, that is, considering one of them is secretly a panther and the other a dragon. But now a primeval Shifter feud grows infinitely more deadly, and Kyrie and Tom find themselves warriors in an ancient struggle for Shifter destiny itself!
Quick-witted fantasy doyenne Sarah Hoyt continues the brilliant contemporary fantasy “Shifter” saga begun in Draw One in the Dark.
At the publisher’s request, this title is sold without DRM (DRM Rights Management).
“An engaging main character, and the book . . . romps along.”
—Publishers Weekly on Sarah Hoyt’s delightful Ill Met by Moonlight.
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