Patty Jansen - Self-publishing Unboxed (The Three-year, No-bestseller Plan For Making a Sustainable Living From Your Fiction Book 1)

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G ASP, I KNOW. How dare I talk about money?

Writers are supposed to be precious and exclusive creatures who need no food and clothing and have no kids who need education and no rent that needs paying. They live off thin air. They have no lives because they cant afford lives, begging from friends, couch-surfing, slaving away in exploitative, backbreaking jobs, all the while banging away at their typewriters in the attic at night.

Because, art.

Every now and then, you will come across much-hyped articles in lauded, old-fashioned newspapers, or even websites (but writers cant afford the Internet, remember?) that perpetuate the myth of a poor suffering writer by trotting out just one of these writers.

They signed a book deal, got a $3000 advance. The book never earned out, and the publisher didnt want the second book. They wrote another book that sold even less and now earn a pittance from their writing and supplement their writing income from speaking gigs and teaching writing classes. Because, obviously, the world needs more starving writers who cant sell their books.

I know, right?

Of course, on the other side we find the other myth, that of the writer selling their soul to the devil called commerce, writing vast quantities of pulp books, churning them out, even contracting other people to write for them, because they write books that readers gobble up like cheap candy. This soulless writing (or so the literati say) thrives on churn; one book is like every other. But, hey, at least these writers can afford to pay for their own attic.

Stereotypes. Who doesnt love them? As soon as you say youre a writer, people will mentally put you in either of those two boxes.

This book is not about either of those extremes, although both definitely exist. It is also not about the soulless grind of finding an agent and selling your book to publishers who pay next to nothing, make you sign restrictive contracts, give you a poor cover and publish the book two years after they acquired it, barely market it and then hog your rights until the end of time.

Its about writing what you love, writing it well, positioning it well in todays market, and building a sustainable long term income through taking control of your own publication and your own audience.

Its a book about making a viable, sustainable income through self-publishing.

A lot of writers are doing this already. They are not writers you will find mentioned in articles in The Guardian, because they dont have spectacular multi-million bestseller success. They are not the Amanda Hockings and Hugh Howeys and Andy Weirs of the world, although all of those saw fame from self-published books. But many of the writers Im talking about never have any books in any top 100 anywhere.

They are writers who have been empowered by the ability to upload their own books to retailers and cut out the necessity of a middleman, a.k.a a publisher. They have done this by putting out quality books that enough readers wanted to read that they, the authors, could lead the lives they have always dreamed of.

Self-publishing has changed the lives of many. It has enabled carers to look after their sick partners, parents to be there for their kids, retirees to travel around the world or simply live comfortably. Its allowed people to leave toxic marriages, leave bad jobs, provide for disabled family members, pay off mortgages, or even obtain mortgages.

It involves nothing except yourself, your sense of savvy and your computer.

Its self-publishing, but self-publishing with a plan.

But first...

F IRST WE NEED to put a few myths to sleep that still circulate about self-publishing, myths that have proven very hard to kill.

The myth that all self-published books are crap

There is certainly a lot of crap out there. Self-published authors are not helping by putting out poorly written books with zero editing. And by poorly written, I dont mean books that dont conform to some literatis self-imposed high standard of crafted prose, I mean books with such poor and twisted sentences that they are barely readable. Books with so many demonstrable grammar and spelling errors that a primary school kid with a decent grasp of language could do better. Unedited books by people who obviously dont write a lot in English, or books that have been hauled through Google Translate. Books with extremely badly made pixelated covers. Books with formatting that renders them unreadable.

I mean books that fail the absolute minimum standards of publication.

And the fact that this myth exists is because there are still far too many people out there putting out books just like that. So maybe self-published books are crap is not a myth, but its definitely a myth when you want to apply it to all self-published books.

The thing is, there are also a lot of books that look great, contain fewer editing oopsies than books from big publishers, and have awesome covers. Books that look indistinguishable from trade-published books. Books that have been through a thorough editing process, have a professional cover, and have been formatted by a professional.

If youre still doubtful that such books exist, go to the Science Fiction > Space Opera category on Amazon US, and look at the publishers of the bestselling books. If it says Amazon Digital Editions or the book is in Kindle Unlimited, then its self-published. On non-Amazon retailers, it will often say Smashwords Edition, or the publisher may be listed as Draft2Digital. At the time of writing, trade publishers appear to have withdrawn from publishing Space Opera. Self-published writers OWN this category on all platforms.