Patience is a Virtue
DAY 44Word Count: 28,244
Sentence of the Day: The lone sunbeam slid along her skin-wrapped bones like a knife, cutting and severe.
The publishing industry is one of the slowest I've ever encountered. Submit a query. Wait an additional two. If they like it, send off a proposal. Wait a few more months. Lucky enough that they want to see a full manuscript? Guess what. Wait up to three or four more. By the time they reject you (oops...is my cynical slip showing?), you could've been waiting for 6-9 months.
When I tell my non-writer friends this scenario, their eyes generally bug out, followed by the proverbial, "Are you crazy? Why don't you just self-publish?"
And therein a can of worms is opened.
Disclaimer: having never self published, I don't proclaim to be an expert. However, for the past ten years I have rubbed elbows with authors, agents, and publishers. Because of this, I've picked up a certain attitude about self publishing...and it's not a good one. Leastwise not for fiction.
The general public (aka my non-writer friends) don't seem to have this look-down-their-nose-and-sniff kind of presupposition about self publishing. Which begs the question...why?
My best guess is that it has do to with one of two things, which are really two sides of the same coin: ignorance and profitability. It's hard work to peddle a book, especially if you're on your own without the help of an established publisher. It's easy enough to download your novel to Smashwords then wait until the moolah rolls in, but that's probably not going to happen.
Consider these facts:
- over a million books are published each year in the U.S.
- no other industry has so many new product introductions
- the digital revolution is expanding those products at exponential rates, yet sales are not increasing
- the average pod (print-on-demand) book sells only 200 copies whereas with a major publisher that bumps up to 10,000 on average
(info taken from Out:think)
As you can see, that's quite a crap shoot. And I'm not one to gamble. So I choose to continue plodding along the traditional publishing path one step at a time.
But hey, I hear patience is a virtue.