Why Being Independent #ROCKS

If you've kept up with this blog since the beginning, you know I'm a crazy movie-buff.

My maternal grandmother, who we called "Bobie," loved movies, and she got me started watching them with the old noir detective films.

These old movie posters are amazing.

My best memory is of watching The Big Sleep with her, and I've seen it so many times since, I can practically quote the whole thing.

It's also cool that William Faulkner was one of the screenwriters. (Yes, that William Faulkner.)

It's a crazy, twisty super-fun movie with fantastic, unforgettable characters doing unexpected things.


And you really have to watch it about five times to understand what all's happening...

After watching it several times, you might get more insight into my own characterization and plot twists. (JRM points to Footloose as being, "everything you ever write"--LOL! That's not so true anymore.)

So what does all this have to do with being an Independent Author? I'll tell ya!

I was reading an article about Roger Ebert in Entertainment Weekly (link), and it had a listing of his "Movies of the Year," going all the way back to 1967's Bonnie & Clyde. (I totally agree with his assessment of that film, btw.)

In the listing were JFK, Malcolm X, and Schindler's List. About Schindler's List, Ebert says, "The movie is 184 minutes long, and like all great films, it feels too short." Spot on.

That got me thinking about the battle Spike Lee had over the length of Malcolm X was, and how the Big Studios wanted him to cut it.

Oliver Stone had managed to get away with 188 minutes for JFK the year before, and as expected, Lee had some choice words about that. But at the time the Controlling Powers had established "norms" about "what audiences wanted," and long films about controversial black icons were not it.

The next year, Big Fish Steven Spielberg made a 184-minute, black and white film, no sweat.

Flash Forward many years, and I'm thinking about how all of this relates to Independent Publishing v. Traditional Publishing.

Film, like music, and now books, went through a revolutionary "independent" period that played out differently in each medium. (I should say "is playing out" with regard to books.)

Personally, I just wrapped a series of books that I can't even imagine trying to get through the Traditional process.

The Dragonfly Series starts with Book 1, Dragonfly, which is written in the standard mature-YA manner: first-person, female POV. (It's how you wrote books like this in 2009.)

The next book Undertow takes a completely different turn. The bulk of the story is told through three journals, but regular journal-style felt inhibiting to my process... so I didn't follow the rules. I wrote it like a narrative, but unfolding it epistolary-style.

It's told in three different POVs--Meg, Lexy, and Bill's--and it's the story of an affair that led to a birth and a death. It does not have a happy ending... and most readers seem to love it.

It's a layer to the series that goes to the heart of everything happening, of Anna and Julian's relationship, of all the secrets and lies, and readers really, really need to know that story. The style fits into the overall series arc, and it was how I chose to write it.

The content of Undertow is also decidedly New Adult to Adult--one of my beta readers even said, "This reads more like women's fiction." Another said, "You should write more adult fiction."--LOL!

It makes sense, and I think my readers of all ages get it. I trusted them to get it.

Watercolor (#3) is back to the present, it's Anna and Julian's love story, first-person POV, female lead and more strict NA, a'la Jessica Sorensen, Colleen Hoover, or Katja Millay books. (I.e., the main characters are seniors in high school.)

Then we get to Mosaic... 

It's the end of the series, and I really wanted to tie the whole thing together both from a story perspective and a stylistic one. So right slap in the middle of that book, sandwiched between the present--which is 20 years after Watercolor ends--is Anna's "private blog."

It's her journal (told Undertow-style), and it follows her and the gang through college all the way to the break... where it stops, and we see what happens next.

When I started writing this series in 2009, there was no "Independent Publishing." Amazon hadn't truly launched the Kindle yet, and at that time, self-publishing meant Vanity Publishing.

Vanity Publishing is bad, reader-friends. It means you pay thousands of dollars to jerks like Author Solutions (now owned by Random-Penguin) and they take you for a ride that ends with them dumping a pile of paperbacks on your doorstep for you to figure out how to sell.

It isn't legitimate in any sense of the word. It's a racket that many well-meaning authors got sucked into because they didn't want their stories to die in a drawer. (And they didn't have Thelma Toole, Walker Percy, or LSU Press, link. Geaux, Tigers.)

Of course, I'm sure Traditional Publishing doesn't consider Independent Publishing legitimate to this day--unless you start banking Amanda Hocking, Hugh Howey, E.L. James, Colleen Hoover, Jasinda Wilder, Abbi Glines... the list goes on... dollars. Then suddenly you're very legitimate.

(I hope you're catching my sarcasm. I drank the "not legitimate" Kool-Aid for way too long before I jumped off that merry-go-round.)

I feel like I'm losing my point--my point is, to me, the greatest thing about being an independent author is I can write my books the way I want to write them, the way that makes sense to me. I don't have to worry about established norms or "what readers want" when I sit down to write.

Okay, being a smart businesswoman, I do consider "what readers want" when I'm looking at which projects to focus the most time and energy on. (Hint: The ones that are selling!)

But take for example a book I've been sitting on since 2012. It's another NA contemporary romance, but it's an action-adventure story set in the woods of south Mississippi.

I loved this movie when I was a kid.

Since it's written by me, it's fer sure a romance, but the focus is on the transformation of this incredible character I love named Prentiss Puckett from everyday-country girl to a Red-Dawn-meets-L O S T-style action-hero.

Being trapped in a prison camp during what seems (to her) to be a Russian invasion of the U.S. will do that to a person.

This book, which is currently titled 21 Days, was with a literary agent for a year. He shopped it around, and we got the usual compliments on my "strong writing" followed by the reasons it "wouldn't work."

First, I was told it was "too dated." The problem is Prentiss fears it's the Russians holding them captive. It made sense to me in 2012, given where she lives and the persistent fear of "Russians" in certain pockets of the deep south.

I was told "nobody cares about Russia anymore" and given the "how very 1950s of you" treatment. (Oops! Ukraine just called.)

Second, after being kidnapped, *something* is happening to Prentiss, and it's causing her to have very vivid flashback-style dreams, which taper off as the plot unfolds. I won't spoil it here, but I was told "readers won't like that"--jumping back and forth.

It's funny because all six of my beta readers--all six of them--said that was their favorite part. One even wanted more!

Guess what I'm going to do?

I'm going to polish that baby up, add a few ideas that I've had since I finished it 2.5 years ago, and put it out there for you all.

And that's why I love being an Independent Author.

Now, I'm not going to go all *banging my fist on the table* insisting I'll "never go traditional." There are very legitimate reasons for plugging in and using that established book-selling machine--for example, none of my indie books will ever be reviewed in Entertainment Weekly.

I have managed to get into some high school libraries through NetGalley, which is amazing. But I won't be in any Scholastic Book Fairs at schools. (Scholastic is a traditional publisher, fyi. Those are all their books.)

It's incredibly difficult for independently published authors to get into places like Target or Sam's Club or Costco. (I won't say impossible b/c my indie-author friend Cindy Hogan does it all the time.)

This post has gotten very long. I apologize. I haven't blogged in a while...

One last thing that I love about being an Independent Author: As my one-degree-of-separation buddy Hugh Howey explains in detail here (link), being independent means for the first time in history, authors can make a living--an actual living that includes paying bills, feeding children, buying clothes, paying for college--through writing books alone.

Many, many authors are doing just that, and it has never been the case in all of book publishing recorded time... until now. Only a handful of "stars" have ever been able to make that claim.

So yanno. Vive la Revolution... or whatever.

I'm just so lucky and blessed to be living in this time. I'm not knocking anybody's choice or the path they follow. Whatever path you chose, traditional or independent, whatever books you read, do it because you love it. Otherwise, what's the point?

Thanks for being such FAB reader-friends. Love you guys~ 

I Had a Publishing Dream...

Happy Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., day! He had a dream--I wrote a post about it here (link)!

Today, I'm thinking about something that was on my mind last week, but "life and being a mom" kind of knocked me off my schedule.

So you're getting it now. Ready?

In 2009, I had a dream of being a traditionally published author, having my books on bookstore shelves, being reviewed in Entertainment Weekly, maybe having a movie or a TV series made from one of them...

In 2011, when many of my closest, most trusted author-friends were jumping ship and heading into the world of independent publishing, I landed an agent for my book Rouge (link).

Eventually that agent secured me a basic contract with a Big Six publisher (there were still six in 2011).

Sometimes I wish I'd been brave enough to walk away from that situation in 2011, but it took me until 2012 to see what was happening in traditional publishing and to understand that if I wasn't getting a SUPERSTAR contract, I needed to high-tail it out of there. Fast.

I've been an independent/self-published author since September 2012, and my first book The Truth About Faking (link) has sold almost 50,000 copies worldwide.

That sounds like a lot. That is a lot! But I actually have independent-author friends who sell that much in a month. Some sell twice that much in a month.

So I'm kind of a mid-list independent author.

What's the point?

Two weeks ago I was flipping through my Entertainment Weekly for the week ending Jan. 16, 2014. Usually I skip over the "Books" section, but on this day I stopped to check out the Fiction Top 10 list.

Ready for the names?

#1-John Grisham
#2-James Patterson
#3-Tom Clancy
#4-Stephen King
#5-Mitch Albom
#6-Janet Evanovich....

Are you seeing my point now?

I have no intention of going on a rant about traditional publishing, But Gah! They really make it difficult sometimes. John Grisham? Tom Clancy???

As a former editor and a college grad with a Master's in mass communication, who started out focused on book publishing, I understand the business of making money.

But jeez louise, could that list demonstrate any more clearly how nothing has changed?

I have a second-degree author-friend (a friend of a friend), and a few weeks ago, she was brave enough to write a blog post about how less than broke she is as a mid-list selling author with a Big Five publisher.

She's pretty well-known. You would know her name if I put it here. But I won't. Why?

Because in less than one hour after she posted, it went viral. And in less than fifteen minutes of me reading it, it was GONE.

I don't know if her publisher muzzled her or her agent... or if she really did decide (as she said) it probably was tacky to put actual numbers online for the world to see.

You know what I think is tacky? The continued treatment of new authors with interesting stories to tell, new voices, as less than second-class citizens in favor of the same old boring lineup of guaranteed freight movers.

A few of my indie-author friends are discouraged about how hard it is to rise above the noise right now.

Some of them are returning to the traditional merry-go-round because they're tired, and it's not so easy to throw a title up there and make a million dollars any more. (Not that this little black duck ever did.) The word is out!

But this Entertainment Weekly list only demonstrated to me what I felt in my gut: Going back is just setting yourself up for the same old treatment.

Yes, I understand your exhaustion and frustration, author-friends. I feel it, too.

But rather than whopping myself over the head anymore for not being daredevil enough to jump into the indie pool when the rest of you did, I'm going to be thankful right now.

I'm thankful I got that first book deal with the Big Six publisher. Why? Because it was the same deal my second-degree friend got, and I heard in her post the heartbreak and the loss I'd be feeling over being overlooked and earning less than a paperboy for my work. I have children to feed and send to college, too.

Self-publishing is hard work.

Yes, it is. But guess what else it is? It's freedom.

I can give away copies of my books--as many as I like!--and I can decide what comes next. I often chat with my reader-friends about what they like, and if I want to promote one of my titles, I can hold a contest and/or modify my prices and/or change my covers...

You know what else?

Do self-publishing well enough, and contrary to what they were all telling us in 2011, you will end up right there beside the John Grishams, etc.--if that's what you choose to do.

Self-publishing doesn't close any doors. It only opens a whole world of new ones.

Have a super week, reader friends! Fight the power--read a new author for a change. *wink* 

George R.R. Martin Cares

Everybody's reading that Song of Ice and Fire (or watching Game of Thrones, the HBO show based on it). A few of my male friends here keep talking about it, and I think Matt R. (link) even did a post about it last week on the Q3E.

I'll just go ahead and put it out there: I'll probably never read this book. It's not my genre, and it's 4,000 pages long. Yes.

But in the Dec. issue of Entertainment Weekly, they named their "Entertainers of the Year," and George R.R. Martin (the author) was one of them. (link)

Amy Poehler wrote a little blurb about him and why she likes him so much, which brings me to this post.

She said, "He cares about what happens to his characters as much as we do."

I'm always interested in what readers like about their favorite books, because I want to see if there's some way I can *do that* as I write.

Anyway, so caring about your characters. That's a given, right?

Well, I got to thinking about this, and I confess, I haven't always done it. I'm thinking of one of my villains in particular. He's a bad dude, and I didn't want to get to know him. I didn't want to be in his head as I wrote.

But that's the thing. You have to care about every one of your characters--even the bad ones, even the minor ones, even the ones who just get you from here to there.

What motivates them? What are they hoping to get out of life? Why are they in the way of the main character or helping him or her get to wherever s/he's going?

I'm not saying every book needs to be 4,000 pages long, because... well, see above reason. But it should at least show that every character is a known entity and someone we care enough about to understand.

What do you guys think? Am I the only one digging this?

In other News: Our buddy DL Hammons (link) is hosting the Semi-Finals Round of WRiTE CLUB this week. (Two different entries face off every day.)

One of the competing entries this week will be mine, but I won't tell you which--or which day b/c I don't know. But if you would, try to run over every day and vote/leave a comment. All the contenders will appreciate it.

Thanks!

And have a great week, reader- and writer-friends! <3

And as the game changes...

So on Thursday I wrote about how interesting it is to be in the middle of a publishing revolution.

And while I'm still personally committed to the traditional route, I'm impressed that so many thoughtful, calm writer-friends are taking the self-publishing leap.

I'll be reading and reviewing their books and doing interviews with a few of them in upcoming weeks. So check back!

Entertainment Weekly recently jumped on the bandwagon and reviewed Amanda Hocking's books (link), and while they gave her Trylle trilogy a B-, they also pointed out a big problem in indie publishing: Quality Control.

In our ensuing discussion of self-publishing last Thursday, we all noted the same problem: it's hard as a consumer to know who took the time to work with a professional editor and who was just (understandably) frustrated and eager to get their book "out there."

I've been burned more than once on a self-published book, so I'm cautious about buying any more.

And it's not just the reader in me cringing, it's the former English teacher/editor as well. I just want to break out my red pen and start making notes everywhere.

So I was thinking, as this revolution plays out, how will the ancillary businesses that develop around it look?

There's already a growing field of professional editors for hire--if anybody's hiring them. (Or can afford them.) Some of these editors even have backgrounds in traditional publishing.

Will there also develop a system of "Self-pub Reviews and Recommendations"? Will they take into account things like plot holes and underwriting? Rushed pacing and undeveloped characters? Poor word-choice and/or misused words?

In a recent post on the Pimp My Novel blog, Eric predicted a resurgence of independent book stores as a result of the collapse of Borders, and possibly other big-box stores. (link)

One thing I loved about indie bookstores was the Employee Recommendations section. You remember, the shelves that had employees' names on them and the books they thought you'd like? There was usually an employee whose taste matched mine, and whose rec's I always devoured.

I wonder if we'll see something like that appear in the world of self-pubbed ebooks.

There will definitely be a need for this. Something to help us navigate the sea... What do you guys think? Any suggestions for the entrepreneurs out there who might be reading?

In the meantime, I'm back in the revisions chair. And I'm looking for a little freelance work, so let me know if you come across anything.

Have a great week, reader- and writer-friends! Til Thursday~ <3

Restarting the Train

That last post generated such great feedback, I'll go through it and put up our "findings" on Monday along with my nonspoilerish review of Mockingjay!

Uh huh. That's right. I got it. I'm reading it... It's actually taking longer than I expected to finish. More on that Monday.

But a big THANK YOU to everyone who dove in and commented on our last discussion. It's great to observe trends and hypothesize, but it's even more fun to get out there and ask real people why they're behaving in a particular way. Yes?

As for my previously scheduled post, I read this article in last week's Entertainment Weekly about how screenwriter James L. Brooks wanted Reese Witherspoon for this movie he was writing in 2005 (How Do You Know). Witherspoon was incredibly flattered and agreed at once to do it.

Brooks was just getting started on it and then got sidetracked writing the Simpsons movie. Five years later he went back to the Witherspoon script, and the article quoted him as saying he "felt like he was reading something a stranger had written." (paraphrase)

Ergh... I'm having the same response to the two WiPs I left in May when school let out for the summer.

I was 15,000 words into both of them, had really good momentum going, and then my two sweet little angels were suddenly home with me 24-7.

Now I've heard some writers can write while listening to music. I imagine those guys would also have no problem writing with two (very precious) little girls running and playing and asking for snacks and wanting to know when we're going to the pool and complaining that they're bored and you're always on the computer and she hit me...

I unfortunately am challenged that way. My writing train stopped this summer.

So it was back to school last week and the day came that I had dreamed about for three months--the day when I would ship my little dears off to the classroom and dive back into the cave to bust Prentiss out of her alien prison-farm and to help Ashley realize that handsome new guy was leading her down a dangerous, self-destructive path.

Problem: It hasn't happened.

I read that article, and I felt Brooks's pain. Who wrote these 15,000 words? What was she thinking would happen next? Why didn't she make better notes???

I'm trying to re-start the train and it's difficult.

JRM is so encouraging. He tells me to hang in there, school's just gotten back in, it takes a little bit to get the wheels turning again.

I'm feeling frightened and a touch of despair. I was so engrossed in both those WiPs last May. I could literally see these characters and I knew exactly what they were planning to do next...

Will I ever get them going again?

This is all simply Newton's laws, right? Inertia and all that. I mean, I know it's still in there. I can feel that fist of pent up words just waiting to come bursting out...

So until Monday, reader and writer friends~  Maybe the song would help.

Marketing and Yo Gabba Gabba

Yo Gabba Gabba finally got an article in Entertainment Weekly.

Now I've admitted I'm a techno-lover (I blame formative years spent in the late-1980s). I recall the Kraftwerk-"Music Selector is the Soul Reflector"-turn on the strobe light and "Dance Your Love Away" scene as the ultimate in Good Times.

So two years ago when the girls and I happened across this odd little show on Noggin starring a funny black guy in an orange jumpsuit, furry hat, and horn-rimmed glasses dancing around to the musical stylings of Mark Mothersbaugh, we were checkin' that out!

Muno did give me pause, but the girls assured me he was just a hot dog from outer space. (Me: OK!) And by Halloween 2008, my big ole buddy Patrick Johnson and I were rockin out with the kids to "Party in My Tummy" and lovin it.

Can I just say, I know "PIMT" is intended to persuade little ones to eat their green beans and carrots (who are crying because they want to go to the party in your tummy). But if you're anything like me (and Patrick), and you know there's nothing better in life than hoggin' out, then that is the song for you.

Yo Gabba Gabba songs are available on iTunes, btw. I recommend the following: "Don't Bite Your Friends" (good message for kids and adults); Party in My Tummy" (see above); "Working Together" (again, good for parents and kids); The episode "Dance" (for obvious reasons).

What does all this have to do with marketing you ask? Well, I'll tell ya. I mentioned in a previous post that I came across an online forum dedicated to why the Twilight series was so successful.

There were a lot of haters going on about how badly the books were written (e.g., adverbs overload!) and feminist yadda yadda yadda. Personally, I thought the books were a lot of fun. I read them all in less than two weeks with a Disney trip thrown in the mix. They were entertaining and escapist and had an engaging love story.

But seriously, why would those books do better than say, a Sarah Dessen novel? My response = Marketing!

My reasoning was I would never have been aware of the books if I hadn't seen a big feature about Stephanie Myers and "the Twilight phenomenon" in Entertainment Weekly.

Therein lies the bug. I've known about YGG for two years, and EW's just now getting around to going ape over it.

So why is it so successful? I don't know that they've done much marketing for it. Maybe because it's on TV? Maybe because there's a buncha fan-parents out there who can't stop singing the songs and giggling about it to their friends?

I know I sing "Let's Get the Sillies Out" at odd, random moments. (I also bust rhymes from "Forgot About Dre," so I'm not such a great example.)

But I do have this question buzzing around in my head. What is making these books/shows so successful?

From what I understand there were lots of Moms out there reading Twilight before it went viral as well. Maybe that's it? If you can find something the kids like that the parents find irresistable as well, Eureka! You've done it?

I think it's the stylish clothes myself. I mean, heck. You can't beat that orange hat. And if I ever get anywhere near famous, I'm begging DJ Lance to please please please let me be a guest... I could do my Coco the Bird Lady dance!