The Matisse Puzzle and 3 things about self-publishing

Now, when The Matisse Puzzle is almost finished and a sample is set to be released on April 6 right here on the blog, I can reflect (if briefly) on choices I have made along the way. The first and most obvious issue to bring up is, of course, the fact of self-publishing.

From: The Escapism Project

I have decided to go with self-publishing because of a number of reasons. I will be mentioning some of them here, but there are many, many more. I’m sure you know of better reasons why self-publishing is such a good alternative to traditional, print-centered publishing. So if you do, please leave a comment and let’s share collective wisdom the way it works best: through nothing else but sharing.

Control

To start with, I realized pretty early in the process that self-publishing helps me have full control over almost all stages, operations, and work methods. I know I’ve written my book, so there’s one tick for me right here, but there are options out there, on freelancing sites, where people pay for their books to be written by others. Well, the concept of ghost writing is not exactly a new-born baby. It has been going for quite a while, and with considerable success. And knowing how ridiculously small royalties often are for books published via traditional ways (i.e. printed, bound, and distributed through professional booksellers), writing a book for another person may be more lucrative for truly active authors. This means the market is well provided with good ghost writers, who are not always expensive, and who can do a lot of good work. Without the pretention of providing the best solutions, I would suggest sites such as Freelancer, or Elance, which are quite reliable, judging from the large number of users they have acquired over the past years.

Of course, nobody will ever (and I mean ever!) skip the stage of reading the final product and giving it the necessary twists (if such are necessary), to bring the ghost-written product up to one’s own standards. Ghost-written or not, your book will bear your name, and that should be enough of an incentive to make people realize how important it is to check for quality. Plus, as you know, writers are idiosyncratic by nature, and what’s perfect for one may sound ridiculous to another. So if you ever contract a ghost writer, make sure you read everything and put your personality into the book – because you are the one who’s going to face negative critique and bad reviews.

Low costs

Self-publishing is a lot more affordable, not only at my end of the process, but also for the reader. If you aren’t what I call ‘a champion of electronic wisdom,’ i.e. if you don’t know how to format a book, how to upload it to the major eBook vendors’ sites, or how to promote it by digital means, you can go for Fiverr, and get the job done for the price of your morning coffee. Of course, there are things to consider here, since what the contractor posts on Fiverr may be beautiful and promising while it may also fail to harmonize with your profile. But since the user base is already large enough (and growing by the day), I guess it is becoming easier and easier to find the match for your perfect ‘electronic marriage.’ And thus, your self-publishing project gets the right boost at some point. All that’s needed is a little patience.

The problem with Internet resources is that people think everything you find online is delivered instantaneously, or close thereby. Things, however, don’t always behave like that. You may have to try three or four options before deciding over the one that ticks all your boxes. So have courage and take your time.

From: J.T. Geissinger

Affordability

All you have to do is check out on Amazon a title that is available in both eBook format and in print. Often, they are available in both, thanks to the so-called POD (Print-On-Demand) option, which can be contracted from various sources, such as Create Space, or Lulu. Sometimes, it’s ten times more expensive to buy a bound copy, if not more. You can do the maths.

Not to mention the cases where the eBook is available for free, during promotional periods, or thanks to websites specialized in facilitating access to free eBooks. I’m thinking of Project Gutenberg, which has been working since a time when eBooks were not even a daring dream, but the options are a lot vaster these days. Take the examples of free-ebooks.net, ManyBooks, GetFreeEBooks, ReadingFanatic, only to name a few. And notice I haven’t mentioned things like Scribd and its likes, where you get the promise of having unlimited access to eBooks, but only at the cost of a monthly fee (which doesn’t quite make them free, does it?).

My advice

Don’t throw a tantrum if things don’t move in your direction the second you have logged in. At the end of the day, the best creative work is done by humans, not computers. And humans, if you look deep in the mirror, are just like you: made of flesh and bone, busy, easily distracted, pretentious, perfectionists etc. etc. etc. Just imagine you’re working with yourself.