Reader Question Day #5 – concerning self-publishing

Manwe writes:

I mean, when you self publish, can’t your work easily fall into obscurity?

Oh, totally. But if you traditionally publish, you work can easily fall into obscurity as well. And if you have a book fail as a traditionally published writer, it’s much, much harder to recover. When “Demonsouled” was published in 2005, it didn’t sell very well, and I never did get another book contract. That’s why you see traditionally published writers obsessing over the first few weeks of book sales – if the book doesn’t make a splash, immediately, it goes off the shelf, and then goes out of print in short order.

But with electronic self-publishing, if a book fails to sell, so what? It’s still available for sale. You go and write another one and another one, and if people like those, they’ll go back and read your other books…which are still on sale. Because with ebooks, you don’t have to worry about your books going out of print. It’s a lot easier to get a snowball effect going with ebooks than with print books.

And, in a larger view, every writer (and every person, for that matter) is destined for obscurity. Christopher Hitchens died today. Today he is a famous writer, well-known and respected. In fifty years, only a few people will still be reading his work. In a hundred years, all his relatives and friends will have died, and the only people who will know his name will be a few historians studying, say, the war in Iraq or the atheism fad of the first decade of the 21st century, in much the same way that only historians know the name of Horace Greeley today (bonus points if you know who he is without having to Wikipedia him).

And in a thousand years…will anyone remember Christopher Hitchens? Or any of us? Obscurity is the fate of all human affairs, in the end. At least until the blast of the Last Trumpet when all books shall be opened and all debts settled.

So I don’t worry about obscurity, since there’s nothing I can really do about it, save for writing more. And I was going to do that anyway. (I don’t worry about going bald for the same reason though, alas, there’s even less I can do about that. Except using my book royalties to buy a hat.)

If you are writing something you wish to see last, would self published ebooks really be the route to go?

It depends on what you mean by “last.” If you mean “endure the test of time”, well, that’s out of our hands. If you mean “not go out of print”, then self-published ebooks would definitely be the way to go.

AND to which group do you belong to Jonathan? The ‘show me the money crowd’ or the ‘storytellers club’? Or is it a bit of both?

A bit of both. I like writing, and I like telling stories. However, I also like money, and a combination of my age and current personal circumstances mean I shouldn’t be sending large chunks of time on something that doesn’t pay (my creditors, sadly, do not accept prayers and well wishes as legal tender). For me, electronic self-publishing was the best option. Over a thousand people have read the three “Demonsouled” books now, and I know that because over a thousand people have bought the third book. I’ve also made much, much more money writing this year (both fiction and nonfiction) than I have ever before. And absolutely none of that would have happened if I hadn’t self-published the books – there was no publisher on earth that would take a chance on reprinting an obscure book that had gone out of print in 2007.

So, to sum up, electronic self-publishing was the best choice for my books. Whether its the best choice for you or not depends on your personal circumstances and objectives. (Though I will say that all my writing is online nowadays, and I hardly ever do cold submissions anymore. For traditional publishing, I prefer to work with editors I already know and trust, like Elisabeth Waters of “Sword & Sorceress.”)

Joshua writes:

I will say this: Your books are the most enjoyable I have the pleasure of reading in years. For me I would love to see you go back to the world that you have built with Demonsouled series. Is there a chance you will bring more stories to us from that world?

Thank you for the kind words about the Demonsouled books – I’m glad you liked them.

And in fact, a new Demonsouled book will be coming very soon – “Soul of Dragons”. I am four chapters away from finishing the rough draft, and I hope to have the final version of the book ready in February.

That’s Reader Question Day for this week. If you have a question, leave it in the comments or send an email to jmcontact at jonathanmoeller.com, and I’ll answer it next week.

-JM