two years of self-publishing
On April 15, 2011, I uploaded DEMONSOULED to the various ebook sites, marking my first foray into self-publishing. It’s now been two years, and in that time, I have sold well over 78,000 copies of 38 different ebooks, which has been a tremendous blessing, and for which I thank you all. It’s odd to think that about three years ago, I had basically decided to stop writing novels in favor of my technology blog and occasional short fiction, whether short stories or Choose Your Own Adventures. Now, from a frankly financial perspective, writing fantasy novels is a better use of my time than tech blogging (I have obligations I have to meet) – and I enjoy it more, too.
The fact that the most responsible thing for me to do is also the thing I would most enjoy doing is a particularly rare blessing, and I thank both God and all of you for that opportunity.
What’s interesting is that as I was writing this post, I came across an article by a Salon writing lamenting his unpleasant experience self-publishing. Why is my experience different from this one? Or what did I do that made it possible to sell 78,000 ebooks in two years?
I think it was a combination of a.) sheer dumb luck, and b.) a result of work I did before there were even such a thing as ebooks.
First, I had quite a backlog of work ready to go. I wrote the first two books of the DEMONSOULED series in 2001 and 2005, the first three THE GHOSTS books in 2008, 2009, and 2010, the entire TOWER OF ENDLESS WORLDS series in 2003, THE BLACK PALADIN and THE TOMB OF BALIGANT in the second half of 2004, and the first four novellas of what would become THE THIRD SOUL in 2009. In other words, I had done a lot of the grunt work of learning to write long before the Kindle even came along.
I had only managed to get DEMONSOULED and the first volume of THE TOWER OF ENDLESS WORLDS published, and they had long ago gone out of print, and getting the rights back proved easy. I have 38 different ebooks for sale, but I wouldn’t have been able to do that unless I had spent the last ten years writing.
Second, adapting to ebooks proved easy because I was already quite comfortable with the idea of writing for the Internet. I had been writing my technology blog for years, and that helped me pick up a basic working knowledge of HTML, which came in handy when doing ebook layout. Additionally, my philosophy of blogging came in handy for ebooks. I had always figured it was better to have a 100 posts that each received 5 hits a day rather than one post that got a 100 hits a day, and that carried over to ebooks. None of my books have been runaway best-sellers (except for maybe the Ubuntu book, which has sold 11,500 copies worldwide), but having a book that sells a few copies in many different markets adds up over time.
Third, my “Choose Your Own Adventure” posts were excellent lessons in disciplined writing, since I posted new episodes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for years. Reader trust is a hard thing to gain, but easy to lose, so I tried to make sure I got those episodes up every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. These were excellent lessons in writing discipline and putting my writing time to maximal use. For much of 2011, I had a full-time job, a part-time job, and a number of side writing projects, but I almost always got my Choose Your Own Adventure episode up on time. (And to be fair, one of the times I missed was because I was in the hospital for two days.)
Fourth, I might have written many of my books before 2011, but I haven’t been idle since. In the past two years, I’ve written seven novels – SOUL OF SERPENTS, SOUL OF DRAGONS, GHOST IN THE STORM, SOUL OF SORCERY, GHOST IN THE STONE, SOUL OF SKULLS, and GHOST IN THE FORGE, and I’m about halfway through an eighth, SOUL OF SWORDS. I’ve also written four novellas – THE OUTLAW ADEPT, THE BURNING CHILD, GHOST DAGGER, and THE DRAGON’S SHADOW. If you’re a writer, it’s important to keep the new material coming, and to know when to say a project is “done” and move on to new things.
Fifth, I write in multiple genres – fantasy and technical nonfiction. This, to use business-speak, means a broader customer base. I haven’t done any technical books in a while because I’ve been too busy, but I would like to return to it at some point. Additionally, I would also like to write some science fiction books. Occasionally have the urge to write thriller novels under a pseudonym, but I have too much other work to do first.
Finally, I’ve been willing to experiment and try new things. Both THE GHOSTS and DEMONSOULED started selling a lot better when I upgraded their cover images (more on that later this month). I’ve tried teaching myself new programs for creating and managing ebooks, and I’ve tried new things in fiction. (Like in GHOST IN THE FORGE – I’d never tried writing a relationship like that between Caina, Corvalis, and Claudia.) As I get older, I notice that many people are simply unwillingly to learn new things or to challenge themselves, and react to the possibility that they might have learn something new with sullen resentment at best and unmitigated fury at worst. To be candid, this is both a poor attitude for writing and for life in general. I’ve done some things that failed – my mystery novel SHARE THE PAIN has sold, like, five copies, and my short story collections sell one or two copies a month. I also once got my Ubuntu book pulled from sale on Amazon by accidentally screwing up the edition numbers. But I’ve done things that worked as well, and the failures teach valuable lessons that cannot be obtained in any other way.
To wrap up, if you want to start self-publishing yourself, where to begin? I suggest this book by David Gaughran as a good introduction to the topic. Hugh Howey, who is rapidly becoming the self-published writer the general zeitgeist knows about thanks to his WOOL books, has a good article on the process of becoming a “writer”, and I think it is good advice for anyone who wants to write, especially the metaphor between being a guitarist who has gigs on the weekend and a writer who pays a few bills via ebooks.
If you’ve read one of my fiction in the last two years, I hope it’s been enjoyable, and if you read one of my nonfiction books, I hope it’s been useful.
-JM