If contemporary writers have lost anything, it’s patience. Nowadays, author empowerment has preempted what used to be status quo for our industry — waiting. Tired of submitting queries to agents, waiting months for publishers just to reject your novel? No problem. Now you can do it yourself. As a writer, patience used to be 
a virtue. But now, it’s an option. Thanks to self-publishing, you never again have to wonder if your book will see the light of day.
Maybe that’s why I’m so impressed with Jessica Dotta.
Jessica was one of my first-ever crit partners. She was working on a Gothic Historical entitled Born of Persuasion at the time (back in 2005). We often critiqued each others work. She was part of the Penwrights group along with Gina Holmes and Ane Mulligan. In fact, I mentioned Jessica, Ane, and Gina in the Acknowledgements to The Resurrection. They played a huge part in my development as a writer.
Jessica, like many unpublished authors, is a terrific writer. Born of Persuasion has rich characters, is well researched, and beautifully written. However, Jessica’s quest for publication was a familiar one. She solicited agents, attended conferences and workshops, and endured multiple rejections. But she kept coming up empty. After four or five years of this, most authors would be planning to self-publish. Yet Jessica clung to her dreams, and remained patient. So I was thrilled to hear that Jessica Dotta has finally been contracted, signing her historical trilogy with Tyndale House Publishers! Its estimated release date is mid-2013. The announcement at Novel Rocket was fittingly entitled News That’s 10 Years in the Making.
10 years!
And just think, if Jessica had not been patient, this would have never happened.
Of course, some may interpret this as a slam against self-publishing. It’s not. I’ve done both: Had books traditionally published and self-published a digital novella. There are wonderful options for authors these days. Nevertheless, most authors would agree that being traditionally published is still the ideal option.
So why do we give in to self-publishing so easily?
Like many, I believe that good stories cannot remain unnoticed. Strong writing, compelling characters, and intriguing plots will eventually win someone, somewhere, over. I think Jessica is a testimony to this. Sure, it might take 10 years. But so what? The problem with contemporary writers is that we don’t give our stories enough time to go unnoticed. We get antsy, impatient, gripe about the system, and concede to self publish. Usually, way too soon.
The question you should ask yourself is this, Are you willing to wait 10 years? Is your story good enough, your writing strong enough, to endure multiple slush piles? Is your perseverance so dogged, your goal so fixed, that no amount of rejection can deter you? Are you willing to wait?
I’m glad Jessica Dotta did.
In reading through these comments, I was struck with the apples/oranges (realistic/artistic; church/writing) differences, and the “absolutes” some commenters assumed you inferred. As a writer I want my work to be the best; as a reader I expect to read the best. And frankly, I have seen far too many VERY poorly written self-published works. I won’t buy a self-published work any more unless highly recommended by others. Yes, there are also poorly written books traditionally published – and it makes me wonder what the publishers were thinking! Anyway, this is just my opinion and I know it won’t change anyone’s mind – not meant to. Post on, Mike Duran – at least you get a lot of discussion on your posts! 🙂
Myself, I’m not sure I understand why folks are saying there’s a dissonance between the title of the post and the post itself. Seems fairly clear to me:
“Here’s Why You Should Wait Before Self-Publishing Your Novel” – implies Mike is going to tell us/show us an example of someone waiting for traditional publishing instead of self-publishing, and how it’s something we could benefit from.
He then gives us the example of a writer who waited for 10 years until she finally landed the deal she’d wanted all along. Waited, and because of her patience, wasn’t just published, but achieved her dream of being published traditionally. And it seems that in this, Mike is encouraging or exhorting us to be patient, and wait for our dreams, also.
Now, if you’ve always wanted to self-publish and have never dreamed of traditional publishing, this post isn’t aimed at you, and isn’t relevant to you. If you dreamed of traditional publishing, discovered self-publishing was better for you, okay. But, far as I’m concerned, Mike is saying that waiting could very well be better in the long run. If you don’t agree with his post, fine. But I fail to see how the title doesn’t fit the rest of the post. Just my two cents.
I’m of an age–and a generation–that came to computers late, so I’ll admit I like hard copies books better. Technically I’m a Luddite, and that’s not helped by the fact I’m dyslexic due to a brain inury when I was nine.
It took me four years after writing my first novel to finally have my agent sell it to a commerical house that green-lit it in a three book deal. Since then all my stories have appeared in both print and e-reader versions, and I’m happy with that.
But there’s one thing hard copies have that e-books never will, and it’s this: several weeks after my first novel was released, I happened to be in our local Christian bookstore buying a trinket for my wife, when a few feet away, I saw a man perusing the fiction titles. Curiosity grabbed me, because he was standing right in front of the shelf where my book was, scanning the titles.
And then he stopped.
I saw him reach over and pick my book up. I grew very still as I watched him look over the back cover copy, and then he opened it. Flipping it to the first page of the story, he began to read. My palms grew damp … and then I saw him pause, and smile. I felt nailed to the floor as I saw him walk up to the cash register. The clerk rang him up, and he walked out, book in hand.
My book.
A few minutes later, wife’s gift in its box, I left the store. Then once in the car, my emotions overflowed. Eyes stinging, completely undone, I bowed my head to God in gratitude.
Love this, John. Thanks!
You’re very welcome, Mike!
“So why do we give in to self-publishing so easily?”
1) Because all human behavior is driven by underlying needs. And when those underlying (and often unrecognized) needs are strong enough, people can rationalize almost any course of action, including impatience (See: The Bible)
2) Because the research in social psych demonstrates that the majority of people tend to *over* estimate their own level of competency, and that this overconfidence gap is particularly strong at the “beginner” stage.
3) Because we live in a “Me, Too” culture where just being a part of the audience is no longer considered gratifying. Every aspect of media around us (reality tv, youtube, fb, twitter, etc) conditions us to *participate,* and to compete for attention. In the writing community, “participation” means having something published. So if you aspire to belong, it becomes a badge of validation to have something in print, and a source of private embarassment if you don’t (see #1)
Wow, what a fun discussion to drop in on, especially when your work is the one cited for argument.
(Sorry, Mike, I’m a bit late to the party. Blame it on the GPS!)
It’s been fascinating to read the different points of view about self-publishing and traditional publishing. Obviously I lean strongly towards traditional publishing, but I’d like to add a few thoughts to the mix.
R.L made an interesting point with his chart of how someone could have self-published a book a year and made more than the typical advance—but depending on how serious one is about their work, we need to factor in the additional costs that come along with self-publishing, such as editing and book cover design, etc. One should invest in those to succeed.
Add to that argument, I would not recommend a writer to leave a trail of poorly crafted books in their wake. Bad books are hazardous—left over landmines from the war. Who gives an author a second chance to disappoint them? There’s too much risk that someone might hear about you and decide to read one of your books—starting with your early work. They might decide your books aren’t all that great. In the spirit of being helpful, they may even deter others from buying your books.
Mike did a good job listing the pros of traditional publishing. One more advantage, though, is that while a traditional publisher is taking care of the normal channels for marketing and promotion—you’re able to spend that free time finding new, out-of-the-box ways of marketing your book.
With that said . . .
I should state that waiting wasn’t as much my plan as it was God’s.
God used the waiting as a means of shaping my character and shifting up my life. I can honestly say I am not the same person who started writing this trilogy.
I started as impatient as any new writer—perhaps even more so. Early on, I devoured every book on writing I could find. I spent hours perfecting my craft. I joined critique groups and worked on other’s people’s writing because I found it was easier to grasp technique when I wasn’t emotionally attached to the work.
I joined the ranks of a popular literary blog, which allowed me behind the scenes interviews.
I became a book publicist—to learn what makes a bestseller.
But God never intended writing to be the full story of my life. He had other things in mind—so He frustrated me and blocked the door.
Had I been published earlier, I never would have mentored several writers, many whom have gone into print, some bestselling.
I would have never started working with ministries and gaining a whole new perspective of what a well-lived life means.
I never would have worked for a film production company, or an artist management company. Had I been so focused on fiction, I never would have written non-fiction on behalf of Media Change and been invited to join them.
During the wait, I learned how to write deeper with stark honesty. I started to chronicle the rawness of healing from a divorce and what it means to find grace.
I might not have taken the opportunity to use my PR skills to join the fight against a genocide. One of the reasons I’m late to this discussion is because I’ve been swamped. At some point yesterday, my client was sitting in South Sudan beneath a cell tower, boosting his signal so he could call into a nationally syndicated radio show. (Apparently there were no landlines.) Each time there was a three second delay, I held my breath, utterly sick! Yet I pictured what it looked like, sitting beneath that magnificent, starry, African sky. I envisioned how it felt to stay up until one in the morning, praying that Americans, sitting in drive-time traffic, will finally hear you and cry out against injustice. When the interview finished, it was a beautiful, golden moment of relief! The call didn’t drop. All was well! I wouldn’t have missed that moment for the world.
Something much bigger was taking place in those years. God had a fuller, richer life in mind. Had I not waited for Him, I would have missed it.
Jessica, thanks so much for leaving a comment. I really am inspired by your story, but I’m also kind of bummed that this conversation took such a sharp turn into the traditional v. self-publishing debate. Maybe I could have navigated it differently. I don’t know. Either way, I’m just so proud of you and excited for you. Thanks for sharing what God taught you during your long wait!
Jessica, I do congratulate you on accomplishing an important goal. Getting traditionally published isn’t easy. Not only does it often take skill, but timing and luck (contacting the right editor/agent at the right time the slot is open and being good enough to beat out whatever other options are on the table for them). Which is often why it takes so long for many authors going that route. So, first off, I applaud your accomplishment and celebrate with you reaching your goals. Nothing I said was intended to take away from that.
As one commenter said, ten years ago, self-publishing wasn’t even a viable option. Therefore, it wasn’t even on the table for you at that point unless you were ready to shell out lots of dollars for a vanity “publisher.” POD started becoming more readily available around 2004, and Kindle sparked the ebook revolution around 2007 and has been growing ever since. When I started writing fiction in earnest in 2005, I assumed I would need to get an agent and get published by a traditional publisher. But things happened, I believe by God’s design, differently for me.
But Mike’s post was a sort of “what if” you had that option, what happened is better than if you had the ability to self-publish and went that route. But the reality is that God could have used whatever route you chose to bring about good things. There are potentially character development you would have missed out on, other opportunities you missed out on by not going that route. Playing the “what if” game never works, because no matter which route you go, you can find things about it you appreciate and things you hate or dislike. I mean, if you had your druthers, I’m sure you would have wished it hadn’t taken you ten years to get to this point, all else being equal. But it did take ten, and so that’s where you are at, and it doesn’t diminish the accomplishment in the least that it did. And like you said, you’ve learned a lot of things during that time and God brought about opportunities that helped you. But if that option had been available, and you went that route, who knows? By now you could be the current Amanda Hocking. And if you had gone that route, no doubt you would be held up as an example of why the self-publishing route is better, and you would be stating the benefits of going that route instead of the one you didn’t take.
I do think I understand what you are saying about putting out bad work. I agree, best not to do that, to edit and get help editing and formatting if need be, and cover, to get the best product out for your readers that you can. But if a self-published writer did put out bad work at the beginning, and once learning the folly of their ways, becomes concerned about those earlier works, they have two options. Rewrite the story and fix the issues, or take it off the shelf. Both something you can’t do easily in traditional publishing but I can do with a few mouse clicks. Granted, those who did read it and decide never to read this author again, is not something you want to have happen. But in the grand scheme of things, the handful of readers of a bad novel are not going to make that much of an impact on overall sales of later good books. There are millions of potential readers of any one book. But if I did have a typo-ridden, grammar-challenged self-published book out there that I knew could turn off readers once I learned what I was doing, it would be easy to take it off sale, and either fix it or just let it die, never to be seen again.
Heinlein had the same problem but in reverse. Most think is earlier works his best, while his later works as he aged got really strange and out there. I remember reading one of them in high school and closed the book about half-way through. The only science fiction novel I read in high school that I did that to. But his problem was he was traditionally published (no other option at that time) and so those works are still out there. They are not easily removed from used bookstore shelves. (Avoid “Fear No Evil” by him if you’re not into kinky sex stuff.)
Anywho, should that have happened (and in my case it hasn’t, all my books are in pretty good shape I believe) to me, I don’t think it is as bad an issue as people make it out to be. Easily corrected if need be and not many are going to read it, so will affect very few readers.
But really, the only thing I was challenging Mike on was that going traditional is the “ideal.” He was putting that out there, that he believed going the traditional publisher route is the ideal, and using your success as an example. Obviously he isn’t against self-publishing, as he states clearly and has done himself. But I think whether going the traditional route is the ideal for a particular writer depends on 1) what their own personal goals and measure of success is, and 2) what they feel the path God is leading them down.
It may be true that a majority of writers do perceive that the traditional route is the ideal, and want to wait for it. And for them, it may very well be the best route to go. I don’t know. But I think there is a growing number of writers who are not all that interested in going the traditional route, or certainly not making that *the* route to go. That’s why you see some doing this in reverse, becoming popular self-publishers and then getting publishing deals with traditional publishers. And they did it not because they thought they would make more money through traditional publishing (because they won’t) but because they felt they could reach another segment of the audience that don’t shop online, but mostly go to bookstores.
I personally have had two publishers, indie publishers, not the big six. Most of my books have been published through them, though the first company is defunct and the second publisher reprinted them, “new and improved.” That’s at Splashdown Books out of New Zealand (not New York, lol.) The third book in the trilogy will be coming out this summer through them. I’ve also self-published an anthology of my short stories/flashes, a novel I wrote in 2006 last year, publishing its sequel as we speak, and this past December self-published an ebook on how to make an ebook using free software, which has sold well. So while not big six, or a CBA publisher, I have gone through the publisher route and the self-published route.
Would I have been better served to not have let that first indie publisher publish that first book and wait for a CBA publisher? Who knows, though it might have been a hard sell in the CBA due to magic and ale drinking going on. And probably too Christian oriented for a general market publisher. So my gut says I would still be waiting to get that published. After all, that was written in 2006-2007. But I’ve had two publishers now like it enough to publish it.
So, to make it clear, I’m not necessarily knocking the traditional publishing route, though I think there are risk there bigger than what we’ve discussed about the indie route. There are risk and benefits on both sides, and success at either is not a piece of cake. My point in showing that example of what could happen was only to show that:
1) Both routes may take 5 to 10 years to be “successful,” depending on what your definition of success is.
2) Both routes require a ton of persistence and patience and hard work and learning the craft. If you don’t learn how to tell great stories and do it with quality, the chances or you won’t be successful in either getting a publisher to take your work or getting noticed as a self-publisher.
3) That there is a reason some may consider self-publishing to be their ideal. Not because of impatience, but because getting traditionally published is not a particular goal of theirs.
My goals are several. One, I enjoy telling a good story. And I enjoy people enjoying reading a good story. So if I can do that, I find that fulfilling, especially when it has a significant impact on them personally for the better. Two, I would like to do this full time. I see a route to doing that through self-publishing. The traditional publishing route looks like it would be a harder road to climb to reach that goal. Not impossible, but many more pitfalls along the way I would have little to no control over. Three, I want to hopefully be doing well enough with this gig to supplement my retirement income, which should kick in around another 15 years.
Personally, I’m not that concerned if I ever get published by a traditional publisher. Maybe someday I will be, I won’t automatically turn down anything without considering it. But it will be based on whether it helps me to meet my goals. Because my definition of success isn’t to get published, but to get read. Whichever method does that best, is the one I’ll use. If an offer comes down the pike to be published by someone like Tyndale, then I’ll consider it based on whether it can help me meet my objectives or not. But it won’t be an automatic given that I’ll go that route.
But your goal was to get traditionally published, and you succeeded. That is worthy of praise and an accomplishment no one should disdain. And I only wish you all the success in the future both in readership and future books.
But Mike, seriously. Are you saying you didn’t expect this debate when you put her up as an example of why we should hold off self-publishing? The title and proposition that traditional publishing is the ideal falls right in the middle of that debate. Can’t believe you didn’t expect some of this. But maybe you thought that was a given and didn’t think anyone would disagree with that premise.
Rick, seriously I had no idea this was such a volatile issue. Yea, I understand there’s debate. But I have always assumed that traditional publishing is still the ideal. Even folks who defend self-publishing, if pressed, admit they would go with a trade publisher if they had their ideal. Apparently, that’s changing. I think I probably erred in inferring that waiting for a publisher is THE way to go. I guess that’s not true for everyone. Anyway, I appreciate your spirit in the discussion.
Wow. Pathetic. Like someone said in another forum, you should have slapped her silly and told her to self-publish and move on to the next book. Waiting ten years is the most extreme fanboyism of vanity publishers (aka the big six) I’ve ever heard of.
I’m so proud of Jessica. She’s one of the future literary greats. (I’m not sure I read your acknowledgment page… haha… I’ll go back and take a look. Thanks for that if I didn’t thank you already). Oh and guys, wait until you read Born of Persuasion. Pure genius!