Okay, so I got things a little stirred up with my post on self-publishing.  In fact, the subject even got a mention (and generated some lively debate) over at Lee Goldberg’s always-entertaining blogsite.  What all those reader comments did was remind me of just how heartbreaking this business can be.  We write our stories and we want to be read, but there’s this giant monolithic barrier called “The New York publishing house” standing between us and Getting Published.  It’s not as if I don’t know the agonies that new writers are going through.  I’ve been there myself.

And back then, I was every bit as desperate and hopeless.

What makes a new writer today think he should be immune to that desperation I felt?  What makes him think this is SUPPOSED to be easy?  What makes him think his very first book is going to get published — or deserves to get published?

Here’s the truth.  I wrote three books that didn’t sell.  And then I sold my fourth — to Harlequin.  I have a good friend who wrote seven — SEVEN! — manuscripts that didn’t sell.  Think of her desperation, her hunger, to be published.  It had to be there, driving her, or she would have just given up.  But she just kept going and wrote manuscript #8. 

And it sold.

Think about that — writing seven books that don’t sell.  Would you have the persistence to start writing #8?  Do you accept the fact that, yes, there’s an apprenticeship involved in being a writer, a period of training that you will be forced to undergo before you finally understand what the craft is all about? 

No, it isn’t easy to get accepted by a publisher, and get paid for your work.  It’s a lot easier to whip out the checkbook and pay a vanity press to print your manuscript.  But which one would make you truly feel like a Published Author?

And if you can just pay to get published, where’s the incentive to hone your craft, to study your own work with a critical eye, to polish and polish some more?  Where’s the incentive to write books number seven and eight and nine if each one is just going to mean you have to whip out that old checkbook again to pay to see yourself in print?

Not everyone can write a publishable book.  That’s just the hard truth.  Too many people think: “Hey, I know how to write a sentence.  I know grammar, and I can come up with a story.  Why don’t I just take a few weeks off a write a novel and get published and get rich?”  It’s amazing to me that people think this, but they do.  And many of these are otherwise accomplished people, intelligent people, who could probably do very well in any number of fields.  But none of them would dream of working as an engineer or a doctor or a carpenter without first learning their craft.  They’d expect to put in at least four years before they’d feel competent.

So why do they think that they can write a publishable novel their first time out, without bothering to first learn the craft?

I know I sound like one of those old surgeons we medical students used to groan about, the seasoned veterans who’d tell us “We went through hell to become surgeons, and so should you.   So just suck it up and take it, or you don’t deserve to hold a scalpel.”  I used to think that their “trial by fire” philosophy was B.S.  Now I’m beginning to think it wasn’t so dumb after all.  A surgeon who’s on call every other night sees a lot of cases, learns a lot of hard lessons.  And on the other end of it, he’s a much better doctor.

Maybe that’s true for writers as well. 

If you really want to be a published novelist, you’ll stick with it.  You won’t say “I’ll give it a year, maybe two.”  You’ll say “I’ll keep at it, I’ll keep improving my craft, year after year.  Even if it never happens.” 

Because it may never happen.  That’s the tough reality.    

Yes, I know I’m going to be barraged with emails telling me that I’m wrong, that title A, B, or C managed to hit bestseller lists even though they were self-published.  And I agree, there are several notable examples of self-published books that did do well: The Chicken Soup series, for example.  And The Celestine Prophecy.  And a book that came out in the 90’s called The Messengers.  Those three books sold well because the authors took them on the road and sold tons out of the trunks of their cars or on the lecture circuit or through their contacts in churches.  (Although I should point out that the latter two titles didn’t really hit blockbuster status until they were subsequently sold to, and published by, big-name publishing houses.)  But for the most part, self-published books just don’t sell in big numbers, and for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of writing or the lack of editing (although we can talk about those flaws, too.)  It all gets down to the one huge weakness in the self-publishing business model.

Distribution.

I was reminded of this at a booksigning at a Barnes and Noble in New Hampshire.  After the signing, the events coordinator thanked me for being “so easy to work with — unlike some other authors.” 

“But I would think that most authors are pretty nice,” I said.

“Most are,” she said.  “But the self-published ones are horrible.”  Then she described an incident that had happened earlier that week.  A local self-published author had requested that the store arrange a booksigning for him, and she had turned him down flat.  Enraged, he’d thrown the book on the floor and asked: “When the hell am I ever going to get a signing in this store?”

“When pigs fly,” she’d snapped at him.  The man couldn’t accept the fact that their store almost never hosted signings by self-published authors — even if the author was local.

“Why not?” I asked.  “Is it because of the quality of the books?”

“That’s only part of it,” she said.  “The real reason is that we can’t return them.”  

This was a revelation to me.  She explained that when they order books from a subsidy (self-publishing) press, the books are non-returnable.  If the store can’t sell them, then they’re stuck with them.  And they lose money. 

Regular publishers, on the other hand, ship books on a refundable basis, so if the store orders 100 copies and only sells ten, they can ship the 90 unsold copies back and get a refund.  In this case, there’s no risk on the store’s part, so they’re happy to host a signing and order tons of books because they know they won’t get stuck with them.

“That’s why self-published authors can’t get their books into the large chains,” she explained.  “It’s all about non-returnability.”

So if you’re an author who’s thinking about going the self-published route, this is a cold splash of reality.  No matter how good your book is, good luck getting nationwide distribution unless you can guarantee the stores you’ll take back the unsold copies. 

It also tells me that we’re stuck with the current system of bookstore returns.  Bookstores are too afraid to take the risks of getting stuck with unsold stock.  They’d as soon not order any copies at all, and would only order the blockbuster titles they know they can sell.  In the end, it would be the new and quirky titles that would suffer — and all of us, readers and writers alike, would be the losers.

                            

(with writers Ann Voss Peterson and Julia Spencer-Fleming)

This past weekend, I had a lovely time at the Muskego Library’s Murder and Mayhem program.  Not only did I share the bill with fabulous writers, I also got the chance to party with them as well!  (For more images, and a complete list of the guest authors, check out Jon Jordan’s website at http://centralcrimezone.blogspot.com/) 

The most interesting things I heard, though, didn’t get said during the official program.  Rather, it was what I heard during the informal huddles over drinks and chili at Jon and Ruth’s house, while we all sat around getting slightly tipsy.  In the comfort of each other’s company, we admitted to all the fears and anxieties we have about our careers, the publishing business, and about who we really are, once you get past our public personas.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m an introvert who finds hanging out in crowds exhausting.  I love being shut away alone in my office, and a book tour leaves me feeling like my soul’s been sucked out.  But imagine my surprise when the maniacally effervescent JA Konrath admitted that, during his 600-bookstore driving tour, he too was desperate for some time by himself.  But he was traveling on a budget, staying in the homes of friends and acquaintances, so he spent almost every waking moment feeling the need to perform his schtick.  It was emotionally and physically draining for him.  We other authors, hearing this, somberly nodded in agreement.  We don’t know how he came out of it sane.  (At least, we think he’s sane.)

David Morrell offered his own fascinating insight into the psychology of writers.  “Why do we choose to write what we do?” he asks.  And he believes that the answer lies in the childhood traumas we’ve experienced.  A child who was abandoned by his parents will find that as an adult, he can’t stop writing about that theme of abandonment.  The child who was an outcast will later write about heroes who are outsiders.  I think he’s absolutely right.  I see it in my own writing, and I suspect that almost every writer, when he thinks hard about it, will probably find something in his own past to explain his chosen genre. 

Over barbecued ribs and tequila shots the second night, we whined about Hollywood, gossiped about bad books, and came to the unanimous conclusion that Blake Crouch looks like James Spader.  I think I may have said (or done) a few blackmail-worthy things. 

I just hope the photographic evidence doesn’t rear its ugly head.