Self Publishing Thoughts

As Professor Burton has pointed out to me, I need to be working on the digital component of my personal essay project while I am drafting.  This way, I can promote my eBook and connect with a perspective audience before they are even finished.

I'm trying to get more connected with the writing networks available online.  I attended an online chat session a few weeks ago and found some of their blogs which have been a fantastic starting point.  I came across the blog Literary Lab, kept by writers Domey Malasarn, Scott G.F. Bailey, and Michelle Davidson Argyle.  In this blog, I found a great post on self publishing that is frank and honest about some of the ins and outs of self-publishing.  Here are some points I learned that I need to focus on as I think about my eBook.

Price- The author of this post argues that you need to put just as much time and funding into the professional look and editing of your book.  She really emphasized making the cover captivating.  I've got some photographs, but I wonder if I should start looking at this more seriously, and sooner than i thought.

And off of that point, I was not planning on charging anything for this eBook.  To me it was more important to just get the information out there and promoting my first publication than to make any money.  This blog post also talked more specifically about how much it cost to make her first book and how much she made in the end.

If self publishing book is what I want to do in the future for a career, then this would be really important to learn sooner than later.

An Online Discussion on the Querying Process: And some new friends!

In addition to writing personal essays for my honors thesis, I am also enrolled in a Beginning Novel class where I am working on my first ever novel!  Last week, one of the girls in my class sent out an invite to join a live, online chat session on October 11th with a few published authors discussing the querying process at Annie Laurie Cechini's website.  It started with Michelle Davidson Argyle, talking about where to start the querying process, then Lydia Sharp, who discussed the fundamentals of a query letter, and then was wrapped up with Sierra Gardner, who discussed ways to stay organized and keep tabs on queries.  Ashley, the girl in my class, ensured us that they were friendly people and would be thrilled to share their information to those who are new to this scene, so I decided to check it out.

The archived version of the chat session I participated in is not yet posted, but I will link to it once it is.  Here are a few main things I learned:

Back in the Game

Me?  Why no, I'm not overwhelmed at all.

I've been really good at letting India take a backseat to all of the rest of the madness going on in my life right now.  Taking classes while trying to tackle course work while simultaneously making meaning of an experience like India is not the easiest load to juggle, but what do you do?  Deadlines are approaching, and I know I will feel a world better once I start.

Starting is the important thing.  After meeting with my faculty mentor, Dr. Burton, I've realized that I need to get my travel essays done a lot earlier than I anticipated.  If I am to publish an eBook, I need to leave myself a lot of room to find an audience, learn formatting, find outlets for my work, and just figure out the logistics of it all.

The cool thing is that this is much more than a honors thesis.  The hard thing is that this is much more than an honors thesis.  But it is going to be so much more rewarding knowing that I am establishing my writing presence on the internet.  This, right along with my novel writing class, has gotten me very excited about learning the ropes of self publishing.

So here is a brief to-do list:

• Email Professor Bennion two solid drafts and my coursework
• Start drafting more travel essays so that I am ahead of schedule
• Figure out if I am going to try for an ORCA grant
• Decide what final outcome, other than my eBook, I would like to have to show what I have learned through my experiences with emerging media.
• Get my personal writing group together to start talking about these topics
• Balance coursework with my current classes
• Keep this blog updated!

Photo credit to comerecommended.com

Publishing?

I remember my painting teacher in Hawaii sitting on his bench, eating Cheetos with chopsticks, instructing us students to always remember that you cannot paint abstractly until you have mastered the tools of the realistic realm.  In other words, you cannot break rules until you know what they are.  For a moment I'd like to apply that to publishing.

Let's be honest.  I am an undergraduate student with just one pending publication, and I don't know the first thing about the publishing world.  I've been working on gathering material to write my travel essays that I can self publish in an eBook, but it was not until I talked to my new friend, Emily, that I realized that this might make regular publishing impossible.  The conventional publishing world may be dying, but do grad schools care about that?  Or am I expected to have some traditional something to slap onto my resume if I want to be taken seriously?  (I hate that). 

In Dr. Burton's last email (my field study faculty mentor), he gave me some links to some popular places online where you can self publish eBooks.  I've decided to do a quick review of these sites and where I might go from here:

Smashwords.com publishes and distributes eBooks where authors and publishers retain full control over how their words and published, sampled, priced, and solid.  If an author wants to charge (the site is free), they have that option to do that, or even change the price at will.  They claim to be the leading eBook publishing platform, and have over 45,000 eBooks published.  If you do decide to charge, Smashwords.com keeps a portion of the profit, but it is still much more than the author would get in a traditional publishing relationship.  They also say that some publishers can sweep up these eBooks and show that they are worth selling, but others have decided that they do not want to work with a mainstream publisher or wait around as their book languishes in obscurity.  They say it is a personal choice, and that Smashwords.com does not publish incomplete or unpolished books.  

Connecting: In the Field!

The internet is a great way to find people to connect with that you otherwise would not have, but I have also been able to connect with a few other people that I otherwise would not have had I not been in India!  Sometimes that immediate human interaction is just what the doctor ordered.

So here are a few of my new writer friends:

David is an emerging Bollywood actor from Singapore.  He is a former Black Hawk flier and is currently traveling around India with our mutual friend.  I was delighted to find that he is a photographer as well as a writer, and his blog can be found here.  He is looking for critical feedback if anyone is interested in reading some of his writing.  I enjoy his imagery and just the fact that he is able to write about places like Mumbai (Bombay) in a way that I can see and smell it since I unfortunately will not be able to get there in this trip.

Emily is a former student of Megan's host family who happened to stumble back into McLeod, and she was sort of absorbed into our group immediately.  We enjoyed hanging out and getting to know her on our mid-semester retreat and learning more about her experiences here.  She just left yesterday for some more traveling around India.  Emily is recently graduated and from Atlanta, and she has really interesting blog documenting her travels.  Talking to her a few days ago about publishing drafts/final copies of my essays made me realize that it is something I might want to think about in terms of publishing.  If I am going for my own eBook though, maybe I don't have to worry about it.  Either way I have decided to hold of posting my latest essay draft until I decide. 

Lobsang Wangyal was a random find (upstairs from the yoga studio, helping him edit a recent article).  He is Tibetan but he was born in India.  He is a journalist and editor for the news website, Tibet Sun, as well as the founder of the controversial,  annual Miss Tibet show.  He is quite a celebrity around McLeod Ganj in his vivid colored suits, and he can even be found on Wikipedia!  His reports are slanted towards the Tibetan cause, but it is still informative to read about recent issues in the Tibetan situation for those in exile.  There also writes about current world events.  While he has some colorful views on America (particularly on our visa system), he is always an interesting person to talk to. 

Anyways, just a few writers I've stumbled across that I thought were worth mentioning.  I really enjoy finding people out here who share some of my same interests, especially when I can read about their similar experiences through their unique perspectives. 

Email from Professor Burton: Some Direction on July 22, 2011

Here is another email from my field study faculty mentor giving me more direction for my project.

Rachel:

I'm somewhere in the middle of Illinois driving home right now. This morning, stopping at a tiny town in Indiana for gas, the store smelled of curry and I guessed the family of Indians behind the counter were from Gujarat. "Are you speaking Gujarati?" I asked. Stunned, they said yes.

India stays with you.

I've read all your recent blog posts, and I am very happy with how you have been writing and processing things. The visit from Ashley sounded very timely, and I second her advice about drafting. You seem nervous about this, and I don't want you to fall prey to this idea that you need months to process things first. Think of it this way: There are some things you can write or draft only while in the field, only while your legs are bunched up in that sari or you are wondering whether that bottle of water you bought had its seal broken. There is an authenticity to "in situ" composing. The press of time you feel in the field can be a great benefit to someone like you who has too many threads to weave.