What to do with “Nightfighter?” Traditional or epublication?
So, at last, “Nightfighter” is done. It’s the story of Caina from ages 11 to 18, how she went from the bookish daughter of a minor nobleman to the Ghost spy and assassin so feared by the magi. There’s fighting! Mystery! Intrigue! Dastardly villains! And, of course, romance.
The relevant question: what am I going to do with the book? Shall I try to submit it professionally, or shall I plunge into this brave new world of self-epublishing?
Let us consider this as a proper historian might – coldly, objectively. Without emotional investment.
Practically speaking, the odds of “Nightfighter” selling traditionally are very near zero. That is just the nature of the business. It’s common to say that a good book, if the author is persistent enough, will find a publisher. But that’s like saying good things happen to good people, or that there’s a match out there for everyone, or that the government has the best interests of the people at heart. The world simply doesn’t work that way. And perhaps I am fooling myself when I think it is good enough to sell – perhaps “Nightfighter”, in the end, simply isn’t good enough.
On the other hand, a lot of people thought their books weren’t good enough to sell, and plowed onward until they did. And as a writer, selling work requires a measure of egoism – you have to believe that it’s good enough to sell, otherwise you won’t even bother. Determination does pay off in the end, sometimes.
Still, selling “Nightfighter” traditionally is nonetheless very unlikely. I was talking with someone about self-epublishing, and he said “if you do this, you’re only going to sell a few dozen copies.” I thought about that. A few dozen copies. That sounded…
That sounded…freaking awesome.
Seriously.
I mean, I’ve written sixteen books and published two. (My second and my fifth, incidentally.) For years now I’ve been accustomed to finishing a novel and getting absolutely nothing in return for it, in either financial or emotional terms. I’ve written at least three books that I couldn’t even get anyone else to read. So finishing a book and getting something, anything, for it, that would be…wow.
Wait! Crap! We’ve strayed from proper objectivity to emotional influences. Commander Spock would raise a single eyebrow in cold Vulcan disapproval.
But, anyway, back to facts. Or, at least, what I think the facts indicate.
I think that facts show that ebooks are undeniably the future. I think the Kindle and the Nook are just the beginning. I think we are at the point of a major technological convergence and paradigm shift, the way that papyrus replaced clay tablets, the way paper replaced papyrus, and the way that the printing press made handwritten manuscripts obsolete. We are at the edge of a great technological revolution, and the cruel fact is that some people will adapt it, and some will not. Like the older worker who gets fired simply because he just cannot learn Microsoft Excel. History is on the march, friends and neighbors, and that means it’s either time to change or to die.
Let us consider the pros and cons for self-epublishing “Nightfighter”.
Pros:
-No entry cost.
-I have the technical skills for layout, format conversion, and (reasonable) cover design.
-My tech blog gets around 90,000 hits a month, providing a free platform for advertising (I regularly pull in $200 a month or so from ads), and once Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal comes out next month, I expect I can expand that by 25% or so.
-I have written two other Caina novels, “Ghost in the Flames” in 2008 and “Ghost in the Blood” in 2009, and I could have them both ready to join “Nightfighter” by the end of the year. You know, go for that fabled long tail.
-I do not have unrealistic expectations. In fact, I have no expectations. Anything is better than zero, after all.
-On the same note, finally having some sort of outlet for novels would be nice.
-I can self-epublish “Nightfighter” and continue to try and sell other stuff via traditional channels. It’s not like self-epublishing is a blackball for traditional publishing, after all, so long as you’re not obnoxious about it.
-I have no one to blame but myself if things go bad.
Cons:
-I don’t have an audience for fiction.
-Anything beyond a few dozen sales is highly unlikely.
-The readers of my tech blog tend to be computer guys (about half of them Indian and Russian) looking for information about Ubuntu Linux, and I suspect they would not give a damn about an English-language fantasy novel.
-By self-epublishing “Nightfighter”, I render it unpublishable via traditional means.
-I have no one but myself to blame if things go bad.
At the moment, I am leaning towards trying it as a self-pubbed ebook and seeing what happens (probably nothing). If it flops, so what? I can always write another one. Writing is more of a lucrative hobby and a creative outlet for me (albeit an outlet I would prefer to make money from) – I don’t daydream about becoming a full-time writer.
But. Now I’m going to go run six miles, and then take a bath, play some “Dragon Age 2”, and think some more about this.
-JM