On Publishing

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Wage Slave Rebellion is officially in print

That’s right, Wage Slave Rebellion is now officially available in paperback. What that means for you: Print versions! If you want one, you can buy one from Amazon now. What it means for me: Nothing much. Business as usual. I expect I’ll still get most of my sales through ebooks, which suits me just fine, that being my preferred reading method. That said, I do have to admit: It was pretty cool getting to hold a physical book that I wrote. I...

Break-even

Break-even is the point of balance between making a profit or a loss. It’s the point where you’ve earned enough to pay back your investments and cover your fixed costs, and you’re on the cusp of (hopefully) making an actual profit. I broke even on Wage Slave Rebellion last month. I could tell you the exact day, though I’d have to separate out the costs I’ve already paid on Action Politics, which would be a pain. The particulars are, to be honest, not important. What’s important is that...

Feedback from family

Perhaps one of the strangest things about publishing Wage Slave Rebellion is the feedback I’ve gotten from my family. In my family, I’m a bit of an odd duck—no one else even reads fantasy, much less writes it. They were always a bit bewildered by my anime blogging, I think, but that was easy to deal with—they’ve never seen the shows, nor will they, so there’s no reason for them to read any of my posts. They just accepted that it was something...

Wage Slave Rebellion: Coming very soon

My debut novel, Wage Slave Rebellion, will be out soon. Barring any unexpected issues, it should be available for purchase within a week. I’ll be back to tell you all when it’s officially released. In the meantime, I’m going to quietly freak out. Ahhhhhh!...

Only once

I understand why some authors don’t want to deal with anything but the writing. Vetting editors, finding illustrators, getting a cover made, formatting the text, picking a distribution model, building a website, doing promotions, organizing sales … these all take away from doing the central work they set out to do, which is writing. I’m a little different. I like to be in control of my destiny, and I don’t like to compromise creatively. That’s why I’m independently publishing. I’m also a marketer by trade,...

Compromise

In my opening salvo on publishing, I may have come across as unwilling to compromise. In certain ways, this is true. In one extremely critical way, it is not. That way is editing. Chris Guillebeau wrote an article recently titled Why Artistic Compromise Makes For Better Work. In it he talks about the different ways he has compromised in writing his new book. I understand his journey completely, because I have either made those compromises or am in the process of making them. When...

Control

As I get closer to publishing my first book, I think it would be useful to explain why I’m planning to publish independently (self-pub). The bottom line: Control. I want to maintain complete control of the stories I tell, and that cannot happen by ceding control to a publisher. I’ll give you an example of what can happen when control is lost. At work, I helped design a new internal software platform that will be launching next month. I, along with three others, worked hard to create...

Writer, author, full-time author

To me, there are distinct differences between these three titles, and when I will allow myself to use them. To become an author, you must sell something you’ve written. If you’re a traditionally published author, that means selling a book to a publisher. For independently published (read: self-pub) authors like me, it’s the first time you sell a book to someone who isn’t a friend or family. If I’ve never spoken to you in person and you are the first one to buy...

Book update: Off to see the editor

It’s time to put my money where my mouth is. I’ve been working on this book for years. For the longest time I was figuring everything out on my own, because I knew that, though my ideas were good, I couldn’t execute them as well as I wanted to. I wasted a lot of time there. Finally I sent them to my editor, who is also my best friend. He’s got a good head for stories, and he helped me iron out the...