The indie publishing process has been tremendous fun right up to this point, but the fun has suddenly stopped and doubts have come crashing in.
Here’s what’s going on: On February 28 I posted about finishing the initial draft of a new fantasy novel. I put it through a quick and dirty re-write and got some nice feedback from three writers–strangers to me, who generously offered their time. After a re-write, my writers group looked at the first thirty pages and gave it a thumbs up, along with a few suggestions and line edits.
Since then I’ve been on my own. I haven’t exactly discussed the title with anyone. I’ve gotten some input on the back cover copy, but not from people who, well, sell books. Only the artist and I have been involved in the cover concept and the artist hasn’t read the book. She’s doing a great job, exactly what I asked her to do…but is my concept any good? Who is my prospective audience anyway? Will the cover and title appeal to them? Will the story? Will my pen name? Did I mention this book is totally unlike anything else I’ve done?
Also, no woman (except me of course) has read the entire novel yet, and for some reason this really bothers me.
And I’m hoping to publish next week.
So yeah. Lots of room for doubt at this stage, and doubt is not fun.
This would never happen in traditional publishing. At minimum, writer and editor would agree the book was good and the title was effective, and realistically a lot more people would be involved, especially in cover art and cover copy. I think that’s part of the “validation” authors talk about when they speak fondly of traditional publishers. The team might not get it all right, but confidence goes up in committee.
Personally, I do far better work at a much faster pace when I’m feeling confident.
The lesson here, I think, for anyone out there working on their own book, is to ASSEMBLE YOUR INDIE TEAM EARLY. Develop a reliable, go-to group of interested people who have the time, the knowledge, and the experience to offer prompt feedback on work in your genre, and who will let you bounce ideas off them. And BE that person for other writers. We’re all tremendously busy, but personally I could spend less time reading the Interwebs (or writing blog posts), and devote that time to a TEAM.
When the cover art is ready, I’ll post it here.
The cover I designed for Memory didn’t seem to be too popular with y’all, so I asked artist Jenn Reese, a writer herself and owner of Tiger Bright Studios, to come up with something new, and here’s the beautiful result.
Oh. Hey. I published a new book this week. Or to be more accurate, Trey Shiels did–and that’s my first-time-ever pen name.
One of the coolest things that happened to me when I sold my first novel was that Bruce Jensen was contracted to do the cover art. I was thrilled with the result, and even happier when he went on to do all four Bantam covers.
