My Experience with Publishing - Self vs Traditional

I spent most of 2010 send query letter after query letter and received rejection after rejection. Unlike a lot of Author, I didn't keep track of how many rejections I got. I knew it only took one acceptance letter to become a published author. Well I got two offers from small independent publishing houses. These were both legit publishers. Legit, what does that mean. Well I mean a publisher that pays me, I don't pay them (Vanity Press). They covered editing, cover, some marketing expenses and more, a traditional publisher. One was in Europe, one in Florida. I decided to go with World Castle Publishing (WCP) in Florida.

Some friends and family we skeptical, after all WCP just opened and I was one of their first authors, along with my writing buddy, Kathi S Barton. WCP owner Karen Fuller was amazing to us authors that trusted her. She did everything right! She listened to us and worked with us, ensuring we were pleased with the books we were releasing. As a new author, I couldn't have asked for a better publisher. She planned and organized a book signing tour of Texas, we had I think eight authors. It was so amazing to sir in Barnes and Noble and have readers come engage with us, but our books, take photos.

I released four books with WCP between 2011 and 2012. I traveled and did fundraisers, book signings, book events and more. It was everything I imagined and more. I was also pretty proud of the sales and royalties I was receiving. As a new author with a new publisher to have steady sale was amazing. I became a best selling author with WCP, and had realized my dreams. Then I hit a brick wall, I couldn't write. I have a near finished novel, already in first round edits and I couldn't do it.

From 2013 to 2017 I went through lots of changes as a person, wife, mother and author. I won't go into it all, but in 2017 after a chronic illness diagnosis I got my drive back. I was ready to finish the story, work on the Embrace series. Many friends were self publishing and I thought wow, this sounds so amazing, not sharing my royalties, full control over my career, Independence and the title of Indie Author. I needed to do this. So I emailed Karen and asked to have my rights back. My contract was long over, but she continued with my books as a back list. They still brought in residual income for both of us.

I re-wrote all four books in the Embrace series. Had a good friend/artist design new covers for me and re-released The Embrace Series as an Indie Author. As I worked on the long anticipated fifth book.     

 
I finished my contemporary romance novel The Climb, and was so proud of this book. I knew it was amazing. November 1, 2018 I release the book that took nearly 7 years to finish. It got amazing reviews, and readers loved it as much as I did.

Fast forward a few months, to 2019. I feel lost again, no drive to write, I find doing this all on my own is way more than I bargained for. Self publishing is fucking HARD. You can't understand until you do it. If you want a nice cover, you have to out source to someone that knows what they are doing. A cheep cover can be spotted from a mile away. And yes people judge a book by it's cover. You need to hire and editor or two. You can not edit your own book, spell check does not edit your book. You need a professional. You have to hire someone to help with marketing or you need to spend the time to do it yourself. Connecting with readers, selling your book but not being spammy. I admire every self published author, successful or not, because it's a lot of work.

I know this is what I'm meant to do, I have so many stories in my head I can't sleep at night. Writing is my destiny, my calling, my  job, and I love it. With that said, I love the help, the support, the encouragement and yes the deadlines I get with a publisher. So I emailed Karen at WCP again and asked to come back. She said YES. I was so excited that she would take me back after I abandoned her. Yes after 8 years, WCP is going strong, they work with agents, and film production companies and are truly making their mark in the publishing world. I searched up publishers and WCP came up on several lists as a top ten small publisher. I'm proud that I was with her in the beginning and even prouder that she is taking me back. 

This week we signed contracts and discussed the direction for my books. We couldn't use the original covers, because after a computer crash, the original photos were lost. Plus I hated book 2 cover, she hated book 4 cover. I loved my new self publishing covers, but for various reasons we decided not to use them. We talked about doing a combo of the two covers and they are amazing.

The Climb, my passion project, a contemporary romance of loss and love. Love isn't always pretty and sometimes you have to climb a few mountains to get there. I absolutely love this story, I loved the original cover. It was exactly what I wanted. Even though other romance authors told me no, it looks like a travel book, not a romance.  I still went with it. Any reviews I got were amazing, but it just wasn't getting noticed like I had hoped. So we decided to make the cover look a little more romance and also change the name. So The Climb is now Beating the Odds - Loss and Love series novel. I'm so happy with how this turned out. It still has the elements I wanted (Kilimanjaro in the back ground) and has a beautiful romantic couple. This is it, I love it. 

So there you have it my experience with traditional and self publishing. I am a writer that likes the support of a team behind me, I like to write rather than search for covers, editors, and what not. Since my chronic illness became a major player in my life, my brain just cant focus on doing it all. I applaud an author that takes the Indie route, and I think that everyone should at least try it. you can't really understand until you've been there.

Thank you to the readers and fellow authors that have supported me through my journey, but most of all thank you to World Castle Publishing for always being there to help me realize my dream. All my books should be back up for sale world wide through most book sellers in the next week or two.

Now to finish book 5 of the Embrace Series and book 2 of Love and Loss.

xoxo
Charlotte

My jump to Indie Publishing

If you didn't already know, I recently left my publisher (who was amazing) to try out the indie author arena. At least five times a day I scream "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?". Okay, so indie publishing isn't for the faint of heart. It is a LOT of hard work and long hours.

You might be asking yourself, why did I leave my publisher? Well The Embrace Series has been with World Castle Publishing since 2011. I feel it did very well. I learned a lot and even traveled for book signings. I hard tons of fun and loved my job. My contract has been up for several years, but I remained with my publisher. I had the worst case of writer's block, I couldn't even go over edits for another book I'd finished. It was okay, I started a new career, working with special needs children, got sick, had surgery and returned to work. I ran for city office and then got sick again, although this time I'm not getting any better. So now I'm jobless, sick, and have lost all direction. 

Jump to June, 2018...I GOT MY MOJO BACK! After months of pouting and not doing anything, I started writing again. This got me excited and I decided to get my rights back for The Embrace Series, re-write and re-release it. I still have such a good feeling about this story, I just think I released it at the wrong time and want to do even better by my fans. I am doing this via self publishing. I can't even explain how excited I am to re-release my first series to you as well as a whole new audience. As I write this, I'm awaiting the proofs for my new covers from my amazing cover artist. I have to admit, the wait is killing me. 

So, although I left the comfort of a publishing house, I am learning so much about becoming an indie author. I'm pretty sure some of the other indies are getting sick of my questions. I do like to have all the control, I don't like depending on or waiting on other people. Self publishing makes me accountable and no one else.  I feel good, I feel accomplished, book 1 Immortal Embrace is uploaded and just waiting on the cover. I hope to release it July 1, exactly 7 years after it's first release. It looks so pretty, and I love some of the changes I've made to the story. I can't wait to share The Embrace Series with you all, as well as The Climb, my stand alone romance novel. 

As for my health, yeah I'm still sick, but I'm making huge leaps and bounds to getting a diagnosis and proper treatment. I will survive and I will continue to write. I hope to have you all standing beside me through it all. 

    

Publishing Secrets and Differences

As a writer we want nothing more than our work to be published. Unfortunately there are many other out there that are waiting to take advantage of the vulnerable writer. We send our work out and get rejection after rejection, but when that acceptance letter finally comes we feel like everything is going to be perfect somehow. I have been very lucky and blessed when it comes to my ventures in the publishing world, but I also did months and months of research. Many authors don't realize the different types of publishers out there. Just because they have the title publisher (publishing) in their company name can they be trusted. The same goes for literary agents and literary/writing contests. I want to help all the writers out there learn a little about the publishing world and teach you a few precautions to take while on your journey. 


The four most common types of publishers/publishing are Commercial publishers, subsidy publishers, vanity/subsidy publishers, self-publishing. Yes there is a difference between each one of these. But what are they? Well here are some definitions of publishers. 

A commercial or trade publisher purchases the right to publish a manuscript (usually together with other rights, known as subsidiary rights). Most pay an advance on royalties. Commercial publishers are highly selective, publishing only a tiny percentage of manuscripts submitted. They handle every aspect of editing, publication, distribution, and marketing. There are no costs to the author. Examples of Traditional publishers as described are Penguin Group, Random House, Simon & Schuster. These are a few of the more popular publishing houses. Larger houses such as those listed usually only accept solicited manuscripts, meaning you need an agent. With the rise in e-book sale more small presses have open and are still considered traditional, but do not offer advances. The nice thing is some of them accept un-solicited submissions, so you can go ahead without an agent. ALTHOUGH always follow the submission guidelines.

A vanity or subsidy publisher charges a fee to produce a book. They still present itself as a publisher and sometime call themselves traditional...but they aren't!. Some of these companies do little more than produce a print run that’s shipped to the author,while other companies that provide a menu of design, editing, distribution, and marketing services in addition to book production. Vanity/subsidy publishers may or may not be selective (if they are selective, it’s not likely that their gatekeeping processes are comparable to those of commercial publishers), and may or may not make a claim on authors’ rights. Marketing and distribution, if provided, are usually limited; as a result, most of the burden of promoting and selling falls on the author. Costs for vanity/subsidy publishing can rise into the five-figure range.

(Some fee-based publishers will try to convince you that there’s a difference between vanity and subsidy publishing (with subsidy publishing being more respectable). Others style themselves “joint venture” or “co-op” or “partner” or “equity” publishers in order to suggest that they’re contributing their own resources to the relationship. Don’t be fooled. Fee-based publishing is fee-based publishing, and whatever you’re paying, it covers 100% of the cost and then some.)

Self-publishing services fall somewhere between vanity/subsidy publishing and true self-publishing. Writers are restricted to the packages the service provides. Limited distribution is usually part of the package. Because self-pub services typically are digitally-based, upfront expense can be low–but most services heavily promote often-costly extras, such as marketing options, and take a hefty cut of sales proceeds in order to recoup their production costs. Most self-publishing services make a non-exclusive claim on authors’ rights. 

True self-publishing, like vanity publishing, requires the author to bear the entire cost of publication, and also leaves marketing and promotion to the author. However, rather than paying for a pre-set package of services, the author puts those services together himself. Because every aspect of the process can be out to bid, self-publishing can be much more cost effective than vanity publishing; it can also result in a higher-quality product. All rights, and all profits, remain with the author. This has become a popular way to publish and if thinking of any of the above other than Tradition (commercial/trade) publishing, this is the only other option I would suggest. 

These definitions and information was acquired for  P&E and Writer Beware. These are two site you MUST put under your favorites and read. They both offer a wealth of information to help protect the writer from scams. I suggest that before you submit anywhere or do anything else check these two sites. Both list publishers and agents to avoid.

Now for agents and contest, just because I mentioned them. It is the same as publishers, if you have to pay stay away! I'm not saying all contests that charge an entry fee are bad, but there's tons of free contests and even more close to free. Paying to enter all these contest can bankrupt an author before their book even gets read. With agents and publishers that charge a reading/review fee, well that's easy...DO NOT PAY A PENNY TO SUBMIT OR HAVE YOUR WORK READ! Ok, so maybe I didn't have to scream it at you, but I want you to hear me. Save your money, because here is another little secret...writers don't make much money. Now yes some have made millions or billions, but there are far more poor authors than rich ones. You see a book in the store, let's use mine for an example. In Chapters/Indigo (large bookstore chain in Canada) Immortal Embrace costs about $13. That's a good price for a paperback and it should add up fast right? Wrong, from that $13 first off the book store gets 45%, that's about $6. After that you have to take off printing, marketing, editing, cover art and so on. In the end from each print copy I get about $1. yes you read that right one whole dollar. Depending on where it is sold that can fluctuate up to a few dollars, but realistically it's a dollar. So as I said, save your money, you're gonna need it. 

I don't want to discourage anyone, if you know me you know I'm all about following your dreams. It just tears me apart to see so many author posting on face book how they got this amazing traditional publisher that opened last week and only charged them $1000 to publish and they think their books are going to be in Barnes and Noble next week. The truth of that is they just got scammed and I hate that it happened to them. I know a few authors that "self published" through a not so great company (that is named on Writer Beware) and lost tens of thousands of dollars and got like 50 copies of their book and that is it. 

the truth about getting your book into the book stores. Well it is not as easy as you think. Just because you are published doesn't get you a spot on the shelves of your local or national book store. Even being with one of the "Big Six" doesn't ensure your book will be there (although it does increase the chance). Once published your book has to meet criteria. It MUST be returnable, no book store will take a book they can't return if it doesn't sell. your book also has to be on the advance distribution list. If it's not on this list, the book store won't even know it exists (even if you call and tell them). From the list the stores buyer picks what books he/she will stock in their stores and there you have it. One person decides if your book gets into the stores or not. i have heard that some of the bigger publishers purchase spots in the stores for their writers, but this is rumor and I have no proof of that. 

Now please don't give up because there is one other way you can get your book into the stores. This is not super easy and it will cost you a pretty penny, but most book stores will stock a few copies of your book under consignment. This means you purchase the books from the printer/distributor and you provided them to the store. They will put them on the shelves and IF one sells they take their 45% of the cost and send you the remain 65%. Now that doesn't sound too bad right? Well it's not great, but it's not all bad either. Just make sure you take in to consideration the cost of printing and shipping your book as well as the stores percentage before setting your price or you could be out money. Also they will most likely only stock a hand full of copies at most. 

I really hope this has helped everyone understand a little more about how hard the publishing world is and you all do your research. I want you all to succeed, so keep trying and find the right publisher for you, just don't get vanity press confused with traditional. Remember a traditional publisher or agent WILL NOT charge you for their services.

Good luck to all and please comment if you have a story to share or a question to ask..I will respond :)

Charlotte Blackwell

Author of the Embrace Series

From World Castle Publishing