Self-Publishing
Rachel’s advice:
I get asked a lot about self-publishing, so here’s my thoughts on the matter:
When Stephanie and I first discussed self-publishing, mostly so we’d have sample copies to advertise ourselves to mainstream publishers, we decided not to do it unless we were guaranteed not to lose money. So we provided a description, price, and sample art, asked people to comment if they would be interested in buying a copy, and explained that we would only publish the manga if we got enough interest to guarantee that we wouldn’t take a loss on the project. We got a lot of interest, so we went ahead and did it. We have also been successful in selling at conventions, but that came later. First we had to assure ourselves that we would not lose our shirts.
The other factor is that the market for original English manga in the USA is very small. If you get rejected by three or four publishers, that’s pretty much it. Also, there is a long history of self-publishing comic books, both in the US (primarily American indie like Carla Speed McNeil’s excellent Finder) and in Japan. Like putting out your own CD, it does not mean that you were rejected by fifty publishers because you suck. (You might still suck! But there aren’t fifty publishers to be rejected by.)
Whereas with prose books that are not intended for a niche market,* there are lots and lots and lots of publishers. If you can’t get a mainstream publisher to buy your book, maybe it’s meant for a small press. If you can’t get a small press to publish it either, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it sucks. (See The Confederacy of Dunces… although I think his chances would have been improved if he’d followed proper manuscript format.) But the odds are tending in that direction.
* A niche market might be something like the history of a small town, or a how-to guide on knitting beanies. If you know how to reach that small but real market, that would be a good reason to self-publish. Prose niche markets are typically non-fiction.
So, if you have a book of prose fiction, and you’ve run through all the large and small publishers that might want it, I would not advise self-publishing unless you have realistic expectations as to what your market is. If it’s an out-of-print book with a small but enthusiastic fanbase, and you can sell it to your fans as a POD (print-on-demand) or something like that, that’s perfect– go for it! But if you haven’t been published before, and the book’s been rejected all over town, I would advise taking reservations first to gauge interest, as I did.
I know a man who wrote a humorous, or at least intended-as-humorous book, rather like Bored of the Rings only not funny. No publisher wanted it. So he sold his house to raise $30,000 to print a ton of copies, I forget exactly how many, but a lot. He sold 30 copies. The rest ended up in a landfill.
Even with Project Blue Rose, Stephanie and I haven’t actually made much money, and what we did make, we plowed forward into paying for the next printing. We’re mostly having fun, trying to build a fanbase, and not actively losing money. If you have thoughts of doing more than that with self-publishing, realistically, it’s probably not going to happen.
Stephanie adds:
I view this as a hobby that pays for itself, and as a bonus I’m learning a lot about the publishing industry, book layout, and what goes into pricing a book. One of my major goals with Project Blue Rose was to see if I could complete a story of over 20 pages, to find out how long it would take me to do so, and to teach myself storytelling skills - pacing, foreshadowing, etc. - for longer works. I was also practicing drawing and inking skills, and starting to teach myself toning. These comics have been learning projects all the way around, and I’m just pleased that people like them enough that I’m not impoverishing myself by producing them.
Another enlightening thing is the technical side, and trying to find a printer who will print good-looking copies of your book in small amounts on a tight budget and keep to a schedule. The first printer we used produced good work, but got out of the print-for-hire business some months ago, leaving us (and a lot of other indie creators) high and dry. I investigated several other printers and print-on-demand services, but often found they wouldn’t print a run of less than 1000 copies, or the cost-per-book was too high, or they behaved unprofessionally when it came to elementary customer service like answering email or responding to concerns brought up by other customers.
Luckily, thanks to a tip from a friend I found a printer that fits almost all of our needs perfectly, and as a bonus they have been just as attentive to us with our 150-copy print run as if we were printing a 10,000 copy run of a book. Enough so that I am contemplating printing a book of family letters through them to use as Christmas presents for my family (see Rachel’s comment above — this is precisely the sort of thing for which self-publishing exists).
All-in-all this has been a great deal of hair-pulling work fun, and we have been pleasantly surprised by our modest success.
