Three Pros and Cons of Non-traditional Publishing

1. You don’t need an agent.

Need I say more?

2. Disbelief in the Process

I’m already through the editing phase so I’ll have to tell you about that aspect of the process in retrospect. The funny part of it all, for me, was that the process was so weird, so different from what I’d experienced before -- and then too, there were continual updates coming from John Hunt, the publisher, about the state of the publishing industry -- that between the two, I really didn’t think the book was ever going to make it into print. Thinking this way, I left a lot of things undone that I could have and, according to the advice of the database, should have done much earlier. This added a lot to the intensity of the process, and was a matter of trust. I entered the process not really trusting in the outcome.

What changed my mind was the cover. I was writing to an e-mail friend about my doubts, and he went on line and found this reference to “The Given Self” with cover art and content copy. I’d had no idea it was there. I’m not a technological person and one of the things the extensive database of O Books did was overwhelm me. If I’d been visiting and using the database properly, I would have known the book had a cover. It was real!

You have to realize that part of this was about the lag time there is between the acceptance of a book and that time when the “making real” begins. In those months when nothing seems to be happening – well, it’s easy to imagine that nothing is happening.

Not long after discovering that my book had a cover, I discovered that my first draft had been typeset into what is called “first proofs.” This is always such a thrill. I printed it out and showed it to my family. When you’ve been writing as long as I have and publishing as little, it’s easy to at least imagine them imagining you indulging a hobby for which there is unlikely to ever be any returns. That look and weight of a typeset book helps a lot. So did my dedication page, which simply says, “For Henry.” Henry is my two-and-a-half year old grandson, and for any grandparents out there, you know how the grandchildren, especially the first (Henry’s my first and only so far), become the light of your life and hope for the future, the kind that can get you writing what you really want and need to write. (But I digress.)

3. Doubt

The scariest part of non-traditional publishing is that, with traditional publishing, the experts are there not only to correct your grammar, but to look at your book as a whole and tell you what fits and what doesn’t, what the reader might get and what the reader might not want to hear. It fascinated me that without that hierarchy of “people in the know,” I felt a keen since of responsibility, and at times, even keener doubt. (More on this when I get to endorsements.)

This is another case of the con being a lop-sided pro, and the coolest part is that it fit my book. Here I am, writing away about a given self that needs to come into being – a self you trust, a self that has a life and a point of view and isn’t afraid to claim it or admit to it (even when it’s not exactly widely shared)…and what do I encounter but a process that lets me go there and rise and fall by my own philosophy. Man. When there’s no one around to censor you, you can put yourself out on a very long and shaky limb.