Publishing a Book in 2018

The room was packed. Had to be at least fifty people in a space that was more intended for 25. The organizers of the event were leaving the room, looking around the coffee shop for anything that could potentially serve as a chair. Step stool, great, bring it in. JENGA tower, alright, we'll make it work.  

The class was on self-publishing, and the attendees were all over the map concerning their experience level. That guy in the back has an idea for his first book. The lady in the front row has self-published multiple times but is looking for ways to do it better. How do you get more sales? Do people still read books? 

Publishing is an arena that has fascinated me for the last ten years. And long before that, like second/third-grade range, I had my first dreams of writing a book, seeing it in a bookstore. 

All along, the writing part has come naturally to me. Coming up with new ideas (the good, the bad, the just plain awful) has been relatively easy too. But that last step, publishing the book, getting it out there, I couldn't figure that out. I've run into walls at multiple points trying to make sense of it. No longer felt like writing, I felt like I was back in math class or seeing a roundabout on the road for the first time. Wait where do I get off this thing? 

My confusion wasn't with "what" to do. I knew the process; you buy this big official 700-page book with the names of literary agents and publishers. You put together a query letter (basically just a 1-page pitch for your book) and start trying to find a match. You do this for months, years. Hopefully, you find an interested agent, then they begin the next climb, trying to get a publisher signed on. 

The "what" made sense, but I didn't understand why this was the process. Why was I essentially buying a phone book in 2012? Why would I wait that long to hear back from people? Why was I buying stamps?  

The book I was trying to get out there (called Medium Rare) made jokes about the 2012 Summer Olympics and a new buffalo flavor created by Wheat Thins. How relevant would any of that be if this publishing process took me 2-3 years?  

But I understood the other argument.

The one that said self-published books aren't real books. Especially as a college English major still on campus, that world of who published it, or where it was published, all seemed like it mattered a lot regarding the legitimacy.  

It's a valid point. There's a big difference between saying, "My story ran in the New Yorker vs. I passed out stapled copies on a New York subway." Or, "Hey, here's a Guinness," vs. "Here's an Irish stout I brewed myself in my garage, let me know what you think." Oof. Yeah, um, it's uh, different? 

I sent Medium Rare out to a few people, but then eventually decided I didn't want to wait around. I didn't want the material to be outdated. I wanted Medium Rare to be like my real college diploma, have the book out there, show friends, family, anyone else who'd be interested: hey, here's the best I can do at age 22.  

Which is such a load of crap. Sorry, that last paragraph was not true at all. That's a 28-year-old re-writing how he wished he felt six years ago. At the time, I one hundred percent had the delusion the book would somehow take off, sell thousands and thousands of copies.  

But, in fairness, that's the message that gets pumped out to aspiring authors.

Even more so now in 2018 than back in 2012. Every week I'll see something on LinkedIn or a podcast talking about how you can self-publish a book and make millions. The most common examples made are to the writers of Fifty Shades, The Martian, or the Wool series. Or this one, not necessarily from the book world, but you'll see something like, "Chance the Rapper did it all without a label, so could you!"

The problem with these articles is it's like saying you should really start your own restaurant because look how much money McDonald's and Ruth's Chris steakhouse have made. Or have you seen the prices Alinea charges for their dinners? Starting a restaurant is a slam dunk, the best route to millions, maybe even billions, of dollars.

Just like the restaurant industry has thousands of shops that close up every year, every day, the self-publishing world has plenty of titles that didn't work; or at least not financially. For every mega success in the self-publishing world, there are tens of thousands of titles that are sitting there with 10 copies sold. I have one called Too Old for the Buzz Cut that I think has sold seven copies (Hi Mom, hi Dad). 

Not seven million. Not seven thousand. Seven. Like the number before eight. I don't even need a third hand to count how that one's doing.  

But I've learned a little bit each time around over these last six years. I've applied different things, tested new strategies, and as a result, I've seen my most recent book (Toilet Bowl) get off to a reasonably strong start in its first four months. Reasonably strong meaning hundreds, not thousands of copies.

And honestly, sales numbers aside, it just feels awesome to have it done, out there, it's the best I could possibly do at 28-years-old.

This time around, that last paragraph was not full of crap. I sincerely mean it and want every aspiring writer to not just get their book out there, but to make it the best it can possibly be. Final step, if you choose traditional or self-publishing (or an in-between option, more on that later) that's not what I care most about. My care is that your first book is your trophy and that your passion becomes writing every day to start and finish the next one.

For the next three months, I'll have new posts going up on LinkedIn that map out the journey of writing a book and ultimately getting it out there for sale. To use that coffee shop room as an example again, this advice will range all the way from fresh new idea to tips for anyone on attempt number 5, 10, 20.  

All leading up to some very exciting news in June about how I'm planning to step into this space, building an option that's kind of an in-between of self-publishing and traditional publishing. More to come!

I look forward to sharing this all with you. 

Next post: The Early Idea Stage. 

Hey. Thanks for reading this post! I write the Medium Rare blog on ChicagoNow. I'm taking two months off right now, which is really just me writing here instead and then a ton of stuff on my sister site Medium Rare Basketball covering the NCAA Tournament. See you next time!