Craig Wallwork: On Self Publishing

Self publishing is one of those topics that has always fascinated me. We have touched on it a couple of times on Creators’ Roulette, whether it was S. Kaeth’s post on being an indie author, Nora McKinney’s parallels between academia and indie publishing, or Stephen Zimmer on owning an indie press. Craig Wallwork offers a deeper look into what self publishing is, how he got converted to it and the things that authors need to know about before them dabble into it. He is the author of the novels, Bad People, and The Sound of Loneliness, as well as the short story collections, Quintessence of Dust, and Gory Hole. His stories have been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize, many of which feature in various anthologies and magazines both in the U.K. and U.S. He currently lives in England.

I am really excited to bring this informative post to you today and I am sure you will learn a lot, even if you are not a writer. As a reader, I loved seeing the inside workings of Amazon so go quench the curiosity below. 🙂

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Self Publishing – Pros/Cons – A Comprehensive Look

Recently, I did something I thought I would never do as a writer. I self published a book. Today, that doesn’t seem like a huge deal, right? Vanity publishing has been around for a long time. Edgar Allan Poe paid a printer to publish fifty copies of Tamerlane and Other Poems. L. Frank Baum published three of his own books, Mark Twain, Beatrix Potter, Lisa Genova, Andy Weir, John Grisham and even Margret Atwood did it too, so why the neurosis? The simple answer is every author who believes they are worthy of print should find a publisher/agent. If they don’t, then how good can they truly be? Well, I guess looking back on the aforementioned list should prove that’s a lot of bunkum.

That I fell into the category of author who pooh-poohed self publishing, I’m surprised I ended up doing it. So what pushed me? The decision came after attending Lit-Fest, a small well run literary festival (if the title wasn’t a giveaway) in Derbyshire. It was there I met Adrian J. Walker. For those unaware of Walker, his novel, The End of the World Running Club, became a bestseller. It was endorsed by Stephen King and was featured on Radio 2’s The Book Club. Walker was at the festival whoring out his new novel, The Last Dog on Earth. I went to his Q&A and was surprised to understand that he had not gone down the self pub route for, The End of the World Running Club. Okay, history has shown that sometimes this works. Lest we forget E.L. James (I’m sure we would love nothing more to). Walker had done something most self publishers only dream of doing; he marketed the book perfectly.

How?

Due to Amazon’s algorithms, Walker selected a sub-category of sport (you get to choose genres and key words to place the book in the most relevant category). This, combined with the dystopian genre, got the book on a very niche list.

That’s the key, you see. Placing a book in Crime or Thriller is a hard list to crack. There are thousands in that list. But get it into something with fewer books, and hey, you may make a dint.

Walker did just that. Once on the top of that list, things took off. Soon, the book was selling in large numbers. This got the attention of an agent who then went on to represent the book, and landed it with Del Ray, which then sold enough copies to acquire the much coveted bestseller title.

So, was this the reason I wanted to self publish? No. What surprised me was this. At the Q&A Walker said he was thinking of self publishing his new book. What?!! I raised my hand. He pointed at me. I asked with a perplexed expression, “Why?” Here he was, a bestseller under his belt, an agent too, and he’s going to self publish, it just didn’t seem right. That was when he hit me with the news I had wanted to hear.

Though he had all that success, he found the publishing process protracted and financially unstable. Self publishing would mean a steady income he could get to quite quickly. He had no qualms about doing it. There was no ego here. It was about doing something he loved and making money out of it.

It was that simple. Sure, he had a huge fan base by now, most of which would jump at the chance of reading something new by him, so already it looked quite lucrative, but on leaving that room, following a quick thank you and shake of his hand (I subsequently met him outside and chatted for a spell about books), I realised all the hang-ups I had about getting into bed with Amazon may have been over-embellished and perhaps misguided. Here’s what I discovered so far. 

The Pros of Self Publishing

# 1 From the start, you’re in control. 

No waiting two years for the publisher to get around to releasing your title. You dictate when that happens, and you set the price. The latter was a big one for me. Having been published by small presses in the past, I found that to cover their expenses for editorial work, design, and printing, they charge a lot for a paperback. When you’re just starting out as a writer, and not many people know you outside of the family/friend circle, someone might not want to pay in the region of £10/$15 for a paperback. This reduces your sales margin considerably.

For me, having that control meant I could reduce the cost of both the Kindle and paperback, and hopefully entice readers to buy more copies. The theory being; sell more at less, make more in the long term. So far, I’ve probably made more in this first month than I have in a year with a small press. Oh, don’t think I’m rolling in money here. I just made some very terrible decisions when it came to contracts in the past, but that’s a different story. 

# 2 DRM

Another benefit is DRM restrictions, and the control thereof. DRM (Digital Rights Management) is like a lock and chain around your Kindle book. If you choose to accept DRM, this means the book is locked down and no one can copy it and spread it around the Internet for free. Good right? Yes and no. If you believe no one will break that lock and distribute it anyway, you’re fairly naive. It happens. There are systems and websites made for that kind of thing. Accept it’s going to happen and move on. I choose not to use DRM. This is more beneficial for the reader because it allows them to download their Kindle on multiple devices – mobile/cellphone, laptop, e-readers etc. Give the power back to the reader. 

# 3 KDP Select

Another benefit of self publishing is enrolling in KDP Select. I haven’t used this function yet, but I did a lot of research before committing to the option. Why? Enrolling in KDP Select gives you many benefits. The main one being you can give away your book for free up to a maximum of 5 times while enrolled in Select (you enrol for 90 days, after which you can opt out, or remain on a rolling basis). Great, right? Everyone loves a free book. And, depending on how many people download it, you may even make into a bestseller chart. You can also do a Kindle Countdown. Basically, you get to discount the book but keep 70% of the royalties and get extra promotion from Amazon. 

The final perk is that the Kindle is automatically entered into Kindle Unlimited, whereby any Prime member can download the book for free. How’s that beneficial for you? You may not get royalties, but what you get is a cut of a $26 million pot of money. Hold on! Don’t think you can retire so soon. Payments go on pages viewed. So if your book has 300 pages, you earn (I think) half a pence/cent per page viewed. This has led to a lot of authors bulking up their books to try and make more money, but seriously, if you’re padding for padding sake, then I imagine your reader will just stop reading pretty soon. 

So why didn’t I just jump in and commit to KDP? Seems like a no-brainer, right? Well, Amazon set some pretty harsh rules. First and foremost, you give exclusivity to Amazon concerning your digital book. That means you can’t sell the ebook version to iTunes, Kobo, Barnes and Noble et al. It sits with Amazon and stays there until the 90 days have expired. This can be a pain if you feel distributing your ebook across many platforms is a more lucrative endeavour. It also means you cannot upload your book to your own website to give it away, or offer it to reviewers or staunch fan base (distributing paperbacks is fine though).

In truth, save for a small percentage of your book, the content cannot appear anywhere on the internet. I think that small percentage is set at 10% as that’s what Amazon offers for free when you “Look Inside” any book they sell. All that said, I decided the pros far outweighed the cons. Which leads me to…

The Cons of Self Publishing

# 1 You are in Control.

From the start, you’re in control. Wait, didn’t I just say that was a pro? To the attentive among you, yes I did. But it’s also a con because aside from being the writer, you are the editor, proof reader, book designer, and sales manager of that book. That’s a lot of work for one person, and if you don’t have an eye for detail and design (the double Ds) or have no family members/friends willing to read your book and point out all the grammatical issues and typos, it’s a long haul. You also need to format the book twice! Yes, you’ll create a Kindle version, and then you’ll have to create a whole new document for the paperback (assuming you take that option – which I suggest you do because people love to hold a book and crack the spine).

It is stressful, time consuming and daunting, and that’s before you get to the marketing side of things. You’ll have to put just as much effort into that side of things as you did with the writing. In short, the stories you hear about some unknown self published writer becoming a bestseller via Amazon are few and far between. They are the minority, and a lot of what they did was luck and knowing how things work. But it’s mostly luck, luck and luck. 

# 2 You have to market yourself.

I’m not trying to put you off from the self publishing route. Small presses have to be very selective about what they purchase, which reduces the acceptance rate dramatically. They also don’t have the resources to market the book as much as bigger presses. Therefore, most of the work will still be down to you. After an initial flurry of marketing, all my previous books ended up floating face down in the waters of obscurity. That’s not really a reflection on the publishers; it’s just the reality of the situation.

You will need to work just as hard as the publisher to keep your title in the mind of the readers. That will only change if you get a deal with one of the Big Five, and the only way to do that is to find an agent, a task which is just as difficult, if not more so, than finding a small press to take on your book. This is why self publishing exists, and is thriving. Most of the books published through self publishing are poor and not worth the paper CreateSpace use to print them on. But there’s also the odd gem in there. Plus, it is a great springboard to launch a career, or at the very least, a sobering experience to know what it means to be a writer.

So please, if you’re going into self-publishing know it’s going to be hard. You need a good eye, attention to details, patience, perseverance, and LUCK. I wish you the best of it.

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Some Follow Up Questions on Self Publishing

1. Which are the Big Five publishers that most authors seek out?

Hachette (who own Grand Central Publishing; and Little, Brown and Company), HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, and Simon & Schuster, which as you Know is Stephen King’s publisher. They’re most author’s white whales. They’re certainly mine. 

2. My understanding is that Amazon prefers verified purchases to reviews on copies sent outside of Amazon. However, without a system to distribute ARCs through the platform and book gifts working only within a country (something that a lot of authors do not know and as a reviewer I find very frustrating), how do these restrictions affect a self-published author’s experience?

Getting ARCs out does means taking a hit on Amazon reviews, and this in turn may affect sales. But there’s a compromise to be had. Goodreads is a great platform for reviews too, and real bookworms tend to post their thoughts there more than Amazon. Point in fact, my novel The Sound of Loneliness has 12 reviews on Amazon, but has 75 on Goodreads. If Amazon reviews were the be-all and end-all, then what propelled those other 75 to buy my book? And where did they buy them? I know if I’m interested in a book, I won’t go to Amazon to find out if it’s worth spending money on. I go to Goodreads. And though I do have a new book only available via Amazon, it’s worth mentioning that independent book shops should also be the first port of call for your reading needs.

3. Do you have a marketing plan for your books that you can tell us about briefly? Since it is your work and something that you don’t want to get lost in the thousands of books, what are something you have done to continue to promote your books?

My new book, Bad People, book falls into three huge genre fields; crime, thriller and horror. This means I have to work twice as hard to get it above the parapet. Authors post on an hourly basis how great their book is on social media, but that’s the equivalent of saying how beautiful your baby is: It’s a subjective opinion that rarely influences the reader. What does work is word of mouth.

Readers are more likely to accept something is great if the person saying it is impartial. So for the past month or so I’ve been gathering together names of bloggers and reviewers, then approaching them to see if they’d be interested in reading the book.

• The key to this is not to be pushy. Book bloggers get many many requests on a daily basis, so first and foremost: ALWAYS READ THEIR REVIEW POLICY! If the book fits, be humble.

• There’s also a lot of groups on Facebook you can join too. Some are aimed at bringing bloggers and authors together, others are there to allow authors to pageant their books. I will say that some of latter groups are oversaturated with authors screaming, READ MY BOOK! which tends to have the opposite effect.

• Blog tours are good too if you can align the reviews to land either preceding, or just following, the book’s release. Hard to master but very effective.

Other than that, I have my fingers permanently crossed, which makes writing the sequel to Bad People all the more difficult. 😉 

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As a writer, what has your experience been with self publishing? Do you have any questions for Craig? Add them to the comments below!

Connect with Craig on his website, twitter or facebook.

Cover Photo by Joyce McCown on Unsplash
Image of books ‘don’t get a job make a job’ by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash.
Image of photo with Amazon app by Christian Wiediger from Unsplash.
Image with marketing strategy by campaign creators from Unsplash.