Outlining
Among the many differences between traditional publishing and self-publishing is the turnaround time from book completion to book publication. A common distinction you hear between the two publishing options is that authors have to “hurry up and wait” in traditional publishing, while they “wait and hurry up” in self-publishing.
In traditional publishing, the hurrying up and waiting stems from authors hurrying to make their deadlines and then waiting the inevitable six months-plus for the long-lead publicity campaign that their publisher is (hopefully) mounting. In self-publishing, the waiting and hurrying up refers to the tendency of self-published authors to have spent forever and a day writing and/or shopping their book to agents and editors, so that by the time they decide to self-publish they’re anxious—hurrying to get their books out ASAP.
Neither of these strategies is ideal, however, as both scenarios tend to make authors anxious, and the “wait and hurry up” strategy of self-publishing can be downright harmful to a book’s success.
Here are 5 reasons to wait and slow down:
1. Although many agents and traditional publishers still take on and buy manuscripts on proposal, waiting until you finish your book to shop it around will set you up for success. Writing your book on deadline for someone else is stressful at best, and while some authors argue it’s the only way their books would have ever been written, the vast majority of authors I work with get sidelined and distracted from their own writing once they start shopping their books to agents and editors.
2. Long-lead publicity (meaning publicity garnered in advance of your book’s publication) is key to your book having a chance in the world. You’ll hear from many publicists that they need three to four months lead time in order to make an impact; more and more I’m hearing they need six months to a year. Self-published authors who are in a big hurry to publish their books to the point of sacrificing this lead time should not be surprised by mediocre sales results.
3. Taking time between finishing your book and publishing your book to conceptualize a marketing strategy requires you to slow down. The marketing and publicity mindset is quite different from the one you adopt to write your book. Give yourself some transition space, and spend time brainstorming and coming up with creative ideas and outside-the-box plans for getting the message of your book out to the media and to readers. Creative planning should not be rushed.
4. Unless you have an incredibly timely topic, your audience will still be there in six months. Most people in the “wait and hurry up” camp are putting themselves under undue strain because they feel guilty for having spent three or four or nine years writing their book. Consider why you’re rushing. If you don’t have a built-in audience clamoring for your book, sit tight and work on building your platform and audience for a few months. It’ll be worth the wait.
5. Too often I see authors sending out or publishing half-baked work. They’re anxious to shop their work to agents or editors in order to get some sort of gauge on the legitimacy of their work. Or they’re so beyond ready to have their book in hand that they undermine themselves by hurrying up. Your first book speaks volumes. It sets you up for future success. There are many ways to put a book out into the world, and if you’re super anxious to publish, consider other ways of slowing down. Put out a small “teaser” book, or serializing your novel as a series of ebooks, publishing the final print version at the end.
Hurrying up to publish is surprisingly anticlimactic, too, so if you’re feeling itchy, take a deep breath and revisit your timeline. And try to remember, time flies. So use it to spread the word, build your platform, and connect with your audience!
Do you have a story you want to share of being on either side of this equation? Have you had your own experiences with “hurrying up and waiting” or “waiting and hurrying up”? What insights did you gain? What might you share with your fellow SheWriters about what you learned?
this is all very interesting. VERY interesting..
Well, not really. Ironically, it seems we have to rethink the subtitle of our book. Too hastily chosen? Our readers have been telling us the humor of "Lesbian Marriage: A Sex Survival Kit" doesn't come across. They think it's not reflecting the book which is more about love and relationship than sex per se. The subtitle makes them a bit squeamish. There you have it: it's always a bit too soon! We are contemplating relaunching with a better title...
Thanks for sharing here, Renate. Sounds like you were in a rush but still did it right!
Excellent advise, Brooke!
Thank you very much. I have a children's book ready and feel the urge to get it out ASAP. Your post has made me reconsider the urgency of it. Thanks a lot!
Mayu
Ah, I almost forgot to tell you: Today we are celebrating Gay Pride with a KDP action -- free Kindle give-away of "Lesbian Marriage" --a book with secrets for every woman...Tell your friends, don't miss it: http:/
Not giving up -- self-pub principle # 1?
So, what I was saying... We did NOT have time bringing out our book on "Lesbian Marriage"! We were in the grip of the historical moment, last June, when gay marriage became finally legal in CA. We wanted to catch that moment and write our hearts out about it... No choice then except to launch into do-it-yourself and get that book out within a few months. We managed to be the first book on the topic, which was exciting and unnerving. So much to learn very very fast!
My co-author and life companion Kim Chernin and I took the first self-pub seminar with Brooke (oh yes!) and her expert pal Howard van Es and we followed their advice by the letter -- self-publishing with CreateSpace and Amazon Kindle as well as paperback. A lot of work (I wrote blog posts and articles here about it) and a lot of fun. We have published many times in the old model of NY publishing, and this is our first venture into the frontier of pubishing. Wonderful feeling to have creative control, but plenty of angst over final decisions, PR and marketing. We hired a VA (Virtual Assistent) and reached out to media and platforms and got right away in the top 100 in our (niche) category. We created a landing page for the book and revamped our websites. We began to engage with gay and lesbian magazines and blogs, contributing posts. I never dreamed self pub would be so much work!!! We are hopeful -- and nervous. And hugely grateful to you, Brooke, for your advice, and Howard for his step-by-step excellent guidance.
Where's my comment? it showed up for a second and was gone!!
Today and tomorrow, I am celebrating Gay Pride with a KDP action -- free Kindle give-away of "Lesbian Marriage" --a book with secrets for every woman... http:/
We could NOT wait -- we wanted to catch the historical moment of gay marriage becoming legal in CA and instantly share our thoughts about marriage, long-term relationships, romance and passion. In traditional publishing we would have no chance -- the moment would be long gone before we could say a word!
My co-author and life companion Kim Chernin and I based our adventure on the seminar by SheWrites Press director Brooke Warner and self-pub expert Howard van Es and followed their advice by the letter -- self-publishing with CreateSpace and Amazon Kindle as well as paperback. A lot of work (I wrote blog posts and articles here about it) and a lot of fun. We have published many times in the old model of NY publishing, and this is our first venture into do-it-yourself. Wonderful feeling to have creative control, but plenty of angst over final decisions, PR and marketing. We hired a VA (Virtual Assistent) and reached out to media and platforms and started selling right away in the top 100 in our (niche) category. We created a landing page for the book and revamped our websites. We began to engage with gay and lesbian magazines and blogs, contributing posts, convinced ourselves to have our first-ever book party, etc.... I never dreamed self pub would be so much work!!! We are hopeful -- and nervous. And hugely grateful for the expert advice from Brooke and the generous guidance from Howard!
Thanks for sharing your experiences, Yolande and Adela!
This is so timely for me. I shopped my book to a couple of publishers as my writing approached the finish lines. I got encouraging comments along with rejections. I decided to hire an editor. Yee-gads. The best decision I made so far. She found some dependencies that I'm embarrassed about and asked some questions that will ultimately make my novel so much better. I feel anxious to get the ball rolling because I have so much time invested already. You make me realize that's exactly why I should have a good execution plan in place before moving forward. Thanks!
After spending years working with two agents and getting several offers from indie publishers, but not getting the big publishing deal I wanted, I self published, and am enjoying getting some reader responses and a bit of media attention. I think the decision to self publish or not depends on the individual. Sometimes it just feels like the right time. The shewrites titles look great, and this would likely be my first choice if I self publish again.
I've read that one of the best ways to promote one book is to write another. In this case, isn't it better to publish a second book once it is ready rather than wait six months? This is what I'm currently planning on doing. Besides, I don't know what I would do for six months to promote my second book. I'm much more interested in moving on to next book.
@Cassandra—good luck!
@Kathryn—I think we do agree. I definitely think you can use a book to build a platform, and I've written a lot about that. But I think that works most generally well with a first book. After that, if you don't have the platform, or you're not building it, then something's not connecting.
@Nancy, yes you were my muse this week, but prompted by countless authors who do this all the time. All. The. Time. Only to be disappointed and to wish they'd waited.
I did the “hurry up and wait” in traditional publishing for almost forty years. It was frustrating, heartbreaking and perplexing all at once. Made so little money. So many years spent "waiting" for a publisher, an editor or an agent to "get back to me " and then for the "accepted" book to finally come out a year or more later and no royalties for another year. I despised it. I was thrilled beyond words to leave it all behind. I'll take the “wait and hurry up” of self-publishing any day. Though, unlike most people just beginning their publishing journey, I suppose I had a base of readers already. But again, it's a brand new world and many of my earliest readers might no longer be here...so I had to start all over again in some respects. Funny thing is, I don't completely agree with you about building a platform before publishing your book...as for five years when I first left the traditional publishers and went with the eBooks and a smaller publishers I spent endless hours, days, weeks, self-promoting on writers and readers loops, blogs, on the Internet and sold very little for years. Then I self-published on Kindle and -boom!- my sales went sky high. Sorry to say, but now I do very little promoting and my sales are still climbing. Hmmm....
Great piece! I agree. I'm in the "waiting" phase with traditional publishing (my novel, The Art of Adapting, comes out from Touchstone/Simon & Schuster in just over a month) and while it's taken a year to go from my book sale to publication, it has actually gone very fast, and I've learned a lot about the PR part of the process in the mean time, enough to respect how long the publicity campaign gear-up takes, including getting blurbs, reviews, etc. It can be so hard to be patient, but it's worth it to take the time to do it right.
Uh...did you write this for me? :) Thanks for validating my decision to slow it down...