Are Self-published Authors, Authors?

Neera

A well-meaning reader asked me a question, “Do you consider self-published authors, authors?

I said to him that I would write an article to respond to his question.

The first thing I want to establish is what an author is?

The Oxford dictionary defines an author as “a writer of a book, article, or document.”

That is heartening to know. This means if someone has written a document at work, she is an author too. Author of that document. A creator of a piece of work.

According to Wikipedia, “an author is the creator or originator of any written work such as a book or play. More broadly defined, an author is ‘the person who originated or gave existence to anything,’ and whose authorship determines responsibility for what was created.”

In my past life, I was a research scientist. During my (unfinished)doctorate in Biochemistry, I ‘authored’ three papers that were published in scientific journals.

That made me an author, no doubt.

Would I have been an author had the scientific journals not accepted my papers and they kept on sitting in my bottom drawer?

Perhaps not.

But if I had taken the same papers and published them in my University’s journal, I would still have been an author.

Wouldn’t I?

University’s publication may not be as reputed as an international publication. Nonetheless, it is still a publication. And my work is available for reading and citation.

So publishing in a lesser know publication will still make me an author.

I am sure you will agree with me so far.

Now let’s talk about articles.

Once upon a time, the only way to publish an article was in a newspaper or a magazine.

You had to write what that publication was looking for or was interested in publishing at a point in time. If your work land on the right desk at the right time, you might find your name in small font under a big, bold heading. If you are lucky, you might receive a check of $50 or so.

But then the times changed. Blogging started. Lots of online publications started publishing the work of bloggers on their sites.

Can they call themselves authors, or were they mere bloggers?

Fast forward to 2012. Medium started. Bloggers started publishing their articles on the platform in droves. Anyone can open an account and write a story or an opinion.

Are they authors or mere hobby writers?

By Oxford dictionary definition and Wikipedia’s broad definition, they too are authors.

Let’s move on to books.

Since the advent of the printing press in 1450 and the establishment of publishing houses, the publishing industry changed a little between then and the end of the last millennium.

If you were a writer and want to publish a book, you must go through a publishing house. You would send the manuscript to several publishers to find one who would be interested in publishing yours.

The whole process was frustrating. The publishing houses were more interested in protecting their own interest (i.e., their profit) that many writers would give up and bury their books in the bottom drawers forever.

With the advent of digital technology and smartphones as reading devices, a new form of publishing became available.

Digital publishing.

For digital publishing, no gatekeepers are required.

In November 2007, the Kindle was born. Integrated with the largest online bookstore in the world and the remarkable self-publishing ability for anyone who wanted to publish. It redefined the publishing industry.

By 2011, self-publishing and the rise of e-books were fully established. Many books dismissed by traditional publishers went on to become extremely successful as author-published books.

Some examples:

  • Andy Weir self-published his sci-fi thriller The Martian. It was adapted into a movie in 2015 directed by Ridley Scot starring Matt Damon. The film grossed $630m worldwide.
  • E.L. James blogged her fan fiction of Twilight and later turned it into the Fifty Shades Of Grey, which at one point out-sold Harry Potter and led to $150 million budget movies that topped $1 billion at the global box office.
  • Lisa Genova’s moving story about Alzheimer’s Disease and how it affects relationships, Still Alice, was self-published in 2007, having spent a year on the pitch-and-rejection cycle. The last agent who looked at the manuscript warned the author not to self-publish, telling her that it would kill her career forever. Genova ignored the agent and went ahead, selling the book out of the trunk of her car. She invested in a PR agent, and Still Alice won a lucrative publishing rights deal, including a movie starring Julianne Moore.

Self-published authors are selling their books in 190 countries.

Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is not the only platform. Apple, Barnes & Noble (Nook), Google, IngramSpark, and Kobo are taking self-publishing to every country in the world.

Indie authors (this is how self-published authors are known in the industry) continue to increase their global sales at a staggering rate.

In his latest publication, The Book Business: What Everyone Needs to Know (2019), the veteran publishing commentator Mike Shatzkin points out that between 2011 and 2013, the non-traditional share expanded rapidly from nearly 0% to almost 30% of the book units sold in the US.

Not only that but the overall size of the e-book market itself is growing rapidly.

Within five years of going mainstream, in 2014, digital self-publishing accounted for more than 30% of all recorded book sales in the US

Not only the publishing industry has changed, but readers have changed too.

The emergence of smart devices, e-books, and online subscription models has transformed the reading behavior of readers.

Readers are buying more ebooks than ever before, a behavior that accelerated during the pandemic and continuing.

They are also buying more and more audiobooks.

And they don’t care whether a book is self-published or traditionally published.

  • One in every four books that sell on Kobo comes from their self-publishing platform, Kobo Writing Life.
  • Self-published authors produce 85 percent of Kindle Unlimited ebooks.
  • Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited paid out over a quarter of a billion dollars to indie authors in 2019, apart from regular sales.

Vanity publishers are losing their market share.

According to Bowker records, Amazon’s market share of self-published print books in the US increased from 6% in 2007 to 92% as of 2018.

Vanity press publishers dropped their share from 73% of all books published in 2007 to just 6% during the same period. Today, it is just 1%.

The better options available to authors are making a difference.

The turning point came between 2011 and 2012 when Amazon “absolutely crushed their competitors.”

Self-published authors are earning more and more reliably

The average traditionally published author earns approximately 5–15% of their book’s cover price. Those with agents lose a further 15% of that.

Self-publishing platforms like Amazon, Apple Books, Ingram Spark, and Kobo pay up to 70% of each book sold to authors. However, those indie authors who sell direct to readers from their own websites take in up to 96% of the book’s value.

Of course, publishing costs have to be deducted from this income, but there’s no question that over the life of a book, self-published authors earn more.

Self-publishing authors are now a growing part of the publishing ecosystem.

In 2016, Enders Analysis found that 40% of the top-selling ebooks on Amazon were self-published. The analysis concluded that the option was “only going to grow more attractive.”

They are proving right.

More and more authors are choosing to self-publish.

So, are self-published authors are authors?

I think self-published authors are more authors than traditionally published authors. For once, they are more versatile. They are not only developing their writing skill but learning publishing and marketing skills as well.

They are promoting their work and are directly in touch with their readers.

They are market savvy. They know what their readers want and fulfill their needs.

Yes, you might say their work is less mature initially. Or it has not gone through the rigor of several edits.

But you can see them as those who practice in public. They are not sitting in a dark room in their homes, learning their craft, and never letting their unpolished work see the light of the day. That was the older model.

With the new model, the wanna-be writers put their work out there and learn in public. It is not to say they are careless and don’t want to do the hard work. Instead, they are not shy to share their best work at the time. They don’t wait for the day when it will be perfect. They hone their craft as they go. As a result, they get better with each book they publish.

Dear Reader, I hope I have answered your question. Your opinion might differ from mine, and I would love to hear it.

Credit: Many facts and figures in this article came from the Alliance of Independent Authors’ Advice Centre article Facts and Figures about Self Publishing: The Impact and Influence of Indie Authors

Day 1 of 90 Days of Focus on Fiction

Neera

Yesterday I announced my 90 Day Focus on Fiction challenge. The challenge started on 2 August and will end on 29 October 2021.

I spent Day 1 setting up the goals for the challenge and making the plan to achieve them. 

Outlining the goals give me the focus during the challenge, and sharing them here keeps me accountable. 

So without much ado, here are my goals.

Three goals of the challenge.

  1. Write and publish an anthology of short stories.
  2. Finish the first draft of the novel.
  3. Acquire fiction writing skills.

Write and publish an anthology of short stories. 

I am aiming for 20 short stories of 500–2000 words in length. This is to get me started on fiction writing, applying my learnings to shorter pieces, and work my way up towards full-length novel writing. I intend to write them early in the challenge to get them edited and published on 29 October (tentatively). 

Finish the first draft of the novel. 

I started writing a novel six years ago. 80% of it is already done. I have been going in and out of it. The reason I have not been able to finish is not the lack of will but the lack of skills. With a renewed focus on acquiring skills, I should finish the first draft by the 29th of October. 

Acquire fiction writing skills. 

This is the new approach I am applying to learnings new skills. First, I list basic skills I need to become fluent in and then make a learning plan to get there. 

I will approach it as if I am completely new to fiction writing and take copious notes to share with my readers. I might, later on, turn them into a book. I believe the time to write a book about writing (or any other skill) is not when you are a master of it but when you are learning it. 

When you become an expert in a skill, you do so many things intuitively that you forget to include them in your book. But when you are learning a skill yourself, you know what you are struggling with and which bits of advice are really helpful.

The learning plan

A learning plan is a secret weapon that you can apply to anything you want to learn by yourself, whether writing, sketching, painting, or playing a musical instrument.

In my article Don’t Make Earning Plans, Make Learning Plans I shared my learning plan for writing on Medium. 

I have made a much thorough plan to learn fiction writing skills which I have turned into an infographic and placed it on the pinboard where it is in front of my eyes all the time. Every week I intend to pick something from the list and learn it either by reading about it or watching videos, then implementing it in my writing. 

Some of the things will be easy to learn and will be ticked off easily. Others will take months or even years. I will not strike them off until I feel I am confident.

I am working on a more elaborate plan for Authorpreneurs. Let me know if you are interested in getting a copy of that. 

90 Days Of Focus On Fiction

Neera

As I sat with my laptop after dinner, wanting to start writing this post, I got distracted by the docudrama playing on the TV. 

Titled ‘Becoming Bond’ is a documentary on George Lazenby, who acted as James Bond in the film, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. The movie was a super hit and, to date, is considered as one of the best if not the best Bond movie ever. 

Lazenby, who has never acted in a film before (he was a car salesman and a model before the role), acted superbly and was offered a contract for six Bond movies and a million-dollar signing amount.

Guess what he did? 

He said no.

That’s right! 

To date, his declining of the James Bond role is laughed at. It is a standing joke and is referred to as ‘doing a Lazenby’ when someone walks out of something lucrative. 

But this is not how Lazenby sees it. Even though, to date, he is not sure why he said no to the deal, he doesn’t regret it.

To him being James Bond meant surrendering his own sense of self. 

While he admits there are days when he regrets his decision, he has put James Bond behind him. “I got married, I had a couple of kids. I went into real estate; I was very successful there. And I race motorcycles. I always wanted to race motorcycles.”

According to him, it’s very hard for people to understand, but living life on your own terms in your own way is a much better life. It is a much fuller life. 

Becoming Bond was never was his end goal. When asked which would he prefer, a stereotype James Bond or a car salesman like he used to be, he said, “A car salesman like I used to be.”

He says, “The best thing to do is to know yourself. Feel yourself. And be yourself. I may not be great, but I am an original.”

He is proud of his life. He was a kid with half a kidney and was expected to live till 12. He is 76 now and has done everything and more than he ever expected to. 

“I can’t think of anything I would change,” he said. 

When asked what did he hope people remember about his life, he said, “I would like them to know that you could defy what is expected of you.” 

You could defy what is expected of you.

That was the line that grabbed me. 

That was the message I wanted to get across in this post, and Lazenby gave it to me on a platter.

Like Lazenby, content writing was not my end goal. 

I got into it like Lazenby landed the James Bond role. By pure chance. 

I was happy writing fiction. I was happy learning to write a novel. I was happy sketching and painting. Making cartoons.

Instead, I was expected to write an article a day. I was told this is how the algorithm works. The more you write, the more you put in front of readers. The bigger publications you write for, the more people see your work. 

For a while, I did all that thinking I am doing the right thing by fulfilling what is expected of me. 

But, in doing so, I surrendered my sense of self.

I would have continued doing so had I not listened to Lazenby’s last words in the documentary.

I wanted to write this post to announce that I am starting 90 days of Focus on Fiction.

I was feeling guilty disappointing my readers that I will not write a post every day.

That Focusing on Fiction means that I read fiction, write fiction, breathe fiction. It will be a while before my brain starts thinking like a fiction writer. 

At the moment, it is so full of non-fiction that all I can’t bring myself to write a story. Any story. 

The truth is I have not written any fiction for almost two years now.

So I am going to defy what is expected of me and do what I want to do. 

I am going to concentrate on writing fiction. 

I will still write on Medium but sporadically. 

If I have anything to share, you will find it here, on Authorpreneurs publication.

I am not going away; I am just being true to myself. I also didn’t want to feel guilty on the days when I could not write a post because I am grappling with inventing an interesting character and wondering whether to give her a love interest or turn her into a murderess. 

So if you don’t hear from me for a few days, this is what I am doing.

Playing god with fictional beings.

Photo by Kristopher Roller on Unsplash

12 Steps Process To Write A Book

Neera 1 Comment

If you have been writing for some time, chances are you want to write a book. 

You get, I think there is a book in me, moments now and then, but you ignore them thinking writing a book is too big a project and you are not ready for it yet.

This is what I used to think too. 

For years I believed the books are written by people who are from some other planet. 

But then, last month, I worked up enough courage to write a book. That too in one week. That single act has been a game-changer for me.

It was as if some magic spell was broken, and I could see that writing books are a process like cooking a recipe or building a house or growing veggies.

Nothing more.

Most people are not able to write their books because it’s very confusing out there. There are too many things to learn and not enough time to learn them.

But if you are committed and willing to learn, you can break that barrier and build yourself a lucrative and fulfilling career as an author.

I have found, writing a book is a 12 steps process. Once you know what they are, it is easy to concentrate on them one by one, learn the basics and then start implementing them.

Without much ado, here they are:

1. Find a topic

Your first job is to find a topic. That topic needs to be exciting enough so that you can work on it. And it needs to be something that people want to pay money for. 

There is a big market out there on books about Cryptocurrency, but the topic hardly excites me, so you will not find any book from me on Cryptocurrency.

On the other hand, I am very much interested in productivity. It is a subject that intrigues me and baffles me. I would love to explore it from a different angle and see if I could write something different from what is out there.

Make a list of topics you are interested in writing about. It could be the memoir of your growing up in the countryside or a trip you took recently, or your grandmother’s recipes. Or it could be something you have already written about on your blog that could be developed into a book.

2. Outline your book

Once you have settled on a topic, the next step is to outline it. There are several ways to outline your book, depending upon how you want to tackle it. 

It could be a chronological occurrence of events. Or it could be like a document with headings and sub-heading. It doesn’t matter as long as you have an outline. 

You might be writing your articles or blog posts with an outline, but it is tough to write a book without an outline. An outline will scope your book and make sure you do not stray too much out of the scope. 

It is not there to restrict you. You can add to it or change it if it is not working. But you must have one before you start writing the book.

3. Write the first draft

This is the exciting part. Do not expect to write a polished product at this point. Let it be as messy as it comes out to be. The point is to get everything that is on your mind onto the paper. 

Do it as quickly as possible. I wrote mine in four days. It will be tough to get back to the book and pick up the pieces of thread if you leave too much gap while writing your first draft. So many writers are not able to finish their books because they leave their first draft halfway. Then they find it too hard to get back to it.

4. Get it structurally edited

Once you have written the first draft and think the book is hanging together, it is a good idea to hire a structural editor to look at it. The structural editor will be able to pick up the holes in your argument and will be able to tell you whether the book works as it is or you need to use a different structure for it. 

Fix the book based on the comments.

5. Get the beta readers to provide comments

It is time now to give the book to a few of your trusted fans who are familiar with your work and are willing to help out with your book. Asking their feedback early in the process will help you write a much better book than toiling away for months to figure out how to make it work.

6. Revise/Rewrite/Self-edit

Now is the time to polish your work. Revise it. Rewrite it if you have to. 

Once you have done the final draft, self-edit it for 4 Cs of writing — clear, clean, concise, and compelling.

7. Professional editing

It is time for someone else to work on your manuscript and turn it into the book you want it to be. There are many kinds of editors — line editors, copy editors, and proofreaders. I recommend engaging at least two of the copy editors and proofreaders. They are essential for your book to look professional. 

8. Cover design

If the book is for your family and friends, you can take the chance and design the book cover yourself. But if your book will compete with thousands of other books published each day, you will need a professionally designed book cover. It will cost you a bit of money but keep in mind that “books are judged by their cover.”

9. Pre-publishing tasks — book blurb, book price, formatting

Since you will be self-publishing your book, you will have to learn to do several pre-publishing tasks such as writing the book blurb (description), setting the price of the book, formatting for eBook and print version, selecting the categories under which to publish your book, and adding good keywords, so that your book appears in the reader searches.

10. Publish

There is a fair deal of learning in self-publishing. Much of it will happen while you are publishing the book. Although there are independent companies available who can help you with the process with a handsome fee, I would say do it yourself. You can learn while doing it, and once you have learned it, the knowledge will come in handy with other books.

11. Marketing

There is a lot to learn in this area, but luckily there is a lot of information. 

You don’t have to worry about it until you have written your book and are ready to publish it. 

I would go to the length of saying, don’t worry about marketing your first book. Let it be a trial to learn the process of writing and publishing. Once you have done that and have all that knowledge, developing a proper marketing plan for your next book will be much easier.

12. Start Again

There you are. Your book is complete. Now start another.

In nutshell

Writing a book will change you forever. Even if nobody buys your book, the confidence you will gain from writing your first book will be worth all the trouble you went through.

Do you know what is the biggest secret  of authorpreneurship?

The only thing standing between you and your authorpreneur career is your first book.

I Feel A Door Is Opening And I Have To Walk Through It

Neera

I have been pretty strategic this year towards my writing, or at least this is what I would like to think.

At the start of the year, I set out to learn how social media works. I posted for 100 Consecutive Days on three platforms (Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn). I learned the benefits of learning in public, being a part of a scenius, and the art of self-promoting.

Four months later, I decided to up my game with Medium and publish 100 articles in 100 days. I got better at writing articles, reduced the time of writing an article to 1–2 hours, and build myself a system to write on Medium effortlessly.

In both these cases, I didn’t follow the common advice to succeed on the platform and pretty much did what I felt was right.

I am glad I made my own rules and set my own parameters of success.

The ultimate goal is learning, and success is when I have learned a certain skill.

To build a big following on Medium, you need to publish in big publications, but I chose to stay with smaller publications while learning the craft of article writing.

To earn a big check each month, you need to write articles that most readers want to read. I chose to write what I wanted to write, sharing what I was learning at that point in time.

Once again, I find myself at a crossroads where I am picking the path I think is the right one for me.

After spending two years on content writing, I think it is not the right path for me.

The demand to continually keep churning out content is too much. I somehow can cope with that. But what I can’t cope with is stagnation.

I am finding I am not growing by writing the same kind of articles all the time.

I think I am ready to move to my real passion — fiction writing.

I have been postponing fiction writing to learn to blog, audience building, and online marketing.

So much so that for the last two years, I have not touched fiction writing at all. I am afraid it will take me a long time to get back into it. It will be like walking through hell but that is exactly what I am going to do.

I will continue to write on Medium but put my primary focus on writing fiction.

I will continue to share my learning with you here in Authorpreneurs publication.

I am also working on a few non-fiction books, which I will be alternating with fiction work.

These books are based on the articles I have written so far. I have 350+ articles on my website and about 200 articles on Medium. Unfortunately, this backlist of articles will not get read again. They will keep sitting on Medium servers for eternity. The best way to preserve them is to turn them into books.

Books have a much longer shelf life than articles.

By turning them into books, we can reach a completely new set of audience — the book readers.

I believe we all need to look at turning our work into books.

In my next post, I will write about the process of writing a book.

It is not as hard as it might sound.

20 Journaling Ideas That Will Make You A Better Writer

Neera

As more and more writers are moving to write online, the habit of journal writing is dying. Yet journals are the breeding grounds of ideas, insights, and creativity.

I started journal writing more than twenty years ago, after reading Julia Cameron’s legendary book The Artist’s Way. In the book, Julia Cameron suggests writing morning pages. 

The morning pages are three pages of a daily longhand stream of consciousness written first thing upon arising. 

Almost every part of the instructions is non-negotiable.

  • You got to write daily.
  • You got to write by hand. There is something about writing with hands that opens the dark vaults of your mind and brings out all that is troubling you.
  • You got to write first thing in the morning. You can make a cup of tea or coffee if you can’t function without it, but that’s about it. Don’t try to put away the dishes or make the bed. You got to start writing while your mind is still in an alpha state.

Of all the writing advice in the world, morning pages are the most successful tool for writers. Yet, most writers are not aware of them.

And if they are, they don’t follow the advice.

I have been writing morning pages for twenty years now. That single habit has made me a better writer than anything else. The pages clarify my thinking. They are not real writing because I am not writing drafting an article or working on a story but writing whatever comes to my mind.

They are basically ramblings. But hidden between the unless thoughts, to-do lists, and daily frustrations are deeper thoughts and impulses that form the material for my writing later in the day.

From time to time, I introduce little questions in my morning pages, making me go deeper to dig out the answers. Here are twenty questions if you want to bring some structure to your morning pages:

  1. What excited me yesterday? What made me feel alive?

2. What drained my energy? How am I going to handle it next time?

3. What did I learn yesterday?

4. Did I observe something different yesterday? A person, an event, a dialogue?

5. What did I learn about myself yesterday?

6. What went well?

7. What didn’t go well? 

8. How did I cope with it?

9. What will I do differently next time?

10. What did I read yesterday? What did I learn from it?

11. What makes me angry?

12. What makes me happy?

13. Am I going on the right path? Is there anything I need to change?

14. Did I achieve everything I set out to do yesterday?

15. Am I being too hard on myself?

16. What 3 things are I grateful for?

17. If I am to write a love note to my (spouse/child/friend/enemy), what will I say to them?

18. What are my secrets? Why am I so afraid to share them?

19. What is blocking my creativity?

20. What is my inner critic telling me now?

Morning pages make us intimate with ourselves, and in turn, we become more compassionate with others. 

We become more comfortable in our own skin and can withstand other people’s scrutiny. Our relationships improve. 

Our expression improve. We learn to voice our feelings and thoughts. We unblock our creativity.

I would love to hear whether you write morning pages as well. If you do what has been your experience?

Photo by Ana Tavares on Unsplash