Storytelling, Stigma, and Selling Books

I’ve published books the traditional way.  Four of them.  I have two textbooks out there in the world of academia, a nonfiction handbook on peace activism, and a novel.  The novel went the traditional over-the-transom route until it found a home, and the nonfiction work was pretty much the usual write a query/get a go-ahead/write the thing/send it back route.

I haven’t done any of that in quite some time – years, actually -  but I do have three more novels out there, and another about to come out in about three months.  A while ago,  I decided to go the route of e-publishing.  I took my time at it;  I already had two manuscripts I’d been marketing, and another in development, but I 

didn’t put anything up on e-books till 2011.  I’ve been slowly building a base of readers and an online platform, and at least one of my books has been getting some pretty darned good reviews.

There is certainly a lot of debate about the place of e-publishing, especially self-publishing on platforms like Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing and Barnes and Noble’s PubIt. And a lot of criticism. Much of this is deserved, some of it (in the opinion of this writer) is simple resistance to change. Certainly the traditional publishing industry is going to resist a format that gives control back to the writer and takes it away from the elite editors in the publishing industry, though one has to admit that  there are a great many e-books out there that are, quite frankly, very badly written. There is also the undeniable fact that e-publishing has been a significant blow to book stores, particularly the independent ones. 

But, e-publishing has also created significant benefits.  Many people who do not have connections in the publishing industry are able to get their work out there when they otherwise might not have been able to.  Fiction is outselling non-fiction in the e-publishing market, breathing life back into the field for fiction writers.  More younger people are reading e-books (more reading is never a bad thing).  Then there is the issue of the market.  In traditional publishing, the market is guided by the literary tastes and political leanings of a small group of editors at major publishing houses, who set trends and guide the reading habits of the entire culture.  With e-publishing, in this writer’s opinion, we are much closer to a free market in fiction.   If your e-book is no good, people will post negative reviews, and it won’t sell.  If it is good, at least some will post positive reviews and your book will gain a wider audience.  It is, in other words, guided by the tastes and responses of the consumer, the reader.  And that is just fine by me.

Some years ago, I had the opportunity to engage in a discussion in a roomful of writers with a very famous writer (who, shall, here at least, remain nameless).  In the course of the discussion, he asserted that you could tell how good a writer was by how much money he made.  Just out of grad school and buried in the sense of the art in my work, I objected, and a lively and somewhat adversarial discussion followed.  Looking back now, I think there was a bit of truth in what he was asserting - the market showed what writing people wanted to read.  But, what he wasn't considering was how things got on the market in the first place, which then had no resemblance at all to a free market system.  

I am a storyteller.  When I think of what I do each day when I sit down at my keyboard, I don’t think of myself as an “author” or as a “writer.”  I am telling stories.  Let me tell you about Samuel Joseph, a stand-up comic who worked in television in the 60s, or about Sarar’l Camfir, a doctor who lives on a planet that is dominated by musical rituals, or about Arvin Samuels, an ex-marine who has an extraordinary experience when he shoots a cougar that is harassing his herd of cows.  I sit down, and though it is my own fingers on the keys, I am transported into another reality where characters tell me their stories and I pass them on to readers.  If the readers like the stories, fine.  If not, also fine.  

This is not to say that I am cavalier about the quality of my work.  I have test readers read my manuscripts, often multiple times.  I have others edit them, and I edit them myself dozens of times before I put them up for publication.  I care about my stories.  And I must admit there are some out there putting up books who appear not to care about theirs.  The point is, the reader will know the difference.  And it is easy, on e-platforms, for the reader to get their money back.  The click of a button.  So, the market speaks to the writer. Or the storyteller.

In literary circles, e-publishing is looked at as “lesser.”  There is a clear stigma attached to those who self-publish.  But, as a woman with thirty years in an inter-racial relationship, and one who grew up on the wrong side of town, this stigma bothers me not one bit.  When I get fan letters (e- messages) from those who’ve read my stories and love them (or even those who didn’t), I know that I am doing what I need to be doing.  I am telling stories, and they are finding homes in peoples’ hearts.