There are two ways I reacted to the recent Guardian op-ed about reasons to not self-publish. (You can read it here.) My first reaction was ouch. Ouch because of the quotation marks around the term “indie publishing.” Ouch because the picture painted of a career I and many others are incredibly proud of, despite the “non-traditional” tracks we took, was being compared to some not-so-flattering things. And ouch because…well…I’ve heard and read this before.
My second reaction was a less emotional one. It was seasoned, likely because of that last point I made above. It was proud because of the truth woven along with the presumptions in the article. And it was inspired to offer a bit of a rebuttal and education because there are probably a lot of people like my past self out there who need the you can to combat the you can’t.
Let me begin with a short background on how I found self-publishing. I decided to become a writer when I read my first Judy Blume chapter book at the age of twelve. (The book was Forever, for those curious or who haven’t heard me share this story before. Also, let’s just say it was several years ago.) The writing bug became solid after I read The Outsiders. I wanted to write mature young adult stories—ones that dug a little deeper than the books I’d read before. I wanted to create stories that reflected the real world of being young—all the crap, and hurt, and anxieties and battles that feel small to adults but are everything to the young people experiencing them. I also came from a family where you work hard, and you get a job, and earn a living and pay the bills. I had a deep understanding of the value of responsibility, which the life of a writer in many ways conflicted with. I found a way to blend my dream and passion with an 8-to-5 paycheck. I studied journalism. I was a bit of a rock star at it. I won awards. I wrote massive in-depth stories for magazines, and I perfected the art of painful and tedious research. I also learned the power of noting the details and delicately portraying the emotion in real-life tragedies. It enabled me to paint pictures with words and authentically translated important true stories to the masses.
I studied. And while I studied and practiced in one writing world, I imagined and slowly crafted my work in another. But there were a lot of op-eds out there like this one—a lot of tales passed along and shared at author engagements where people I looked up to told me over and over how impossible it was to stand where they were. How lucky they got. How so many people collect nothing but rejections. These warnings, at least that’s how they echoed in my head, flamed my fears. I kept crafting, but my story was quickly becoming a pipe dream. An indulgence. Until the man I married, my very best friend in the world, started convincing me otherwise.
I didn’t want to wait years. I’d put in the time. I’d become damn good at building my kind of cabinet, to borrow the analogy from the Guardian blog post. Most of the stores weren’t really selling my kind of cabinet, though. My stories were long. My genre bent rules. My young adults swore and drank and made sexual mistakes and experienced awakenings. They were, in every sense, the teens I grew up with and once was, and the teens I know exist today.
On the other side of waiting years and hoping someone would understand the need for these stories I had burning in my soul was, to put it in my lingo, a hella-ton of hard work. I got that—that…was not scary. It was just hard work. It was time, and faith in my art, and diligence, and persistence. It was initial expense for something I believed in. It was paying for quality editing, buying or directing emotive images, and yes—it was marketing. But it wasn’t rocket science. It wasn’t brain surgery. It wasn’t some crazy formula I didn’t understand. It was time, and hard work.
It was possible.
Mine happened to pay off. Even if it hadn’t, though, I wouldn’t have done anything differently. If I could travel back in time to visit my twenty-year-old self as she sat in an auditorium hearing all of the reasons she should give up, I’d tell her to get up and leave and start her own thing now. I’d tell her that being rich or famous isn’t the objective so who cares if she makes a work of art that only seventeen people see. I’d tell her that she’s going to be bold and do something different. And while she may not be invited to one party, she’d be welcome in a lot of others. She’d get letters from girls just like her who see themselves in her stories. She’d cry every time she read one. She’d be inspired to write these young adults something new.
Now, don’t take this as anything other than shedding light on points not brought up in the other editorial. There were lots of valid points in there, and I think in many ways praise for the people willing to swim upstream and dare. But it does get some things wrong, at least using myself and a lot of fellow independent writers I know as examples. I don’t think it was really meant to come from a mean-spirited place, despite how it felt. I think it comes from one writer’s journey—a journey that is different from mine.
I’ve heard it before.
I’ve heard it recently.
A colleague and traditionally published YA author was on a panel with me a few months back, and even after complimenting the legitimacy of my book, managed to also tell our audience that when she started she wrote as a hobby, too…like I do. I grimaced inward; she wasn’t thinking through her words as she spoke, and I knew that was the case, but it’s that thinking that ruffles feathers and fuels misconceptions. Independent publishing has come a long way, but there’s still educating to do. These types of conversations don’t happen over independent music and independent film. And both of those types of artists can win Grammys and Oscars.
All of this being said, I am still pursuing a US traditional deal. I have had novels traditionally published in other languages for foreign markets. I want to walk the traditional path from the beginning, though, to experience it and grow from it. More than anything, I want to reach young readers—the mini-me’s out there—who are shopping in the mass spaces and picking up print books from shelves. I want to give them a YA book done my way because I know in my heart they’re dying for it. I know it because I was. And I believe in my work. It’s a damn good cabinet.
Because marketing is important no matter what route you take, I’m adding a little boiler plate to the bottom of this post about me. Ginger Scott is a bestselling and Goodreads Choice nominated author who is willing to push hard for her stories to find the hearts in need of them. One day, you’ll find one of her books in one of the traditional places. She will always be proud of them all.
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