Taking 'Tinna's Promise' to the World

by Miranda Mayer
(Oregon, USA)

Genre: Fantasy

Choosing to self-publish was decidedly a tough decision for me. I think it is for many authors. We all aspire to have or work chosen by a brick-and-mortar company, and to happily allow these companies to mold their work into something glossy and marketable; something you can skip delightedly into our local Barnes & Noble and find on the shelf among other, glossy books. However that is a rough road. There are hoops that need to be jumped through; jumped through exactly so; and if you have a weak query package and you don't have the time to network or take workshops or participate in groups, then your challenge is fairly insurmountable.

I dare say I'll never give up trying. I know I need to grow as an author, and I certainly know my work isn't the next Austen or Dickens that will survive the centuries, but if one person is buying my book every once in a while, then I'm happy. I don't write for riches, I write because I love to. So to me, that's all that matters. I will not be ashamed or embarrassed by my choice to choose self-publishing, and I certainly will not act like I’ve done anything more than start and finish a cohesive story; which in and of itself isn't something to scoff at. Would I rather that Tor had published my book? Heck yeah, but that wasn’t the case, so I decided to go ahead and do it myself. Then I could stop focusing on obtaining publication and go back to focusing on writing new material.

Tinna's Promise isn't my first book; but it's the one I think was most 'ready' for publication. I had it professionally edited, which cost a pretty penny, however I wouldn't dare expect my readers to pay top-dollar for Print-On-Demand for a book that wasn't formatted and edited well. I think all authors should take this into consideration. I think unedited works bring the whole self-publishing industry down, which is really terrible since it already has a very shoddy reputation to begin with. One of my reviewers shares that view very strongly, and will refuse to review books that are badly edited or not edited at all.

I chose iUniverse because of its ease of use. I had some hang-ups with it; it wasn’t the perfect experience. I had to rush to get a cover designed in less than 10 days because when iUniverse tells you that their art department can generate ‘custom book covers’ for you; what they really mean is their staff of community-college level desk-publishing mavens will cobble together stock photographs from Corvis pasted over more stock photographs using fonts that come free with Windows. I shudder to remember what they came up with for my book. I actually feel nauseous thinking about it. They’re not equipped to create covers for genre fiction. They’re definitely geared for the standard self-help text cover with swooshy ambiguous graphic design on the background. Beyond that it’s laughable. I learned my lesson though and I will go to DeviantArt.com for an affordable, professional cover this time. That’s my first word of advice… get your cover made yourself. Do not trust them to do it for you.

Also, the process of formatting is pretty weird. The representative you work with will format your book with all these standard divider lines and such; and as I pawed through the other books my reviewer friend has from iUniverse, I realized that most of the books have the same appearance, the same generic chapter headers… And don’t expect them to find anything that goes with the theme of your book; they don’t even bother to even glance at your book, or ask you what it’s about. It’s just text they lob onto PageMaker or some other publishing software, and process without even giving it context. The whole thing really ticked me off. I tried to get them to use some open-source fonts, but they refused. Illustrations are a significant increase to your book’s publication cost too—so if you want little chapter header images, or a map… you’d better have more money in your budget!

I’ve come to realize that no matter where you go, Lulu, PublishAmerica, iUniverse; that they’re all just going to treat you like another print-job; any special requests, concerns or ideas you may have that don't fit into the parameters of their very generic book-framework, are usually dismissed or ignored. The reps certainly don’t perceive your work as anything out of the ordinary; they don’t see the hours and hours you’ve put into it, the pride you have in it; and they don’t care that you spent money to have it edited (unless you spend it with them). They certainly don’t care if you’re not happy with this, or with that. As long as they did what was outlined in their contract, they could care less. You have a specific set of actions you are allowed to do; and if you want any more or different, you either have to bust out the wallet or just suck it up. The even charge you for extra revisions or small changes. And to revise a book after it's been published? Change cosmetic things like a cover? You have to essentially re-buy the publishing package. No kidding.

These companies essentially capitalize on a writer’s hopes. Some might argue that it’s vanity; but we all publish for different reasons, so I’m not going to buy into that. I didn’t publish because I’m vain, I published because I wanted to share my art. It might not be ‘Monet’ but it’s still my art. I have a right to exhibit it and let my readers be the judge. I’m sure there are some folks who publish because they think they’re the next great undiscovered author of the century; and some publish because they envision dollars rolling in as their story is an undiscovered, completely original idea… And here definitely are writers who think so much of their knowledge and experience they feel it necessary to educate the world with it. But not all are like that. Some of us are just writing a story. Some of us have this product we think people might enjoy. It’s no different than selling your crafts at a fair, to some degree. iUniverse, and the like; they’re there to take advantage of all this. They serve their purpose; and they make a lot of money doing it; and extend themselves very little for it.

The only thing that distinguishes us from the authors on the commercial shelves is that one person liked their work enough to stand behind it; and to ask their company to trust them. I read lots of truly terrible stuff from traditional publishers all the time… so they don’t always have the formula for what’s worthy of publication. So when I think about my work being self-published, I just think of some of the real stinkers I bought from B&N… and I may not be on the NY Times bestseller list, but at least it’s out there. And someone, somewhere is stepping into the weird worlds I write about, and maybe even enjoying it a bit. That’s all that matters to me. And I can definitely think of one or two commercial books that are a lot worse than Tinna’s Promise. ;)

Visit Miranda's site.