DEVIKA FERNANDO: guest post on PUBLISHING

On the blog today, we have South Asian author, Devika Fernando, who writes "a little bit of everything" genre-wise...in her own words. This is her experience with self-publishing: 

Here's her WEBSITE where you'll find all of her books and other goodies.

Thanks for requesting a guest post from me, Falguni! I’m honoured to be on your blog.

At the end of 2013 I decided to make my lifelong dream come true and become a romance novelist. I had stumbled across an online article about self-publishing. After reading it, I spent months researching the topic and reading countless modern romance novels and indie books to get a better picture of things. Finally, I sat down and wrote my debut “When I See Your Face” during NaNoWriMo, which I released in April 2014. A year has gone by, and I don’t regret anything.

Everyone always wants to know whether I never considered traditional publishing and whether I might turn to it in the future. The first answer is yes, the second answer is no. In the beginning I was open to trad publishing. But then I realized how many limitations are connected to it – and not least of all, how much time. There are so many brilliant authors who waited years and years before they got published, and there are great self-published novels out there who had been rejected time and time again. The more I found out about the indie author world, the more I was drawn in. Here’s what I like about indie authoring: 

-control, freedom and flexibility (about the plot, editing and marketing)

-       -to be paid a fair amount of money for your hard work

-       -I can have a say about the cover

-       -I hold all the rights

-       -it’s easy to make changes to the books

-       -no time wasted by pitching the story to agents

-       -no risk of being cheated

Of course there aren’t just pros, but also cons. Depending on how you choose to go about it, self-publishing can cost you a hefty sum of money if you hire editors, cover designers and formatters and if you invest in paperbacks to distribute. If you opt against it, you’ll either need to ask friends for help or you’ll end up with a book that doesn’t look professional and thus might not attract any readers. Also, the competition is huge – but that’s the case whichever way of publishing you choose. You might have fewer sales – but you’ll earn more from each sale. Money is indeed an important factor, for there are many authors out there who were lured into publishing deals and have never seen a single cent for their work or have had to wait much too long. If you’re with a publisher, you can rest assured that you’ll have a professional cover and professional editing – but I’ve read dozens of books that had just as many mistakes as self-published ones.

Marketing is viewed as a self-publishing con by some because it takes up much time, because there’s a lot to learn, and because sometimes you have to invest money in it. However, even authors who are with famous publishers dedicate themselves to marketing and should be active on social media – and publishing houses don’t necessarily promote unknown authors.

In the end, it all boils down to what you personally prefer. If you want to focus only on writing, prefer a professional approach and wish to sell as many book as you can, then traditional publishing is the right way. If you want to make your own choices, if you don’t mind investing time and learning new things, and if you want to earn more from your writing, then try out self-publishing. As for me, I am happy to be an indie author. It isn’t always easy, but it’s filled with valuable experiences, I’ve found amazing friends, and I am living my dream of having my books out for everyone to be read.

~~~

That was an excellent post on publishing, Devika. Thanks for coming on and unveiling the self-pub process for our readers.