Self Publisher Author versus Self Publisher

Full moon nights are a bad time for board meetings at www.TheWestchesterPress.com, because we are a self publisher.

I am a writer. That’s how I think of myself. I am an author.

But because I am a self publisher… and more specifically, a Do It Your Self Publisher… I have some odd conversations with myself.

I had to become a publisher in order to self publish. And when I became a publisher, I began to think like a publisher… and that’s where I came into conflict with my author. Who is also myself.

As an author, I don’t want to be bothered by things like:

  • deadlines
  • page counts
  • copyright issues on photos I really want to include
  • marketability
  • distribution channels and their sensibilities

I’m an artist, see, and words are my palette. But my publisher keeps pushing red-lined columns of numbers under my nose, which is annoying.

I’m a publisher, see, and this is a business. But my arty smarty author doesn’t want to take a stroll in reality and see that a 300,000 word manuscript is very expensive to print but can only command the same cover price as a 100,000 word book. Less is more, less is more!

Before I started self publishing, I had a dream that if, one day, I had a book deal with a traditional publisher, then I wouldn’t ever have to worry about publisher things, and could write anything I pleased. But I’ve been reading the blogs of the traditionally published authors I revere, and I’m beginning to see that they still have to write inside the lines, market their own work, and stick to marketable book subjects. Well, actually, it wasn’t ME who figured that out, it was my self publisher… she kept bringing those things to my attention.

Both of us, author and self publisher, as well as the rest of us… the department heads of sales and marketing and shipping and finance, all try to work together to produce a book that will sell and sell. And some days, particularly around the full moon, it’s better to just crack open a bottle (box) of wine and settle down with somebody else’s good book.

 

 

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