Robert Sawyer says don't self-publish SciFi novels

In a blog post that has sparked some discussion across the Web, Sawyer wrote: "...if you want advice on the questions you're asking, find someone who has successfully gone the self-publishing route with an SF novel, and ask him or her. The point is: no such person exists, and so you won't be able to find him or her."

Well, Stephen King comes to mind but let's not quibble over the orders of magnitude between Stephen King and the rest of us. In principle I agree with Mr. Sawyer. I don't think you'll get your money back if you self-publish a science fiction novel.

If it were that easy, we'd all be able to easily name someone other than Stephen King (or Mark Twain) who could pull it off.

Now, there are other types of books you can self-publish but they don't come with any guarantees of success. The best route to self-publishing success, in my experience (as a successful self-published writer) is to build an audience that is eager for your work before you self-publish.

Which means you should get published before you self-publish. Now, the Internet once made that easier than it is today. Unfortunately the online freelance industry collapsed almost ten years ago. There are still some opportunities but they are not what they once were.

People turn to self-publishing out of a sense of frustration. The traditional publishers are only willing to put out so many science fiction books each year (and, quite frankly, a lot of those books are not very good). So the traditional publishing industry has built up a lot of stigma with wannabe authors, many of whom don't understand the ins and outs of navigating a manuscript through the contorted channels of publishing.

And let's be fair here: many wannabe authors don't understand the ins and outs of good writing. Did I say the traditional publishing industry puts out a lot of bad books? They reject far worse and in much larger volumes.

Some bad books do get through the process because editors have to manage resources in a somewhat strategic way. That is, if they don't publish something in the right place at the right time, they may not be able to publish something else later. That has been the publishing industry's dirty little secret for many years, but whenever the publishing industry goes through a contraction, eliminating editorial positions and book slots, fewer bad books slip through the cracks of the quality control process.

Still, when you pick up a book in a store that was put out by a major publishing house and you just want to gag at the awful writing that some editor let slip through, you can stand there asking yourself, "Why can't I get published?"

And there are plenty of reasons why you can't get published. They usually have nothing to do with your personality (although I've heard that a few people who went toxic after being rejected pretty much got themselves virtually blacklisted). You need to be at least a competent writer but you also have to be imaginative.

I would love to get my Tolkienesque fantasy novels published some day. I'm still waiting for traditional publishers to beat a path to my door demanding the right to publish the kinds of stories we all grew up on. In the meantime, well, I'm still waiting.

And so are you.

Another reason why you don't get published might be that your resume is empty. There is something to be said about the difference between writing a short story and a novel. But a really good writer should be able to do both. I once submitted a short story to a writing workshop. I won't go into the story behind the story but Marion Zimmer Bradley threw my manuscript on the table and said, "This is a novel masquerading as a short story."

She was right. I had taken a mostly fleshed out novel plot and tried to skin it down into a short story. No professional with years of experience would have been fooled by that kind of trick. One of the points Ms. Bradley made to me that day (and which has been echoed by other people in the field in the years since) was that if you're going to write something, you have to make up your mind what you're going to write. It cannot be many things to many people.

It's easier to write a short story than it is to write a novel. If you learn to write good short stories you'll find there are more markets for them than there are for your novels. Rack up a few sales in short stories and you'll have a writing resume that just may get you past the slush pile at every agent and editor's office.

There are no guarantees you'll ever be able to publish a novel if you sell even 100 short stories. I'm just saying you'll have a better chance at getting someone in the publishing industry to take you seriously if you follow their guidelines and work your way up the ranks the way they ask you to. Hundreds of books have been published that explain the system.

And make no mistake about it: there is a system, one that has been contrived and honed through decades of contractual negotiations, lawsuits, and business deals worked out over dinner, at conventions, etc. Some people broke into traditional publishing by finding themselves in relationships (friendships, partnerships, whateverships) with established writers who helped nurture their inherent talents and molded their undisciplined skills into acceptable publishable craft.

Some people just end up in the right place at the right time. You occasionally hear about someone who writes a pitch letter to a traditional publisher and makes a huge sale -- all without any writing experience, sometimes even without any writing to sell. It happens. Some people are just born to be kings and millionaires, too. The rest of us have to build our kingdoms and our fortunes the old-fashioned way.

The Internet has been touted as a great opportunity for self-published writers. In fact, I do help self-published writers promote their books with some free resources. But I don't suggest to them that the world will beat a path to their doors because they list a book with my service. I'm just giving them a little free exposure.

If you want to use the Internet to promote a book you need to build an audience that will have an interest in that book. It doesn't matter how the book was published. No audience = no sales. You can hire a publicist to work with you but a good publicist will tell you that selling science fiction novels is not easy. Book stores rarely take the self-published science fiction novel.

Print-on-demand technology makes it less expensive to self-publish books. Because I was successful in reprinting a collection of essays through POD technology people have asked me through the years why I don't use that to self-publish one of my novels. The answer is always the same: I don't have an audience for the novel, whereas I did have an audience for the essays, which I had originally been paid to write anyway.

There are a lot of people who want to be published -- more than will be published by the traditional publishing industry. Some very good writers will go unpublished because they stop submitting their manuscripts too soon, because they write the wrong material, because they submit to the wrong agents or publishers, etc.

If you want to self-publish and use the Internet and POD technology to cut your costs, understand that you're not cutting your costs. You still have to market yourself. Traditional publishing should provide you with some marketing help (it doesn't always work out that way). Publishing short stories in anthologies and magazines at least gets your name out there. That's marketing yourself.

If you have a Website that gets 100,000 visitors a month, maybe you can self-publish a science fiction novel. Maybe 1% of those people will buy your book. Maybe.

If you have anything less than that to work with then your chances of selling even 1,000 copies of your book are pretty slim. A typical self-published book sells between 50 and 100 copies. And that's usually based on the author going out and doing signings, hawking their book at small shows and flea markets, etc.

If you're not prepared to do the marketing and build the audience, there is no reason for you to self-publish a book, much less a science fiction novel. Self-published places the burden of marketing all on you. It doesn't confer any credibility on you. Book stores and science fiction conventions are more likely than not to ignore you and your book because they have never heard of you.

That's the real difference between Stephen King and me: far more people have heard of him than me, so far more people are inclined to buy his self-published book than mine.

And that's just how it works.

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