Quantum Storytelling

It may be too early to talk about this since I’m still in the editing stages of my novel. But why not?

I will self-publish it. Not P.O.D. (print on demand) but true self-publishing.

There are many reasons behind my decision, and some people have argued with me about it. Here are five reasons I’m self-publishing:

1. Intellectual property is the only thing a creator has. In business and marketing, it is the most important thing. Why would you give that up to a publisher?
2. I will have to promote my book til I bleed, whether or not a megapublisher picks it up. The simple facts are, publishers aren’t going to work that hard to sell your book unless you’re Stephen King. So if I have to promote my book either way, I’d rather promote it for my own good. Which leads to,
3. Why give up 85% or more of your revenue to somebody else? YOU wrote the book. It’s YOUR intellectual property. It’s YOUR product. All that blood, sweat, and tears for a pathetic seven to fifteen percent? I’m not greedy. I just know what all my effort was worth. It’s worth more than seven percent. Especially given I’ve put a lot of marketing and branding knowledge & research into the intellectual property of my novel.
4. I know my book best. I’m an avid student of business, marketing, branding, PR, advertising, etc. A publisher has a million other books to promote. Why will they give yours any special attention? Do they know your property as well as you? See #2 and #3.
5. All the other reasons aside this is the most important. I love business and marketing. I want to be my own product manager for my intellectual properties. Creating and selling my novel is fun. Building up PR, publicity, buzz, and selling my novel will be just as fun as writing it.

The knowledge that it’s your product, and everything is up to you–That’s the best kind of motivation I can possibly imagine.

Imagine an alternate scenario, where I’m only getting 7% of the revenue. The harder I promote my book, the more money the publisher makes. You’re an employee of the publisher. Many authors have day jobs. Who needs another one? Did you write a novel to become an employee? Most likely the answer is no.

The whole idea in writing a novel for me was to excerise a little creativity and control. To create something that is mine that can’t be mucked with by a publisher or anyone else.

I’ve looked into Print On Demand companies like BookSurge owned by Amazon. It seems OK. There’s one catch. They act as the publisher, and you, as the author, only get a cut. A royalty. The figures are much better than a traditional publisher would provide, but you’re still giving up a majority of the revenue to them.

So I’ve decided to incorporate when my novel is ready, get my ISBN and bar codes, and send it off to a printer. I rather like the burden of having stacks upon stacks of boxes with my book filling up a spare room or a garage. It will be fun to make that pile disappear.

Business is fun. The more independence you have the better off you are. Retain your rights. Hold onto that intellectual property. It’s all you’ve got!