A Price to Publish

I know I'm writing to a niche audience. It isn't easy when you want to write erotica. It isn't something you want tattooed on your forehead or proclaimed in block letters on the outside of your home. While it isn't something I hide, it is also something I know most of my neighbors and acquaintances wouldn't understand.

But that's not really the point. Even those friends who read and love what I write can't answer my question about what price to set for my stories. And thanks to this Huffington Post article among others, I know I'm not alone.

At this point, I'm not a big name anywhere. I know people must have run across my work because it's out there. I've been published in a few places. That doesn't mean I have a big audience or following. If I put books or short story collections out there, I am not sure that I will have them snapped up by millions of readers. So goes the doubt of the would-be writer.

Yet there is a price to not publishing, too. Maybe I'm not able to say that a certain number of words is necessary for a $.99, $1.99, or $9.99 ebook, but if these stories just sit in my computer hard drives forever they don't get to do what I'd love them to do most: be read and enjoyed.

I won't stop from my earlier goal to be submitting to magazines. Part of that is getting my name out there and even the token payments remind me to stay on target to write and submit and do everything I can to be published. But what about those great stories I've worked on so long that simply cannot find the right market to be published? Maybe that's the place to start with the ebooks and self-publishing to allow them to find their larger audiences.

Yes, part of this is spawned from my latest rejection letter, which stated that my story was well-written but not what they were looking for. I've given more thought to what they are looking for, and I may try again.

Until then, it's good to get a good feel for what I've written and how the short stories might fit into collections and how many novellas I've got ready to go. This is the time to get out there and find my spot. Encouragement is appreciated.

Do you ever wonder?

All right. I'll admit I peruse random sites when they offer free books. Lately I caught some from B&N, and one of them - seriously - was amateurish. No punctuation in the proper places, plus the narrator told me what was going on through 80% of the story. I skimmed it, deleted it, then started thinking.

I know I write better than that. I have a decent grasp of showing versus telling. Punctuation is not a problem unless it gets fancy, and I can reword a couple sentences if I have to get around it. I have a few stories I could take out there to Smashwords (where they originated) and see what happens.

My reluctance stems from time commitments. I have several things pressing, and I'm not sure how much time I have to market the things. The other question is length. Since many of my stories are very short, I'm not sure how I'd put them together - in collections or by themselves or what.

So I'm curious - for those of you who read erotica - how do you buy it? Do you buy it? Do you look at it only if it's free? Do you want good descriptions in order to grab your interest? Do you want a certain length for $0.99, or per dollar spent? What makes that worth the investment? Where do you look for it? And, last question, would you buy, read, rate my stories if I got them out there?

Self-Publishing

See Dehanna Bailee's POD Database here.

The possibilities are endless for self-publishing. I was idly wondering what it would take to make a series of my short stories into a book. My husband asked who would buy it, but I'm not as worried about who. If I publish it, there will be someone who wants it. Enough someones to justify the investment of some of those presses? Probably not.

Some have very minimal requirements for what's necessary. Others have extensive lists of items that must be met before they will handle the business. It isn't necessarily about the content of the book, though a few are picky about that, too.

I also think sometimes about self-publishing the book I'm working on, but I still haven't decided. There might be a good mainstream market for it, and I'd like to pursue that avenue first.

I probably shouldn't worry about it until I have enough short stories for a book. I'd just like to reprint the ones I've published in a volume, especially for those who don't have access to the sites where my work is visible. There are only four so far...

Progress on Goals

I have one or two chapters left in my novel. Finally this project is nearing a close. I've passed 81,000 words today, which feels like an accomplishment in itself, despite the need to restructure the beginning. I do have ideas on how to do that, so no complaints. It's interesting that I'll finally complete this novel after almost a year and a half working on it. That isn't long in terms of a usual novel, but it feels like a long time.

I'm sure it would have been finished sooner if I hadn't kept putting it to the side for all the pieces that were difficult to write, or for the times when I didn't feel up to writing this particular project at the time. Writing is often a personal venture, and almost always solitary.

I'm often ambivalent about this novel project. I plan to publish it, especially after the amount of work that went into it, but the big question is always how. It isn't ready for that stage yet, but it's in the back of my mind often. I know I have some major edits, but after that - traditional publisher or self-publisher? Agent or not? E-book or paper? Who's my target audience? (Okay, I actually have a pretty good idea on that one.) How much time and effort will I spend promoting and marketing this novel? How large is the market I'm focusing on? So many questions, so much time left to put into the manuscript before it's ready to go...

To the other goal, I did send out a submission this month - other than the botched story from the last post. So, there is progress and it's in the direction I want to go.