Traditional vs. Non Traditional Publishing .... An author's choice

This blog will be the tale of my entry into Non-Traditional Publishing, otherwise known as independent press or more accurately, Print On Demand publishing. I am planning it as a long-term blogging journal, detailing my complete experiences from inception through sales.

As an author, I have published 33 novels, 32 of them with traditional publishers such as Simon & Schuster, Dell, Putnam, Dorchester, Kensington and others.

For a variety of reasons, non-complimentary to the publishing industry, and now well in the past, I took a few years off from writing and publishing. When I finally to writing and publishing, the industry had changed.

In today’s publishing world, the agent is King ( or Queen) and most writers, if they are not best sellers, live or die by what an agent feels about their work because most publishers no longer accept over the transom submissions from writers.

My journey to getting published began again, two years ago, when I wrote Angels In Mourning and submitted my novel to the agents I had known in the past. After a few dozen, “good writing, but not for us” comments, I went directly to my old editors and publishing houses. Again came a slew of “Good writing, well constructed story, good characterizations, but at this time it doesn’t fit into our lines….”

Oh, well, poor me…. It must be the book. The book must suck, was what I began to believe. But my wife refused to accept that. She had read every rewrite, every word and she refused to let me give up.

So I set about asking twenty people to read the book. Some were, naturally, friends; others were past readers, and some I didn’t even know. I asked for real evaluations not compliments and certainly not to tell me what they thought I might want to hear. The results surprised me.

Every reader liked the book. Some loved it, others liked it, even one reader who told me she didn’t like mysteries, but this one pulled her in and she read it in two days - that’s not easy when you’re dealing with a manuscript of 500 + 8 ½ x 11 pages shot out of a printer and not a regular size printed book.

Why didn’t I self publish, three of the readers asked, and take a shot with the new Print On Demand format of publishing?

I’d laughed about it. Self-publishing is for people who can’t get published – for people whose writing isn’t … good enough. It’s vanity publishing – the need to see your name on a book jacket. I was past that – way past. I’m a writer. I love to write, to tell stories that pique the imagination and to entertain. I believe that all writers have one very important thing in common: they need people to read their work and like it. Why else would we write novels?

But the thought about using Print On Demand publishing kept stirring around in my head. I didn’t want to dump the manuscript in the trash. I’d worked hard on it, and while it was mine, I believed it was good.

After these thoughts stirred around my brain for a while, I decided to investigate Print On Demand publishing. I spoke with many of the writers in my author associations – the MWA – Mystery Writers of America and the Author’s Guild, and learned that quite a few of the authors had decided to go this route in publishing.

My next step was to spend time learning about POD publishing and then finding the right POD publisher.

My next Blog will start the details of my experience finding a POD publisher, going through the process and finally publishing the novel.

While ‘Angels In Mourning’ is now available to the public, on Amazon.com, the journey is still just underway. I’ve received several great reviews, one from the review website http://www.bookideas.com/, and five 5 star reviews on amazon.com from readers who have purchased Angels In Mourning.

The review is also available at http://www.angelsinmourning.com/