I am a gambler and when I play, I play to win. I take risks, but every single one is calculated, which is what makes me a tough opponent. No one ever knows if I'm bluffing or if I have the full house - and I like it that way.
I've approached e-publishing the same way
It was a HUGE gamble for me to become an independent author.
Gamble One: Two agents were still reviewing a full (not Anathema) and I pulled it back. Yes, I essentially rejected two agents, one of whom spent the entire day emailing with me about my choices. Guess what? She was supportive.
Gamble Two: I risked alienating some of my traditionally published friends. I think a few were miffed or horrified (someone actually called me a traitor), but to my surprise a few came out of the woodwork and fully supported me.
Gamble Three: I started over from scratch with a pen name. I could have published under my real name and perhaps had a much larger audience from the start. However I wanted to keep my fiction totally separate from my nonfiction. So far it seems to be working. Everyone in my real life knows my pen name so it's not like I'm living in the shadows.
I have more gambles, some I'm working through now and others I've saved for future dates. If there's one thing I learned in my six years of freelancing for magazines it's that the publishing industry is one big, fat gamble.
I'm willing to play, are you?
Yes, I am a big gambler, willing to put all my chips on the table.
ReplyDeleteHi Meg, just popped over from Sarah's blog hop post.
ReplyDeleteI love seeing people taking on self pubbing, weighing up all the risks and moving forward with a plan. It's really interesting to read about these experiences. Thanks for sharing!
Hmm... if i think back I've taken two smallish gambles in my I-want-to-be-a-published-author journery. And so far my world hasn't fallen apart! I haven't won big yet either... (But I know you have to gamble big to win big!)
ReplyDeleteI'm also here from Sarah's blog hop :-)