A Year in Self-Publishing and A Year in Age 30…Wicked Combo!

April 8, 2012 — 10 Comments

As bestselling author Jodi Picoult was quoted as saying in an article last week: “DO NOT SELF-PUBLISH.”

As my mother was quoted as saying right after my birthday last year: “DO NOT WAIT PAST THIRTY TO FIND A BOY.”

I would like to clarify that my mother does not encourage pedophilia, she is merely referring to the menu of grown Indian men, one of which should become my husband. They are not underage men by any means, but you see,  unmarried Indian adults are always referred to as “boys” and “girls” by matchmaking Indian ladies far and wide. I believe this title helps fuel the precious lie that unmarried Indian adults are like untouched innocent babes, until their hands first meet in that awkward first dance at their wedding reception.

Mmmkay.

Back to my original statement: I broke Jodi Picoult’s rule in these past twelve months, and, unless I get engaged in these final four hours before my birthday (anyone?…anyone?) , I broke my mother’s age-ist rule as well.

Here’s what happened this year instead:

-First I said goodbye to my twenties, not long after I’d said goodbye to the greatest inspiration, muse, and romantic adventure of my life. There was no death involved in this goodbye (unless you count the dying of a soul—emo!), but it was more the eventual return to reality, and all that society expects. I was not in agreement with this ”convenient path” cop-out, but would I spend age thirty keeled over from the loss of something? Or would I stand up straight and have the best year ever? Let’s see…

-A week after saying hello to age thirty, I self-published. This was a month after saying “bye bye!” to my  literary agent. It wasn’t the original book I’d submitted to her that I published, but instead a crazy parody, because…I’m crazy. This is the thing about self-publishing. You can publish crazy parodies that a “Random House” or any other publisher would never even sniff at, because…it’s crazy. Yet still you can carve out your own little space in “reader world” and find an audience, as long as you’re tough enough to know that for all the people who love it, some people will truly despise it. I am tough enough, and so finding an audience was and is…a glorious feeling. And to sell over a thousand copies of this title alone? Entirely unexpected and a bonus, since writing humorous essays is actually my side-note to the novelist dream.

-Two weeks after I self-published, I went to Florida and got a wicked tan. This was a true act of rebellion, when Indian mothers raise you to stay out of the sun so you can look as white as possible (but you’re not allowed to date white dudes…irony?). Once I returned all toasty and brown, my value on the marriageable market plummeted to almost zero. I was pleased.

-In an effort to avoid the burning of my glorious tan, I spent the next few weeks indoors, reading free screenplays online, as well as a couple of very helpful how-to books (Your Screenplay Sucks! and Coffee Break Screenwriter). A few short weeks after that, I’d written my very first screenplay, because sometimes, when something  pretty epic happens in your life…you simply have to make a story out of it (spoken like a true melodramatic artist). Over the next eight months, this screenplay would advance to the semi-finals or higher in eight screenplay competitions. I did this for no other reason than to say “haha, I can,” and the results that followed proved “check it out, I did.“

Feeling rather confident after the initial screenplay results, I dusted off the first novel I ever wrote, the one that had been rejected by all the major publishers. To me it was a blessing in disguise to wait a year and a half before reviewing this novel once again. A blessing because…anyone who studies the craft of writing understands that you only get better with time and practice, so to revise that novel with fresh eyes after all the things I’d learned was the right approach. This book, “Year of the Chick” has been out now for over five months, and as it slowly finds its audience, the response has been incredible. It never gets old to read a new person’s reaction on my Facebook author page, and every time that happens, I think about how that NEVER would’ve happened, if I’d kept on waiting and hoping for a  traditional publisher to pick me. And THAT…is glorious feeling number two .

-In January I was in-between projects, so I thought I should write a short story, a prequel to “Year of the Chick.” I published that story on Valentine’s Day, and to have readers buy it and enjoy it before or after picking up my full-length book has been…glorious (this is the post of the over-used adjective). In a world without self-publishing, how on earth would we be able to sell 10,000-word short stories for 99 cents, that readers could enjoy on various devices during a coffee break or commute ride home? We are in the midst of a revolution, and I’m sorry Jodi Picoult, but you should not be telling authors not to do something in ALL-CAPS without the logic to back it up, because that only means we will do it harder.

-In March, after almost a year of self-publishing, I didn’t want to lose my thunder, so I needed to buckle down and write a sequel to “Year of the Chick.” So…I took a week off work and wrote 58,000 words in six days. That was a crazy experience that I wrote about here, and because I focused everything on making that draft, I am now in the comfortable first-revision mode, and right on track with my deadline to release the sequel (June 7th! ).

-Also in March, I got hit on by a young barista at Starbucks,  to the tune of an extra shot of espresso free of charge, proving that I may be thirty, but I’ve stilllll got it.

-As the first year of self-publishing draws to a close, I can easily say it was the best year ever. Each individual thing builds upon the other, and if not for that first scary step of self-publishing last April, I would have never followed it with a full-length novel, a crazy poetry collection, a short story, and an upcoming sequel. And all with a full-time job. People think I’m nuts when I describe this, and yes, I actually am.  

-As for age thirty almost drawing to a close, earlier today, after my father yet again asked to put my ad in the “arranged marriage classifeds,” I, for the first time ever, stated that I don’t believe in arranged marriage, and that I’m never going to take this approach. I have never seen both my parents look so disappointed and disgusted in me….ever. Something tells me I won’t be getting a birthday card tomorrow, but that’s okay, because my biggest goal of age thirty was to stop living a lie, and like a true procrastinator, I waited until eight hours before the deadline  to do it…but I finally did.

-So… how am I going to make the next year even more epic? Well here’s a short summary of my to-do list: release the sequel of “Year of the Chick on June 7th, have another blog tour, have another book-release party in the fall (Grey Goose and books, anyone?), learn how the eff one does audiobooks, record audiobooks, learn about podcasting (would you guys like to hear a podcast done by crazy me?), and have some more adventures that can inspire my future writing.

If there’s a final note I can add to any writers who stumble upon this: self-publishing is amazing but if you do go that route,  be amazing to IT in return. What I mean is, the only way to silence people like Jodi Picoult or to get new readers to support you, is to write the best damn books possible with the best damn editing possible. Otherwise, we’re screwing readers over, and they’ll screw us back by telling everyone we suck and with good reason. Think about it.   And ahem…that doesn’t mean you still won’t get bad reviews or be called a “bitch” in a review (yes, it happened to me…what fun!), but it means you can fix all the non-subjective reasons for people disliking your book.

Write on… 

PS: I’m trying to bring back the word “wicked” (used it once in the title and once in the post). Is it working?…