As We Fall is getting published - by me!
 

This is my third newsletter and my beautiful little list of people is growing each time - even with names of people I have never talked to! This is incomprehensibly exciting to me and your enthusiasm is part of the answer to the topic of this letter.

I'll get into it. This is going to be a long one, but I've made the sections clear so you can locate any topic you're particularly interested in!

What led to the decision?

When I set out on this journey, my shining goal was to get traditionally published. I think this was my main goal because if I was going to do something as frivolous as trying to make a living off writing, it sure as hell needed to be in the most prestigious way possible.

I used to think that if just a book was "good enough" it would have a chance at getting traditionally published. But even though I had researched this plenty before, it only became clear to me when I started querying that this just isn't the case.

There are so many factors that impact whether a book has a chance in the traditional publishing world - Mass market appeal, genre, popularity of the topic, how unique the concept is (without being too unique), length, tropes, and probably most importantly: how easy it is to market.

At first, when I realised As We Fall isn't geared towards that, it made me think: Fine! Then I need to change the method (write more marketable books) to achieve the goal (getting trad published).

But as I started doing that, I understood that that wasn't where my heart was. That wasn't actually what I wanted to do. My heart and soul is in continually writing spicy queer romance stories in (non-magical) fantasy settings. I have tons of ideas for that specific genre (which is my absolute favourite to read as well), but that genre blend probably just won't have mass market appeal (for the foreseeable future).

Which led me to realise that it's the GOAL that needed to change. If those are truly the stories I want to write, meant for a niche audience, and if I want them out in the world, I have to take matters into my own hands.

Luckily, it seems less scary by the day.

I know what a hard worker I am, and I know I'll do everything to go about it professionally. And at the end of the day, if the book is good and well-crafted, 99% of people won't care how it was published.



Why didn't I go for self-publishing from the start?

It should have been a much easier decision to make but I had to face that I have certain hang-ups and false beliefs when it comes to self-publishing.

Truth be told - it felt like a failure. It felt like saying to the world "I wasn't good enough to get traditionally published, and now I'm stupid enough to throw it into the world myself anyway."

It's almost hard to understand as I'm writing this, because that's not what I feel about it at all any more, and I pity my past self for judging herself so harshly.

It's ridiculous because I've bought tons of self-published books and when I BUY books, I really don't care how they're published, as long as they're great books.

But when it comes to me and my own achievements, nothing is good enough.

I began to realise my own over-achieving nature was holding me back. But I'm not that person any more. I've worked so much on myself this past year, doing my best to shed the toxic ideas installed in me, and now I can truly say that it has worked. (Maybe I should do a newsletter in the future about how to change your mindset?)


My experience with querying

When I started querying - I was ready. I had been researching for months if not years. I was ready for the rejection, I understood the game of it all and knew how much luck was involved.

I set out this year to send 100 queries, to give it my all, and I was so certain that luck would be on my side as well.

You know how many I sent? Twelve. Just twelve. And I sent those in November and December last year. If this had been anyone else, I would say they hadn't even given it a proper shot.

Why didn't I continue querying?

I'm the kind of person who will never shy away from discouraging work if it gets me closer to my goals, so the problem wasn't that querying was boring and soul-crushing (spending hours agonizing over queries, researching agents and guidelines etc only to wait 4-6 months for a form rejection, if an answer came at all. Shout out to anyone making their way through the query trenches.) No, there was something more to it.

After a while (and more researching), something in me shifted. The thing I had been dreaming of - that "yes" from an agent - I stopped wanting it. I had the realisation that even if I got that sweet request tomorrow, it wouldn't feel right.

That's when I realised my dream had changed.

The more I've been writing, the more I'm also realising that how the book gets published it SUCH a small part of the writing life that the publishing can't be a goal in itself for me. It's every day that matters, it's the journey, it's the LIFE as an author, that's my dream. It's knowing that the hard work I put in for years will get out there for certain.



My reasons for going indie

In the end, I had so many thoughts and feelings about this that I've found it difficult to talk about, but I've done my best to break it down below.

1) Certainty, control, and empowerment

Certainty is probably the biggest factor of them all for me. I write to publish books. I need that goal to enjoy it. If I'm not certain my books will reach the world, why write? The enjoyment of writing alone is not enough for me.
When going traditional, there are so many uncertainties - you may never get an agent, even if you do, that agent might have to let you go for whatever reason, even if they don't they might never sell your book to a publisher, and even if they do, the book could get stalled for a million reasons, it could get passed around like a hot potato because of strikes or industry problems or bankruptcy. It could get an awful cover. It could get an awful title. You get the picture. Of course it could go brilliantly, but you just can't know. It might take years to find out. And all of this, you have very little control over.

Making the decision to self-publish took a really long time, but when I did it, the joy of writing came back almost instantaneously because I was finally working towards my end goal again and that was such an empowering feeling.

While I was considering all of this, a dear friend of mine told me: "It doesn't seem like you to put your fate into the hands of other people," and I can't believe how right she was and how much I needed to be reminded of that at exactly that time.

I'm taking my fate into my own hands. I'm choosing myself. As a person who has spent my whole life chasing achievements and never being fulfilled by them, I now understand how important the journey is. Getting that yes from an agent, signing a book deal, reaching the NT bestseller list - none of that is what's going to make me *happy*. They may make me proud, but they won't make me happy. This year, I've come to love the process so much, before the book is even out, that I understand now that the most important thing to me is finding joy in the process, being satisfied with the lifestyle, instead of striving for achievements to fill that hole in my heart. I have chosen myself. I'm ALREADY happy and proud without having achieved anything at all with this book and without any outside recognition.

In the end, I don't care about the prestige. I don't need to get chosen. I don't need the validation to know I am "good enough". I just want to write books and I believe I will find my audience.


2) Keeping my rights.

When you sign a book deal with a publisher, you essentially sell your rights to the material, and on top of that, book deals tend to be complicated contracts that favour the publisher and not the author.
This can have massive impact on a number of things, for example being forced to make edits you don't agree with, being limited in which kind of marketing you can do for your own book, possibly not having the option of creating multiple books in the same universe, if the publisher doesn't want them, etc. (One of my nightmare scenarios would be if book 1 sold but didn't do well so the publisher wouldn't buy book 2 and 3, yet I could do nothing to move on with it myself (without making complicated clauses or negotiating rights back).)
I have so many more thoughts on this one, but I'm trying to keep it short and relatable.


3) In it for the long haul while having fun

This one was a really big one too. My dream is to make this my career, my living. I want to do this for the rest of my life, if at all possible. The whole point of choosing this chaotic path was to live a life I would actually enjoy. To wake up in the morning and being excited about the work I do. This is supposed to be fun. If I'm not having fun with it (which I most certainly wasn't while querying) there's really no point. Then I might as well pour my soul into one of the many other things I'm passionate about.


4) Freedom

Again, if you're trying to get an agent or have signed with a publisher, you can't just do whatever you want. They might often have criteria or wishes for you to live up to, not to mention schedules and deadlines you need to stick to.

I know what I want to write and a lot of it doesn't fit that neatly into genre categories, which will probably always be a problem with traditional publishers. I want to have the freedom to work on the projects my passion leads me towards. I want to work when I want to and publish when I want to.

I have also had a lot of both physical and mental health issues over the last years, which have made me unable to write for shorter and longer periods of time. This in particular scares me a lot about a traditional deal, because I'm so detrimentally dutiful that I KNOW I would rather work myself towards an early grave than miss a deadline. I know because that's exactly what I have done too many times before. When my arm injury flares up, or I fall into a depressive episode, I want to be able to take time to heal instead of stressing about an external deadline.


5) My genre works well for self-publishing

Though I have no idea whether this is true, I can easily see why As We Fall would be a hard sell / not easily marketable to a mainstream audience. This story was never meant to have mainstream appeal. It was never meant for the general reader. It's meant for a niche audience that is looking for intense queer romance fantasy stories.

My experience as an avid reader of this genre though, is that this particular niche audience tends to be super passionate people who are actively searching for books that fall into these categories, which means it's a genre that's well-suited for indie-publishing.

Though it might not be a mainstream audience, I know which readers this book is for. I know this niche intimately and I feel like I'm well enough in touch with this reader base to have a great shot at reaching this audience myself.


6) I feel loved and supported already

Coming out of nowhere as a debut self-published author is probably pretty rough. No one has heard of you, no one has heard of your writing, and you have nothing to show for it. Why should they care? Why would they choose your book when you have no proof it's good?

I admit, this one still scares me, and it sure would be easier to feel confident if a huge publisher had my back. But honestly - even with my very modest following on Instagram, I feel like there are at least a few dozen kind and interested readers, and to me, that's way better than nothing :') I don't feel like I'm going in completely cold. I feel loved and supported and encouraged by so many of you, and I'm eternally grateful for that.

The hardest part, it seems, when you're self-publishing your very first book is to get any reviews on it (on amazon and goodreads) since this is what people who have never heard of you will base their choice of whether or not to buy the book on, so I deeply, deeply hope I can get as many of you to help me with that when the time comes :')


7) The nail in the coffin, the straw that broke the camel's back, etc.

Despite all the above, the decision was still so hard for me to make - until I started talking/listening to other authors out there, also striving for traditional publishing with little more luck than myself.
I heard these people talk about their absolutely incredible books with intriguing plots and great prose - all stuff I would have picked up in a heartbeat - only to learn that they would never be published because they didn't get past querying.

I thought about these great books with catchy hooks and killer concepts that would never see the light of day, and not because "they weren't good enough" but because of (to me) arbitrary reasons like genre expectations, length, style, sheer bad luck etc.

That's when I truly understood that no matter how great a book is, there is no guarantee it will make it in traditional publishing, and I knew, deep within myself, that there was no chance I was letting that happen to As We Fall. I need this book out in the world. I NEED to share it, letting it die in the query trenches is not an option for me. And whether it fits into the traditional industry has zero bearing on how much it has the potential to be loved by readers.

That's how I finally understood and dared making the decision.


8) I'm an unhinged person with too much self-confidence and nothing to stop me.

This one is self-explanatory, I'm afraid.



That's it!

That's the whole shebang! I hope you found it interesting and that some of it resonated with you. Thank you so much for reading through this whole journey, and if you have any thoughts or comments you'd like to share, pop by my instagram!

Much love,

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