I kind of wish Baen would do E-Book only authors. Maybe then I would have made the final cut. This week I finally received a very polite "no thanks" from Baen regarding my first book, Reckless Faith, which I had submitted to their "slush pile" back in January 2009. Alas, my bid to follow in the footsteps of Larry will have to wait until my next creation.
It was encouraging to get a personalized reply with notes, which meant the editor in question actually read my book. His criticisms, both positive and negative, were similar to others I'd already received from my POD audience, and so it didn't surprise me that the book's greatest weaknesses (most notably pacing) were its downfall in this case. Reckless Faith has a large amount of character development for several chapters before the Sci-Fi kicks in. Larry got it right by having his protagonist kill his werewolf-boss in the first chapter, although Monster Hunter's themes tend to lend themselves towards exposition more overtly than mine.
Self-publishing in general and the POD industry specifically have worked well for me, insofar as I have gotten out of it exactly what I've put into it, and not much more. I have made back 50% of the initial investment put into the first book, 25% for book two, and since the third book just came out in April I've only made back about 5% of that one. The advantages are a high-quality product and excellent distribution, the disadvantages are no physical books on bookstore shelves (unless you talked the manager into putting them there), and no advertising by the publisher (except for what little they do on their home page). You have to be able to sell yourself and be shameless about I AM AN AUTHOR BUY MY BOOK or nobody will ever know about them. All of my sales have been through word-of-mouth, including nods on Larry's blog et al. Every official review request I've sent to actual dead tree publications has gone unanswered.
I am my own worst enemy when it comes to promotion. There is a great deal I could be doing that I am not. Most notably, I should be posting a serialized adventure on forums like this one to see if I can gain a following like Larry and Mike did on THR. I should also be writing short stories which are ostensibly easier to get published in either print periodicals or online review sites. I can make excuses all day long but the bottom line is that I'm not writing as much as I should, nor taking as many chances as I should. I recognize this and I'm working to change it.
So if you're considering it, consider most of all what you plan on doing after your book comes out. Once the warm fuzzy feeling of holding your own book in your hands wears off, you realize nobody knows you exist.
