Hand me my sword! A female writer’s thoughts on writing fantasy

Guest post by author M.A. Chiappetta

If you look at the list of fantasy and science fiction authors from the past 50 to 75 years, a majority of those names belong to men. Take, for example, NPR’s list of Top 100 SFF books—85 of those books were written by men. 85 percent!

As you can guess, being a female writer in a world once dominated by men is sometimes a strange place to be. But I wouldn’t change it for anything. I love being a woman who writes fantasy. And that will never change. It doesn’t matter if it’s hard.

You see, the realm of speculative fiction—science fiction, fantasy, horror, magical realism—is filled with possibilities. It’s a place where magic is real…where you can fly to the moon or Mars. Real-life boundaries like the law of gravity can be bent, changed, or defied. Anything is possible.

I love that!

As a child, I fell in love with fantasy (and to a lesser degree, science fiction)—not only because it introduced me to a view of the world as more wondrous than everyday reality, but also because it reminded me that despite appearances, anyone could end up a hero. You could start out as a poor assistant pig-keeper, yet you could grow up to be High King of Prydain. You could begin as an orphaned girl struggling just to stay alive and end up a dragonrider and Weyrwoman.

Who wouldn’t want that?

And so, I write fantasy now because I remember the enchantment of believing that I could not only achieve great things, but that I could be heroic doing it. I could do something good in a world that is often filled with bad things. That’s a message I believe in sharing.

I do this knowing that there are a lot of people in the world who have problems with women. There is still a significant portion of the reading audience that says: “A woman wrote that? Well, I won’t buy it then. I won’t like it.” It’s a prejudice that doesn’t make a lot of sense. But it exists.

What, some women disagree with the
functionality of a chainmail bikini?

On top of that, there are some ugly stereotypes in the fantasy genre. There’s the “helpless pretty face”—the woman who can’t rescue herself because rescuing is a man’s work. There’s the Disney princess—whose life doesn’t have meaning unless there’s a Prince Charming (a man) around. There’s the chick in chainmail—the woman who wields a sword but does so in a metal bikini because she’s nothing more than eye candy. And there’s the “Strong Female Protagonist”—the girl who is so strong that she never needs anyone’s help.

The truth is that people­ are much more complicated than any of those stereotypes.

One of my goals as a writer is to make sure that all the characters in my stories—male, female, alien, dragon, other—all reflect the complicated traits that make people both maddening and lovable. It’s not easy to create characters who defy stereotypes. But I’m committed to making my character complex, because I think my readers deserve it. And frankly, so do my characters!

So, every day, I approach my writing boldly. I wield my pen as if it were a sword, determined to cut through the stereotypes and prejudices…as well as the self-doubts that plague all artists…and I go forth to write.

It’s a hero’s job, in its own way. And I’m glad to do it.

M.A. Chiappetta is a fantasy writer, copywriter, educator, and blogger with past publications in Blue Shift, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chat, and Mensa Bulletin. Her most recent short stories are found in the anthology, Dark and Dangerous Things II, available on Amazon. She shares thoughts on writing at Purple Ink Writers and muses on creativity, SFF, laughter, God, and geekdom at The Chipper Muse. You can also find her on Twitter as @chippermuse.

Box 'o' books launch: The HOT BOX launch tour

Sizzling Thriller Hot Box Release:

8 SIZZLING THRILLERS FROM 8 BEST-SELLING AUTHORS

Get yours today

• Amazon
• Smashwords (99c)
• Goodreads

What's in the Hot Box:

Steven Bannister – Fade to Black

John Paul Davis – The Cortes Enigma 

C R Hiatt – Sanctioned Kill 

David Leadbeater – The Razor’s Edge 

Andy Lucas – Race Amazon 

Karen Perkins – Dead Reckoning 

C K Raggio – Heron Park 

Mike Wells – Wild Child

Steven Bannister—Fade to Black—Allie St Clair is young and brilliant and today she’s been promoted to Detective Chief Inspector at New Scotland Yard. But the time for celebration is short. Something is wrong in rain-swept London. Very wrong.

#NewRelease

John Paul Davis—The Cortes Enigma—1581: It appeared in the west as the sun was setting, a distant silhouette like a fire on the water. Twelve hours later it appeared again, this time much closer to the mainland . . . Who was on board or where they came from remained a mystery . . . No trace of the vessel was ever found . . .

#NewRelease

C R Hiatt – Sanctioned Kill - Destined for Danger. Sanctioned to Kill.  Hot on the trail of an international weapons ring, covert agent Kyra Ray finds herself caught in the cross-hairs of a ruthless arms dealer in the perilous mountains of war-torn Afghanistan. Closing in, the mission takes an unexpected and near-deadly turn in the high-stakes drama of New York City, where Kyra is mysteriously spared by an assassin sent to kill her. Retrained as an assassin and given strict orders to take him down, Kyra becomes trapped in a game of cat-and-mouse that will put her life on the line and her directive to the test—her sanction to kill.

David Leadbeater—The Razor’s Edge—Trent, Silk and Radford are the Razor’s Edge and the best spy team in the business – until the government they toiled, served and bled for, disavowed them.

Andy Lucas—Race Amazon—James Pace, ex-RAF helicopter pilot and amateur cameraman, is still trying to figure out what to do with the rest of his life when a child’s bullet nearly kills him.

Karen Perkins—Dead Reckoning—A historical adventure of piracy, love and revenge in the Caribbean in the seventeenth century.

C K Raggio—Heron Park—A small Long Island town erupts in a panic when a woman and her dog are found savagely murdered on a popular hiking trail.

Mike Wells—Wild Child—A fast, suspenseful thriller with an ending that you’ll never see coming.

Why I'm not publishing books on paper

A guest reblog from bestselling thriller author Mike Wells

I had to make sure my readers had the benefit of Mike Wells' excellent essay on digital publishing.

    

At present, I only publish my work in digital format—ebooks and audiobooks. Since many of you are also authors or seriously thinking of writing a book, I thought I would explain my reasoning on this, as it might be helpful to you in making your own decisions.

The main reason that I'm a digital-only author is that if I publish my books on paper, I can't get them onto the shelves of physical bookstores.  It's virtually impossible.  Why?  Because I'm an "indie author," meaning that I self-publish my work outside of the realm of the traditional publishing industry.  Like  it or not, traditional publishing largely controls what's on the shelves of brick-and-mortar bookstores.  (Self-publishing my own work is a personal choice—for more about traditional versus self-publishing, see this post).

Also, I am an internationally-oriented author, and I have a large number of readers all over the world—in Australia, the UK, Europe, South Africa, Malaysia, Russia, India, the Middle East, etc.  This compounds the distirbution problem tenfold. Even the biggest U.S. publishers have trouble getting their titles onto the bookstore shelves in every corner of the globe. 

Thanks to digital retailer/distributors like Smashwords, ebooks provide an instant and elegant solution to the problem.  It's a great feeling to know that any reader, virtually anywhere in the world, has equal access to all my books at the touch of a button.

That said, I admit that it sometimes bothers me that I can't pick up a paper copy of my book and hold it in my hands, and that I can't send readers who want my books in paper format to a physical bookstore.  Some people enjoy collecting paper books and building a home library, and I can certainly appreciate that as well. 

While it's true that I could arrange to publish all of my 20+ titles on paper through a company like Lulu or Createspace, this does not fully solve the problem, neither in the USA or abroad.  Readers will still have to order the books online or through their local bookstores—copies will still not actually be sitting on bookstore shelves. 

My experience is that people who want paper books generally expect to walk into a physical bookstore, find the books they want on the shelves, and then take the books the cash register and pay for them.  Having to order and wait for a paper book is a "speed bump" that greatly lowers interest.  Today, most readers, when given the choice of ordering a physical book and waiting a week or two for it to arrive, or downloading the book instantly, in ebook or audiobook format, choose the latter.  Not all, but most.

Despite how easy companies like Lulu and Createspace make it sound, publishing on paper is still a lot of work and takes significant time.  I only have so many hours in the day.  When I ask readers, "Which would you rather I do—produce more new ebooks and audiobooks or slow down and offer everything I write in both digital and paper format?" the answer is always a resounding "More new books please!"  The vast majority of my readers are willing to read or listen to my books in digital format, even the ones who prefer paper.

Of course, there are some people who refuse to read anything but paper books.  I admire their tenacity, but I have to draw the line somewhere.  I believe that there will always be paper books, but I also believe that the number of people who refuse to read anything except paper books will steadily diminish, so that eventually I will reach 99% of the folks who are interested in my work.

But there is another larger, overarching factor in my decision to stay digital.  I struggled for fifteen years in the paper book industry—burned through four literary agents—and made very little progress.  It was the advent of ebooks and digital publishing that allowed me to take full control of my career and caused my book sales to take off.  While I'm sure it would be a wonderful feeling to hold all my novels in my hands and see them lined up in a neat row along my desk, I'm confident that the feeling I have from making a living as a novelist and being able to write full time is far more satisfying.

Perhaps things will change in the future and I will decide to publish on paper.  For example, maybe someday there will be a printing and binding machine sitting in every physical bookstore that can produce a high-quality paper copy of any ebook in a matter of minutes.  There have been attempts at this, but nothing has caught on big yet.  Or, maybe a traditional publisher will come along and offer to print my books as they are, without insisting on fiddling around with the titles and content, and they won't have a problem with me continuing to publish my ebooks and audiobooks independently.  Who knows? 

Never say never.

In summary, that's the logic behind my decision to keep my books in digital format only for the present, and it may or may not apply to your own situation.

Your comments are welcome. 

This post originally appeared on May 1, on Mike Wells Official Website.

What to write and what not to write? A writer’s inner fear!

Creative Commons

Guest post by Samreen Ahsan

“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” ― Louis L'Amour

After I published my first novel, A Silent Prayer, many people around me asked what truly inspired me for writing or more precisely—what made me write? 

I never knew I was a writer until now. Those who have known me a long time also asked me if I was a born writer. I believe a person is always born with a talent—be it an artist or a musician. I don’t think there’s such thing as an inborn writing talent. Each individual in this world has a story to tell—everyone has a past, present and a future tied with emotions that make the person think, laugh, cry or contend. For writing, the basic talent you need in yourself is reading and of course, reading is an inborn talent. You cannot force anyone to be a good reader. 

“Indeed, learning to write may be part of learning to read. For all I know, writing comes out of a superior devotion to reading.”  ― Eudora Welty, On Writing

If you’re not a good reader, then you can never be a writer. Reading gives you inspiration, a whole new world from a writer’s perspective. You dive into that world, sometimes you drown yourself, sometimes you just float over it—it depends how deeply the story is being written. 

I believe there’s always an inspiration for a writer. It could be a person, his surroundings, a song, his own life or a minor incident. You just need one end of the rope and then you keep on pulling it, until you hold another end. That one end which you held first is your inspiration. 

Likewise, you can’t wait for an inspiration to write something—it comes to you. It’s just how you see it and how you perceive it. 

So back to the question I was asked after my first book—what made me write? Honestly I was never a writer (I don’t even write much blogs) but I guess my passion of reading and imagining fearlessly has driven me this way. Being a Muslim, I’ve a complete faith on my Holy book—what it has to say about the things we see and the things we don’t see. That inspired me to write about Jinn. We have read countless Jinn stories through Arabian folktales and all the readers have always found them purely fictitious. To me, it is not fiction. I wanted to create a believable fiction story. I know vampires and zombies don’t exist but I truly believe that the Jinn exist, just like angels—the only thing is they’re hidden from us—and that’s what Jinn means. So I started researching on this strange creature and for a few months (during my writing), there was only one activity in my life (besides writing)—read, read and read. 

The Djinn

 by maeshanne via Creative Commons.

It’s a very common myth among Muslims that the more you try to dig about the Jinn, the more they try to approach you. To some, it was hard for them to believe that I picked a topic out of the word of God and crafted a romantic story from of an Islamic concept—a religion which has always been a part of controversy and extremism. Some even asked me if I’ve actually encountered anyone of them. Really, it makes me laugh sometimes. I wrote because I didn’t fear anyone. I wanted my imagination to take a flight and see where it lands. I’ve been hearing this myth since my childhood. If I had feared and believed in that myth, I wouldn’t have written anything at all. Reading made me fearless.

One thing that I’ve learned in my journey of writing is—avoid self-doubt on your story. Always think it is unique and it would hopefully grab a reader. If you doubt on your own fantasy, others won’t appreciate it either. Self-trust and self-confidence is the prime step. Once you start writing, don’t stop yourself fearing if your idea is sellable or not, if others would like it or not. There are always risks in everything so take the risk and let your imagination fly out of your mind. 

Your imagination should not have any strings pulling it back. It should take a flight like a bird, not like a kite. The worst chances are obviously the failure but that should never stop you from writing. It is not necessary that if one person doesn’t like your idea, others won’t. Every brain works differently. Some people find white not to be a colour, but some find happiness in white. 

If you write something just because you want to make money out of it, trust me, it would always lack passion as the fear of failure would come through your words. 

So always write when you are fearless!

Samreen Ahsan is an author of award-winning romance fiction, A Prayer Series, which include A Silent Prayer and A Prayer Heeded. She is a member of BestSelling Reads, and the winner of the Best Romance in 2014 Los Angeles Book Festival.

Follow Samreen on Twitter @samauthorcanada

Guest post: The best and worst of HarryWiddifield

Hi. I'm Harry Widdifield. I've written both as myself and as Sevastian Winters. I don't often do guest posts like this anymore, but on a whim, I decided to put this out there. Maybe you'll see some value in it.

When asking me to do this post, Scott asked me to consider the answers to two questions:

1. What is the best thing I've ever done as a writer?
2. What is the worst thing I've ever done as a writer?

These are both excellent questions, and interestingly enough, it took me about 2.5 seconds to know the answers to both.

The best:

In 1996, I had an idea for a short story about a serial killer who won “the game.” I've always thought of serial killing as a game more than a crime, and figure that we would solve more of them more quickly if police saw it as a game as well. Anyhow, I'd never written anything just for fun before, and so just for fun I wrote it.

Nine years later, after 16 years as an entrepreneur and marketing professional,  I had some time off from my four years as a corporate CEO, and thought perhaps I would turn that old story into a novel.

Before I started writing, I set out to read the classics, thinking that if I did, perhaps I'd learn enough about writing to give ol' Steve King a run for his money. (I call him Steve. He doesn't even know I exist.) When I finished Moby Dick, I figured I had the answer — the building blocks I needed to write my novel. And I asked myself this question: What if the whale was, after all, a cognizant beast, still driven by instinct, but wholly diabolical and completely human? From that thought, My Eyes Face Forward, a book I've never published, was born.

For the next three months I toiled night and day, perfecting my masterpiece, like a blind man painting by number, fully expectant that the Mona Lisa was revealing herself and the secret behind her smile.  (I said I'm not an expert. I didn't say I'm not arrogant. I was even more so then, for I had not yet learned how little I know.) I punctuated my final sentence and rushed my work off to an agent, expecting the million dollar offers to roll in. (Sound familiar? Anyone?)

I quickly found (or thought I'd found) that agents don't know the first thing about good writing, and that they are a rather snotty bunch. But one woman in New York, who has likely forgotten my name, (though I shall never forget hers), Toni Lopopolo, took pity on me. She told me to learn my craft, and she listed the titles of some books I should read:

• Stein on Writing by Sol Stein
• Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King
• How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James N. Frey

Lopopolo (which is a lot more fun to say than “Toni”) told me that those three books were the Holy Bibles of fiction writing and that I should read them and then (my eyes about popped out of my skull on this one) that I should “rewrite” my book! (The nerve of some people. She apparently hadn't gotten the memo about me being a golden god!)

Having been a businessman for a number of years, I surmised that since Lopopolo worked with the big houses in New York, that she was just checking me to see if I could take marching orders. After all, they don't write million-dollar cheques to just anyone! I decided I would play her little game. I would read her little books, make a few edits, and re-submit my work.

I started with Stein on Writing. When I finished reading, I was so astounded by what I'd read, that I immediately read it again, before proceeding on with Self-Editing for Fiction Writers and How to Write a Damn Good Novel. When I finished that, I bought more books on writing craft and then more again. Along the way, I stumbled across a few scriptures of my own, such as Story, by Robert McKee (a Bible for screen writers) Bird by Bird by Anne LaMott and Stephen King On Writing (which was more Apocrypha than Bible, but still valuable) and one that made a huge impact on me despite its tedium, (It's very technical) Techniques of the Selling Writer, by Dwight Swain. (Buy them. Read them, Read them again, and then again. Repeat.)

I read books on writing until after a time, they all started to say exactly the same things. It was then that I sat down at my desk, once again, for the purpose of “polishing” my opus. But…

...A funny thing had happened while I was reading. (Perhaps you have experienced the same thing.) At some point between the time that I punctuated the final sentence of my memo draft on how I'd just “finished” a manuscript and was ready to be heralded onto the world literary stage as a golden god, and the time that I finished reading my first of many stacks of books on writing, little gnomes had invaded my opus, and turned it into a great big, heaping, stinking, embarrassing pile of dung! It was then that I made the choice to truly check my ego at the door and to instead dedicate myself to a lifelong pursuit of learning my craft. More succinctly, the best thing I've ever done as a writer was to dedicate myself to learning my craft. Any writer who doesn't, is just a hack (and that's a fact).

The worst

The worst mistake I've ever made as a writer was to befriend more writers than readers.  Befriending writers rather than readers is a bad choice on several fronts: writers are assholes. Writers aren't readers. Writers have no vested interest in helping each other. Very few writers learn their craft well enough to teach it. Writers are more prone to literary circle-jerks than they are to actually writing.

Writers are assholes — myself included. In fact, I'm as adept at being an asshole as I am at writing. Ask around. I have a pretty solid reputation on both fronts. It sort of takes an asshole to think that the things you have to say are worth charging money for. If you're a writer, you're probably an asshole too — at least if you're any good. Own it.

Despite what you've heard, most writers aren't readers to any real degree. I, for example, can't get past the first chapter of most books I pick up, because most of them are crap. And while there are some amongst us who can't put a book down even when it's crap, for the most part, we writers are more interested in what we have to offer than in what others have to offer. So we're not readers. We're writers.

Writers have no vested interest in helping other writers succeed. Forget what you've heard about camaraderie. Writing is a solitary profession with solitary benefits. We're not all sharing a pie. We all want the entire pie. There's no real value in banding together and doing so is just wasted time and effort that takes away from our singular purpose: writing.

Have you ever watched the contestants trying to build a shelter on “Survivor?” I'm pretty sure they don't select contestants with any experience in basic carpentry. As such, their shelters suck. I'm a journeyman carpenter, so I just shake my head. Writers are much the same. Most writers have never so much as purchased, much less read a book on writing, and yet they all consider themselves knowledgeable on writing. I've actually had someone say to me “My uncle published six books so I ought to know!” My uncle runs dispatch for a trucking company.

Wikimedia Commons

Does that make me a Peterbilt mechanic? Writers get into groups and spend countless hours arguing the merits of their positions on various aspects of writing none of them having the slightest fucking clue what they are talking about. It truly is the blind leading the blind.

The only thing worse than writers fighting with each other over the finer points of writing is writers praising each other for each others' work in literary circle jerks. I've been kicked out of every writing group I've ever been a part of, including some I've started. Reason? If a writer asks for feedback on their work, I tell them the truth.

Oscar Wilde once said: 

“If you want to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise, they'll kill you.”

Wikimedia Commons

That's about right.

Writing groups tend to be about writers looking for accolades rather than criticism. Guess what? Your ability to string words together into a coherent sentence or set of sentences than form paragraphs, chapters, and books, does not rank my praise. I've never learned anything from anyone who told me what a great writer I am. Learning happens when we come to terms with the fact that we don't fucking know everything and that sometimes our very best work is nothing but a heaping pile of dung! (See how I did that? I've lead you right back to the beginning, where I chose to dedicate myself to craft because prior to that my very best work was crap.)

In short, the worst thing I've ever done as a writer was to befriend a whole bunch of writers instead of a whole bunch of readers. If you want to be a writer, do two things:

• Learn your craft
• Steer clear of other writers.

If you follow those two rules, you'll probably do just fine.

See? I told you I'm an asshole.

Author Harry Widdifield enjoys writing both fiction and non-fiction. A self-proclaimed "Teller of Ten Minute Tales," Widdifield loves telling action-packed tales to readers who often don't have more than 10 minutes in a day to read. Widdifield writes novels and self-help non-fiction as well as satirical non-fiction, but his true passion is tales that can be fully enjoyed in ten minutes and then digested for a lifetime. Bon apetit!

Three biggest mistakes that new authors make

A guest post by author consultant Barb Drozdowich

I’d like to thank Scott for inviting me to share some thoughts today. 

I’ve published four books focused at helping authors. They cover a variety of subjects and basically represent needs that I see in my day job,  teaching authors Wordpress and helping them with various social media issues.

Let me start by saying that I love working with authors every day! They create the books that feed my soul and my world would be pretty empty without them. 

I often say that I think that it is sad that we expect authors to be jacks of all trades. Most of the authors that I meet do an incredible job of creating magical stories that we lose ourselves in. It’s not enough, however. As you all know, authors are now expected to wear all the book promotional hats. 

Unreasonable.

That being said, we need to get on task. What do I feel are the three biggest mistakes that new authors make?

In my opinion, the first mistake that many authors make is they do not start building their author platform far enough in advance of publishing their books. 

Ideally, authors should start working on their platform when they start writing their book. I’m not the only one to think this way. The blogosphere is filled with similar advice.

The platform: where the author begins the journey to success.
Photo by Matt Cornock used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical 3.0 Unported License.

I’ll take this advice one step further and suggest that your author platform consists of more than a blog, a Twitter account and a Facebook account. You want to make it as easy as possible for readers, both new and old, to find you. Google is the world’s largest search engine and because of that, Google+ must be part of your platform. You don’t need to understand the specifics of why, just know that Google+ will play a significant role in being found easier in Google searches.

The second mistake that authors make is ignoring the importance of presenting a professional face to the world. 

The look of your blog and the cohesiveness of your branding across your books and your various social media platforms is very important in today’s book selling world. The attitude of “I’m just not very technologically advanced so people need to take me as they get me” doesn’t fly. This sort of author often has a blog that looks like a thrift store.  It has sidebars stuffed with mismatched graphics and no discernible way to easily buy their books, or follow their blog. 

If you want to be taken seriously as an author, you need to find a way look professional. Look at your site. Without scrolling down, can readers follow you on all your social media and buy at least one of your books? Isn’t that one of major reasons why you have a blog?

The third mistake that authors often make is not asking for qualified help for things that they don’t understand. 

Authors take writing classes or go to writing retreats, but are reluctant to get help with the other aspects of publishing a book. Because of that reluctance, they try to do everything themselves, or they ask for help without qualifying the help.  

I find that people who look for help, don’t ask the right questions. It seems logical that you would ask whether a putative consultant knows enough to help you with your particular question — but it’s more important whether that person understands the unique needs of an author? A blog can be a technological wonder, but if you can’t use it, what good is it? 

If you are spending hours struggling with your blog or another part of your author platform, when are you writing? Isn’t it worth your time to get a few hours of instruction or a few hours of help so that you can spend more time on your next book?

Technical help doesn’t need to be expensive and it isn’t hard to find. What may be difficult to find is competent technical help. With the explosion of indie publishing, many people are hanging out a shingle and waiting to take your money. Choose carefully and ask a lot of questions!

Today’s book-selling world is global. You are selling your books to people around the world — not just the people you meet at your next book signing. Make sure that you are prepared to market your books to the world.

Barb Drozdowich

Social Media and Wordpress Consultant Barb Drozdowich has taught at Colleges and Universities, trained technical personnel in the banking industry and, most recently, used her expertise to help dozens of authors develop the social media platform needed to succeed in today’s fast evolving publishing world. She owns Bakerview Consulting and manages the popular Romance Book blog, Sugarbeat’s Books.

She has written four guidebooks in the Building Blocks to Author Success series: 

• The Ultimate Goodreads Guide for Authors
• The Author’s Guide to Working with Book Bloggers
• Book Blog Tours: An Essential Marketing Tool for Authors
• Go Global: Building an International Author Platform that Sells.

Find Barb:

Bakerview Consulting  |   Barb Drozdowich   |  Sugarbeat’s Books

Facebook  |  Twitter  |   Google+

Goodreads  |   Amazon Author Page 

Guest post: How I landed publishers by choosing to self-publish

By Kristen Elise, Ph.D.

Here’s a secret: publishers love the self-publishing author.

When Scott asked me to do a guest post about marketing for newbie novelists, my first reaction was, “I don’t know anything about marketing — I’m a newbie novelist myself.” Then I received two contract offers for my first novel without soliciting them. And it occurred to me that I do know how to market. Even without a book to sell, I have learned how to market my name, and publishers noticed.

Four months ago, I finished The Vesuvius Isotope and began contemplating the next step. I had a choice: I could either learn how to self-publish, or I could learn how to query acquisitions editors and agents. I had no clue how to do either. For several reasons explained here, I decided to self-publish. And it occurred to me that I had just become my own marketing department.

I already had my blog, author site, and other pages up and running. I guess I already had some semblance of a platform. But it was only when I decided to self-publish that it occurred to me just how critical the platform would become: It was now my only connection to readers.

So as I created a self-publishing checklist and started checking its boxes, I simultaneously began boosting my platform. I thought about what I could offer readers that everyone else wasn’t offering. I thought about my target audience and how I could attract them to my site. I thought about how I could develop meaningful connections with people who might one day buy my book. For specific examples of platform-building techniques, click here.

The effort worked: my sites began gaining more readers, members and page views. One of those readers was an acquisitions editor who began asking questions about why I wanted to self-publish. Then she asked for my manuscript and ultimately offered to publish it. Another new reader was an author crazy about his new publisher. He referred me to his acquisitions editor, who ultimately offered me a contract as well.

So I’m now in the uniquely awesome position of choosing how to publish The Vesuvius Isotope. And I would like to reiterate: I did nothing spectacular to get this opportunity; all I did was build the very platform I would need anyway, in order to sell the book.

I cringe when I hear authors say things to the effect that they expect a publisher to do their marketing for them. Reality check: this doesn’t happen anymore.

If you choose to go the traditional publishing route, this means you will solicit agents, typically for more than a year, and if one takes you on, he or she will then solicit the Big Six publishing houses for God knows how long. If you are lucky enough to sign on with one, you are now in the unenviable position of competing with all best-selling authors and the occasional Newbie Novelist of the Year.

If you are that breakout artist, you will have it made. The house will use its muscle to send you on book tours, mass distribute your novel across the globe, translate it into Swahili and connect you with their “people” in the movie business. My sincere congratulations. Please mention my name to your agent.

But if you’re in the other 99 percent, guess what the Big Six will do for you. Nothing. Book tour? Please. They won’t even arrange a book-signing in your hometown. Then they’ll take almost all of your profit. Another reality check: most authors never get royalties, as the publishing house never recoups their expenses. And they need their money to fund marketing efforts for the best-selling authors and Newbie Novelist of the Year.

This grim picture is reality. And that’s why small publishing houses have now popped up all over the place. As a newbie author, these might be your best bet. A small publishing house may take you, a total unknown, because they are also not very well known and they’d like to change that. So they’ll take a shot with you. They’ll sign you on and pay for the publication of your book. They might pay you a small advance. You might even see some royalties.

But these smaller publishers come with a catch. Small houses don’t have the bandwidth to market their authors and titles extensively. They can’t afford to send you on those expensive book tours. They will expect you to do part of the legwork. A large part of it. So they look for authors that are already doing it. They look for authors that have already demonstrated that they're willing to get into the trenches. They look for authors who are already their own marketing teams.

They look for self-publishers.

Kristen Elise is the author of forthcoming novels The Vesuvius Isotope (fall, 2013) and The Death Row Complex (Fall, 2014). A long-time resident of San Diego, she lives in San Diego with her human family and three canine children. To contact Kristen Elise, visit her author site or blog or e-mail kris@kristenelisephd.com.