There are also those middle of the night inspirations, the ones where the GREATEST ideas in the world come. All of them, without exception, are atomized by morning mist. Nighttime inspirations, like vampires, can’t endure daylight, so I started taking a pad and pencil to bed. I’d place them conveniently on the nightstand beside me. Sure enough, I got one of those amazing insights and this time, since I was ready, I clicked the pen top and wrote it down — very precisely — letter-by-letter. Now I could return to sleep with full knowledge that the idea, unlike an uncaptureable lightning bolt, was  secured safely in ink.

I was so excited the first time I did it. I woke up anxious to read the revelation given to me so I could change the world. It said, “Hi goberdobink.” Hi goberdobink, was that it? Was goberdobink my precious gift from my subconscious? This was my great revelation? I could have cried, but I didn’t. After all, I reasoned, this was my first attempt; no one gets it right on the first try. Be patient and it will get better. That is what I said to myself to rally the ol’ gumption drive inside.

It’s a funny thing about writers; we use words to talk people into believing the most outrageous things. We can convince them of the existence of time travel, other worlds, and fantastic beings.  Instead of hating us for deceiving them, the better we are at weaving beautiful invisible fabric out of air, the more respected we become. Isn’t that amazing? If you make up stuff in a court of law, you go to jail. If you make up stuff and write it down, people will praise you for it, but only if you do it well.

Where’s the danger? We all know the danger. The writer who comes to believe that their imaginary creations are real, is ready for a fall. Can you say cuckoo?

Stephen King, for example, can, and does, create horror out of the most benign things. In the book, Thinner, a berry pie became a terrifying sinister object. How does Stephen King maintain equilibrium when even dust bunnies (from Delores Claiborne) are malevolent? Wouldn’t you think that he would be as neurotic as hell? He must see evil intent in everything.

Speaking of Stephen King, his book On Writing, which by-the-way isn’t frightening, unless your dreams of equaling his achievements leave you dangling over a cliff when you realize where you are in comparison. But enough about me. In the book he writes about finding your muse. His, apparently, is a cigar chomping little guy who flies around his desk and taunts him. Mine is an impatient, flirtatious nymph I call Fickle Jenny. I even wrote a poem about her:

Fickle Jenny

by Bill Ruesch

Fickle Jenny, she’s my muse,

wakes me up when I try to snooze.

If I take a shower, she barges in,

at the oddest times creates a din.

“Write it down!” she shouts at me.

“OK Jenny, can’t you see

I’m up to my neck in crocodiles?

Goodness, Jen you’re such a trial.”

“Yes, but you love me anyway.”

If I don’t act now, she doesn’t stay.

That great idea like grain of sand is

forever scattered on a stretch of land.

Once it’s gone, it won’t come back.

It’s not like you slide it in stack

and wait for a more convenient time

when you’re ready to start the mine.

What was that gem that Jenny brought?

Too late kid, what was — is not.

I can beat my head until it hurts,

wring my hands like laundered shirts.

“Too slow, pal, you had your chance.

This Jenny-girl has gotta’ dance.”

She disappears without a sigh

and takes my idea to some other guy!

In my last post, I tried to make a distinction between vanity publishing and self-publishing. I also tried, with limited success, to convince the readers that the very word vanity is insulting. What I don’t understand and I hope someone will explain it to me, is why authors, particularly those who paid their dues and know how difficult it is to succeed in publishing, would want to continue labeling other authors with the demeaning term vanity.

Just because an author wants to print and distribute a book to a limited audience doesn’t make them vain.  Family histories, poetry, even cookbooks usually come about as a labor of love. I thought about Love Publishing as a possibility and then decided it would probably be misinterpreted as an euphemism for romance or sex.

Instead I suggest that we re-name this type of publishing as limited. Limited Publishing instead of vanity is kinder, and really more accurate, don’t you agree?

2. Self-Publishing

New authors are vulnerable and there are plenty of people just waiting to fleece them. Whether they are wolves or knaves doesn’t really matter–the point is RUN away from them as fast as you can.

I have nothing but scorn for those publishing businesses that prey on the dreams of new authors to tap their wallets and bleed them dry. There is an abundance of trip-ups and traps in alternative publishing. One tip-off is praise that is too lavish. Once they say the book will only need light editing–watch out.  Stephen King in his Author’s Note at the end of his recent book Dome, wrote “Nan Graham edited the book down from the original dinosaur to a beast of slightly more manageable size; every page of the manuscript was marked with her changes.”  If Stephen King requires heavy editing, what do you suppose a fledgling author might need?

Many claim that they will produce your book and market it through catalogs or other means.  Authors write to me about using these services and discovering, too late, that they are just a number, a notch in the publisher’s belt. After signing on the dotted line and paying their fees they were turned over to employees with questionable skills.  One author told me that when speaking with a graphic designer she was told to peruse clip art and select her own graphic for the cover.

This author sent me a copy of her book. I read it cover-to-cover because I wanted to know for myself if it was a worthy book. It was. It was an excellent book. The cover art, however, violated all of the basic rules of good graphic design. It utilized four different type fonts, and the graphic was a small smiley face. The design fought the intention of the book. The book’s message was serious and the cover was silly. There were other problems with the inside layout too. So the author paid good money to get her book produced and she should have kept it in the bank instead. Remember no one will buy your book if they can’t get past the cover.

Don’t, please don’t, place your precious manuscript into the hands of publishing grist mills who hire the incompetent, the unknowledgeable, or inexperienced just to keep their costs down.

A bargain price should be your first tip-off. When they offer you a special deal or are having a sale, run the other way. These companies do not care about you or your book, their only concern is that you give them money and they produce it as cheaply as possible so they can maximize their profits.

If your ultimate goal is to someday sell your self-published book to a traditional publisher, you won’t impress anyone if your book appears to be sub-par. Doesn’t your book deserve the best chance of success you can give it?

Those who decide to self-publish can hold their heads high, because they are counted among some of greatest authors in history. Below is but a partial list of authors who have chosen to self-publish at sometime in their career.

• William Blake, Ken Blanchard, Robert Bly,Lord Byron, Willa Cather, Stephen Crane,
  
• e.e. cummings,  Alexander Dumas, T.S. Eliot,Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Benjamin Franklin,
  
• Zane Grey, Thomas Hardy, Nathaniel Hawthorne,Ernest Hemingway, Robinson Jeffers,
  
• Stephen King, Rudyard Kipling, Louis L’Amour, D.H. Lawrence, Anais Nin, Thomas Paine,
  
• Tom Peters, Edgar Allen Poe, Alexander Pope, Beatrix Potter, Ezra Pound, Marcel Proust,
  
• Carl Sandburg, Robert Service, George Bernard Shaw, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Upton Sinclair,
  
• Gertrude Stein, William Strunk, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoi,
  
• Mark Twain, and Walt Whitman.

Note: The list was pulled from John Kremer’s Self-Publishing Hall of Fame

If you don’t find at least one of your heroes here I would be very surprised. Also you may have noticed that quite a few poets populate the list. Modern poets complain that publishers aren’t interested in their books. It’s said that poetry doesn’t sell. Compared to a fast paced pop-novel of sex, violence, and action they are probably right. I have to keep reminding myself that publishing isn’t primarily about getting the finest works into the public’s hands–it’s a profit generating business like a grocery store. If the stock isn’t turning it is costing money. I, like many others, tend to glamorize the traditional publishing houses and imbue them with a nobility they just don’t have. It’s a business. Poetry, on the other hand, is something else. Poetry is a work of passion, not business. Publishers probably weren’t any more anxious to publish poetry then than they are now and that is why so many poets had to resort to self-publishing.

The Old Man

One of my readers added this comment about self-publishers: “For me all I had to do was find out that Hemingway’s first book was “self-published,” to help me make my decision and after 32 years of “practice” I feel I did it just right. And then later this year when I found out about Mark Twain’s force of ten thousand book agents scattered across America selling his works and Ulysses S Grant’s Memoirs (also published by Twain’s company which was run by his young nephew Webster).” Miles Cobbett, Author the Alaskan book CHAMPION.

Miles followed up with this comment in another post: “One more tasty tidbit about Hemingway and his publisher, that I bet you already know is his lively discussions in letters between him and Charles Scribner about Royalty Payments. I was fascinated to read in copies of Hemingway’s “Letters” that CS only offered to pay Ernest Hemingway 10 % of the net. And Ernest wrote back in a lively letter that he wanted 15 % or a Minimum of 12.5 %…
This was fascinating to me, especially when I read in the other book I wrote to you about, (Birth of a Salesman), how Mark Twain offered and paid U. S. Grant and his widow, a whopping 70% of the profits from publishing Grant’s Memoirs.”

I have more sympathy for the traditional publishers than you might think from reading my posts. They have to have highly tuned crystal balls to foresee the future. If they choose to take a gamble on an author, and it tanks, what do they lose? Why the entire investment, of course. And what about credibility? What happens to the employee who stands behind a book bomb? Or two, or three? Can you say pink slip?

If you know your book will sell–you stand behind it. Raise the money to print and promote it. You might be like my friend Miles Corbbett whom I quoted above. His self-published book CHAMPION is selling well and he owes it all to word-of-mouth advertising. Miles has this to say about his success: “Getting the word out has been a fun & challenging journey, but it’s all been done so far without any help from a Madison Avenue super advertising blitz.”

If you are a self-publisher, considering self-publishing, or a supplier to self-publishers be sure to check out the manifesto for The Red Hen Association of Self-Publishing Authors, Inc. (click here).

Mark Twain had an army of ten-thousand salesmen peddling his books all over the country. He understood the principles of marketing as they applied to his time. Today’s marketing is different and requires an understanding of blogging, social networking, books on Amazon, etc. You can get that information from The Author Platform (TAP). It’s not free but almost click (here) for more information. If you can sell your book yourself you’ll earn 15 times more than if you traditionally publish.

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This article was republished with permission from the author’s blog Talking Through My Hat.