Why I Went Indie

There are two ways I reacted to the recent Guardian op-ed about reasons to not self-publish. (You can read it here.) My first reaction was ouch. Ouch because of the quotation marks around the term “indie publishing.” Ouch because the picture painted of a career I and many others are incredibly proud of, despite the “non-traditional” tracks we took, was being compared to some not-so-flattering things. And ouch because…well…I’ve heard and read this before.

My second reaction was a less emotional one. It was seasoned, likely because of that last point I made above. It was proud because of the truth woven along with the presumptions in the article. And it was inspired to offer a bit of a rebuttal and education because there are probably a lot of people like my past self out there who need the you can to combat the you can’t.  

Let me begin with a short background on how I found self-publishing. I decided to become a writer when I read my first Judy Blume chapter book at the age of twelve. (The book was Forever, for those curious or who haven’t heard me share this story before. Also, let’s just say it was several years ago.) The writing bug became solid after I read The Outsiders. I wanted to write mature young adult stories—ones that dug a little deeper than the books I’d read before. I wanted to create stories that reflected the real world of being young—all the crap, and hurt, and anxieties and battles that feel small to adults but are everything to the young people experiencing them. I also came from a family where you work hard, and you get a job, and earn a living and pay the bills. I had a deep understanding of the value of responsibility, which the life of a writer in many ways conflicted with. I found a way to blend my dream and passion with an 8-to-5 paycheck. I studied journalism. I was a bit of a rock star at it. I won awards. I wrote massive in-depth stories for magazines, and I perfected the art of painful and tedious research. I also learned the power of noting the details and delicately portraying the emotion in real-life tragedies. It enabled me to paint pictures with words and authentically translated important true stories to the masses.

I studied. And while I studied and practiced in one writing world, I imagined and slowly crafted my work in another. But there were a lot of op-eds out there like this one—a lot of tales passed along and shared at author engagements where people I looked up to told me over and over how impossible it was to stand where they were. How lucky they got. How so many people collect nothing but rejections. These warnings, at least that’s how they echoed in my head, flamed my fears. I kept crafting, but my story was quickly becoming a pipe dream. An indulgence. Until the man I married, my very best friend in the world, started convincing me otherwise.

I didn’t want to wait years. I’d put in the time. I’d become damn good at building my kind of cabinet, to borrow the analogy from the Guardian blog post. Most of the stores weren’t really selling my kind of cabinet, though. My stories were long. My genre bent rules. My young adults swore and drank and made sexual mistakes and experienced awakenings. They were, in every sense, the teens I grew up with and once was, and the teens I know exist today.

On the other side of waiting years and hoping someone would understand the need for these stories I had burning in my soul was, to put it in my lingo, a hella-ton of hard work. I got that—that…was not scary. It was just hard work. It was time, and faith in my art, and diligence, and persistence. It was initial expense for something I believed in. It was paying for quality editing, buying or directing emotive images, and yes—it was marketing. But it wasn’t rocket science. It wasn’t brain surgery. It wasn’t some crazy formula I didn’t understand. It was time, and hard work.

It was possible.

Mine happened to pay off. Even if it hadn’t, though, I wouldn’t have done anything differently. If I could travel back in time to visit my twenty-year-old self as she sat in an auditorium hearing all of the reasons she should give up, I’d tell her to get up and leave and start her own thing now. I’d tell her that being rich or famous isn’t the objective so who cares if she makes a work of art that only seventeen people see. I’d tell her that she’s going to be bold and do something different. And while she may not be invited to one party, she’d be welcome in a lot of others. She’d get letters from girls just like her who see themselves in her stories. She’d cry every time she read one. She’d be inspired to write these young adults something new.

Now, don’t take this as anything other than shedding light on points not brought up in the other editorial. There were lots of valid points in there, and I think in many ways praise for the people willing to swim upstream and dare. But it does get some things wrong, at least using myself and a lot of fellow independent writers I know as examples. I don’t think it was really meant to come from a mean-spirited place, despite how it felt. I think it comes from one writer’s journey—a journey that is different from mine.

I’ve heard it before.

I’ve heard it recently.

A colleague and traditionally published YA author was on a panel with me a few months back, and even after complimenting the legitimacy of my book, managed to also tell our audience that when she started she wrote as a hobby, too…like I do. I grimaced inward; she wasn’t thinking through her words as she spoke, and I knew that was the case, but it’s that thinking that ruffles feathers and fuels misconceptions. Independent publishing has come a long way, but there’s still educating to do. These types of conversations don’t happen over independent music and independent film. And both of those types of artists can win Grammys and Oscars.

All of this being said, I am still pursuing a US traditional deal. I have had novels traditionally published in other languages for foreign markets. I want to walk the traditional path from the beginning, though, to experience it and grow from it. More than anything, I want to reach young readers—the mini-me’s out there—who are shopping in the mass spaces and picking up print books from shelves. I want to give them a YA book done my way because I know in my heart they’re dying for it. I know it because I was. And I believe in my work. It’s a damn good cabinet.

Because marketing is important no matter what route you take, I’m adding a little boiler plate to the bottom of this post about me. Ginger Scott is a bestselling and Goodreads Choice nominated author who is willing to push hard for her stories to find the hearts in need of them. One day, you’ll find one of her books in one of the traditional places. She will always be proud of them all. 

 

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My New Year’s-ish Post

For the most part, in general, I’m a mess. Oh, I make it look easy on the outside. But truly, underneath the cool, calm, collected exterior is a scramble of Flintstone car proportions. Let me explain.

In accordance with one of my goals this year, I am keeping up with updating my website, social media, posts and all of that jazz a little better. In accordance with my bad habits, I am a day late for the new year’s post.

You can’t go to A+ student overnight.

So goals, yeah…

Like I said, I make them. I’m a big goal setter. I don’t reach them all right away. This goal in particular has been on the list a few times. I’m sure it will be on the list again. I’m sure I will always fall short. I’m okay with that, though.

And that…falling short, and being okay with it…is another goal this year. In fact, I think this is its first appearance, at least formally, on my goals list. And I’m sure I’ll fall short with it as well, but just putting it there, and acknowledging the fact that some things are just going to have to wait, some other things might not be in the cards, and yet others might come in different ways…this is huge for me. It’s a mental relief – letting go of a burden that screws with my emotions. And I know it will take the full year just to make a dent.

I’m pretty open about talking about my anxieties. I’ve come to learn that anxiety is almost a requirement in the writing world. Maybe you have to have a certain mental tilt to be able to imagine the worlds us writer types create. Whatever it is, my anxieties have had a direct link to my disappointments for years. I think the first time I had a pretty major, full-on panic attack, I was 17 and studying for an AP history exam in high school. A lot of things in school came easy to me, but for whatever reason, history and government didn’t stick. I had to work hard at it, boiling things down, my brain’s inclination to soak up the minutia and miss the big picture. I didn’t score enough to earn the early college credit, and the whole process made me sick with self-disappointment. Looking back through a wiser (aka older) perspective, that class and those credits didn’t matter a lick to the person I was working to become, and certainly not to the person I became. This wisdom didn’t make me any better at failing at things gracefully though, and coping with the impending disappointment.

So, in the spirit of the season, I’m making my first blog post of the year a top-5 list. This is going to be brutal and honest about myself. It’s gonna show some of my ugly parts. It’s a list of my biggest personal disappointments or flaws or frustrations that I’m either going to do something about, or let go, because in the grand scheme of things – this stuff doesn’t matter a lick. It’s all just one big AP history exam.

  1. I cannot put USA Today or NY Times bestseller on a book. It makes my stomach hurt I want it so bad even though it doesn’t really matter. It’s pretty much proven. Readers don’t really care. I still want it, though. If it ever happens, I will cry. A lot. Happy cry. It’s one of those things I’ve dreamt about since I saw the superlative on a King book when I was 12 or 13. I make a living doing something I love, and 99.9 percent of the time that is bliss–it’s enough. But damn that .1 percent. It’s a sense of legitimacy perhaps. It’s an Oscar. It’s the writer equivalent to “bottom of the ninth, two outs, bases loaded, Ginger steps up to the plate.” I’m not going to be able to let this one go. Believe me, I’ve tried. The fantasy creeps right back in. I am, however, going to do something about it. I’m going to write my ass off. Because that’s the only thing I can control. And while it might not happen this year, some year, in the future history of those two media empires, one of them will put a book of mine on a list. And even if I’m 80, you’re all invited to the party.
  2. Trucker hats. Not for my head. I know this seems frivolous and like it doesn’t belong here, but you haven’t seen the collection I’ve accumulated and never worn in public because…it’s not a good look on me. I’m letting this one go.
  3. Here’s a biggie for me–my local indie bookstore doesn’t really make indie authors feel super welcome. It’s ironic, I think. And hypocritical for certain. I won’t say the name because I don’t want to be mean, but I’ve made a few attempts over the last five years to do an event there, put books there, be a part of annual teen events, etc. I usually don’t even get a response. Once I tried to set up an event for charity, and that got strung along for months and eventually I had to go a different route. This store very much still sees a line between books published traditionally and those published independently. Yes, I can consign books there, buy my shelf space, and rent a room for something, but I really would have loved to have been included in the teen day the year I put The Hard Count out. I think a book about racism in high schools is the kind of thing our youth needs, regardless of the method the words appeared on paper. I could go on and on about this because of everything, the subtle “shun” here hurts the most. It’s because this store is sooooo me. I look like I belong in the space. I am their vibe, and I have personally run my fingertips along book spines on their shelves. The love affair started in college. This is one of those things I’m going to have to change expectations on though. I’m not going to let it go. I’m going to chip away and change THEIR perspective. I’m going to work my ass off to educate them, with the help of some fellow local indie authors. And I’m going to be vocal, but kind, when I think they’re missing the point and perhaps missing out on some really hard working authors. This one, I will kill with kindness…and an overload of information and persistence.
  4. I don’t know how to say no. This has been a lifelong problem. I can’t say no to myself. I can’t say no to friends. I can’t say no to acquaintances who I just want to help with a favor. I don’t think it’s all bad. I actually like trying to do what I can whenever and wherever, but…sometimes, I can’t. Or rather…I shouldn’t. I overextend myself, and that has led to a year teetering on exhaustion. This one, I’m easing into letting go of. Sometimes, I am just going to have to say “maybe” instead.
  5. The traditional deal. I don’t have much to say here. It’s a lingering want, a past disappointment, a fear, a future ambition, an ultimate, and so many other things that intertwine with the first four items on this list. (Ok, maybe not with trucker hats.) Right up there with a signing at X book store and a book on a list is getting a deal with a big publisher. This one for me is less about that stamp of approval. It’s about seeing my book on a shelf in a major retailer where teenagers can discover it. Above all, my YA books are the kind I craved more of when I was a teen. I write the kind of stories that I wished were there, and I just know in my heart of hearts there are girls out there like me who want to find them but can’t because they aren’t on shelves. Teens love print. I love that they love print. This one…I’m never giving up on.

There it is. My list. The things in my head I don’t talk about much because I don’t want to seem self-absorbed or whiney or ungrateful. I’m not, I swear. I look at what I’ve had happen over five years and I cannot believe I have been allowed a seat on this ride. But just like Disneyland, I’m expanding the park of my self-expectations. I’m going to phase out the rides that aren’t working and add in a dash of Marvel and Pixar. I don’t really know where I’m going with this analogy, but it seemed too good to abandon. I hope you get it. Beyond any of this, my readers will always come first. Fact is, I need you. Without you, there is no list.

All there is are fucking trucker hats.

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