Original subtitles

[MUSIC PLAYING]

N. K. JEMISIN: Just looking at something with your name on it

that you wrote, that you put out into the world,

and it looks great, that's a wonderful feeling.

And that in and of itself is a great reason to publish.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Now it's probably time for us to start

talking about the actual process of publication

and how to survive as a professional writer

if you decide to dip into these waters.

Now, I've given many talks on this before.

And I've actually created some notes for myself.

So I'm going to be referring to those throughout.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Is it possible for you to become a published writer?

Yes.

It is possible for anyone to publish these days

because the self-publishing boom has sort of

taken over the world.

And you don't even have to be good.

You don't have to write a good book.

You don't have to write a book.

It can be a collection of recipes.

It can be whatever you want to publish if you choose to do so.

Now, that said, if you're looking

to make a career as a professional writer, that's

a different story.

And then we're talking self publishing

is still a possibility there.

But traditional publishing and hybrid models

are something we should talk about.

Now, with the caveat that I am primarily a traditional writer,

we'll talk a little bit about the different ways to break in.

But because I am a traditionally published writer

who has a publisher, I don't do any of my own marketing or book

jackets or anything like that, that's

the main thing I'm going to speak to because that's

what I'm most familiar with.

It's still very possible to break in

via traditional publishing.

And in fact, if you want to do certain kinds of publishing,

traditional publishing is still the best method to do so.

But there's absolutely nothing wrong with self publishing

either.

It's really kind of dependent on what your goal is

and what you're hoping to get out of the publishing process.

I want to warn people at this point

that we're going to do real talk here.

And it's possibly going to be discouraging.

It may be intimidating or uncomfortable.

I want to be honest, though, about your chances

and about the hardships that you're going to face.

And we'll talk positively about, you know, the benefits, too.

But you know, I'm not--

I'm not trying to sell you on the thing here.

I'm actually trying to do the opposite.

If you don't 100% commit to the idea of trying

to get published, it doesn't make sense to try it.

It's a waste of your time.

It's a big waste of money.

And it's a heartbreaker that's kind of waiting to happen.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

So the first question that you want to answer

is whether you want to publish in the first place.

You don't have to publish to be a writer.

You are a writer from the moment that you start to write.

So don't feel like publication is absolutely

necessary for that process.

But there are some benefits and consequences

to publishing that you want to maybe--

maybe consider.

So the pros of publication are that you

get other people to read your work, people beyond just

your immediate family.

But you can disseminate your work more widely

to a larger number of people.

You may be able to have a little income sidelined from this

if you are moderately successful.

You don't have to be wildly successful to get money out

of writing.

You can make a few grand a year out of this, you know, easily.

It may not be enough to live on.

And you may not be able to become a full-time writer.

But you can at least sort of supplement your income with it.

And, ultimately, you get the bragging rights

and the positive feeling of having a book of your own

in your hands.

And I'm going to tell you right now that's a wonderful feeling

to have.

Just looking at something with your name on it that you wrote,

that you put out into the world, and it looks great,

that's-- that's a wonderful feeling.

And that in and of itself is a great reason to publish.

The problems associated with publication

or the-- the negative piece of that

is that you're putting yourself out there.

You're going to put your work out in front of other people.

And those other people may not like it.

And they may tell you to your face that, you know,

this book is not good.

And after you've put a lot of period of your life,

like if you've put like years or months of your life

into writing this book, you've poured your soul

onto this paper, and you--

you care so much about it, hearing somebody

say that this book is not good is kind of like being

told your baby is ugly.

And you know, that-- that's a hard thing to take.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Another good reason that you may want to seek publication

is because you can actually write off

the expenses associated-- associated with this process.

See, becoming published means becoming

a self-employed business person.

You are taking on the risks as well as the potential profits

of becoming an artist who is a professional who makes money

off of your art.

So that means that if you want to travel going forward

in the future, if you decided to do a family vacation,

and you add a component to that vacation that is research,

then you can write off the expenses associated

with that part of the vacation.

And you'll have to have a conversation

with your accountant about it.

If the IRS comes for you, please don't tell them

that NK Jemisin told you to do this because then they'll

come after me.

But you can write off some of that.

And so that's a great way to sort of

make it worthwhile to make that investment and to try.

You also have to consider the fact

that you are a self-employed business person.

And your business might not inherently be successful.

You might not even be moderately successful.

You may write off your losses on your taxes for several years,

and then you're going to hit a cap.

There's-- there's a limit to the number of years that you can do

that.

And at that point, you have to decide if you want to continue.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

So an important question that you

need to ask at the start of the process is,

how do you want to enter the publishing world?

I like to use the metaphor, probably

because I'm a science fiction writer,

of traveling through space as the process of trying

to seek publication.

You need a spaceship to kind of carry you into this place.

It is a hostile environment, the publishing world, just

like space.

And so you want to pick the method of traveling

through this hostile environment that's going to be best for you

and what it is that you're hoping

to get out of the process.

What kind of spaceship, basically,

do you want to fly around in?

Do you want to build the spaceship yourself?

Are you 100% DIY on the spaceship front?

You want to be your own personal SpaceX, whatever

you want to call that.

You know, you're self publishing at that point.

With self publication, as I mentioned,

you're going to have to be doing a lot of different roles.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

If you want to control the way that your book looks,

if you want to make sure that the book art is

exactly what you want it to be, and you want complete control

over, that you want the text to look a certain way,

you want the the type of paper to be a certain texture,

you want to be hardcover, and you

don't want anybody else to tell you that hardcover is maybe

not the best way to start out your career,

then self publishing is for you.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

So there's a couple of good and bad aspects to self publishing

that I can talk about.

First and foremost, you're going to get

to keep 100% of the profits.

When you are published traditionally,

the publisher takes a cut.

If you don't want to give that cut to somebody else,

then fine.

Do self publishing.

Another thing that you have to keep in mind

is that it's a lot more work.

You're not just the writer here.

And you're going to have to wear a lot of hats.

If you have a lot of expertise in a different area,

if as a hobby you're already an artist, a visual artist,

if in your day job you're already

working in PR or marketing, then it

can be a good idea to be a self publisher because then you

can combine your talent for writing with this other thing

that you're already doing.

But if you're going to have to teach yourself

this stuff from scratch, you may not want to--

may not want to go that route.

It may be a lot for you to teach yourself.

And you may not be very good at those other pieces

that you haven't been doing as much as the writing.

Another thing to consider with self publishing

is that you have limited distribution.

It's difficult to sell foreign rights

as a self-published person.

You basically need to be willing to go

to things like the Frankfurt Book Festival in Germany

and to book fairs around the world.

And you need to be able to have a close relationship

with publishers in other countries and other languages.

And that may not be something that the average person

can easily do.

So you're also going to have difficulty

getting into libraries.

There are so many self-published books out there

that many libraries don't even stock self-published books.

They can't.

There's just too many.

And so they limit themselves.

And they're able to make enough room for the books

that they want to-- want to get out there to the public

by limiting themselves to traditionally published books.

So if you want to be read as widely as possible,

self publishing may not be the ideal.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Traditional publishing is hitchhiking on somebody else's

spaceship if you want to think about it that way, you know.

And it can be a small spaceship.

There are lots of small publishers

out there and small presses.

Or it can be know basically a high liner,

or it can be something like a cruise ship among ships

that travel through space.

But what it means is that you're giving up

a certain amount of control.

You're not flying that ship.

So you're not going to be able to, in some cases,

stop them from publishing a book cover that you don't like.

They have marketing people.

And their marketing people have done their own marketing

research.

And they're going to listen to those marketing people

before they listen to you on what that character should

look like.

Now, if you're lucky, and you get a good publisher,

that publisher will obviously want the author

to be happy with the end result of-- of the book.

So they're going to at least run it past you

and ask you what you think about it

and hopefully listen to that.

But at the end of the day, the decision making power

does not lie with you when you've

chosen the traditional publishing model.

On the other hand, the risk doesn't lie with you either.

With self publishing, you keep 100% of the profits

because you put in 100% of the investment.

With flying on somebody else's spaceship,

with traditional publishing, you are not

assuming the bulk of the risk.

The publisher is paying all these other professionals

to help work with you.

The publisher is opening the door with the distributor

by having meetings with them, by wining and dining them,

by establishing years-long relationships with them.

The publisher is sending people to foreign markets

to have conversations with publishers there.

The publisher is opening the doors

with schools and libraries and things like that.

So you-- you don't get 100% of the profit

because all those people need to make money, too.

In that whole chain of--

of traditional publishing, there are literally

dozens of people that are profiting off

of that book as well as you.

But on the other hand, you know, you

don't have to put any initial outlay.

All you do is write a book.

The reason I ended up choosing traditional publishing is

because of a combination of I didn't

want to put that much work in.

I wanted the bulk of my work to be in writing.

Writing is my talent.

It's the thing I love to do.

It's the thing I know I'm good at.

I can't draw a lick, you know.

I don't know how to do marketing.

I know how to schmooze and talk to people and have, you know,

normal conversations.

But I don't speak German.

I am not going to be able to schmooze a publisher in a--

in a foreign language.

So the reason that I chose to do it

was because I wanted to be distributed

as widely as possible.

On a personal note, I grew up reading books

by authors that I absolutely loved at the library.

I spent hours of time at the library when I was a child.

And I wanted my books to be accessible to kids

like me the way that I got exposed

to reading at the library.

And traditional publication was the main way to go to get that.

Also, for me, film rights were a little easier to sell

because I had a traditional publisher.

Now, at the end of the day, anybody

that sees a book in Hollywood can

decide that they want to buy the rights to produce

that book in a film format.

It's easier for people in the movie industry

to find books that have a lot of publisher buzz behind them.

That's that marketing that the publisher is paying for.

A traditional publisher in a lot of cases

is able to get you reviews in really well-known markets

like "The New York Times," which I used to review for.

So they're able to build up a lot of word of mouth and buzz

that will help you get the attention of Hollywood agents.

So if you really want to sell film rights,

if you want to sell any kind of adaptation rights,

be that into a play or some other format,

you need to be out there as widely distributed as possible.