In 2022, I finally satisfied a long-held curiosity and desire by self-publishing No Perfect Time. I ended up enjoying the experience so much that I did it again later that year with Four Weeks. They were originally both ebooks only, but then in 2023 I also made them available in paperback.
As I said throughout that year, I had a great experience, and I learned a lot. I even established my own little imprint to make the books with which I take this route a little more official.
My next book is going the traditional route: The Unintentional Interim will be published through The Pilgrim Press sometime in the next year. This particular project seemed worth pursuing through more established channels, and I’m happy that my colleagues at Pilgrim agree.
I’m certainly not finished with indie publishing, however. In fact, I have big plans for my Pine Candle imprint going forward. And I think that I have worthwhile reasons to keep going this route, some of which I explain here. But a recent reflection by Ryan Doughan also explains it well:
For years, literary agencies, and then the publishing companies themselves, have functioned as the gatekeepers, deciding what was good enough for publication or not. I don’t mean to demonize publishing companies in anyway with this. There are a finite number of books any company can produce, and more than that, as I stated before, authors and publishers function in a business partnership. Assuming you want to make money and stay in business, you’re only going to go into business with someone whose products you believe will sell.
And later:
If an author doesn’t make a magical splash in their first few months, their book is dead, and what’s worse, at that point they don’t even own the rights to their book to pick up the shattered pieces and try again. They signed away those rights with the heaven-sent book contract that they so fervently sought. An indie published book stays in print forever. You don’t have to worry about the publisher cutting their losses if you haven’t been fully discovered immediately.
I had no illusions about No Perfect Time or Four Weeks being picked up by a traditional publisher. They weren’t safe enough bets for the gatekeepers to consider, so I didn’t even bother. Instead, I bypassed what would have been a months-long process of repeated rejections and just did the damn thing myself. And now they exist in perpetuity because I did so.
Aside from The Unintentional Interim, I do have another writing project in the works. It’s far different than anything I’ve published so far. It might have a decent chance of being picked up by a traditional publisher, but I’m not feeling it. I like the idea of retaining the rights to this particular work, as it’s quite personal to me. And I don’t want it to languish in publishing purgatory for a year, nor do I want to subject it to the whims of someone else’s business decisions.
Instead, I’m planning to bypass all that and hand it directly to readers as soon as I’m comfortable. For this project, it just feels right. Whether that will be later this year or sometime in 2025 remains to be seen.
But I’m certainly not finished with indie publishing. I’m just getting started. I’ve decided that I like doing it too much.
Jeffrey A. Nelson 