The unspeakable outside the gates

I recently read a mostly excellent blog post about all the scammers preying on indie authors. The post and others I’ve seen like it address a very real menace to writers that’s akin to scammers who prey on other desperate folk. I’m here to help you. You got a life savings? Here. Give it to me and I’ll help you.

The greater problem, though, is this activity is taking place in a wild-west world of indie publishing where the unspeakable is going on, in plain view but denied by nearly all. And if the unspeakable is going on, there sometimes are only shades of difference between those who sincerely are offering to sell help, albeit in unsavory business, and outright criminals.

I fret that this particular post I read, as with many like it I’ve read, might not account for the unspeakable. I’ll get to that.

It seems to me that the viewpoint of indie authors struggling just to sustain, never mind thrive, is very different from the viewpoint of authors who’ve achieved any kind of standing in traditional publishing. It’s the world outside the traditional publishing biz gates, and the world inside.

Naturally, there is an unfortunate and complicating disparity between the reality that almost anyone can write, and the reality that traditional publishing can only accommodate so much. Thus, the gates.

Yet the next step in logic seems to be: good writers who work hard, study the industry, stay dedicated, pay attention, and settle for nothing less than venerable agents, publishers and associated businesses, they’ll get in. The worthy should eventually succeed. This strikes me, and I think many of us, as a painful myth. The corollary is that scammers prey mainly on the weaker, careless, or foolish members of the author horde outside the gates. This assertion adds insult to injury.

Is it possible that indie publishing is so ripe for scammers because the traditional publishing model is broken—overwhelmed and no longer (if ever) capable to sort the horde of authors outside wanting in?

This is not about the false hope of the unworthy. At least I must hope not.

Authors’ faith, confidence, and patience are not inexhaustible. For far too many indie authors, options fall away over time. Failure looms. Forbidden temptations grow like hunger. Engaging pay-to-play publishers, or paying seemingly unjustifiably for consultants, conferences, classes, seminars, agent pitches, editors, promotors, awards, reviews, and organizations: these are options that many indie authors, even good ones, choose of sound mind—out of resignation rather than ignorance.

I have read books by many other indie authors that are excellent, better than many of the books I’ve read from traditional publishers.

I like to think I’m pretty typical, though my books are far from profitable.

Yet, for some reason, I—like most indie authors—plod on. I continue writing enough to keep my sock drawer full of manuscripts, regardless of whether they will ever leave that place.

While I plod, like many indie authors, I’m inundated by pitches from various pay-to-plays, promotors, and other predators. None of these who operate outside traditional publishing is anybody’s first choice. But out here, we don’t have a lot of options. We have to believe there is a bell curve stretching from not-all-that-bad through less-than-ideal to criminal. Out here, we have to believe that there is good in at least some of them, and we must be willing to accept the bad as part of the deal. For many of us, they’re the best options left.

Now let me speak of the unspeakable:

Outside the gates, indie authors buy readers. That’s our reality, even if we don’t like to say so out loud.

We’re offered plenty of anecdotes of indie authors who spent enough money to buy the marketing momentum necessary for big sales and actual profits. Lord knows that is central to the pitch from every predator. But is that prospect likely for one in two? One in 10? One in 100? One in 1,000? I don’t think most of us believe it’s more likely than not, even going in. So our final questions become: how much can an indie author afford to spend to print a book and buy readers? and which businesses service that most cleanly?

I can do math. I know that my royalties from each book, audiobook, or ebook sold cannot cover what I must spend to sell it, unless and until my sales reach a type of perpetual motion, continuing on without, or with only nominal, more investment from me.

We can never know how much we must spend to reach that point, or if we ever can. But no one else will spend that promotional money for us. Outside the gates, only the indie authors can do that. So, if we want to make money from our books, we keep spending on marketing, advertising, promotion, etc. until we do. And until we do, we can’t even ever know if there really is a pot of gold at the end of our rainbow.

It’s that simple. It’s that hard.

There are any number of businesses where, in starting up, the business owner must spend more on marketing and advertising than sales of product or service can actually cover in revenue. They must deliberately operate in the red. They must do this until they, too, achieve a sort of perpetual motion of sales. Are they buying customers or clients the way indie authors buy readers? Damn right, they are.

There must be untold thousands of us indie authors who only lose money on every book sold. Whether those losses net out at most of the bare-minimum author’s upfront publishing and continuing marketing investments of, say, in the $3K-5K per-publication range; or the widely advised $10K-20K per-publication; or more, as I’m certain happens; the numbers seem relative only to what indie authors can individually afford or have the balls to spend.

I dunno. I don’t personally have the financial resources to pursue a rainbow to its end. Maybe that saves me. Maybe that condemns me. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t if I could.

And yet, I plod on. I continue to write as if the next one will make it worthwhile. Unlike most business owners, we indie authors can continue to produce product even if we’re not selling a damn thing.

So, considering what we indie authors know, it must seem inexplicable, maybe inexcusable, that we do what we do—unless the pot of gold we’re chasing isn’t money.