Indie Publishing and The Passive Voice

Of course, when I say “passive voice,” I don’t mean a writing style, in which the subject takes a back seat or is completely unknown. You know, like those statements Republicans make when they say that “bombs were dropped on some faraway country…” as if the bombs were dropped by someone or something not under their control.

No, I mean this very cool website that I found recently, written by a guy who is a legal type in real life, but who in his spare time, writes about indie publishing and the publishing industry in general. The site is called The Passive Voice, and it’s very informative. He links to all sorts of other sites, of related interest, and it’s taken up a great deal of my time, but I think it’s well spent. For example I learned more about the Amazon vs Hachette debate, and how that’s going, and also that “we” refer to self-publishing more as “indie publishing” rather than self-publishing most of the time. Indie publishing has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

(I was “told” at a writer’s convention last summer that the term “indie publishing can ONLY be used if the speaker is actually talking about someone who has started up their own publishing firm with the intent of publishing other people’s books and not, never, not nohow, NOT ever when a writer refers to themselves when talking about publishing their own book. Whew!)

According to The Passive Guy and his peeps? Well, the rule seems to be call yourself what you feel comfortable calling yourself, and get on with the next book!

Anyway, The Passive Guy puts up this post, inviting people to comment about how they quit their day jobs going indie. Well I’ve not quit my day job, but I am going indie, so I decided to be brave and talk about what was going on with me. I usually am the one at a party sitting in the corner reading piano music or whatever reading material I can get my hands on, so this was a big step for me. I had two lovely people comment on what I wrote, and I wanted to give a shout out to them for being so nice.

The first person was a woman named Autumn, and she has a very lovely website where she talks about writing and other important things such as living authentically and her strong faith in God; she said my comment made her cry! She seems quite lovely, and you can visit her at her website, autumnmacarthur.

The second person to respond to my comments was a woman named Kay Camden. She had some very supportive and energizing responses, especially that she could understand what I was going through, which made me feel good. Kay writes a new, and vibrant blend of fantasy and romance, which I probably will be checking out, since the description makes it sound like her first book is just as much about the character and the story as it is about the romance part of it. You can visit Kay Camden at her website, kaycamden.com.

As for me, I thought I’d include the comment from The Passive Guy’s site; of course, you can scroll through everyone else’s comments here; I found it to be fascinating reading and very inspiring! Here’s what I wrote:

When I was unemployed (laid off, twice) I thought, somewhat naively, that it would be fairly easy to be unemployed, living off savings, and writing the Great American Novel, and in between times, taking long walks, and having intelligent conversation with other creative types at the local coffee shop.

However, I learned that it wouldn’t be that easy. The mindset of being unemployed makes it somewhat difficult to feel good about having every hour of every day at your discretion. At least the second time around, I was more prepared and did finish the novel, and self-pubbed it, and was fairly pleased with myself.

Although, to be honest, I did think there would be a little more fanfare when my book came out – my first book! I’m not talking a parade, but, the book didn’t take off and zoom off the charts. Yes, I got very favorable reviews, so very many stars and terrific feedback, which was my favorite part, truly, that readers liked it.

Okay, yes, I wanted that ticker tape parade, with me riding in a baby blue Cadillac convertible (thank you Lucille Ball!), and everyone cheering and waving because the Girl Who Didn’t Know What Sentence Fragments Were, has now used them judiciously and with aplomb! But that never happened. So instead of writing the Next Novel, I slipped into a haze of confused thoughts and lack of focus: Was that it?

Indeed it was.

I’m still struggling with that; it has less to do with story ideas (those are easy, right?) but with the flame, which once burned hot within but which has drifted down to sad, grey coals. The letdown was immense, the lack of joy palpable.

So, after far too many months, I struck myself out of my own rut, and started reading Joe’s Blog, and found The Passive Guy’s Blog, and other blogs, and the flicker seems to be building.

That indie publishing is a growing and strong thing, with such advisers at the helm who have shown me how they cut through the crap of the Old Ways of Old Men, who are hanging on to the outdated modes of the publishing industry with their darkly veined hands – this makes me quite proud and gives me energy.

I now have a five year plan (to be lavishly supporting myself by writing books), and I have books to write. I have learned that I will be going to the coffee shop with myself, and that’s okay. (I did meet up with a fellow writer who is in the same spot that I am, and my pleasure at discovering a kindred soul is very fine indeed.)

And what helps is hearing of other people’s stories, such as in this post, and struggles, to know that I’m not alone, to know that there are others out there who have picked topics and genres and who are telling stories that are not The Flavor of the Month, and in fact have never been the flavor and never will be. But they are stories that need to be told, just the same.

So that gives me hope. I write about orphans, Dickensian orphans, and their struggles and hardship, and at the end, there are golden and rose colored sunsets, or grey sunrises flecked with silver, so that my characters can walk into them, and feel proud for having survived. Who reads that? Nobody, that I’m aware of, at least not generally. There are no mysteries to be solved in my stories, no steam punk, no Real Person From History that comes into Chapter Five to give the story a sense of verisimilitude. I just have orphans, grimy and underfed, the underdog of a society determined to keep the little guy down, as if he were to blame for his own sufferings. That is my story, and that is what I’m writing about. A friend of mine once told me, “Do your own work; only you know what that is.”

There might not be parades, but there will be orphans.