𝕾𝖊𝖑𝖋-𝖕𝖚𝖇𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖍𝖎𝖓𝖌

is a scary, lonely word

I have been a week on Substack and I love the unexpected likes and follows. The emails of congratulations. The pre-publishing jitters. The mailing list archaeology. Interesting Substacks in my inbox. It's exhilarating. Or perhaps it's just the longing to exchange words with strangers outside of books, or peri-menopause, or a 🅂🅃🄰🄲🄺 of emotions.

Similar to Substacking—a practice I did not know I was going to enjoy—self-publishing is happening to me soon (my first attempt is an English translation of my first novel, Arde Josefina), and self-publishing is a scary concept.

Why am I self-publishing if it is so scary? I tell myself I do it for:

a) control.

b) a readership in other languages.

c) the possibility of a better income as a writer.

Here go my 2 cents.

Control. It’s all about asking yourself questions and paying attention to your own subtle, often unconscious, nods and grins.

If you ask your AI of preference, it will tell you that by self-publishing, you will enjoy increased control: authors retain full creative control over their work, including content, cover design, pricing, and they dictate their own publishing schedule. So why not do it?

I believe the primal fear writers have about self-publishing is prejudice.

Self-publishing is frowned upon in the publishing world, but, is it? By whom? Editors? Other authors? Your mom? Does this model of selection—editors in business structures deciding what goes—still govern literature?

We still need some method to select (God forbid everything written gets published), but…

Isn't it more in the spirit of the times to let it be readers? But aren't authors known to be self-grandiose, delusional, messy, vain creatures with no skills other than writing? Will they be able to see through the complex process of writing, editing, correcting, designing, translating (in my case), marketing, printing, and selling? Are there no professional independent editors, translators, designers, marketing people, printing services, and digital platforms that can help you produce at the highest level without the approval of the establishment? Without the establishment keeping 90% of the earnings?

Who, then, will tell writers that their book is not ready or is badly produced as a marketable object? Who is going to tell them the opposite? That their books are amazing, even when they have been rejected by so many?

Self-publishing possible outcomes:

1. Crash and learn.

2. Take off.

The only unchanging truth about self-publishing is that risk is involved, and opportunities will arise only if you follow through.

Translations. Readers are scattered around the planet.

In one of my many attempts to get my books translated, an agent told me that literary translations dropped drastically after COVID and are not recovering. I felt immediately depressed. As a young person, I really enjoyed reading what we called back then, the Russians. I shared Nordic authors with my father over the years. I love Rumi. A Romanian novelist influenced me greatly. Without translations, I wouldn't have had this. It simplifies the problem, but it’s also true. Reading only ourselves and our neighbors, or just the bestsellers that make it into our language, is not a great way to experience literature.

The argument is the same as the one about control, with the added value of sharing outside your comfort zone. While the mainstream literary translation market is apparently shrinking, a parallel market of editors, translators, designers, et cetera, exists, working as freelancers, just like writers. There is crowdfunding. We can share our work with readers far and close if we assume the risk.

Income. It’s overdue. We deserve it.

At the moment, I am thankful to publish in my mother tongue with Penguin Random House Mexico. My editor is fantastic; they distribute extensively, and it markets our books properly, helps us find readers. et cetera. In many ways, I'm over the moon, but I'm also struggling to make ends meet. If you do not have a ton of books and your work does not sell madly (mine sells well, but not madly YET), traditional publishing pays like shit.

Publishing houses are not entirely to blame. The economic system has forced this market to assign the burden to the authors to keep the machine running, which means we sometimes get 10% of the selling price of our work, and the other 90% goes to keeping the structure.

Given these circumstances, I am exploring a hybrid model. While I enjoy the benefits of publishing in Mexico and other Spanish-speaking territories with my lovely editors and my precarious income, I will try the self-publishing model with my work in other countries in an attempt to (I love repetition) gain control of the process while participating in a wider community, make my work available in other languages, and, if luck strikes, make a living.

We will see together if this approach is useful and why. For now, I can say I am exited and curious about #crowdfunding in #Kickstarter to turn #ArdeJosefina into #BurningJosephine.

For newbies like me, I recommend Reedsy."