Sindie Publishing

I keep meaning to write another travel blog post about my time in the Galapagos—and I will, eventually (maybe this weekend—oh, maybe I’ll be good and write and schedule two at once!)—but I’ve been super busy ever since we returned, and that busy-ness will not abate for several more weeks. Why, you ask? It’s good to ask, “Why?” For a writer, it goes along with asking, “What if?”

You’ve heard of self-publishing? How about Indie publishing? Essentially, they’re the same thing. Over the last couple of years, as self-publishing has mushroomed due to the ease of uploading to Kindle and Nook and the like, I’ve asked many an author who’s re-issuing her back list or has had it up to her neckballs in rejections and decided to self-publish, why do they call self-publishing “Indie” (as in independent) publishing? The answer is usually along the lines of (1) “self-publishing” has a stigma attached to it in the writing world, because there was a time when any decent published author would warn anyone who wanted to self-publish that it was a scam, that money doesn’t flow AWAY from the author, it flows TO the author. FROM the publisher. In other words, “self-publishing” was, back in the day when hogs painted their toenails daily and I was beginning to write for publication (way, way back in the day), pretty much equal to “vanity publishing.” That is, when you pay what is essentially a printer to “publish” and maybe even “edit” your book (snort). And when I say pay, people were paying thousands of dollars to print their work. Vanity publishing bad, because it bilks writers out of tons of money in exchange for “fulfilling” their dreams. Vanity publishing bad, because a vanity publisher will publish anything. The idea is for the company to make money, not tell the writer how to fix their prose. And then the writer realizes that no one other than their dog, their dentist, and their next-door neighbor wants to buy their vanity-published book—and the neighbor is lying.

That’s basically the first reason for saying Indie publishing instead of self-publishing. Reason 2? Because Indie publishing is easier to write and say. “It’s ‘Indie’ because I’m publishing independent of a publishing house,” the author says. “It’s ‘Indie,’ because I’m in charge of commissioning the cover, deciding if I want to hire a professional editor and proofreader, if I want to learn how to format my ebooks and trade paperbacks for the various vendors or hire a formatter to do so. It’s entirely under my control. Plus, it’s less letters to type and, let’s face it, it’s easier to say.”

Okay, I get it. But let’s throw a new one into the mix. Let’s call it Sindie Publishing. It’s self-publishing and Indie publishing all wrapped into one—plus it rhymes with Cindy.

Yes, that’s right, I’m diving into the world of Sindie Publishing.

Does this mean I am no longer submitting my work to editors and agents? No. I don’t like scrambling all my eggs in one basket. The eggs tend to drip through the basket slatty things. However, some authors who couldn’t sell to New York to save their lives are doing very well self-publishing in this age of exploding ebook sales. Some writers who couldn’t sell to New York are doing crappy self-publishing, too. The thing is, you don’t know unless you try.

There are those of us who thought ebooks would take off at the turn of the century (and by that I don’t mean 1900). The difference was that, twelve years ago, unless you wanted to be taken for a wagon of cash by a vanity publisher, self-publishing in the ebook world wasn’t an option. Electronic publishers popped up by the hundreds, and writers submitted to these publishers just like we submit to major publishing houses. However, epublishers were more likely to take on a book or a genre (like those in the romantic comedy niche) when New York was saying, No one wants to read romantic comedy, give us some more vampires. The problem? Ebooks didn’t take off. Until Amazon introduced the Kindle, the general readership basically stuck to paper books. Today that’s no longer the case. People are going nuts for Kindle, Nooks, Kobos, iPads, and whatever-else-have-you’s.

My two contracts with Amber Quill Press—for HEAD OVER HEELS and BORROWING ALEX—expire this month. I could have chosen to roll over the contracts, or I could have chosen to request my rights back. Now, I adore Amber Quill. They gave me a chance when no one else would, I’ve had a great relationship with my editor, and I enjoyed having input on cover design. But the books are now each several years old, and while I’ve been writing more romcoms essentially behind the public’s back, they don’t sell to New York. This is why I took a major detour to write humorous erotic romance under a pen name, and why it looks like “Cindy” only publishes every few years. Because she does. Penny’s doing the rest. But I (Cindy) love writing romantic comedy and humorous contemporary romance, and I want to do more of it without stressing about the necessity of an erotic hook. So, to me it makes utter sense to give self-publishing a try. Oops, I mean Sindie publishing.

HEAD OVER HEELS was first published in 2002 by a now-defunct epublisher, and then re-issued in 2005 by Amber Quill Press. My rights revert mid-June. I’m in the process of revising and updating the story to reflect a leaner writing style (although one couldn’t tell it by my blog posts) and kinda-sorta-maybe including aspects of recent technology that don’t F with my plots. I’ve also commissioned a new cover for HEAD OVER HEELS. I received the draft the other day, and I love it! I’ll go into the details of commissioning a cover versus filling out an art fact sheet for a publisher another day. Both have their pros and cons. Just like every step of self-publishing versus traditional publishing has its pros and cons. Again, fodder for another day. For now, I’m looking forward to re-issuing HEAD OVER HEELS and BORROWING ALEX under my own imprint (rights to BORROWING ALEX revert to me toward the end of June), plus Sindie publishing the romantic comedy short story series I’m writing (in between Penny’s obligations).

Because I’m heavily editing HEAD OVER HEELS on the heels of four weeks of no writing, I won’t have it ready for re-issue the day after my rights revert. This means that if you have a hankering to read HEAD OVER HEELS as it was originally written, you’d better buy it now (links handily provided here). If you’d rather read the updated Author’s Cut, then wait until I announce that the third edition is available. Or, hey, you can always do both.

Just because my rights to HEAD OVER HEELS revert to me this month does not mean that the book will suddenly disappear from third-party vendors (ie. any website other than Amber Quill). Amber Quill will stop selling the book on my rights reversion date, or shortly before, depending on what makes sense for them. However, they will continue to pay me royalties for third-party distributors as the royalties come in.

If you’d like to join my newsletter to receive the announcement of the re-issue of HEAD OVER HEELS, there’s a handy dandy newsletter sign-up box in the upper right of my blog. Or join my Faceook page, or follow me on Twitter.

By the way, the return of my rights for both of these books is restricted to the English-language ebook and print editions. My audio rights remain with AudioLark, and both audio books will continue to remain for sale on Audible and iTunes—and I am quite happy for them to do so. All foreign rights for both books are available for sale to non-English-language publishers, with the exception of the Japanese rights to HEAD OVER HEELS and the Greek rights to BORROWING ALEX, which have already been sold.