Being Open to Change in Your Writing Career (a guest blog)

My teen daughter’s swim coach has a list he gives his teams called The Habits of Mind. The point of using it in sports is to get each athlete to change their thinking and consider a new way to approach their sport. Coach is known for constantly telling his swimmers, “You need to change your thinking.” I could have used Coach’s admonishment three years ago when I was stubbornly waiting for the next contract to come along.

The only option I could see was to get published through a legacy publisher again or to give up on publication. I didn’t want to think about doing it any other way. Considering the tough times the publishing industry was going through, I had pretty much set myself up for failure. So, even as several of my publishing friends were busy taking matters into their own hands by self-publishing, I refused to change my mind about any other publishing method beyond traditional publishing.

To be fair, indie publishing hasn’t always been what it is now, so my reasons for waiting weren’t all bad. There were a few good pioneers self-publishing and doing it well, but there were enough poorly written works flooding the market that I had reason to pause and consider. Where my thinking was off was how I told people I would never go out on my own in lieu of traditional publishing, and you know the old saying about saying never.

I finally let go of never and changed my thinking earlier this year when I began to see huge strides in the industry. Terms like hybrid and indie took hold and well-respected authors started going rogue, as they say. I started to wonder why, when I had the experience of two legacy books under my belt and three unpublished books waiting for an audience, was I sitting back and letting other authors have all the fun – and maybe the money too. I changed my way of thinking.

If my mind had still been closed to anything besides legacy publishers earlier this year, the opportunity to sign up with an up-and-coming publisher would have passed me by. Of course, I did not jump right in. I’m still more of a toe dipper than a diver, or even a swimmer, but I wanted to be part of the indie scene to get my stories out to my readers as soon as possible. My only problem with self-publishing was that I didn’t feel ready to do everything on my own. For one thing, I looked at what my friends were doing and didn’t think I had the time or talent to handle all the editing, uploading, and designing self-publishing requires. And call me a snoot, but I also still wanted a stamp of approval that says, “We have vetted this book, and we are going to publish it.”

The opportunity to step out of my own box and take charge of my career without self-publishing came in the form of a digital publishing company that also publishes some print titles through print on demand. The way this opportunity arrived was that I had written a blog post about how I had begun to change my way of thinking about indie publishing and my long-time author friend, Amy Sue Nathan, read it, contacted me that day about this company she had been editing for, and told me I should check them out. I would still have to submit my writing, and they could reject it, but if accepted contracts were more favorable to authors who retained more control over their careers. When my manuscript was accepted, the gate I had locked against trying anything new in my career swung wide open. And all because I had started to think differently about my writing career prospects.

Like other independent authors, I am still very involved with almost all aspects of my book and responsible for a great deal more than I am with my legacy publisher, but I like being able to take charge of my career. If you want to be indie, but aren’t sure about self-publishing, you should definitely consider submitting to a smaller press. I don’t know why this option of submitting to smaller, full-service independent and digital presses isn’t talked about as much as self-publishing when we discuss going indie or becoming hybrid authors. Maybe it is because there is still a gatekeeper to get through, but to an author like me, it was worth giving it a try. If I hadn’t, my readers might have never been able to get their hands on my latest novel.

Whatever you do, try looking at your career in a new way. Allow yourself to think about what you could do to change your career. You aren’t as powerless as you think.

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Tina Ann Forkner is a Women’s Fiction writer. Her latest novel, Waking Up Joy, just released from Tule Publishing Group. She is also the author of two other novels, Ruby Among Us and Rose House, from Random House. Tina is a substitute teacher and makes her home in Wyoming. Connect with her at www.tinaannforkner.com or @tinaannforkner on twitter.