Scribes & Archers

For a while now, I’ve noticed that a lot of authors in the indie community seem to be afraid of traditional publishing for one reason or another. While I fully believe that that traditional publishing path is not for everyone (I don’t think it’s for me, as a general rule), I do believe that we should think clearly about both publishing routes and choose one because it’s truly the best fit rather than because we’re afraid of the other! Today, I have K. Orme on the blog to dispel some of the fears that tend to crop up around traditional publishing, to further the informed choice between traditional, independent, or hybrid publishing. I hope you enjoy and find her article informative!

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I have spent the last seventeen years learning my writing craft and studying publishing trends, deciding which publishing method is right for which of my books. Publishing has come a long way since then. It’s come a long way since I studied publishing in college, which was a course I took for my degree. (Officially, I have a BA in History and a Minor in Creative Writing, though I have enough credits to count for a second BA in English/Creative Writing, though it is unofficial.) And that’s only my college education. This doesn’t account for the multiple classes outside of college I’ve taken hosted by conferences and online colleges leading up to this point.

Suffice it to say, I know a little about the publishing industry and have seen trends come and go, as well as pervasive fears about what publishing can look like. And here I am, your resident overthinking author, to give you a little calming moment to set your mind at ease if you’re afraid of traditional publishing.

First, let’s define some terms.

Traditional publishing is a method of publishing by which an author, via an agent, is picked up by a publishing house (such as Random House and their imprints, for example). The publishing house does the heavy lifting with the editor, cover designer, formatter, some marketing, and various other street team things. This should cost the author generally nothing, as the agent makes their fee from a portion of the advance you receive. (You are more likely to receive an advance than royalties in trad publishing. This is a lump sum at once as opposed to a constant stream of money.)

Indie publishing is when the author either uses a small publishing house that does not require an agent to be seen or owns their own house (or buys their own ISBNs). If the author is picked up by a small independently owned press by someone else, the editing may be part of the deal, or they may need to outsource their own editor. Furthermore, if the author owns their own house, everything is on them. By far, this is the most expensive way of publishing a book, because you are generally footing some part of the bill to pay the indie house to help publish your book, with the expectation they will help market you and you’ll make that money back. And even if the author owns their own house/ISBNs, it’s still very expensive, because they outsource editors, formatters, cover artists, so on, so forth, and then do all the marketing. But generally, you have more creative freedom if you do it all by yourself.

I cannot speak for an indie press that publishes other authors’ books, but the idea is that indie presses in general give authors more creative freedom.

Thus, the number one fear I’ve seen across Facebook writing groups and other writing groups, in-person and otherwise, is that traditional publishing strips the author of their agency and creative freedom, and will force a (generally religious) author to write things they don’t want to write.

And this just isn’t the case. In all my years of being in the traditional and indie publishing worlds (which I must say are not separate, but a nice Venn Diagram—mmm, I love diagrams…) I have never seen an author being forced to write something with a value set they don’t align with.

If a publishing company wants to publish a book with a certain theme/plot/character, they are going to find a book with that theme/plot/character that they want and not find something that maybe vaguely fits what they want and then force a writer to give them what they want. It’s just not how they operate.

I believe all of the writing conferences I’ve been to have actually been what would be considered “secular” and all the agents and editors actively advocate for their authors. That’s what their job is. They want their author to succeed.

Just like you can deny an edit from an editor that you outsource yourself, you can also decide not to apply an edit that your editor or even sensitivity reader from a publishing house gives you. It’s not a make-or-break. They won’t drop you.

It’s what contracts are for. I know contracts may seem Faustian, but really, all they are for is to make sure both parties, (in this case, the author and publishing house, or the author and agent) are going to uphold their ends of the contract. (Payments. Rights. Values.) An author can put into their contract that they won’t write certain things (smut, for example) and if the publishing house suddenly is like “You must write the smut!” (which, they won’t. But, for the sake of the example, bear with me), the author just needs to point to their contract. If the publishing house forces them, then there could be a breach of contract. Which could be a lawsuit.

That’s not a suit that looks good on anybody.

Contracts are nice. If you are truly afraid of being forced to write against a value set, put it into a contract. Work it with an agent or a lawyer who works with authors. I think too often in fiction, contracts are seen as traps, but as a person who has collaborated with multiple lawyers both for my work and in my personal life, it’s just a way of life. Nobody wants to trap you. I promise.

Here are two anecdotes about authors about value sets, and creative freedom in trad publishing.

The first is one I heard from Mekisha Telfer, the editor who worked on To All the Boys I Loved Before, during a panel at a SCBWI in 2018. She takes on a lot of LGBTQ+ sorts of books (moreso now than at the time of the anecdote) and that sort of value set. In this instance, she was working on a book where the author had her main character “come out” to their friend group. The friend group embraced the friend with open arms and “came out” as well. She actually said this was unrealistic, and to take away some of the acceptance, for the sake of the plot and tension. Which was great writing advice. If the main character never faces any opposition, where’s the story? I’m sure the author wanted a positive YA LGBTQ+ book, but now had to think critically about which characters would naturally have to accept or deny the main character’s way of life. I don’t remember what the author chose to do. But I do know that the author wasn’t forced to do anything, just to think critically about their plot. That’s all they were required to do.

The second anecdote is about an author named Sophie Lark, who did not decide to apply edits that sensitivity readers mentioned. Book became published. So… while this is an interesting sort of topic. It’s a hot topic actually. Without weighing in on the topic of whether or not Ms. Lark should have applied the edits, Bloom Books still published her book. I wanted to mention this one, because of the creative freedom Ms. Lark retained within the trad publishing world. I do not wish to engage on whether or not she should have applied the edits that were presented to her by the sensitivity readers.

I do want to mention for a moment now, how to get rid of these pervasive fears that plague authors stepping toward publishing their books.

Fear breeds fear. If you are finding yourself in a writer’s group that is constantly drumming fear around certain publishing paths (there is also an undercurrent of fear in the indie world), and they cannot be reached through critical thinking, or conversation without cyclical arguments, or without the “I heard it from my cousin’s sister’s mother-in-law’s coworker’s friend’s daughter’s teacher’s college volleyball coach that ‘this one thing’ happened,” it may be time to find a new group with people that can help you find the correct path for your project. You need to find a group with people from all sorts of publishing paths, and all stages in their writing journeys to help you figure out where to go.

Publishing is not an absolute path. There is no right or wrong. It is the right option for a particular project at a certain time. For my book, Pondered in her Heart: A Novel of the American Revolution, while, yes, I did have various “value set” creative freedom fears at the time (due to the constant drumming of fears of a writer’s group I was in at the time of drafting it), I decided it was best to take it the indie route for various technical reasons, such as the multi-genre aspect, branding, so on, so forth.

Did I look into traditional? Yes. Did I decide on indie for that book? Yes. I have other projects I have set for trad publishing tracks and others for my own ISBNs that I had purchased in the bundle. And that is fine. No author or agent or publishing house will look at me sideways. (In fact, the aforementioned Bloom Books apparently loves finding and publishing previously indie published authors.)

You’re not limited to one type of publishing for the rest of your life.

Lastly, I highly recommend joining organizations and going to conferences. You can join the ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers) or Realm Makers and go to their conferences. You can check out the SCBWI (Society for Children’s Books Writers and Illustrators, which has everything from ‘secular’ to ‘Christian’ books.) Historical conferences. Find your niche. Find your organization. Join. Check your libraries. Go to classes and small conferences. It’s your gateway into the publishing world, to see what it is like. And it’s eye-opening as well as anxiety-relieving.

The first conference I ever went to was when I was a sophomore in college, when I was nineteen. It was a small convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and it had all sorts of authors, from science fiction to thriller and mystery. I was… by far the youngest writer there (I was unpublished at the time) and everybody was so welcoming, even the “scary” editors who were just exceedingly good at their jobs, who regarded writing so highly as an art. I got to see the trad publishing world for the first time there.

Here’s another anecdote I’ll leave you with. I was talking with illustrator Pat Cummings at a SCBWI conference, as she signed my art book. She asked me how my meeting with Mekisha Telfer went, and I said “oh, it went amazingly. She loved my story. But she doesn’t think it’s actually a YA but a NA or an Adult novel” and she looked at me weirdly and said “you don’t need to agree with that. You can take it to another editor or another agent and have them look at it.”

In the end, I agreed with Ms. Telfer. I thought it was in my best interest to look more into the NA or Adult low fantasy for this particular project I presented to her. But I think about Ms. Cummings’s words a lot. I’m free to do what I want. I don’t need to listen and can get second and third and fourth opinions. Even in the traditional publishing world.

You are free. You are fine. You have free will. Don’t worry. And if you are still afraid, I think it’s time to drink some water and take a little nap. I probably need to do that too, to be honest.

About the Author

K. Orme is a cross-genre historical fiction author, watercolor artist, and cosplay performer. She is based in central Virginia, and when she is not writing, she is working at her sewing machine, auditioning for a local musical production, or practicing for a vocal gig. She has an Australian Shepherd named Petitaire (after Grantaire from Les Miserables) that is her service dog, and she is an advocate for representing invisible disabilities in fiction. She has spoken at the Historical Novel Society (North American Branch) on the topic of including disability representation specifically in historical fiction. As of 2025, she will have been in the writing and publishing industry for seventeen years.

 

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Did this post address fears you had surrounding the traditional publishing route? Did it spark new questions about publishing options or one route or the other? Comment below!