Interview With Serdar Yegulalp of Genji Press!
I talk to people who want to publish or be published, but get afraid of the self publishing route. Not Serdar Yegulalp. He's gone and published several books on his own, with more coming. He was kind enough to share his experiences with me in the following interview!
Find out more at http://www.genjipress.com/
1) You're a self-published author as we've seen at www.genjipress.com. What made you decide to go the self-publishing route?
The biggest and most central reason was to maintain control over my work -- how it was edited, presented, and distributed, and also what distribution channels were used for it. I knew I wanted to get my books read, and I decided it would be at least worth trying to jump-start the process on my own, and then market it directly to fans.
I realized very quickly, though, that when you take total creative control over your work you also have to make that many more decisions. EVERYTHING is now your responsibility, and I'm constantly surprised at what I've overlooked without trying. It's a process.
2) OK, let's find out how you did it. Give us an outline of how you got these books into reality - what resources you used, what websites, etc.
Obviously, the first thing I did was write and finish the books! This is the part that cannot be skipped, as you can well imagine -- but I'm always a little surprised at how many people think there's some magic shortcut to not putting your butt in a chair, writing a finished manuscript, polishing it, and putting it into a truly final form. (If you don't see yourself spending every day in front of a keyboard writing, then don't be a writer.)
I'd been exposed to the concept of print-on-demand for some time, and for a while I thrashed around looking for a good service to use. I initially tried Cafepress, but Lulu.com was where things really came together. Lulu had a good (if still limited) set of online tools and production/distribution options, and I was satisfied enough with the quality of the product to get things going. I'm now looking at using Amazon's services as a possible replacement, due to them offering more variety in their products.
3) Did anyone help you with this?
Yes, although mostly in the sense of lay feedback rather than pros. I ran my product past as many people as I could, while at the same time trying to keep in mind that their opinions did not have to be taken as instructions. But for the most part, I was on my own. I didn't mind.
4) What were the challenges of self-publishing?
The first was creating something that looked professional, when so many things in this space simply do not look professional. I wanted to be able to give the finished product to people, and let them put it side by side with other books in their collection without me cringing. I studied other professionally-produced books -- everything from margin sizes to typeface choices to how they handed ellipses and em-dashes. It's an ongoing process, so I refine as I go -- and one of the advantages of using print-on-demand is you can do that without incurring costs.
The second was to find the most direct and unpretentious route to my readers as possible. A lot of what I write about is Japan-themed in some way (it's a reflection of my personal interests), so I tried marketing face-to-face by buying sales tables at the various anime conventions I attended. It worked: a lot of the people there were looking for something interesting to read, and they hadn't encountered anything like what I was doing.
The third was to juggle so many different roles at once. Author, editor, marketing manager, designer, proofer -- but at the same time, I was getting that much more experience in all those roles!
The fourth was to write the best possible book I could on top of all that. What's odd is that after having taken care of all these other things, the writing part seemed that much easier!
5) What were the advantages of self-publishing?
I mentioned total creative control, above, but there are other things which came to light after I started finishing and releasing product.
For one, there are that many less layers of separation between myself and my fans. I don't have a lot of them, but I can call just about all of them by their first names. I like this. It means I have dialogue with them instead of them just seeing me as a book-dispensing machine or something equally depersonalized. (I cared more about the *quality* of the fandom than the size, and I sure got quality!)
Another is that there's that much less effort involved in fixing problems with the work. If there's a typo, I can fix it instantly; if a cover's misregistered, ditto. I tend to be very finicky about such things.
6) Many people worry they can't self-publish - they can't get an ISBN, they need a lawyer, etc. What incorrect assumptions do you see people make about self-publishing and why?
One, I think people really underestimate how much work is involved in putting out a pro-level product. You might have to spend money to get the tools you need (e.g., Photoshop), and you have to sweat a stupefying number of details.
Two, people assume that if they self-publish something, they won't be taken seriously. That goes back into #1: you won't be taken seriously if you put out a junky-looking product, that's for sure. If you put out something that looks like there was actual craft involved, then it won't matter; in fact, people will admire you all the more for it!
Three, they assume the opposite: that self-publishing is a fast road to riches and fame, which I scarcely need to debunk here.
7) So now that we know how you did it, tell us about your books! They soundlike you really know your audience - especially "The Four Day Weekend."
I talked a bit above about the potential audience, and "Four Day Weekend" (http://www.genjipress.com/writing/4dayweekend) came directly out of my own experiences at the conventions in question. In the year or two before I geared up to start selling at those cons, I talked about the idea with the people I met and everyone I spoke to was deeply enthusiastic about it. More than anything else, I wanted to talk about that scene with affection and understanding, not condescension, and I think the finished product reflects that: the book has sold consistently at every show I've been to.
"Summerworld" (http://www.genjipress.com/writing/summerworld/) was not the first book I wrote, but it was the first one I wanted to start marketing directly to fans. I wrote it at a point when I'd tried, in vain, to get back into reading fantasy. "In vain" because everything I found or was offered just seemed HORRIBLE. The field had become littered with Tolkien clones. water-treading multi-volume epics that took six books to tell what could be better related in one, and just an incredible amount of utter garbage. I talked to friends of mine who were avid "Wheel of Time" fans (me, I could barely read the first book) and when I mentioned Mervyn Peake or Peter S. Beagle I got blank stares. That scared me. So, I created something that was more in the Neil Gaiman mold -- the everyday becomes extraordinary, the extraordinary becomes everyday -- and after reading the finished work I decided this was good enough to compete with anything else out there. (I wrote part of for 2006's NaNoWriMo (the first half, essentially), and I spent the following several months finishing and polishing it.)
"Tokyo Inferno" (http://www.genjipress.com/writing/tokyoinferno) came in the wake of me reading about the Kanto Earthquake of 1923, which leveled three-fourths of the city and claimed untold lives. I'd been wanting to write a gothic-horror type story for a while, and that seemed like a good backdrop for the "mini-mythology" I wanted to use. It was an exercise in atmosphere and ambience as well, and a lot of the feel of the book was influenced by other things from or about the period -- like Edogawa Rampo's crime fiction or some of Shuji Terayama's movies.
I have two possible books on the slate for 2010; I haven't figured out which one it'll be yet. The first is "The Young Gods", another Japanese-themed fantasy -- it'll form a sort of "Tokyo Trilogy" with "Summerworld" and "Inferno", but it'll be very unlike those two (I hope).
The other is "The Number of Magic". This is about the pagan/"alternative"-religion communities in the same way that "Four Day Weekend" was about fandom, although with a somewhat more serious bent to it. Some of the story details are based, extremely loosely, on things that happened to friends of mine some time ago; many of the details have been changed around / sanitized.
I'm aiming to complete a book a year or so (maybe skip a year every now and then!) and release the finished product in September of each year.
8) Any final closing advice for our readers?
The biggest and most central reason was to maintain control over my work -- how it was edited, presented, and distributed, and also what distribution channels were used for it. I knew I wanted to get my books read, and I decided it would be at least worth trying to jump-start the process on my own, and then market it directly to fans.
I realized very quickly, though, that when you take total creative control over your work you also have to make that many more decisions. EVERYTHING is now your responsibility, and I'm constantly surprised at what I've overlooked without trying. It's a process.
2) OK, let's find out how you did it. Give us an outline of how you got these books into reality - what resources you used, what websites, etc.
Obviously, the first thing I did was write and finish the books! This is the part that cannot be skipped, as you can well imagine -- but I'm always a little surprised at how many people think there's some magic shortcut to not putting your butt in a chair, writing a finished manuscript, polishing it, and putting it into a truly final form. (If you don't see yourself spending every day in front of a keyboard writing, then don't be a writer.)
I'd been exposed to the concept of print-on-demand for some time, and for a while I thrashed around looking for a good service to use. I initially tried Cafepress, but Lulu.com was where things really came together. Lulu had a good (if still limited) set of online tools and production/distribution options, and I was satisfied enough with the quality of the product to get things going. I'm now looking at using Amazon's services as a possible replacement, due to them offering more variety in their products.
3) Did anyone help you with this?
Yes, although mostly in the sense of lay feedback rather than pros. I ran my product past as many people as I could, while at the same time trying to keep in mind that their opinions did not have to be taken as instructions. But for the most part, I was on my own. I didn't mind.
4) What were the challenges of self-publishing?
The first was creating something that looked professional, when so many things in this space simply do not look professional. I wanted to be able to give the finished product to people, and let them put it side by side with other books in their collection without me cringing. I studied other professionally-produced books -- everything from margin sizes to typeface choices to how they handed ellipses and em-dashes. It's an ongoing process, so I refine as I go -- and one of the advantages of using print-on-demand is you can do that without incurring costs.
The second was to find the most direct and unpretentious route to my readers as possible. A lot of what I write about is Japan-themed in some way (it's a reflection of my personal interests), so I tried marketing face-to-face by buying sales tables at the various anime conventions I attended. It worked: a lot of the people there were looking for something interesting to read, and they hadn't encountered anything like what I was doing.
The third was to juggle so many different roles at once. Author, editor, marketing manager, designer, proofer -- but at the same time, I was getting that much more experience in all those roles!
The fourth was to write the best possible book I could on top of all that. What's odd is that after having taken care of all these other things, the writing part seemed that much easier!
5) What were the advantages of self-publishing?
I mentioned total creative control, above, but there are other things which came to light after I started finishing and releasing product.
For one, there are that many less layers of separation between myself and my fans. I don't have a lot of them, but I can call just about all of them by their first names. I like this. It means I have dialogue with them instead of them just seeing me as a book-dispensing machine or something equally depersonalized. (I cared more about the *quality* of the fandom than the size, and I sure got quality!)
Another is that there's that much less effort involved in fixing problems with the work. If there's a typo, I can fix it instantly; if a cover's misregistered, ditto. I tend to be very finicky about such things.
6) Many people worry they can't self-publish - they can't get an ISBN, they need a lawyer, etc. What incorrect assumptions do you see people make about self-publishing and why?
One, I think people really underestimate how much work is involved in putting out a pro-level product. You might have to spend money to get the tools you need (e.g., Photoshop), and you have to sweat a stupefying number of details.
Two, people assume that if they self-publish something, they won't be taken seriously. That goes back into #1: you won't be taken seriously if you put out a junky-looking product, that's for sure. If you put out something that looks like there was actual craft involved, then it won't matter; in fact, people will admire you all the more for it!
Three, they assume the opposite: that self-publishing is a fast road to riches and fame, which I scarcely need to debunk here.
7) So now that we know how you did it, tell us about your books! They soundlike you really know your audience - especially "The Four Day Weekend."
I talked a bit above about the potential audience, and "Four Day Weekend" (http://www.genjipress.com/writing/4dayweekend) came directly out of my own experiences at the conventions in question. In the year or two before I geared up to start selling at those cons, I talked about the idea with the people I met and everyone I spoke to was deeply enthusiastic about it. More than anything else, I wanted to talk about that scene with affection and understanding, not condescension, and I think the finished product reflects that: the book has sold consistently at every show I've been to.
"Summerworld" (http://www.genjipress.com/writing/summerworld/) was not the first book I wrote, but it was the first one I wanted to start marketing directly to fans. I wrote it at a point when I'd tried, in vain, to get back into reading fantasy. "In vain" because everything I found or was offered just seemed HORRIBLE. The field had become littered with Tolkien clones. water-treading multi-volume epics that took six books to tell what could be better related in one, and just an incredible amount of utter garbage. I talked to friends of mine who were avid "Wheel of Time" fans (me, I could barely read the first book) and when I mentioned Mervyn Peake or Peter S. Beagle I got blank stares. That scared me. So, I created something that was more in the Neil Gaiman mold -- the everyday becomes extraordinary, the extraordinary becomes everyday -- and after reading the finished work I decided this was good enough to compete with anything else out there. (I wrote part of for 2006's NaNoWriMo (the first half, essentially), and I spent the following several months finishing and polishing it.)
"Tokyo Inferno" (http://www.genjipress.com/writing/tokyoinferno) came in the wake of me reading about the Kanto Earthquake of 1923, which leveled three-fourths of the city and claimed untold lives. I'd been wanting to write a gothic-horror type story for a while, and that seemed like a good backdrop for the "mini-mythology" I wanted to use. It was an exercise in atmosphere and ambience as well, and a lot of the feel of the book was influenced by other things from or about the period -- like Edogawa Rampo's crime fiction or some of Shuji Terayama's movies.
I have two possible books on the slate for 2010; I haven't figured out which one it'll be yet. The first is "The Young Gods", another Japanese-themed fantasy -- it'll form a sort of "Tokyo Trilogy" with "Summerworld" and "Inferno", but it'll be very unlike those two (I hope).
The other is "The Number of Magic". This is about the pagan/"alternative"-religion communities in the same way that "Four Day Weekend" was about fandom, although with a somewhat more serious bent to it. Some of the story details are based, extremely loosely, on things that happened to friends of mine some time ago; many of the details have been changed around / sanitized.
I'm aiming to complete a book a year or so (maybe skip a year every now and then!) and release the finished product in September of each year.
8) Any final closing advice for our readers?
You never know how hard this all is until you actually sit down and do it. Or how wonderful it is.
Thanks Serdar!
- Steven Savage
Thanks for the very informative article.
Posted by: S M Rana | October 13, 2009 at 04:55 AM