"Interview on Self-Publishing with TV Repartee Editor-in-Chief Bella Jay" |
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Bella: I understand that your lovely looking book Alice in Genderland was actually self-published. Did you approach any conventional publishers before deciding to do it yourself? Alice: I did. First of all, I noticed that almost all transgender authors before me were either self-published or brought to press by small, niche publishing houses. So I focused on about five agents and ten small publishers known to be interested in LGBT material. I sent them a pitch letter with a summary of my story and a sample chapter. What stunned me was that none of them appreciated that I was sticking my neck out and offering them the first real memoir by a crossdresser. To them, the only question was How could you angle this to appeal to the mainstream or to our audience of gay or lesbian or feminist readers? Hmm, I thought, maybe my story and perhaps gender and transgender topics on the whole are not as compelling to others as they are to me and my friends. Maybe we TGs are not seen as bold pioneers on the border between the genders, but members of a small special interest group like Armenian Americans or people with lupus. But like folks with lupus, I knew crossdressers out there were starving for a proud, exciting story like mine. And as a columnist for American GIRLTALK magazine, I already had a following and a notion or two about how to reach my target audience directly. It seemed that, like gays and lesbians back in the 70s, what we really needed was our own publishing house. Unaware of Vicky Lee and Way Out Publishing at the time, I decided to go it alone. I self-published, or more specifically print-on-demand published, with iUniverse. Bella: Was this something you had always dreamt of doing, but has only become possible in recent years with new digital technology? Alice: It’s true that print-on-demand technology vastly lowered the cost and effort involved in self-publishing, and that it only became available in the late 90s. But, writing a book was nothing that I’d ever dreamt of. I had always wanted to do one special thing in my life, but didn’t know exactly what it might be. In 2000, I realized that as a relatively secure, Harvard-educated psychiatrist, fortune had put me into a position to fill a rather glaring gap in the transgender record. So I went for it. Knowing I could always fall back on a publisher like iUniverse and a seller like Amazon, gave me the confidence to commit my Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays to writing Alice in Genderland. Bella: Can you explain a little about roughly what you had to pay, how many copies you had printed etc? Alice: The basic publishing package at a print-on-demand publisher was and still is about $1000, and that includes some help with editing and cover design, though I ended up getting my own higher quality professional help in those areas. Still publishing in a way that prints each book as it is demanded (purchased) involves much less risk up front than traditional self-publishing, which requires you, let’s say, to commit to a minimum print run of 1000 books at five dollars each—and to commit half your garage to storing them and a chunk of your time to selling and shipping them. Bella: How long did it all take before your book was printed and available for sale? Alice: Because nearly everything happens digitally, when my book was finished, it was up and ready for sale far faster than it would have been if handled by a conventional publisher; it took something like a month rather than a year. Bella: One big difference between self-publishing and the conventional method is that it's totally down to the author to promote and sell the book. Was this more work than you had envisaged? Alice: As a matter of fact, it was, though I doubt many professional marketers would have known how to reach folks in the transgender community, so that job may have very well ended up in my lap anyway. Much more of a writer than a promoter, I was surprised when my initial ads and reviews didn’t light enough of a fire for my book, and I discovered that I would have to buy some airplane tickets and generate sparks in person to make more people aware of me and curious about the colorful, controversial life I lead. That was awkward, but necessary--and truly put my book on the map. From talking with other more conventionally published authors, one of the big advantages I enjoyed by p-o-d publishing was that I exercised complete control over my title, text, cover, and layout. I didn’t realize it, but conventional publishers usually have the final say on everything and can turn your Deer Hunter into Bambi or in my case your Queer as Folk into Will and Grace. Additionally I was able to make corrections and revisions almost instantaneously, so the version of my book available today contains no should-of, would-of, or could-ofs. How great is that for someone like me who will probably only write this one book. Bella: Would you be willing to say how many copies of the book have been sold? Alice: Alice in Genderland smashed the milestone it needed to reach at two years to be considered a classic in our community--and thank god for that, because I sure invested five years of heart and soul into it. Though my absolute numbers compare quite favorably to other transgender books, they’re still quite underwhelming and, I believe, reflect the smaller-than-many-realize size of the TG community and the small percentage of people who read in any community. Bella: What message would you have for anyone else thinking about self-publishing? Alice: Like independent films and cable TV, I think it’s an exciting, economical medium that can bring all sorts of important, new stories to light. Bella: Was it all worthwhile? How does it feel to be a published author? Alice: Honestly, Bella, I don’t feel like a “published author.” I feel like someone who said, “Screw the system. I’ve got a story and readers, and I’m going to take it to them myself.” And print-on-demand technology allowed me to do just that.
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