Hold Your Horses (Internet Rant)

Remember those internet rants I said were a waste of time? Here’s me, wasting some.

In a newsletter type email today, I read about a woman who is outlining a novel for NaNoWriMo that she hopes to publish as an ebook in early to mid December.

…

…really?

Okay, fine. Maybe she is just that amazing a writer, she can toss out fifty thousand words in a month and they will be gold and with a week of editing that story is truly ready for publishing. Maybe. But I think the odds are much greater that this is just another clueless newb who will be very sorry one day that she did that.

It is, of course, her business. I don’t subscribe to the notion that with so much garbage out there, people will be unable to find the good stuff. I read fanfic, so I know there are methods of finding good stuff in mountains of garbage. I don’t believe that every other book bought decreases my sales–I know that readers read way more books than I can write, so huzzah for reading while I’m getting the next one out!

No, I’m annoyed because I can’t reach through the internet and smack her with a herring and go “save it. Put it aside for a month or two and then go back and look, and if you still think it’s the most amazing thing ever, great. Move from there. But for your own sake, don’t put half-baked work on the market! You will be so sorry later.”

I’m not saying “don’t self-publish.” I’m not saying “leave writing books to the pros, honey.” I’m saying, with the voice of experience, “hold up. Think a bit. Let the excitement wear off before you commit.” I’ve said before and I’ll say again, I am so glad that self-publishing wasn’t an easy option (nor a free one) when I finished my first book. I think of it, out there where people could read it in the shape it was in, and I shudder. 249,000 words. Everything but the kitchen sink in the plot. Major events because the author said so. *cringe*

Knight Errant is not my first book. It’s not my second. It’s my third. And I went on and wrote His Faithful Squire, an unnamed book, Damsel in Distress, Burning Bright, Queen’s Man, and In the Forests of the Night before I’d published Knight Errant. Which had at least four rounds of major, rip-the-guts-out-and-rearrange-them editing before I put it on the market.

So. *waves cane* You do what you want to do. But if you’ll listen to the old wise woman, you’ll hold off on that doing until your thinking is a little clearer. The anticipation of NaNo–and yes, the triumphant joy of surviving NaNo–are not good times to be making decisions so very important as your first published novel.