Since announcing that I’m going to have a fiction project published, curious friends and acquaintances have peppered me with questions. The one that comes up most often is “Why choose a small indie press?”

Right now, the publishing industry is in flux. For writers looking to get their projects into bookstores, there are three viable paths to publishing. All three of them have their own advantages and disadvantages:

• Self-publishing
• Indie publishing
• Traditional publishing

The self-publishing path is pretty much what it sounds like. Print-on-demand (POD) technology means that writers can get their books into print, and even get an ISBN number (necessary for getting the book into bookstores). The explosion in eBook readers like the Kindle and Nook means that a physical book isn’t a requirement to get your writing into the hands of readers.  Social media has made it easier for good writers to connect to readers and build a following to promote their work.

Independent publishing has always been around. But now, small presses benefit from the same technological advances that have made self-publishing a more viable option. Small presses can offer their strengths–professional editors and good distribution relationships–with lower overhead costs and greater agility than larger publishing houses. Especially for niche sub-genres and emerging markets that don’t have the volume to make sense for a larger publisher, indie publishing can work really well.

Traditional publishing is beginning to adapt.  While it’s been a slow transition, there are more opportunities for writers even at big traditional publishers now. The low cost of eBook production and promotion have caused traditional publishers to start digital publishing imprints. They’re also using the other two paths as a testing ground for talent: writer’s who’ve proven they can produce  work that sells on their own are a low risk investment.

I’m planning on writing more detailed posts on each of the three paths. I’ll also share a more of my personal “path to publishing”  including the story of the nonfiction book I didn’t write (why it didn’t work out, and why it might still work out eventually).

Stay tuned, campers. If you’ve got questions, drop me a comment. I’ll be happy to offer whatever answers I can.

The Man transferred our wedding video from VHS to DVD this week. I loved watching it, but it always makes me miss my Mom and Gigee (my maternal grandma) terribly. So I did what I usually do in that situation: I baked pie.  I don’t bake often, but I’m pretty good with pies.

Gigee gave me the Owen County Extension Homemakers recipe book from 1978 right after I got married. It’s falling to pieces and covered in food stains, but when we were living in Japan and I was horribly homesick, it was a lifesaver. I’m pretty sure not a single recipe in the entire thing would be approved by Tony Horton, Weight Watchers or the people who made the Food Pyramid. Thus, most of them are seriously delicious.

I just downloaded Gail Carriger’s Soulless for my Kindle (I’ll probably review it later).  Aside from nostalgia prompting a baking fit, all that talk of treacle tart made me incredibly hungry, so I decided to make Chess Pie.  Not being remotely British, I have no idea what treacle tart is, but it generally sounds like Chess Pie to a Bluegrass Hoosier like me.  I’m guessing mostly sugar and eggs.

Here’s the recipe for Kentucky Chess Pie. Imagine, essentially, a pecan pie without those pesky pecans getting in the way. The sugar and eggs sort of crystallize on the top, making a crunchy layer above the gooey custard layer.

I was making breakfast, cracking the eggs into the battered somewhat-non-stick skillet, and trying to balance it on the old electric burner so that the eggs wouldn’t run into each other too much. Attempting to flip them without breaking the yolks so I could deliver them to The Man & The Girl in perfect, over-medium glory, since The Boy had already left on his choir trip to Holiday World.

The title cut was playing from The Water and the Blood, and I was thinking about how strange the lyrics must seem to someone who isn’t a follower of Jesus. How deeply they contrast with the “you’re perfect exactly as you are” chorus of the media zeitgeist these days.

“Lord we confess our many faults, and how great our guilt has been,

foolish and vain were all of our thoughts, no good could come from within,

but by the mercy of our God, all of our hopes begin, 

and by the water and the blood, our souls are washed from sin,

our souls are washed…”

There’s something comforting about not having to convince yourself you’re wonderful. There’s a massive relief in not having to convince the world that you’re wonderful.

I think that a lot of soul-sick people have twisted that basic understanding, that we’re naturally kind of screwed up messes. Instead of being a truth that lets us off the hook, allowing us to rest in the grace that we’re loved, wonderful or not; it becomes a whip attempting to beat us into working harder for a reprieve we’ve already been given.

There is a universe of difference between “I confess my many faults, how great my guilt has been” and “You need to confess your many faults, how great your guilt should be.”

It breaks my heart that so many broken people have beaten down others with the latter.

But as a person who continually struggles with the desperate need to convince myself and everyone around me how wonderful I am, knowing that I’m not that wonderful is a blessed relief. It’s the doorway from self-conscious preoccupation and scrambling into the peace and equanimity of letting my soul rest in the goodness of Someone else.

My prayer for you, reader friends, is that you experience the freedom to enjoy not being wonderful today.

So last night, I went to the monthly meeting of Quills & Quibbles writers’ group at the Harrison County Public Library. Lee Cable, formerly of The Corydon Democrat, was our guest speaker.  A long time contributing feature writer who also covered local politics and other news, Cable has recently retired and is going to be publishing a book called Stop the Presses, about the newspaper industry.

As an internet writer, I found his perspective on the impact of the web on small town newspapers poignant and refreshing. One point he kept reiterating was the importance of storytelling in emotionally connecting readers to the news. He put a lot of emphasis on finding the bigger story beyond the bald facts, and that makes him a writer after my own heart.

In all honesty, some of the blame for the slashed budgets and staff at newspapers belongs with the “free information” ethos of the internet age. If any industry was caught more unprepared for the impact the internet was going to have than the music industry, the newspaper industry is definitely it.  Some of the responsibility also belongs with editorial mandates to stick slavishly to a journalistic style guide that didn’t provide enough local flavor and unique character to keep their material from becoming a commodity.

I thought it was a little ironic. In their attempt to imitate the editorial standards of larger national papers, small town weekly papers have possibly shot themselves in the foot. They’ve given away their most compelling attribute: a truly local, intimate, personal and yet still professional perspective on community news.

It was a fascinating and engaging conversation with a professional writer who is watching his entire medium attempt to strip itself down and rebuild itself like Steve Austin. A few members of Q&Q suggested that he should look into blogging. I hope he does.

I was doing some research for a content strategy project this week for the Belle of Louisville. Since I’ve become obsessed with steampunk stuff, working on a project that features the oldest still-operating steam-powered riverboat is PRETTY DARN COOL.

But I digress.

In doing the research, I read something really sad. Robert Fulton is widely believed to have invented the steamboat. He did not. A man named John Fitch did. Fitch not only came up with the design, he built four working steamboats. So why haven’t you heard of John Fitch? Because he couldn’t get any backers. He ended up falling into a deep depression till he died. A decade after he invented the steamboat, Fulton used his design and was able to get investors, launching the riverboat industry.

How weird is that? Go to Kickstarter sometime and see how quickly even totally goofy, unrealistic projects can get thousands of dollars of funding. And poor Fitch, with his four working prototypes of a technology that would revolutionize transportation? Nada. Zip. Zilch.

I think about this, and a couple of  things come to mind.

Being first means nothing. I see a lot of guys in my industry who are so obsessed with being on the bleeding edge of technology and entrepreneurship, it seems almost inevitable that they will run right past that edge and tumble off.  Remember Friendster? The Newton? Lots of times, being first means your invention/startup/idea/creative work is the one that everyone will laugh at, and someone else will learn from, improve, and profit.

Worry about contribution, not credit. Fitch fell into a depression and died. But the thing is, he still invented the steamboat. It still worked. He had an idea, he brought that idea into reality, and eventually that idea spawned an entire industry.  Maybe he was a horrible salesman. Maybe he lacked the right connections. Whatever it was, Fitch had the stuff to create the steamboat, but not convince people of their value.

If you create something amazing, but let yourself get sucked into depression because someone else put some spit and polish on it and got all the credit, well, wah. Life’s unfair. That’s implied. If you’re a person capable of creating amazing things, value that. Focus on that.

Because precious few people can.

It was a big night for fairy tales in the Grey Cottage.

I’m sure it will need further editing, but at least this time I feel like I told the story I meant to tell. There’s an underlying theme about the disillusionment that comes from growing up in a fallen world that’s an important element of the original fairy tale, The Snow Queen. It didn’t make it into the original draft.  I was able to cut a lot of fat in round 2, and work it in.

I could have taken the story to an even darker place. I had time to do a pretty extensive rewrite if I’d wanted.  But I realized that there was another agenda at play in that desire, and it didn’t serve this particular story very well.

Writing fiction is therapeutic, but if you try to make it actual therapy, you end up writing stuff that only makes sense to you. That was another important lesson learned in all this.

The fat-cutting also gave me room to work in more character development for Kit, the male main character who’s based on Kai from the original story.

One of the biggest challenges with this story was making Kit a compelling character. If you’re at all familiar with The Snow Queen, it’s probably easy to guess why. Kai spends most of the story in a trance state, cold and unfeeling. Just before that, he becomes cruel and jaded to his best friend, Gerda. It’s difficult to sell the reader on investing in a character who is essentially unconscious for more than 2/3 of the story, and kind of a jerk right before that.

Also, in my version, Kit is basically the straight man and voice of reason compared to Greta. His personality is much more subdued. All my beta readers of draft 1 said Greta jumped off the page, but it was hard to connect with Kit. It would’ve been easy to let him become a featureless, unmemorable “Disney prince,” only important as a plot device and love interest for the quirky, heroic female main character.

But that wasn’t the story I wanted to tell. While the obvious conflict in the story is about the Snow Queen and her dastardly plans, there’s a deeper relational conflict that’s just as important, at least to me.

Kit and Greta both start the story believing that one of them is deeply flawed and basically a burden to the other. A big part of their journey is discovering the truth: that they’re both flawed, and they’re both strong. To get by in life, they’ll need to rescue each other as the need arises. Making Kit more than the role-reversal “damsel-in-distress” required making him as well-developed a character as Greta, with his own flaws, problems and motivations.

I’m really glad I had time in the second draft to give those to him.