seawasp | (Reply)

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Well, Polychrome is in the hands of an editor at Tor who hasn't rejected it yet, and as you say I now have an agent. I'm going to give her a chance to do her stuff.

The problem with the self-publishing is that I'm in essence LAZY. I don't WANT to have to do a bunch of work. You'd be amazed how difficult it has been to do what I've already done to promo GCA.

That is of course the flipside of the "I write for fun". If it was purely a business then I'd have all the business side in the same category as the writing, but the business stuff is antithetical to why I write, in a sense. I don't OBJECT (at all) to getting paid, but I don't want the effort of publishing to detract from the fun of writing.

More importantly, though, the traditional route means paid, professional editors looking at my stuff and making hardass suggestions. They're paying ME, so their best interest is served by making me write the best stuff I can. If I go Indie, *I* pay *THEM*, and then their best interest is served by not delivering unpalatable opinions.

I like it this way. My books have improved from editorial examination, the more so because I am almost incapable of editing my own work. That's why I don't do drafts unless contracted to, because I see nothing to CHANGE until someone points it out.