For anyone who dreams of writing a book one day, either fiction or non-fiction, author Dan Wald insists that the stigma of self publishing no longer exists. If anything, it might help you get a foot in the door of an agent or traditional publisher some day.
Wald, who authored "Ad Asylum" in six weeks, based on 25 years in advertising/marketing, says that one of the key steps in his creative process is fantasy. In Wald's estimation, there are only a handful of fantasy categories, starting with the sexual kind, then the fantasy for finding one's soul mate, and then what he calls "unrealistic daydreaming," which includes wishing we were rock stars or awesomely successful athletes.
But the kind of fantasy that spurs Wald's creative process the most is the "shoulda, woulda, coulda" category, where you go back over your life and imagine -- well, daydream -- what it would have been like if you had done this or that differently. The essence being -- the path(s) in life that you didn't take. And in Wald's case, wondering what his life would have been like if he had joined a big ad agency straight out of business school served as the seed for his story about fictional character Ryan Simmons and his adventures in the fast-paced, ego-jammed world of a big-league New York ad agency.
"If it's a good story, it takes on a life of its own," Wald told the audience of iMedia Agency Summit attendees. But like most writers, getting published is often the biggest challenge, and even if you have a winner on your hands, getting an agent or publisher, and even competing against the 263,910 marketing books currently listed on Amazon, can be a losing proposition -- not to mention discouraging beyond belief.
Wald, who works for Joule, the mobile unit for Group M, which is part of WPP, hit this very same brick wall in his after-hours writing career, and he is proud to tell the tale that self-publishing -- now a thriving online industry -- is alive and well. Thanks to the Nooks and Kindles of the world, there is hope, and big hope, for those who toil away night after night on their creative projects hoping some day for recognition.
Here are a few of Wald's points on why taking the self publishing route can work for many people:
- Once you pass your book off to a publisher in the traditional publishing world, you lose control and it takes far more time -- sometimes more than a year -- to get it into print, whereas in the self publishing world, time-relevant content gets to consumers faster
- While self publishing isn't cheap -- it can range from $500 on the low spectrum to $2,000-3,000 for premium services -- as soon as it's done, it's on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, but it requires a great deal of self-marketing on the sidelines to help bolster the book's chance of success
- There is no inventory risk for self published books; they are printed on-demand
And while Wald confesses he isn't yet making a ton of money off "Ad Asylum," he found the experience with self publishing to be easy, relatively inexpensive, and extremely satisfying. So satisfying, in fact, that he's planning his next book.
To follow Wald and his passion for writing and advertising, check out his site: Danwald.com
