Self-Publishing, Traditional, or Vanity: Choosing Your Path and Proving Your Market | The Exceptional Scribble Show, Episode 230

This is the complete interview hour from Richard Lowe’s appearance on episode 230 of The Exceptional Scribble Show with host Sage the Poet, broadcast live on September 11, 2018, lightly edited for readability. The show’s later segments after Richard’s hour are omitted. Historical book counts appear as spoken; current figures are bracketed.

The introduction

Sage the Poet: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for tuning in to another terrific Tuesday night episode of The Exceptional Scribble Show. Tonight, Tuesday, September the 11th, 2018, we are beginning the exclusive interview hour. The feature artist in the spotlight is Mr. Richard G. Lowe Jr., otherwise known as The Writing King, and tonight’s topic: how to monetize your writing, and professional writing services. Richard is the business owner and senior writer for The Writing King, a bestselling author and ghostwriter who has written and published 63 books, ghostwritten 16 books [113+ authored and 54+ ghostwritten as of 2026], and hundreds of blog articles. Rolling out the red carpet: welcome, Richard.

Richard Lowe: Well, thank you. That was a great introduction. How are you tonight?

Sage the Poet: I am so excited for the listening audience, because a lot of the questions many have had for years are going to get full answers tonight. So I’ll start with this: when you first acknowledged that writing was your gift, what were some of the first things you practiced to cultivate it?

The mountains after the mountain

Richard Lowe: The first thing I did was take a few classes on writing, online classes; there are quite a few available. I already knew how to write; I’d known most of my life. But the classes honed my writing down to specifically what I wanted to do, gave me a chance to be critiqued by a teacher, and taught me the stuff around writing. Writing, for me, is relatively easy. The stuff around it can be challenging: how to publish it, how to promote it, how to market myself, how to get it proofread and edited. There are dozens of other things you have to do to get a book done. I specialize in books mostly; I do blogs and LinkedIn profiles as well, but books are where my passion is.

That’s what trips up a lot of writers: the game isn’t won just by having a book written. It’s like you climb a mountain, and then there’s another mountain, and another, and then there’s Mount Everest, which is promoting, and then there’s the next book. It seems like a constant struggle, and a lot of writers overthink it. They become enmeshed in “oh my God, it’s too complicated,” when they can simplify it to a large extent.

I recently started promoting some courses I’ve written: books that tell you how to write in certain genres and how to promote your work. One is on how to write and sell short science fiction ebooks, and it goes from A to Z: create it, write it, proofread it, edit it, publish it, promote it, then start on the next one, with an emphasis on writing quickly and with good quality. I’ve got four genres, and I’m working on the fifth: science fiction, fantasy, romance, and mystery. Interestingly, they’re different. The way you promote them is different, the way you write them is different, the way you plot them is different, and the audience is very different. And then, writers have to make a living. I chose ghostwriting to make a living, and it’s turned out to be very lucrative.

Should you self-publish or find a traditional publisher?

Sage the Poet: Reverend Kenneth is joining us from Savannah, Georgia, with a question from the chat room: is self-publishing a good thing, or should he find a publisher or literary agent?

Richard Lowe: The answer is: it depends on your goals as a writer. One of the things I’ve been doing lately is interviewing other writers; I do two interviews a week on my own podcast. Some go traditional, and some go nontraditional, and the same with my ghostwriting clients.

The thing about self-publishing is you have complete control. You also have complete responsibility. It can be scary: if you don’t promote it, the book’s not going to sell. If you mess up the formatting, you’ve got to learn how to fix it. But it’s empowering. If you want to publish a book every week, you can, and a short book every week is very possible. If you want to take a whole year, you can. If you want it printed in color or spiral-bound, you can. You don’t have to ask anybody’s permission.

In traditional publishing, you have to find an agent. Unless you have an in with the publisher, you’re not getting in without one. The agent has to like it, so you’re selling to him first. Then he sells it to a publisher. Then it gets lost in the publisher’s process. The gentleman I ghostwrote a book for: his book has been with the publisher for six months and will probably be published in February or March. We finished the book in January, and it won’t see the public until February of next year. Twelve or thirteen months, which is annoying to him, and he has no control anymore. If he’d self-published, he could have had that book on the shelves literally a day after we finished. But he wanted traditional because he wanted to get into libraries and bookstores, and that’s one of the advantages of traditional publishing. Self-published books typically don’t get into libraries and bookstores unless you work at it very hard. You can get into libraries, but it takes specialized work; if anybody’s interested, send me an email and I can point you at a course on how to do it.

Why should you avoid vanity and hybrid publishers?

Richard Lowe: Now, there’s a third type of publishing, which used to be called vanity publishing: you pay for the publishing yourself. They call it hybrid publishing and a zillion other names. Basically, you pay somebody to publish it for you. My recommendation is to steer clear of those. They don’t have as much skin in the game as a real publisher. They make their money from the $5,000 you paid them to publish your book, so their motivation to get the book selling is very low. Yours is very high. What usually happens is you pay a bunch of money, the book goes up on Amazon, and you wind up having to promote it yourself, which is the whole reason you went to a publisher in the first place. I’m probably making some hybrid publishers angry by saying this: stay away from them.

There are services that will just do the publishing work for you, BookBaby and a couple of other companies, where you pay a thousand bucks and they do the formatting and publishing. Those aren’t so bad, because they’re just acting as consultants doing a job for you. But it’s all stuff you can do yourself, and you can learn it.

So to answer the question: I tend to go self-published, because I have control. Now, I’m working on a science fiction novel, and when it’s done, I’m going to shop it to a literary agent and put it out traditionally, because I want it in bookstores; it’s years of effort and it’s going to be 10 volumes. But everything else of mine has been self-published. And we tend to call it indie publishing now, independent publishing. There’s a slight difference: an indie publisher sets up a company, creates their own ISBN numbers, and does the job of a publishing company. A self-publisher just kind of throws it out there on Amazon. They’re basically doing the same thing, with a slight difference in structure.

Getting started in mystery fiction

Sage the Poet: Reverend Kenneth follows up: he has three self-published books already, and he’s having trouble writing fiction mystery and getting started. What would you suggest?

Richard Lowe: That’s an excellent question, and I’ll go straight to the resource: I wrote a course on how to write and sell short mystery ebooks. It has the whole concept from front to back: how do you come up with an idea, what kind of plot does it have, what is the reader looking for in a mystery, how do you edit it, publish it, promote it, and so on, all in one book about a hundred pages long. Go to fictionmasterclass.com, scroll through the front page, and you’ll find it. I focus on short books because writers can write them fast, get them out there, and start making money; the principles are very similar for long ones.

What do you do when publishers say your genre won’t sell?

Sage the Poet: My co-host writes urban fantasy. She has a full series and has been seeking a publisher, and several told her flat out that they’re not supporting urban fantasy right now. For an indie author in that spot, what would you suggest so she can land the publisher interested in her genre?

Richard Lowe: What she needs to do is turn herself into a name they’re looking for. I can see the publishers’ point of view: they look at urban fantasy and think, it’s not going to sell, we won’t make back the money. Remember, they want to sell 50,000 copies, and in their mind, this won’t. So she has to prove to them that it will. As an indie publisher, she can write, say, a trilogy of urban fantasy, set up a marketing campaign, market herself and her books and that series, and build up her own sales. Then they’ll start coming to her, or when she goes to them, she can say: you’re wrong about urban fantasy. I’ve sold 50,000 copies. I got a BookBub ad and it sold like wildfire. Let’s do the second trilogy.

It’s on her to break through that wall by making it happen herself. And who knows: by the time she gets there, maybe she doesn’t want a traditional publisher anymore, because she’s figured it out herself. But that’s the concept: if they say there’s no market, she has to prove there is one. They won’t take the time to do it themselves; they’ll ask her for numbers and evidence, and the only way to get those is to actually do it. I think, and don’t quote me on this, the lady who did Twilight first built her audience before the publishers picked her up. That’s the pattern.

The other thing she can do, in parallel, is build a network. Meet traditional publishers: go to the book shows, go to the publishing shows, contact them, and build camaraderie. Not selling her book; selling her. Go shake hands, walk around. It’s hard for writers, because writers tend to be introverted; that’s why they’re writers. I know I was, though I’m not anymore. But build those contacts, find out who knows somebody who knows somebody, talk to an agent. I’d recommend self-publishing first, then moving to traditional, especially in a genre that isn’t selling well.

How does a poet market poetry books?

Sage the Poet: In reference to poetry: a lot of poetry authors say sales move slowly, whether online or through their own websites. What’s the best way to market and promote poetry books?

Richard Lowe: That’s what every author asks, no matter the genre: how do I make my book sell now, and fast? And that’s not the way it works, unless you’re a name like Stephen King or Rowling. What you do is start building yourself a name.

I’m not deeply familiar with the poetry market, but if I were going to publish poetry, I would publish short Kindle ebooks, something like 10,000 words each, 30 to 50 pages, publish them fast, and promote each one. Publish on Amazon, on your website, or both. Then do speaking engagements, talks at libraries, whatever gets your name out to your public.

Now, your public is not other poets. They’re not going to buy your stuff. Defining your public is usually the hard part. For a poet, your public is probably housewives, or people stuck in the hospital, or people who like Hallmark cards. Find out who that market is, and that’s who you go for. Once you find it, you build a marketing campaign: do you reach them with Facebook ads, with talks, with hospital visits? You build up a name for good poetry, and you do press releases when you release a book.

And here’s the trick with the press: they’re used to people releasing books, so they generally don’t cover book releases. But if you combine the release with an event, such as a charity event at a local hospital where you give books to sick children, you might get a reporter to come write a story. That’s how you build buzz: look at all the options to get your name out there. Some won’t work, and some will. Whoever buys poetry, that’s who you want to reach, and you come up with a way to do it.

Sage the Poet: Excellent. And I agree, especially about supporting a cause. As poets we should be artivists, using our platform to advocate.

Richard Lowe: There’s a second part to that: you promote the cause, and you use it to get the press involved. You don’t just promote the cause. You promote children’s causes with your poetry, and then you invite reporters to listen to you talk, and they interview you, and then you go on the radio. That’s how you build up your name.

The Yeadon Public Library connection

Sage the Poet: We have a caller, Ms. Sandra Wilkes. She is a friend of the Yeadon Public Library in Yeadon, PA, always interested in discovering authors she can invite for book signings and live readings.

Sandra Wilkes: Good evening. It sounds like your guest has many things to be helpful to people who want to be an author. I really enjoyed the part about going out to network, how important it is to go out and meet other people. I missed the beginning of the program; is he local?

Richard Lowe: I’m in Florida.

Sandra Wilkes: It doesn’t really matter, because just like we’re doing tonight, you could do it the same way with a group of people here. So please share my information, and I’ll share it with the director of the library.

Richard Lowe: You could even set up a monitor so they could see me. I’m sure you’ve got some tech geek there who could figure that out. And also, I’d be happy to donate a couple of my books to your library. Just send me the information and we’ll take care of that.

Sandra Wilkes: Oh, that would be great. There are a couple of libraries I’d want to have your information as I go around, and they would love your books as a donation. Thank you so much. And I have a question about bookmarks. I’ve been suggesting that authors have bookmarks made, and give a bookmark out instead of a business card, because if you put your book in front of a reader’s face with a bookmark, that may encourage them to learn more about you and your book. Do you use bookmarks yourself?

Richard Lowe: I haven’t used them myself, but it’s a very good idea if you’re going to a library reading or giving a speech. It’s always good to hand something out, and business cards tend to get lost; I have a box of hundreds of them I don’t even look at. But a bookmark, I’d throw in a book, run across it later, and think: maybe I should buy that. It’s a good idea.

Fiction Masterclass, book coaching, and Author Talk

Sage the Poet: Richard, share what’s available to writers on fictionmasterclass.com.

Richard Lowe: Fiction Masterclass has a course on how to make money as a freelance writer, one on how to write books fast, one on how to make money on Fiverr doing proofreading services, and one on show versus tell, which is one of the hardest concepts for writers: what’s the difference between showing a scene and telling a scene? Then there are the genre courses: fantasy, mystery, romance, and science fiction, with historical fiction releasing next week. There are promotion courses: how to use Amazon Marketing Services, how to sell your books using videos, and how to sell your books using your cell phone. And, this has been very popular: genre idea books. For fantasy, historical, mystery, romance, and science fiction, 500 prompts each, one sentence per idea, and a package of all five together. There’s also a section of books I recommend.

On top of that site, there’s a blog button, and a button that says Author Talk. Author Talk is a podcast I do once or twice a week, interviewing authors for an hour about their books, tips, and techniques. One of my recent guests wasn’t an author at all: he was one of the lead singers of the band Boston. He’s a friend of mine, and when you’re not in the press, it’s not often you get to interview somebody from a famous rock band. He said, sure, I’ll do it, and I wasn’t about to pass that up.

The site is intended to be very focused training: what writers need, without the fluff, written based on surveys of what people tell me they need. And my focus for the rest of the year is going to be courses on how to promote books, because that’s the big need out there.

And then thewritingking.com/ is my main site, more related to services: ghostwriting and book coaching. Book coaching is something I do with a lot of writers at an hourly rate. One writer wanted to work on promoting her book, another wanted to learn how to edit, another wanted to write better. I’ve got one in Israel right now writing a science fiction book: once a week he calls in, we work for an hour, I give him homework, and every Friday we go through what he’s done and move to the next lesson. It’s relatively inexpensive, just an hourly rate. Get on my website and contact me.

Closing, and a monthly slot

Sage the Poet: Reverend Kenneth says to inform you that you are very resourceful.

Richard Lowe: Well, I don’t have a choice. I have to succeed. This is my dream and my passion, so it’s one of those things: I’m not going to fail.

Sage the Poet: With a name like The Writing King, you can’t let anyone down, not even yourself. Richard, it’s almost nine; share your correspondence information.

Richard Lowe: The easiest way to get hold of me is to go to fictionmasterclass.com; there’s a contact button on the menu. The same contact form is on The Writing King. If you’re going to look at my training anyway, go to fictionmasterclass.com, because you might pick up something you like. You can also email me at rich@richardlowe.com. And if you go to fictionmasterclass.com, there’s a pop-up to join my email list, and you’ll get information about everything going on with me and my courses.

Sage the Poet: And a special announcement: The Writing King will be on this show’s panel every month, every third Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m. Am I correct, Richard?

Richard Lowe: Yep.

Sage the Poet: Don’t miss it. Thanks again, Richard, for an enrichment forum. Peace and blessings; have a good night.

Richard Lowe: You too. Thank you.

Find Richard Lowe at thewritingking.com/.

Quotable moments

Frequently Asked Questions

Part of Richard Lowe on Air, his complete run of podcast, radio, and video guest appearances.