Why I made the switch from self-publishing to traditional

By Jenni DeWitt

Jenni DeWitt

I started writing when my 2-year-old son, Cooper, was diagnosed with cancer. Every evening, I sat on the stiff, vinyl couch in his hospital room and typed out a story for our family and friends. Then I posted it on his online health journal, CaringBridge.

I wrote about the hilarious and heartbreaking moments of our day. Then I asked for their prayers. I poured myself into that health journal each night, convinced that if they kept coming back to read they’d keep remembering to pray, and we desperately needed prayers.

The more I wrote, the more I remembered how much I loved to write. So, as my son started to feel better and treatment slowed, I kept writing.

God was teaching me so much about my anxiety and about faith and suffering. I wanted to share it all, but Cooper’s health journal didn’t feel like the right place to do it. So I started a blog called Genuflected.com.

A year later I wrote my first book, Why Won’t God Talk to Me? Surprising Ways He Already Is. It helps readers learn to hear God’s voice by opening their ears to ways God might already be trying to talk to them.

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My next book was Forty Days: A Memoir of Our Time in the Desert of Childhood Cancer . It’s a book about the spiritual bootcamp God allowed me to go through during the first 40 days after Cooper was diagnosed with cancer.

Both books are self-published. I hired a graphic designer from Fiverr to do the cover design, and I recruited friends like Alison Kern to be my editors. I figured everything out as I went and muddled through formatting the books so they would look good both in print and ebook.

Finally, I had two beautiful finished products… and absolutely no idea what to do with them. I’m a persuasive person by nature, but I found the hardest thing to market was myself. 

It didn’t help that I was still so raw and fresh in the writing world. I didn’t know if I had any talent as a writer. How could I tell people to buy my books when I was scared my writing wasn’t good enough?

Of course I tried a few things - some campaigns and giveaways. I even sold a few copies. But it

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became clear to me that no one would read my books if they didn’t know they existed. I needed to figure out marketing. 

So, for the next two years, I poured myself into learning how to market. I read everything I could and watched every free webinar known to man. I even found a part-time job in the marketing department of a local business.

And I kept writing. Eventually, I landed a few paying freelance jobs. Then I won a writing contest. The prize was a chance to meet an acquisitions editor - a person who works for a traditional publisher acquiring manuscripts.

I’d been kicking around the idea of switching to fiction. I’d fallen into blogging and writing non-fiction books as a result of Cooper’s cancer journey. But, in my heart, I’d always dreamed of being a fiction writer.

Maybe it was time to make the change and give it a try with traditional publishing? I poured myself into more research and learned all I could about traditional publishing. I wanted to be prepared for my meeting. After all, this could be my big break.

Cooper and Mama

As it turned out, it wasn’t. But I did learn a lot.

In our brief meeting, that acquisitions editor helped me understand how important it is to think of the reader when you’re writing. She opened my eyes to asking the question, who will read this?

While creativity is key, it’s important to give the reader what they expect in some regard. For example, each genre and age level have a typical word count associated with them. And there’s a certain cadence and tone associated with each as well.

In talking with the acquisitions editor, I finally started to understand what I’d been missing all along… marketing is about focusing on your audience more than you focus on yourself.

It seemed so obvious the way she explained it - so clear. And, for the first time, I realized how much I craved a mentor. How badly I longed to find a guide to help me through the tangled web of book publishing. 

It’s been two years since that meeting with the acquisitions editor. Since then, I’ve completed my first fiction manuscript, a YA Christian fiction book full of intrigue, thrill and mystery. It’s based on the real-life prophecy of three days of darkness that’s been foretold for hundreds of years. Click here and I’ll tell you more.

Now I have my very own literary agent and guide, Jennifer Haskins, and I’m in the process of signing a three-book contract with Christian publisher, Little Lamb Books.

Traditional publishing is just as much work as self publishing. However, so far, I like it much better than being out there on my own in the great, big publishing world. I don’t feel so alone, constantly floundering around wondering what to do next. I’m grateful to be part of a team.

How about you? Do you prefer self publishing? Traditional publishing? Both? I’d love to hear what led you to your choice if you’d like to leave a comment! Today we are giving away a copy of Why Won't God Talk to Me?

Jenni DeWitt is a loud-laughing introvert who's learning to love like a Christian in this crazy, mixed up world. She enjoys playing fetch with her cat and writing YA Christian fiction novels filled with angels, demons, and a little human romance to keep things interesting. Online Jenni can be found at jennidewitt.com, but in the real world, she's probably reading a book on the dock of some obscure Nebraska lake. Jenni is the author of two self-published books - Forty Days and Why Won’t God Talk to Me? Surprising Ways He Already Is, but she got lonely out there in the world. Now she's happy to be part of a team as an author working with Metamorphosis Literary Agency and Little Lamb Books.