Here and Beyond - Why I decided to self-publish
How I got here
On January 23rd I self-published something for the first time, a short story called Forever My Baby, one I wrote back in the summer of 2007. I am 33 years old. I first submitted a story to a magazine for possible publication back in 1997, when I was 18 years old. Over the past 15 years I have racked up some 400 short story rejections, plus a handful of all important sales (33 at last count). I also have more than 100 rejections on four of my eight novels, one of which received three all important partial requests, but failed at the final hurdle.
For most of that time I loathed the idea of vanity (sorry, “indie”) publishing. Yet, now I have turned my back on my beliefs and began to do just that. Am I a traitor to my ideals or a man granted a sudden revelation? In all honestly, I’m still unsure. Probably somewhere between the two.
Vanity publishing
Vanity publishing is when a writer chooses to publish their work by their own means. No editor has bought it, no editor has said it’s good. The writer has decided that yes, it is good enough, and no, he/she doesn’t need some editor in a castle somewhere to tell them that it is. It’s getting published, no matter what.
In the past it was actually quite an expensive, unrewarding thing to do. And then Amazon Kindle happened, and Goodreads, and Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble. Suddenly it was easier to self-publish than it was to submit work to an editor. No waiting around, no rejection. The only thing that was required was the confidence to do it, and the willingness to market it yourself.
Why now?
I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. Strictly speaking, I’m only half-doing it – three of the four stories I’ve self-published and nine of the ten stories in my collection (Ms Ito’s Bird & Other Stories) have been previously published in print or online magazines and the rights have now returned to me. However, it does also give an opportunity for me to publish stories and eventually novels that have not been published before. So why would I do that? One reason is that I can, but the most important reason is that I trust my judgment. I know which of my works are good, and which are not. And I know how good. Maybe not change-the-world good, but better than most and more importantly, good enough.
I was that starry-eyed kid once, bouncing merrily to the postbox with a dumb grin on his face to mail off his future bestseller to HarperCollins. That kid is dead, and what is left behind is a hardened (and poor) writer with a day job and an ambition rather than a dream, but one who backs – without question – his own ability.
An arduous task
As anyone who has done the short story market rounds will know, it’s a thankless task. Yes, there is the very slim chance of selling somewhere like The New Yorker or Fantasy & Science Fiction and bagging a solid pay check. I’ve sold two stories professionally, and both were worth it financially. None of the others were. Sending out a story to eight different magazines over a year, collecting seven rejections before that all important acceptance, then waiting another year for publication and that $5 fee via PayPal, it’s a hard grind. Then there are those magazines which close before your story even comes out … #heads crash against wall#
What selling to a magazine does do is give you confidence. One sale is worth fifty rejections in terms of letting you know that yes, your story is good. And when that happens enough times, you start to be able to judge for yourself if what you have written is good or not. And if you can do that, why wait around for a year for someone else to agree with you when the means to put it out into the world yourself now exists?
New voices
Most modern writers get asked in interviews how often there were rejected before they finally sold their first novel – and for many it is a shocking number. JK Rowling, some 15 times, I think, another writer I like, Patrick Rothfuss, only got an agent through a personal recommendation from a writer friend. But what about all those who gave up after a few hits? Rejection is hard to take, and no doubt there are brilliant writers out there who gave up, whose masterpieces are sitting in a box or on a hard drive somewhere because the industry was too hard to crack and they gave up for some less ego-bruising profession. The new revolution in publishing gives these writers a chance, if only they dare.
If 1000 men run a race
Or … finding the gold in the flak. I would be a liar if I said I didn’t feel a little aggrieved (jealous?) that now every man and his dog thinks he’s a publishable writer. Not everyone is good enough to be an astronaut, or a professional wrestler, or a TV presenter, so why is being a writer different? It distresses me each time I read a self-published writer’s work and they haven't even grasped basic grammar, let alone the ability to make a story jump off a page and come alive. There are great self-published writers out there, but they are hidden by a veritable flood of junk from people who think that just because they can, they should.
Here I step into difficult territory because it would be naïve of me – not to mention selfish – to suggest that someone shouldn’t be allowed to publish in an open market like this. It would be like saying someone can't set up a stall at a car boot sale just because they have a rubbish car. But I would argue that people should exercise self-quality control, and I don’t think it is going too far to suggest that any wannabe writer should possess at least basic writing skills. I think it comes from a sense of having served an apprenticeship – it took me nine years to make my first sale – that is no longer necessary in the current self-publishing boom.
The way I see it is this – if 1000 men line up to run a hundred metre race, it will be those best equipped to win who will finish near the front. Those with the skills, those with the talent, those with the drive and the confidence to succeed. The genuinely good self-published writers will become successful based on the quality of their work and their confidence in it, and the rest will fail. I for one, don’t expect to win that race, but I do expect to be somewhere in the leading pack. And if I’m not? Well, I’ll run it again in five years and see how I’m doing then.
See you near the finish line, I hope.
Chris Ward
My Amazon author's page
http://www.amazon.com/Chris-Ward/e/B0...
Chris Ward (fiction writer) on Facebook
@ChrisWardWriter on Twitter
On January 23rd I self-published something for the first time, a short story called Forever My Baby, one I wrote back in the summer of 2007. I am 33 years old. I first submitted a story to a magazine for possible publication back in 1997, when I was 18 years old. Over the past 15 years I have racked up some 400 short story rejections, plus a handful of all important sales (33 at last count). I also have more than 100 rejections on four of my eight novels, one of which received three all important partial requests, but failed at the final hurdle.
For most of that time I loathed the idea of vanity (sorry, “indie”) publishing. Yet, now I have turned my back on my beliefs and began to do just that. Am I a traitor to my ideals or a man granted a sudden revelation? In all honestly, I’m still unsure. Probably somewhere between the two.
Vanity publishing
Vanity publishing is when a writer chooses to publish their work by their own means. No editor has bought it, no editor has said it’s good. The writer has decided that yes, it is good enough, and no, he/she doesn’t need some editor in a castle somewhere to tell them that it is. It’s getting published, no matter what.
In the past it was actually quite an expensive, unrewarding thing to do. And then Amazon Kindle happened, and Goodreads, and Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble. Suddenly it was easier to self-publish than it was to submit work to an editor. No waiting around, no rejection. The only thing that was required was the confidence to do it, and the willingness to market it yourself.
Why now?
I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. Strictly speaking, I’m only half-doing it – three of the four stories I’ve self-published and nine of the ten stories in my collection (Ms Ito’s Bird & Other Stories) have been previously published in print or online magazines and the rights have now returned to me. However, it does also give an opportunity for me to publish stories and eventually novels that have not been published before. So why would I do that? One reason is that I can, but the most important reason is that I trust my judgment. I know which of my works are good, and which are not. And I know how good. Maybe not change-the-world good, but better than most and more importantly, good enough.
I was that starry-eyed kid once, bouncing merrily to the postbox with a dumb grin on his face to mail off his future bestseller to HarperCollins. That kid is dead, and what is left behind is a hardened (and poor) writer with a day job and an ambition rather than a dream, but one who backs – without question – his own ability.
An arduous task
As anyone who has done the short story market rounds will know, it’s a thankless task. Yes, there is the very slim chance of selling somewhere like The New Yorker or Fantasy & Science Fiction and bagging a solid pay check. I’ve sold two stories professionally, and both were worth it financially. None of the others were. Sending out a story to eight different magazines over a year, collecting seven rejections before that all important acceptance, then waiting another year for publication and that $5 fee via PayPal, it’s a hard grind. Then there are those magazines which close before your story even comes out … #heads crash against wall#
What selling to a magazine does do is give you confidence. One sale is worth fifty rejections in terms of letting you know that yes, your story is good. And when that happens enough times, you start to be able to judge for yourself if what you have written is good or not. And if you can do that, why wait around for a year for someone else to agree with you when the means to put it out into the world yourself now exists?
New voices
Most modern writers get asked in interviews how often there were rejected before they finally sold their first novel – and for many it is a shocking number. JK Rowling, some 15 times, I think, another writer I like, Patrick Rothfuss, only got an agent through a personal recommendation from a writer friend. But what about all those who gave up after a few hits? Rejection is hard to take, and no doubt there are brilliant writers out there who gave up, whose masterpieces are sitting in a box or on a hard drive somewhere because the industry was too hard to crack and they gave up for some less ego-bruising profession. The new revolution in publishing gives these writers a chance, if only they dare.
If 1000 men run a race
Or … finding the gold in the flak. I would be a liar if I said I didn’t feel a little aggrieved (jealous?) that now every man and his dog thinks he’s a publishable writer. Not everyone is good enough to be an astronaut, or a professional wrestler, or a TV presenter, so why is being a writer different? It distresses me each time I read a self-published writer’s work and they haven't even grasped basic grammar, let alone the ability to make a story jump off a page and come alive. There are great self-published writers out there, but they are hidden by a veritable flood of junk from people who think that just because they can, they should.
Here I step into difficult territory because it would be naïve of me – not to mention selfish – to suggest that someone shouldn’t be allowed to publish in an open market like this. It would be like saying someone can't set up a stall at a car boot sale just because they have a rubbish car. But I would argue that people should exercise self-quality control, and I don’t think it is going too far to suggest that any wannabe writer should possess at least basic writing skills. I think it comes from a sense of having served an apprenticeship – it took me nine years to make my first sale – that is no longer necessary in the current self-publishing boom.
The way I see it is this – if 1000 men line up to run a hundred metre race, it will be those best equipped to win who will finish near the front. Those with the skills, those with the talent, those with the drive and the confidence to succeed. The genuinely good self-published writers will become successful based on the quality of their work and their confidence in it, and the rest will fail. I for one, don’t expect to win that race, but I do expect to be somewhere in the leading pack. And if I’m not? Well, I’ll run it again in five years and see how I’m doing then.
See you near the finish line, I hope.
Chris Ward
My Amazon author's page
http://www.amazon.com/Chris-Ward/e/B0...
Chris Ward (fiction writer) on Facebook
@ChrisWardWriter on Twitter
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