Makes Sense to Me

Just over a year ago, fed up of the constant round of submission, rejection, submission, please rewrite, rewrite, submission, rejection, I made the decision to self-publish on Smashwords and The Kindle.

Before Christmas, I turned that decision partly on its head when Crooked Cat accepted The Filey Connection. Since then, they’ve also accepted Voices, written under my pseudonym David Shaw, and the next Sanford 3rd Age Club Mystery, The I-Spy Murders (due out June 28th).

So what changed my mind?

Well I haven’t completely changed my mind. I still self-publish some titles, and in every book there is a complete list of available titles front and back. It goes without saying then, that every time I publish something, I have to update that front and back matter.

Diversionary question: If it goes without saying, why am I saying it?

I’ve just done that this morning and it took me three sodding hours. Three solid, bloody hours of reformatting, adjusting links, eliminating some links, adding others, and then uploading

It also goes without saying (but again I’m gonna say it) that I’m fed up. In fact, up, I have never been so fed.

When you work with a publisher like Crooked Cat, you take a cut in royalties, but the upside is you get increased visibility and respectability (yes, there are those people living in the dark ages who think all self-publishing is vanity publishing). But you also get to do without the three hours of brain strain that I’ve just been through.

My good friends Laurence and Steph Patterson, who run Crooked Cat, may not see this in the same light, but it goes without saying (for the third time) that I’d much rather they did it than me.

And now I’m going to take my dog for a walk… well he walks, I limp.