Liberation- or at least something like it.

I had an epiphany the other day. They don’t happen often, but when they do arrive it’s not so much like a light going on as a realization that my way of looking at things has changed- without my actually noticing. I have to stop and scratch my head a little and wonder when the change actually took place. In this particular instance it was my view of self-publishing.

Self-publishing has long had a stigma that I think is pretty unfair. Yes, there is some real dreck that makes it out onto the market via the self-publishing channels, but I think the same can be said of the mainstream publishing houses. They publish some great stuff, but they publish some really bad stuff too.

What I find funny is that while self-publishing has this stigma, there is nothing cooler than indie films and indie record companies. I’m not sure why the writing world still labours under this stigma, but it does to a certain extent. I have had many people say to me, ‘oh, but you’re self-published, aren’t you?’ and I knew they were dismissing the possibility that I had any talent, right there and then. As if they were certain that if I had any talent at all, I would be published traditionally. For a long time that stung, but I learned to shrug it off as I’ve learned to shrug off so many things- you have to if you’re going to keep writing. I just kept plugging along, hoping that one day the NY industry would ‘discover’ me and after more than a decade of struggling in anonymity, I’d be an ‘overnight’ sensation. Well, that never happened, and sometimes I really let it get me down over the years. The rejection letters were all in the same vein- ‘wonderful story, such descriptive writing, so vivid, etc’ but in the end they passed. And in the end, I always felt it was me and my lack of talent, or ability to somehow break through that wall that seems to exist between writers and publishers.

But the industry is changing, a LOT. And the game changer is Amazon. I know many people see them as the bully on the block, and in some ways, I suppose that’s accurate. Amazon’s Kindle Select program really changed things for me, I sell far more books now than I ever did before and my royalty rate is 70%, which is nothing to sneeze at in an industry where many of us are used to getting 10% and even that’s high in some cases. I sell more books, I make more money, I reach more readers.

Recently, as many of you know I participated in the Kindle Select Free Days with my first book, Exit Unicorns. Just under 12,000 copies of it went out on the ether onto people’s Kindles and all the other devices that support a Kindle app. The other two books in the series sold well that weekend, and have continued to sell well and sales of the first book have boosted quite a bit too.

The epiphany occured when I was out weeding my roses- epiphanies often seem to happen when I am in the rose garden. I think the fairies must be belling me upside the head. I realized that I have what I wanted- a growing readership, direct contact with many readers, the knowledge that my books have a place in many people’s lives and the freedom to do what I like with my stories and the characters and to take the time necessary to do it. A traditional publisher likely would never have allowed me that freedom and maybe that would have been a very bad thing for the books. Maybe the story would have changed, or died on the vine if I didn’t have the freedom to write it as it came to me.

I don’t know what the future holds, but I am really glad that there is a way now to write and actually make money- no, I’m not getting rich any time soon, but at least I’m helping to pay the bills occasionally. And you know, if Liam Neeson shows up and offers me a movie deal, I am not saying no to the man. But I do feel free suddenly and strangely, and know that my self-worth as a writer is no longer in the hands of a stranger in NY. It never was, I just needed to be belled upside the head to truly see that.