April Fools, News and Views with Rupert Dreyfus

Hello everyone,

I was going to operate an elaborate April Fools��� prank, but I decided against it. Boo!

I���ll give you a brief update instead. I���m parking on my second novel and I���m presently pushing towards releasing a collection of short stories instead. I now have 9 stories out of 13 complete. I���m hoping to make it available in paperback and do some giveaways; but if you���re skint then don���t worry because it���ll be free in at least one format (probably the eBook). I have a name for the collection which will hopefully turn some heads. I���ll reveal it closer to the time. And for those of you who have read Eat Nasty , the story I���ve not long finished tops it. It���s absolutely appalling. Anyways; I���ll have more news on this in due course.

Some of you will know that last month I released a short story about a blunt as part of a Krs-One inspired competition. Once somebody had won the competition I realised that I had basically committed myself to writing a ridiculous yarn and there was no backing out of it. However, it was a lot of fun writing and researching aspects of it (particularly New York slang), and I���d like to give a shout out to all those people who took the time to read it. If you haven���t read it then you can always click here when you get some spare time.

So this month I���m going to write a little bit about vanity publishing. Vanity publishing used to be a dirty term; now it���s pretty much the norm except we call it indie publishing so it sounds less tragic. Hopping around Goodreads profiles, it seems as if 1 in 3 people are a Goodreads author with no budget, no publishing house behind them and no financial backing. What does Rupert think about this shift of direction in the publishing world? Well, like everything in life there are both good and bad points. Traditional publishing isn���t going to go away any time soon, but we are seeing a massive rise of self-published authors (myself included) trying to locate a readership now that the internet has happened. This can only be encouraged; nobody owns writing although industry people have gotten away with thinking that they have for too long. Like painting and making music, writing stories is for all of us to enjoy should we get the urge. Therefore encouraging people to be creative is the way forward.

You may already know that self-publishing has been around for pretty much as long as the written word has been around. In fact some famous names took to it hundreds of years ago. William Blake, for example, believed that self-publishing was the only way to retain complete creative control over his work and to avoid the church and state interfering with it. But in the pre-internet days self-publishing had mostly been a fringe hobby. Most aspiring authors used to have to go through the infuriating process of approaching literary agents. I won���t bore you with this process, but I will say that crowd surfing across broken glass and rusty nails dipped in herpes is more fun than sending off your manuscript to some spotty intern who is quick to wipe their arse with it and then send a rejection letter written on the back of a beer mat with wax crayon. It���s no great mystery why people are boycotting that procedure and doing things independently.

Yet despite Blake���s best efforts to show that self-publishing can be credible, there is still a stigma attached to it which I���d like to touch on because this attitude is bad boogie; as if we all fall in to the same category. You can find numerous people getting on their high horses whenever somebody like me pops up and takes a shit in their pristine Goodreads forum. Fair enough; nobody���s under any obligation to read my stories or to even engage with me on any level. But the record I���d like to set straight is the reason why I personally decided to vanity publish.

I decided to vanity publish because my formative years were spent listening to DIY punk and hardcore bands so this route seems only natural. Also; if Hillary Mantel���s The Assassination of Margret Thatcher caused outrage among the establishment then stories like Spark are going to give them a hernia. I can���t be arsed trying to market my anti-market stories at people who mostly care about making some money out of the market. Yeah, it���d be lovely to make some paper out of writing, but I ain���t compromising my morals in order to do it. I���m happy making little money and keeping it as real as I can; putting out stories I would personally enjoy reading and approaching people who look like they may appreciate them.

I���d also like to stress that I���m not against traditional publishing (that would be crazy). If an agent popped up who seemed like they could compliment what I���m doing then I���d be a fool not to consider it. However, there are aspects of the traditional publishing world which I am firmly against. This is an essay in itself so I���ll save that for some time in the future.

So that���s vanity publishing. Love it or hate it, it���ll be sticking around for as long as there are clowns like me who think they���re the next George Orwell. But rest assured; I ain���t going away until I���ve made my millions. And then I���ll buy the publishing industry and burn it in to the fucking ground.

Keep it foolish!

Rupert