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Until recently, the self-publication of books was considered unusual, but now we are either homing back to the start of things, which is exciting, or the publishing world has exploded — and anyone can pick up a piece.
Centuries ago and the owner of the press was also the writer and producer of a manuscript; people have always looked to circulate their ideas in a public forum. Self-publishing has gone from being the ‘norm’ to obscurity to an ‘ego trip’ to the ‘norm’ again. It’s commonplace now, for authors to directly upload their manuscripts for the growing digital market, increasing the temptation to bypass agents and publishing houses altogether, thereby chasing the immediate reward and readership, however large or small.
But revenue and success is proportional to the quality of the product. Embracing the electronic age, J K Rowling has now launched Pottermore, which will be the exclusive vendor for the Harry Potter series in digital and audio formats. This is a far cry from the old school typewriter her first manuscript was written on, but the product is the same one that propelled her to fame. Even if she had given up on her tenth rejection letter and self-published, her stories would most likely still be here.
Many great writers have self-published — Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Beatrice Potter to name a few — and were successful because what they wrote was compelling. Thousands think they have a book in them, and want to write it. Maybe it is because they think they can do better than what’s already on the shelves, or because (as Samuel Johnson wrote) ”There lurks, perhaps, in every human heart, a desire of distinction, which inclines every man to hope, and then to believe, that nature has given himself something peculiar to himself.”
Wanting to immortalise your life story in print is hard work plus once it is done, does anyone want to read it? My great uncle, a talented painter, wrote an autobiographical novel. The project took years. When the rejection letters started to arrive, he paid £50 per book for it to be published to discover that family and friends (his only readership) were unimpressed, slightly bored and deeply offended by what he had written. His dream of being a published author dissolved in the threat of divorce and an empty pocket. Self-publishing gives all control to the author but leaves them exposed. There’s a certain amount of quality control in a system of author-agent-publisher that protects an artist from mass rejection and protects the reader from rubbish fiction.
The e-book has opened many possible avenues for a writer to publish their work, either by themselves of through a small publishing house. Hen House Press in New York has just published pop artist Ivan Jenson’s novel Dead Artist. This book can now be read on a Kindle as an e-book, or bought on Amazon and will soon be sold as a paperback. It has many beautiful parts to it, and the premise of it is half good: a struggling street artist is hit by overnight success and, shell shocked, goes home to live with his dying mother to then have the chance (20 years later) of re-living his failed ‘dream’. Only his two best friends are Vincent Van Gogh and Pablo Picasso (in ghost form) and this much sought after success is often described as an out-of-reach banana! The characters, including the omniscient narrator all have the same voice, which is, unfortunately, the “I’m-writing-a-novel” voice of the author; at times so serious and rigid his characters are neither real, nor ghostly but robotic.
Overcoming the various hurdles of getting a novel published may result in a better end product. A reader wants to be swept away, smoothly, into a different time and place. Any tiny mistake can pothole this journey and devalue the worth of the entire project to the ramblings of an amateur. How to Publish Yourself author Peter Finch says that small presses are “to be avoided at all costs” as there is no independent entity making a judgment about their quality. Instead I personally like the indie spirit of cutting out middle men and avoiding the gatekeepers of the industry, and it can often lead to success.
Vicky Tyley, an Australian mystery writer, had her book Thin Blood rejected for two years before it was picked up by an agent who encouraged her to put it on Amazon and the Kindle (to see what would happen). And the book hit #1 on the Kindle mystery bestseller list. But the reason why her book was rejected in the first place was because no one thought there was a market for an Australian mystery writer — it had nothing to do with the quality of it. In this case, her agent Robert Fleck says: “The electronic publishing frontier is best for breaking in an author who can’t get a reading for spacious reasons, or for maintaining the careers of midlist authors who have a lot of quality product but never quite ‘broke through’ in traditional publishing.”
There are many reasons why a book may be rejected, but plenty of ways of getting it out there. Self-publishing can no longer be considered “vanity press” as so many people are blogging, publishing ideas and commentary on Twitter or crafting works intended for the Kindle and electronic dissemination. It’s exciting that anyone can be an author and publisher as the heightened competition gives space for the next great novel to be discovered, but this time by the reader, who is only one click away from connecting with it. Yet this availability of roles and faster paced production line can lead to impatience, with writers so focused on the ‘out-of-reach banana of success’ that they have a slack approach to their craft, as being published is sometimes seen as the end game, regardless of quality of subject.
Juliette Golding
Juliette Golding studied at Cheltenham Ladies' College and The University of Manchester before going on to study creative writing in San Francisco. She moved to London as a script writer and marketing executive and is in the process of completing a book of short stories. She currently lives in East London.
