Word of mouth has now carried Make a Move as far as friends-of-friends, and yesterday I heard that a friend recommended the book to someone, only to be told “not a self-published book; they’re just badly written ego-trips”. You could say the same thing about most celebrity autobiographies, and they’re selling okay… Fortunately, the person in question was open-minded enough to listen to a counter-argument, and not only did he accept that well-written work can be self-published, he also bought a copy. It’s something I’ve encountered before, and will again, but coupled with a number of blog posts I’ve read this week explaining why the authors self-published, it made me think it was time I justify my decision.

The Reasons

The following reasons are not stating why you should self-publish; they’re just why I did.

• Make a Move is a VERY difficult pitch, which means it’s hard for an agent to work out how to sell it to publishers, and it’s hard for publishers to work out how to sell it to customers. Try this on for size: it’s a thriller populated by slackers, it’s about spies, but there’s little-to-no spycraft; it’s set in a porno cinema, but it’s not smutty, and the narrative structure is stolen from a sit-com. Would you pick it up for publication? Explaining the book takes time, and doesn’t fit into the paragraph or two available on a cover letter, so I decided to get the book out there, so it might find readers with the time to explore and understand it, who could then pass that knowledge on, and eventually word might reach an agent or editor looking for something different. Of course, editors aren’t looking for something different, they’re looking for something “original”, which I guess means different things to different people, but publishing is in flux right now, and who knows what opportunities that could create.
• Even if I could get a book deal, it wouldn’t pay very much. I’ve read the figures and I know the chances of getting a bestseller and being able to write full-time. Looking at it pragmatically, it ain’t gonna happen. I enjoy my day-job and it pays well, so if I’m not trying to get the book published for money, why give up the rights and control when I can do this myself? A lot of the process of self-publishing is hard work, but there’s a lot of fun to be had too. And I don’t need a publisher to arrange the fun stuff, such as networking and promotion. I’ve met some cool people in Manchester since I started this process, and while I’m in control, there’s no reason that can’t continue. As long as I’m chasing fun and not money, I can’t go wrong.
• Make a Move is the first in a series of 3-or-so books, and that series is dead while the first instalment is stagnating on my hard disk. I NEEDED to get the book out. I’ve nearly sold out the first print run, which means I’ll soon have 100 readers. Then I’ll have 200 (my target). Then I’ll have 1000 (my dream). That’s impetus enough to keep writing these characters, and that’s really all this is about. Me, Freddy, Jay and Holly, seeing how far we can take this.

So that’s honestly why I made this choice. You should make it for different reasons, as it’s your time and money you’re investing, and those reasons have to sustain you when times get hard. And they will get hard. But as long as you’re doing it for reasons that are right for you, there’ll be easy, fun, fulfilling, creative times too.

Tags: Make a Move, Self-publishing, Submissions

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at 21:55 and is filed under Opinion, Publishing . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.