The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Writer #8

It’s alive, Dr Frankenstein, it’s alive!

Did I by now regard what I’d created as a monster?  Not exactly, but I was made restless by the inanimate creation that constituted my novel.

Even when I was immersed in my ‘commercial practice’, there was some part of me that knew the book was lurking, waiting to be progressed or put quietly to sleep.

I need to confess something at this stage.  At no time did I consider an industrial approach to seeking an agent or a publisher.  My only explanation for this is a cocktail of laziness and fear.  Laziness because, let’s face it, there are many businesses out there who one could target, be they agents or publishers, and making submissions is time-consuming, particularly given the arbitrary nature of the acceptance process.  Fear, because the only way to avoid rejection is not to invite it.

But the book would just not let me be and so I began to investigate self-publishing.  At least this way, so I argued with myself, the book would be available as I had written it, warts and all.

I looked at Lulu and a host of similar offers and was immediately discomfited.  Leaving aside the frequent opacity of the commercial offer, it seemed absurd merely to produce something with the appearance of a book when the definition of ‘publish’ is ‘to make public’.  In other words, the essence of publishing is publicity.  It was pointless spending money to produce an article if I lacked the resources (howsoever defined) to enable people to hear about it.

So finally I began to consider publishing it direct to Kindle.  This promised significant benefits, not least of which was that it cost nothing and avoided holding stock and distributing it.  Plus, of course, trying to market something virally is a function of time, insight and tenacity, rather than budget and, if it took off, I might even follow in the footsteps of other eAuthors and pick up a traditional deal.

I’d made the decision to do it, created a (free) microsite which would be my lead weapon in attacking the marketplace, and started to re-read it with a more editorial eye.  Of course, this was bound to fail as there was insufficient distance (ie, none) between author and editor but, what the hell, I’m the man who once proof-read ‘Pipes, Mains, Cables and Sewers - A Practitioner’s Guide’.  The Force was with me.

Then fate intervened.

Ian Phillips is a freelance writer for businesses whose first novel, Grosse Fugue, will be published by Alliance Publishing Press on April 11^th. He’s tweeting developments @Ian_at_theWord.