Chapter 3: Why not Self-Publish?

I have written five works of fiction. As mentioned once or twice, I am yearning to get my books in print, and over the years the temptation to pay a copy editor then self-publish has been great. It has never been easier to self-publish and depending on how much money you want to spend, there are myriad levels of support during the and after the process. You don’t even have to spend a lot of money. You can get copies of your book in print through Amazon very inexpensively, and if you are a graphic designer, you can design your own cover. That said, I am so glad I never self-published my first book. If I had yielded to this temptation, I would be squirming with embarrassment at this very moment. I still love my first story, but I understand now, why no publisher wanted to snap it up and once it’s out there, you can’t pull it back.

 Over time, however, as I watched other friend and acquaintance writers self-publish successfully, I did wonder if I was just using that as an excuse because I was scared of putting my book out there. There was a certain amount of pressure, or expectation and I started thinking more seriously about it. Then an editor I engaged for my fourth book said to me: ‘Why are you in such a hurry to self-publish? Why not use this waiting period to hone your craft?’ Firstly, I was thrilled to the core that she’d described the deafening silence from publishers as ‘my waiting period’ and secondly, I felt relief that the pressure was off. Back off everyone – I’m honing.

Who knows what the future holds? Maybe I will self-publish one day, I really can’t bear to think my books will never be read by anyone other than friends, family and a few editors, but for now I want to exhaust all other options.