Great Big World Update and the Decision to Self-Publish

As you’ve no doubt noticed, spring is unofficially over and there has been no announcement as to when Great Big World will be available. Unfortunately, the book has been slightly delayed. Sometimes real life gets in the way and unravels our well-laid plans. Not to fear, though, I’m shooting for a release sometime this summer as the final plans are put in place—early fall at the latest. I’ll be posting some character cartoons I’m whipping up as well as some other little teasers in the ramp up to the release, which will initially be digital only before moving to print copies.

Hey, that’s how self-publishing goes. There are several little problems you can encounter that can seriously alter your plans. So why did I choose this path? Freedom, mostly. By self-publishing, my novels can be whatever I want them to be. I can tell the stories I’m passionate about without a publisher telling me to change this or that to make the work more “marketable.”

The other reason I chose to self-publish is because life’s too short. I didn’t want to waste a year or more of my life shopping my book around to literary agents who were disinterested because it’s not exactly like what’s selling right now. I did actually send it out to a sampling of agents and received several polite, but form letter responses. So, that was enough for me to determine I wasn’t going to waste my time when I should be writing. I have confidence that the book is good and I don’t need the gatekeepers of a shifting—some would say dying—industry snubbing me as they cling to relevance.

I realized that while financial success would be nice—if I was lucky enough to score a fat contract in the first place—I really just wanted to get the work out to readers. And if I want to write Great Big World and then shift over to the more adult Maxim Ultra and back again, I can. There won’t be a lawyer or editor hovering over me telling me to stick to my contract. Unless a book is a runaway hit, a lot of authors end up doing all their own promotion anyway, so why not do that with the freedom to do it my way? I don’t need an editor, thanks to the fantastic writing group I work with, so if I have editing and marketing covered, what do I need a publisher for? Of course, a publisher has a much longer reach than a single person, but you only gain the benefit of that reach if you’re one of “the chosen.” It’s maddening, but if a publisher wants to come along and offer me a distribution deal, I’m all ears.

So, that’s why I’ve chosen to self-publish. It will bring me the freedom I desire to steer my writing career where I want it to go, but it’s definitely exhausting work.

Thanks for reading!

Still tinkerin'...