The Self-Publishing Alternative
I see now that discovering what I was good at was one of the major quests of my life. What I have found is that at any age there is great enjoyment in working on developing a latent potential. I always wanted to explore becoming a writer, though it didn’t occur to me that it was feasible until I was well over fifty.
This epiphany came hard fought. Like many other people who have considered taking up writing, I was plagued with doubts. Could it be that I was self-delusional; that I didn’t have the skill or talent to take it up at all? And just what was it that I was taking up? Is writing a trade? Is it a profession? Is it perhaps, an art? How could I prepare? After all, this was not going to be the passive reading of someone else’s work but the labor-intensive task of finishing my own. Would there be sudden attacks when fluency would fly out the door? Is there a category called an amateur writer? And if so, what were the boundaries that separated professional writer from dilettante? It was these kinds of misgivings that blocked my quest for half a century.
It was only after I broke out of the diffidence that encased me that I was able to take up pen and paper, or in my case, keyboard, and computer. The liberation from uncertainty and apprehension came slowly. My first realization that I was about to move into a different phase in my life was a sporadic feeling of ‘not-giving-a-damn’ that came over me from time to time. When I finally made my decision to move ahead into the journey of writing, my first step was to acknowledge my aspiration. I would like to say that I boldly announced my ambition to become a writer much like a person might publicly stake their claim to become a politician. But to be honest, at first my boldness came out as a mumble rather than a roar.
I used myself as a guinea pig, over and over declaring to myself that I was on my way to becoming a writer. Slowly, I made my intentions clear, first to myself and eventually to the entire world, or at least the world that mattered to me. For me, proclaiming that I am a writer and then affirming this idea to others was my big step into the world of dedicated writing. No more would I spend weeks or months writing a paper or outlining what had a possibility to turn into a book, only to crumple it up and throw it in the trash can. I would take myself seriously. To paraphrase Descartes, I defined myself as a writer, therefore I am.
There are reasons why I felt writing and sharing my ideas with others was a worthwhile goal. Some of my reasons were purely personal. Well, maybe they all were. When I was a young person I was considered less than average, a child who was a great disappointment to my parents and teachers. It took me a long time to move beyond this categorization. And writing has been demonstrably helpful.
I have found that the activity of writing makes problematical the intelligence quotient scores embedded in the statistics of IQ measurements. The only way to discover an unrealized talent is to throw the authoritative results of intelligence tests out the window. Can there be deep water flowing somewhere in the mind, an individuality that the official tests have never tapped? None of us will ever know until we move past the barrier that sorts and labels us.
Writing seems to me to dive into little pockets of inner space like a space shuttle mission exploring unseen territory. When I sit down to write I wonder what surprises I’ll come across; will they be glorious findings, or will I conjure up embarrassing truths? For me, without writing there would probably be no way to expose silent, stored experiences. Of course, not every gem of veracity needs to be put into the permanent record of published compilations.
Not knowing anyone to ask, I was not forewarned that when writing, candor isn’t something easily hidden from oneself. Here is an ironic twist I’ve learned: when I discover a little-known fact about myself, something dug up from a secret cache of long laid away memories, I am shockingly aware that it was known to me all along. All I had to do was sit and write and long-forgotten ideas, people, places, and evocations are discharged, fully formed, and retrieved in all their unabashed frankness.
Fiction writing or non-fiction writing, it’s all the same. Once the act of writing is set-in motion, revelations occur. And revelations are not subject to the delicacies and distinctions of social propriety. I am charitable to myself when manuscript writing, knowing that the nuances can be refined, shaded, or left out entirely. Removing an awkward truth, one that is so private it should never see the light of day is, perhaps, one of the main functions of editing. Unlike Biblical revelations, it’s obvious to me that my own divine mysteries are not always best revealed.
Besides unleashing psychic retentiveness there are many other reasons I have taken up writing. With over seven decades behind me I have found that there is no better way to reinvent myself. Who among us has led so perfect a life that there is no regret, no realization that things would have been better if other decisions had been made instead? I have found that writing has the potential to move the dial, change the channel, create a new persona.
Reinventing oneself is not an easy task at any age. Questions abound: do we set fire to all the odd ideas and beliefs from the past and move forth in a new direction? Can we even achieve such a thing? Even in the bloom of youth, most of us haven’t the fortitude or the opportunity to forge beyond “the great mountains” like Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, relentlessly pursing unexplored territory. We may have a motivation to make big changes, but the risk of falling off the edge is an avoidance instinctively activated in most of us. Not to mention that the exposure to such a big picture was evidently too much for poor Meriwether Lewis who committed suicide. No, I was always sure that there must be a better way to explore one’s full potential besides walking along the possibly dangerous unexplored road never traveled.
Writing fulfills the need to make changes in my life without the threat of imminent peril. It can be as straightforward as ‘remembrance of things past,’ putting down recollections of childhood and experiences. Or it can take on new perspectives and fresh ideas. The independence is liberating, it’s all up to the writer. What a deal!
And the activity accommodates many more of us than if we were judged only by academic measurements; writing doesn’t require a degree or a stamp of approval. If one fails to have their manuscript professionally published, it doesn’t mean failure of the author but rather failure of the publishing firms to recognize the stellar work it is. Or at least this is soothing succor for anyone, including myself, to explain not being acknowledged by ‘official’ publishers. Judging by the history of unrecognized writers from the past who are now in the annals of the famous, it’s undoubtedly true that many works are undervalued in their own time.
Writing gives me a cause for optimism. It advantages people who might look different from the people who manage the big publishing companies. Sometimes the elderly and the feminine, to name just a few, are not given due respect. I include myself in this Venn diagram. Mercifully, the act of reading either fiction or non-fiction is prima facie non-biased. So if a writer wants to conceal their identity, there are convenient ways to hide authorship in the world where the word and not the photograph, rules. Pseudonyms have frequently been used by women. George Sand was actually the female French romantic writer Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dudevan. Also, if you are on the skedaddle for some reason, it’s always possible to use a nom de plume.
I have tiptoed around the subject of monetization for a reason. This is something I know less about than it might appear. After writing and publishing four books, it would be natural to assume that I know how to sell one. But my books were all self-published, a method made infinitesimally easier because of electronic media. It is possible in this day and age to never submit your manuscript to a cold-eyed agent or a stony-hearted publishing house. You can, and are even encouraged by big tech, to independently publish and then advertise your works on the world wide web. Even though social media platforms are being criticized and maligned these days, they are more than accommodating to the self-publishing author. Amazon, for instance, will help writers get their work into a structured context and bound up to sell. There is even a name for this type of writer, an “Indie Author.”
If it sounds too good to be true, it is. There is one small difficulty with this new, miraculous way to get a book published. There are problems selling it. The creative juices that kept me up late at night writing my draft were of no use when, after finishing my work and self-publishing it, there was the thorny dilemma of distribution and marketing. Inspirational juices are aqueous, too easily swallowed up in the crass world of thirsty commercialism. When all is said and done, placing one’s work into public view automatically brands it as a product. And products are items to be sold for a profit.
One’s self-published book is a beautiful sight to its author. It looks great on a bookshelf. But sadly I have little advice to offer about selling self-published works without a publisher. If you get your work printed digitally through a self-publishing platform, and then printed in hard copy, many authorities, and pundits who advise about the ‘how and why’ of sales will exhort you to personally peddle copies of the book to bookstores.
For obvious reasons, the majority of advice to indie writers focuses on social media. There is encouragement to join on-line writers’ groups or create a life where you are “on” either electronically or otherwise, 24/7 like the encyclopedia salespeople of yesteryear. This will cut into your time alone, a necessity if you are to cogitate and consider how you will start new creative writing projects. But it might get many more books sold. As I imagine George Sand might have said, comme ci, comme ça.
Though I am not well honed about selling books, I can bear witness to the great delight that writing brings. I have written with an obligation to create the best work I can for the reader. Once the work is published, or in my case, (to be more exact) self-published, there is the hopeful anticipation that perhaps there will be a connection with a small but loyal readership. This is something that has happened to me in the nearly ten years since I began the adventure of writing. The idea of giving the gift of enjoyment to readers of my books is enough to keep me going.
But there is more. I have the reassurance that I had the strength to write and publish without concern for popularity or criticism. I don’t feel apologetic about adding another volume to the world’s book shelves. And I do not need to suffer regret about “the road not taken.” I took it.
Writing has made me get out of my own way. Each year it is easier to pen words of truth and even sometimes expose raw emotions. As the years roll by, I have come to consider myself a small but living proof that writing brings joy, vivacity, and fulfilment into life at any age.
