I don’t usually post a photo of my own book The Gathering Room on my blog. But today seemed appropriate, and it’s not for shameless self promotion. I have a thing or two I’d like to say about writing and publishing a book. Let’s just say I’m a little hot under the collar about this one! Thankfully I have my own website and I’m going to use it!

As I’m sure all of you are aware I am a self published author. In April of 2022, when I started my journey of getting what I affectionately called “my little story” published, I had never even heard of self publishing. It should be noted that I more or less do live under a rock, so I was still thinking the only way to get a book published was to query to an agent, get rejected and then hopefully find someone to publish your book. But the world is a different place in the 21st century, as I was soon to realize. The world of self publishing has opened up avenues of opportunity and experiences for millions of would be writers out there. People just like me who grew up as book lovers, always dreamed of writing a book of their own and now they can!

This self publishing world is filled with different ways of bringing your dream to life. You can literally go it alone and do everything yourself or you can elect to use a hybrid service, like I did with Maine Authors Publishing. If you choose to go it alone and do everything yourself you can truly publish whatever you want. There is no one standing over you telling you your content won’t be appealing to the masses. Or this needs correction or that should be done differently. You alone are in charge of everything from the writing to the editing to the layout. Write it, print it, get it in electronic form, get it out there into the digital world and hope someone reads it.

In my case, using a hybrid service, my manuscript was vetted, similar to traditional publishing where someone checks it first. It passed the “this will sell” test. Then there was editing, revisions, meetings with a graphic designer on the cover, the layout and then it went off to be printed and magically appeared on Amazon (thank you Nikki because I can honestly say I could not have figured that out myself!). Either way the process is exhausting, stressful, and most of all expensive. When you are a self published author you are carrying the financial responsibility of the whole project yourself. This is often why you will hear people comment on how self published books are of an inferior quality. Both in product design and also in content. Self published authors all have real jobs, where the bulk of their take home pay is going toward living expenses! Whatever they can scrape up to make their dream of publishing a book a reality is a sacrifice. Sometimes they have to cut corners. Use a lesser quality paper or choose to edit their book themselves, rather then hire a professional, to save money. Yes sometimes those choices make a less then perfect book, but it’s their dream they are living and they are beholden to no one except achievement of their own goals. I’ve met self published authors who took out second mortgages on their homes, used their retirement savings, or took a second job to cover the costs. Being a self published author is not for the faint of heart. You have to be one strong willed son of a gun to be able to do this!

This brings me to why I’m actually writing this blog this week. One of the very first things I experienced as a self published author was walking into a library to donate a book, yes donate a book for free, only to have the librarian roll her eyes at me, take my book, set it aside and not give me so much as a thank you! I was crushed! This experience was followed by requests from several people online that I get my book into a specific local independent bookstore. I approached the book store twice, on two different occasions, only to be rebuffed. This I was to find out, was going to be my new normal in lots of book stores. And even after a year of the book being out there, with a phenomenal sales record and winner of several prestigious national indie book awards, I still had another librarian reject my offer of speaking about the book in her library and she coldly told me “there are so many of you self published authors and so many of those awards that it means nothing.” Let me just tell you I quickly learned who my “tribe” was and who wasn’t, and the ones that fall into the “not my tribe” category might surprise you. But for all the bookstores, gift shops and libraries that do stock my book you have my utmost gratitude!!!

Now I’m not telling you this for you to feel sorry for me. Please don’t, I am having a tremendous experience and I’ve sold thousands and thousands of copies of my book, here in Maine, across the country and around the world. I am not your typical self published author nor is my success typical. I’m telling you this because it is reflective of what other self published authors face every day and they don’t have the success rate that I have to fall back on for courage. I follow many self published authors online and if they sell one book in a month they are thrilled. And I see post after post of the struggles they have trying to gain respect for their work. This was never more evident to me then in a conversation I had with someone just a few days ago, and why I decided to write my blog about this.

In this conversation I was asked if I knew another local self published author. I in fact did know them, which was unusual because as noted above anyone with determination can publish a book now so there are thousands of us just here in Maine! But I did know this author and when I confirmed that I did, I was asked if I had read their book. I had read it and said so. The person I was speaking with then asked me if I had liked it, but before I could answer they launched into their own declaration that the book was awful and then proceeded to tell me of having this exact same conversations with others, who they named specifically as if I would be impressed by this, who also thought this book was awful. I was stunned because this person speaking to me, of all people, should know that not every book is for every reader. That we all have different tastes and that is why having a variety of books is wonderful! Writing is art and art is subjective. And the “others” that this person spoke of, I had already figured out were not part of my tribe, so their opinion of my fellow author’s book fell on deaf ears!

But what bothered me the most from this conversation came from my perspective as a self published author. I know what this fellow author went through to make their dream a reality. I know the struggles and I know the joy of what it feels like to hold that finished book in your hand. See your name on the cover, that feeling that you are now a real author. At that moment it doesn’t matter if the book is good or bad, you achieved your goal. This person I was speaking with has never published a book, and I doubt very much would have the strength to do it. They appeared to be content sitting on the sideline of Life throwing out criticisms to the people who were actually Living! It just irked me to hear them bash someone who had set a goal, worked hard to attain it, taken a financial risk and were now living their dream.

Books by self published authors are just as valuable as traditionally published books. They are full of hopes, dreams and passion, just as traditionally published authors instill into their books. Self published books are pure, unfiltered, sometimes raw but does that make them bad? I’ve read some traditionally published books I thought were pretty awful by my personal standards. Is the quality of self published books inferior? I am reading a traditionally published book right now that I have found lots of grammatical errors in! To the point that I ask myself, did anyone edit this? Are there to many self published books and self published authors flooding the market? Walk into a big box bookstore, who generally don’t carry self published books, how many books do you see in that store? Thousands of traditionally published books that’s what you see. It’s a vast market, there is room for everyone.

The only difference between a traditionally published book and a self published book is the perception of what is valuable. That perception needs to change. For the sake of all self published authors, but specifically my friend who was so brutally raked over the coals. So I’m asking you, can you try and locate a self published author in your area?

And I don’t mean me, I’m good! Really!

Find another self published author to support. If you can’t find one ask me, I know several! But find them and buy their book, post a review online, follow them on social media, let them know you are inspired by what they have accomplished! Find the tribe, join it with me! There is no reason for this much negativity toward one another, it’s tough out there and we all need to be a little more kind.