You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
And you are the one who’ll decide where to go.
Dr Seuss, Oh, the Places you’ll Go

When I made the decision that writing was the passion I wanted to follow the next decision was how to get published. You have probably read many words on this subject, but this is my take. I began with taking the traditional route. And was lucky to be accepted by a small Australian publisher immediately. The moment I received my acceptance letter and contract rates are in the top 10 days of my life.

Unfortunately not long after my first book, The Mystery of the Niello, was published and the second accepted my publisher went into receivership. It wasn’t my fault!! I’ll always be grateful for the chance she gave me to hold my first published book in my hand.

Soon after this family illness intervened with my plans and it was seven years later, in 2012, before I went back to writing. I sent the first book of my new series, The Entwhistle Experiment, to a large, worldwide publisher and received positive feedback and the request for my manuscript immediately. 17 months later I received an email: “Unfortunately your book does not fit our 2014 list”.

In this long waiting period I started to hear more and more about self-publishing and decided to investigate. I also wrote 3 more books in the Entwhistle series. You might think I would have been frustrated by now but writing was so joyful it made up for the wait and it gave me time to make the decision, and to investigate self-publishing.

Why did I decide to self-publish? In some ways the 17 months did me a favour because it made me realise that I wanted to control my own career. That’s not to say I would never go back to traditional publishing, especially if it meant working with a great editor – and it would be nice to have the ‘prestige’ and affirmation of a publisher – but I wouldn’t wait for months for a contract again.

Why self-publishing?

• I can choose the time of release of each book
• I can commission my own cover
• I have control over the layout
• It’s so easy and inexpensive
• I can market forever rather than a publisher doing so for the first few months after release, and then moving onto to the next author
• I can build my own team of editors, marketers, graphic artists etc. for relatively low expense.

There are some excellent self-publishing companies out there, and some scams. If a vanity publisher asks you for thousands of dollars to publish, beware. Google the publisher you are considering and find some reviews. Most of the publishers you should beware of have been ‘outed’ on the web.

I chose the Amazon self-publishing arm, CreateSpace, because someone I trusted recommended it to me. The experience has been wonderful. The company is efficient and responsive, easily contactable and you can publish for nothing, or anything up to a few thousand dollars depending on what you want. Next post I’ll talk about what Createspace offers (and no I’m not being paid to advertise!), the cost and the positives and pitfalls.