An Experience of Self-Publishing

The road to publication promises twists and turns to the adventurous new writer. In this article Graeme Brown (author of the self-published book ‘Becoming’) shares his personal journey with us.

In the strange scheme of things, 
Love and desire takes twisted turns
Down the road of life;
I have experienced very recently
Things I only dreamed of for a 
Very long time.

It was this little poem by Ron Sorum, written as an email in early August 2003, that inspired the endeavour which has become my first book, ‘Becoming’.

Both Ron and I were, for the first time in our lives, experiencing things which were changing us in ways we had never before known. Thus, in response to him, I wrote back with what was to become the first poem of my first book.

At the time, when I wrote this, it was meant to be nothing more than a mutual return-offer to Ron for his beautiful poetic response to me. However, when he responded and asked when he’d be getting the book, I laughed! I had never finished any of my writing projects before; how was I to think I would finish this one?

August and September - the words I wrote

August went by and I produced a few more poems. I had written poetry before, but always found it took a lot of planning and contemplation, often resulting in me giving up. This time though, the poetry just came out, like something pre-formed. With these few poems, I had discovered a style of writing which seemed to become me. Feedback from Ron was positive and encouraging. Looking back, I really appreciate this!

September came and whilst working a night-time front desk shift, I had plenty of time to write. As the month progressed the poetry continued to flow. It was like the poems were being dictated to me. Each verse would come as a single word. I would open ‘Notepad’, type in the word, hit return twice, and then simply keep on typing.

Often, I would have no idea what I was writing until I’d finished. It was only after I’d sat back and reread, that I realised the poem I’d just written had a deeply embedded meaning – each poem had integrity.

I continued this process, eventually writing a total of 30 poems. At this point I was seriously considering producing a book. I had my doubts about this route being successful - after all, there is purportedly no market for poetry these days. So, I did the wise thing, and started to share my work, in order to get feedback from others.

The reception was good; this included one woman who said that my poetry had touched her and brought her to tears. However, it was my grandmother’s enthusiasm that eventually set me on the road to publishing.

I had it all worked out. I didn't know what to call the work, but for the present I had settled on, ‘The Mountain of Truth’. The book would take the reader on a journey through which they would question their unique role in the cosmos – as I had during the writing. The final poem in the book would be called ‘On the Mountain-top’.

October - early drafts

At the beginning of October I had every poem written, except for the final one. So I began to write it but found myself stuck. It took about a week, and following this I felt I had nothing more to write.

The pursuit of publication was very trying. I looked all over the place. I even got roped into one of those online poetry scams and lost 80 dollars (new poets beware, ‘spurious literary societies’!). I tried all kinds of agents, but none of them took poetry. Even though I tried to describe ‘Becoming‘ as not simply falling into the "poetry" category, they were still not interested. This was truly frustrating: I felt I had something very different from the norm but saw no way of getting it out there.

One night I decided to look into self-publishing. This was fruitless at first, just another open-ended trawl through search engine results. I did find a few sites that were claiming to be subsidy publishers, but they looked like scams. I left my email address with two of them and then decided to just give up.

November - getting self-published

Some days later I got a reply from someone, and to cut a long story short I eventually spoke to them and they encouraged me to send in my poetry collection. This involved me re-typing the poems as I had since deleted them (don’t ask), but it did give me the opportunity to re-think as I transcribed. The task complete, the name ‘Becoming’ fell into my mind, and I sent them off. I sat on my hands for 3 weeks and eventually the collection was returned to me. It was going to cost more than 10,000 USD to publish the book! I had hoped to have it accepted and the costs borne by the publisher.

Late in November, I found out about my current publisher, and took the decision to pay in the region of 1,500 USD to have the book formatted, published and sold via print-on-demand. December 2003, roughly four months after my response to Ron, and having gone from, ‘I could never write a book of poetry,’ to publication, I had learned it’s good to prove yourself wrong!

Presently - reflections on having published

I’m currently (April 2005) happy that I made the decision I did. The process of publication was very difficult on me at first. For a while, I was still of the mind-set that I would have to get the book to the attention of a Trade Publisher in order to make the big bucks. There was even a point, in April 2004, when I regretted my chosen publishing route. However, a very vicious head-on with a particular agent burst that bubble, and had me set on being my own guy.

I have learned a great deal about what I would like as a writer, indeed what it means to be a writer. Many writers who are trying to write that best-seller and become the next Stephen King miss out on the big picture of what it means to really be a writer. Simply put, when you are a writer, you write. Not because you want money, not because you want fame, but because that’s just what you do.

There are many ways to get your work out there. Unfortunately, many people lose sight of the sweat and tears that can be involved. One of the draw-backs of being self-publishing is that anybody can write anything, and for an X-dollar fee, have it published. There is no way to tell if what you have will succeed in the mass market; for all you know, you may just be wasting your money. That said, there is no greater feeling then knowing that you have the potential there, the door open.

There is nothing worse than having writing projects that just sit in your drawer, as I have learned. I would have never thought, five years ago, that my first work would be a book of poetry. Perhaps it won't be my best work, but it will stand as my most important work, because it caused me to take the necessary steps and start self-publishing. Because of it, I have cast aside the old, deluded, glamorous images of writing that best-selling novel that would get me bought into the market.

My advice to those writers out there who have something which they pride with all their heart but can't seem to get published is: if you have a day job (which most writers do, as the axiom goes!), save up your money and invest in self-publishing. What you take on via this route is all the marketing. Yet, along with this you have the freedom and independence to deliver your work unmarred by editors, and to go about its distribution in a way that best suits you. At the end of the day, you may make more money per book sale, and you will not be committed to becoming a literary sausage-factory in order to satisfy the contractual demands of a publisher.

Most important to my development as a writer, has been in finding other people who I can share my work with. Here I am now, at the beginning of that journey of sharing, and where the path may lead only the wondrous surprises of tomorrow can say.

© Graeme Brown, 2005 (all rights reserved) www.henchkey.com