A number of people have asked me, "Matt, why did you decide to self-publish rather than seeking a traditional publishing contract?"

There are a lot of honest answers to that question, most of which are boring, involve numbers and projections, and generally revolve around the notion that this is after all my first time out, and the manuscript I'm peddling is a good deal longer (by a debut-novel-and-a-half) than the industry-preferred debut-novel length of ~90,000 words.

The answer that I'd like to focus on today though is the only one that's worth mentioning at parties, and that's the fact that I know myself, and I know that every time I sit down to jot a query letter, it comes out starting somewhere-not-too-far-from this:


"Dear sir, Dear madam, Dear more-complicated-than-that-binary-rubbish-constrains-these-greetings-to,

Allow me to introduce to you, the finest novelist my mother ever raised. My name is an unpronounceable slurry of consonants and whistling click-y sounds, so you ought to skirt the embarrassment of mispronunciation and call me Mr. Norris instead, or Matt for very-short. I’m reaching out today for our mutual entertainment, but also because through your capacity as a person who I’ll be flattering shortly, you stand to read a most intriguing book. You’ve read dozens of those before, I know. That’s what’s brought us to this juncture. You read intriguing works of fiction for a living, and as it happens, I have one to keep you up for the next several nights when you really should be spending quality time with your family. Midnight oil has such a carbon footprint. Still, you can be forgiven just this one more time for burning it in the service of our mutual endeavor."