In the spring of this year I wrote an article for Quill & Quire about my experience moving from traditional publishing to self-publishing…and back again. The article was published online and so behind the Quill & Quire paywall. Rights reverted, here it is:

Self-publishing. The refuge of the vain and talentless. Well, Shelley self-published. As did Hawthorne, Dickinson, Sterne, Proust, Stein. Leaves of Grass was self-published. Still Alice, Sense and Sensibility, The Wealthy Barber, The Best Laid Plans. Still, who hasn’t passed that poor soul in the mall seated before a table of books with cringe-inducing covers, their cheap pages formatted in Word and printed on a dot matrix? There but for the grace of God we all think.

It’s what I thought, smug, safely ensconced in the world of traditional publishing. My books had been reviewed in newspapers and literary magazines; I’d been invited to readings and festivals, radio and television interviews. And then my agent couldn’t place my third novel. Oh, it was powerful, memorable, darkly poetic, the writing fluid and fine, editors and readers swept away. But. But, but, but. It’s the market, my agent said. Have you thought of putting it on Amazon? I had. Amazon had always been plan B. No way was I prepared to toss six years’ work to the back of the drawer and start again. I was proud of The Fishers of Paradise—the writing, the gritty, multi-layered characters; I loved the Cootes Paradise setting. And in my bones I believed that the story of Hamilton’s boathouse community deserved to be heard.

So I went over to the other side. Big learning curve: permissions, ISBNs, GBIP, html, EPUB, mobipocket, calibre. Thankfully, I’m a process person, far more interested in doing than in having done. At the time I was living on Saturna, BC’s southernmost gulf island, population 325, including renowned, award-winning graphic designer, Mark Timmings. I commissioned him to do the cover.  Then I emailed bloggers, took out ads, went on blog “tours” and periodically set the book for free to drive up the sales rank. Watching your book download at 100 copies an hour—now there’s a dopamine kick. Free downloads don’t always get read, and they bring out the one-star trolls, the sock puppets and the genre junkies who have no compunction telling the world what they think of your dark book and dysfunctional characters. I realized maybe 150 sales, lousy odds for 13,000 downloads. But that’s 13,000 potential readers more than I had before clicking the Publish button.

That was the U.S. Here in Canada, many of my ereader-less friends and fans had yet to read Fishers. If I could cajole them into downloading, I sure as hell couldn’t make them sit at their computers to read. “I wanna real book,” they chorused. “A book book.” Like my wily gambler, Ray Fisher, I calculated the angles. I had no desire to be that poor sod sitting in the mall. Goose Lane books in hand, I approached an on-demand press in Victoria. The pages must look EXACTLY like these, I told the typesetter. I paid for better quality paper and heavier card stock. I asked writer friends for blurbs.

With book books I was on more familiar ground. On Friday I picked up my order—300—and by Saturday afternoon I’d hand-sold 7o. Saturna’s Bootcove Books and Hamilton’s three independent bookstores agreed to carry it. The amazing staff at Bryan Prince, Bookseller moved some 90 copies. The rest I sold over the bar at Lighthouse Pub. Propped them between the wine menu and the beer tower at the start of each shift and served fish and chips with a side of book.

Print copies led to a Jeff Mahoney article in the Hamilton Spectator. Daniel Coleman put Fishers on a graduate course at McMaster. And in an unplanned bonus, I now met the submission requirements for the Arts Hamilton awards. In November 2013, The Fishers of Paradise won the inaugural Kerry Schooley Award for the book that best captures the spirit of Hamilton, and Noelle Allen of Wolsak & Wynn invited me to lunch to chat about a reprint edition. With its striking new cover, The Fishers of Paradise was rereleased this April under a brand new imprint, James Street North Books, to find a place in libraries and bookstores beyond Hamilton and Saturna Island.

Those book books opened the door to something else thrilling and uniquely Canadian. Miranda Hill, author and founder of Project Bookmark Canada, read one. She wanted Fishers as part of her Literary Trail. As Project Bookmark Canada “only marks places from works published by recognized publishers,” Wolsak & Wynn’s role was key. Bookmark #16, The Fishers of Paradise, was unveiled June 1oth on Hamilton’s Waterfront Trail.

I never wanted to be on the outside looking in. It’s chilly out there. But, if I hadn’t embraced the whole process of self-publishing, if I had shelved my work instead of my pride, I would never have found my way back to traditional publishing, where I’d much rather be.