If you search twitter for the hashtag, #AmQuerying – you will find not only hundreds of recent tweets, but thousands of individuals with the tag either in their name or their bio.

Traditional publishing is the dream for most authors- and while I was in the querying trenches for a few years as well, I realized something critical that I am now so much better for: I was torturing myself.

Querying agents is all about getting noticed, and the odds are NOT on your side. Not only do you need to have the right hook, pitch, query, subject, and by the way be a good author, but also there’s a dozen ancillary aspects which are agent specific. Some agents have a bias against women in adult fantasy, others may only want to represent established authors, many will only seriously consider BIPOC or underrepresented (sexuality, race, disability) authors. As you can see, some of these (including the many others I didn’t list) are just encouraging a personal preference while some are just wrong and unethical. What matters is no matter who you are, there are going to be some agents out there who do not want YOU simply because of who you are. Yet still, the author will persist.

And I encourage that- honestly. I hope each and every aspiring traditionally published author finds an agent and then gets picked up by a publisher and does all the amazing things!

I realized though that the whole begging for acceptance thing just wasn’t for me. And I call it that, because that is how I always felt. “Please Mx. Agent, validate me and my work!” – and then when they didn’t, I would be crushed. I was putting my mental health at the mercy of agents who could reject me for any number of reasons- maybe they really didn’t like my writing, maybe they were having a bad day, maybe they just signed someone whose work was a little similar (that happened), maybe they already signed too many people, maybe they didn’t really have the time for a proper evaluation, maybe there isn’t enough gay in the book, maybe there is too much gay in the book, maybe a hundred things that I (and you, the author) can’t ever dream to control.

Now, truly, self-publishing isn’t for everyone. First of all the success rate is abysmal (much like in querying)- the difference here though, is there are things YOU can control.
YOU, the author, become the publisher, and as the publisher, YOU decide how you plan to market the book, how much advertising will go in to it. YOU decide the cover, you decide the release date, you decide the platforms.

That’s a whole lot of work, effort, and financial investment which there is no guarantee for return on. For many people, that’s too much to coordinate successfully, but if you have a general knack for Program or Project Management (even if you’ve never called them by those names)- self-publishing may be the perfect way to go, as I found it is for me.

I LOVE how deep I can work with people on the cover creation. I love how I’m planning a little quiet space so I can record the audiobook version of my book. I mean I put all that effort into writing this thing, I want to do everything I can to keep going with this project and to make it a success!
And contrary to popular belief, YOU (the self-publisher) can to an extent control if your book is a success or not. Many people think that self-publishing is a roll of the dice and either you’ll make a little meager money back, or just totally fail. But I’m telling you just consider it like a puzzle, or a game….. a QUEST if you will.

As a self-publisher, you can look around at what works and what doesn’t. You can put in the work to promote and interact, you can do the right kind of marketing. It’s a lot of work, but it’s ENTIRELY REASONABLE for your book to nearly be guaranteed to do well.

And the key though- is this has to be FUN for you. You need to look at this strategy game called self-publishing and say, “Oh, I can win THAT!”
You need to love your project so fully and without remorse that the only thing that makes sense to you is to get those words out to the world to read.

That’s why I’m self-publishing.
It absolutely isn’t for everyone.

For some people, traditional publishing is the right choice. Some, it’s the only reasonable choice. For me, I’ve come to realize that self-publishing… doing it MYSELF… is the right way to go because only I can bring my story out to the world the way it was meant to be.

So this year- the world will see two of my books- because I’m making it happen.
I really hope you love them, but if not- hey, I would know that I put what I love out there and gave you the chance to actually read it.