So, as some of you know, I started self-publishing in May 2011 and I reached a milestone in January 2014 by selling over 1000 ebooks in one month. That’s a month’s day-job wages for me and a significant step closer to becoming a full-time writer. At this point in my career, I’d like share a few things with you about my journey so far. When I first started writing, I planned to go the traditional route. I bought the Writers & Artists Yearbook and started submitting my first novel once it was finished. It did the round of rejections from publishers and agents – all except for one who did pick me up. The following is a brief extract from the feedback I received:

“… It has been difficult to find anything about the writer which might indicate that this is a first book, and although this is a horror story set in war – to all intents and purposes, this is a literary book …”

Sounds good, right?

I thought so too.

Needless to say, we signed a contract and I thought I was on my way; instead, I waited over eighteen months for something to happen. While I was waiting, the Kindle came out and self-publishing started making waves. I was hearing very little from my agent and because of this I sat up, paid attention, mostly to J.A. Konrath and David Gaughran, and started doing my research on self-publishing.

If said agent had been more attentive and made me feel like I was a going concern then maybe I wouldn’t have done this – who knows? But this was not the first time I would run into what can only be described as a superior and dismissive attitude from those who work in the traditional publishing industry. Despite irregular assurances, usually as a result of me chasing him, nothing had happened by the beginning of 2011 and therefore I decided to sack my agent.

A few months later, I was publishing The Eyes of the Dead onto Amazon and Smashwords. I continued to self-publish horror fiction for eighteen months and garnered a certain amount of critical acclaim, but sales remained relatively low. The most I made in a month during this period was £55.16 after currency conversion and the most books I sold in a month was 70. Though this was still better on a month-by-month basis than the proceeds from my few forays into the Small Press, which came to about £20 overall.

This might sound like the beginning of a tale of woe but it’s not. Out of the blue, my agent came back to me and tried to sign me to his own publishing imprint. This is the response he gave when I politely turned down his offer.

“Really?

You’re obviously feeling bullish about the self/vanity publishing route. I’ve just offered you a £5k advance with a real publisher, an audio release and a 50/50 share of royalties. 

If you want to move up out of the self pub swamp let me know.”

I think you will agree that this response is less than polite, not very respectful and indicative, to my mind, of how traditional publishing not only views self-publishing, but authors as a whole. And remember, he came back to me – why try again if he didn’t think I was worth having in his stable? By doing this, he convinced me that I had done the right thing by self-publishing. I didn’t need to work with people like this.

What happened next was that I switched genres to Fantasy – and things started to happen. I had a feature for my first Fantasy title on Ereader News Today in April 2013 that led to my best month, by that point, with 243 books sold. A few months later, when the second book came out, I dropped the first in price to being permafree and sales picked up once again –not to the same level as April but September saw 4000 free downloads and 75 books sold. I was maintaining a steady income and sales stream – and, most importantly, it was out-distancing my horror sales significantly, even in August when I only sold 2-3 books per day.

Then, I managed to get a promotion lined up with Bookbub for the release of the third book, and this led to December 2013 and January 2014 being very good months. In December, I sold 696 books and saw free downloads hit 30,000. In January, I sold 1,174 books and free downloads were at 6,000. Since December, I have made more than I earn in a month from my day-job – that’s over $2,000.

Now, this is a milestone, not the end-game. I will have to work hard to keep the money and the sales up there. It won’t be easy but if I can do it once, I can do it again.

And I did this without an agent, a publicist or a publisher. Don’t get me wrong, there were times when it was tempting to fall for the Validation Myth, but I am so glad that I didn’t.

Before I go, here are some aspects of the Validation Myth that I would like to bust:

Writers need the old Gatekeepers (i.e. Agents, Publishers etc,.) to validate their work before it’s fit for public consumption!

Wrong! Every writer needs a good editor, but beyond that we can do a lot of the job ourselves. I proofread my books (repeatedly). I use beta-readers. I format my books. I market my books. I talk to other writers on a daily basis about best practice. I do out-source for cover-art at the present time, but if you have the skills then you can do your own art too. Not much else left for the old Gatekeepers to do now, is there?

Writers who get excited over Amazon Ranking results are deluded, pathetic idiots.

Wrong! Writers with good rankings on Amazon –paid and free – are making money, and that’s why they are getting excited. They are celebrating their success – what’s the problem with that, exactly? It’s also how we monitor the success of our work, make judgement calls on when it’s time to switch genres, for example, line up another promotion, or have another glass of bourbon. All privileges available to very few, if any, traditionally-published authors – except, maybe, the bourbon.

Self-published authors are just bitter; the numbers they share are purely anecdotal and signs of limited success shared by a few.

Wrong! I don’t even know where to start with this one. Firstly, I’m not bitter. I’m happier than I have been in years right now. Last year was good. This year is looking to be even better. As to our numbers being purely anecdotal, I’d like to refer you again to the blogs of J.A. Konrath, David Gaughran – and to Iain Rob Wright. Read thoroughly and without prejudice. These gentlemen, like myself, deal in real numbers and hard data – something that I have always found much more convincing than speculative pipe-dreams. Also, bear this in mind, the traditional publishing industry has only anecdotal numbers to refer to; self-published authors are outside of their system and, as a general rule, they don’t like to talk to us. So, can you really trust their numbers anymore than mine?

And here’s one last question that I would like to throw open to the floor – if Validation is so important, why is it that no author has ever been able to pay their gas bill with it?