Monday, August 15, 2011

Why I'm self-publishing

Over the past 12 months I've been working on a new science fiction series for younger readers (junior/upper primary/middle grade). I've had a lot of fun with it, and when I was reasonably happy with the first book I sent it to my current publisher to see if they were interested.

Although they really liked the book they recommended I take it to a bigger company, for reasons including distribution and the fact I was planning to write two or more of these a year.

I duly submitted the manuscript to a larger publisher in June, but over the next two months I started thinking. (Dangerous pastime...)

(c)2011 Simon Haynes


Eventually I came to the conclusion that I'd rather self-publish my new series. I'm planning a whole run of them, and the way the book-selling trade is set up it's next to impossible to launch and maintain an ongoing series. (I shouldn't complain because it's even worse in TV land, where amazing shows like Firefly are cancelled because they didn't sell enough shaving cream or nappies.)

So, I withdrew my submission, dusted off my old imprint, dug out my block of ISBNs and signed up with a POD company. I've been prepping Hal Junior: The Secret Signal, and the first book in the series will be released in October 2011 on the Kindle, on Smashwords and in print (using LSI). Hal Junior will be available worldwide.

This certainly won't be my first foray into self-pub, and I'm sure it won't be the last. At heart I'm equal parts businessman and artist, and I love to get my hands dirty with the product.

Once this title is published I'll be able to focus on my next project. Over the next few weeks I'll also be blogging a lot more about my experiences.

(c)2011 Simon Haynes

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

4 comments:

Drake said...

Great article Simon. Gave me an answer to another question I had on global publishing for which I thank you.

Drake F.

Simon Haynes said...

As you can imagine, I'll be posting a lot more on this topic over the coming months.

WordVixen said...

Excellent. I'm kind of hoping for a Kindle for Christmas. Even though I pretty much loathe ebooks in general, it would be so nice for the times that I have to review or endorse a book and can only get it in an electronic version (book reviewing totally has its perks), and it would make it so much easier to get great books like yours that aren't widely distributed in the U.S.

So I may not be able to get Hal Jr right away, but it'll certainly be one of the first I DL once I get a Kindle!

Simon Haynes said...

Hiya

Hal Junior will also be a $6.99 or $7.99 paperback available from any bookstore. (Not stocked, this is the next best thing.)

Once you have a Kindle you won't go back to paper. I was an avowed paper book lover but I haven't read anything but ebooks for months.