Indie Publishing & Mutual Backslapping...

The first stories I ever put online were on a site called Authonomy - I was lucky enough to be in from the start and involved in the beta version of it. Initially I thought it was great: I got some feedback from readers on some of my stories (many of which ended up being published in The Other Room) and while it wasn't all good feedback they was all serious comments on my work; people had obviously read the stories and thought about them... The quality of the final version of some of those stories that I have published owes a lot to those initial unknown readers and their feedback, and I offer them honest thanks.

But then... Authonomy started to change. You see, there was an overall 'prize' - to get your manuscript seen by a real-life-honest-to-god editor from the Harper Collins! They'd read, comment on, and maybe even publish, books that got the most 'votes'. Now, I was never really interested in all that - I'm self aware enough to know my stories are unlikely to be favourites for anyone other than a small cult audience. I just wanted to see if some people liked them or not. But as more and more people joined the site, and more and more books were added, the quality of the feedback declined. There was less and less constructive criticism, and more and more of what basically amounted to 'vote my book up and I'll vote yours...'

I gave up on the site and removed my work.

Later, I self-published. I started a blog because of that, and wanted 'followers'. I joined Twitter and wanted even more of them, but....

You can see where this is going, can't you?

Two self pub authors, yesterday.

You see, I just can't do mutual back-slapping, or MBS as I'll call it, to make it sound more like some frightful disease. Not just for moral reasons, but because I'm not actually very good at it. I can't fake enthusiasm, and in my head I know that books aretoo important to do so. Maybe not important to the wider world, but important to me. So I was extremely worried about the self publishing world - would it be like Authonomy all over again?

To an extent yes, but honestly less than I feared (I've mentioned before, I spend half my time worrying about things that never happen...) That is, it goes on, but I haven't had to sully my fingers with it. Fortunately, if you look there's a load of great indie writers out there, so there's no need to fake praise for the rubbish ones. I can just talk about the good ones, many of whom I've mentioned before: Alan Ryker; Zabrina Way; Dan Holloway; Neil Schiller. Iain Rowan who I haven't mentioned yet but is doing the next guest blog spot for me, which I'm thrilled about because his story Lilies is fantastic. And all the others I've mentioned, and those fine writers I've yet to discover.

But one worry, for me and this whole self-publishing lark as a whole, is that it can still look like MBS... Someone puts a review of your book on their blog, so you have a look and say thanks and realise they're a writer too, and you see they have the same tastes as you - of course they have, that's why they liked your book. So they're book appeals and you buy it and like it - of course you do, you share the same tastes! So you review it on your blog... Each step perfectly innocent and above board, but the end result sure looks like MBS doesn't it?

But the alternative, not reviewing and not supporting fellow authors whose work you genuinely admire, seems even more unpalatable. I guess what I'm trying to say is, if your see me praise an author on here, I genuinely mean it.

Honest Guv.

And keeping that spirit in mind, I'd like to say a genuine thank you to Iain Rowan for his review of The Other Room on his blog here.

Also, a sample story from The Other Room is available to read on the ace SelfScribes blog; interspersed with the main stories in the book is some flash fiction under the heading Some Stories For Escapists. This one is the third and subtitled The Haunted House.