The loneliness of the self-published writer

With apologies to Iron Maiden...

Those keen heavy metal fans among you will be probably be aware of a tune by the pioneers of the “new wave of British heavy metal” called “The loneliness of the long-distance runner”.

For those of you who don’t know what I’m on about, here’s a link to the tune:

It starts off with a pretty neat guitar lick and then it gallops away as only Iron Maiden can gallop, like a bunch of drunk and deranged medieval knights who have long burnt their own book of chivalry and disowned everything they used to stand for. Still, it has some nice guitar parts in it: such as the band’s double synchronised guitar solos, for example.

Anyway, I digress. Or at least I have been digressing.

For my main topic today is not mullet-inspired stadium rock music. It is in fact, rather, the loneliness that one can encounter as a writer, and a novelist, in particular. This solitude is further exacerbated when someone is a self-published novelist.

For one, you don’t have an agent or editor or proofreader to hand, who can perhaps guide you through the tough parts of a novel, or at least edit and check the work and suggest amends that will help improve your work. You can employ people to help you as a self-published writer, but there are some problems with that (in my view) that I won’t go into in this post. I am very lucky to have my very own proofreader, my dear mother-in-law (I have to write that as she reads this LOL), who can spot those pesky spelling and grammatical errors that do creep through now and again.

Primarily however, the loneliness comes from not having your work vindicated, or applauded, or at least accepted as worthy of publication. Some people would say this is a good thing. After all, they would say, self-published writers aren’t good enough to get published by a reputable printing press. So they should not be taking up airspace that novelists — who are worth their salt — desperately need.

I have some sympathy with this view.

Much self-published stuff is not of the best standard (Oi! keep your sniggering down at the back you lot!) and tends to fall into genres where either the titillation or excitement matter far more than the story structure or prose. But everything has its place and I am certainly not turning my nose up at self-publishing itself, pretending that I am some special case, not at all.

Anyway, having an agent or publicist who tells you that the sun is constantly shining out of your rear end can be a very encouraging thing. As can having your book appear on the shelves of a chain of bookstores, or in a review by a reputable publication.

For us self-published writers, it is the readers that we rely on heavily for the sort of support and endorsement that most people need now and again to keep going.

I am eternally grateful to have had that sort of encouragement from all of you and it means so much to me.

Thank you.

NOW BUY ALL MY NOVELS TEN TIMES OVER AND SEND ME HARD CASH. DINERO. ARGENT. OR GOLD. OR BITCOIN. HECK, I”LL TAKE SEASHELLS. USED BOTTLE CAPS. ANYTHING!

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Progress update:

The Man Who Wore Hats (working title) is at 51,811 words.

The Gaff (my latest novella) is at 8,076 words.

Take it easy. And thanks for reading.