Is Self-Publishing For You?

I wanted to continue the blog with the self-publishing theme. We have all had to come to a cross-roads in our publishing career. Whether it's starting out as a traditional author and deciding to self-publish novels you have your rights back to, completely self-publish, self-publish along with traditional publish, or even traditional publish while letting your agent's self-publishing model publish your shorts (we will talk about this on Monday), everyone's experience is different.

I have to say that I have never heard one self-published author say a negative word about the benefits of self-publishing after they have done it. Granted it takes a little bit of a learning curve to self-publish correctly, but the benefits out-weigh the freight they have when they first thought of the idea of self-publishing. 

I was excited to get an email from self-published author, Seumas Gallacher! Seumas has made some great strides and paved the way for many self-published authors! His thriller novel, The Violin Man's Legacy reached the UK's number 3 best seller list! 

Seumas was rejected many times but held true to the words of his hero, Winston Churchill: NEVER EVER GIVE UP!

Please let me welcome Seumas to my little ole blog today and how he discovered his journey to self-publishing. 

I'm going to be giving away a Kindle copy of his latest novel, Vengeance Wear Black to one lucky comment!!  

…I don’t care what they’re sayin’ about me, just so long as they’re sayin’…

 

She gave her name to the flotation ring for shipwrecked mariners, and that had nothing to do with her Olympic swimming prowess, but more with the triple-alphabetic measurements of her upper body underwear…she gave us the innuendo of the pistol-in-the-pocket guide to allure of the opposite sex…her response to the young buck waiter’s question when he asked, while pouring her a Scotch, “When”, was simply “When? Just as soon as I’ve finished this drink!”…the unforgettable Mae West, as sassy a broad as ever strode across the old cinema screens…

A hundred years ago to the date, she was already a megastar in vaudeville and well on the path to film stardom too…So what’s that got to do with us, and with social networking?…

Elementary my Dear Watsons all…she knew about ‘buzz’…about getting the message ‘out there’…and it wasn’t flyers stuck on the wall in supermarkets…she was everywhere that it mattered… Familiar yet? 

I am a late recruit to the insane band of scribes who derive pleasure from creating things with words…worse than that, I’m probably the worst type of computer Jurassic on the planet…I bought my first ever laptop four years ago, and even had to learn how to switch it on (seriously!).

Social networking meant a couple of pints down the pub with my mates, and a business cocktail party or three. 

My word, how that’s changed!

I climbed aboard that wonderful pink cloud we all find on finishing my first ever novel over three years ago, then I was off to make my fortune in print. Right? Yeah, right. 

We all know how that works don’t we? Forty agents letters equaled precisely forty rejection slips in very short order. Then along came the miracle. The epiphany. 

The avalanche of whispers in my business ear, as distinguished from my author-ly ear 'Self-publish'. 'Get on to Kindle'. 'You can’t push something into a void'. 'You need a market'. 'An audience'. 'A following'. 

Duh?? You mean, they won’t just turn up in millions and demand my work? 

What a bloody revelation. 

So started the sleeves-rolled-up campaign. The getting on to Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, and insight of all insights, the miracle of blogging. 

God, I'm LOVING IT! And d’you know what? Even if nobody reads the darn things, I enjoy writing them! 

The side benefit has actually turned into the main benefit, namely the friendships and camaraderie I’ve discovered in this remarkably generous-hearted universal writers community. I wouldn’t swap it for quids.

My advice for what it’s worth to any author/writer/dabbler in words, is jump aboard and get immersed in this…it’s a blast. And always remember your manners.

Is there anything holding you back? Was self-publishing one of your career's greatest decisions?

Seumas Gallacher was born in the cradle of the Govan shipyards in Glasgow in the so-called ‘bad old days’ which were really the greatest of days, where everybody was a real character of note.

 

An early career as a trainee banker led to a spell in London, where his pretence to be a missionary converting the English fell on deaf ears.

 

Escape to the Far East in 1980 opened up access to cultures and societies on a global scale, eventually bringing the realization that the world is simply one large extended village.

 

The lifelong desire to write resulted in THE VIOLIN MAN’S LEGACY, the first in a planned series.

 

Seumas' sequel novel, VENGEANCE WEARS BLACK was launched on Kindle in early July 2012, with three other books to follow in the same vein.

You can find Seumas all over the web: 

Twitter: @seumasgallacher

Blog: http://www.seumasgallacher.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/seumasgallacher
Email: seumasgallacher@yahoo.com