In a previous post, I suggested that if you commit to writing a mere 500 words per day, you’ll have a book written before the year’s out. And printing that book is easy-peasy. One way to do it is with the Asquith Press at the Toronto Public Library. The press is located at the Toronto Reference Library, and rates are cheap.
If sharing your work is important to you, then what’s stopping you from self-publishing already?
Terry Fallis, author of The Best Laid Plans and No Relation, is a famous—at least in Canada—self-publisher. He was the closing keynote speaker at the recent annual conference of the Editors’ Association of Canada (EAC).
Terry spoke amusingly about his experience with self-publishing: receiving boxes of his first book in the mail, keeping copies in his trunk, attempting to get booksellers to stock his book, and applying for the Leacock Memorial Medal—the only book award he could find that didn’t exclude self-published books. When he won the award, book sales took off. We’re all familiar now with the success of The Best Laid Plans—it’s even in production for the stage somewhere on the West Coast.
I like Terry’s story because it legitimizes self-publishing. Okay, okay, I have to admit that in the end he did end up with one of the big houses—the Douglas Gibson is now his editor, for pete’s sake.
But I like that Terry was proactive; he didn’t wait for someone to tell him his novel was good.
Yes, to create an impressive self-published book, you may want to hire an editor and a designer, and you’ll most certainly need to market the book yourself, if that’s important to you.
But if you want to publish a book, nothing’s stopping you—and if something is, it’s time to ask why.