Self-publishers need to forget self-interest to make their case

The ever-articulate Roz Morris, author of the excellent My Memories of A Future Life, makes an excellent point on today's Authors Electric blog. She makes a case against the hypocrisy of a mainstream industry that claims to be right there at the creative cutting edge and yet routinely opts for the safe. Her very important and oft-repeated, not least by me, point is that this leaves self-publishing as the home for the truly original.

"The literary establishment - reviewers, journals and awards organisers - is supposed to find the most notable writing, but publishers are turning those books away."

says Morris. And she's partly right. She cites Andrew Lownie's blog as a culprit in the double standard - and here she's right on the money. But we wouldn't expect agents to take on such works. The figures don't stack up. On the other hand  new, small presses *are* taking on some fabulous new writers doing startlingly original things - Bluemoose, Melville House, Dedalus, Blackheath, Civil Coping Mechanism, the late lamented Grievous Jones and others. And whereas in 2011, my list of wow books was loaded with self-publishing, the most fabulous, original book I've come across in 2012 was Alejandro Zambra's Bonsai, published by Melville House, closely followed by Frank Hinton's Action, Figure published by Tiny Hardcore Press. 

Does this mean there are fewer superb self-published books out there? Not necessarily. Kate Tempest's remarkable Everything Speaks in its Own Way is a truly original, beautifully made masterpiece. But it *is* true that small presses are doing incredible things with truly original authors, and we weaken our case when we fail to acknowledge this.

But I think as self-publishers we really need to wake up to our own tendencies in recommending books. What we really really need as we keep making the essential point about self-publishing and the creative cutting edge  is to keep overgrounding the genuinely startlingly original work we come across. Because that's what will ultimately make our point most powerfully of all.

 This is a major issue I have with many self-publishing review sites, and many self-published authors and the books they talk about - yes, they do a great job for genre fans, but too often they have a "literary fiction" section that points out works that are very similar to what the mainstream is doing, full of exquisite prose and some original ideas, beautifully edited, flowingly written and something no one would complain about their listing. And worse, they make a virtue of this. I'm sorry, but there is only one cake and you can't have it and eat it - you have to decide whether your cake flavour is "self-published books can be as well-made as mainstream published ones" or "self-publishing is the true home of the innovative."

I want to make the case that self-publishing is the place for those genuinely at the cutting edge but at the moment the self-publishing-centred media is often as much to blame as the mainstream media for putting across the message that isn't the case. Too many people are opting for the former flavour, and they have a reason for doing so. Rather, two reasons - they want to answer the most commonly put criticism in the media, and they want to have their own writing taken seriously. They don't want to be laughed at/not taken seriously/worst of all ignored for being on the loony unacceptable fringe. Which is understandable - but I have to say the moment we become afraid to be seen as the loony unacceptable fringe we sort of lose our indie credentials.

It is a real problem for us as self-publishing authors. We want our own work to be read widely and we want to push self-publishing as part of that. The problem is that the really exciting thing about self-publishing is what it can do for our culture, for readers. And if we really want to promote it in all its glory, we need to put aside some of our self-interest and make the strongest case we can. So many of us are also authors concerned to show that we take ourselves seriously as writers by making nice, safe choices for books to recommend that are beautifully written, well-edited, professionally produced so that our standing amongst the cognoscenti is safe, that we rarely stick our own necks out for the tatty, unread pieces of mindbending brilliance that are out there.

It is we, as much as the mainstream, who need to be seeking out the obscure and the breathtaking and then shouting it from the hilltops. A huge thanks to Roz - who is one of those who really does do this.