So, now we know how I came to decide on going the self-publishing route, now we get down to why I chose it.

One of my mot­tos is “If you need some­thing done right, you have to do it your­self” (I fear that you’re going to find that phrase pep­pered across many a blog post here), so obvi­ously the whole idea of self-publishing appealed to me right away. Once I got past the fact that self-publishing was no longer a “last resort” but “first choice”, I embraced the medium and all its pit­falls and draw­backs with open arms.

What appealed to me about self-publishing? Con­trol. Con­trol over every­thing except the public’s minds (and that may still hap­pen if I can get a hold of some WW2 brain­wash­ing tac­tics and Kool-aid). I get to choose the book cover (and cre­ate it/hire some­one to cre­ate it), I get to con­trol the mar­ket­ing strat­egy (book trailer FTW), I get to con­trol the series as a whole. I get total con­trol over my char­ac­ters and they can say what­ever the fuck (excuse my French, Dex is a bad influ­ence) they want to say and do what­ever they have to do. I get to own the rights to every­thing. I get to cre­ate my bio. I get to hire a pho­tog­ra­pher. I get to plan my own events. I get to inter­act directly with “fans” instead of a mouth­piece (I say fans loosely because I have no idea if I will have any fans or not). I get to write about what I want to write, regard­less of what is ‘in” or not. I can choose to end the series at seven or eight books or I can bring in a follow-up tril­ogy years down the road if I find that I’m miss­ing my char­ac­ters too much. I can write sex scenes with­out a pub­lish­ing com­pany breath­ing down my neck. I get to make my own logos and mer­chan­dise and art­work. In short, I get to cre­ate an empire.

What’s not as appeal­ing? Well, any of the above. I mean, that’s a shit ton of work right there. But you know, I wouldn’t have it any other way (although look for a rebut­tal post in about a year).

In other news, I’m off the Island now (but “WE HAVE TO GO BACK, KATE!”) and I’m adjust­ing to city life. I say adjust­ing loosely since I’ve lived in the city for 29 years. Luck­ily, this does mean I’m still writ­ing. As sooth­ing and beau­ti­ful as loung­ing on a boat and going for long walks in the woods with curi­ous deer bound­ing around you is, it’s not REALLY con­ducive to my writ­ing. I mean, the entire fourth novel is set in the urban, gritty sprawl of Seat­tle. At the end of Novem­ber. Does the pic­ture on the left look any­thing like down­town Seat­tle in Novem­ber? No. Any­hoo, the sounds of the bin­ners and drag-queen drug addicts in the alley behind my apart­ment are adding that lit­tle bit of atmos­phere to my craft. And look:

Ghetto progress bar says every­thing is com­ing along just fine.