After about a year of begging literary agents to represent me or book publishers to publish my first novel, “Fate Twister,” I have seen the light, which is that I am not a celebrity or a well-known or best-selling author, and, reluctantly, I last night published my novel as an electronic publication on Amazon.com Kindle for the lowly sum of $4.
(How unlucky of me and other writers like me not to have a famous name like Sarah Palin or Arnold Schwarzenegger to make the journey of publication smoother.)
Having realized the above facts plus the other fact that there are so many novels out there, I now believe it is a miracle that any publisher or literary agent would want to take a chance on an unknown author, such as myself. Who really wants another novel on the already glutted fiction market?
Moreover, I am of the same opinion. Novels, which are made up stories—as are movies and plays and so forth—are getting old in the tooth when it comes to that medium of telling stories. What we need now is for fiction to take another tack and do something different.
Nevertheless, after having spent six or seven years of my life working on “Fate Twister,” I believe that I have the right to put my work out there for people to read, review and criticize. And so now I am one of the growing number of self-published and independent authors coming on the scene.
Rather cheeky of me, don’t you think?
Congratulations! This is cause to celebrate, whether you are cheeky or not!
While I haven’t been working at it for as long as you have, I have had the same response from agents: thanks but no thanks! In my case, the book really does need work, which I am trying to correct now. But after I am done, I think I will go the route you have. It certainly makes more sense than sitting around for a year of being rejected!
The “gate keepers” are a large part of the problem, they insure that the status quo continues. Name recognition and formula are all many of these people know. EG – Harry Potter never found an agent before initial pubing. It was different. Though they think they’re doing the “right thing” the very people who should be the most agressive in pushing new and innovative are the anchors pulling the publishing ship under.