Self-publishing and staying true to yourself – interview at Jane Davis’s blog

At school, I wrote science fiction stories because it made my teachers supremely annoyed. That probably set me up well for my attempts to get an agent or a publisher, when I annoyed with stories that bent and mixed genres. And why not, when it was good enough for Atwood, Banks and Ballard? And the magic realists?

Today I’m at the blog of Jane Davis, one of my co-writers in the Outside The Box collection, answering questions about what I write and why, and how self-publishing began for me as a last resort and became the most positive step I’d ever taken. How times change, you might say – but we also discuss  whether self-publishers are truly gaining more legitimacy or whether there is further to go. I think the latter. There are still barriers and indie authors are still treated discourteously.

Did I really use the word ‘discourteously’? I did. Do come over.

A link to help you choose Amazon categories for your book. And Lifeform Three is… alive…

Just a brief post as we all duck away for a thorough Christmassing. Lifeform Three is now up and alive on the Amazons and Smashwords. I’ve loaded it on Kobo and it should shortly be appearing there. Print proofs are in transit from CreateSpace, so in January I hope to have the feelable, giftable, signable, alphabeticisable, filable, decorative version … (Can you tell I prefer print books at heart? Our house hardly needs walls. It has bookshelves.)

I’m still trying to work out which Amazon categories would suit it best. If you pick your categories cleverly you maximise your chances of being seen by casual browsers. In one respect Lifeform Three is science fiction, but early reviewers are making comparisons with Ray Bradbury, Margaret Atwood and Kazuo Ishiguro – all very lovely, but it’s not what most people imagine by the term SF. It’s now possible to fine-tune your book’s categories on KDP by inputting keywords in your descriptive tags, so I’m going to be doing some experimenting in the next few weeks. In case you’re interested, here’s a handy link with a full list of those magic words that could get you wider exposure.

And Lifeform Three now has a website – an online home I can put on my Moo cards (also on the to-do list). At the moment it’s a mere page but I’ll be adding to it. So if my remarks about misty woods, whispering memories and lost doors have got you curious about the story, seek the synopsis on its website or at Amazon.

Merry everything, and I’ll be back soon with a writing post!