People ask me why I self-publish my novels, but use traditional publishers for my non-fiction. The truth is, my fiction is my own, and while other people give me feedback and advice, and I engage editors and artists exactly as a mainstream publisher would do, a novel is ultimately my own project. For a work of non-fiction, however, where I’m telling other people’s stories, I feel a duty to go through an experienced team of professionals, all of whom share the responsibility to uphold their truth. When a reader questions if something happened in 1925 or in 1928, it’s important that they know they can rely on the professionals at a major publishing house for fact-checking and accuracy.
There are pros and cons to both, of course. With a mainstream publisher, I don’t have to chase publicity and distribution, but just sign over my rights to the work and hope the publisher gives it the treatment it deserves. This isn’t an issue for a house as respected as Dundurn, of course. I very much wanted a Canadian publisher to handle The Drive Across Canada, and Dundurn proved its commitment to me when it published Canada’s Road in 2013.
However, I like the freedom of being able to publish fiction myself and it’s very easy to do on Amazon. Bird on a Wire was my first novel and I just wanted to put it out there to get unbiased feedback on whether or not I could write fiction; I didn’t want to slog through the process of an agent and a publisher. The message I heard from people who read the book was that I absolutely can write terrific fiction, but there were two problems with Bird on a Wire – my use of the present tense at times was tiring to read, and its setting during Covid was an unwelcome reminder of the pandemic. So after a few months, I withdrew the book and took the time to fix it and make it all it should be – I changed the tense throughout, for example, and I brought it ahead to 2024. I could never have done this if I didn’t own all the rights to do so.
Running on Empty was also an ideal book for self-publishing. It took me three years to write and get everything just as it should be, which is not a luxury I’d have had if I’d sold the manuscript to a mainstream publisher. It went through the same process of concept editing, beta feedback and line editing as any traditional book might, but now I’m able to publish it and stay in control of its publicity and worldwide distribution. The danger is that it will be lost in Amazon’s tsunami of truly awful books written by AI and talentless authors, but ultimately, if enough people get to read it, its story will hold true and it will rise above all that. Then, hello Netflix!