Serpent’s Quest and Self-Publishing

Serpent’s Quest is now complete on Wattpad. That is the entire novel. We will be bringing it out this month in print edition with six outstanding illustrations by Anne Stone and a new cover by Kirsten Maloney.

Baring unexpected circumstances, I will be spending the week of my birthday with my daughter and her fiance. They make an amazing pair. I love them both to pieces. (No, no, not like Humpty Dumpty).

But I was talking to author and blogger Georgina Merry today and the subject came up of self-publishing. She wondered if the mere act of self-publishing was bad. This came about because of a post on Threears. When I first became active on the net back in March of 03, self-publishing was greeted with loathing. I was among those who condemned people using lulu.

The loathing was not uncalled for. The net was swamped with badly edited, or completely unedited, trash by authors who wanted to be considered equal to the pros and could get very angry when denied their respect.

Things have changed a great deal since then. You now find self published books that have been gone over by multiple beta readers and had the finishing touches done by a good editor. Covers are often done by solid professional artists.  The trash is still out there, but that’s why the look inside feature on Amazon and elsewhere is your friend.

There are serious authors in the SP movement.  Over the past few years, several SP books have made the USAtoday best seller lists. There are now gems that are worth searching for and word of mouth can lead us to them handily.

The Majors are showing more and more respect for the SP world and the authors who are part of it.