This morning, a member of my writing group shared an article from The Guardian by Ros Barber, acclaimed author of The Marlowe Papers and Devotion. And boy, did it get my blood pressure up.

“Life as a professional writer is financially depressing, and I’ve often been advised to self-publish,” Ros complains, in the opening paragraph of her article. “Now, I understand that “indie publishing” is all the rage, but you might as well be telling Luke Skywalker to go to the dark side. Despite royalty rates of 70%, I think self-publishing is a terrible idea for serious novelists (by which I mean, novelists who take writing seriously, and love to write).”

As soon as I read that, I was, like:

Now I know, for the sake of my blood pressure, I shouldn’t worry about poor old literary authors wringing their hands complaining about how unfair the world is. I had enough of that with Claire Vaye Watkins. But in Ros Barber’s case, she didn’t just bleat about the woe-is-me reality of life as a traditionally-published literary author; she also decided to shit all over self-published writers.

“Self-publishing?” Ros snorts. “It generates a lot of noise on social media. It results in many flashy-looking websites from authorpreneurs keen to sell success secrets to other aspiring authorpreneurs. With Amazon’s Kindle and CreateSpace as the major outlets, it continues to put money in the coffers of the company largely responsible for destroying author incomes in the first place. But it isn’t a route to financial security. For those who prefer orchestrated backing to blowing their own trumpet, who’d privilege running a narrative scenario over running a small business, who’d rather write adventures than adverts, self-publishing is not the answer.”

If that wasn’t so insulting it would be hilarious. I’m not even that successful as a self-published writer, and yet I made a very comfortable middle class income last year from writing; and hope to do even better this year. To say that self-publishing ‘isn’t a route to financial security’ is a statement of such blithe ignorance it makes my head spin.

And don’t take my word for it! Look at AuthorEarnings.com’s February report, and LOOK at those figures. Currently, self-published and independentaly published authors on Amazon make substantially more than authors published by the ‘Big 5’ publishing houses; and that’s a trend that’s only likely to continue.

Source: http://authorearnings.com/

So look, as a writer, the facts are very clear – if you want to make a living being a writer, the only realistic route is self-publishing – which brings me onto Ros Barber’s second, insulting insinuation; that self-published books are inherently inferior to traditionally published ones.

Now, there’s more than a grain of truth there. The beautiful thing about self publishing is that anybody can publish their books up there. The downside is the same thing – anybody can publish their books up there. As a result, the Amazon bookshelves are flooded with tens of thousands of titles that range from merely bad – badly written, riddled with typos, and poorly formatted – to scammy computer-generated garbage designed to skim money from Amazon.

But here’s the thing: None of them sell.

Ros even admits it herself, when she says that the attractive royalties offered through self-publishing on Amazon aren’t that appealing because “70 percent of nothing is nothing.”

“You can put all of that effort in,” she complains, “and still not make a living.”

Well, here’s the rub – successful self-published authors on Amazon do make a living, because they sell tons of books. In fact, 8% of the Top 100 books in one genre category are currently written by members of my writing group alone, which is astonishing.

And this is because – in contrast to Ros Barber’s ignorant and frankly offensive insinuations – the books they write and publish are world-class.

General reaction to my books. I assume. 

If we self-published authors want to be successful at writing, we have to write books that are equal to, or superior to, anything that traditional publishers churn out.

I just released my new novel and spent well into the four figures for an editor, cover designer, advanced readers and the like. This doesn’t even include marketing – I had to invest that much simply to get the book as good as it could possibly be.

And I’ve been writing for nearly 30 goddamn years, so I’m confident that my prose is up to par.

Which means that ‘as good as my book could possibly be’ is significantly better than a lot of what’s churned out by the big five publishing houses these days, who are shedding proof readers and editors left and right and the number of typos I spot in the books of theirs I read demonstrates that.

It’s not luck that self-published authors are making more money and selling more books than traditional publishing houses. It’s that we’ve started our own publishing houses, and can control every aspect of the production.

Steven King is about the only author I know whose books went from ‘genre’ to ‘literary’ in people’s estimations.

Which brings me onto my final rant at Barber’s article – in which she claims: “Self-published authors should expect to spend only 10% of their time writing and 90% of their time marketing.” I can imagine her actually sticking her nose into the air when she continues: “If that sounds like fun to you, be my guest. But if your passion is creating worlds and characters, telling great stories, and/or revelling in language, you might want to aim for traditional publication.”

Seriously, Ros Barber: Where do you come up with this crap?

Self-published authors write. All the time. We are machines. Last month, when I was finishing up my latest novel, I was up at 5am every morning with a cup of black coffee, immersed in a rich and vivid world I’d created. The characters I wrote about came alive in my head. The setting I wrote about, I described richly and vividly (this time around, it was La Rioja, in Spain, where I spent some time back in 2011.) Marketing is a burden for authors – but I’d still say I spent 70% of my time writing; and wouldn’t have it any other way.

And that’s really my beef with Ros Barber’s frankly offensive and ignorant article: The insinuation that self-published authors are somehow not ‘serious’ writers.

I began writing when I was 9 years old, on my mother’s big steel typewriter (my mother was also a writer.) When I was 12, my parents gave me an Olivetti electric typewriter (because my father used to work for Olivetti, in Africa) and I hammered out my first ‘novel’.

Ros Barber’s impression of self-published authors

I have been writing ever since – from adventure stories I’d happily show to my parents and friends (in the mold of James Bond and The Saint) to smutty shorts I’d keep under my bed (which later turned quite the profit on Amazon.) Writing is my life. I am just blessed that Amazon has given me an opportunity to find a way to make money writing, because I’d still do it even if I didn’t. Writing is as natural to me as breathing. I am a writer, and I have been since a child.

And traditional publishing rejected me a hundred times or more growing up. They didn’t want adventure stories, or science fiction, or whatever I offered them. Traditional publishing was a closed door, guarded by an elite few, and I never got the opportunity to be part of that world.

And thank fuck for that!

Because ever since I first started self-publishing in 2013, I’ve sold more books, and made more money, than I could EVER have done in traditional publishing. I sell thousands of books per month. I have hundreds of fans. I have a litany of 5-star reviews. I am a successful writer.

And, more than that, I’m a good writer.

Self-published or not, is this the reality of ‘literary fiction’ authors?

So, Ros Barber is entitled to her choice not to self-publish – but I don’t want to hear her complain about it, and I certainly don’t want to listen to her shit on self-publishing as some kind of excuse for her lack of financial abundance.

Self-publishing is not your problem, Ros. You are a literary fiction author, and there simply isn’t much money in that realm. There’s not much money in it via the traditional publishing route, and there’s not much money in it via the self-published route. The problem isn’t self-publishing, it’s what you try to self-publish.

It’s like my mother’s rhubarb ice-cream. It’s delicious, and unique, and people rave about it – but the demand for chocolate or strawberry is always going to be bigger. If your passion and focus is literary fiction, that’s wonderful and I am happy for you – but you’ll never get rich in such a austere, competitive market and self-publishing is not the issue. It’s the snobbery and elitism of what people view as ‘literature.’

Perhaps the worst thing about writing in general is this divide between ‘literary’ and ‘genre’ fiction. At the end of the day, books are words on a page and one can be equally as good as the other. In fact, I think a lot of genre fiction is tighter, better written and more meaningful than literary fiction – because it has to be.

So Ros can wail and gnash her teeth all she wants, but here’s the long and short of it: Self-publishing is the future. It’s good for readers, it’s much better for writers, and if you compare a solid self-published book against a traditionally published book, you’d probably find they compare pretty favorably.

I don’t shit on the world of literary fiction, Ros – and believe me, I’d love to – so keep your ignorant opinions out of the world of self-publishing. We’re here working hard, writing lots, and being successful; and those of us who are successful are more ‘serious’ writers than you could ever hope to be.