Thanks both of those opinions, it's all valuable information. Sean, I wonder if publishing on substack is necessarily a barrier to later print/ kindle publication? Dickens managed the equivalent reasonably well!
and some Hunter S Thompson books were originally series in magazines.
Is there a reason you want to pursue the non agent / publisher route?I would seriously encourage it, even if you end up finding it frustrating and decide upon another course of action. My experiences might interest you, or might be entirely irrelevant. I spent about 15 years desperately wanting to do books. I pitched a handful of non-fiction things in the early 2000s, then wrote a novel mid 2000s. The former I pitched directly to publishers, the latter I approached (very well-researched) agents. I got vey slightly further with the latter, even though the former was I think a slightly better idea. Despite that, neither of them went anywhere. I then gave up entirely, thinking the whole system was a massive con, and decided that if I ever did books again I'd do it on my own terms.In around 2016-17 I did some design / illustration related stuff that I got some quite nice press for. I then discovered an email in my junk (which had been there for over a month) from a publisher asking if I wanted to do some illustrated kids books. I then got a three book deal, which led to 2 more books for another publisher, and a 6th for a non-kids book. None of these have been super £s, but there have been a few foreign editions and, having learned quite a lot more, I've now decided where I might aim next to try to do something that's (a) very fun to write and (b) might be a bit more £££.I guess what I'm trying to say is that there are quite a few amazing self-publishing success stories, but I think they are few and far between. If you're going to invest the time in writing an amazing piece of work, I would still consider the old fashioned route. it might not work out, but you might get some decent feedback. And if it does work out, you then have a team of people to help turn your work into something much better.A number of people asked me why I'd not self-published my novel after it was rejected. I am so so relived that I never did that, because in retrospect it really was quite shit!
I can see the tabloid headline, "TobyD: I am the equal of Dickens".
Thanks both of those opinions, it's all valuable information.
Sean, I wonder if publishing on substack is necessarily a barrier to later print/ kindle publication? Dickens managed the equivalent reasonably well!
Less facetiously, though, serial online publication, or any form of electronic only publication, of novels doesn't work for me. I spend a lot of time at a PC writing reports, and far too much of my free time reading meaningless nonsense on the internet. As a result, I value the interaction with the heft of a book - perhaps as it provides a distinct physical separation from work / web triviality and makes me feel I am doing something a bit more worthy (even if the book itself is pulp).