“So are you going to self-pub?” I asked a friend who
has spent years polishing her manuscript, collecting rejection slips and
looking out for that long awaited email which asks for the entire novel. “I
don’t know, how do you know when you should, and what happens if I were to do
so only to have an agent interested in my work?” To go Indie or not, that is
the question. A hotly debated issue which has kept many a writer—with a burning
need to be read—up many nights. My take: If Indie movies are
accepted, why not Indie books? Rob Kroese, author of the
self-published, bestselling Mercury Falls and its
sequel, Mercury Rises has a great analogy: he likens the
league of published authors to an elite night club, with gatekeepers, who decide
who gets in and who does not. It struck a chord with me. So I have put together my own quiz, to help you determine
whether you should give Indie Publishing a go or not. Please answer “yes” or
“no” to each of the following questions.
1.
Are you waiting to be
discovered or somewhere along the way have you discovered yourself?
2.
Do you write to be read?
3.
Is your novel
unclassifiable? It spans so many genres that you know you will have lost
traditional agents within the first line of the pitch, for your writing and
you cannot be pigeon-holed. My book The Destiny of
Shaitan is YA epic fantasy inspired by Indian mythology, for example
4.
Are you an entrepreneur, at
heart? Do you normally jump in and think of the consequences later. Are
you pragmatic about failure—enough to pick yourself up and move on swiftly to
the next?
5.
Do you like to experiment, and
cannot resist a challenge? Do you thrive under pressure, and when the odds are
stacked against you?
6.
Are you impatient, probably a
control freak? In fact, you want to control your own destiny, so keep
checking in with the stars to find out what’s going to happen in your life, so
you can steer it along the way you want.
7.
Are you a technophile? Do
you secretly indulge your inner geek? On a practical level are you at least on
Facebook and twitter?
8.
Are you social and love
debating with tweet-friends around the world? Really, you adore your
virtual home and obsess over getting your gravatar just right!
9.
Do you have the courage
of conviction, the doggedness of determination? Is the power of persistence
strong within you?
10. Perhaps, like
me you had a near death experience, and realized that life is too short. You
just have to get your voice out there for tomorrow you may be too late.
If you said yes to at least eight of the above ten, then I
believe the force is strong in you. You may be among the fortunate few able to
take a punt on yourself. But wait! Before you press that enter button and send
the words skimming out over the electronic waves, pause. Have you been true to
yourself in your text—really? If you are still standing upright, then there is
more to tell. Go back, revisit, revise, rewrite, until hand on heart, you can
say you have stripped yourself bare. When you have died a few deaths
getting the novel to that place where exhaustion weeps in the arms of elation,
then, you know you have nothing more to say. Now you have one last thing to do.
Make sure your baby is perfect—every infinitesimal millimetre brushed to its
Sunday best—for once it is out there you will be reborn, as your Author
Avatar. People will actually read you. Many will love your prose; some
will hate it and tell you so. Can you deal with that too? If the answer
is still yes, then what are you waiting for?
Laxmi Hariharan is the author of The Destiny of Shaitan http://tiny.cc/i24qew
