Adventures in Self-Publishing (Part 1)

Harder than it looks, easier than you think...

What’s new with you?

Hi!

It’s Mat here. I hope all’s well with you and yours.

If you’ve been reading my newsletter over the past few months, you’ll already know that I wrote a novella with my buddy JP Relph. Well… Any day now, Watcher is going to be out in the world as a realio-truelio paperback book! I’m so proud of what we made.

[STOP PRESS: Watcher is OUT NOW - LINK! Follow me and JP on Twitter or Bluesky for links, giveaways and more.]

JP has even created her own indie publishing house to release the book. I’m thrilled to introduce you to Wolf Park Press. May it forever hunt and howl…

Alongside this, I’ve been prepping my second short story collection (An Ill-Stitched Menagerie), which I will be putting out as a self-published book in 2025. The stories are finalised and I’ve got the manuscript and cover set up, ready to go, on Amazon.

So, what have I learned from all of this dabbling in the world of self-publishing? [LONG READ ALERT. Pour yourself a cuppa.]

“Probably easier than you think”

Well, self-publishing is probably easier than you think. There are loads of resources online to help and guide you. Just about anyone can register on Amazon’s KDP platform, and the system basically guides you through the process of setting up a book for sale. You can even create an eBook edition while you’re at it. Self-publishing is probably more accessible than it has ever been. And if you go down the Amazon route, there are no up-front costs (NB: we’ll clarify this a bit below), because your book will be printed on demand.

“Trickier than you might imagine”

But self-publishing is also trickier than you might imagine. This apparently straight and narrow path is actually wayward, winding, and fraught with peril. First, you have a bewildering array of decisions to make around the size and shape of your book. What paper will it be printed on? Will your cover be matte or glossy? What will the dimensions be?

Then you have to turn your lovingly-crafted manuscript into a print-ready book file. You have to research copyright wording, learn about margins and gutters and justified text (Oh my!). You have to consider page numbering, fonts, point-sizes, paragraph styles, line-spacing, indents. It’s a lot. Again, there is a lot of advice online if you search, but even so, it can be surprisingly tricky to make your book look like a proper book.

NB: With this in mind, here’s one lesson JP and I learned. ALWAYS order a physical proof copy. It wasn’t until we held the book in our hands that we really got a feel for margins and other layout features. What looks good on screen can suddenly look quite odd on the printed page.

Once the interior of the book is all sorted, it’s time for you enter the wild world of covers. Your book needs a cover, right? So people can judge it. Well, where does that come from? Will you work with an artist or designer? You’ll potentially get a stunning result that way — but a bespoke design is going to come at a cost. Alternatively, there are some very affordable “off the shelf” pre-made covers to be found online. But either of those routes introduces an up-front cost to creating your book, which you’ll need to recoup later. It might be affordable, depending on your means, but you’ll be putting yourself in the red from the outset and that’s not for everyone.

It is possible to go down a more DIY route, by creating your own cover. But this means developing a working knowledge of design and layout — and do you really have time for that? Does it fall within your skill set? Will you really be happy with the end result? Again, it’s not for everyone. There’s no universal “right way” through this.

The second valuable lesson JP and I learned was this: Amazon’s KDP cover designer seems great and it’s very accessible, but it has serious issues with sharpness of text, images, and colour.

To show you what I mean, I’ll share an image showing two proof copies of Watcher. The left hand one features a cover designed in Adobe, and uploaded to KDP. The right hand book was designed in the KDP cover tool. The background on each was the same deep red and the text on both was white, but look at the difference:

Okay, moving on. Let’s assume you’ve got yourself a killer front cover image. Well, now you need some punchy blurb quotes from reviewers and early readers to make your book jump out at potential buyers. Time to ask a favour of any respected authors or editors you know, send review copies, and gently chase those kind readers to get their quotes back on time. Then you have to typeset the covers — more decisions around fonts, alignments, layouts, colours, logos.

Look, what I’m saying is... It’s a lot. There’s more to this self-publishing thing than you might think. Once you scratch the surface, you realise there’s a towering mountain of fiddly jobs waiting to be done. Many of those tasks would be carried out by an indie press, if you chose to work with one. And, if you do decide to go solo, the time you spend on those peripheral jobs is time when you’re not writing. As with every decision, self-publishing is a trade-off.

What I will say though — as someone who has been burned by an indie press that didn’t give my book fair treatment (Naked Cat — see my earlier post for details) — is this: Self-publishing at least gives you a measure of control. Even if that control comes at the expense of time and attention.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve learned so far. JP and I have barely even started marketing the book yet — that’s going to be a whole other can of worms (and perhaps the subject of a future email).

What am I writing?

Last month, I mentioned my flurry of inspiration around cut-up poetry. Well, now I have 20+ poems on a unified theme, which follow a sort of impressionistic start-to-finish story arc. Granted, they’re mostly quite experimental and abstract, but I think they work.

The late stage of my writing process involves walking around the house, reading the poems aloud, making sure the pace and breath and rhythms flow and bounce and pulse as they should. I like this phase. Finding the music in my words is a happy place for me.

And finally, after a year of writing mostly longer-form stories and novellas, I dipped my toe back in the flash fiction pool, and you know what? The water’s lovely! I’m really enjoying the intensity of a tight word count, the drive to do more with less, to create the distilled essence of a story. Happy days.

Top tip: Listen to podcasts

When I need to recharge my creative batteries, I will often dip into a podcast - preferably exploring a topic I know nothing about. I often find that random facts or snippets of information will send my brain spinning off in creative directions.

I can listen while I’m cooking or running or commuting to work and I find listening while doing another activity helps to spark unexpected connections and ideas.

Here’s a few of my favourite listens…

RadioLab / Stuff You Should Know
When you’re trying to rekindle your creative fires, listening to podcasts about books and writers is fun, but it’s not always inspiring. Sometimes the real gold comes from unexpected places. That’s why I like to delve into the archives of podcasts like RadioLab or Stuff You Should Know, which cover topics like “Why can’t you divide by zero?” or “The boy who built a nuclear reactor in his shed” with a light, accessible touch. 

Shropshire Witches Podcast
I love a folklore podcast. There are loads of them out there, but the Shropshire Witches is one of the best. Deep local lore, fascinating tales, served in quickfire fashion with a healthy side-order of humour. And you never know when an idea or historical account will capture your imagination…

All Creatives Now:
Episodes I’ve enjoyed included T C Parker talking about burnout, quitting and coming back to writing, and Gemma Armour who spoke about about self-publishing, creativity, mental health, and more:

Talking Scared
This podcast features authors of horror talking about their own work, as well as the films and books they admire and enjoy. They did a really amazing deep dive into The Haunting of Hill House — a conversation that inspired me to rotate the book back into my pile for an urgent re-read.

New Yorker 
Brilliant short stories, read by authors, with a discussion afterwards, exploring what makes each piece tick. I’ve loved so many episodes but hearing Saïd Sayrafiezadeh read Ill Seen, Ill Said, by Samuel Beckett was a standout for me.

What am I reading?

Fernseed: A Collection of Tales by Sarah Royston.
Sarah’s writing is visionary and beautiful. Her words bring landscapes to life —shimmering and crackling with poetry, music, and weird magic. The people who populate Sarah’s landscapes are passionate, curious, filled with deep yearning, and strange, hidden motives. Each story feels fresh and unique, and yet they’re harmonious and work well with one another. This collection from The Braag is beautifully presented and everyone should own it.

Neither Fish Nor Foul, Issue 1.
There’s a lot to love in the first issue of NFNF, a brand new online lit mag. There’s humour, tragedy, silliness, stories written from non-human perspectives, and a lot of very beautiful writing. For me, the piece that stood out was a brief, heartbreaking, dreamlike story about loss by Louella Lester, entitled The Doctor Warned Us.

Requiem for a Siren by From Beyond Press.
I’m a big fan of vintage pulpy horror — Weird Tales magazine, British Library Tales of the Weird, all that good stuff. And over the past few years, I’ve read a lot of it, to the point where I’m a little bit jaded. But this new collection from From Beyond Press made me sit up and take notice for two reasons: First, it focuses on poetry. Those old mags used to publish poems too, although it’s the stories that get most of the attention. And second, all the authors in the collection are women — and it’s refreshing to see female authors taking the spotlight in a field so dominated by stale, pale males like HP Lovecraft.

This anthology is packed with absolute gems — tales of strange encounters with death, cosmic horrors, hauntings, mermaids, and more — and all told in rich, beautiful verse. The viewpoints are delightfully subversive, altered by the female lens — exploring new perspectives on desire, horror, and fantasy.

I devoured this collection. Highly recommended.

Frazzled Lit - Three Poems by Sugar de Santo
I love found poetry, cut-ups, and collage, so these beautiful pieces by Sugar de Santo immediately hit my sweet spot. The words and images ricochet and fizz pleasingly — like poetic popping candy. Well worth checking out.

Gilgamesh, translated by Stephen Mitchell.
This epic poem is thought to be the earliest written story — predating the Bible. I’ll be honest, this book sat unread on my shelf for a decade before I picked it up this month. But it has absolutely blown my mind. Partly because it’s so human, so relatable, so accessible, even 4,000 years after it was written. But mostly because this story sets in motion so many tropes, plots, and forms that are still used in fiction today. Stories of creation and great floods, interventions by serpents, journeys into the underworld, monsters vanquished, love, lust, friendship, death, and anguish — and all of it before the Greeks or the Christians ever put pen to paper (stylus to tablet?). It’s incredible. Highly recommended.

Writing prompt

I’ve got a picture prompt for you this month, courtesy of Quinn Buffing on Unsplash:

I love this because it seems real and grounded, but also weird and dreamy and symbolic. He’s meeting a date? It’s a formal party, a prom, maybe? But there’s more going on. The phone is outdated, grimy. The wallpaper is yellowed and peeling. And the boy is hiding something. Some aspect of himself, perhaps? The more I dig, the more interesting the image becomes and the richer the story it tells…

I hope it brings you inspiration.

Where to submit?

The very excellent Trash Cat Lit are opening for a Winter pop-up sub call in December. The theme is “Animals in places where they shouldn’t be”. You can find inspiring prompts, word limits and more deets on their website. Send the little critters something good.

Signing off

Phew, that was a lot. Congratulations if you made it this far. I hope some of it was useful.

I want to wish you a wonderful festive season, no matter how and what you choose to celebrate. I hope you get the chance to rest, refresh, and recharge. I’ll be back in 2025 with more creative fun-foolery.

Until then, take care and enjoy your writing.

Best wishes,

Mat