In defence of self-publishing

Years ago, newly triumphant from getting my first book published, I went to my parents’ house for a celebration dinner. Having duly toasted their son’s modest literary success, they then revealed that I wasn’t the new author in their social circle. An old university friend of theirs from Holland – we’ll call him Jörg – had just sent them a copy of his new book, ‘a sort of travel memoir, a bit like yours’.

This was not a comparison I welcomed. My book was about quitting my job as pot-holes correspondent on the London Evening Standard to freelance in post-Saddam Iraq – not exactly Michael Herr’s Dispatches, granted, but more gripping, I liked to think, than writing about roadworks on Streatham High Road. Jörg’s book was a self-published account of his campervanning trip the year before across America. At a hefty 500 pages long, it was twice the length of mine. And much as one can commend Dutch pensioners for their adventurous travelling spirit, Jörg was not a Theroux or Chatwin. Chapter one was devoted largely to a quiet first night in a motorway service station, and how it compared to those back home.

I thought of Jörg’s book last week, when the writer Bill Bryson railed against self-published books, which have proliferated in the era of e-publishing and Kindle. Bryson told the Times that many were ‘of no interest’, and that a glut of books about ‘some anonymous person’s life’ made it harder for genuinely talented authors to be spotted by publishers. His remarks reflect a widespread disdain for DIY authors. As the phrase ‘vanity publishing’ suggests, it’s seen as literary onanism, a dirty habit best resisted rather than indulged.

To read the full article on spectator.co.uk, click here