Self-Publishing

In 2003, Newcastle author April Jaeger wrote a novel. Now, 20 years later, she is finally ready to send it out into the world through self-publication.

Back when she wrote her novel, Jaeger planned on going through traditional means of publication. However, she quickly discovered that this limited her control over the final product. “I felt like I no longer had ownership or control of that piece of writing. It was being held captive by someone else and it wasn’t being shared the way I wanted it to be shared,” she said.

However, with the rise in popularity of self-publication, Jaeger now has a new path available to her in her publication journey, one that allows her far greater control over her novel.

For a lot of self-published authors however, fame is not their motivation for publishing. Instead, their goal is to allow their ideas and messages to be out in the world for readers to see. For Jennifer Reid, a mature aged student of English at the University of Newcastle and a self-published author, the motivation for making a book was simple.

“I had all these drawings. A lot of them are only little, tiny thumbnails. They're all on different mediums. And I thought, what am I going to do with them? And I set out to do a story. I just like making books,” Reid says.

She sells her books to anyone who’s interested, often taking trips down to the quarterly Artisan Markets in Glebe and setting up a stall for her books. It’s not always profitable. “The last two times we sold nothing because no one wants to buy art.” But this doesn’t deter Reid. So far, she has only sold around 20 copies of her book. But that’s enough for her. The reactions and responses to her book from her close friends and family are more than enough for her to already be considering making more books.

One young self-published author who has carved out a place for themselves is Newcastle resident Bastian Fox Phelan. Phelan produces zines, short magazine-like publications.

They believe that self-publication provides writers with a supportive community that traditional publication is incapable of offering. “Zines have their own little community surrounding them, so most of what you encounter is very positive.” They also state that zines, and self-publication as a whole, are low risk and high reward as they are created from materials found at home and for the enjoyment of the author more than potential readers.
By high reward, Phelan does not mean monetary gain. Graham Davidson compares self-published authors to musical artists. “There's only ever going to be a small handful of people who become like Paul McCartney or Elton John. But there's a lot of people who really want to,” Davidson says. The majority of people who self-publish will at best make enough to go some way towards paying off their mortgage. Instead, their reward is the knowledge that their book is out in the public.

So, with this combination of challenges and support, Jaeger faces the journey of self-publishing her novel.

“What I hope to achieve is to be a successful author and, in a perfect world, have a global audience,” Jaeger says. But she’s also keeping her hopes for the future realistic, stating that her main goal is “the satisfaction of sharing something creative with anyone that wants to take a chance with reading my book.”

Jaeger’s novel, The Elephant Years, is a nature adventure story that will be hitting the shelves in the next twelve months.