Once upon a time, if you wanted to be a published writer, you had to play the game.
You wrote the manuscript.
You sent the letter.
You waited.
You got rejected.
You tried again.
And again. And again.
You weren’t just trying to get published, you were trying to be chosen. Knighted. Anointed by a select few who sat in London offices with piles of slush and an inapt God complex.
Well-the gates are still there.
But the gatekeepers? They’re not so powerful now.
Traditional publishers like to wrap themselves in silk scarves and talk about ‘curation’ and ‘standards’.
Translation?
In other words, ‘We’ll publish your book if it ticks the right boxes, fits the market trend, and you’ve already got at least 10,000 followers on TikTok’.
They claim to protect literature. But they’re actually protecting their profit margins.
Their only consideration is their bottom line. End of.
Don’t believe the spin if you read or hear otherwise from any of them.
And don't be fooled by the ‘…we believe in nurturing new talent’ line in their publicity blurb either.
It’s a complete fabrication.
What they almost always mean is that they believe in ‘nurturing people’ who already sound like them, look like them, or went to the same Oxbridge college as they did.
Happily, writers have had enough.
They’re done waiting for permission from Sienna, Poppy, Caspar and Theo et al and are publishing their own books.
They then start their own publishing companies-just as I have for these very reasons.
And are building audiences without bowing to industry whims or cocktail-party connections.
Very good audiences I should add.
The best stories I’ve read and professionally been involved with lately haven’t come from a Waterstones table.
They’ve come from kitchen tables, local voices, forgotten memories, people with something to say and no interest in playing nice.
A recently retired teacher’s memoir A proud son retelling his Dad’s wartime story as a POW. One man’s very personal story of a lifetime of undiagnosed ADHD.
The latter of that splendid trio, incidentally, has just won the author an award.
Self-publishing used to be the Plan B.
Now it's the Plan A for people who don't want their work diluted, delayed, or decided on by a panel of strangers who think Norfolk is a type of jacket.
The power has shifted
And that’s the bit the industry still hasn’t clocked. Or maybe they have-and that’s why they’re so twitchy.
Because readers are finding new voices without their help.
Because writers are discovering they can own their own work.
Because the old-school club no longer controls the guest list.
The old throne is empty. But the gatekeepers didn’t die.
They faded into irrelevance.
So if you’ve got a story to tell, a voice that’s yours, and the nerve to back yourself…
…get in touch.
There’s no-one stopping you now.
Only yourself.
