hello! is there a reason you chose self publishing over trad publishing?
Sure! A few reasons actually. One, Cavernous is a planned trilogy, and not only are these hard to sell as a debut, but my day job makes keeping a regular writing schedule challenging and I wanted to be able to write without the pressure of a publishing timeline. Also, between my writing partner and I, we are close to lots of talented artists and graphic designers and felt confident that not only could we source our own art and design elements for the book, but both had the strong desire to be in control of these art and design elements rather than ceding control to a publisher. The financial element factors in as well - in self-publishing the money goes directly to you upon payout, and you don't have to wait on the delayed pay structure of traditional publishing.
The primary reason, however, is that we felt Cavernous would be a hard sell within the traditional publishing industry overall. It sits somewhere between "erotica" and "romance" while being both fantasy and contemporary in a market where that's not particularly sought after. It's queer and woman focused, set in a country that many people in the US market are not familiar with, and lacks ad-friendly popular "tropes." Cavernous does not follow a traditional romance novel story format, and instead has both a large ensemble cast and lacks a traditional "happily ever after" which, in the romance publishing space, is something of a bullet in the foot. We never even considered trad publishing, to be honest, because we think these unique elements are significant strengths in the book, but would be seen as problematic by a traditional publisher.
Self-publishing has this reputation of being a sea of books that authors tried and failed to publish traditionally, and while it's possible that there was a time in the past that that was largely true, it's definitely not true anymore. Self-publishing is a smart first choice for a lot of authors working in unconventional genres, with marginalized identities, or writing about culturally censored or taboo topics. Almost every other art form out there has a vibrant, celebrated indie/underground scene, but for some reason underground fiction is still really maligned, which can be really discouraging. But, I believe in it, and I stand behind my choice as it being the right fit for this book.
Thanks for the question!
