Self-Publishing and Freedom of Expression

Well this rant may be random and not applicable to any of you readers...


But I wanted to make something clear, because that doesn't seem to be too clear to at least one or two commenters. One I know of on facebook and one unknown floating around.

Anyways, there are some things that need to be made clear.


I consider myself lucky to have fallen into self-publishing.

With all the crap self-publishers get...that's a bit difficult to say.

But I really am glad.

You see, I get to do things that authors can't do when they have the big companies...and even some other self-published companies.

I get to deal with EVERYTHING.

I've made that sound like a tedious and tiring task in the past, but not this time.

For you see, as the publisher, editor, writer, advertiser, designer, etc, etc...

I have the power!

I control everything!

You don't see anybody telling me what to put in my books!

You don't see an editor telling me what is going to far in a story!

You don't see advertisers targeting an audience it might not even be intended for in the first place, possibly making my novels feel downgraded to something they weren't supposed to be...

Sure I don't have access to artists who can make a masterpiece of a cover for me...but I do just fine on my own.

I have all of the control of the books. For the most part.



Before anybody asks, no I can't lower most prices.

Every book has a base price based on the size of the book and the type. This goes without saying as it actually costs to print a book.

So, there are a few things that are a bit difficult to tweak in that regard.



But otherwise, I have free reign with my writing career.

I don't have any corporate deadlines to meet.


Nobody telling me I can't have my book published three months early because of advertising or some shit like that.

While there are so many perks to be had with the big companies, the big companies are in a war with other companies, and when it comes down to it they want money.

Lulu wants money, but by giving free reign to the authors, they can make a price that suits them...allows them to make some money for every copy bought...so they get a cut just like any publishing company...

But I still own the copyright.


Also...if you come off of goodreads reading this and notice some of my books being changed to "Published by Lulu" don't listen to that.

I facepalm every time I see this. Cause I enter the information, and a librarian comes along thinking they know better.


Lulu specifically gives authors the ability to make for themselves an alternate "publisher" and I make mine as published by "McGlothlin-Clason Publishing" so yea.

Take that know-it-alls.

It shouldn't bother me so much, but they obviously don't know how Lulu works.

Because Lulu acknowledges that there is a lot of work a person puts into books, even when they purchase services, that end up on their site.

Anyways...where was I?

I keep doing this where I go off on a tangent and lose my train of thought.


Oh yea...I have the power!

It's great!

I can do whatever I please with my stories, and I don't give a phluck if somebody thinks I'm doing it wrong.

So far, all I have to worry about is if the beguiled monsters trolling Amazon and Goodreads decide to target me as they have done to many other authors.

I'm not so vulnerable I think.

If you've read my work...my more recent work...then you may have the inkling that I don't really care about image.

That's another thing about being a self-published author.

While I am attempting to build my reputation as respectful and decent, I'm not about to sell myself as some brilliant mastermind of poetic pieces or some shit like that.

You've all read the cusses in my blogs.

You may or may not have read the crazed stuff placed into my books.

Nothing is quite below me...yet...

Well of course it has a reason to be in the book...I'm not going to put crazed stuff in my books for the sake of it being there...that would be stupid.

I was going to say silly, but I like silly. Stupid sounds better there because it really would be stupid.

Everything that might scare away the younger and more innocent viewer is there for a reason.

So I'm just waiting for somebody to read that.

One of those weird little trolls [pretending like they themselves aren't also an author] to come by the work...become appalled by it...and spit something about it that is nonsense.

I say let them.

If you're going to be convinced by one reviewer, then you clearly haven't found your own taste yet.

If you like my books you like them.

If you don't, it wasn't meant for you.

That's another thing, while it's hard to build an audience, it's easier to get my own point across without people targeting an audience that might end up hating it.

That can happen. The wrong audience being targeted.

And then what? They just say it's a bad book without realizing that it was misplaced in the wrong sections of the library...

Never to be discovered by the readers who would truly enjoy it.

I digress.

This all kind of leads me to a link that was posted to one of my facebook posts.

I was only wanting to know about novel length and opinions on that, but I mentioned prices due to publishing and the person sent me the first publisher link he found.


I facepalmed so hard.




It's a children's and youth publisher.



Facepalming soooooo hard right now.



Soooo hard...




I've already mentioned in this post that I have no interest in being published with a big company...

I certainly don't have any interest to make any of my work "kid friendly" or to target it to a specific audience.

Frankly I don't care who reads my works. I'd just like them to be appreciated.

From my perspective, the youths (I mean teens) shouldn't be so limited as pushing them towards the bigger books makes them expand upon what they are reading and how they are thinking.

But I digress...again...

My works aren't for everybody in general.

My works are definitely not "kid friendly" nor are they for the faint of heart.

Aside from my first two books...everything I've written since...I think it was 2012...has been too much for the youths to handle.


That's not to say my works are "sooo hardcore" or something like that. It just happens to contain some scenes and messages that are a bit heavy with adult themes and imagery.

I don't think the average teenager will comprehend the ideas of manic depression, rape and overcoming mental situations...not to the extent that adults will find in some of my books.

And that's not to undermine teenagers...this is why I dislike the idea of YA books...because the teenagers go there and then there are so few among the ones who read adult stuff.

But, what would my target audience be then?

If my books stayed this way and a company advertised it...they would form a genre around it.

I'm not fond of that idea.

I'd like to use Academia de Diversidad as an example.

Where it currently stands, I think it could almost be considered a series of YA novels with some graphic language and a couple of adult themed scenes.

But it would become so completely lost in that genre, because it's not what the series is intended for.

The first novels might be started like that, but that is not my intention.

And that's the fun part of all of this.

It's reflected even in my first series...

The most innocent book I ever wrote was A Dragon's Curse...written by teenage version of myself in high school and kept to a certain level of decency due to a lack of knowledge on who would be reading it in my classroom.

By the fifth book of the series, I had put the character through so much torture, pain and mental confusion that I had some readers upset that he didn't die in the end.




Go ahead and leave a comment if you think I'm blowing out my ass.

I don't really think the authors published by big companies have no control. I just feel more in control this way.

Every aspect of my book is decided by me.

Aside from coauthored works, those decisions are mutual between myself and my coauthor.

Don't send me companies to try to send a copy of my manuscript to.

Most companies don't even accept manuscripts unless you have an agent.

I'm talking only about the ones who apply to such a fantasy genre that would encompass my books.