Why I Chose To Self-Publish "The Source Of The Wind"
And why choosing between traditional publishing and self-publishing can be HARD.
Writing a novel is a big feat.
You plot, you ponder, you get your bum by the computer, you word vomit, you edit, you edit again, you share the unfinished work and you edit again, until you eventually end up with the best draft you can conjure.
Many months, sometimes years, goes into the process of crafting a novel. During this time, you jump over many different hurdles, tackling each phase of the process head on, and facing your fears and worst habits as they pop up.
But then you actually reach the stage where it's time to get the thing published, and you realise that understanding the publishing process and embarking on that journey, is a whole other beast.
The thing is, you have to decide what kind of beast do you want to tackle.
Do you want to play the waiting game, collecting rejections like Pokémon, with no promise that you’ll get the green light? Or do you want to play the investing game, saying goodbye to the little time and money you have, assuming all of the responsibility for a project that promises no return of investment?
Either way, there's no guarantee.
And yet, every writer who’s resolute in publishing their work, reaches this crossroads at some point. So a decision has to be made.
But for many of us, it's not an easy decision and our publishing journey often looks like a non-linear loop, switching directions and backtracking steps.
My own journey for publishing The Source Of The Wind, looked like this.
“Which option should I go for? Option A? No, option B. Actually, yes, option A.”
So let's get into it.
The Decision
As you may have read in the post where I talk about how I even received the idea of writing this novel, I wasn't intending to publish the novel at all, at first. I was writing it, because I intuited that it would be important for my personal healing journey and I was inexplicably excited by this idea. It was only by the end of the first draft, I realised that maybe I will try to get it published.
I was excited, but nervous. Which path should I choose? Traditional publishing or self publishing?
Traditional publishing meant that a team of experienced professionals would be in charge of everything that’s out of my wheelhouse. Marketing, distribution, exterior design, interior formatting, etc. They would create the actual copies, help get the book in shops and spread the word to readers.
But what if I didn’t like the creative direction they would take my book? Or the business decisions that were being made? What about the abysmal royalty rates? And that’s assuming that I’m even able to get through the door of the traditional publishing industry, in the first place. I certainly want for my creative work to be the best it can be, but do I even believe in there being gates that creators are required to walk through, for their creations to be considered worthy of being out in the world?
Self publishing meant that I could retain full creative control, both for the creative decisions of the final product, but also the business decisions of how and when to publish, as well as being the authority over when and how I implement things such as discounts and publishing the novel in a new format. I liked that all the rights would remain mine and that I would receive a higher percentage of the royalties.
But how would I go about marketing this book without a team, and when I anticipated it to be the part of the process that I least enjoyed? Where was I supposed to find the money to pay for crucial things like cover design? And who says the time, money and headaches invested in self-publishing would yield a return?
In publishing, do you want to play the waiting game (traditional publishing)? Or the investing game (self-publishing)?
If I was being honest with myself, going down the self publishing route felt more me. I'm a self starter and entrepreneurial by nature, and I loved the idea of retaining full creative control. And let's face it, a bigger percentage of the royalties.
My values in the publishing process are…
Being as widely distributed as possible - so that this book can end up in the hands of the people who would enjoy it the most. Quality over quantity.
Retaining full creative and business control - so that I can make the decisions that suit my vision and my goals.
Having a higher royalty rate - so that however much this book sells, it goes mostly to me, the creator of this work.
Creating the best experience for the reader, with the creation being at the highest level of craft I can make it.
Although these following things are certainly nice to have, my values are not…
Winning literary awards.
Being on bestseller lists of the top magazines.
Getting permission to put my creative work out in the world.
But the process of self publishing is daunting. How can I be in charge of everything? The professional editing, the formatting, the design, the marketing. How do I do those things? What about the time and money that was basically non-existent? I was already trying to get a separate business off the ground, I couldn't try to understand how to self publish a novel too. And at the time, I wasn't interested in learning either. I had too much on my plate. I needed help.
I liked the idea of a team working on all the aspects of novel creation that I’m not experienced with. I liked the idea of having an agent who believed in my work and would ideally advocate for me. And I liked not having to bash my head in the wall, trying to figure out things like marketing.
So, I decided to go down the traditional publishing route.
I curated a long list of UK based agents who I thought might be interested in The Source Of Wind. The agent said they like an element of magic in fiction? They went on the list. I read a great novel by a British author with a similar tone to mine? Their agent went on the list.
Now… let's add a bit of mysterious magic to this story, shall we? 😉
Hello? It’s your Higher Self speaking…
It was July 2022 and I was getting ready to start querying agents.
Around that time, I had scheduled a QHHT session for myself, to heal certain fears that came from my childhood, but years of therapy couldn’t help me shift and I desperately needed clarity around them.
What is QHHT?
Short for “Quantum Healing Hypnosis Technique”, it’s a healing modality that uses hypnosis to look at where the root causes of your issues lie. It’s a 5 hour, one time session, that’s great for people who have been dealing with a certain issue or fear in therapy for many years, never to have resolved the issue. Because the root of the issue might be further back than your childhood. Yep, we’re talking about past lives here.
You arrive with a list of questions that you’d like clarity around, and while you’re under hypnosis, the practitioner asks your Higher Self your questions. Your Higher Self answers through you, while you’re in a different state of consciousness. You may be aware of the answers that are coming out of your mouth, but you certainly aren’t in control of what you’re saying.
I had scheduled a session for other reasons, but I decided to also ask for guidance or clarity surrounding the novel and its publishing journey. I wasn’t feeling desperate for answers or guidance, but I figured that I might as well ask. Writing and publishing a novel is a big undertaking, after all. And one that I have always felt was divinely guided. So if there was more divine guidance on offer, I’ll gladly take it.
I had asked a bunch of questions, as I certainly like to do.
But I definitively didn’t ask the following:
When will I find an agent?
When will the novel be published?
I knew that I was about to start querying agents, hoping to find my perfect agent - but I was trusting the divine timing. I wasn't expecting any definitive answers around timelines, and I was completely okay with it taking some time. In fact, that’s what I was expecting.
However, my Higher Self involuntarily shared with me the following:
“She will likely find an agent by the end of 2022.”
“The novel will likely be published in 2024.”
That’s pretty soon, I thought. Like, really soon. In less than six months.
Obviously things are flexible and anything could happen. Maybe I wouldn’t find an agent by the end of the year. Maybe the novel wouldn’t be published in 2024. Divine time is fluid and I still have free will. But the fact that I had been given this information unprompted, gave me the impression that my Higher Self was pretty confident that this was happening. (I have always received messages that my Higher Self felt I needed, sometimes ages in advance, in order to prepare me.)
It was two weeks later when I sent my first batch of queries to agents, hoping for the best. As was expected, I got polite form rejections after a couple of months.
I sent another batch of queries to another round of agents, hoping for a more hopeful outcome. But after a couple more months, I was once again met with more polite form rejections.
Hmm… I know receiving rejections is standard and it can take nearly 100 tries to get one acceptance - but this process is tedious and, admittedly, a bit of a nuisance.
Psst… Remember my message
I was lamenting how I had still not walked through the gates of traditional publishing. I couldn’t find the right one. I knew it was around here somewhere.
I was walking on my way to a private lesson I was about to teach, thinking about how I’m supposed to find My Agent. A random thought popped into my head. Are there any writing competitions for unpublished novels? Where maybe the prize was a publishing deal or an agent signing an author on?
A quick google search lead me to find a UK competition for women’s fiction for unpublished novels. I was sitting down, reading about the competition and the energy in my body started going wild!
My gut was ecstatic; my heart was expanding, screaming, “This! This! This!”; I randomly saw the angel number 222 (which for me has often provided the message, “Whatever you’re thinking of, that is the way”); and a ladybug landed on my person - something that has only happened to me twice in my life, in very fortuitous moments. Once, after having found the perfect apartment to rent; and again, only moments after marrying my wife, whilst we were still inside the city hall. (How did that ladybug even get so deep inside the city hall and land on my wife, we don’t know.)
This was my gate! I HAD ARRIVED! It was mid-December 2022 and the competition’s deadline was mid-January 2023. (“She will likely find an agent by the end of 2022.”)
Only one problem - the competition was for UK residents… and I no longer resided in the UK.
Are you serious? This clearly is the right gate, and I’m not supposed to enter?!
The competition sounded perfect for me and I felt a clear yes in my body that this was my path. But how do I get around this requirement? I couldn’t just up and move my life to the UK to be eligible for a writing competition. And I couldn’t swing a long stay just to enter the competition either.
I had no idea how to take a step forward, whilst adhering to this particular requirement that I didn’t quite meet. A part of me very much wanted to just enter anyway - I though there should be no harm in entering and seeing where it took me. I could always apologise after, employing some of my British manners, after acting on some of my personal audacity and go-getterness.
But I felt awkward doing that, like I could get in trouble. And I didn’t want to be dishonest.
I looked at the panel of judges and noticed that there were a couple of agents listed. I decided that rather than entering the competition that I didn’t perfectly meet the admission requirements for, I would just query the agent I felt would like my submission the most.
So I sent a query along to the agent I had picked, once again, hoping for the best.
And a few weeks later, once again, I received yet another form rejection.
All the lights go out
If I’m being honest, I felt confused, disheartened and a little miffed. I had followed all of the clues, and I was certain I had interpreted them correctly.
Had I not understood what my Higher Self said? Was I a fool for trusting this sort of guidance, despite years of experience proving to me that I can? Why would all the signs be pointing to the correct gate, only to arrive at the gate and for it to say that it’s not possible for me to enter? I hadn’t even asked for information on exactly when I’d get an agent or be published - my Higher Self just decided to give me that information unprompted. I could have gone without it and not feel this disappointment!
Whatever energetic stream I had entered, that had allowed the universe to carry me to my destination of finding an agent, had halted to a stop. I was left with no subtle winds guiding my next step and no energy to take one anyhow.
Logically, I knew that this was just another rejection, and that it was okay. There will be many more on this journey and I just needed to keep banging on doors. This was part of the process.
But I couldn’t fathom sending another batch of queries again. It wasn’t necessarily the amount of rejection I was expecting to receive and what that would supposedly say about the quality of my work and of myself as an author. It took many highly-regarded authors hundreds of attempts, until an agent had agreed to take them on as a client.
It was just that the process was painstakingly slow, and as I was discovering, I really didn’t like playing the waiting game. I wanted to get moving. Why was I waiting for permission to do something I want to do?
Traditional publishing no longer felt like the right avenue for me. Maybe it never truly did - it wasn’t matching with how I naturally operate or what I care about on this creative journey.
But going down the self-publishing route, was not an option either. I may not have liked playing the waiting game, but I couldn’t play the investing game. I didn’t have the time, the money nor the energy. I was trying to build a separate, unrelated business, while this was going on - I couldn’t do both! I was too tired.
And so… I didn’t touch the novel for 1.5 years.
Getting comfortable in the dark
I spent much of this period focusing on other projects, work commitments, maintaining my mental and physical health, and just living my life. I got married during this time. Disaster struck my country during this time.
But I also spent a lot of my time wistfully wondering… where did the spirit of my novel go?
I knew it wanted to be born. It was never my plan to become a novelist. This idea came to me and then let me know that it wanted to be published.
It made no sense to me, why I couldn’t feel the energy of this novel anymore, when I was certain that it wanted me to birth it.
But I chose to have faith. I may had had no idea where the energy and spirit of this novel went, or how to bring it into the world - but I knew it would be back. At some point.
Funnily enough, it was during this time when I had one last QHHT session and I decided to bring the subject of my novel up. I didn’t ask where the spirit of the novel had gone, because I was trusting that the energetic stream to get it out into the world would return. But I did take the opportunity to ask my Higher Self this - “Why did you tell me that I would find my agent by the end of 2022, only for it not to happen?”
The answer? - “We weren’t expecting for her to all of a sudden be a stickler for the rules.”
Somewhere in the room, a candle is lit
It was June 2024, I was sitting in bed and I was feeling a random urge to meditate.
Practicing meditation wasn’t new to me, but it had been a couple of years since I had kept a disciplined meditation practice.
So I sat upright, closed my eyes, cleared my mind, focused on my breath and remained open to anything.
My mind wandered to thoughts on my novel. For a few weeks, I had been noticing subtle waves of energy coming my way, signalling new, small movements in the stream. They were still very far away, but the ripples could be felt.
While I was meditating, a wave on this new stream of energy was making its way towards me and with it, new information. A shift in the tide had occurred.
“You need to self-publish the novel.”
Wow, really? Although it still seemed like a tall order, it wasn't as daunting as it had felt in the past. It felt correct and exciting.
“And you need to publish it this time next year.”
I was receiving instructions and a new time frame to work with. The spirit of the novel was back and ever since that moment, I've been gaining momentum and tackling my self publishing tasks with flow and ease.
In a separate post I will get into how I picked the specific launch date. But I knew exactly when to publish and picked the specific date and hour, within the next couple of days.
So what had happened?
There are many potential conclusions to take away from my process of deciding how to publish my novel.
One is to say that the guidance I received while attempting to traditionally publish the novel, was bullshit and proof that we can’t trust those messages. I find this cynical and not likely.
Another is to say that going down the self publishing path was always the right choice, I just simply wasn't ready for it yet. This might be true.
But, as far as my spirit team is concerned, it didn't really matter to them which avenue I went down. Only that it had to feel like the right avenue to me.
When I had declared that I was going to try traditionally publishing, they were like - sure, if that's what you want, you can walk through this gate, arriving shortly.
When I had decided that I couldn't ignore the competition’s requirement, and generally felt uninspired by traditional publishing, but still couldn't commit to self-publishing, they were like - okay, you need some time to connect with what you really want, and we need to reorganise things on our end.
I have no idea what was ‘supposed’ to have happened, if I had entered that competition.
Maybe someone on the panel would have noticed that I'm not a UK resident, but liked my submission enough that they decided to take me on as a client, or put me in touch with someone who would. Maybe I would have gotten through the first round and the universe would have pulled its strings for me to be able to be in the UK, when I would need to be. Maybe, by some freak miracle, I would have even won the thing, securing myself an agent. Not likely, but who knows.
I have no idea.
But I do know that we co-create with the universe. There are things that the universe requires us to get done. And there are things that are completely up to us. And together, we dance - creating a journey comprised of what we want and what the universe knows we need.
I'm glad I ended up going down the self publishing route.
There is a peace and calmness I feel, having committed to this path, and I feel more ready than ever to be publishing my first novel, The Source Of The Wind, in June 2025.
Have you had to choose between two paths towards getting your creative project out in the world? Which one did you choose and how?
*13.3.25 Update:
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Speak soon,
Love, Ella x
I love this story!! Always trust the universe. Can't wait to hear more about your self-publishing adventure!