[Interview_1] Masimba Musodza

Zimbabwean screenwriter and author, Julius Masimba Musodza was born in 1976 and attended Avondale Primary School in Harare, and St Mary Magdalene’s High School in Nyanga.

Some of his early work appeared in school magazines as well as in the young people's newspaper, The New Generation.

After high school, Musodza majored in Screenwriting and Directing at the Vision Valley Film Video & Television Institute. He also studied with Edgar Langeveldt’s Nexus Talent Agency; the African Script Development Fund; the Zimbabwe International Film Festival and the Raindance Institute.

He sold his first screenplay in 2002 and is now working to put some of his own writing to screen as a producer/director.

In this interview, Masimba Musodza talks about his writing.

When did you start writing?

I seem to have taught myself to read and write before I started school and that scared the hell out of my folks!

I tried to get a novel published in the Pacesetters series, but that was when they stopped publishing.

I started my professional writing career around 2000 when I sold my first screenplay. I did the occasional short-story or essay in noe magazine or the other and had novel-length manuscripts piling up. But it wasn't until I came to England, and having to do the rese-rese career that I realised I had to put my name out there now or be another miserable, overworked, overqualified Zimba in London for many years to come. So, I put together some of the stories I had written over the years about the experiences of Rastafarian people in Zimbabwe and published them as an anthology.

How would you describe your writing?

I would describe it as doing the one thing that I am actually good at.

I am a Rastafarian so it is natural that I will come up with main characters who are Rastafarians or see the world with Rastafarian eyes. There is a tendancy to keep us on the periphery, except as amusing eccentrics. I am saying a Rastafarian is a person as good as the next. But I don't want to be remembered as just a Rastafarian writer. I am very mainstream.

Who is your target audience?

Anyone who takes the time to read. I see myself at this stage as writing in the dark - so I cannot define my audience, just yet. I am trying to reach as much of the world as possible, which is why I am working towards getting some of my work translated into other languages.

Of course, I do have the distinguished honour of being a pioneer in Rastafarian Literature. But I reach out to a wider readership.

Which writers influenced you most?

I have been described in one review as "the Rastafarian Hemmingway". But I cite many influences on my website... from our own [Tsitsi] Dangarembga, [M. A.] Hamutyinei... even Wilbur Smith, (though it is not very politically-correct to say that)... to the English and American writers, and the African masters, and most recently Chimamanda Adichie. The list is very long.

What are your main concerns as a writer?

Right now, I have a book being sold illegally on the internet by my former publisher.

How are you dealing with this?

What can I do? It is a small publishing house, but I am even smaller and they know that if I am to try and force them to honour their obligations, whatever it is they cough up will be swallowed by the legal costs I might have to pay. All I can do is appeal to people not to purchase any book from a company calling itself Meadow Books, Exposure Publishing or Diggory Press with my name on it as I am getting nothing for them.

How have your personal experiences influenced your writing?

I think it shows in the writing. It is fiction, but it is based on reality. Take my new detective novel, for instance. I am talking about the greed and materialism of Zimbabwean society, about the Rastafarian people's struggle for recognition as a bona fide religious and cultural community in a multi-cultural Zimbabwe, and about how Zimbabweans living abroad will have a brighter future if they return home.

What are the biggest challenges that you face?

Zimbabwe is in a straight-jacket. I am pushing boundaries on many fields, and that scares the hell out of a lot of people. Then, when you go out there, you find that the world also has deep-seated prejudices about what a Zimbabwean writer ought to be.

Despite institutional censorship in Zimbabwe, I have at my disposal the Internet. I don't have to go mainstream to be a success. Most Zimbabweans have never heard of me, but I have been well-received in Italy and Australia, among other places.

Do you write everyday?

Yes.

I spend the whole day outlining a chapter or a story. Then, after midnight when all is calm, I am at my computer and just sort of put down what I have already written in my head.

Often, I will do a chapter of each of the novels I am working on at the moment. There are always other things to write as well. Then, at around dawn, I will crawl back into bed and wake up in the morning like a normal person. (Should go down well on the first morning of matrimony...)

How many books have you written so far?

The Man who turned in to a Rastafarian, an anthology. First published in 2007 by Exposure Publishing. Republished by Lion Press. A pioneering work of Rastafari-oriented fiction.

Uriah's Vengeance, 2009, Lion Press. The first in a series about Chenai "Ce-Ce" Chisango and her brother Farai of the Dread Eye Detective Agency. They are are assigned by the wife of a wealthy businessman to protect him from a possible attempt on his life by an extortionist. Despite their efforts, the businessman is brutally murdered in one of his homes and they have to find his killer. Clues point to a quest for revenge for a terrible wrong dating back to Zimbabwe's war for independence. However, as the brother and sister duo uncover the past, shocking discoveries suggest a motive much closer to the ethos of contemporary society - sheer avarice.

I wrote the screenplay about a decade ago. At that time, I had just finished film school and it looked like we were going to have a film and TV industry in Zimbabwe. Now, we don't even have an industry of any sort..

Mhuka Huru. Lion Press, Publishing date held back for a few months. A Shona language sci-fi/horror, weaving topical issues such as the environment and sustainable development, the spectre of global famine, the role of global food cartels and their GM crops and the mythology of the Zimbabwean people.

In the novel, villagers living around the River Hacha begin to shun it as word spreads that a mermaid now occupies one of its deep pools. So, there is no one to witness the abnormal growth of the flora and fauna in the vicinity. No one to note that even the animals are scared to go near the river, scared of the dark hulks lurking beneath the surface of the pool…

Which were the most difficult aspects of the work you put into Uriah's Vengeance?

Trying to keep in mind that most Zimbabweans haven't the foggiest about Rastafarian culture. I had to offer explanations without allowing a work of fiction to become a dictionary.

I suppose if you are trying to push down barriers of ignorance and misconception, you have to climb down from yours as well.

What will your next book be about?

Another Shona language horror, this time revolving around the subject of sexual abuse and how our justice system seems to have difficulty in dealing with abuse of this kind.

What would you say has been your most significant achievement as a writer?

My folks finally admitting that writing is as respectable a profession as the ones they had in mind for me!

Possibly related books:

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Possibly related article:

[Interview] Petina Gappah, author of 'An Elegy for Easterly', Conversations with Writers, April 10, 2009.

[Interview] Alessio Zanelli

Alessio Zanelli is a private financial adviser and a poet.

He was born in 1963 in Cremona, a small town in Lombardy, northern Italy, where he still lives and works.

He began writing poetry in 1985, at first in both English and Italian and then exclusively in English, a language he has been learning on his own.

He has published four poetry collections.

Loose Sheets (UpFront Publishing, 2002); Small Press Verse & Poeticonjectures (Xlibris, USA, 2003) and Straight Astray (Troubador Publishing, UK, 2005) are in English while 33 Poesie/33 Poems (Starrylink, ITA, 2004) is in both English and Italian.

His poems have also appeared in a range of literary magazines and journals that include Potomac Review, Möbius, Skyline Literary Magazine, The Journal and Freexpression.

In a recent interview, Alessio Zanelli spoke about his writing.

When did you start writing?

In 1985. At first I simply wrote lyrics for a couple of local rock bands, then I began writing poems. I abandoned my mother tongue (Italian) very soon and English has been my literary language ever since.

How and when did decide you wanted to be a published writer?

After collecting dozens of poems, I think anybody would feel the need of being published.

Poems may remain in the drawer for a very long time, but they have to come to light eventually, whether worth much or nothing, which only readers (and, unfortunately, editors) have the power to decide on. As George Bernard Shaw neatly put it: 'What's the point of writing if not that of being read?'

I began submitting my works to magazines only in 2000 and, for several months, all I got were rejection slips but I never despaired. So far I have over 200 poems published (or forthcoming) in nearly 100 literary magazines from 10 countries, even though most acceptances come from the USA and the U.K. I have also published three full collections, the first two through [print on demand] POD publishers and the last one with a small independent publisher.

Here's my advice: read, read, read what other poets write; then write, write, write, and revise. In the end submit, submit, submit, and never despair. Listen to what editors may advise about your poetry but never pervert the nature of your writing, your style, your voice in order to simply gratify them. Simple, isn't it?

How would you describe your own writing?

Difficult, laborious (also because I write in a foreign language), but almost always gratifying.

I constantly try to write something which may help, intrigue, amuse or in someway interest the reader.

Who is your target audience?

I don't have any target audience. Only, I hope other poets may be among my readers.

Poetry is most problematic ('it doesn't sell', the publishers would say), therefore I think that when a poet arouses the curiosity of other poets, he's actually writing something worth reading.

In the writing that you are doing, who would you say has influenced you most?

Oh, so many! An exhaustive answer would take pages, so I only name the ones I regard as my favorite poets ever: William Blake, Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson. Among the old ones, W. H. Auden and William Carlos Williams. Among the contemporary ones, Carol Ann Duffy, Paul Muldoon and Mario Petrucci among the living ones.

As to the poets of other languages (my own one included) I like Pablo Neruda, Giuseppe Ungaretti and Rainer Maria Rilke above all.

What are your main concerns as a writer?

My greatest concern is not to make linguistic errors whatsoever and not to misuse the English language.

I'd like to write as well as not be recognized as a non-mother-tongue poet, but that's quite a tough assignment. Modern usage and idioms are difficult to retain and use properly when you don't speak a language in everyday life.

I try to write the best possible written-English poetry by referring to many linguistic tools such as dictionaries, thesauruses, style handbooks etc. (I own nearly 100 English reference volumes, many on CD/DVD). Above all, I keep on reading others' poetry, and all the latest collections of the most-read living poets.

Have your personal experiences influenced your writing?

From rejection to rejection, as well as from acceptance to acceptance, I've been slightly changing my stance on poetry writing.

A poet should never disavow his artistic beliefs to please editors, nonetheless small and gradual shifts in style, diction and even subject-matters are inevitable. Also personal experiences can influence the way a poet writes, but what he reads and hears around himself is also a powerful determining factor.

What are the biggest challenges that you face?

The biggest challenge I face is my constant effort to write a good literary English, as to poetic diction and command of all the linguistic tools. That said, the other big challenge is that of captivating the reader, of keeping him hooked from the first to the last line of the poem, which is really difficult, especially when you think that your very first reader is (almost invariably) the editor of the magazine you've submitted your poem to.

In the end, what one says and how one says it is of the greatest importance in grabbing attention: saying something useful or saying the truth may be the secret, but that doesn't mean the poet always has to speak of real facts. Good poetry can be also fictive (and I know many poets don't agree on this issue, since they believe a poet must be absolutely 'honest'), provided that what the poet imagines and pictures is of service to the truth and what he really believes in. This is another big challenge.

Do you write everyday?

No, I don't write everyday. My job and other occupations require pretty much of my time. On an average, I write about 10 hours a week, which is not much, but can be a huge amount of time for a poet. Moreover, I think everybody understands that a poet can't be forced to write, not even by himself! That is, I write only when I feel like writing, and inspiration, after all, still is the most important element.

Once a poem is started, I usually tend to finish it on the very same day, but sometimes it takes more days and, in a few cases, I have written poems whose construction has taken weeks, or months.

The revising process never ends. I have poems published in two or three different magazines, each time in a different version. Let me say: a poem is really, definitively finished only when the poet is dead.

How did you chose a publisher for your latest poetry collection?

My latest book is the collection Straight Astray. Over 90 percent of the poems included first appeared in literary magazine such as Aesthetica, California Quarterly, Dream Catcher, Italian Americana, Orbis, Other Poetry, Paris/Atlantic and Poetry Salzburg Review.

It was published in the U.K. by Troubador Publishing.

The time required to find a traditional mainstream publisher willing to publish (or even only consider) my manuscript could have taken ages, therefore I opted for a small POD publisher, which many consider as a discrediting option. I don't think so, since I'm perfectly aware that I'll never be able to earn my living from poetry. I prefer to have my book neatly produced in a reasonable time and at a reasonable expense. After all, nearly all of the poems had already been accepted for publication by literary magazines and that's enough for me to be sure that what I wrote is worth reading.

A full collection is a higher-grade need for a poet, but there are thousands of poets in the world and so few poetry readers! As a consequence, only a very small percentage of poets can attain the services of mainstream publishers such as Faber & Faber, Cape Poetry, Bloodaxe, etc. All the others have to make do with self-publishing and POD services.

Which aspects of the work you put into the book did you find most difficult?

Apart from what I have already said about the proper use of the language as an Italian-native, I think that the process of revising is what can most worry a poet. You never actually know if the latest version of a poem will really satisfy you forever. The 'perfection' and the 'persistence' of a poem are the real poet's torment.

The only virtues needed to deal with such problem are patience and belief. Sooner or later, every poet will run into the definitive version of a poem, the 'perfect draft'.

Which aspects of the work did you enjoy most?

What follows applies to all my books, not to one in particular. I enjoyed most having to deal with a foreign tongue. I really like the exploring of the language. I have so much to learn from the works of other authors as well as from all sorts of reference books while writing and revising. There's nothing more pleasant and intriguing for one who likes a language not his own.

What sets the Straight Astray apart from the other things you've written?

I think the poems in Straight Astray are way better than the ones in my previous books.

In what way is it similar?

Again, like its predecessors my last collection shows how a foreigner can use the English language for literary purposes. I think it can be really interesting also for English-native writers. A review I've had maybe can better explain this point: 'We can learn a lot about ourselves from how others use our language. Alessio Zanelli has paid our language, Edward Thomas' English Words, a rare compliment. In turn we should take the time to read what he has to say.' (John Plevin -- Pulsar Poetry Magazine, U.K.)

What will your next book be about?

Poetry, of course, The new collection has many tentative titles, among them are: Hand of Sand; Over Misty Plains; In The Middle Of The Ford.

I hope it will see the light in 2008 or 2009; for sure it will include poems first published in magazines and anthologies around the world.

What would you say has been your most significant achievement as a writer?

Being published in literary magazines and anthologies in the English language along with English-native poets, some of whom are really famous, such as Rita Dove, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Mario Petrucci. And having being published there as an Italian who has been learning English completely as an autodidact.

How did you get there?

With much reading and studying, patience, humbleness, and a little savoir-faire.

This article was first published by OhmyNews International.

[Interview] Sam Smith

Sam Smith is one of the most versatile writers currently living and working in Britain today.

He has written and published over a dozen novels, among them, The Care Vortex (BeWrite Books 2002), The End of Science Fiction (BeWrite Books, 2004) and We Need Madmen (Skrev Press, 2007).

His poetry collections include To Be Like John Clare (University of Salzburg Press, 1997), Pieces (K.T. Publications, 2001) and Rooms and Dialogues (Boho press, 2005).

His sole nonfiction book, Vera and Eddy's War (BeWrite Books, 2002), recaptures a British working-class couple's experience of World War II.

In addition to this, Smith publishes Original Plus books. He also edits The Journal (once The Journal of Contemporary Anglo-Scandinavian Poetry) as well as BeWrite Books' "The Select Six" poetry column.

In a recent interview, Sam Smith spoke about his writing.

How would you describe your writing?

I tend to switch between genres… thrillers, SF, and mainstream… which is probably best described as non-genre.

And if poetry can be classed as a genre then that too is a constant.

Each book has defined itself. I may start with one idea, one scenario in mind; and then in the writing of it discover that the tale might work better in another genre…

Which writers influenced you most?

There are simply so many writers that I admire. Starting with, of course, Henry Miller.

In the summer of 1969, I sat on a rock beside Breakwater Beach in Brixham, Devon, read from start to finish Henry Miller's Smile at the Foot of the Ladder and decided that if I could create something as worthwhile as that, then my life would not have been wasted.

But I suppose the writing that has sprung from Albert Camus' The Outsider must be a principal influence. I've found myself attending IMISE conferences (International Movement for the Interdisciplinary Study of Estrangement), and lately have had work published in The Sons of Camus as well as in various issues of IMISE's Lo Straniero.

Do you write every day?

Every day, from about seven in the morning.

First, I check my emails (I'm also an editor and publisher, and work as an editor for other publishers) and if there's anything that requires my immediate attention I'll get stuck into that.

But usually I make out lists of work to be done -- first draft chapters of this to be written, a second draft of another chapter, rewrite of another, typing up of another; followed by the writing and edit of another book (I always have at least two on the go); then I'll switch to the writing of some poetry -- though most of that gets binned; and then I'll switch over to reading submissions to The Journal and "The Select Six," continue with any other editing jobs; and then back to the first draft of a chapter…

The working day ends when other responsibilities claim me or my eyes will no longer focus where I want them to focus.

What are the biggest challenges that you face?

Telling the truth. Always telling the truth.

Language so easily leads one to the facile and the fundamentally deceitful. Always I examine what I say -- even and especially within fiction -- suspecting that I may have misled myself first, my readers next.

How do you deal with these challenges?

Draft upon draft upon draft upon draft… Sneaking upon it anew time and again.

What are your main concerns as a writer?

I'm angry. Over so much. This world is so corrupt and the majority of its people so without influence over their own lives that it brings me almost daily to despair.

So I write out my despair and my anger, all the while knowing that it won't change a thing, but in the hope that someone reading of my anger and despair might console themselves that they are not alone.

What are you working on at present?

My latest book is called The Friendship of Dagda and Tinker Howth and is about a leper colony on the Devon/Somerset border. I've been working on it -- on and off -- for three years now. It's yet to be submitted to any publisher. In fact, I'm not sure what to do with it.

The research presented many difficulties, simply because -- being a freelance depending on very occasional commissions -- I didn't have the funds to take me where I needed to go to do the research. I dealt with these difficulties by including them in the writing of the book.

My intention was, in writing of a leper colony, to include lyrical descriptions. What I enjoyed most was when I thought I might have succeeded.

And publishing being in the flux it is at present, no one knowing quite what direction book publishing is going in… I'm going to wait until I can do no more to the book and see where we are then.

Because there is no publishing establishment now. If ever there was. All five of my principal publishers are small teams or even one-man bands. Illness, a piece of bad luck, could see them disappear in a twinkling. While the bigger publishing houses are as likely to be taken over and the favoring editor moved on, their list shortened.

What has been your most significant achievement as a writer?

Keeping on writing for 23 years without having had a word in print. And when in print having individuals from around the world write to me to say how much my work has meant to them. As Henry Miller did to me, to have spoken to one other across space and time, that is my greatest achievement.

How did you get there?

Grim determination. And a joy in language, in ideas, and in wanting to share that joy, that knowing.

This article was first published by OhmyNews International.

Reading, Writing and Self-publishing

Since September 2006, the Leicester Review of Books has been conducting a survey to find out what readers and writers think of self-publishing and self-published books.

Among other things, we are asking writers to tell us their experiences of self-publishing. What benefits have they received? What are some of the disadvantages or challenges that they have experienced?

We are also asking writers to talk about the reasons that motivated them to by-pass the literary agent and the mainstream publisher and publish their books themselves.

And, which is equally important, we are asking for readers’ experiences of reading self-published books.

How do the books compare with those that have been published by mainstream publishers? Are they just as good or are they inferior? If they are inferior, why is this?

Wikipedia defines self-publishing as “the publishing of books and other media by the authors of those works, rather than by established, third-party publishers.”

The encyclopedia goes on to explain that although self-publishing represents a small percentage of the publishing industry in terms of sales, it has been present in one form or another since the beginning of publishing .

“… many works now considered classic were originally self-published, including the original writings of William Blake, Virginia Woolf, Walt Whitman, William Morris, and James Joyce.”

Hugh Griffin, who works for the Los Angeles engraving and printing company, Stuart F. Cooper, adds that in the United States “self-publishing” refers to the practice of buying one’s own International Standard Book Number (ISBN) to protect publishing rights and having the printing done by one‘s self.

“Many authors produce books for low prices and sell them successfully…but almost without exception, they use genuine ‘self-publishing,’” Griffin says.

The question of self-publishing is even more important today because advances in technology have made it easier than ever before for writers to publish their own books and make what they are writing available to a wider audience. As Wikipedia contributors point out, the tools which facilitate self-publishing and which are at writers’ disposal have been made possible by advances in technology associated with xerography, desktop publishing, print on demand technology, the internet and blogging.

From the discussion that is emerging, there are strong concerns that a lot of what is being self-published is of a poor quality.

Anna Creech, a librarian and blogger, is strongly opposed to self-published books.

“I’ve read only a handful of self-published books, so admittedly my experience with them is limited,” she says. “However, all of those books needed the heavy hand and red pen of an editor before they could be palatable. As a result, I refuse to read any more self-published books.”

She advises writers to get an editor who is not related to them before they decide to publish anything.

Wikipedia contributors suggest that the problem of sub-standard self-published books is in part due to the fact that it is often very difficult to differentiate self-publishing from vanity publishing.

“The latter term is a pejorative one, usually referring to situations in which a publisher contracts with authors regardless of the quality and marketability of their work,” the encyclopedia explains. “They [vanity publishers] appeal to the creators' vanity and desire to become a ‘published author’, and make the majority of their money from fees charged to the creators for publishing services, rather than from sales of the published material to retailers or consumers.”

Linda L. Rucker, like a lot of other writers who venture into self-publishing has had her own brush with a vanity publisher.

She has published two novels, What the Heart Wants and Dark Ridge as well as a collection of short stories, Words out of Time. Her short stories have also been featured in the anthologies, Forget Me Knots, Romancing the Soul, the 2005 Riverdale Short Story Annual and in April Rollins’ Coffee Camp Review Magazine.

She says she was horrified when What the Heart Wants came out.

“Like a great many of the un-initiated, I too went with PublishAmerica for my first book. At first, I was elated that a so-called traditional, royalty paying publisher wanted to publish my book, but when I held the finished product in my hand, I was horrified.

“No editing, was the worst of what I saw. As a new writer, I had no idea about editing. I figured that if the spelling was correct, then the manuscript was good to go.”

For her second novel, Linda L. Rucker shopped around and managed to secure an agent.

“She was a good agent, but patience has never been one of my virtues, so waiting for her to find a publisher just didn’t work for me. But, more [than] that was the notion that when she did find one, it could be anywhere from eighteen months to three years before my book hit the stores. As I said, patience is not a virtue for me. So, I chose to release my agent from her contract and go with self-publishing. Most folks think that term is a death knell, but is it really?”

Shawn Street, a PublishAmerica public relations officer disputes Linda L. Rucker’s claims and asserts that the company does edit books for grammar and spelling.

“We do not change the content of the book. When the Text Production Department edited her book, Ms. Rucker had two opportunities to review the work and approve any changes that were made.”

Street argues that PublishAmerica markets the books it publishes and makes them available to online bookstores and to bookstores across North America through the wholesalers Ingram, Brodart, and Baker & Taylor.

“PublishAmerica sends out press releases announcing a book’s release, as well as announcement letters to the author’s family and friends. We also send review copies to legitimate reviewers daily. Further marketing is a joint operation between the publisher and the author,” Shawn Street says.

Lilian Masitera, one of the most versatile Zimbabwean writers, has published a collection of poems, Militant Shadow; a novel, The Trail; and a collection of short stories; Now I Can Play.

Her writings tackle contemporary issues in Zimbabwean culture and she does it in a manner that is clear, straight forward, no-holds-barred and forceful.

Her books are examples of high quality self-published works.

She argues that because a book has been self-published does not mean it is sub-standard or of a poor quality.

Another author, Irving Karchmar says he decided to self-publish Master of the Jinn: A Sufi Novel because mainstream publishers did not want to be associated with it.

“I can’t do anything about the relentless commercialism of modern publishing, especially since it is a Sufi novel, about Muslims, published after 9/11, that no one wanted to touch. So after a couple of years of sending it out to agents and publishers, I decided to publish it myself.”

The novel since been has translated into Russian; Bahasa, Indonesia’s national language; Turkish, and into Malayalam, the language of the Indian state of Kerala.

Karchmar identifies a number of factors behind his novel’s success.

“I think I did it mostly in a smart way. I had a friend design the interior and cover, ($500.00) [I] did my own editing, along with friends, and paid only $99.00 for the initial fee for putting it in their system, which included an ISBN. I also decided to pay an extra $75.00 to get a Library of Congress I.D. number, and a bit more to get into Baker and Taylor wholesalers, so anyone going into a bookstore could order my book. They have deals with other online sources and are now owned by Amazon.com so my book is on Amazon, and Abebooks, Alibiris, Borders, Target.com and many small websites that affiliate with Amazon.”

He advises writers who want to self publish to invest in a good website, to market themselves and join discussion groups as well as invite bloggers to review the books.

“Booksurge pays 25% of the cover price as royalty, so it is not too bad a deal, and by many hours of working at it, I have managed to sell well over 500 copies online and to a few bookstores. I also got a few bloggers to review the book and some magazines,” Irving Karchmar says.

Wikipedia contributors support Karchmar’s views when they observe that self-published works that find large audiences tend to be rare exceptions, and are usually the result of self-promotion.

They give The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield; The Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer; What Color is Your Parachute by Richard Nelson Bolles; In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters; Photoshop Efx: What Side You're On? by Dhanang Rah Wibowo and Eragon by Christopher Paolini as modern-day examples of self-published books that have been successful.

Another example is Graham P. Taylor who earned a publishing deal worth 3.5 million pounds after he had self-published his first novel, Shadowmancer. Taylor’s books have since been translated into over twenty different languages and are also going to be turned into movies.

Irving Karchmar says, “It can be done! It just takes work, like anything else in life.”

Writers who are contemplating self-publishing need to investigate the industry thoroughly and make sure that their work has been sufficiently edited and critiqued before they take it to the printers. They should also be prepared to market and promote their books aggressively.