Sarah Jules Writing

This weekend, in a rather unfortunate TikTok video, author Jodi Picoult said some pretty harsh things about self-publishing. She has since deleted the video and uploaded a response video entitled ‘Let’s focus on what we have in common.’ In a world that appears to be becoming more accepting of indie authors, comments like this have the power to stall progress. With the best will in the world, traditional publishing is elitist. It just is. It is getting better – there’s a push for authors from more diverse backgrounds (which is awesome!) but it’s still predominantly a closed-door system.

In Picoult’s video, she stated that it is hard to find an agent, and that she’d had lots of rejections herself before securing an agent. She then went on to say that traditional publishing rewards those who are patient and take the time to find the right agent. Then came the stickler, ‘self-publishing is the easy way out.’

Self-publishing is the easy way out.

That’s what she said. And this is the comment that irritated the hell out of a lot of people. There is nothing easy about self-publishing. If you are self-published, you have to be an entire publishing team BY YOURSELF. Trad published authors usually have a huge team of people behind them. Granted, newer or smaller trad authors have a smaller team and may have to do a little marketing etc, but they still have a team. As self-published authors… Nope, just us.

Like many people, this comment hurt. It’s reductionist at best, and outright mean at worst. While it may not have been intentional, a lot of indie authors felt belittled by her words. Many, like myself, are (or were) fans of hers. I’ve always loved her books, but her words were harsh and perhaps not particularly well thought out.

The world of publishing is changing. Indie authors (and publishing houses) are making waves. I feel incredibly lucky to be an indie author right now. Attitudes are changing. The marketplace is changing. We’re at the precipice of a new approach to publishing. It certainly won’t be immediate, but it is coming. I’m sure of that.

When I first started writing, I did the whole thing of trying to find an agent. I believed that traditional publishing was the only ‘proper’ way of publishing a book. I even had some pretty great feedback from agents. And then I began to explore self-publishing and I found such a surreal community of authors and readers. I will forever be thankful for the fact that I’m an indie author.

I’m not a fan of cancel culture in general, but I do believe that people need to be held accountable for their actions and their words. Picoult removed the video a few hours after it had been uploaded. By then, the damage had already been done. She then released an apology video which really rubbed me the wrong way. She apologised if her message wasn’t clear, and if she was misunderstood. She acknowledged that self-publishing is not easy. She even said that she enjoys and reads indie authors. And then she did the thing that really annoyed me… she deflected. ‘There are far worse things going on in the world right now, and we need to focus on what we have in common.’

I believe that maybe she didn’t choose her words particularly well in the initial video, and that they were perhaps misconstrued, but deflecting the blame and suggesting that we focus on ‘bigger issues’ wasn’t a great choice either. Yes, there are other, serious, things happening in the world right now, but critiquing an author for their approach to self-publishing doesn’t in any way detract attention from those things. Two things can exist simultaneously. I felt patronised by this comment particularly, even more so than the initial video. Maybe that’s on me. Maybe I need a thicker skin.

I’m part of a community that works their arses off to produce well-written, well-edited, and well-put-together books. And that’s before they have to deal with all the admin, the marketing, and everything else. Self-published and indie authors are just as valid as traditionally published authors. Our choice of publishing doesn’t make us any better or any worse than anybody else. I know for a fact that there are a hell of a lot of indie books out there that could have been traditionally published, if the author had pursued that route. I am proud to be an indie author and have learned never to judge a book by its method of publication.

Let’s make something good out of something less than ideal. Go and support an indie author today – that book that you’ve been putting off buying, do it! That review you’ve been meaning to leave, do it! That author you’ve been meaning to message to let them know how much you loved their book, do it! ❤