by Tom Ashford

Welcome to the SPF Weekly Write-Up, where each Wednesday we collect together the self-publishing news of the week so you don’t have to.

This week: a publisher gets cold feet on a ‘controversial’ book, the Fyre Festival Fraudster will self-publish a memoir, and Tom finds a list of new SP books.

Publisher Cancels ‘Controversial’ Book, Author Self-Publishes Instead

Somewhat ironically, the author is now likely to make far more money than he would have had he continued down the traditional publishing route as a result. Hesh Kestin’s novel (blurbed by the great Stephen King), The Siege of Tel Aviv, was pulled from publication after a community backlash (whether that community were right or wrong is far too messy a situation to get into here). As usual, the controversy will probably work in Kestin’s favour.

The whole situation highlights another benefit of self-publishing, however: without a publisher lurking over one’s shoulder, it’s much easier to write a story that might be deemed ‘tricky’ to sell (even if the content isn’t actually controversial or unpopular to begin with).

You can read the original article here.

Fyre Festival Fraudster is Self-Publishing From Prison

Not content at taking people’s money for a non-existent island festival, Billy McFarland wants you to buy his self-published memoirs too! Hopefully when it’s released you won’t download it to your Kindle only to find all the pages blank.

His 800-page book, Promythus: God of Fyre, was due to be released in April but has yet to materialise. Apparently, it’ll cover from 2011 up until the point the FBI approached him after the disastrous Fyre Festival. He’s hand writing it from prison, and his editor is typing it all up for him.

Who knows – maybe it’ll be an interesting read. You can find out more here.

New Self Published Titles

For those who might be interested: Publishers Weekly produce a monthly list of new self-published books. I’m not sure how much traffic they get (or if any readers or publishing houses take notice of it) but it might be worth investigating if you happen to have a new book nearing publication.

Their list for April can be found here.

Tom Ashford

Tom Ashford is a professional copywriter, author of numerous dark fantasy and sci-fi novels, and the Head of Content at the Self Publishing Formula Blog. His books include the Blackwater trilogy and the Checking Out series.

He lives in London with his wife, in an apartment that doesn’t allow pets. Find out more about Tom here.