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If you want to enter the draw to win a pdf version of Chuck Wendig’s book Irregular Creatures, simply leave a ‘pick me’ comment.

In this interview with writer Chuck Wendig, I refused to let him talk about his new book Irregular Creatures and instead picked his brain about what he has learned regarding self-publishing. To make matters worse I also convinced him to give-away a digital copy of his new book.

Hi Chuck. Can you tell me a bit about yourself and your new book…

Sure! But I have to warn you, I always feel like this part is the “alcoholic introducing himself at the meeting” portion of the interview. “Hi, my name is Chuck Wendig, and I am a… a penmonkey.” Followed by nods, shoulder pats, and mumbled Praise Jesus’es.

Anyway, yes. I am a writer. I’m like a Swiss Army Knife: I’m a freelancer, a game designer, a novelist, a screenwriter, and a dispenser of dubious writing advice.

I had my first short story published when I was 18 (I am now almost 35), I’ve contributed over 2 million words to the pen-and-paper game industry, my first novel (Double Dead) comes out with Abaddon Press at the end of 2011, and a short film I co-wrote (Pandemic 41.410806, -75.654259) is headed to this year’s Sundance Film Festival as an official 2011 selection. (The director, Lance Weiler, is also my writing partner. Last year we were invited to participate in the Sundance Screenwriters’ Lab, which was exciting and useful on so many levels.)

Today, however, I’m talking about Irregular Creatures, a short story collection featuring nine short (and, erm, long) tales offering an unholy host of bizarre beasties and mythological miscreants. It’s available (at present) on Kindle and as PDF. I’m working on an ePub edition and may one day try to put together a bound copy.

I have a blog where I talk about the writing life: www.terribleminds.com.

Most of the readers of our blog are writers, many of whom will be considering self-publishing their books at some point in the future. I think it’s safe to say that you are an advocate for self-publishing. What advice would you offer to any writer thinking about publishing their own work?

I am not an advocate for self-publishing, actually, nor am I an opponent. I think self-publishing makes sense in certain conditions: Is your book niche? Has it proven itself as a quality product but not enough to make it amongst publishers? Are you a bit of a control freak? Then maybe, just maybe, you want to consider self-publishing.

The thing to remember about self-publishing is it means you are more than just a writer. Now you’re a publisher. And that means you have to do the things a publisher would normally do: market it, put a cover together, hire an editor, hire a designer or converter (or learn to do it yourself), etc.

My snidbits of advice would be these:

First, don’t automatically self-publish thinking it’s a magical panacea. This will not turn lead into gold. If your story is a feculent stink-bomb, then a stink-bomb it shall remain. Try traditional publishing first. Just try it. It will at least teach you to get your work up to speed, and further, it’ll teach you a critical publishing skill: patience.

Second, if you do self-publish, make sure the book doesn’t suck. It still needs to pass gatekeepers, even if those gatekeepers are a handful of writer buddies you know.

Third and final, switch on and off with your self-publishing efforts. Write one for the Kindle marketplace (or wherever), then one for your agent or a publisher. Remember that self-publishing puts you out of reach in terms of some benefits: no book signings, no big marketing budget, no quality placement, no awards, unlikely film or foreign rights.

You talk about the process of self-publishing being a group effort, what do you mean by this?

An author must develop an ecosystem. You need writer friends. You need a cover designer. You need an audience who isn’t passive, but active. You might want an editor. Don’t lone wolf it. You are not a lone Samurai whose clan has abandoned him.

That sounds good in our heads, but in reality, a guy who thinks of himself as a Ronin is usually the one who ends up stabbing a bagboy at the grocery store with his flea market katana. Don’t be that dude.

What tools did you use when preparing your book?

Blowtorch. Atom splitter. Craploads of duct tape. And two cattle prods.

That’s probably not what you mean, is it?

I used Word to write it. I used my awesome cover artist, Amy Houser, to put together a kick-ass cover (though I do not mean to indicate that she is a “tool”). I converted the Word to HTML. Made sure all my bookmarks and everything were good to go. Then I converted to PDF to sell PDF, and I converted the HTML to Kindle (using Amazon’s in-built Kindle converter) to get it up on their marketplace.

That’s pretty much it.

What insider tips can you offer for writers looking to promote their work?

Obviously there comes a point when you have to promote and be a shill-whore for your own work, but my advice is to do a lot more (and in some ways, a lot less) than that:

Be a human. Be a person on the Internet and in real life. Don’t talk about your book 24/7. Talk about whatever. Commiserate about the SNOMG Snowpocalypse Snowjob Snoviathan El Blizzardo Loco. Talk about this awesome sandwich you ate. Ask questions and promote the work of others. Be a human with whom people want to communicate. These days, the authors are becoming as important as the books they write. Give them reason to follow you that goes beyond the book.

Or, more succinctly put, don’t be a dick. Or a douche. Or a dicky douche-dick.

Final comment is: promotion is all well and good, but above all else you’d better write the best book you can write. And the next one after that should be even better. The quality of your writing matters. Your grasp of storytelling matters. Promotion matters, too, sure, but who wants you to promote a literary effort on par with a festering tuna sandwich? Put out good work, then promote that. The good work must come first.

If you want to enter the draw to win a pdf version of Chuck Wendig’s book Irregular Creatures, simply leave a ‘pick me’ comment below, the winner will be chosen at random.

And The Winner Is…

@saiqababble

@harrymarkov

The pdf will be winging its way to you via email.