Thread by @moviemazz

My third book, IT CAME FROM THE DEEP, crossed 5000 copies in physical sales today. And I want to tell you a little story about knowing your worth ...

I originally wrote it during National Novel Writing Month back in 2011 & was incredibly proud of it. It was a merman story set on the Gold Coast & in the world of clubbie culture (which I grew up in).

It was REALLY different to my previous manuscripts - Who’s Afraid? & Who’s Afraid Too? - so after a shit tonne of edits and fine tuning, I felt confident to have it pitched to potential publishers.

It stayed in limbo for nearly five years, with every publisher who had it telling me how much they “love the story” BUT “anything with merpeople just isn’t commercially viable right now, even if it is more Creature From The Black Lagoon than Little Mermaid”.

I disagreed, but I’m not **in** publishing, you know? Even once Who’s Afraid? & Who’s Afraid Too? were signed internationally I’ve still always felt like an outsider in this industry - especially in Australia.

I always believed in my story, but the industry was telling me no one would buy it. So I sat on it & waited. And waited. And started to see other ‘merpeople’ properties popping up like Siren the TV series, The Lure, The Shape Of Water ...

... I knew Tidelands & Aquaman were coming down the pipe, so this publishing theory that no one wanted mer-shit seemed disconnected to what the audience were consuming in the pop culture landscape.

So I published IT CAME FROM THE DEEP as an eBook at first, to test the waters. @ninjaspag & I designed everything from the cover to the title pages & for the first time I got to have full creative control over what my book would look like & how it would present.

Then a funny thing started to happen: I began getting inundated with emails, tweets, Instagram posts from readers who asked me to release it as a physical book. I was uncertain, cos self-publishing a physical book is an investment. But I was getting these messages EVERY day.

It was @kezarthur who gave me the final push, her words being - and I quote - “fuck it, just do it: you have the readers”. Keri helped me through the process, even formatting the damn book for me like a legend!

Then 6 months after I released IT CAME FROM THE DEEP as an eBook, I made it available as a physical book for the first time at Sydney @SupanovaExpo. The response was so nuts, I sold through TWO cities worth of stock in 48hrs & had to order a whole new shipment for Perth Supanova

It was also the first time I had the control to make a book of mine available every where, globally, for people to order online & receive physical copies no matter what territory that were in. And to set the price point.

Which is wild because it meant that readers who previously had to wait months or years for Who’s Afraid?, could read & digest & engage with a new book of mine immediately no matter if they were in Seattle or Singapore ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I got sweet messages from people like Patty Briggs & Ann Peters who had ordered copies in the US, meanwhile local readers were getting signed copies at cons & in book subscription boxes (that sold out 3x over)

All this from a book that publishers had told me repeatedly - over the course of several years - that readers would not respond to commercially. I always believed IT CAME FROM THE DEEP would find its audience & I’m so mad at myself for doubting that for a huge chunk of time.

Fortunately I was able to course correct thanks to the advice & help of people like @kezarthur @AlanBaxter @Mercys_Garage & many more. I bet on myself & I bet on a weird story that involved a murder, a mystery & a merman.

IT CAME FROM THE DEEP has been out since June in physical form & just crossed 5000 copies today, Nov 26. I was told recently by a publisher who had the manuscript for 4yrs that they “wish we had it on our books”. I question whether that’s true or whether that’s cos of the numbers

Either way, I had to take the risk - financially & creatively - to put it out there in the world. Its success is very much a victory for the readers who wanted & loved & connected with that story. Without them, IT CAME FROM THE DEEP would still be sitting on a publishers 🚫 pile.

My point is, if you really believe in something - yes, even if that ‘something’ is a merman story - you have to bet on yourself. It’s fucking terrifying & scary, but in the end it can ultimately be SO worth it.

IT CAME FROM THE DEEP has paid a lot of bills this year, all that from a book I was told over & over & over again had no commercial viability. This isn’t meant as a fuck you, but a THANK YOU to all the people who proved them - and my self-doubt - wrong over the last 5 months.

I quite like being a hybrid author: that is to say, someone who has a foot in traditional publishing & a foot in self-publishing. I want to be in this industry for a long time & in order to do that, I need to know & understand as much about the business as possible.

That also means making mistakes. I don’t know any author who has gotten into this business to get ‘rich’. Most of us with multiple books - even best-sellers - are *just* getting by. So thank you for making IT CAME FROM THE DEEP something that helps me get by.

Anywho, if you wanna learn more about IT CAME FROM THE DEEP:

-Amazon amazon.com.au/gp/aw/d/192557…
-GoodReads goodreads.com/book/show/3634…
-YouTube