My Campaign - IT SHOULD SAY "SELF PUBLISHED" ON THE COVER!

I wrote last year about my objection to self-publishing - what used to be known as vanity publishing. With the arrival of Kindle and ebooks, Amazon self-publishing and print-on-demand, self publishing is becoming more and more common. It's also becoming more and more affordable, and with the chance to design your own cover and retain full rights over your book I can see why many people are tempted to take this route to see their work in print.

When I wrote my first book, vanity publishing wasn't an option. I'd heard of it, but it was extremely expensive and you had to do all your own distributing, meaning you'd end up with boxes of books in your garage and have to lug them to local bookshops trying to persuade them to stock it. And naturally, most would refuse because their valuable shelf space was given over to well-known authors whose work would sell.

So I had to run the usual gamut of agents and publishers, rejection letters and rewrites, getting excited as time passed only to have my hopes dashed by a form letter from a nameless editor. I was one of the lucky ones whose work was eventually accepted, and as a result I have now had (almost) five novels published for which - get this - they paid me!

I recognise that many self-published books are very good and do extremely well. Frederick Forsythe's The Day of the Jackal is a case in point. I also know that many excellent manuscripts are routinely turned down by agents and publishers, often without even being read. But I have recently been the victim of self-published books (I got a bit over-excited about how little books cost on Kindle and downloaded several) and I believe that if the writing community ever bands together to pass legislation designed to protect their trade, then there is one very basic and simple law they should be calling for:

SELF PUBLISHED BOOKS SHOULD STATE THIS FACT ON THE COVER.

If you inadvertently buy a self-published book, you will be reading a book which almost certainly hasn't been edited and will therefore be full of typographical errors, even assuming the spelling and grammar are passable.  It won't have had to come up to any standard of quality or have an original and interesting storyline. It could be very badly written, libellous or offensive. If it is non-fiction it won't have had to be checked for factual accuracy or authenticity. In short, although you may get a gem of a book you really enjoy, you are much, much more likely to waste your money on a book which isn't good enough to ever be accepted by any traditional publisher.

At the moment you have no way of telling whether or not the book has been through the polishing and quality checking process of an agent, editor and publisher, or whether the author just dashed off whatever nonsense was in his head and then forked out $1,000 to get the book printed, warts and all. And you can't get your money back if it proves to be the latter. All you can do it find out in advance the name of the publisher and then check their website to see if they are a vanity or traditional press. And it's not always obvious or easy to tell.

Cliff Richard and Paul McCartney recently got together to fight a legal battle to protect their music, and they won, with the result that music copyright has been extended from 50 to 70 years. Couldn't we writers do the same, and ensure that those who write books despite having no real talent, experience or qualifications, and publish work which has nothing to recommend it except the author's own financial investment, are legally required to display on the cover, and on descriptions online, a prominent disclaimer such as "Publication of this work was financed by the author".

I may have only paid 99p for the books I downloaded from Amazon, but I'd rather have saved that money to spend on a more expensive book published by a traditional publisher. At least that way I might get some reading pleasure from it.