A Day Of Faces by Simon K Jones Page A

agents and publishers had rejected your work took a certain amount of ego. That’s why it’s been called the vanity press.
    Fast forward to now and the landscape is entirely different. Self-publishing isn’t the same thing as it was back then - pre-internet, self-publishing was a way to bypass or combat the traditional publishing industry. These days, it’s simply another part of the broader creator movement. Self-publishing for a writer is no different to a filmmaker putting their work on YouTube or Vimeo, or an artist showing their work on DeviantArt, or a photographer exploring Instagram, 500px and Flickr.
    That comparison goes both ways. YouTube is full of absolutely terrible videos. It’s also home to incredible short films and creative teams like Corridor Digital, who release hugely innovative videos almost every week. Amateur filmmakers have forged professional careers based on their YouTube channels.
    Online self-publishing is the same. There’s an almost infinite amount of crap, sure, but you’ll also find a range of incredible work available for free. The next generation of professional writers are emerging from this scene.
    It’s a mistake to think of online self-publishing as competition for traditional publishing (on shelves or digital). Just as YouTube doesn’t stop people from going to the cinema or watching television, self-publishing online has turned into something different (although it should be noted that young viewers are increasingly choosing YouTube as their primary platform, above scheduled TV - in sharp contrast to previous generations).
    Basically, don’t be embarrassed at the thought of publishing online. It doesn’t mean you failed to get published traditionally - it just means you’re going a different route. And hey - there are more and more stories of self-publishing also leading to traditional publishing success, so one doesn’t negate the other.
    The most important thing is that you’ll be getting your work in front of readers. Prior to online self-publishing, if you didn’t get a traditional book deal it basically meant that you work would never reach beyond friends and family, save for occasional genre magazines. You either had to be a full-on professional novelist, or you were nothing. These days, you can choose your own level of involvement. If you have an urge to write but no particular desire to make a living from your work, you still have the potential to reach hundreds or thousands of readers.
     
    Why serialised?
    In this context, I’m defining serialisation as being a regular stream of content, spreading a story out over a long period rather than releasing it as a single entity. Although you’re reading the ebook collection of Arc 1 of A Day of Faces, the story started life as a weekly serial published online.
    Serialising avoids the curse of endless editing . Many unpublished writers, myself included, have used the excuse of “I’m working on a novel” for far too long. The manuscript has sat around on a hard drive for years, making only minor progress. You tell yourself that it still needs editing, that it’s not ready, and a decade later it’s still not been seen by eyes other than yours. Perhaps it’s a fear of releasing it into the wild, or you simply don’t ever find the time to dedicate amongst the other important things in your life - job, family, pub.
    When you switch to serialising your work, all those excuses evaporate. You don’t need to have a 100% finished work before you start publishing it. Write a chapter, then publish it. Or if that’s a bit too intimidating, write five chapters then start publishing, so that you have a buffer. The point, though, is that you’re freed from the tyranny of endless editing.
    A Day of Faces has a weekly publishing schedule. Every Monday I put a new chapter up, no matter what. That keeps me honest and it keeps me creative. It gives a point to the writing.
    The online world is one of bite-sized chunks. People