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On publishing outside the gate | Indie Authorship

Aside Kate@athousandbitsofpaper44 Comments

Last night I sat on the summer warmed stone stairs at the front of our house and waited as the evening changed colour.

Yesterday, I published my first novel.

It feels like a long road when I say that out loud. This story has taken a long while. Not that long to write – but to rewrite, over and over…

This morning I looked back through this blog for the first mentions of The Figment. Back to the time I was offered my first book deal, and the reasons I didn’t take it. I wanted to remember why I kept going instead. Why I chose to keep working, changing, learning, and ultimately to publish this book myself, under my own imprint, Ground Water Publishing.

Ground Water Publishing was created as a home for my creative life.

I am a photographer, a writer, a poet — and now an author. Each of those practices requires solitude, but none of them thrives in isolation.

Earlier this year, at a writers’ festival, I saw something that stayed with me: how much further writers travelled when experience was shared, when knowledge was passed sideways rather than guarded, and when community helped bridge the long, often lonely transition from writing to authorship.

Ground Water Publishing exists not to step away from my authorship, but to stand behind it — and to create a structure capable of holding more than one voice. It is a place where work can be developed carefully, finished with intention, and released with authority.

My own books live here. And in time, so will the work of others.

This imprint is not a mask. It is a vessel.

Just as a book is not its cover, an imprint is not a persona — it is what holds the work. Stories live inside structures, and both change with time.

The person I was when I first wrote The Figment and the person I became along the way are almost unrecognisable to one another. The finished novel, too, bears little resemblance to that first draft.

That is not failure or dilution. That is the work doing what it must do.

I’ve written thousands of words — inside the manuscript itself and outside of it here on the blog and now this year, on Substack. The indie publishing landscape has changed enormously in that time. Many mainstream writers are now choosing to publish independently, and many indie authors are building significant, sustainable careers on their own terms.

But for me, the biggest sticking point was never logistical. It was internal.

Are you still an author if you choose yourself rather than being chosen by a publisher?

The short answer is yes — unequivocally. But the reason why matters more than the label itself.

The word author comes from the Latin auctor: one who originates, one who brings something into being, one who stands behind an act. At its core, authorship has never been about permission. It has always been about responsibility.

For a long time, publishers acted as gatekeepers. They decided who was allowed through, who was validated, and who gained access to distribution and readers. Because access was scarce and expensive, being “chosen” became conflated with legitimacy. Selection began to look like authorship itself.

But selection was never authorship. It was curation.

What has changed is not the meaning of authorship, but the structure around it. Today, the barriers to publishing are lower. Anyone can technically release a book. That reality can feel unsettling, as if authorship has been diluted. But the truth is simpler and more confronting: the responsibility has moved upstream.

Choosing yourself doesn’t make authorship weaker. It makes it harder.

Particularly if you’re a perfectionist.

When you choose yourself, you remove the buffer of institutional approval. You take full responsibility for the work — for its quality, its coherence, its readiness to be read. You accept the risk of being seen without a brand standing in front of you. You stop asking whether something is “good enough” and start asking whether it is honest enough to release.

That internal shift is what separates writing from authorship. And there is alchemy involved.

The internal writer summons the work.
The internal reader tests it.
And then finally the author seals it.

Authorship is the moment the magic is declared complete — when the spell is cast and the book is ready to leave its maker.

This is the moment where a publisher was traditionally needed to bring something into the greater world. But now we authors have hundreds of tools at our disposal. Excellent editors, printers, designers and advisors are widely available. Platforms like Draft to Digital and Amazon ensure that we have global markets at our fingertips.

Authorship then is not so much in the way that a book is brought to market, but how much responsibility and care is invested in its delivery.

This is why the distinction still matters. Not because of platforms or pathways, but because of integrity. The meaningful divide now is not between publisher-chosen and self-chosen, but between work that is released thoughtfully and work that is uploaded carelessly.

Authorship lives in editorial care, intention, and the willingness to stand behind a finished work over time — even if it never sells well, even if it never receives external validation.

If you can say that you would stand by this book in ten years regardless of how it performs, then you are not trying to be an author. You already are one.

The first book is often the hardest not because of the writing, but because of this moment — the moment where authority shifts inward, where permission is no longer sought, and where the work is allowed to exist without explanation.

Choosing yourself is not a shortcut.
It is a threshold.

And once crossed, there is no need to keep asking the question again.

So, it has been a turbulent, emotional time – this particular portal is full of windy indecision, hard work and self doubt. But I’ve stepped through.

I believe that we cannot create something without it creating us alongisde it. Making this book and bringing it into the world has transformed how I think about so many things, but mostly myself.

The Figment is, at its heart, about a flawed young spirit trying to discover who she is. And the power of our imagination to affect our lives and everthing around us. We dream ourselves into being like magic. Our imagination is a spell we cast on ourselves. Once we grasp that simple fact – everything changes, firstly, most of all ourselves.

This book is written for ages 11-12 and up, because the story of becoming is ageless. We all have the children we once were still alive inside us. And everyone needs the reassurance that we have the power, at any age, to provoke change in our lives. In releasing The Figment into the world my only hope is that it affects as much positive transformation in others, as writing it caused in me.

The book page with links to purchase the Ebook is below and I’ll add links to a page on this blog as well.

https://www.groundwaterpublishing.com.au/the-figment

Love

44 thoughts on “On publishing outside the gate | Indie Authorship”

  1. Kate! congratulations!

    you know, for all of the criticisms that our modern internet age endures, there is good in it. namely, the ability for everyone to participate in media ventures that were unreachable without bowing to institutional pressures. this was a massive, and at many times unnecessary filter. And even though it may have forged a standard that acted as a bar for ability, I believe the concept had run its course due to people abusing the gatekeeping privilege of it. To read that you actively pushed away institutional recognition and privilege in order to make the project your own is an inspiration to me.
    Here’s to more books down the line and to the pure love of authorship. Mike

    Reply

    • Mike yes, power is a privilege and I think perhaps at first doing away with gatekeepers led to a deluge of poor quality but as time has gone on the ocean has relevelled at a different strata. There is always going to be pros and cons to everything but I feel blessed to be born in this time because I’m endlessly curious and always experimenting in new ways to bring thoughts and words to life.

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  2. Congratulations, Kate! I’m so happy for you and i love you following your heart and stages of life and your book following in its footsteps with many twists and turns. This is awesome to have your own publishing company. Enjoy the well deserved glow! ❣️

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  3. Do you know about expansion chambers for two stroke racing motorcycles Kate? That’s the analogy for me (exhaust rushing into a cone-shaped pipe, sound waves expanding with the flow, hitting the end and bouncing back, creating low-pressure that draws in more fuel, maximizing power, What a roar).
    In other words:-
    MORE POWER TO YOU, KATE!
    Congratulations and wishing you every success.
    DD

    Reply

  6. Kate, there is SO much here that is vital, important and absolutely spot-on! In particular, “Authorship lives in editorial care, intention, and the willingness to stand behind a finished work over time — even if it never sells well, even if it never receives external validation.” You’ve pinpointed the critical distinction of the emerging era of self-publication. I can almost foresee a day when the stigma attached to self-publication dissipates and new criteria for discernment emerge. Excellent post! And congratulations! (Do you have plans for “The Figment” to become available in print?)

    Reply

    • Thank you Camilla. The Figment will be printed next year. This is another process that takes time to get just right. I could print now through Amazon or Draft to Digital but that is not the quality I want to put forward. We have a local (Melbourne) book printing company that send out paper samples and different cover materials for approval – of course the end result is expensive but I think it is, for me at least, time to return to books that will stand the test of time on the book shelf and look and feel beautiful to hold and read.

      Books have suffered the same fate as all products that are produced by the million in this Industrial age. They become landfill. I am trying to avoid that fate for mine – I can’t say it won’t occur of course but if the right energy goes into one end of the process perhaps it can prevent that eventual outcome.

      There is a new era occurring – one where integrity and energy and human contact will be sought and prized not just in books but in any endeavour. I hope. I really hope.

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  9. Enriching read this morning. Thank you, Kate. Can’t wait to get my hands on your novel! Congratulations! 🎉Wonder if there are any book/author festivals in Australia that you might be at next year. 🙋🏼‍♀️

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  10. Big congrats, Kate! And kudos for soberly and determinedly entering the world of self-publishing. I’m facing the same situation, after several near-misses, as well as turning down an offer from a publisher who wanted nice-ify my edgy drama into a romance. Any recommendations on what guides or sources I need to do this right?
    Looking forward to reading your book, btw, and Merry Christmas!

    Reply

    • Thanks Mitch, and good for you. Yes talk to other indies and get a great team including an editor. I’m gathering this sort of information and a tribe of like minded people at my website Groundwaterpublishing.com.au in the members area where I will be posting about it but I will also do a few posts here if there’s some interest. I would love you to check my book out – pass it around some avid young readers and see what they think.

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  11. “I believe that we cannot create something without it creating us alongside it.” I so agree and believe this too. Big congratulations and will definitely be checking it out.

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  13. Congratulations on publishing The Figment. This reflection on choosing yourself and taking full responsibility for the work is deeply resonant.

    I love how you describe Ground Water Publishing as a vessel rather than a mask there’s real intention and integrity in that. Wishing the book a strong, meaningful journey into the world.

    Reply

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