I know people who will not use Amazon on principle, and I understand why. Owner Jeff Bezos's obscene wealth, the exploitation of those who work for the company, and Amazon's near-monopoly over so many areas of the consumer market should be legitimate sources of moral concern for anybody yearning and striving for a more just and equitable world. ​With globalisation, the rise of corporate power, and the insatiable and destructive appetites fuelled by neoliberalism's consumptive marketing and profiteering (I'm not immune from these), our ethical dilemmas have become more all-pervasive, intense, and inescapable. So why do I publish with Amazon?

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I've written fiction all my adult life. In my early twenties, I sent a collection of short stories to Penguin Books. That was before the all-out commercialisation of publishing. After a lengthy process of to-ing and fro-ing, the director rang me. He said they'd decided not to publish my stories but urged me to keep writing and submitting. I took his advice, but I've never succeeded in finding an agent or a publisher. My academic writing is different. I've had monographs published by Routledge, Oxford University Press and T & T Clark/Continuum, and dozens of journal articles and book chapters. Many struggling academics long for such opportunities and I'm thankful for them. Theological writing and research remain an important part of my life.

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But fiction is my first and greatest creative love. At least, it became so when I realised I was never going to be the second Margot Fonteyn. I did, however, earn the title "the dancing prof"  from some students and catering staff at Roehampton University on account of my wine-fuelled performances. 

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I took the plunge into self-publishing through Troubador Publishing with my novel, The Good Priest. It's not my first novel – I have several more in various stages of editing on my laptop, and old typescripts languishing in dusty folders. As with all my fiction, I had tried various agents with The Good Priest and eventually gave up because I'm easily defeated and deflated by rejections. I marvel at people who eventually find agents or publishers after dozens of rejections, but it only takes a couple of formulaic letters after weeks of waiting to deplete my fragile confidence. 

 

The Good Priest was well-reviewed, but I still couldn't find an agent for my second novel, Between Two Rivers, published by Zimbabwean publishers Weaver Press and self-published through Troubador. It has attracted fewer reviews than The Good Priest, but they've been consistently positive. Still, despite this track record, I've had no luck finding an agent for my third novel, Maggie Jackson's Odyssey, which I'm about to publish through Amazon.

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As a relevant aside, if you are considering self-publishing and can afford to make a loss of several thousand pounds, then I highly recommend Troubador. They offer a first-class service to authors, with tailor-made options for copy editing, marketing, publicity, promotion, etc., depending on your budget. They have provided continuous support, answering emails on the same day and providing me with all the files I need to self-publish when my contract ends – I can't fault them for their service.

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I've now decided to give up trying to find an agent or commercial publisher and to publish mainly through Amazon under my Christabel Press imprint. Fiction today has been both commodified and politicised. Some stunningly good books still get published – Paul Lynch's Prophet Song, Hernan Diaz's Trust, Meg Nolan's Ordinary Human Failings, Claire Keegan's So Late in the Day – there are novels that still break the mould. But by and large, the fiction market is flooded with quick-sell, quickly forgotten novels as bland and processed as a packet of frozen chicken nuggets. It used to be that a Penguin novel would be a guaranteed literary experience, but even that's no longer true.​

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Amazon provides an outlet and a support service for writers that is second to none, from the easy-to-use software to produce a paperback and eBook to customer service that is generally good at answering authors' queries. Of course, the rise in self-publishing means that anyone can have a go, and not everybody has a novel inside them, despite what they say! But this democratisation of publishing offers freedom from the commercial demands of the publishing industry. It allows authors like me to write the kind of books we want to write and take our chances with our readers, providing a platform for us to sell our books and challenging the market-driven criteria of commercial publishers and booksellers.

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I use Nielsen ISBNs for my books, which means bookshops can distribute them. Nevertheless, even my local Waterstones wouldn't stock them, and I've had little luck with independent bookshops. Getting self-published books onto bookshop shelves is nearly impossible, regardless of how good the reviews are and how reputable the authors. 

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So yes, in a different world, I might also boycott Amazon. Still, the reality is that they may be the guardians of a flourishing and creative literary culture that allows for experimentation, risk-taking and freedom of expression, which is less and less true of mainstream publishers and the fashion-conscious agents who funnel fiction through an increasingly money-driven and commodified system.

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(I really hope this doesn't sound like sour grapes)! 

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