What advice would Charles Dickens give self-published authors today?

“Although a writer from the Victorian era, Dickens’s work transcends his time, language and culture. He remains a massive contemporary influence throughout the world and his writings continue to inspire film, TV, art, literature, artists and academia” www.dickens2012.org

Happy Birthday, Charles Dickens! I doubt that many would have expected such a fuss to be made about the 200^th anniversary of his birth when he was born in Portsmouth on 7^th February 1812 but he is no doubt one of the most famous novelists of all time. There will be lots of talk about Charles Dickens on this anniversary day, but here’s what I think he would be saying to self-published authors should he be around today......

Budget for your self-publishing project.

As the character Mr. Micawber points out in Dickens’ most autobiographical novel David Copperfield "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery." The character Micawber is also well known for believing that "something will turn up" and his name has become synonymous with someone who lives in hopeful expectation. Put the two of those together and you have perfect financial advice for a self-published author

Be a blogger and use social media.

Dickens contributed to journals and periodicals throughout this career; I’m sure that, if he lived today, he would be a prolific blogger covering all sorts of topics. Not only did he support many philanthropic causes later in life but his journalism and novels helped raise awareness of huge social problems of the time; today, authors can easily and cheaply draw potentially worldwide attention to topics that their readers are interested in, through online means

Serialise using eBooks.

Dickens’ journalism led to the led to the serialisation of his first novel, The Pickwick Papers in March 1836. Many of his works were first published in journals in monthly instalments, a format of publication which Dickens himself helped popularise; a bit like Amanda Hocking popularising eBooks. I imagine that Dickens would have looked at eBooks as the perfect vehicle for his writing and would have been creating eBooks left, right and centre 

Don’t go out of print.

According to The Guardian, Dickens’ books have never gone out of print. Well, with Print On Demand and eBooks, the self-published title will also probably never go out of print. However, maybe the aim should be to be as popular as Dickens; his best selling novel A Tale of Two Cities has sold over 200 million copies. Now that would put you at the top of the Kindle best seller list!

Be natural.

Dickens's last words, as reported in his obituary in The Times were alleged to have been, “Be natural my children. For the writer that is natural has fulfilled all the rules of art”