After yesterday’s look at reasons to self-publish your crime fiction, today let’s take a look at one of the biggest, most important reasons to do it.

It keeps the genre interesting.

In the world of traditional publishing, there can be something of a danger in publishers looking for the next big thing – it isn’t always the case, but often the ‘next big thing’ replicates something that has gone before. It doesn’t always add any originality or difference to the genre. It often just gives us something similar to what we’ve already got, dressed up a bit and repackaged.

Traditional publishers are often afraid to take a risk because they’re worried about reputations and profit margins and, while it makes sense on some levels to be cautious, on others it really doesn’t. You can’t find an author who is truly exciting, who readers love, without taking a risk from time to time.

This is where self-publishing comes in. If you’re self-publishing your crime fiction, you can afford to take a risk and write something different. Maybe the risk will pay off, maybe it won’t, but at least you will have tried and added something new to the genre in the process.

I’m sure we can all identify a raft of crime fiction clichés that are all too familiar. The detective with a messed-up personal life and a drink problem and a connection to the case he/she is currently trying to solve. Criminals with troubled childhoods. Formulaic police procedurals. In failing to take risks, we often end up with more of the same.

If you are thinking of self-publishing your crime fiction, make sure you do the genre justice. There is a time and a place for all those familiar things about crime novels, but there is also room to be bold and different. Don’t be afraid to make your detective a teenager bunking off from school rather than a traditional police detective if you think it will fit the story. Don’t be afraid to be unconventional.

What do you think?