Profile: Jim Munroe

I recently stumbled on novelist Jim Munroe's DIY publishing empire, No Media Kings. After a brief foray into traditional publishing with his first book from HaperCollins, Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask, Munroe found he could make more doing the publishing, promotion, and sales himself. Talented guy.

Metro Toronto has a great introductory profile on Munroe, which gives you a quick rundown on his history. Then dig around No Media Kings to read about how he wrote his first novel in 21 weeks (you can now download the e-book version for free), what it was like to publish with HarperCollins, and a budget breakdown of his revenue and expenses for his self-published novel Angry Young Spaceman.

What I find really inspiring about Munroe's story is how he questioned the conventional wisdom about how authors are supposed to make money, and capitalized on his own experience in zine publishing and self-promotion to find new ways to support himself by writing.