Not the best metaphor given my fear of flying and self-medication on even the shortest of journeys but sometimes you have to break down the cockpit door and wrest control from the pilot, even it if earns you a syringe-full of something mellow and a long stay in the clink.

What am I talking about? Self-publishing, of course.

The jumbo jet that is the publishing industry only flies in one direction, and that may not to the desired destination of the passengers. Apparently, according to ‘some bloke’ my husband met down the pub who works in that field, it departs Oxford or Cambridge some time in your late twenties, early thirties, before a short layover at the University of East Anglia if you fancy a Masters in creative writing. It then cruises along, far above everyone else’s heads, emitting inoffensive literary works featuring at least some author memoir material thinly disguised as fiction. Very occasionally, it can be coaxed into taking on a passenger or two from Luton, but they have to sit in the back and not ask for peanuts.

As for those on the check-in desk, they’re nice people. They smile, respond politely and keep the queue moving, making sure the unworthy travellers are kept away from the plane, but they’re drowning under the volume of hopeful passengers trying to get a ticket. I’ve been trying to get on board for a few years now but I’m terribly English and polite about it. The sign says queue here and wait for the next available agent, so that’s what I do. But there are 500 people behind me and about 2000 ignoring the queuing system altogether.

So my choices were to go home and stay there, or learn to fly myself.

I chose to learn to fly and selected the easiest to fly aircraft I could find – the Kindle HopeItsNotTooLateHundred. The instruction manual couldn’t have been simpler to follow, the simulator was a breeze and soon I was ready to fly.

How much did I pay for my ticket? Not a penny.

Was self-check-in an option? You betcha.

What’s the destination? Mm, harder to tell. I did touchdown in CreateSpace for a paperback version to sleep with under my pillow because, well, you know…   I think it’s going to take a while to get truly airborne but there’s no turbulence, no one complaining about your knees in their back, or shoving theirs in yours, and it feels good to have the controls.

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