For those of you trying to self-publish, you'll appreciate how difficult it is. Having returned from my travels in August 2004, I was determined to finish and publish my debut novel. I was niave enought to think writing the book was the hard part. It wasn't. The endless proof reading and re-writing was (and still is) a complete pain in the arse and was only possible with the help of people around me. Having completed the process ... the real work began.
The first problem I encountered was learning what was expected from a literary agent (having discovered that publishers aren't generally interested in anything you send them unless it's already been vetted by an agent). Having got the book into the required format and written a synopsis (which I now realise has to be an in depth anylisis of the story, not a vague 'back cover' blurb), I nervously sent my manuscript off to an agent. Now, to summarise, in theory, you should only approach an agent at a time, stating in your covering letter if you are submitting your work elsewhere (who knows how favourable that looks on your letter?!?!). Agents can take anything up to 3 months to reply, and then the process starts all over again. It's not long before I realised that agents, depending on size of company, are receiving in the region of 250 submissions PER WEEK, of which they take on about 3 or 4 new clients a year. You don't just have to be bloody good, you have to be bloody lucky ... and then you're still not certain of being snapped up by a publisher, unless you've won big brother, snogged Preston from the Ordinary Boys, in which case, at the age of 21, you get a £300k book deal from Random House to 'write' your life story.
I'm not the most patient of people and so started to investigate the world of self-publishing. Many companies do it and 99% of them charge an up from fee of between £500 to £2000 and then STILL charge for each copy of the book you buy. After muchos research, i discovered a company in the States called Lulu.com. With no set-up fee, you just pay for each book you buy. This seemed to be the way to go and so I started to spend my evenings re-formatting my book in order to meet their criteria and upload my book onto their web-site. Once this was complete, the exciting but frustrating task of learning how to design my own book cover. I had the advantage of having met Enrique on my travels. He produced the cover image, it was then just a case learning how to use Paint-Shop Pro, what exactly a bleed margin was, and getting down to business. Some time later, I ordered a copy of my book.
It eventually arrived, all the way from America. I could hardly contain my excitement, despite it being 2mm thick with a miniscule font and HUGE margins ... my book was finally in print. For those of you who bought a copy, you'll know exactly what I mean. And so, the sales started. By the time I'd paid for the book and had it shipped from the States, selling the books at £7.99 was barely covering my costs. To me it didn't matter, I just wanted to get the book out there. In order to forfill my ambition to get the book into the High Street however, I had to go through the process of obtaining an ISBN number & barcode. Lulu came up with the goods again. The revised edition arrived (still small font and huge margins) and off I trundled to my local Ottacker's to see how I could get my book sold.
I was lucky in many ways. If I'd have been running a book shop and some nervous idiot had wandered in with a wafer thin book with a tiny font and huge margins and mumbled 'errm, excuse me, i've kinda written this book and errm, wondered how, errm, what the next step is,' before turning a rich shade of beetroot, I'd have either laughed, told them to go away, or both. Pity was taken on me by Ottacker's in Poole and Borders in Bournemouth. Both agreed to stock some of the books in their local author section.
The rest is history. I began to market myself, sent out press releases, had articles in various regional newspapers, did some radio interviews, got my book into more shops, did some book signings and workshops at libraries and schools and slowly things started to move. The process was pretty much repeated for Worlds Apart except the books were now looking much more like paperbacks. 12 Months was reprinted and then I started on Digging Deeper. Where do I go from here? I suggest you check the blog ... |
