Debbie Young's Blog, page 50

A Month on the Wagon with “Go Sober for October”

(This post originally appeared in the October edition of the Tetbury Advertiser)

Earlier this year I reached that magical age when the NHS summons you for a personal MOT, to be repeated every five years, presumably until you’re no longer roadworthy.

I’m always grateful to the NHS for the wonderful care that my family receives. But any self-respecting woman of – ahem – a certain age, will understand my trepidation at the thought of a battery of questions and blood tests, an official weigh-in and a height check. The height test was not a problem: I was confident that I hadn’t gained height. My weight, on the other hand, is precisely 20% more than it was when I was 20.

Judgment Day

A week after the tests, you’re called in to review the results with a nurse. My husband despatched me to the surgery with a knowing look, as if expecting me to be sent home with a diet sheet and a registration form for Alcoholics Anonymous. To his surprise, the nurse had only good news to report. I apparently have only a 3.5% risk in the next ten years of a cardiovascular event, a euphemism that makes a heart attack sound like an agreeable trip to the seaside.

“What about my nightly two glasses of wine?” I enquired. “Isn’t that something I ought to change?”

“No, you’re borderline, no problem,” the nurse reassured me.

“And my BMI? I thought it was meant to be less than 25?”

“No, we only really worry if it’s over 30.”

Well, that news certainly lowered my blood pressure. (It’s a calm 100/60, if you’re wondering.)

Her prescription for my future well-being: “Go home and treat yourself to a cream cake!”

Turning Wine into Water

Actually, I’m not keen on cream cakes, which is probably just as well, but I don’t want my current state of health to make me complacent. Therefore shortly after my return from my appointment, I searched online for more information about a sponsored health-related campaign to which a friend of mine had alerted me earlier in the week. Raising funds for Macmillan Cancer Support, it’s succinctly called “Go Sober for October”. This isn’t the first time they’ve run it, but in previous years I’ve clearly missed the boat, or rather wagon.

Just as I was about to sign the pledge, into my email inbox dropped a message from the esteemed editor of this magazine: “This month we’ll be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Tetbury Advertiser!”

I’m hoping it won’t go amiss if the glass I raise in its honour will be filled with nothing more than elderflower fizz? Here’s to the good health of the Tetbury Advertiser!

To join Macmillan’s Go Sober for October campaign: www.gosober.org .

To sponsor me to Go Sober for October: www.gosober.org.uk/profile/authordebbieyoung

To find out more about the invaluable work done by Macmillan Cancer Support, visit their website: www.macmillan.org.uk

 

Filed under: charities, lifestyle, Tetbury Advertiser Tagged: alcohol consumption, drinking, Go Sober for October, healthy lifestyle, Macmillan Cancer Support, wine

An Afternoon with Virginia Woolf, My Self-publishing Hero

(A post about my recent trip to London, of special interest to anyone interested in self-publishing or the work of Virginia Woolf and the Hogarth Press)

Virginia Woolf – an inspiration to any self-publishing author

Having to attend an evening meeting in London of the Alliance of Independent Authors earlier this week provided a great excuse to spend an afternoon as a tourist in what used to be my home city.

I was born and raised in the London suburb of Sidcup, and I still regard it as the centre of the world, and in particular Charing Cross Station, the central London terminus for the suburban line from Sidcup into town. Although the train from where I live now in the Cotswolds goes into Paddington Station, my first instinct is usually to hop on an Underground train and head for Charing Cross.

This visit was no different, as I wanted to catch the Virginia Woolf exhibition, running until 26 October, in the National Portrait Gallery, a stone’s throw from Charing Cross, just around the corner from Trafalgar Square.

Why I Admire Virginia Woolf

I have always admired Virginia Woolf since first reading Mrs Dalloway at university, where my tutor for a couple of terms was Woolf’s biographer Hermione Lee (before she was famous). I remember reading it in a single sitting, late into the night, curled up in my student study-bedroom, haloed by my anglepoise lamp. Ever since, I’ve had a photo of Woolf on my desk as a role model of an impassioned, purposeful writer not afraid to break conventions.

Virginia Woolf, Self-publishing Author

Since becoming immersed in the world of self-publishing, there’s been another reason for my interest in Virginia Woolf: she is often cited as being an exemplary self-publisher. The National Portrat Gallery exhibition included not only photographs and portraits of Woolf and her family, and poignant artefacts such as her final letters before she took her own life, but also some of the early self-published editions of her books. These were produced via the Hogarth Press, set up with her husband Leonard, using a hand-press that they kept in their home. This required plates to be made up using moveable metal letters, the old-fashioned way. They had acquired only a limited number of letters, so hey were restricted to making up only two pages of each book at a time. Because Leonard had a congenital tremor in his hands, most of the typesetting was done by Virginia herself.

The old copy from my university days

Now, I’ve always been irritated whenever I’ve read in an interview that an author was inspired to write books by the acquisition of a typewriter (as if buying a paintbrush would make you a painter!) But I am much more accepting of Virginia Woolf’s statement that having her own press encouraged her to be more experimental in her writing, because she could print whatever she liked, without a publisher’s intervention.

The Hogarth Press’s first publication using the newly-acquired hand-press was a slim volume Two Stories, one by Virginia (The Mark on the Wall), the other by Leonard (Three Jews). They produced 150 copies. The Hogarth Press went on to publish not only more of Virginia’s books but also groundbreaking work such as Katherine Mansfield’s The Prelude and T S Eliot’s The Wasteland. It was very exciting to be able to view some of these early works on display at the exhibition, with their distinctive cover designs by her sister Vanessa Bell.

If the Hogarth Press doesn’t vindicate self-publishing as a source of important, significant fiction, I don’t know what does! They were, incidentally, offered first refusal of James Joyce’s Ulysses, but, presumably mindful of their laborious two-page-at-a-time process, turned it down because of its length.

The Unexpected Book

But there was another book on display that made an even more powerful impression upon me: a thick hardback the size of a household dictionary, and one that I’d not seen before. This was a Nazi directory listing all of the British citizens that in the event of a German invasion and victory would be arrested and executed. The page was open at the end of the W section, and there on the page were the names of both Leonard and Virginia Woolf, with brief descriptions in German. (I think hers just said “Schreiberin” – authoress.) Ironic and heartbreaking that in the same display case lay the walking stick that she had used on her final walk down to the river in which, pockets weighted with stones, she took her own life, unable to face another episode of the mental illness that had plagued her since her youth.

Unfortunately photography was not allowed in the exhibition, so I can only describe these things from memory, and can’t show you pictures. But if you happen to be in London between now and 26 October, and have anything to do with writing or self-publishing, do stop by. I promise you, you’ll return home freshly inspired to write what you believe in and to wear your self-published status with pride.

For more information about the National Portrait Gallery, visit its website: www.npg.org.uk

 

Filed under: reading, self-publishing, travel, writing Tagged: Hogarth Press, Katherine Mansfield, Leonard Woolf, Mrs Dalloway, National Portrait Gallery, self-publishing, T S Eliot, Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf

A Summer of Extremes: From Ithaca to Inverness

This post about my summer holidays first appeared in the Tetbury Advertiser’s September issue.

Soaking up the sun beside the Ithacan sea

I shall remember this summer break as the holiday of two extremes – scorching, dry sunshine and chill, torrential rain, as I flitted from Ithaca to Inverness.

Statue of Homer on Ithaca at daybreak

Our trip to Ithaca was a busman’s holiday for me. I was helping to run the Homeric Writers’ Workshop and Retreat, so called because the island was the start and finishing point of perhaps the most famous journey of all, that of Odysseus, as chronicled by the ancient Greek master storyteller, Homer.

Our Scottish trip was occasioned by my husband’s own odyssey – to climb all 282 Munros, the Scottish mountains of 3,000 feet or more, named after the man who first mapped them.

On Ithaca, the weather was idyllic: constant sunshine, cornflower-blue skies, refreshing sea breezes, all day every day. The locals apologised that there were clouds in the sky – tiny Persil-white puffballs – apparently not usually seen between June and September.

A few days later, when we flew into Inverness to meet my husband (already there in our camper van, with 20 more Munros crossed off his list before we arrived), steady rain was falling from steely skies. As we headed west for Ullapool, the clouds became more leaden. Linen sundresses, so comfortable on Ithaca, were supplemented with leggings, t-shirts, cardigans, shawls – all at once.

Not quite so enticing – the beach at Aberdeen

On Ithaca there are constant reminders to conserve water, always in short supply on this tiny island. In Scotland, there is evidence everywhere of the abundance of local water: high and raging rivers, waterfalls and landslips beside the roads. New flood defences are under construction wherever we go, and not a moment too soon. If there’s ever a global shortage of water, Scotland’s a dead cert for world domination.

Yet as we retreated southwards, I realised that my two holiday destinations weren’t so different after all, and not just because they both prompted us to haemorrhage money on dubious souvenirs.

Both have a vast diaspora, thanks to economic migrants driven to North America, Australia, and South Africa by the Highland Clearances in Scotland and by the 1953 earthquake in Ithaca.

Both landscapes are scarred by the ruins of abandoned, simple stone houses, surprisingly similar in structure and appearance.

Both populations departed with a deep love of their homeland imprinted on their hearts. Whenever they can, they return. Australian, American and South African accents abound on Ithaca. In Scotland, 2014 has been declared Homecoming year, to mark the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn, at which the Scots trounced the English. (By chance, my husband hails from Bannockburn.)

I feel privileged to have been able to holiday in places that so many people, all over the world, will always regard as home. Yet I’m also glad to return to the Cotswolds, which, as a small child on holiday there, I resolved I would one day make my home.

Because as Homer himself once said: “Nothing is sweeter than home”. At least, that’s what it says on my Ithacan souvenir fridge magnet.

 

Filed under: Greece, Scotland, Summer, travel Tagged: Aberdeen, Homer, Inverness, Ithaca, Munros, Odyssey, Ullapool, weather

Tour of Hope at Southmead Hospital

From left: Lee and Danielle of JDRF, Laura with her JDRF mascot bears Ruby and Rufus, and Dr Kathleen Gillespie

Just before the summer holidays, my daughter Laura and I were lucky enough to be invited to tour some of the research laboratories of Southmead Hospital. The purpose of the tour was to see at first hand some of the work being co-funded by the JDRF to search for a cure for Type 1 diabetes. Regular readers of this blog will know that Laura was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of three, a few years after Gordon, my husband received his own diagnosis of the same disease.

JDRF funds a lot of research projects all around the world, and by chance some of these happen to be based in the hospital that helps us manage Laura’s diabetes. It’s also the hospital in which she was born. So there were lots of good reasons to go along for a look behind the scenes, even though the tour happened to fall the day before we were about to depart to Greece on holiday. I’m very glad I made the slightly reckless decision to abandon our packing and go for it!

What We Saw on our Tour

Dr Gillespie demonstrates DNA extraction – from a kiwi fruit!

Accompanied by our regional JDRF team, the lovely Lee Newman and Danielle Angelli, we were shown round the labs by Dr Kathleen Gillespie, a researcher in molecular medicine with special interest in the genetic mechanisms underlying immunity. Apparently 50% of the occurrences of T1D are thought to be genetic-related – although it’s by no means straightforward, as there are incidences of identical twins, one of whom develops the disease and the other doesn’t.

“And here are some I prepared earlier”

Dr Gillespie introduced us to her cheerful and welcoming team of staff who have dedicated their careers to amazing projects investigating the prediction and prevention of the development of Type 1 diabetes. We toured a series of small laboratories, each with a special set of expensive machinery – but the machinery would be worthless without the intelligence and imagination of the extraordinary staff who operate it. Their kit included some less costly items that you’d find in any kitchen, such as fridges and microwaves. When Dr Gillespie showed us how to extract DNA, she did so on a kiwi fruit!

“Our work does look a lot like cookery sometimes,” said Dr Gillespie. “People who are good at cooking are usually good at lab work too!”

How the Work is Funded

Every research project that goes into the jigsaw of the search for a cure has to be funded separately, in blocks, with submissions made to fundholders in order for the work to continue. The tour made us all aware of the importance of raising funds for the JDRF long-term, so that their work can continue.

We all came away motivated to work harder to raise funds and awareness for JDRF. We were also inspired by the imagination, creativity, positive attitude and dedication of Dr Gillespie, her team, and their equivalents around the world, for helping bring the cure for diabetes ever closer.

“So that’s what DNA looks like!”

My Book Launch in aid of JDRF

Cover design by SilverWood Books

This November, to mark World Diabetes Day, I’ll be launching the paperback edition of my book Coming To Terms With Type 1 Diabetes, to make more widely available the ebook that I published for WDD last year. A new chapter will be included entitled “Diabetes Is Always With Us”. If you’re within reach of Bristol and would like to come to the event launch at Foyles Bookshop, Cabot Circus, on Thursday 13th November, the eve of World Diabetes Day, please send me a message to reserve you a place at the event. I’ll also send you more details of the launch.

For more information about the JDRF, please visit their website: www.jdrf.org.uk.

For more information about Coming To Terms With Type 1 Diabetes, see this page on my website here: Coming To Terms With Type 1 Diabetes

Filed under: charities, daughter, diabetes (type 1 diabetes), family, health, JDRF, lifestyle Tagged: diabetes research, endocrinology, genetics, type 1 diabetes

Back to School Books – My Reviews for Today’s Child Magazine

A post about my latest book review column in the parenting magazine Today’s Child

Every two months I have a great excuse for getting stuck into children’s books: the review pages that I write for the parenting magazine, Today’s Child. Available on free distribution in London, this colourful and lively magazine may also be read online via one of those cute widgets that lets you flip through the pages as if it’s a real magazine.

Why I Write for Today’s Child

I started writing for Today’s Child when I worked for the national charity Read for Good, which runs sponsored Readathons in schools all over the country, and which also sends free books and storytellers into children in hospital via its ReadWell programme. Approached by an advertising sales executive to place a paid ad for the charity, I countered with the offer of a piece of editorial as an alternative, and the editor liked what I’d written so much that the arrangement has morphed into a regular gig as their book reviewer, with occasional features on other issues thrown in as the opportunity arises. For the next issue, for example, I’ll be writing a feature on Type 1 Diabetes, to coincide with World Diabetes Day on 14th November, and promoting the new paperback edition of my family memoir Coming To Terms With Type 1 Diabetes, to be launched on the eve of World Diabetes Day.

Today’s Child is run by a lively young team with big ideas and a great sense of colour and design. The magazine recently had a makeover, and its new look is bright, cheerful and upbeat. Each issue has a particular theme, as does my book reviews page. I include some new books, but I also often refer to classics and old favourites that remain in fashion, and I think that approach adds value to my feature – I’m clearly not just regurgitating the big publishers’ PR campaigns. I’m also happy to feature books from small independent presses and self-published authors, if I like their books and think they’ll be enjoyed by the magazine’s readers.

Diaries – more durable than any blog

The September/October issue was, not surprisingly, all about Back to School, a theme that is front of mind for most parents at this time of year. Next issue I’ll be writing about diaries and journals, providing ideas for Christmas gifts and inspiration for children to start or keep a diary-writing habit when the new year kicks in. From childhood, I was an avid diarist, and I still have all my old diaries on a high shelf on the landing, much to my eleven-year-old daughter’s amusement – time to hide them, I think, now she can reach the shelf! My blog has now replaced my diaries, and as any regular reader here will know, I do love to blog! But I wouldn’t be without a paper diary too.

More Information about Today’s Child

Today’s Child has regular competitions and shares lots of fun stuff on its Facebook page and on Twitter, so if you’d like to follow them there, here are the links:

Today’s Child on Twitter: @FreeTodaysChild
Today’s Child on Facebook www.facebook.com/todayschild.co.uk

Click here to read the latest issue – and flip to pages 16-17 to see my latest reviews:

http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/launch.aspx?eid=644ad24a-7665-4a90-b50b-7199f55cf72a

More About My Book Reviews

Today’s Child isn’t the only magazine that I review books for – I’m also a regular reviewer for Vine Leaves Literary Journal,  equally beautiful and valuable to a completely different audience.

I think all writers should not only be avid readers but review books too, whether or not they choose to share their reviews in public, in magazines or online. (I’m also a top reviewer for Amazon, by the way, steadily approaching the Top #1000 badge and aspiring to climb higher!)

I also try to include book reviews on this website, by way of recommended reading, but am way behind just now, due to other commitments. I’m now planning to allocate an hour every weekend to updating my site and elsewhere with book reviews, and hope to catch up eventually – though reading an average of 2-3 books a week, this will take a while! If you’d like to see the reviews I’ve currently got on this site, you’ll find them here: My Book Reviews.

Like to Review My Books?

Of course, I do have a vested interest in reviewing books – as an author myself, I know how rewarding it is to receive a review of one of my own books! So if you’ve read and enjoyed one of mine, I’d be very grateful if you could spare a moment to post a quick review somewhere – whether on Amazon, Goodreads, your own blog, or anywhere else.

And if you’re a book blogger or journalist who would like a free review copy of any of my books, just send me a message via the contact form, specifying which book you’d like and where you intend to review it. Thank you so much – and happy reading to one and all!

Filed under: book reviews, charities, Read for Good, reading, writing Tagged: book reviews, Today's Child, Vine Leaves Literary Journal, why I review books

My Speech at the SilverWood Books Open Day

Shameless self-promotion of my handbook for authors, “Sell Your Books!” Photo copyright http://www.rebeccamillar.com

A post to follow up the recent Open Day at Foyles Bristol bookshop, organised by the author services company SilverWood Books

Last Saturday I was very pleased to be the opening speaker in SilverWood Books‘ autumn Open Day, which offered a great line-up of experts on writing and self-publishing. Thanks to the generous support of Foyles’ Bristol branch, SilverWood’s publishing director and her wonderful team were able to provide the event free of charge, creating a rare opportunity for a valuable learning experience affordable even to the most impoverished aspiring author.

This was a characteristically generous move from SilverWood, which not only helps authors self-publish beautiful books to a professional standard, but also offers lots of free information and advice on their website’s Learning Zone. They also publish, through their SilverWood Originals imprint, a range of books to help authors write, polish and market their books, including my own Sell Your Books!

For the first part of the event, I shared the platform with professional editor Agnes Davis and Diego Marano of Kobo Writing Life, who you can see in the photo at the top of this post. I usually speak from notecards rather than writing my talk in advance, but this time I decided to write the speech in full, partly because I wanted also to be able to share it with those who didn’t attend. So the rest of this post consists of my speech. It took 15 minutes to deliver, by the way, so I hope you’re sitting comfortably to read it…

Is Self-Publishing a Misnomer?

When to go it alone, and when to get help…and how to avoid the companies who really don’t have your best interests at heart.

I’m going to kick off with a quick definition of what it means to be self-published, and debunking some of the myths around self-publishing. After that, I’ll give you some pointers on when to go it alone, when to involve other people, and how to choose the right partners to make your self-published book the best it can be.

So, first of all – what is self-publishing? There’s a popular misconception that self-publishing is to publishing as home-baking is to buying ready meals – that if you don’t do it all yourself, you’re cheating.

Not so. What self-publishing really means is that the author takes control of the publishing process. It’s a bit like when an actor turns director. That’s why some people these days use a different term – the author-publisher, rather than the self-publisher.

As author-publisher, you assume all the responsibilities that a trade publisher has for publishing a book commercially. For a trade publisher, a cracking manuscript is only the starting point, which must then be nurtured through the production process, to turn it into a marketable book.

Let’s take a quick walk through of the production stages you need to pass through:

Writing. First, write your book –then amend, draft and rewrite it until your manuscript is the best you can make it.
Editing. Get it polished to perfection by a detached third party expert. Agnes will be talking more about that shortly – and also about
Proofreading, that close cousin of editing, to correct any errors that would distract the reader from your story.
Formatting. There’s a different formatting process for print and ebooks, which requires a completely dissimilar set of skills from those earlier processes. Note the mention of print – it’s another popular myth that self-publishing equals digital publishing, i.e. only ever ends up with an ebook.
Designing a cover. Not a question of choosing a nice picture for the front, but a complex process with lots of technical considerations, such as showing your book’s genre at a glance, and being easy to read at thumbnail size on a computer screen. So, not as simple as it first sounds.
Creating the blurb. That’s the copy on the back, to persuade readers to linger more than the standard 8 seconds of a typical bookshop browser. It should also create the right expectations, so that when the reader gets to the end of your book, they recommend it to others. Despite our digital age, word of mouth is still the most powerful way of selling books.
Marketing – finding readers to buy and read it! Ben Cameron will be talking about that later.

Now, you could try to do all of this yourself – and plenty of people do, because it’s very easy to do all of those processes, for no up-front cost, via free tools provided by online retailers. I say easy – it’s easy to do them, but much harder to do them to a professional standard.

If you’re just producing a book for fun or for only your family to read, that’s fine – you can easily do that on a photobook site such as Blurb or even on your computer printer at home, or you can publish it online as a website or blog.

But if you’re putting your book out there in the public eye, it needs to look professional. If not, you risk the wrath of the reading masses. If you have lots of typos, for example, expect to receive a string of poor reviews from people complaining about them – and those reviews will remain live online as long as your book does.  Or, if you let your book go out with a duff cover, it might disappear into a black hole, because no-one is attracted to buy it.

For an author to possess all the skills, experience and materials to carry out every part of the publishing process to a professional standard is about as likely as someone who decides to build their own home being able to do everything from drawing the plans to digging the foundations to putting on the roof without expert help. If, like me, you are a fan of the tv programme Grand Designs, you’ll know there’s nothing more guaranteed to raise the eyebrow of the lovely Kevin McCloud, than having one of his subjects gaily assert that they’ll be doing their own wiring, or some such task, in order to save a few quid. It’s a false economy.

So you need to recognise where your skills lie, and where there are gaps, before you go any further.

That’s not to say you can’t acquire expertise in some parts of the process. For example, if you’re good with IT and are a stickler for detail, learning to format an ebook is not that hard to do, provided you’re able to throw time at it. Though as with all of these processes, if you’re cash-rich and time-poor, buying in services will help you complete your project a whole lot faster – and it will also free up more time for you to write, which I suspect for most of us is what we really want most to be doing.

But other skills are much harder to acquire – the artistic and creative flair for cover design, as well as the technical know-how.

You might think editing and proofreading fall into the easy-to-do category. After all, aren’t you a writer? Isn’t that a key area of strength? But the hard truth is, you simply won’t have the necessary objectivity. Your eye will see what your brain remembers, not what your hands accidentally messed up while you were typing.

Whichever services you decide to outsource, there are cost implications. Before you commission any third-party service, you must do your sums and work out whether your project cost-justifies your proposed investment, including all the easily overlooked incidentals, such as shipping and petrol, postage and packing.

But that’s only if profit is your motive – maybe even breaking even doesn’t matter. You might consider your book project a hobby, to be funded, like any other, out of your own pocket. That’s fine too. Plenty of commercially published authors see no profit on their books, once they’ve factored in their hourly rate for writing the thing – they earn their real living from work associated with their books, such as journalism, merchandising and the after-dinner speaker circuit.

While writing and publishing your own book can be sufficient reward, regardless of money,  there are plenty of author-publishers who are earning a good living and more, from their self-published books. There are also plenty who start out as self-published, before being talent-spotted by commercial publishers keen to offer them contracts. Some accept gladly, it’s been their lifelong ambition. Others don’t, because they value the artistic and creative freedom – and the greater profit margins – that comes with being self-published.

But please don’t assume that you’ll make a fast buck. Self-publishing is a long, hard game. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, and there are no guarantees. But the more professionally your produce books, the greater your chances of being a winner.

So how do you decide which service to use?

There are plenty of organisations and individuals willing to take your money offering you low cost options for every part of the process. Cover designs for a fiver? Book formatting for £50? You’ll easily find offers like this online, but as everywhere else in life, you get what you pay for… And if an offer looks too good to be true, it probably is. Conversely, don’t assume the most expensive will offer the best service. It may just be a rip-off merchant.

Having decided which services you need to buy in, you have another decision to make: do you want them all under one roof, or are you happy dealing with lots of different subcontractors? Back to my earlier house-building analogy, you might feel more comfortable and less stressed with a project manager who will oversee and coordinate all of those services for you. This is where a company like SilverWood Books comes in, bringing to the game its experience of publishing hundreds of books in different formats across a wide range of genres. A contract with SilverWood not only brings everything under one roof, it gives you much more than the sum of the parts.

SilverWood’s publishing director Helen Hart (copyright http://www.rebeccamillar.com)

With any service provider that you are considering using, check them out thoroughly before you commit. Ask for samples of their work, get references, keep asking questions until you’re satisfied. You’re the publisher, remember, you’re the one in charge. Whoever you choose, make sure they have your best interests at heart. There are plenty out there who don’t.

One notoriously dodgy practice is to offer the author a relatively low price for complete production services, but then to retain most of the revenue from sales, and even the rights. Thus the author is no longer owns the copy that he has written. Some also deny the author any control over how the book is produced, priced or marketed, so the author ends up with their book an over-priced lemon sold only where no customer is ever likely to find it. Others keep adding invisible extras resulting in a staggeringly high bill. Any of these scenarios is absolutely devastating when you’ve put your heart and soul into writing your book.

One of the reasons that it’s relatively easy for unscrupulous service providers to get away with such invidious practices is that they tell authors what they want to hear. A truly sound full-service provider will be honest with their authors, and if they’re shown a manuscript that really does not make the grade, they’ll say so, and then go on to help them improve it.

So how do you find the good guys?

You might have thought of looking through the adverts in writing magazines or searching online. The constraint with taking that route is that you’re reading only what the service provider wants to tell you  – not the opinion of an objective third party. Another way is to consult a directory called Choosing a Self-publishing Service Provider, produced by the Alliance of Independent Authors, commonly known as ALLi. Not only does it include a large number of service providers, it also has a very long section on how to choose the best service, in much more detail than I’ve had time for here today. It’s very low cost to buy, so it’s an excellent investment.

There’s also a way of getting this book free of charge which is by joining ALLi. A free copy of the book is one of many membership benefits, the most important of which is to put you in touch with other authors who are already successful self-publishers, to learn from their experience and to share best practice, including asking which services they can recommend.

I have to declare an interest here: I’m an author member and I also edit ALLi’s blog of self-publishing advice, which issues daily guidance for authors everywhere, written by the members themselves. I know we’ve got some ALLi members in the audience – can I have a show of hands please? All fine and honourable chaps as you can tell!

The Alliance includes not only successful author members – but also partner members who have been vetted to ensure they are ethical and trustworthy. Many of these partners also offer discounts to ALLi members. SilverWood Books is a partner member, as is Cameron Publicity, whose director Ben Cameron will be speaking later about marketing. Kobo, represented here by Diego Marano, is a generous industry sponsor of ALLi’s work – in fact they kindly allowed us to launch ALLi’s latest handbook, which I co-authored, on their stand at the London Book Fair earlier this year. Any other partner members or sponsors here that I’ve missed?

By the way, you don’t have to be already self-published to join ALLi  – there’s a discounted entry rate for associate members.  If you’re interested in finding out more about ALLi, please take a leaflet or speak to me about it afterwards, or if you prefer, leave your contact details on the sheet for me to contact you.

I hope that’s given you a clear idea of what modern self-publishing means, and of some of the things that you need to consider on your own self-publishing journey.

To sum up – remember that the self in self publishing reflects the focal point of control, rather than defining who does all the work. The person in control of the process is you, the author, and you call the shots. The good news is, that means you’ve got the best boss in the world!

Whatever your book project, whatever genre you’re working in, I wish you the best of luck with it. It’s an exciting, addictive process, and I’m sure today’s event here will help you enjoy it all the more.

© Debbie Young 2014 – not to be reproduced without written permission from the copyright owner

The lovely SilverWood Books team (photo copyright http://www.rebeccamillar.com)

 For more information about SilverWood Books, visit their website: www.silverwoodbooks.co.uk.

Feel free to contact them directly by phone or email if you’d like to speak to them about your self-publishing project. They are all lovely people and will be very pleased to speak to you.

You might also be interested in entering their fab new competition that they’re running in collaboration with Kobo Writing Life – click here for more info. 

 

 

Filed under: self-publishing, writing Tagged: Agnes Davis, ALLi, Alliance of Independent Authors, Diego Marano, Foyles, Kobo, Kobo Writing Life, self-publishing advice, Silverwood Books

Reading on the Run – or Not…

A post about the joy of ereader devices for everyone from the athletic to the housebound

Thanks to my friend the author Karen Inglis for sending me this!

I was very chuffed (yes, chuffed, my American friends, I know how much you love that word!) to receive a photo the other day from my friend the children’s author Karen Inglis, sharing with me the fact that she was reading my latest ebook on her Kindle at the gym.

Now, I love my Kindle (and yes, other ereaders are available, as the BBC might say), and the freedom it gives me to read on the move. It makes packing for the trips in our camper van so much easier and allows my handbag to remain portable, whatever book I’m reading.

Another Reason to Love Ereaders: RA

But there’s another reason I love reading this way: for the last seven years, I’ve had to work around the chronic illness rheumatoid arthritis, which, when I’m having what’s known in medical circles as a “flare” (i.e. it’s playing up!), can make my hands and wrists stiff and painful.

I’m one of the lucky ones: my medication is usually pretty effective, and most of the time I’m able to forget the condition altogether.

But there are times when holding a big book for very long becomes first uncomfortable, then positively painful. That’s when I especially love my slim, lightweight ereader. No matter how thick a book I’m reading electronically, and no matter how many books I load into its memory, it never gets too heavy to hold. (I used to think it literally never got any heavier, but I did once read a scientific explanation that proved me wrong – apparently there is a really tiny difference in weight when you add more data.)

Large Print for All

I was recently reminded of this by a fellow author Pelham McMahon who not only has RA but also has some eyesight issues. She pointed out that for those who are housebound, sight-impaired or otherwise disabled, the advent of ereaders has made the difference between being able to read and not being able to read at all. Blessed with reasonable vision provided I’m wearing my glasses, I hadn’t really thought before what a godsend these devices must be to those who can only read large-print books. Ereader technology allows the reader to choose the typesize of whatever they are reading, effectively turning any book into a large-print book. What a fabulous innovation.

An added bonus is that on Amazon and many other sources, it’s possible to download free reading material legitimately e.g. classics that have passed out of copyright.

So if you haven’t yet become an ebook reader, don’t dismiss the technology quite yet. For others, it’s much more than a trendy gadget.

I’ve shared Pelham’s comments on the blog that I manage for the Alliance of Independent Authors – you can read the post here, if you like.

 

 

Filed under: lifestyle, reading Tagged: ereaders, Karen Inglis, Kindle, large print books, Pelham McMahon, reading for the sight-impaired, reading with RA, rheumatoid arthritis

My Butterfly Mind

Following my recent appearance on BBC Radio Gloucestershire to chat to presenter Anna King about the notion of a butterfly mind, I’ve been asked to post the gist of my views about the notion here, for anyone who was unable to catch the broadcast.

Spotted in a craft shop a couple of weeks ago (it followed me home)

The term butterfly mind is usually applied to people whose thoughts flit about all over the place, never stopping in any place for very long.

It’s often used as a derogatory term, but I think it is better described as the pessimist’s description of a lateral thinker. It’s a bit like the old glass half-empty/half-full analogy. Butterfly minds are not necessarily the sign of a scatty dimwit, but of someone who is interested in everything. The butterfly isn’t moving around because it’s got a low attention span – it keeps going because it gains a little bit of nourishment wherever it alights.

With a natural butterfly mind, I’m always shooting off at tangents in conversations, drawing parallels and connections with other things, as the diversity of posts on this blog testifies. Here’s a list of the most popular recent posts:

Why Do We Eat Turkey at Christmas?

New Respect for Old Fishwives

Why Doing A Jigsaw Puzzle Is A Bit Like Writing A Book


Let It Snow: My Best Childhood Christmas Memories

The Sixpence That Changed Into a Swimming Pool

Meeting Our (Rugby) Match Provides A Family Outing

The Ceremony of the (Bubble) Bath – Ancient and Modern

My Book Launch Speech at the London Book Fair

The Laterally Thinking Butterfly

My daughter gave me this hairclip

Having a butterfly mind makes me a very good lateral thinker and, if you’ll forgive what might sound like boasting, a great ideas person. In my long career spent in the hard commercial world, before I became a full-time writer, I had two key strengths – my way with words and my propensity to come up with new and original ideas.

These were offset by an awful lot of things I was very bad at, such as financial planning, wearing a suit without feeling imprisoned, and not falling asleep in meetings.

The Best Career for the Butterfly Minded

PR consultancy, which accounts for the bulk of my career, was a great niche for someone with a butterfly mind, because it actually requires you to delve into lots of different businesses and activities, applying the same set of skills in very different scenarios. When I was in PR, my clients ranged from public sector (NHS trusts) to retailing  (retail pharmacy, grocery superstores), from food manufacturing (frozen food) to consumer goods (cat litter!)

Journalism can be much the same, whether in print or broadcast on radio or television. The anchors of magazine programmes must to flit about on lots of subjects every day and find links between disparate subjects when segueing from one topic to another. Whenever I go on BBC Radio Gloucestershire, I’m always bowled over the their consummate skill and deceptive ease with which the show hosts ply their trade.

Where Do Butterflies Go On Holiday?

Acquired on St Michael’s Mount, Cornwall

Our main family holidays are taken by camper van, which enables us to flit about from one place to the next whenever we like, rather than stopping in one place. We seldom spend more than one night in the same place. We don’t use campsites but opportunistically find free places to stay without troubling anyone. When I get a moment, I’ll be writing a book about that too called Travels with my Camper Van.)

The Butterfly Minded Matchmaker

A gift from my daughter

Another benefit of having a butterfly mind is that it makes you a good matchmaker – not necessarily in the romantic sense, but in terms of networking. Often when I meet someone new, I immediately think “Ah, I must put you in touch with such-and-such”. Examples:

I met the cameraman David James on Chris Baxter’s show recently and when realised his service would be just right for Read for Good’s purposes and also for the authors who use SilverWood Book’s publishing services in Bristol (who commissioned one of my books). I’ve since sent introductions to the directors of both companies.
Meeting Katie Fforde last year when we were both on a panel for Chris Baxter’s radio show segued into a gig at the Romantic Novelists Association’s annual conference, of which Katie’s president, to talk about self-publishing.

Having access to the internet makes it easier than ever to capitalise on the powers of a butterfly mind. It’s quick and easy to ping off emails and social media updates to connect people. But the internet can also easily sap the time of any networking butterfly: there are too many honey-traps, such as trending topics and intriguing hashtags on Twitter. Before you know it, you’ve got umpteen tabs open on your computer and you’ve wasted an afternoon.

Having a butterfly mind also makes you an opportunist. Butterflies spot opportunities more easily and seize them, making their own luck. I’ve done that a lot during my employment, both in formal jobs and in freelance work.

Having a butterfly mind is part and parcel of being a short-form writer, as I am, churning out short stories, flash fiction, blog posts and  journalism, never dwelling on any one project for long. When I’m writing a book, the only way I can get it done is to break it down into chapters and tackle each one as if it is a short project. Before I tackle my first novel, which I’m hoping to do next year, I’m going to have to build up my stamina.

What Makes a Butterfly Mind Happy?

Constant stimulation of interesting things, new experiences, changes of scene – and that magic moment when disparate things in my life all come together:

My daughter’s new bag

For example, I discovered recently that my the flash fiction author Calum Kerr, whom I befriended via his National Flash Fiction Day event, and who comes from Manchester and lives in Southampton, has an aunt and uncle who live round the corner from me in my tiny Cotswold village.
Discovering that when I was in Fraserburgh, on the far north west corner of Scotland this summer, not only my brother-in-law and my nephew, were, separately, in town the same day and only metres away from us, but the next day when I was a few miles further down the coast in Aberdeen, my friend Cherry from ReadWell in Nailsworth was too. None of us saw each other, but we were all there!
I also get very excited when friends from different parts of my life become friends with each other in their own right – something that happens more easily because of the advent of social media, such as when Katherine, an old friend from my London primary school who now lives in Spain, got chatting on my Facebook page with my Gloucestershire friend Jacky, who lives in Cheltenham. Last year we ended up getting together in person and spent a lovely day together!

The Disadvantage of Having a Butterfly Mind

It can be hard to get things finished when you’re constantly getting distracted. I often find myself inadvertently overpromising and underdelivering, because I find it very hard to say no to things that sound interesting. For example, I’ve just got involved with the new roof appeal for our local church roof at St Mary’s Hawkesbury, even though I’m not religious, hardly ever go to church and know nothing about church rooves. But t’s a beautiful building with a fascinating past and it’s an important part of our heritage. What’s not to love?

Perfect Reading for the Fiction-Loving Butterfly

My latest book of very short stories is perfect for the butterfly-minded reader

So now you know the real reason behind the beautiful butterfly on the cover of my new collection of short stories, Quick Change. With some stories as short as just 100 words, and none longer than 1,000, this has to be recommended reading for any literary butterfly. Mostly humorous, tempered with the odd poignant moments, it’s been gathering some fabulous reviews, and I hope you’ll want to read it too. It’s currently available only in ebook form, but there’ll be a paperback coming out shortly – just as soon as I can settle down long enough to make it happen! To find out more about the book and to see what others have had to say about it, flit over to its Amazon page via this link: Quick Change . And if you’ve read it and enjoyed it, you’ll make this butterfly’s day if you take a moment to leave a brief review of it on Amazon!

Do you have a butterfly mind? Do you love them or hate them? Feel free to join the conversation by leaving a comment!

 

Filed under: creativity, flash fiction, lifestyle, Quick Change, writing Tagged: butterfly mind, lateral thinking, matchmaking, networking, philosophy

My New Time Management Trick

For the start of the new academic year, a new post outlining a way of using school timetable methods to manage an adult’s workload

Maybe a smart uniform would make me feel more efficient

Enviously examining my daughter’s beautiful school journal, provided by her new secondary school to help pupils manage their school timetable, homework and extra-curricular activities, I realised that I’ve been missing an obvious trick for my own time management: using an academic diary to manage my workload.

If, like me, you work from home, or just want to get more out of the hours in your day, I hope my new time management plan, outlined below, will help you.

My Working Day

During my many years of marching to the beat of an employer’s drum, I often had to complete time-sheets to demonstrate how many hours I’d worked on various client contracts. Now those days are behind me, and I have the luxury of working full time from home. My natural antipathy to housework ensures I’m not tempted to leave my desk other than for a mid-morning tea-break and lunch, scheduled to ensure I stretch and breathe, and to reassure my retired husband that I haven’t forgotten his existence.

The pattern of my working day is geared around my eleven-year-old daughter’s school timetable. Since she started secondary school (high school) last week, I’ve gained an extra hour, as she leaves homes nearly an hour earlier than when she was attending the village school. It’s as if the clocks have gone back an hour: I’m normally at my desk by 8am.

Everyone tells me that as children get older they need you more, rather than less, so I take time out when Laura gets home to talk to her about her day, supervise homework and take her to evening activities (flute lessons, Guides, Youth Club, Stagecoach and tea at Grandma’s – phew!) But I can usually grab an hour or two of time in the evening after she’s gone to bed.

My To-Do List

A combination of regular paid work, short-term contracts, public speaking gigs and speculative personal writing projects means my workload is busy and varied, and I’m never, ever bored, but trying to squeeze such a mixed agenda into a fixed time-frame is challenging. It can be frustrating to feel that I’ve worked all hours, cutting corners on sleep, without achieving all that I need to do. As a result, my to-do lists can often be classed as works of fiction. I’m also conscious that I should be getting more exercise, and would like to squeeze in a thirty-minute daily walk.

It’s a classic problem for self-employed creative types: to be full of ideas, enthusiasm and energy, but to fail on the practical side, overpromising and underdelivering. Even if your only client is yourself, rather than a paid customer, as when you’ve committed to yourself to write a short story or novel, it can be disheartening, and end up sapping your creativity as well as your income.

My New Plan

I’m therefore uplifted by by new plan, which is to follow the structure and principles of a typical school timetable to make the finite number of hours more productive:

start with a grid of available time slots, broken down into short segments that match a realistic concentration span (no more than two hours each)
create a list of “subjects” (e.g. blog posts, articles, fiction or non-fiction writing projects, contract work, planning, financial management)
allocate an appropriate number of periods per week to each subject, according to their priority (writing projects every day, financial management weekly)
schedule the slots into a grid in a varied pattern that reflects when the different parts of my brain work best (creative writing first thing, admin later in the day)
include some free time for rest and refreshment (mid-morning playtime, sociable lunch break)
allow some free periods for contingency e.g. for rescheduling an activity if I need to go out for an appointment during its allocated time slot (I usually go out at least once a week to meet an author friend for coffee or to take a brief for a new contract)

I’m resisting the urge to dash out to the shops now and buy a shiny new academic year diary, complete with timetable to fill in. Instead, I’m going to create a template on my computer and print it out at the start of each week, adding details of the specific projects I need to complete each week. I’m also going to schedule a series of “school bells” on my phone to make sure I move on to the next “class” as necessary during the day. If not, it’ll be detention time for me!

Will it work for me? Will it work for you? Only time will tell. I’m just trying not to be discouraged by the fact that I’ve just drafted this blog post in a time slot I’d allocated for fiction writing…

Do you have any top tips for time management that you’d like to share here? Please feel free to join the conversation via the comments box below.

Filed under: parenting, work, writing Tagged: busy, creative people, how to get things done, multi-tasking, new academic year, productivity, school day, school timetable, time management, timesheets

The Wisdom of Estate Agents

(This post was originally written for the September edition of Hawkesbury Parish News, my local community’s newsletter)

My daughter Laura as Carnival Queen’s attendant at this year’s Village Show

Twenty-three years ago, when I was negotiating to buy my house in Hawkesbury Upton, there were four significant facts that I’m glad I didn’t know at the time, because they’d have made the process much more stressful. But with hindsight it seems remiss of the estate agent not to have told me:

there is an excellent village primary school
the village is in the catchment area for an equally good secondary school, with admission pretty much guaranteed for anyone who lives here
the extraordinary annual village show – the undisputed highlight of the village year – would make me proud to call Hawkesbury Upton my home
climate change and the subsequent increased rainfall would make me very glad indeed to have a house on high ground

Laura ready for her first day at secondary school (still inadvertently wearing the purple sparkly nail polish from the Show)

All four of these factors have given me cause for celebration this year, when my daughter left the primary school with a glowing report, gained a place at KLB, and was picked as Carnival Queen’s Attendant for the Show – and on numerous occasions throughout the year we’ve watched copious rainwater flowing away from our house, downhill, down the middle of our road.

But as September begins, I’m mindful of two more facts omitted from the estate agent’s blurb that I was left to learn from my new neighbours:

the day of the village show is the last day of summer
when it’s jacket weather in Chipping Sodbury, it’s overcoat weather in Hawkesbury Upton

Perhaps that estate agent was smarter than I gave him credit for. Now where did I leave my overcoat?

 

Filed under: autumn, daughter, family, Hawkesbury Parish News, lifestyle, nostalgia, seasons, Summer Tagged: Chipping Sodbury, climate change, global warming, Hawkesbury Parish News, Hawkesbury Upton, Hawkesbury Village Show