Margaret Rose Stringer's Blog, page 105
June 17, 2013
Videos about books
A moment out of time
June 13, 2013
So small a thing to cause so much anxiety …
June 10, 2013
Relationships: 2
June 2, 2013
words I've got wrong
June 1, 2013
self-publishing
Not for the faint-hearted.
Self-publishing involves
finding a responsible/respectable organisation through which to produce your book
checking what you're committing yourself to if you even make a query, let alone sign up with any company (cf. below re my burning my fingers), especially –>
knowing precisely how much money is involved in every facet of the procedure!
once satisfied you're not dealing with Mephistopheles, learning how to use the organisation's software - PROPERLY!
coming up with a good design for your book's cover (really important)
looking into every aspect of potential sales areas (really confusing, and also potentially dispiriting)
I did this, during the time I was waiting on Finch Publishing (a) to open its Memoir Prize competition and (b) to judge it. Sitting around with my finger up my nose and not the faintest idea of how long I'd be doing so didn't appeal; and – although this may come as a surprise – I was not sanguine regarding my chances of winning the Prize.
Happily for me, I fell in early with Amazon's CreateSpace – imnsho, the leader in the self-publishing market. More on them in a moment …
Unhappily, I also asked questions of some other organisations who handle self-publishing; and by far the least germane and most annoying of these is Balboa Press, a division of a company called Hay House. These useless bastards have never left me alone since first I made contact with 'em, and that was as brief a one as I could manage, in terms of their pricelist. But since then – and we are talking several years, now – they have peppered me with sales emails on a semi-regular basis. I've unsubscribed myself to every one of these; I searched the site to find any other way of unsubscribing and failed; I even sent an email to their marketing people (the only email address provided on the bloody site) containing some somewhat pithy comments regarding Balboa Press' unwanted correspondence and a request to pass on my demand to be removed from their dB. The sole result of that was a greatly increased amount of sales email.
Bottom line: do not go near Balboa Press or Hay House, not if you want to stay sane.
But back to CreateSpace ... After what I remember as just about a lifetime, I was able to produce a nice-looking version of what was then my book – editing has since taken place, and it is even nicer, she said modestly – and a cover that quite pleased me. It was the cover, however, where things went wrong; and you should be aware of this kind of potential problem if you have self-publishing in mind.
CreateSpace couldn't get it straight. This was vital, as the top half of the cover was a photo, and anyone can see that a photo defines the shape of a page, so to speak. The first time I printed out my book – you get a trial freebie sent to you – I was a bit disappointed to find that, although the contents looked fine, the cover was skewed. I re-designed it somewhat, in an effort to bypass the same problem; and paid for a second copy. Same thing – identical. The cover was skewed to exactly the same degree.
By now the Memoir Prize was history and my communications with Fremantle Press underway, so I let CreateSpace know that I wouldn't be proceeding with my book, and why. To be honest, I would've done my utmost to sort out this problem with them, had real publishing not intervened; but, of course, there's no way of knowing if I would've succeeded.
If you're considering self-publishing – and why not?: many books have found publishers by being submitted to them as self-published hard copies – I reckon there's not much point wasting your time in looking around. Just go to CreateSpace and be prepared to have to ask for help. And don't hesitate to complain when something goes wrong: the bigger the company, the more likely it is to respond to help queries.
May 30, 2013
steps along the publishing path
bit of history
I 'finished' writing my book quite a long time ago. Oh, mebbe ... 2½ years? – something like that.
Then I entered it into the Finch Memoir Prize: Finch Publishing has you pay 'em a smallish sum and you line up to have your ms considered as worthy (or not) of their Prize. Long time passed. Very long time. But then, I considered the task of the judges in slogging through something like seventy mss, and wasn't surprised. Eventually I visited the Prize's site to find, to my amazement, a list of the shortlisted mss: I'd expected them to advise we (paying!) entrants, at least. ATLMD hadn't made the shortlist, so that was that.
What to do with the ms next?
I spent a long time on-line looking at publishing companies, wondering and worrying about which of 'em to bless with my manuscript – because even though I've read, about a squillion times, of J.K. Rowling's having been rejected by dozens of publishers before eventual acceptance, I Know Me … meaning that any rejection would have me wondering if wrist-slashing or throat-slashing were the better option. I'd already considered both, briefly, after the total Finch failure; but managed to convince myself that not winning a comp isn't the same as being rejected.
Flash of inspiration! – the early part of ATLMD concerns me in my original environment. Perth, Western Australia. And there are two publishing companies that might be interested in a book about someone local (once): UWA Press and Fremantle Press. Hmm ... Another flash! – gotta be the latter: there are several things that tie me to Fremantle itself.
And so that's what I did: I followed the instructions on their website re submitting an ms, and posted off some selections and a cover-note, and very shortly received an email from one of their editor/publishers – Georgia Richter: I refuse, unkindly, to grant her anonymity! – saying she would like to read the whole ms, and would I send it to her as a soft copy please. (Shortly thereafter she emailed again to say not to hold my breath just yet, as the ms would be going to an editorial meeting in days, after which the breath-holding could commence: is that civil, or what?)
But there was hardly any need to go red in the face, for a 'phone call ere long revealed the noos that Fremantle Press wanted to publish my book.
And the rest is – no, not history, not yet. I suppose I can say that the time that's passed since that momentous moment IS history – the editing, the proof-reading, the arguing about teeny things, the suggestions, the defence of the book's original title … oh, so many things! – but the whole thing is still ongoing, still struggling along until it hits the streets at the beginning of the month after next. And until that time, or until Fremantle Press has some idea of how it's selling, there ain't no history, not really.
I have a number of anecdotes to tell about the things that happened before Fremantle Press came into my life – some of which do not reflect well upon certain Web entities – and tell them in this arena I shall. WTS. :-)
May 28, 2013
this is what it's all about
Don't think for a moment I'm going to pretend otherwise: I'm blogging again because this time I have something to blog about.
Last time ... well, it was just an endless lead-up, really; a kind of perpetual tease.
Now, as you can see, I have evidence. I have The Book. See that pic. up the top under the header banner? - and see what I'm holding? That was the first copy I ever saw, let alone held; and now it's gone, because I sent it to my very dear brother-in-law, Reg. I figure if anyone is going to want to read it, Reginaldo is probably he.
There will be more arriving, closer to release date: I get some freebies, which will go to those I used within the book for my various nefarious purposes . Poor bastards: what a dubious kind of fame, eh? :-)
It's all bloody marvellous. Bloody AMAZING!
Bloody wonderful.
