Terry’s Comments (group member since Nov 21, 2010)

Terry’s comments from the Q&A with Terry Lander group.

I can empathise. I also have an account for it on Twitter - www.twitter.com/kamaslumber

Naturally I had to pick up a copy for research purposes, it helped me to format the book in a similar style and that in itself has attracted positive reviews.

As for reading the Kama Sutra for recreational purposes, definitely not...

Ha! It wasn't too far removed from that actually, it was a tough subject to approach but I must have done it with enough tact as Helen agreed straight away.

With a decrease in technology prices I'm well aware of the increase in dodgy photographers and I kept that very much in mind when pitching.

Thanks for your comment.

My latest book, "Kama Slumber", was an idea that came to me on a minibus. Producing a parody of the Kama Sutra sounded like a fun, simple idea that gave me an opportunity to become a photographer for a day, if only to save a small fortune. I sketched out a few positions and thought about the model, contacting a local photographer to borrow her camera and find out who she uses normally.

Despite receiving a list of models I had another flash of inspiration - Helen Rule is a working actor who lives locally and has a very natural look. I only really knew her through social networking sites, but had spoken to her before. I contacted her to see if she would be interested and to discuss her availability, after which I got hold of a single bed and tidied up the area for the shoot.

The whole thing only took a couple of hours to shoot as I had a great idea of how I wanted poses to look, what I needed outside of the main pictures and even what the cover should look like. The hard part was editing the photos and typesetting the book, which took considerably longer.

Upon receiving the finished book I was certain it would be more popular than any other book I've ever written and have been proven right (relatively speaking) in the past month since it's official launch.

I never considered publishing other authors until I was approached by David Coad. He had over 1500 poems written down and wanted to get a collection published, so I gave him advice on how I produced mine and offered to help out where I could. By the end of the project I had so much more experience, not just in typing and proofreading, but typesetting and marketing too. Marketing remains my weak point, but show me an author that's good at marketing and...well, I'll bite your hand off.

Kerry Vincent is a mutual friend of a friend who put together some personal poems about her experiences with her children. She now has seven, so is considered something of an expert. I put the same kind of work into her book and she became the third Lyvit author.

Alya Bessex and I met over the internet despite living in the same town. His first work, "The Unaired Views Of a Twenty Four Year Old Nobody", really struck a chord with me and I was grateful to publish something that wasn't poetry to give our catalogue a bit of diversity. Alya's all about being different; when his second book came to me featuring cover to cover poetry I was pleased to see it was dark and contained strong language - another new direction.

Mark Hendy's arrival at Lyvit completely changed our outlook. Until he arrived I saw the whole thing as a peripheral to my life, something not to be taken seriously. That's fine to a point, but he made me realise how little I was really contributing to the sales of my own work. With an overhaul of the website and a more positive approach we are now in a position to speak to bookshops and be taken seriously as a publisher. Many of our books can now be found in branches of Waterstones thanks to his enthusiasm.

Also, MI77OR IM46ES was Mark's idea. However, I came up with the name, much to his annoyance.

I always enjoyed writing poetry and had plenty of inspiration. It's what got me into writing in the first place, so moving on was a big step. I always kept my hand in by writing the occasional poem for birthday cards and other special occasions, but found writing "To Say Goodbye" and "Kama Slumber" to be more rewarding in the long run as people are more comfortable asking me about non-poetry books.

The Writers' Guide always warned of the difficulty of selling poetry, so producing poetry books was always something I did as a hobby. However, more interest in Lyvit as a whole led to me realise that I needed a product that people could relate to and be happy to show off. "To Say Goodbye" is a tribute to two friends I lost through brain tumours, but "Kama Slumber" is a very light hearted, humour loaded book that seems very comercially appealing. The latter was easier to write, but remains my best seller.

There's always poetry left inside me, so I'm making sure that doesn't go to waste. However, another poetry collection is unlikely in the near future.

Standing on a beach one day, I had a great idea for a poem so I wrote it down. Then I had a few more great ideas and wrote those down too. I thought to myself about writing a book of poetry, but knew how difficult it was to get published. I tried the usual routes, sent manuscripts to publishers and waited for the replies, which were all the same - 'Not looking at this time', 'interested but limited', etc. I knew I couldn't roll over and give up on this, so I designed a book at home and printed one side of the pages off. Then I turned the paper over in the printer and printed the other side off...

After designing a very simple cover, I got hold of some card for £2.99 (which wasn't quite square) and printed a few covers off. I experimented with how to put the pages and cover together, finding that stapling would not be an option. The only way to marry the two up would be to hand stitch them. To achieve this, I also had to fold each page individually, push a thumb tack through the pages and then stitch the books.

The whole process took about an hour per book, so after working all day I would come home, print some pages, fold them and then stitch them. A night's work left me with around four books, which I sold for £3.50 to friends. I knew I could self-publish, but I couldn't afford the printing fees and continued on in this way for the best part of two years. By this time I had sold a few copies and written another book of poetry.

Eventually I found a printer that was cost effective enough, so set upon the admin required to set up Lyvit Publishing. When the printer was in place I found £3.50 would give me less than no return, but the books I was now selling were professionally printed and bound. I set up Lyvit online and added a shop, allowing me to sell my books anywhere in the world. I had also taken on Dave Coad's book, "Vibrant Eons", by this time, so the online shop had a total of two books for sale. Both of these had been produced in the same way from my home PC, but both were now published and shelf-worthy.

Since then, Lyvit Publishing has produced thriteen books by five authors and a book by a local school. This is where we see ourselves today, with a MI77OR IM46ES gallery and a new, indie vision.