- This topic has 11 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 10 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
-
I said recently that I thought several of our authors were writing to a standard that was begging to be published to a wider audience. Subsequent to that, one of you put in a comment about a piece they would be submitting to Swiss Bob, that they had already started the process of publishing it.
I am willing to explore the possibilities in conjunction with anyone who has put up pieces here and is interested in getting them out to a wider audience, through either e-publishing or print. I have just a little experience of the mechanics of putting a book onto Kindle and Kobo – I did that for a collection of some of my wife’s short stories a couple of years ago. And I know two people who have separately had books printed – ok, ‘vanity publishing’, where you are personally responsible for any marketing/publicity and sales, but it can work. As part of tailoring the material appropriately for different media – e-books are notoriously restrictive of formatting, fonts and other printerly devices, not to mention graphics and pics – I would also undertake to do the grunt work of sub-editing.
Is anyone interested in this? If we were to trial it with Kindle, say, there are virtually no costs associated beyond opt-ins to some of Amazon’s marketing initiatives, which may be appropriate at some point but are certainly not needed simply in order to get published. The only up-front cost is to purchase a block of ISBNs – different series apply to different media, so it is wise to purchase them with that in mind. Not very expensive, but I’ll have to remind myself of the amount. If it worked out, it would give an author a sales-tagged platform with which to approach a conventional publisher if they wished. As an alternative to that, Kindle now do publish-on-demand physical book copies which can be ordered directly by customers.
I’m not an expert in all this by any means, but am willing to revisit the way I did it last time and put in some effort – I do think it is worthwhile, as some of your work is very good and definitely deserves a far wider audience. One of you could be the next JK Rowling!
-
Or you could try this guy: https://underdogsbiteupwards.wordpress.com/author/legiron/
-
Stuart
I’m writing a broad range of articles, poetry, recipes, fictional skits etc but I have an “idea” about turning some of the semi autobiographical “Twenty Five” stories into a book called “Twenty Five”. Short stories and novellas covering the years 1951 to around 1976. Apart from the first four, which will “set the scene” I had intended to put them out in no chronological order.
Firstly, what do you think, secondly, how many would have to be publication ready before putting out there. At a guess, with a bit of re writing, I could have 10-15 ready by the end of June.-
Col, your semi-auto series was one of the sets I had marked as a candidate for pub. As for length, the shorts that I put onto Kindle amounted to about 40k words, and that felt OK. There was the equivalent of about two further books at that size, but in the event it was not possible to publish those, as my wife’s health was slipping and other priorities intervened. If you find out the size of each piece, we can think about the best way to aggregate them.. good stuff!
-
-
Stuart,
I have about 12 episodes of the War Crimes series yet to write. When they have been aired on GP, I’ll re-write them to make a novel, hopefully of just over 300 pages.
I have been wading through the Writers and Artists Year Book and it seems as though the traditional route to publishing is a difficult one in these times. Sadly, I’m not sure that the trials of Mr Edge and his associates would sit happily with some publishers.-
One of the things I am sure we can do given the number of writers and publishers on GP is do it ourselves.
We need to sort out the best formats for publishing, ie what sort of markup language is best, or whether we can get away with html and what publishing methods are available ie Amazon for self publishing.
-
BP, your writing is awesome, and the Edge+ set would obviously make a novel – it might even be rather long for one, and possibly splittable to get part out and test the market (which I am sure would be receptive, it’s just a question of tagging the right signposts for your target audience, and I’m sure you would have a better idea than me).
You are right about conventional routes to publishing – the yearbook is a long and depressing path to tread in search of either a publisher or an agent. Swiss Bob is right, it is now quite a good option to do it independently. One of my acquaintance wrote a murder book set in the world of sub-aqua enthusiasts (she was partial to putting on the rubber suits herself!), and marketed her book at specialist conventions as well as getting a couple of PA slots at Waterstones. Times have changed, but it is still true that you have to find your own best audience.
I would recommend spending a little time to think about whether your pieces
- could
be partitioned at any point to allow earlier publication of some of them. It can be quite a draw to have a sequel/continuation as I’m sure you’re perfectly well aware.
-
-
-
-
-
I plan to self publish The Unseen Path when time is available Stuart, but would want to have a professional standard physical copy as well. Any help would be fantastic and bring matters forward as I have a sequel underway.
Books like mine and War Crimes are simply too unpc to get a major publisher these days, no matter how well written, but I’m convinced there’s a major gap in the market.
I’m happy to pay my way in terms of proofing, printing etc, and hopefully GP can act as a marketing platform, and some of its readers help with getting listed in local bookshops etc.
Perhaps a GP imprint?
-
-
Maybe worth checking out Bretwalda Books, Peter Mullen’s publisher.
https://bretwaldabooks.com/index
History, military and fiction, including something by Norman Tebbit.
-
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.