Somerset Literary Festival
Been a busy couple of months and I have neglected both my website and my blog. Time to make amends. Actually, there’s another couple of weeks to before I can relax. The autumn was filled with events associated with the magazine – Construction Computing – including a quick flip over to a 2 day conference in Vancouver.
At the end of the year I was invited to take part in the Somerset Literary Festival in Watchet in a couple of weeks time (22 and 23 February) to promote my book, Kicking the Bucket. It’s a great opportunity to do a bit of marketing, but..... the stall’s gonna be a bit light.
As I had a couple of other books languishing on my hard drive. I thought it would be an ideal opportunity to drag them, dust them down and get them printed. The problem is, publishers are reluctant to support slightly older authors, and take on low hanging fruit instead, like comedians, celebs, and notorious ex-cons.
The obvious answer was for me to do it all myself – I have been writing and editing a computer magazine for the last 25 years, and have pro graphics software on my computer. The First thing, though, was to set up a publishing company – Scribble-scribble Limited, which meant I could buy my own ISBNs, without which I couldn’t get the book distributed.
I then signed up with a book printing company that provided a book-building application which allowed me to lay the book out, design the cover, set up International pricing and the rest of the finicky stuff entailed in publishing. Marketing is still up to me, but they make each title available to outlets on a global basis.
The bonus is that I can order what I want – just 3 copies of each to get the feel of each, and to have something available to show at the Festival. I have a pro printer and can print A3 posters and everything else I need – so now rearing to go, with 3 new books on my stall, a business account set up, and all the bits I need to extract money from the public.
The costs, so far, have been low, and apart from buying the ISBNs, which cost around £90 each, I can buy each book from the printer for about 45 percent of the cover price, the same as International outlets, and a smaller percentage from their sales,
The big bonus, though, is that I can afford to go through the learning process of setting up as a publisher and the pros and cons of the different ways of doing this.it probably isn’t a profession you should contemplate if you want to make your fortune, as margins can be very small, but if you need to publish something for a niche market, or for a dedicated audience, it is probably the most cost-effective way of doing it. And, as I said earlier, you will find it difficult to get any response from agents and publishers if you fall outside their selection criteria.
I have a couple more books to dig out and a couple of sequels to write and am looking forward to doing more. Probably crazy to start a new career at the age of 80 - (and that’s the last time I will mention that) - but it’s kinda invigorating. I’ll keep you posted on how it’s going and the things I am learning on the way, and hope I can help some of you at the same time.
My next blog will list the books I will be showing, what they contain and what inspired them, and what I needed to do when I got the First proof copies from the printer – a couple of weeks here and there. Somerset Literary Festival