Will Self said, “Writing the book is the easy bit. When your writing is finished the real work starts.”
If you are publishing and marketing your book, would you like to meet with other writers in the area who are doing the same thing?
I am about to publish my book and think it would be helpful to find out what other local people have done and are doing.
My novel Marriage A Journey and A Dog starts and finishes in the South of England, so it is of interest to promote it here.
The first problem I had was learning about publishing sites, and how to format my script accordingly.
Edit, Edit, Edit
The biggest task was editing. With the support of friends, hours and hours of editing myself, and finally handing over to a professional, I’m there – I think. Copyright was a learning curve.
Now there is the cover and getting it right. I think this really is a job for the professionals.
I formatted an ebook myself, but would like some professional help now that it has been properly edited. My attempt resulted in 600 downloads and that was fun watching it happen.
I have started a blog but the social media in general feels time consuming.
Printing
My book will be published by Matador, in six weeks’ time, if all goes well.
I have some experiences I can share. If you think you could contribute or learn from the experiences of other local authors, please get in touch and I will arrange an informal get-together meeting.
Marketing
I feel that if authors worked together on marketing we could gain more successes. i.e. The Swan Centre would be willing for us to sell our books there for a day but we have to abide by their terms. Having a presence at local events and being represented on local media could be shared.
Maybe, there is already a similar group of writers around who meet to publish and market their books. If so, I hope you will let me know.
If you are interested in sharing your successes and failures, please email me.
Allison Symes says
Hope everything goes well with the book. I hope later in the year to have a short story collection ready (which will probably have to be self published). Perhaps I can contact you again nearer the time when I think I may be ready. It would be really useful to me how the whole process with Matador works out for you. Good luck!