As I said the other day, there was a lot of questions and curiosity about the writing and publishing process after my ‘Blog to Book‘ session with Pip and Kylie (moderated by Valerie) on Friday. I promised I’d write a post about this subject and below are some links I’ve written over the years that will be relevant and I hope you’ll find interesting
Announcement Day, 1 February 2008:
… I’ve danced around the possibility for a while now. I dabbled in self-publishing last year with my family’s brief history book (as some of you may remember) and that was a wonderful trial-by-fire. I am confident in my own abilities on that front and hopeful (dare I say gungho?) about learning the business side… and quickly, at that.
What pushed me to go the next step?
No, the question is ‘Who pushed me to go the next step?’
And that would be my daughter…
You’ll need to read the rest of that post to get the full story.
The trouble I had when taking publicity photographs, 28 March 2008.
Facing the very real (at that point) possibility of not securing a distributor and what impact that might have on sales, 11 August 2008:
Last week I walked into a local bookshop and pretended I was just a ‘normal’ person wanting to order my book when it comes out.
I got a haughty attendant. “Who’s the distributor?” she sighed, readying her hands to type in the details on the computer.
“I haven’t landed one yet… I’m still waiting to hear back from some places…”
She looked at me, slightly shocked. “Right. So you won’t be in any system.”
This is what I had to say at my horror when I discovered the majority of my first shipment of books had stained pages, 4 October 2008
Some might question why I’m admitting this here, and the truth is I’ve always been open and honest about this project – the good and the bad parts – and seeing as I’m doing an author talk about it next month and will be discussing this hiccup there, I don’t see why I can’t here.
As for roundup posts, these are the two majors one I’ve written – Thoughts on How to Publish Your Own Book, 27 March 2009 and Thoughts on Self-Publishing, Derived From My NSW Writers’ Centre Talk, 17 January 2011
It’s interesting, but particularly through 2008, as I was producing Surprise!, I thought I wrote more on the blog about the processes involved than I actually did: perhaps because I was on such a steep learning curve that it just felt like I was reporting it all back as it was happening.
I want to write more about this subject, but in the meantime if you have any questions you’d like me to answer, do let me know in the comments!
