Spiderwize's Self Publishing Blog

This self publishing game is okay, some of you – especially newcomers to the field – may be thinking, but can I actually earn any money at it?  After all, unless it’s a real personal project where the author only wants a few copies to show his family and friends and for his own personal pleasure, the great majority of writers would like to see something for their efforts – something such as decent money, mainly.

Unfortunately, there is no hard and fast rule for how much you can earn as a self published author.  Book authors do not get a salary – how much they earn depends on how many of their books they can sell and what royalties they then receive from those sales.  Some self published authors have been successful enough to earn something like 100,000 US dollars inside of six months.  Others would be lucky if they earned that much in a lifetime.  Some self published authors, of course, can end up selling not so much as one copy of their book, so you can probably guess how much they’re earning.

The truth is that the success of a book is something like 20 per cent writing, 80 per cent marketing, so to be a success as a self published writer, being a good writer simply isn’t enough – you need to be a good, if not great, marketer as well.

p.s. Quality writing and canny marketing skills are the only ways to make good profit as a self published author.

The Inverness Book Festival has been running for eight years and is now a fixture of summer in the Highlands of Scotland. This year’s Festival kicks off on the 10^th of August and runs until the 14^th, making it a five day event which will be well worth the time to attend for readers or writers, be they in the self publishing industry or otherwise. Local literary buff Brid McKibben is in charge of this year’s activities, which will contain the now expected array of both local, Scottish and general United Kingdom writers, plus a few surprise guests.

The little ones won’t miss out either, with special events designed to keep them suitably entertained such as Bookbug Rhymetimes and the daily activities that are organised by the Festival’s Arts Ed group.

The Inverness Book Festival has never struggled to attract top cream writing talent, with the likes of GP Taylor, Iain Banks, Katie Grant, AL Kennedy, Kenneth White, Tom Devine, Cameron McNeish, Scoular Anderson (do you think he scowls a lot, then?), Emma Wood, Ewan Morrison, Des Dillon, Lance Price, Lin Anderson, Stuart MacBride, Melvin Burgess and Shirley Spear all having attended the event in previous years. This year’s guest list includes such names as Christopher Brookmyre, John Eunson, Tom Renouf, Louise Welsh, and Andy Wightman.

p.s. The Inverness Book Festival will be worth taking the time to visit.

It’s nearly July, so I thought I’d take a look at a couple of the new books that are due for release next month as the latest literary endeavours should be of interest to all writers, whether they are in the self publishing game or otherwise.

One such new book out in July is “Twisted” by Sara Shepherd. That name may not immediately ring a bell, but if you’ve heard of the teen mystery soap TV series “Pretty Little Liars”, then you should know that that show was originally a book series, and “Twisted” is the ninth in what is a hugely popular line. This time out the plotline involving “A” has apparently been solved at last, but it doesn’t take the girls long to get themselves in more trouble.

Also out next month is a new book from a writer just about everyone will have heard of, whether they’ve actually read any of her books or not, Danielle Steel. Steel’s newest page turner is entitled “Happy Birthday”, which deals with three very different people all reaching a turning point on, you guessed it, the day of their birthday. If you’re into Steel (and plenty of people are), you’ll be sure to like this.

The geeks will be celebrating in July too, as there’s a new “Star Wars” novel out. This one, entitled “Choices of One”, is written by regular “Wars” novel scribe Timothy Zahn and will be sure to have all the Jedi’s running out to the nearest bookstore.

p.s. There’s plenty to enjoy on the shelves in July.

Do you have a manuscript collecting dust (maybe electronic dust)? If you have in the past submitted your manuscript to mainstream publishers or if your manuscript would only appeal to a niche market then self publishing your manuscript may be the route to take. But before you take the plunge and go the self publishing route we have some tips below:

1. Spelling / Grammar: Is your book ready for the general public to read? Make sure that your manuscript has been thoroughly proofread. It is highly advisable that you get someone else to proofread your manuscript. It is so important to make a good impression to the reader. If your reader starts finding spelling and grammatical errors it can be a real turn-off and seriously damage the potential of your book being taken seriously.
2. Copyright and defamation of character: Before you publish a book it is imperative that you own or have permission to publish all of the contents that are contained in your manuscript. This also includes images. As the author you need to make sure your book does not contain anything libellous that someone might take offence to. You may wish to read our blog Avoiding Defamation of Character. Remember when you are self publishing in most cases it will be up to you the author to make sure your book does not break any copyrights or contains anything libellous against an individual or groups.
3. Storyline / narrative: You may wish to get a trusted friend to read your manuscript and ask for comments to the storyline / narrative. This can help to iron out any confusing or hard to read sections of your manuscript. This is also a good test to see someone’s response to your work though remember as you are getting a friend to read your work you may not receive the same response from the general public.
4. Distribution: It is a good idea to get an idea now what type of availability to the general market you want your book to have. Do you only want to sell your own copies or do you want your book to be available for sale on retail websites? Deciding this now will help you to find the right publishing service that is suitable for your needs.

I hope the above will be of some help to you self publishing your manuscript. If you think there are any other useful steps that should be included then we welcome you to add comments below.

Top image by: markhillary

Today I thought I’d continue my occasional look at the kinds of writing software that are out there today, whether free, expensive or somewhere in between, as there are rather a lot of them and choosing the wrong one can be a major pain in the you know what.

Open Office is one rather neat little piece of software. Essentially an easy alternative to Microsoft Office, with a word processing software together with the other things found in Microsoft Office, such as spreadsheets, databases, the ability to create presentations and so forth. Best of all, it is completely free to both download and use and is compatible with other software packages (including Microsoft Office).

AbiWord is another good and fairly well known word processor, likewise compatible with other software packages, available in different languages and again, perhaps most importantly, completely free of charge. Where would we be without glorious freebies, eh?

If you’re into writing fiction, be it for the purposes of your self publishing career or just as a hobby, there are also different software packages out there which aim to make the process of writing full novels that little bit easier. One of those is New Novelist, which helps writers with world building and keeps their pre-writing notes easily accessible. Be warned though – this one doesn’t come cheap, and is unlikely to be found for less than 30 pounds.

p.s. The correct writing software can help make a difficult job go a little smoother.

As writers, whether in the self publishing industry or not, we frequently come across both spelling and grammatical quandaries. Do you spell program as program or as programme? If you describe an event from history, do you describe it as a historic event or as an historic event? Moreover, does it actually matter which way you do it? Is there a right and wrong way, or is it all just down to individual taste or personal choice?

Taking the historic problem as the example, this of course comes from a fairly famous grammatical rule which you will, as a writer, certainly already be well aware of – that we should use “an” before words that start with a vowel– an eagle, an ambulance, an American, and so forth and so on. With words that do not start with a vowel, we always use just a – as in, a book, a wing, a whiny American, and so forth.

Things get slightly more confusing when it comes to word starting with “h”. This is because of the sound of those words as spoken as opposed to the spelling of the words makes it seem as though they begin with a vowel – the sentence may read like “he was an honourable man” but it sounds like “he was an onourable man”, which is why we tend to use the an instead of the a. That said, while this is definitely the most accepted way of doing things, a not insignificant minority will use “a honourable man”, believing that the sound is overridden by the spelling.

p.s. The choice belongs to you… or a honourable editor.

One festival that literary types of all kinds, not just in the self publishing field, might want to take a look at if they have the time next month is the West Meon Festival of Books. The West Meon Festival of Books runs from the eighth to the tenth of July, and is a small but intimate literary festival that takes place in the small village setting of South Downs Country Park in West Meon (fairly obviously). West Meon itself is apparently located somewhere between Winchester and Petersfield in Hampshire on the A32.

Ticket prices tend to vary, though they were 55 pounds last year, which might seem a bit steep to some, but on the other hand, like I said, it is a very intimate festival and lets you get up close and personal (but not that personal) with some respected authors. This year those names include the likes of Michelle Magorian, Jake Wallis Simons, Nigel Farndale, Jane Shilling, Leo Benedictus, Anthony Quinn, Nick Hayes, Julie Hill, and Allan Mallinson. Previous years’ guest lists have included such names as Poppy Adams, Gillian Tindall, Wendy Cope, Natasha Solomons, Maureen Duke, Jack Sheffield, Jane Gardam, Rebecca Shaw, Sophie Hannah and many more besides.

As well as all the visiting authors, other events at the festival include bookbinding, activities for the rugrats, and all the usual literary festival stuff, I would imagine.

p.s. Those fancying a more intimate literary festival should check out The West Meon Festival of Books.

At the beginning of the week I took a brief look at a couple of the options for writing software for your computer, since some of us still prefer the old fashioned method of pen and paper (pardon me while I fetch my walking stick), the fact is most writing of all sorts, whether in self publishing or otherwise, is performed electronically these days.

Probably the best-known writing software of them all is of course Microsoft Word, which normally comes as part of the Microsoft Office suite. There are about three versions of Office (not counting all the various updates in different years, obviously), the full standard version (which generally costs £180 to £230) and the Home and Student one, which you can usually pick up for around £70 to £100. In addition to Word, which works as a very effective word processor, Office standard version also comes with Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, enabling you to create spreadsheets, presentations and manage email.

Less well known but still pretty good (especially as it’s completely free) is Word Viewer, a very simple program that allows people who don’t have Word to look at, print and even copy Word documents.

p.s. There are many more options available for writing software, which I will continue to look at from time to time.

Those interested in self publishing, literature should absolutely check out the Buxton Festival Literature Series. The Buxton Festival Literature Series kicks off on July 9th and carries on until the 27th July – no fly by night weekend festival this one – and consists of a wide range of activities and a multitude of well-known guests.

The event features a morning literary series, concerts in the afternoon and evenings with operas being performed with themes such as exploration, modern politics and espionage all being taken on, while the ‘big name’ guests this year include the likes of Dame Ellen MacArthur, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Esther Freud, Colin Thubron, Robin Hanbury-Tenison, Will Hutton, Michael Broadbent, Salley Vickers, Miranda Seymour, Richard Miles, Professor Christopher Andrew, Virginia Nicholson and many more besides. Guests in previous years have included the likes of Patrick Gale, Melvyn Bragg, Cherie Blair, Kate Atkinson, Prue Leith, Joan Bakewell, Vince Cable, award-winning journalist Kate Adie and former Liberal Democrats leader Paddy Ashdown.

Entry to the Buxton Festival Literature Series is not free I’m afraid, but if you’re under 30 seats cost just five pounds a head and under 16s, pensioners and students can get in for half price, so it’s not too bad at all really.

p.s. The Buxton Festival Literature Series has a lot to offer.

The Humber Mouth Literature Festival is an annual event that occurs in Hull. Granted, Hull isn’t the first name that might spring to mind when you think about either great literature or literary festivals. However, it appears that might be a rather ignorant response, given that in previous years the festival has attracted names such as Germaine Greer, best selling writers such as Louis de Bernieres and Jonathan Coe, and noted poets such as David Wheatley and Carol Rumens and has been running successfully now for 18 years, since its inception way back in 1993.

This year’s festival kicks off on the 25th June 2011, but will carry on until the tenth of July, so there’s plenty of time for you to get your affairs in order to ensure that you can be there. As in past years, there are plenty of name guests that those in the writing field, be it self publishing or otherwise, will recognise, such as George Monbiot, Simon Garfield, Adam Mars-Jones, John Hegley, Jon Ronson, Jenni Murray and several others besides. In addition to the guests, there will also be some events such as a celebration of literature in Hull throughout history, which will be presented by famed singer and songwriter Jack Underwood, workshops, stuff for children, and all the things you expect from a literary festival.

p.s. The Humber Mouth Literature Festival should be well worth a visit.