Another Small Drop in the Ocean of Self-Publishing

by M Kerry
(England)

Genre: Short stories

The webmaster of this site, Steve Barancik, sent me an email inviting me to share my experiences of self-publishing. At first, however, I didn’t think I had anything to offer in terms of advice and neither did I think people would be interested in what I had done, but I realised that was because I was only considering the actual physical printing of the book. Self-publishing is about being a writer, designer, editor, and most importantly promoter of your work.

My journey started back in January 2008 when I started writing again (something I had stopped doing regularly whilst at university). Very quickly I had managed to put together a selection of short stories and edited them as best as I could. The lesson I have learnt from this is always get a least one second opinion on your work, and lesson two, don’t rush. I freely admit that I rushed by first volume out, quite understandably –I’m young and the lure of having my own book printed and bound in my hands was too much. Take as much time as you can.

I self-published through Lulu.com, a decent Print on Demand company. The process is very straightforward, but the manufacturing cost of the book is high compared to other ‘traditional’ publishing techniques. I prepared my stories using Word and Lulu changed this into a PDF file, before printing it out into a beautiful book.

Lesson three: take time and make the effort with your front cover. This seems to me like common sense. On Lulu there are a variety of stock covers to choose from; I would advise everyone to steer clear. Who wants their book to look like everybody else’s? Depressingly, we do judge books by their covers, and I thought choosing a photograph I had taken would neatly stand out, dodge copyright infringement and be a simple way of doing it, which it was.

Lesson four: be realistic. I remember when my book was first out there on the website and I started browsing forums, I came across someone who had written (more or less): ‘WHATS GOIN WRONG? I PUBLISHED MY BOOK AND NO ONES BUYIN IT. I EXPECTED TO SELL FEW THOUSAND IN MYFIRST MONTH AND THEN GO FROM THERE.’ There are a great deal of people like that. It doesn’t matter if you have written the best book in the world, no one will buy if they have never heard of it. And most people will never buy it. Lulu is a website of writers, not readers, and consequently people are marketing their work to others who aren’t interested.

Following on from this, marketing is the most important thing you have to do. I freely admit that I am a shy, not-very-outgoing kind of person and this has definitely hindered my marketing. To date, I have done the obvious and joined a number of online writing societies (like writer’s cafe) and created my own website using freewebs.

In addition, I decided to develop a style of ‘guerrilla marketing.’ I printed curious little arty business cards (see my website), which I felt in libraries slipped in copies of other books. Similarly, I actually placed a copy of my book in a library with a fake bar code without telling the librarians. Two weeks ago it disappeared –the fact that there was no ISBN probably confused them a great deal. My next plan is to leave a few copies surreptitiously in a bookshop. This, however, is only the tip of the iceberg. I haven’t generated many sales, despite the nice comments I’ve had, and I realise that I need to actually talk to people (gulp!). In fact, my current strategy is to start local: go for the newspapers, local independent bookshops, and keep, keep writing. Lesson five: don’t give up –if you’re a serious writer you won’t give up the whole scribbling addiction, but from what I have read and experienced it is essential to keep marketing, marketing and marketing your work. At the end of the day, like anything, you get out what you put in. Good luck!

Visit Matthew's site, Pallabres Rares.