Publish or (and?) Die

by Allen Lyne
(Adelaide, Australia)

How do you tell the person you love most in the world that you are going to die? The doctor gave me the news late in the afternoon and after I got home I sat and pondered how to break the news to Sandy. In the end it took me three days. I think she was more upset that I was. It figured, I guess, as she was the one that was going to be left behind.

I reconciled myself to the idea of dying fairly quickly. I don't know how it is for other people that get this news, but I did an inventory. Where I'd been, what I'd done and more importantly, what I had not done. I'd been a playwright for many years and more lately a writer of theatre restaurant shows. I had a fair bit of success in both areas of writing having had productions in all but one of the States in my home country, Australia, and in a couple of other countries as well. But for twenty years I had carried the seeds of a novel around in my head. I was going to write it when I had time, and you know what that's like, you never have the time. Now that I was looking at heading into the last great adventure, I realised that this was one thing I was not going to achieve.

And then I started to get angry. I was only in my late fifties, far too early to shuffle off the mortal coil. There were many reasons not to die. My beautiful wife, my kids, my relatives, my good friends; all those things that go to make life worth living.

The doctors gave me no chance. Three months max. So I investigated alternative therapies. One of them worked and I survived. To cut to the chase, a decade later I am hail and hearty having made a complete recovery. It was while I was in the phase of not knowing whether or not I would survive that I decided to start to write that novel. I knew I didn't have time to complete it if the doctor's prognosis was correct. In the end it took me two and half years to complete.

That novel is A Handicap for the Devil. When I finished writing it I sent it to agents trying to interest one of them in taking it on. I must have tried every agent in the world and not one of them would even consider reading the book. Most of them said that they had a full client list and the rest didn't reply. I then tried any publishers that would accept unsolicited manuscripts. I got a few encouraging rejection letters and a lot of one-liners saying no thanks. Most discouraging. I then submitted to Books Unbound, an American e-publisher, and they accepted the book.

The editing process with Books Unbound was great. I learned a lot in the process and I still owe a debt to my editor who did a great job getting me to rewrite and rework stuff that wasn't working as well as it might. In the end the finished product came up well. The book has sold some copies, and is available on many web sites through the e-book distribution network, but there are an awful lot of e-books up there on the net and nowhere near enough customers.

While all this was going on, I had started another novel. This one is Shakespeare is Alive and Well and Living in Sun City. This too took about two-and-a-half years to complete and again Books Unbound e-published the finished product. Once again I could not interest agents or publishers in the book.

So, after hawking the books around and beating my head against the proverbial brick wall and wasting a lot of time, I decided to go the self-publishing route. I looked around at the various ways to self publish. There are a lot of rip-off merchants out there. One kind gentleman offered to print my book for a mere $5,000. He would do the layout, print the books, offer them for sale on his web site and supply me with twenty free books. Whoopee-do, I wonder how many people get sucked into deals like this? I happen to be computer literate and it wasn't too much work to find out how to lay out a book properly myself and find a POD printer in my home state of South Australia. I found out that by doing all of the layout work myself, I could keep costs down to the point where I could make a profit selling the books.

I don't know how it is in other countries, but in Australia as soon as you get an ISBN the library suppliers immediately become aware that your book is available. I was contacted by a number of them and contacted those that didn't contact me and distributed quite a few books through these organisations. I offered the books for sale on my web site and have had made ongoing sales for several years now.

I wish I was a better salesman. I have a friend who has self-published several books of historical fiction. He does the market thing, taking stalls at various places around South Australia and selling books that way. He has been kind enough to put my books on his stall and has sold quite a few for me. I give him a commission of course. He also accepts speaking engagements at local historical societies and libraries and sells books that way too.

It's a funny thing, I am an actor and an experienced public speaker and yet for some reason I don't like standing up and talking about my books.

I have also written a book of naval anecdotes that I published last year. Some of the stories in the book are my own based on my naval service, and others are stories I collected from former sailors, mostly on the net. I have spoken at some ex service clubs about this book and made some sales that way. This has been my most successful book, and most of my sales have been made on the internet. The book is still selling well almost two years after its launch.

All of these books have had good reviews, mostly unsolicited. I have had much good comment about the books from people who have read them. Some people come back to me to buy the second novel after reading the first, which I guess is about the highest compliment they can pay me.

If you have written a book and you think its good, don't die wondering. Find a good print on demand printer in your locale and get the best deal you can. Do a small print run and then check the market. The great thing about POD. is that you can take orders and print afterwards. You don't finish up with a pile on books in your wardrobe or under your bed.

Self-publishing has its rewards. You are in complete control of the process and hey, you get to keep all the profits.

You can see my books and plays at my web site, Bearly Together.