Published on 12, July, 2020
I have always wanted to be a writer yet I always procrastinate too much, I have about three books I have started, the beginning is written and so is the end.
I guess I just need to write the in between, its not that I find it hard, its just difficult to keep my attention span on my stories.I did write a synopsis on the theory of the matrix and I sent it to Steven King, he must of read it as he left a cryptic message, which relates to the Lawnmower man movies.I pretty much suggested and pointed out all the plots that linked it to the matrix and he confirmed that my ideas where right. Its kind of weird as I asked him for advice on stuff via twitter and he always reply's in general tweets. Which I can relate to but also it can be read as something else, its pretty strange yet fun. So he suggested three books which I have ordered and hopefully will find time to read to try and help me develop my stories. Id like to be published but even Mr King suggests these are different times and even he has difficulties, oh well I hope one day I can complete what I started. I procrastinate too much, I dont have it in me for a novel but short stories I think I can do.
I am a published (non-fiction) No.1 best-selling author on Amazon. After procrastinating for three for 3 years, I hired a cottage for a week in the middle of nowhere and locked myself away (without broadband!) for a week and wrote the whole first full draft in 6 days. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Doing the editing process afterwards is pretty tedious but I had a deadline with a publisher so that kept me focused. The editing process was done in evenings and weekends around my day job and took about a month. It cost me about £5k to get a publisher - but having a deadline meant I got the job done and I've earned more than that in generating work on the back of the book (not from royalties).
Have you ever done a www.nanowrimo.org challenge, I wrote my autobiography years ago and found working to voluntary deadlines and in a community of writers was a great way for me to connect with my writing vibe. Good luck.
Interesting. When you say it cost £5k to get a publisher, can you elaborate? Is that £5k of associated costs or are you saying that you can pay a publisher in order for them to publish your work?
Briefly
Self-publishing, figure out the software to typeset your manuscript and create or commission a book cover designer and publish your book on amazon yourself (no quality checks, requires learning new skills) but you keep all the money aside from amazon fees.
Traditional publishing - if a publisher thinks your book is worth publishing.... they take your manuscript and turn it into a book and do all the legwork to get it listed with traditional book shops and 'some' of the marketing, but they take a percentage of royalties for 100 years (no that's not a typo!) and you're tied-in to the contract for that time. Typically this is a paid-for service unless you secure a publishing deal where the publisher does all the work for free but takes a bigger percentage of the royalties. You don't get an advance to do the writing unless you're JK Rowling or a proven author! Some won't do kindle/e-book versions. You have to buy a minimum of about 500 books (at cost price).
Hybrid publisher - pay circa £2k - £5k and give your manuscript to a team of people who: do editorial checks and give you feedback on readability (you do the edits and improve the quality), design a book cover (which you approve or give feedback on), do the typesetting of the final manuscript (which you approve), create the book for print-on-demand and kindle, list it on amazon. They take a sensible percentage of royalties for 5 years, after that you keep all the royalties or are free to move to another publishing contract. The downside is that you have to do all the marketing of the book.
For £2k you're basically hiring someone who then sub-contracts out the work to a variety of people on upwork etc that they likely haven't used before and you have to liaise with all of them individually. For £5k you're paying a company that has people employed in the various disciplines to turn a manuscript into a book, or tried-and-tested contractors, and you only have to communicate with one person who co-ordinates everyone else and manages the work to achieve the agreed upon deadline.
hope that helps :-)
Daisy
Thanks so much. That's really interesting. Did you go down the Hybrid-publisher route?
I’ve always liked the idea of self publishing and setting up my own little ‘publishers’ to give unknown authors (mostly in non-fiction) a chance to get a book published. I like the idea of giving really niche topics a space too. It’s actually an ambition of mine to create this model - it’s small scale but I have ideas how to make it work.