Saturday 23 August 2014

Nicola Morgan has an excellent post on

An Awfully Big Blog Adventure: Why I don't want to self-publish again: and there are some interesting responses in the comments as well. 
More than once I have been asked why, if I want something published, I won't do it myself.
"It's easy Cat!"
No it isn't. There is an enormous amount I do not know about the world of publishing. I wouldn't know where to start. 
"You could buy a package from one of those companies who do that sort of thing."
No I could not. I could not do it even if I could afford to do it - which I most definitely cannot. I wouldn't know what I was buying. I wouldn't know if it was good or bad or right or wrong for me. 
"And you could advertise yourself on your blog and Facebook and Twitter and all that sort of thing."
"NO!" For a start I get really irritated when other people advertise themselves that way. There is a difference between an author letting you know they have a book coming out and people flinging advertising at you. The former is fine, the latter makes me want to stop seeing their name. 
And those things apply to a Kindle version - or any form of e-book publishing as much as anything else.
But, for me, there is another problem too. My work would need editing. All writing needs editing. It needs the fresh eye of someone who is not emotionally involved. It needs someone else to pick up the split infinitives, verb-noun disagreements, other grammatical errors and the spelling errors. Oh yes, it happens. I cannot proof read my own work. 
Good editing costs money too - as it should. I would have no idea where to find a good editor and I suspect that cost is very high.
Our local indie does try to support self-published authors. They will help them with a book launch and stock a few copies on the shelves. It is very generous of them. One of the staff told me, "And most of them are pretty awful. At very least they need editing." Kindly, they have told me my writing is "much better than that" but, for me, that is not good enough. My writing has to be as good as I can make it. 
I could not advertise myself unless my work had the professional endorsement of a publisher - someone else who had said, "I think this is what I want to publish."
People look sadly at me and shake their heads and say, "But start out doing something yourself and they will find you and want you."
No they won't. They don't look. Even if they did they would think, "No, it wasn't good enough. If it had been we would have been interested."
I think I am being realistic . It is better not to be tempted.

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