Rising Star 1:subversive ramblings the book

A couple of years ago I finished a totally off the wall book for people who hate/hated Maths at school. A friend,Miriam,drew cartoons more or less to my directions –artists do have minds of their own I’m afraid,and my descriptions weren’t always clear. Here’s the original A4 cover I threw together so I could produce about a dozen copies for people I knew to criticise:

Cartoon copyright Miriam Slechter 2009

I received a number of detailed suggestions. Julie Ringrose (Maths teacher) spotted a Maths error and thought the book was weird. Sam Allison (Year 7) was horrified at how long the book was (120 pages with lots of pictures),but has apparently nearly finished it now –mind you took him over a year. Adam Bergen (Year 12) thought it was perfect –once I’d made the changes he suggested –but he already liked Maths.

Trouble is no one at that stage made sweeping constructive criticisms.

At that stage.

Some publishers will not accept submissions except via a literary agent so it makes sense to have one,but they can be tough to find. If they’re taking on new authors at all they’re wisely very selective. Even so I managed to get signed up with one. He likes the book but so far has been unable to place it with any publishers. It is a strange book,publishers are either goin to love it or hate it. And there is a recession on. Joanne Harris (ex colleague) suggested printing off a larger number and trying it out on a range of people. There is new technology available now which makes this really easy and fairly cheap if you know where to look.

So I started to investigate publishing options. Two things became clear.

Firstly there are several companies out there who are very happy to help you publish your book,at a price. They no doubt claim to be genuinely trying to help authors,but in fact they’re just modern-day vanity publishers. You pay them £700 –£2,000 and at the end get maybe a couple of copies for yourself. Your friends and family can then buy their own copies. If you pay enough your book will be available on Amazon –to the few people who know to search for it –and available for Waterstones to stock if it catches their eye –which it won’t.

That leads to the second realisation:publishing is only one stage of the process. Without effective marketing you might as well not bother because the book isn’t going to be read.

More homework,and it became clear the best way to have a book printed and distributed is via Lightning Source. More on them later. The problem was that it’s hard to use them unless you are a publisher.

That was the point at which Adam Warner (with whom I’m already writing a book) told me he wanted a better career direction for his life. He’s 26,and someone had suggested he should get involved in something to do with books.

So I said,“How about setting up a small publishing company that specialises in …”

And he said yes,that sounded good.

So we’re working at preparing to do just that. In the next post I’ll explain what is involved,and show you a second draft design for the cover.

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