Indie Publishing

As you may know I advise against trying to get a book published traditionally. 

It is hard enough to find a good literary agent, the essential first step to getting

your book in front of a publisher. 

 

The alternatives are: 
 

1, Amazon which has an expert and detailed step by step approach on their website;
2, Self (or ‘indie’) publish using a local printer who can handle short print runs (see PS below). 

Whatever route you take you will have to do the bulk of marketing yourself. 

 

The publisher takes care of the important tasks of editing, proofreading, design and print. If you decide to self publish, you need to pay strict attention to those four elements.

A book which is full of mistakes, badly structured, and poorly designed or printed won’t sell. 

The adage ‘You can’t judge a book by its cover’ — coined in 1944, in the American Journal of Speech and popularised in a 1946 film — is highly misleading. Today images are analysed in seconds and accepted / rejected just as quickly. 

So here are notes on 6 books which were independently published,  became successful and were taken up by traditional publishers. 

1. E L James —The 50 shades of grey trilogy.
Originally out in 2011. Supported by Aussie publishers Writers Coffee Shop. But they had no marketing budget. ELJ got reviews from bloggers and word of mouth. 125m copies sold in 5 years

2.   Dr Lisa Genova — Still Alice
An Ameican Neuro Scientist, she saw grandma suffer from Alzheimer’s, and she wrote a novel about a mother with 3 children and early onset Alzheimer’s.  After many rejections a lit agent warned that self publishing would ruin her career as a writer. However...2 years of selling books from the boot (trunk!) of her car, giving talks and guerrilla marketing in MySpace and Goodreads led to Success.   2.6m copies in 30 Languages. Plus a film in 2014 with Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin and Kristen Stewart. 

3. Andy Weir — The Martian
A Computer programming and science nerd, Andy did 1 Year’s research. Saw a gap in the market and has following from science lovers and he promoted his story in his free blog. Having launched it on Amazon at $0.99, in 2013 he had sold the book and film rights with Matt Damon starring. 

4.  James Redfield — The Celestine Prophecy
This best seller looks at Humanity and the divine, by a man interested in Tao and Zen Buddhism. He met the 1990s zeitgeist of those seeking new ways of fulfilment. Did all his own marketing, promotion and distribution. 100k copies were sold, he got a publishing deal, and then 20m copies sold. 

5. Margaret Atwood — Double Persephone
This is something of a surprise. In 1961 the future author of The Handmaid’s Tale, published 7 poems. 220 copies were handset and printed by her. She designed her own cover (see left) and organised print. The book won awards and kick-started her career as a best selling novelist. This underlines the importance of design.

6.  Christopher Paolini -  Eragon
A teen fantasy book created when the author was aged 15 and drafted in his teens. In 2001 it was self published. He toured round the US for a year promoting in schools and libraries, supported by his parents.   Then he was discovered by best-selling Florida crime writer Carl Hiaasen who recommended it to publishers Alfred Knopf. Published in 2003. In 2005-06, the book spent 121 weeks on NYT Children’s best seller list, after mixed reviews on account of alleged “Awkward prose” and “B movie dialogue”. Good characters and plot won praise, however.  20m copies sold by 2011. 

Lessons from these authors...

Persistence, Resilience, Self promotion, Blogging 

PS. In future issues there will be features on Amazon, short run print, design, proofreading and more