Authors Electric

In 1966, the Beatles famously sang about wanting to be a paperback writer. I was only four at the time so just starting to read and write, but I must have thought it sounded like a good idea because a few years later I started typing out my first science fiction 'novel' on blue and yellow paper. It was just about long enough to count as a novella, but I never sent it anywhere because the year I finished it I got a place at university to study mathematics. Probably just as well. By 1987, I was programming computers (think huge mainframes filling whole rooms with massive tape reels you had to change halfway through running a program) and writing fiction secretly in my spare time. I completed another novel - a much longer one that became a fantasy trilogy. I sent it off to a publisher, and the now legendary editor John Jarrold wrote back with a personal note explaining why it was not quite right for them. I forgot about writing for a while, escaped computers at the end of the 8...

A couple of months ago I blogged here about my experience of signing up with 'aggregator' Ingram Spark, recommended by the Alliance of Independent Authors. Then, a few weeks ago I received an invitation to a presentation at Ingram headquarters in Milton Keynes and a tour of their printing works at Lightning Source.  Always curious to know the path from my uploaded manuscript to the printed page I happily accepted, even though it meant a 5am start from the Lake District.  Neil, as the Book Mill editor, came with me to investigate the techie side of things. We weren’t disappointed.  Andy Bromley, their ‘front man’ for indie authors, gave a fascinating presentation into Ingram’s history and its plans for the future. Ingram was established in 1964 by John Ingram as a private company.  They started out in logistics, moved into digital content and publishing and are now going into Robotic technology.   In 1997 they acquired Lightning Source as a Print On Dema...

A collection of 16 short stories If you’ve read some of my previous blog posts you’ll know some time ago I decided to turn my two Anansi the Trickster Spider eBooks into a POD (print on demand) book. At last Anansi the Trickster Spider (volumes one and two) is available via Amazon plus a few other outlets. Now we (my other-half was drafted in to help) decided to create the book using Creatspace. Although it was easy to use we were totally unprepared. We naively set up an account and went in thinking we’d upload a file, choose the font style and size and off we’d go. Then came the surprise (yes I know, you don’t need to tell me, we should have realised it's not that simple) we had to answer quite a few questions. Questions such as:   Do you require page numbers? Would you like the numbering to start with the introduction or with the first story?     Have you considered an index? How about something in the page header e.g. the books title or story titl...

In February, it will be two years since I took the plunge into self-publishing, by releasing a collection of previously-print-published short stories onto kindle. It was an experiment – with the concept of epublishing, Amazon’s KDP process and getting to grips with the technical side of formatting and uploading.  Once I’d successfully managed that, I went on and epubbed a thriller and a young adult fantasy novel. Sales have been good – more than I ever expected – and while I do think the kindle bubble has deflated somewhat, there are still opportunities for writers to take control of their careers. Having said that, there hasn’t been a rush of big publishers beating a path to my door and offering me several million for print rights. Not that I expected it – I’ve been on the fringes of the industry for long enough to know how it works. I’ve had big agents and big-6 (or is is 5 now?) editors in the past and I know I can write, but I’m never going to generate sufficient sales f...

As fellow members of Authors Electric will know, I have a sometime tricky relationship with technology: it doesn’t always do what I expect it to, although pressing the wrong button might reasonably be regarded as just plain dim. Since technology and business systems have played a greater part of my working life in 2012 than in any other year of my career, I thought I would review the trials. THE KOBO ISSUE KOBO, bless ‘em. Are they really geared up for self-publishing authors? Their website is pretty, in a twee kind of way, but their customer care people don’t seem to have a clue what’s happening when you have a problem. In November, I uploaded the first of my Sprite Sister books. On the basis that it all went through okay, I uploaded the other five titles – except they didn’t upload. They got stuck somewhere. I had filled in and ticked all the boxes: have uploaded and re-uploaded my e-titles numerous times on Amazon, so it’s not unfamiliar. Then nothing. You ...