Self-publishing in Australia

When I wrote my first book, a school textbook, it was all very straightforward – I penned the words and someone else sculpted them into a more pleasing form, found illustrations to support what I was saying and pulled it all together in a nice, shiny little package called a book.

Many were printed and found homes far and wide in libraries and schools across Australia. As it was a commissioned project, it was a reasonably pain-free endeavor. I was paid a small up-front sum for my work and registered with the Australian Public Lending Scheme (PLR), which pays authors a royalty every time someone borrows one of their books (a worthy scheme that has paid me in excess of $6000 since my first book was printed).

Fast forward five years and my second co-written book, Australian Big Cats: An Unnatural History of Panthers – a tome on folklore, and a labour of love – had been pitched to four mainstream publishing houses without any interest.

I could have persevered or found an agent but, as a former journalist, and one with newspaper layout experience, I was actually itching to give self-publishing a go. I was confident I could pull together a book every bit as readable and eye-catching as any mainstream tome – I just needed to find out how to do it.

And rather than bore you in real time as to how all that happened, I’ll give it to you in a nutshell – I researched all of the self-publishing avenues available and eventually jumped on board with Lightning Source, creating a company name to give me entre to the printing company’s vast resources.

Next I found myself a talented graphic designer. I’m afraid when it comes to books, looks count far more than they should – and I was desperately passionate that my book should be up there in the supermodel stakes. Fortunately a good friend of mine also happened to be a gun graphic designer, and his cover would later prove to be a key selling point.

While project-managing the book’s layout and cover, I bought an ISBN and a domain name and taught myself how to build a basic website using templates from the iWeb program on my (Apple) iMac computer, which previously worked with the Apple.com server to host my website. This hosting facility no longer exists and I have been forced to bone up further on website building and hosting.

The site - www.australianbigcats.com.au - went live with the book cover image and a giant countdown clock, and I began to promote it in chat groups and blogs across the web. The marketing of the book had begun in earnest and it hadn’t even seen a printing press! (I’ll talk more about the marketing side of things in a future post.)

Around the same time I created a Facebook page for the book, which now boasts more than 500 fans (not bad for a niche book!). Incidentally, the website has now received more than 17,600 visits.
With the help of my graphic designer we uploaded the book cover image and content to Lightning Source and waited two weeks or thereabouts for the formatting to take place at their end.

At that time Lightning Source had no presence in Australia so I had to source a local digital printer to print an initial run of 500 books for in-store distribution. Altogether we printed 850 books before making the decision – based on cost, time and distribution - to print solely through Lightning Source.

This had the added attraction of being ‘print on demand’, meaning we wouldn’t have to fill our house with boxes of books – instead, they would be printed as they were ordered by readers from various online bookstores.

Two years on and sales are steady and, thanks to the Lightning Source set-up, I sit back and wait for the money to roll in while I work on other projects.

At present I’m contemplating an e-book version of our book – how quaint! I hear some of you cry – but we have had our reasons for holding off, both marketing and software-related.

We’ve also since re-published a book, Savage Shadow: The Search for the Australian Cougar, on behalf of another late author’s family using the same method – another labour of love with a similarly brilliant cover (if we do say so ourselves) – so time has been finite between work and…I want to say ‘play’, but really it’s more work! I’m also considering a permanent price drop to further encourage sales.

I wouldn’t want you to think our printing projects haven’t been without stumbling blocks – there have been plenty! They have included formatting errors requiring subsequent uploads, undetected editing errors, missing stock, poorly printed books (it does happen), booksellers slow to pay for sold stock (thus holding up the financing of subsequent local print runs), distribution issues and various other gremlins.

But it has been a fantastic experience, and one I will most definitely repeat. Having already trod the path twice, I will be more prepared for the next project and, with the burgeoning popularity of e-readers and e-books, in a much better position to reach potential future readers.

Self-publishing isn’t a river of gold for everyone, but it is a fantastic opportunity for would-be publishers and authors.

The best advice I can give is if you want to be taken seriously and attract readers, then spend the time and money to bring your manuscript up to scratch, and present your final product in the best possible light. That means hiring editors to polish your prose, and graphic designers to work their magic with your book's layout and cover. And becoming your own project manager/marketing manager.

Your readers will love you, booksellers will be bowled over by you, and maybe, if it’s the sort of luck you’re after, an agent or mainstream publisher will fall in love with you too!

By RR with No comments

What's read cannot be unread

This is exactly how I feel about certain books. What has been read cannot be unread.

You know the ones. The tomes you pick up on a whim, find deeply engrossing but forever leave their mark on you - like a brand.

For me that book was Peter Benchley's Jaws. No, not the film (that would come later) but the images conjured up by the words on the pages.

At the time I was a well-read 10-year-old who loved nothing better than swimming in the ocean with my beach-loving cousins. By the end of that book I was a shore-loving shark-phobic junior burger with a 'wisdom' beyond my years.

I had plucked the offending book from my uncle's bookshelf one summer holiday, desperate for something to read and morbidly drawn by the chilling cover, which showed a bikini-clad woman frolicking in the ocean and the mother-of-all fish with pointy teeth looming up beneath her.

Decades later I still find it hard to swim in the ocean, wondering what could be swimming just below my furiously paddling legs, and whether or not it's true that sharks often mistake us for seals, or whether they can sense fear and vulnerability (and if, as recent studies would have us believe, they really do hunt like serial killers!).

The fact that Benchley could tap into such a primal fear so deeply and so well speaks volumes about his skill as an author - not just as a wordsmith spinning verbage for the page, but also to his skill in selecting a subject that could resonate so deeply and for so long with such a big audience.

So big an audience that it's rumoured the author made enough money on the book, film adaptation/rights and syndication that he was able to live off the proceeds quite well for 10 years!

The words didn't come easily for Benchley, then a magazine feature writer - his first 100 pages were rejected and he had to go back to the drawing board - but come they eventually did, thanks to the guiding hand of editors at Doubleday Books.

The book was inspired by several very real sharks caught in the 1960s off Long Island and Block Island by the Montauk charterboat captain Frank Mundus, who was also supposedly the inspiration for the main character, shark hunter Quint.

Here be monsters indeed...

By RR with No comments

Millennium book 4 to be published?

  

A close friend of the Swedish crime writer has revealed the plot for what he says is the fourth book in the Millennium Series - and it'll have protagonist Lisbeth Salander's estranged sister Camilla in a key role.

Kurdo Baksi, who wrote My friend Stieg Larsson last year, said the author had more books in the pipeline, a Swedish newspaper reported.

Baksi told the Expressen the fourth book in the series was set on Banks Island, a remote island off the west coast of Canada, and features Camilla, who was last seen briefly in the second novel The Girl Who Played With Fire . The deepening relationship between Salander and investigative journalist Mikael Blomqvist would also be explored.

Baksi said Larsson had completed the introduction and finale to the fourth, untitled, book.

It has been widely reported that Larsson had planned to write up to six books in the Millennium Series.

Murdoch Books distributes the series in Australia.

By RR with No comments

Library book returned 33 years late!

A library book 33 years overdue has been anonymously returned to Gordon Library on Sydney's north shore in Australia. Originally due December 1978, the book was only reunited with its library in March 2011!

Attached on a post-it note was a cheeky message: "Sorry for the delay. Next day OK?"

All we can say to that is it must have been one good book! So what was it?

The Faber Book of English Verse by John Hayward (1958).

By RR with No comments

Intuition is a beautiful thing

Clairvoyant Paul Fenton-Smith's latest book Intuition arrived a few weeks ago, and I've just finished reading it from cover to cover. Wow!

Not only is the book possibly the most comprehensive psychical text I've ever read, it is one of the most beautiful. No small surprise perhaps when you consider that the artistic Cristina Re designed the book, which is richly illustrated with prints and photographs and other small motifs that make reading Intuition even more of a pleasure.

Intuition is all about developing your psychic senses, and the author leads the reader through the various methods and techniques he uses to hone that often underplayed sixth sense, your 'gut instinct'.

The author also devotes space to the topic of psychic self defence and outlines an interesting 'cord cutting' exercise and other psychic cleansing approaches to help sensitives dispense with metaphysical baggage.

The book is also full of case studies gathered from Paul Fenton-Smith's lengthy career as a clairvoyant and author, which is a key strength, and one of the things that makes it so hard to put down - that and the gorgeous layout!

Paul Fenton-Smith published the book under his Academy Publishing imprint (prior to Intuition he has published 10 self development books with mainstream publishers), deliberately setting the benchmark high with not only the quality of the writing but the overall excellence in the final product.

Intuition would make a beautiful, memorable gift, and I have already recommended it to several friends who I know would relish the read. Click on the link below to buy your copy.

By RR with No comments