Keep writing but get promoting!
It’s been a pretty busy few weeks in the Giddings household.
I’ve been working hard trying to finish the 1st draft of Urban Witch #2. I’d be nearly done by now if I could resist the urge to go back and tweak sections as details become clearer. As it is I’m about two thirds of the way through. I’m very happy with it, my only concern is in giving enough stage time to the villain. I’m finding the first person perspective kind of limiting in this regard. I have the villain fully fleshed out in my notes, it’s just hard for Bronte to interact with him without the prospect of him killing her. An interesting problem, shall we say.
We’ve just had delivery of the first run of Urban Witch 1#. Chris, my wife, is the brains of the operation and she has spent a good month comparing the quality of copies we received from CreateSpace in the US and FeedaRead in the UK. I was really keen to go with FeedaRead initially as its Arts Council funded and just getting going but in the end we plumped for CreateSpace. The finish is top quality, their delivery is second to none and they somehow work out a good deal cheaper than FeedaRead.
You’re never going to make your fortune through print copies – the profit margins are too low – but there is still something pretty humbling about handling a physical copy. It just has more heft to it.
The reason behind all this hard work is that I have a book talk coming up in my school library, March 3rd. They’re getting some authors in for Reading Week and, since Hilary, the school librarian, was kind enough to read the book she thought it might be fun if I went along. The idea is that the students can buy a physical copy or, if they prefer, an e-book. I don’t think the students would believe that I'd actually written a book if I didn’t have at least a few physical copies on hand.
In light of this, we’ve been working on two other ideas. Chris thought it might be nice if we gave all the students who attended the talk a free bookmark in order to make the event more memorable. To get these done professionally we’re talking about 60p each - which is going to mount up over time - so she’s now looking into how she might do this herself. Seems it’s all about the quality of the card.
In the meantime, Bethan, my youngest daughter, has been working on some A3 posters to publicise the event. I haven’t seen them yet but she’s really excited about how they've turned out.
Finally, we’ve been pushing out copies to various people in an attempt to generate more reviews. We’re specifically targeting GoodReads now and have set up a series of giveaways in the up-coming months with that in mind. GoodReads is awesome! I’ve been a member for years but it’s only recently that I’ve started to realise the breadth of its influence. No wonder so many authors are actively involved.
Okay, that’s all for now – hope that this has given you more of an insight into the weird world of self-publishing.
I’ve been working hard trying to finish the 1st draft of Urban Witch #2. I’d be nearly done by now if I could resist the urge to go back and tweak sections as details become clearer. As it is I’m about two thirds of the way through. I’m very happy with it, my only concern is in giving enough stage time to the villain. I’m finding the first person perspective kind of limiting in this regard. I have the villain fully fleshed out in my notes, it’s just hard for Bronte to interact with him without the prospect of him killing her. An interesting problem, shall we say.
We’ve just had delivery of the first run of Urban Witch 1#. Chris, my wife, is the brains of the operation and she has spent a good month comparing the quality of copies we received from CreateSpace in the US and FeedaRead in the UK. I was really keen to go with FeedaRead initially as its Arts Council funded and just getting going but in the end we plumped for CreateSpace. The finish is top quality, their delivery is second to none and they somehow work out a good deal cheaper than FeedaRead.
You’re never going to make your fortune through print copies – the profit margins are too low – but there is still something pretty humbling about handling a physical copy. It just has more heft to it.
The reason behind all this hard work is that I have a book talk coming up in my school library, March 3rd. They’re getting some authors in for Reading Week and, since Hilary, the school librarian, was kind enough to read the book she thought it might be fun if I went along. The idea is that the students can buy a physical copy or, if they prefer, an e-book. I don’t think the students would believe that I'd actually written a book if I didn’t have at least a few physical copies on hand.
In light of this, we’ve been working on two other ideas. Chris thought it might be nice if we gave all the students who attended the talk a free bookmark in order to make the event more memorable. To get these done professionally we’re talking about 60p each - which is going to mount up over time - so she’s now looking into how she might do this herself. Seems it’s all about the quality of the card.
In the meantime, Bethan, my youngest daughter, has been working on some A3 posters to publicise the event. I haven’t seen them yet but she’s really excited about how they've turned out.
Finally, we’ve been pushing out copies to various people in an attempt to generate more reviews. We’re specifically targeting GoodReads now and have set up a series of giveaways in the up-coming months with that in mind. GoodReads is awesome! I’ve been a member for years but it’s only recently that I’ve started to realise the breadth of its influence. No wonder so many authors are actively involved.
Okay, that’s all for now – hope that this has given you more of an insight into the weird world of self-publishing.
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