Publish a Book 2008

"After years of receiving rejection letters in the mail, many New Zealand authors have given up on publishers and are doing it for themselves..."

Saw an interesting article regarding this in the Southland Times - Invercargill newspaper, this morning.
In the Inform Books, C7 section if anyone wants to look it up.

Got a plot and Title for Socnoc 2008.
"To Be Or Not To Be: That Is The Question."

Books are Humanity in Print!

Hm. There are so many ways to interpret that. Usually, there is a reason that writers receive rejection letters. Are they looking at publishers outside of New Zealand as an option? Anyway.

Great work on the Novella, gaye-belle. You're almost there. :)

No Excuses. Just Write.
SoCNoC - Freeing the Flame
Freeing the Flame - 30,065/40,000 words rewritten for May

Apparently according to the article they have tried both. Rejections could be down to presentation, there are always two sides to the story.
The problem with self-publishing, I feel is having to sell the books yourself.

Got a plot and Title for Socnoc 2008.
"To Be Or Not To Be: That Is The Question."

Books are Humanity in Print!

Yeah, that would be a problem for me - I wouldn't have the first idea how to sell my own books, and I think I would always be wondering whether it was good enough, polished enough (and how many spelling mistakes/errors I had missed, unless I'd payed for someone to go through it).
I love to write, and while I do want to get published I still think I'd prefer to go the traditional route because it would give me more time to write, rather than spending large amounts of time finding the best ways to market/sell my book in order to make much money out of it.
Mind you, who knows! That may change. If it was something I wanted to see in print but I was fairly sure that no one would publish I might give it a go.

http://vyanae.blogspot.com/

This woman used publishme.co.nz in new Plymouth, they do help with editing and format, then send you to the the step by step advice on sellmybook.co.nz.

I might look at putting 'Runty's Revenge,' the cat story of xengabs challenge, which also has the dog obtained from the SPCA in it. Create a small soft cover booklet, with their photos on the cover, and place them in the SPCA's shops for them to sell them. I take a small percentage for costs, they keep the rest, just to see if people buy them.
It would be a start anyway.

Got a plot and Title for Socnoc 2008.
"To Be Or Not To Be: That Is The Question."

Books are Humanity in Print!

gaye-belle, that sounds like a great idea. Other people (ahem, animals) get a little something for your hard work :-) good stuff and good luck - hope they sell well.

Andrew Chilton - http://kapiti.geek.nz/
SoCNoC 2008 - Unknown and Untitled

Over the summer I wrote a children's story which my dad is going to illustrate. Because publishers do not use illustrations you supply I fully intend to publish the book myself. I do not plan to sell my work, but rather give it to family and friends that will appreciate it. While I'd love to get it published 'properly' I'm aware that publishers like to use their own select artists for illustrations.

That will be a nice touch redfox with your Dad's input.
Did you see the film 'Miss Potter? The publishing company didn't like Beatrice Potters illustrations. It was only the belief of one of the young partners that could see some potential.

Got a plot and Title for Socnoc 2008.
"To Be Or Not To Be: That Is The Question."

Books are Humanity in Print!

Yeah, that movie was so moving and inspirational! I loved it. It would be cool if there was some young NZ partner that saw potential in all us 'Kiwi writers'. That would make the publish a book challenge a little easier, lol. I haven't signed up for the challenge yet, but I might after I see how my uni workload is this year. I have a really good (well, I think good) story straining to come out. Hopefully the year doesn't overwhelm me like last year and I'll have time to get it down, revised, revised, edited, proofed and sent off to a publisher before Dec. (It sounds like so much work when written like that :-/ )

It is a lot of work, but its do-able. Just have to put your mind to it - in saying that though I found it really hard to stay focused on writing with a lot of study going on, but am finished with that now so have a little more time.
Even though getting something published might be a goal of yours sometimes you have to admit that there are other goals which need to come ahead of that (like passing your papers hehe). So if you start, but don't finish - don't beat yourself up over it at all :-) the story will always be there to come back to right?

http://vyanae.blogspot.com/

That's very true cassie, passing papers is definately a priority. I love the way you always have words of reassurance and encouragement. Thanks heaps :-)

Yep cassie has been through it all. I know I didn't have a lot of time or energy while full time studying the year before last. Up late doing assignments, learning lines for performances.
Remember redfox, goals come in three, short term, mid term and long term, so take each to what suits best. :)

Got a plot and Title for Socnoc 2008.
"To Be Or Not To Be: That Is The Question."

Books are Humanity in Print!

Just to add to this discussion (I remember the article!), a lot of small presses in the US (including one of my publishers) use Lulu (www.lulu.com or www.lulu.co.uk). It's basically POD, so you upload print-ready files into their database and your book toodles out the other side.

I haven't tried using their US site but have used the UK one for a couple of long novels I wanted to print out and edit on paper. It was cheaper and less hassle to have the book made than it was to send 300 pages of A4 through my printer!

The cover and paper quality is good and of a decent weight (comparable to a mainstream paperback). If you're running off a few copies for yourself, you only have to pay the basic costs and shipping. You can sell your book on Lulu itself (and you can set the price), and Lulu will take a % of that for selling through their store.

The big news recently was that Barnes & Noble were going to start putting Lulu POD machines in their stores, so technically you can order whatever book you like in-store and it'll print out for you there and then.

Until a month or so ago, Lulu and other POD books could be sold on Amazon. They've decided to stop that, as they want people to use their own POD publisher, Booksurge. Anything published through Booksurge gets listed on Amazon. I don't have any experience with them personally but I read that Booksurge books aren't as good quality as Lulu books.

Lulu has editing/proofing assistance, although again I have no experience of it so don't know how good the service is.

I know a number of people who choose to self-publish, mainly because they write for a very specific niche market. They do have their work professionally edited, have a graphic artist do their cover etc, and a couple of them have turned a profit or come to the attention of publishing houses that way.

I haven't directly sold anything via POD myself (although I have via my publisher) but I certainly haven't ruled it out for the future for super-niche projects.

POD isn't for everyone but if you want to try something really niche or do as gaye-belle suggested, make a little book for charity, POD is ideal.

An informative blog about POD (including reviews of POD books) can be found here: http://podpeep.blogspot.com/

http://blog.yam.com/venomouswest

Thanks autiotalo. Very informative and a great resource.

No Excuses. Just Write.
SoCNoC - Freeing the Flame
Freeing the Flame - 30,065/40,000 words rewritten for May