Those of you who follow me on FB, Twitter and Wattpad etc will know that I am in the process of editing KISMET ready for publishing.
Having received several publishing offers for KISMET I decided to go down the Self Publishing route as I didn't feel that the offers were of a high enough standard. Plus they were unable to offer me anything I am not already doing for myself.
I have been asked to share an offer so people can gauge what 'an offer' looks like and why I refused. * Please note this is not the worst offer I have received but it is a good example of what I look for and the reason for turning down the offer. At this point I had already asked this publisher what they could offer me that I can't do for myself via Create a Space etc.... this was their reply.
An offer:
(publisher name removed) is a rapidly growing full fledged publishers of ebooks. We concentrate on publishing the best of the books and the most popular that we find across the Internet. You can indeed choose to publish by yourself via CreateSpace or one of the other publishing services, but we bring a lot to the table. When you sign with us, we bring a team of professionals who have experience creating and marketing paperback and ebooks. You are no longer working alone to achieve success. Every book we publish receives the following, free of charge (we do not charge authors for any publishing services).
- Professional cover and interior design
- Full book editing
- Marketing support before and after launch.
Full book editing:
I am more than capable of editing my own work and have loyal fans who check it for typos whilst getting a sneak peak. Plus the publishers site was only a free web template they were populating and was littered in typos and poor formatting so my faith in their eagle eye was shattered. The last thing I want is to publish a book, charge the reader and find out it has typos... I know loads do e.g. Harry Potter but I want to be as perfect, professional and polished as possible.Professional Cover and Interior Design:
I design my own cover art, not the best but compared to what was on their site... god it was appalling and made me feel sorry for the authors to have such amateur cover art on their work. It was never going to jump off the shelf at a reader screaming 'read me', instead it would make them grimace and reach for their sunglasses as they were either very garish or bland. Plus as previously mentioned the site was poorly formatted so 'interior design' and attention to detail was not their strong point.
Marketing and Support before and after the launch:
I'd never heard of the books or authors on their sites so that goes to show how well their marketing and promotion techniques fair. I researched the authors and was still none the wiser. They later offered to help me get into the Amazon book charts and reviewed on Goodreads etc. I can get myself on to Amazon at the click of a button and I am already on Goodreads.On-line Popularity:
They pointed out that they were making the offer based on my on-line popularity and had stated in the initial email that I had received over a million reads on-line and had a loyal fan base. Yes, that is my hard work for the past three years so why should I let you jump on the band wagon? If I had a £1 for each of those reads I wouldn't be eating beans on toast for dinner again and panicking about where the money is going to come from to pay the rent next month... so I will publish myself :O)Free service:
Some publishers seemed to think that their biggest selling point is that they were not going to charge for their services. Now remember nothing comes for free! You are signing a contract to give them 50-50 on all sales etc. They are getting half of what you earn!Research:
Check out every offer. Not only their history or success as a publisher (as highlighted above) but include their financial history. You can check that out through Companies House etc. You will soon discover if they have owned several other companies, declared themselves bankrupt, bad debter or if they have just failed to do their returns.Publisher in your own Country:
It is often advised that you should sign with a publisher in your own country. However, reading is worldwide, the internet is possibly beaming your books to aliens ;o) and whilst it is ideal to have someone close I don't think it is a deal breaker. I know a few writing friends who have signed outside of their country and it hasn't been a problem as they use email, skype etc to hold any meetings.
Sending them the full draft novel:
They asked me to send them the latest draft of KISMET for them to review. My work is on-line and they are apparently expressing an offer of interest based on that. I would have assume they had read it. (Nope they just looked at the popularity and made the offer). They now want me to email them a copy so basically they have a word document they can do with as they please... I'll let another author tell you the response to this offer!
My choice to self publish:
Having had far too many of these offers in my email box, and fans wanting to own a copy of KISMET, I decided to ask writing buddies if I should take the plunge and self publish. Here is one reply which also has some advice for anyone else looking into it.
so I decided to take a month out and just edit.
Editing:
I lasted two weeks out of the month before my eyeballs went on strike and document blindness became a disability. I took a few days off and came back fresh. I'm still not as far ahead as I hoped to be as I find myself wanting to rewrite large sections. Adding flesh to the bones is a task that can sometimes take 3 days for one chapter. What I decided to do was ask fans to fill out a questionnaire and give feedback which they have embraced and in the meantime I am still editing but will use this feedback to review the book before I hit publish on Amazon.
Fan Questionnaire:
2. What was your experience?
3. Are there any scenes you would like embellished?
4. Any back story you would like filled for the publication?
5. Favourite character/s?
6. Favourite scene/s?
7. Favourite quote/s?
8. Most shocking moment/s?
9. Cutest moment/s?
10. Sexiest moment/s?
11. Anything else about this story you would like other readers to know about?
12. How many stars would you give it out of 5 in a book review and why?
Write a recommendation:
I will be using the recommendation later for something very cool. I am also posting their replies on Wattpad and dedicating it to them so it appears on their profile. As such there other sections of the questionnaire which asks 'about you', if they a writer (they can share their links), a reader (who are their favourites), how did they discover Wattpad (how do they find the service) and what they enjoy about my reading etc. It is a very cute project which allows me to 'give back' to fans before I remove my work due to publication. They have been absolutely 'Fan'tastic in the past few years and are looking forward to owning this novel so I best get back to it!
How to become a publisher:
All you need to do to become a publisher is chose a name, open up a business account at the bank and register as a limited company. It is very simple. That is what I suspect a large number of new publishers have be doing. They then scour on-line for fresh talent and offer to publish them which means they put their work on Amazon or Smashwords but obtain 50% of their profit etc.
I've set up my own company called MLC Publishing... I checked it out via Companies House and it was available. I designed my own logo in two minutes flat and set up a bank account ready for publishing KISMET. Job done. Time taken one day. Cost £20.
So lets see how I get on from here! Eeeeek it's getting nearer to being a reality.
I will say one thing though editing is slimming I've lost 9lb in two weeks. (Not that you can tell but hey!)
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