GOING IT ALONE - THE JOYS OF SELF-PUBLISHING
Nicky Pellegrino in the Herald on Sunday, January 10, 2010

The slush pile is the place manuscripts go to die. It’s the heart-sinking term for that big stack of writing by every publisher’s desk that’s destined never to make it into print. Or is it? Increasingly would-be authors are taking matters into their own hands. Instead of being discouraged by rejection slips from agents and publishers they’re choosing to bring out their own books And, while self-publishing is far from an easy option, it’s cheaper and more accessible today than it’s ever been.

Aucklander Thea Hughes wanted her first novel Buen Camino: Beyond The Journey to reach as wide an audience as possible. It’s the story of a woman called Ana, rejected by her mother and sexually abused by her father, who goes on a spiritual journey, walking Spain’s 780 kilometre el Camino Trail.

“I used to work with children who had been sexually abused,” explains Hughes. “And wrote the book to give inspiration to women, to help them understand they can move forward despite what’s happened.”

Even though her novel won first prize in an American competition for unpublished material, Hughes still couldn’t find a publisher.

“I went through the process of sending away chapters to publishers and agents and got all these rejection slips which was difficult and demoralising.”

Eventually she did manage to interest a US agent who assessed her manuscript and sent it to a publisher, Eloquent Books, interested in entering into a joint venture. So Hughes paid $700 towards costs and they looked after the practical stuff like the editing, design, ISBN number and barcode. Plus they sold the novel in an online store and printed it on demand.

“The problem is unless you have a proper marketing campaign behind you, the book just sits there,” says Hughes. “I think in 18 months I sold about 20 copies.”

That’s when Hughes decided to try self-publishing. She found a printer in Hong Kong whose work she liked and paid $3,000 to have 1,500 books printed. “I’ve had them shipped here and now I have all these boxes in the garage.’ she says.

As Hughes has discovered, getting a book printed is barely even half the battle. Marketing and selling is where the real work begins. It’s difficult to get the big chain stores to stock self-published books as they tend to do all their ordering through head office in Australia. The independent bookshops are more approachable and Hughes has been helped by a very favourable review in Canvas magazine recently.

“It’s been a difficult path to go down,” she agrees, “But I don’t regret it. I’ve learned a lot and had great feedback from people who’ve read the book.”

There are some huge self-publishing success stories out there, particularly in the children’s book genre. Hawkes Bay grandmother Gill Pittar is a famous example. Formerly farmers, she and her husband began producing books, based on a doll Pittar was making and selling, back in the late 90s. They’ve now published over 50 Milly Molly picture books from their base in Gisborne, selling millions of copies and spreading their wholesome message of tolerance and harmony around the world.

Auckland psychologist Dr Shara Ray found inspiration in that success. Since she was 18 Ray has yearned to be a writer and last year she self-published her first

children’s picture book Stand Tall Like A Mountain complete with illustrations by a member of her family.

“The book is designed to provide creative solutions for kids to help them deal with low self-confidence,” she explains.

Aimed at children aged three to seven, Ray’s story stars a feisty mouse that presents what she describes as “a toolbox of creative strategies and coping skills”. While she did try a few mainstream

publishers, she always considered self-publishing a viable option and spent a lot of time researching how best to do it.

“I read books and manuals, went to a workshop and met other self-published authors,” explains Ray who found the Storylines Festival of New Zealand Children’s Writers and Illustrators a particularly useful place to make good contacts.

Eventually Ray set up a company, Rainbow Gifts Press, plus her own website. Currently she’s busy marketing her book and says it’s been selling well. “One shop in the Coromandel said they’d sold 12 copies in two days and libraries have taken lots so it’s not just

sitting in the garage.”

There are plans to release two more children’s stories this year and Ray hopes to explore markets beyond New Zealand, possibly even have a presence at the big European children’s book fairs.

“One of the reasons I ended up self-publishing was the creative freedom it gave me,” she says. “That’s one of its delights. If you have an idea you can run with it and there are no limits put on you by someone else.”

To begin with Ray was very focussed on the end result, having a finished book in her hands, but now realises self-publishing is an ongoing process and the important thing is to learn from setbacks and disappointments and try to enjoy the experience.

“I call it riding the wave and holding the surf board,” she says. “And I’ve ne

ver looked back. I consider publishing this book one of the five best things I’ve done in my life.”

Very occasionally a self-published book goes on to be picked up by

mainstream publishers and, when that happens, it can be a bit of a wake-up call for the author as Bulls GP Dr Dave Baldwin has discovered. His non-fiction book Healthy Bastards was published this year by Random House but started out in far rougher form being sold through his medical practice and website.

Originally Baldwin’s motivation was to get a few simple health messages across to a section of the population he meets every day through his GP work. “I’d spent 20 years dealing with really unhealthy bastards and seeing them dying early,” he explains. “It’s the most gut-wrenching thing being in the morgue and signing off people you’ve spent a decade telling to lose weight and stop smoking.”

As well as his general practice, Baldwin runs a Flying Doctor business providing aviation medicine to pilots and, when he was asked by Pacific Wings Magazine to write a series of columns about health, he hit on an idea.

“Right from the beginning I wrote each one as if it was the chapter of a book,” he explains. “After two and a half years worth of columns I had my masterpiece.”

Baldwin got his Mum to do the copy-editing for him although he says it took her six months to even pick up the manuscript because she hated the title so much. He then sent off copies to a number of publishers.

“My real concern was that there would be blood on the floor with them all fighting for my manuscript,” he laughs. “I was so stupid. They all said no.”

That’s when Baldwin decided to go it alone. A mate put him on to a printer and he paid them to produce the book the way he wanted it. “I was very naïve,” he says now. “I didn’t even know what an ISBN number was.”

Every last copy sold and, while Baldwin had made a negligible amount of money, he was convinced he had a winner on his hands. The book’s Kiwi bloke tone set it apart from other health manuals and he’d noticed how lots of women had bought it for their husbands. “So my next mission became getting a respected publisher involved,” he says.

What convinced Random House to take on the title were the huge crowds Baldwin was pulling in for the very funny talks on men’s health he gives all over the country. They could see there was a ready market for a book like Healthy Bastards.

Even once he had his publishing deal, Baldwin discovered things weren’t going to be as easy as he’d imagined.

“I was a novice going in to a very tough profession,” he explains. “The publisher’s perception of what the finished book would be was very different from mine. They didn’t want the word ‘bastards’ in the title for a start. To me that was paramount, it was part of the real Kiwi bloke, Barry Crump tradition.”

Baldwin rewrote the book over a couple of weeks and did some negotiating. “They were very patient with me,” he says. “There were lots of things I didn’t know about, like using bullet points for instance. The copies I did by myself were driven by passion and to hell with the world. When you work with a big publisher you’re a cog in the machine and you have to understand that.”

Currently Baldwin is in talks with a TV production company interested in basing a series on Healthy Bastards and he’s hoping the book will jump the Tasman and be distributed in Australia.

He’d like to write another book, this one aimed at older people. “The elderly can be so preyed on these days,” he says. “I work at the coalface and see some terrible things. A book to help protect those people would be quite cool.”

So self-publishing or mainstream? Baldwin has no doubt which turned out to be the better option for him.

“When I look back now my self-published book was neat to have done but it was an amateurish, rushed job,” he says. “Still it got me going and gave me confidence. And most importantly I had my marketing test case.”

To buy:

Buen Camino: Beyond the Journey by Thea Hughes is available from scintillabooksales@gmail.com

Stand Tall Like A Mountain by Dr Shara Ray is available from selected bookstores or e-mail info@rainbowgiftspress.com

Healthy Bastards by Dr Dave Baldwin is widely available in bookstores or from his website www.flyingdoctor.co.nz

Self-publishing advice

*Self-published non-fiction books aimed at a specific market are the most likely to succeed commercially. Children’s books can work. Adult fiction is the trickiest – even mainstream publishers tend to make smaller profits with that.

*Print-on-demand means you can produce a small run of books, making self-publishing ideal for anyone who wants to print up copies of their family history, life story, grandmother’s recipes etc to give as gifts to family members. Publishing books doesn’t have to be a business after all. It can also be a way to record family memories and ensure they’re passed on to future generations.

*There are loads of books out there on self-publishing. Dr Shara Ray says the one she found most helpful was The Complete Guide to Self Publishing by Tom and Marilyn Ross. This is available from amazon.com

*The Internet is a source of help and information for the self-publisher. Possibly the most useful site is www.publishme.co.nz where you’ll find free advice on writing and publishing books plus you can buy practical help with design and printing. At www.copypress.co.nz they will organise the design and print of your book. And at www.printabook.co.nz you can get a minimum of 20 books printed from ready files like pdf. There’s also a US site worth checking out, www.lulu.com which provides the tools and services to publish your book plus market and distribute it.

*If you just want to get your novel out there and read then check out www.authonomy.com a community website conceived by publishers HarperCollins where authors can upload chapters of their work and have it read and commented on by anyone who logs in to the site.

Footnote:
Nicky Pellegrino, in addition to being a succcesful author of popular fiction, (her latest The Italian Wedding was published in May 2009 while her next, Recipe for Life is due from Orion in April), is also the Books Editor of the Herald on Sunday where the above review was first published on January 10.