h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Okay, first to clarify something: I'm a self published author.

I made the decision when writing this book that I would publish it myself. Initially it was because I started it years and years ago, back when it was called Vanity Publishing. It was for books that didn't really have a chance of getting picked up by literary agents or publishers. Vanity publishing as it was wouldn't have been suitable, you ordered a few hundred copies of your book (minimum) and then had to hike around the shops trying to get people to stock them.
But over the years this has changed, a lot. You can now self-publish, using a company like Lulu who'll print the books on demand when they're ordered. This means no money up front. It also means not having to deal with agents.

I don't know why the thought of having to send out a manuscript to countless agents in the hope that one of them thinks it might be worth publishing, and then they try and sell it to the publishers in the hope that they think it might sell, scares me. I think it's because at each of those stages you're relying on someone else's idea of what might sell. Okay, these people may well be experts in their fields, but they're salesmen. They're out to fill the market with what the market is asking for, and it seems that most of the time if what you've written isn't the same old, same old, then they won't take the chance.

I can't help but think that with fewer and fewer publishing houses, and fewer and fewer outlets, we're now being told what we want to read, rather than us having the choice and telling the publishers what we want.

So I've kept an eye on Vanity Publishing over the years, as it's changed into self-publishing. And I think this is the way to go for first time authors. Even if you do get an agent, you've got to do most of the promotion yourself it seems, so why give them such a big cut?
I've priced my book at £7.95, and from each sale of that through the publisher (Lulu) I make £2.60, which is actually more than Lulu make. Shortly (once I've filled in some forms and sent them back) the book will become available through Amazon where for the same sale price I'll get 26 pence. A tenth of the amount. Amazon themselves will be getting almost £4. If I had to pay an agent a cut as well, I don't think I'd make anything unless they were *really* good and managed to sell a *lot* of books.

I'm not saying I won't get an agent if it looks like the first book is really popular, or that I won't be sending my manuscript around for the second book. But I'm not sure I see the benefit in one for a first time author anymore.


Having said that though, I also should make it clear that publishing a book is actually really hard. Writing a book is difficult, publishing it is really hard.

I'm very lucky in that my wife's a proof reader and editor. So I was able to hand her my first draft to go through. When she handed it back, I was almost embarrassed by the amount of annotations she'd added. I'd mispelled some words, used the wrong word quite a bit, I had quote marks the wrong way round, I'd even mixed up a character's name and started calling him Kev instead of Ken. My timelines were shot in places, maths didn't add up and scenes seemed to be missing. And what I'd done to the poor comma was unspeakable. It's taken about five months to go through different drafts of the book to get the final version ready to print.
I'm also lucky that I've had experience in typesetting and design, so I was able to use decent software and layout the book exactly how I wanted it, rather than using a publishing wizard. I was able to choose my font, type and size, and was able to design the front cover myself.
The front cover contains a photo of a badge I had in mind, so I also had to get the badges made up so I could take a photo of them to use.

When it was all ready, we ordered a couple of copies as bound proofs, basically a book ready to read. And then the process of proof reading and layout started again. The text was too close to the footer number, there was too much space at the top. The layout meant that in some places the page breaks didn't work as hoped, and there were a couple of orphan words we missed, sitting alone on pages.

Another bound proof, another final proof read, another round of tweaks, and then the book was ready to publish. Except it wasn't because it also needed an ISBN added to the back (along with a barcode) and to the copyright page. We did the last amends today, and the book is now published and ready for purchase.

Alongside writing and publishing the book, there's also the promotion side of things. I've created a website for it: http://www.nopandas.com which contains some short stories that give readers an idea what the book is like. I now need to update that to link through to the publisher so that people can also buy the book. There's a Twitter account that started well, but real life got in the way, and I need to get moving with again. And I've also registered with GoodReads, and tomorrow I'll be able to add the book there too.

So yes, writing a book is difficult, but publishing one is very hard. But it's worth it, because I'm now officially a published author. And, you can even buy it if you want: http://www.lulu.com/shop/stephen-dunkley/endangered-creatures/paperback/product-21308747.html

I'm *seriously* chuffed and excited about it!

I think seeing the ISBN for my book was the scariest part of it all

You've done it! Congratulations!!

Thank you!

Any sales yet?

I haven't ordered it yet, as I prefer to watch the movie first.

There have been some sales Not sure how many though as it's delayed.

But Icy, I can't sign a copy of the movie Actually, it would make a good movie, but I think it's a good enough book.

Well done!!


*hic*

Cheers

I'm currently going around the the interwebs removing "forthcoming" from any bio that mentions the book!

Will it be available as an e-book?

Congratulations

It will!

I'm currently sorting out the Kindle version, then will sort out other ebooks formats

Now I expect a 42-ism from the ISBN number

Congratulations!

The ISBN is: 9781291637359

Let's see what 42-ism's we can get

Which does all add up to 69

And 6 * 9 = 42. Result!

with all that.