This weekend I was fortunate enough to attend the Self-Publishing Summit at King’s College in London. The summit was organised by New Generation Publishing and about 30-40 writers attended. I was looking forward to learning new stuff, meeting writers who are ahead of me and feeling inspired.
The two people I was really looking forward to listening to were Joanna Penn and Ben Galley. Joanna’s site and podcast has been enormously helpful to me along my journey (you can look at it here) and also I continually hear of Ben’s name popping up with certain projects he’s experimenting with. The two of them, I suppose, are very much in the category of pioneers in the self-publishing environment.
Unfortunately, Joanna dropped out a few weeks before it went ahead. By listening to her regular podcast, I’m aware that she struggles with too much public speaking because of the energy it drains from her. She has other commitments in her schedule and this was de-prioritised. This is fair enough and I completely understand, however, half of the reason I was looking forward to the summit disappeared.
Ben Galley was great and mentioned a lot of topical advice, but he was steered by the tone of the conference and the organisers. New Generation Publishing are a company who will self-publish for you. I don’t know what the term is for this type of company, pseudo-self-publishing or something? Anyway, for a fee, they will publish your book for you. They seem like good guys who enable the author to pick and choose individual services, they don’t tie you in to long-term contracts, but they do take a percentage of your royalties and charge you upfront as well.
I know I listen to self-publishing podcasts every day, I am completely consumed by other writers discussing the latest news, tips, techniques and developments, and so I suppose I’m a tough crowd to please. I didn’t know what else I was going to hear for the first time but I was hoping that something might pop out.
Instead, the summit was aimed at writers who were currently unpublished by any means; writers with a book in them or those disillusioned with the rejection carousel. The topics and subsequent questions were aimed at the fundamentals of whether a writer should still decide to self-publish in the first place. I wrote a blog post way back in October 2012 suggesting that this dilemma was surely over already.
Light bulbs began to switch on…
The summit ended up by giving me more than I could’ve ever imagined. Along my own personal journey, my quest to become a better writer, to learn as much as possible about self-publishing, to give myself the best possible chance of success, I have become an expert in this stuff. However, without this external benchmark, I assumed that I was still struggling to grasp the ropes.
Without being big-headed at all, I feel as though I could’ve helped every single one of those writers who wanted to know more about self-publishing. I’m surprised at how passionate I am about writers seizing the opportunities which are in their laps these days. I want to help people to put the ‘Self ‘ back into self-publishing.
Why pay someone else double the amount to achieve the same result that you could do yourself. Why assume that a cover will cost x amount because someone else tells you? Why not just go straight to the cover designer and get it yourself?
The more that authors try to pretend that they’re traditionally published, the more opportunities they turn their backs on. Who cares right now if you get your paperback into a bookshop? How much of a royalty are you going to make from that one shop? How much effort are you going to spend on first of all, convincing that bookshop to sell it, and then marketing the awareness that it’s in that bookshop? You might sell a few books because of it. After mark-ups, you might make £5 profit. That’s not even the petrol money to drop the books off in the first place. Writers need to look to the future and if they do, then they’ll see a whole new world of possibility.
From this point on, I am offering my services as a self-publishing consultant, one-to-one sessions for whoever wants to join in whilst still keeping 100% control over their work. Be professional, be a business person, be a writer, be successful and do it all on your own.
Get “The Beginner’s Guide to Self-Publishing a Book – A Step-by-Step Manual” and if you need more help, get in touch.
