Enterprising Writers - Caro Fraser turns to self-publishing

This is part of my series on Enterprising Writers, where self-published or other entrepreneurial writers can share their stories and tips.

Caro Fraser is the bestselling author of the Caper Court series, who guestblogged here on Fusion View last year about her novel A World Apart. She has since been writing her new novel, A Breath of Corruption, which she will be self-publishing later this year. She writes here for the first time about why she has chosen to go down the self-publishing route after a successful career along the traditional publishing path.

Caro writes:

As an established author with twelve novels under my belt, I never thought I’d find myself going down the self-publishing road. But two years ago I had a bad experience with a major publisher, involving distribution problems and a resulting fall in sales, and it was proving hard to find a publisher for my new novel, Breath Of Corruption the seventh in the Caper Court series of legal novels. The previous books had all sold well, and since I knew from the huge number of contacts from my website that there was a market for it, self-publishing seemed like the logical route to take. On looking into it, I discovered that at the more expensive end of the self-publishing market, the bulk of the work is done for you, while the cheaper options tend to be more time-consuming. I needed something which left me free to write, so, on a recommendation, I opted for Troubadour Publishing.

For a set fee in the region of £2,500, Troubadour offer a full publishing service, covering typesetting, cover design, author proofs, ISBN registration, and inclusion on Amazon and W H Smith Internet Bookshop. The rate varies depending on the number of copies you decide to have printed, but I worked out that unless I went for the top print-run of 2,000 copies, I would hardly break even. Besides, I’m not looking at selling all those copies straight away. As for storage of all those books, Troubadour charge a monthly fee of £20 for bulk storage of over 500 copies.

On top of that, Troubadour offer a marketing package (£350) which covers an initial marketing campaign, sending out review copies, arranging media coverage and distribution via agents. They’ve also given me my own web page to publicise the book, which links to my website.

Because the novel is part of a series, I wanted to maintain a certain image, so I commissioned a designer, Helen Chapman, who had worked on previous jackets in the series to design the cover. That cost £800 – money well spent, as far as I was concerned, as her work is wonderful, and gives just the right tone and feel to the book.

The overall cost may seem like a lot (I saved £260 reading my own proofs!) but as an author with a track record, it’s important that my end product should be of a high quality. I need to get the book into bookshops, after all, so it has to be of a standard consistent with my previously published novels produced by the big publishing houses.

So far, the corrected proofs are with Troubadour, as is the finished artwork for the jacket, and publication is set for some time this autumn.

I’d like to think there’s a chance that sales will take off, and that I can show the world it can be done without the backing of a big publishing house but, as I said, the chances are that I may not break even on this venture. So why am I doing it? Well, because the book is there, and because there’s a market for it, and whatever else we writers are in this game for, it’s to be read. The feedback I get from my readers when they know there’s a new Caper Court novel in the offing makes it doubly worthwhile.

It’s also been an interesting and productive experience so far. Being with a big publishing house, one is cushioned against the hard realities of actually publicising and selling one’s work. I used to complete a novel, send it off to my agent, who then sent it off to my editor, and I’d more or less forget about it till publication. Self-publishing means having to do a lot more work – getting out there, speaking to bookshops to persuade them to stock the book, and generally self-promoting myself in a way I’d never have dreamed of five years ago. I think that’s a healthy thing. I’m even starting my own blog on my website in a few weeks, as a way of keeping in contact with my readership, letting them know about my new work and other ventures. So for me, self-publishing has extended the creative process, brought me closer to the realities of marketing my work, and it also means I’m engaging with my readership in a closer and much more satisfying way. What it means in terms of sales and maintaining my profile, I’ve yet to discover.

I you want to follow my fortunes, and find out how it all goes once the book is published this autumn, you can go to my website www.caro-fraser.com . Once the blog is up and running in two or three weeks’ time, I’d welcome feedback from readers and other writers.