My article “The Writer as Entreprenuer” is published this month by Mslexia, the UK literary journal for women writers. Researching the article, I interviewed three self-published authors, Preethi Nair, Mark Blayney and Julie Noble as well as former Managing Buyer at Waterstone’s, the UK book chain, now Commercial Director of The Friday Project, the UK publisher of books derived from blogs. They shared with me masses of invaluable information about the process of self-publishing as well generously telling me their personal stories.
With the agreement of Mslexia and my interviewees, I am posting onto Fusion View my research for the article.
I’m posting today my email interview with Mark Blayney, author of Two Kinds of Silence
The other resources relating to my article for Mslexia are posted as follows:
Tue 10 July - Interview with Julie Noble, author of Talli’s Secret.
Yesterday, Wed 11 July - Interview with Scott Pack, book publishing insider
Fri 13 July - Podcast of my telephone interview with Preethi Nair, author of Gypsy Masala
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# Why did you self-publish?
Like most people considering self-publishing, I’d been submitting manuscripts for years to publishers and agents. I got the occasional encouraging letter, but mostly just the standard rejection slips. I initially thought, if I can produce a book, it would show some entrepreneurial spirit and might distinguish me from the slush pile the next time I submitted something.
# How did you go about self-publishing your novel? Did you use print on demand? If not, where did you store all the stock?
I used a ‘real’ printer – Cromwell Press in Trowbridge, who were very amenable to my modest little project! They didn’t mind the small print run; they were very friendly. I stored the stock in my mum’s garage – she raised an eyebrow to begin with, but 1,000 books in shrinkwrap doesn’t actually take up that much room. Well that’s what I told her anyway, and it’s too late when the truck turns up!
# How much did you spend? (If you are prepared to say…)
It cost me £3,000 for both books. But I took my own cover photos, a friend helped me with the design (a nightmare, really, getting the cover printer-ready) and I typeset it myself. If I had got someone else to design and typeset it, that cost would probably have at least doubled. It helps to have a reasonably short book – the price from the printer goes up noticeably for each 32 pages. I originally meant to publish the second book a year after the first, but there was a discount from the printer for running them together.
# How did you get the book into bookshops? (I’m particularly interested in this bit as it seems to require strong sales skills, persistence and stamina/ resilience that many writers would shy away from)
It was daunting and I didn’t enjoy it. Put a suit on, pretend you’re someone else, and try to be confident and polite at the same time. Local bookshops are very encouraging if you’re friendly and not too pushy – start with them, in an every increasing circle from your home! Trying to get into Waterstones or WHSmiths – I would say don’t even bother (but I’d be willing for someone to contradict me). Ottakars was the only chain who were positive towards me, and we know what’s happened to them. Independent bookshops will champion you as well, because they’re always looking for some competitive advantage over the chains - as long as they’re convinced the books will actually sell.
# What marketing did you do?
I made up some publicity materials – A3 sized boards with a large image of the cover, ‘Local author’ along the top and my endorsements from Beryl Bainbridge and John Bayley along the bottom. Don’t think that the bookshops ‘won’t want that kind of thing,’ because they were pleased I’d done it – it meant they put the stock in the windows, which helped me sell quite a few. If you add value to the bookshop by doing some of their work for them, they’ll be more positive towards you.
I made my own leaflets with ordering details on them – reasonably primitive, but they looked ok. You could pay someone to do that if you had a spare £100. (Looking back, the swearing I did at my printer would probably have been worth the investment. It took forever getting it right, so that you could fold the piece of paper into 3!)
Viral marketing is probably your best asset. People you speak to on the bus, in the lunch queue, in the pub, at a wedding… Most people prick their ears up with interest when you say you’re a writer, because they think it’s glamorous. Most people who showed an interest, bought the book.
I’m ashamed to admit I never got round to setting up a web site. I think that’s the obvious thing that will help these days.
# Do you have a background in business? What is your day job?
I was editing marketing papers, and when the company toyed with the idea of publishing books, I jumped at it. It gave me the contacts and the experience. If you are serious about publishing your own book, you could do a lot worse than getting a job with a publisher – it’ll show you what’s involved, how to plan the process (allow twice as long for each stage as you’d expect!) and what *not* to do. These days I’m a business writer (as Mark Stuart, because there’s another Mark Blayney who writes business books).
# What qualities and skills do you think a writer needs to have to become their own publisher, publicist, sales rep and distributor?
You need to be much more pushy, charming, energetic, thick-skinned and confident than I am. That’s the paradox – if we had all those skills we probably wouldn’t be writers, we’d be successful estate agents driving BMWs. But they’re not the qualities or values I suspect most of your readers will share. So… if you are going to self-publish… you have to pretend for a while. Energy is the key, and a willingness to take the knock-backs without being disheartened.
# How did “Two Kinds of Silence” come to the attention of the Somerset Maugham Award judges?
Pure cheek. I submitted it to them. As the publisher I was ‘Mark Stuart,’ publishing a book by ‘Mark Blayney’. So the answer is… fraud. When I was awarded the prize I panicked. What if there’s a rule that says you can’t be the publisher and the author? Fortunately they awarded it on merit – it was brave of them, really, to stick their necks out for an unheard-of writer and what was, frankly, a made-up publisher. It surprised me at the time and it still surprises me now. I’d like to meet the judges, I owe them a few pints.
# What returns did you make on your investment (financial or otherwise)?
I made a good profit on ‘Two Kinds of Silence’, but only because of the interest generated by the prize. ‘Conversations with Magic Stones’, after three years, I’ve broken even. I didn’t do it to make money, I saw it as a way of trying to lift the next book from proper publishers’ slush-pile; and as a satisfying thing to do; the books are on the shelf, and they look the way I want them to look.
# What have you been writing since “Two Kinds of Silence”? Are they being published in the “conventional” way ie by a “conventional” publisher?
I’ve finished a novel, ‘Carnival of Humans’. It’s set over a week in Budapest and is about characters’ pasts coming back to haunt them in different ways. There’s also a very unusual magic realism ending featuring an unexpected aggressor invading the city. Unfortunately I’ve been through three different agents in the last year, gone with the advice they’ve given me, and nothing has come of it. I’m about to agent it myself and see what happens. I’ll be content to self-publish again one day if no one’s interested.
# Do you see a trend towards self-publishing?
Yes, in that publishers are reducing their output, particularly of fiction and especially of new authors. And technology is making it easier not only to publish a book, but distribute it as well – the internet can bypass bookshops. When the technology advances to the point where people can make professional-looking books at home and sell them online, publishers might have a fight on their hands. On the other hand – Amazon make it very difficult for small publishers to make money, and Amazon is the only really viable non-bookshop channel to get decent sales from, unless you viral market your own web site successfully enough. That’s possible given enough time. But self-publishing will never really give Penguin and Faber a run for their money because customers will continue to value the brand of the traditional publisher. Rightly so, because whereas there are some gems being self-published, there’s also a lot of rubbish. The established publisher will always be the customer’s seal of quality.
# What would you say to those who still have a snobbery around self-publishing - ie who mistake it for vanity publishing?
The proof is in the eating. ‘There are good books and there are bad books – that is all.’ It doesn’t matter, in the final analysis, who they’re published by. All you’re lacking is the back-up of a third party; but then, ‘real’ publishers pour out an awful lot of rubbish as well. People who look down on self-publishing are confusing ‘quality’ with ‘commercial viability’. But it also helps to make it look professional - if it’s stapled together and looks ‘hand-made’, that inevitably reduces the customer’s perception of its quality, however good the content.
# What is your advice to writers who may be thinking of self-publishing?
I would exhaust the regular channels first. But if you really think your book is good, and publishers are still saying no, then go for it. Have a sensible print run – I did 500 of each book, and that was more than enough. Be prepared to do lots of marketing and running around, and don’t be disheartened by the negative voices. And make sure you have a regular job on the side!
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Further resources
Mark doesn’t currently have a website yet - though it will be ready in early August (www.markblayney.com). You can find out more via the Guardian article about Mark winning the Somerset Maugham prize
Mslexia
Photo: thanks to the guardianunlimited.co.uk
