Can I start with a huge apology? For two and a half years now, I've been blogging for Writers' and Artists'. I've given out a wealth of advice, most of it practical, about how to write. To be fair to myself, I've always admitted I was firmly in the editor camp, I didn't pretend I had a masterpiece bubbling away all this time, and it's become abundantly clear that there are some very very good reasons for that.I rashly decided that as e-books are here to stay, and that as publishing your own e-book is supposed to be easy - I'd give it a go. The idea was that I would be able to give better advice to those authors who decide to go down that route.
I figured I'd write a 'how-to' book on throwing children's parties (I've done 16 so far), a topic I know a lot about and I enjoy. The mistake was - inspired by NaNoWriMo - to declare on my blog that I would get it up there by 1st November.
In the space of the last two weeks, I've been hit by all the problems I casually describe and prescribe against for other writers. I have procrastinated. I have worried about the whole book before getting so much as a word down. I have got caught up about the title, again without a single word hitting paper. Life has got in the way. My inner critic has got in the way. My fear of technology has got in the way.
The only useful thing I've ever written is to try writing somewhere different. A coffee shop really has made the difference for me. I'm up to two paragraphs of the introduction...
Anyway - the purpose of this post is to talk about NaNoWriMo - the challenge to write 60,000 words in a month. Have you tried it before? Will you be trying it this year? Let us know your thoughts. I'm sure you'll do better than I am!
Cressida
(Editorial Consultant)
Jacq on October 17, 2011
I'm so disappointed. I have a 10 year old's party to hold in December and i was hoping your book would be out in time...
BTW, how many words is 'two paragraphs of the introduction'?
Cressida Downing on October 17, 2011
I think my word count is currently around the 200 mark. I'm still hoping to hit my deadline though..
1Phil Parker on October 18, 2011
I think there are a couple of aspects to e-books, the writing and the publishing. I'm happy I can write, but wanted to try out the publishing end recently in case there was anything I needed to be aware of before starting on the magnum opus.
There was. Publishing via Lulu.com, I first tired firing stuff straight from Open Office, the result was aseveral books with tiny text as I couldn't persaude something that the page size was A5. Still can't work out where that went wrong either !
Attempt 2 used some old articles I written for newsletters. This was assembled into pages on an old DTP program. The result was a lot better. I even managed to incorporate pictures into the text and then export the lot to PDF to upload to the site. The results were a lot nicer and I've even flogged 20 copies (Dan Brown must be worried).
With this in mind, I took a short story we had written as an accompanyment to our novel and did the same thing. The results are available free from the website www.nolanparker.co.uk or at cost in printed form from Lulu. It's been converted to eBook format as well as PDF.
What have I learned ?
That publishing is harder than I thought but not impossible. I'd recomend that you dip a toe in the water with a short piece first. For books, persuade the WP that the page size is whatever you are going to publish in so the text is printed readably. There are strict formatting rules for eBooks so read these first and make sure your text complies as you write it.
Perhaps I should NaNoWriMo a book on the subject !
Julie Butler on November 21, 2011
oh no, I decided to try the 60,000 words a month and it's harder than you think! I managed thirty before deciding this was the novel I have always wanted to publish, so begun to research like a demon. Six months on I have begun procrastinating and reading articles on e-books, which is my north star for the previously "will I ever get there brigade." So, good luck with that and try not to get sidetracked- says the girl with a towel on her head who was meant to do her weekly shop two hours ago!!
Sat Sandhu on December 1, 2011
lol - welcome to my world. The (quiet) coffee shop is a god-send....and I think procrastination is every writer's middle-name! I write fantasy fiction - so imagine the amount of procrastination I do when deciding on character and geographical names.
1I have self-published (paper and e-book editions via Amazon) - with limited success (about 300 or so Kindle editions sold) - it's pretty painless although formating rules give one's procrastination a super-boost!
Someone suggested it was a mistake to self-publish - because once you self-publish a big publisher wouldn't touch you with a barge-pole. Do you agree? Or are publishers more open to writers that self-publish? Would be interested to know what you think.
Thanks
Sat Sandhu