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Publish Your Book

Catherine Condie

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Introduction

This week is a celebration of reading, writing and publishing books;

Building your story;

Different ways of getting your book published;

Things I’ve learned along the way.

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Where I began

Queen Edith Primary School, Cambridge;

Writing poetry and short stories – creative writing;

Composing songs with my guitar aged 9 and performing at the youth club aged 11

30 years later I began to write Whirl of the Wheel.

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What interests me about writing

What interests me most is the feeling that a pattern of sentences or collection of words gives you;

Stories, short or long, and poetry are no different to pieces of music – from Vivaldi to Jessie J and each composed the same way.

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Stories – where do you start and what should you write?

Write what you know or what interests you;

Think of a great plot;

Create your characters and their voices;

Show the action, don’t tell it;

Imagine your story as a film – changing scenes, different atmospheres;

Use Post-its on the wall or in a notebook to order your scenes or ideas.

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Whirl of the Wheel

A story for 8 to 12-year-olds led by a heroine who happens to be in a wheelchair;

Light-hearted time-travel adventure into World War II – time portal is a potter’s wheel;

Historical account of evacuation;

With goodies and baddies.

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The Switch

Young teens’ thriller about a girl on a French exchange trip who witnesses a raid at a bar from an apartment window;

Set in Paris, with some spoken French;

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Building your story

Ten

sion

HOORAY!HOORAY!High point of the story

THE QUEST BEGINSTHE QUEST BEGINS Main event or discovery that starts the story off

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Almost there Mystery

solved

OH NO!OH NO!Rug-pulling moment

Lull

Challenges or scenes that build the story

In a children’s book the hero will be a child or animal that has to overcome a challenge to reach a goal.

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Becoming a good writer

Read lots of different styles of books,plus you can read books about writing books;

Have a go and see what you like to write!

Ask your English teacher’s or your parents’ advice;

Start up or become part of a writing group in or outside school;

Find out about local writing workshops or courses (you might consider scbwi.com);

Enter a competition.

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My story is complete!

Fantastic, take a break and celebrate!

Ask friends, family, teachers to read and comment;

You could send it to a literary consultancy for comment but there is a cost www.cornerstones.co.uk;

Think about posting it online via critique sites like www.authononomy.com or www.youwriteon.com;

Look again at your story in the light of what you have learned.

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‘Local’ writers’ networks

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Critique sites

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I’ve finished . . . what next?

EditingEditing – read and re-read, making notes by hand or by making changes as you go, on-screen. Go through your writing a final time – line by line to look for mistakes, or ask someone to help;

Think about publishingpublishing – you could show your work to a recognised agent or publisher to see if they are interested in taking you on as an author . . . or you could self publishself publish.

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Traditional publishing

Look through the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook (published by A&C Black);

Choose agents and publishing companies suitable for your genre of writing;

Each agent or publishing company has a different set of submission guidelines. Most ask for a few chapters by post;

Check for errors in your work,

send off your chapters and wait . . .

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What is self publishing?

Using reputable online sites to produce any number of printed books or e-books via your netbook or home computer.

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Why self publish?

‘I have always disliked writing to order; I write to please myself.’

Beatrix Potter

Creativity is a personal thing – self publishing is one answer to keeping it that way.

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Seeing my book in print

You can take an electronic copy of your work to a local printer where you pay up front, for example, for the print of 250 copies;

Or start a free account with one of the major online suppliers of printed books (print on demand) : www.lulu.com or www.createspace.com.

Order one or two copies – they cover costs by taking a percentage of each book.

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Print on demand

Lay out your pages using the guide at Lulu or CreateSpace;

Upload the document and use the cover wizard to create front and back covers;

These companies will put your book on their websites and distribute to Amazon.com and selected online shops for free;

Think about a selling price for your book.

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Seeing my book as an e-book

You can do this via Lulu or Createspace or independent sites e.g. Freado/Bookbuzzr , Bibliotastic and Feedbooks;

Kidpub (American organisation)

or set up a free account with Kindle Direct Publishing. Note that e-books are laid out in a different way to printed books;

KDP makes its money by taking a percentage of each book you or others buy. It sends your e-book for free to 5 international Amazon sites.

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Spreading the word

Friends and family, school fetes or your local bookshop – Waterstones and Heffers;

Facebook author page; Blog/blog interviews; Twitter; Goodreads www.goodreads.com; Free online press

releases prlog.org; Make a book trailer; Printed leaflets/postcards.

I’m published!

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Let’s publish a book

Lulu publishing wizard

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and finally. . .

. . . there is no hurry;

so have fun!

and enjoy forming your plot and creating characters;

practise writing a few chapters and see where your story goes;

if or when you finish, you might now have a plan for what you can do next.

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Any questions?

This presentation Publish Your Book for the Linton Children’s Book Festival 2012 is available at Slideshare.net or via

www.catherinecondie.wordpress.com