Читать книгу The Joy of Self-Publishing - Mike MD Buchanan - Страница 9

There are numerous book manufacturing and distribution options available to the self-publisher. While I was working on my first self-published book, Guitar Gods in Beds., I had a meeting with a local publisher that was selling a book I much admired, a book of local interest with high production values. With hindsight the company was what is often termed (with justification) a ‘vanity publisher’. As my book was of local interest too – the biographies of eight guitarists well-known in the local music scene – I met with the company and went through the practical issues and costs.

I was stunned by the high costs the company quoted. I couldn’t possibly make any margin on the book unless it sold at a price which seemed wildly optimistic. I had to abandon the idea of using the company and instead explored the option of dealing directly with companies and freelance professionals to get my book published. The outcome of this exploration forms much of the content of this book.

So self-publish and save yourself a lot of money.

I was considering writing a book about British politics in 2009, but thinking and writing about left-wing politicians including Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman became too depressing and I eventually abandoned the project. A shame because I had some good material, a good title and cover design, and the project had taken up a good deal of my time. Some of the material was later included in my book David and Goliatha: David Cameron – heir to Harman? which was later extended to form the content of The Glass Ceiling Delusion (the real reasons more women don’t reach senior positions).

The abandoned book’s title was Harriet Harman Drove Me to France, the idea being that if Labour won the then forthcoming general election, expected in May 2010, I would emigrate to France by way of protest, and pay my taxes to the French government rather than the British one.

France is frequently rated the country with the highest quality of life in the world, and it’s seldom outside the top three. It’s always placed well ahead of the UK. Many English people emigrate to France, some of them to retire. The only reason French people move to the UK is to earn more than they could in France. I’ve never heard of a French person retiring to the UK.

I’m a lifelong Francophile. But a paradox had always puzzled me until recently. The incidence of depression among French people has long been markedly higher than among British people. What might account for this? The answer dawned on me one day as I was compiling Buchanan’s Dictionary of Quotations for right-minded people. It all goes back to Liberté, egalité, fraternité – Freedom, equality, brotherhood – the motto of the French Revolution. I blame that plonker from Geneva, the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, myself. With his books he arguably sowed the seeds of socialism and communism which were to ultimately lead to the deaths of more than 80 million people (mainly in China and the Soviet Union) in the 20th century.

My thesis is that a constant search for egalité is bound to induce envy and therefore misery in people, as is the relentless pursuit of its ugly sister ‘fairness’. Because the French are on the whole more left-wing than the British – hell, they’re more left-wing than the Chinese – they are accordingly more prone to being miserable and even depressed. The Welsh tend to be a miserable lot for exactly the same reason – that, and their perennial gnawing hatred of their more successful neighbours, the English. Envy is one of the seven deadly sins, and having been educated in Christian boarding schools I never commit any of them. I’m very proud of that.

I made the mistake of buying (for £120) the rights to a photograph for use on the cover of Harriet Harman Drove Me to France, thereby illustrating a point I shall be developing later: that if you don’t follow a logical process for moving from a book concept to the final book, you’re likely to waste time and possibly money too. I’ve changed the titles of all my books numerous times while engaged in the process of writing them.

The cover image for the book was taken with a camera positioned just above the shoulder of a lady looking out of her open doorway during an election campaign. A smiling Harriet Harman was looking up to, and speaking to, the woman from just outside the house. Behind Harriet Harman was Gordon Brown, wearing the smile which could make small children cry. My idea was to have a speech bubble directed at Harriet Harman and a thought bubble directed at Gordon Brown:

Harman: ‘Good morning, Ms Johnson! I hope we can count on your vote again for the anti-men, anti-family, anti-business, anti-taxpayer, and anti-democracy party?’

Brown: ‘Dear God. On the campaign trail with Mad Hattie. Livin’ the dream, eh? Roll on the 2010 election and freedom.’

But one very good thing came from this project. I had at one time considered titling the book Gordon Is a Moron, the title of a popular music hit in 1978 for English comedy actor and musician Graham Fellows, under the name of his alter ego ‘Jilted John’. Fairly confident that nobody would have used the title for a book, I looked on Amazon anyway, and was surprised to find that the title had already been used, by English writer Dr Vernon Coleman. Coleman is a highly successful self-publisher, publishing through his own creation, The Publishing House. From Vernoncoleman.co.uk:

Vernon Coleman is the author of 114 books which have sold over 2 million copies in the UK, been translated into 25 languages and now sell in over 50 countries. His non-fiction books include Bodypower (voted one of the nation’s 100 most popular books by British readers) and How To Stop Your Doctor Killing You and his novels include Mrs Caldicot’s Cabbage War (which has been turned into a major movie starring Pauline Collins) and the Bilbury series of books.

Vernon Coleman has a medical degree and has worked as a General Practitioner and a hospital doctor. Often described as an ‘iconoclast’ he has organised numerous campaigns for people and for animals. Although he now concentrates on writing books he has in the past presented numerous programmes on television (he was breakfast television’s first doctor) and radio and has written over 5,000 columns and articles for over 100 of the world’s leading newspapers and magazines.

The Publishing House, it transpires, sells only books written by Vernon Coleman and his wife. His biography on the website ends with the following gem:

Vernon Coleman, born in Walsall, Staffordshire, England, is balding and widely disliked by members of the Establishment. He doesn’t give a toss about either of these facts. He is married to Donna Antoinette, the totally adorable Welsh Princess and is very pleased about this.

Jerome K Jerome, author of the Victorian classic Three Men in a Boat, was born in Walsall. There’s obviously something in the local water. I used a quotation from Gordon Is a Moron in my Dictionary of Quotations and sent Vernon Coleman a complimentary copy by way of appreciation. He replied and was very complimentary about the book, which quite made my day. We have since had further correspondence from which I learned that he was working on several titles simultaneously – from his prodigious output, this is clearly his custom – and he employed four members of staff.

The Mission Statement of The Publishing House is as insightful, punchy, and lengthy as we might expect from the indefatigable Dr Coleman:

The Publishing House Mission Statement

(Why We Believe Small Publishers Are The Only Real Publishers Left)

Compared to the big international conglomerates Publishing House is very definitely a ‘small publisher’. We don’t have a massive sales force (actually, we don’t have a sales force at all). We don’t have a board of eminent directors (since we’re not a limited company we don’t have any directors). We don’t have offices in a skyscraper (we do have offices but we just have an upstairs and a downstairs). And we don’t have a PR department full of bright young things called Hyacinth and Jacoranda. (We don’t have a PR department at all). But we have one enormous advantage over the conglomerates. We care passionately about books.

They have marketing departments which decide which books will sell. They then commission books that the sales force think they will be able to flog. They won’t even consider a book until they’ve done a marketing feasibility study.

We publish books we believe in. We then try to sell them. Naturally, we try to make a profit. If we didn’t we wouldn’t last long. We have to pay the printing bills, the electricity bills, the phone bills, the rates, the insurance and so on.

But we’ve been publishing for 15 years. In that time, we’ve sold over two million books. Our books have been translated into 22 languages and are sold by other publishers (including some big ones) in over 50 countries.

The conglomerates insist that every book should make a profit.

We don’t. Some of our books make more money than others. But that’s fine with us. We don’t mind if the better sellers sometimes subsidise the other books. We don’t mind if a book is a little slow to sell. Like good parents we love all our children equally – however successful, or unsuccessful, they might be.

Despite all the talk about the need for each book to stand on its own two feet many big publishers make an overall loss. They are kept alive – effectively as vanity publishers – by other parts of the conglomerate. So, for example, the TV division or the magazine division may help to subsidise the book publishing division. We believe that book publishing can, and should, be allowed to stand alone. We believe that small publishers are now the only REAL publishers alive.

The big publishers often accept sponsorship from outside companies. We never do. We rely on the sale of books to earn our living and pay our bills. None of our books are sponsored or carry any advertising. We believe this helps us to remain truly independent. We publish books which international conglomerates wouldn’t dare touch.

Big publishers have lost touch with people’s needs. They are slow and unwieldy. It can take them two years to turn a typescript into a finished book! (We can, if pushed, get a book out within a month – while the material is still topical.)

They are too market orientated and derivative. They produce more of what other publishers did well with last year. We look forwards not backwards.

They pay huge amounts as advances to film stars, politicians and young hot shot authors. Much of the time they don’t earn back those advances. They don’t care because the books are just seen as ‘tools’ to help other parts of the empire. For example, a conglomerate will publish a politician’s dull biography as a way of putting money into the politician’s pocket.

Despite their huge marketing departments they are often out of touch with people’s needs. If we published as many ‘turkeys’ as they do we’d be out of business.

They worry enormously about upsetting powerful politicians and other corporations. The big conglomerates need to co-operate with the establishment because they are part of the establishment. We stand outside the establishment. They don’t like us much at all. They often do their best to shut us down.

But we don’t give a fig for what politicians or corporate bosses might (or might not) think of us. We’re only interested in publishing books that inform and entertain. When they try to shut us down we fight back.

At big publishers there are loads of men and women in suits who slow things down and interfere with the artistic process. Literary originality and integrity have been replaced by marketing convenience.

We have no men or women in suits to tell us what to do. We do what we believe is right. We publish books the old fashioned way. We’re a small, independent publishing house. We publish books we believe in; books we want to publish and which we hope that our readers will want to read.

That’s what we think publishing is all about.

Visit the website if you’re looking for inspiration. I would only do one thing differently from Dr Coleman, if and when I become as successful. I would employ bright young things with names like Hyacinth and Jacoranda. I’m sure I could find them something to do.

Everyone in the literary world appears to agree these days that publishers will only consider book proposals put forward to them by literary agents. For male writers, especially those writing books with a male perspective, that can pose a problem. DH Lawrence wouldn’t have had a hope of attracting an agent in the modern era. Why? The vast majority of literary agents are female. It should come as no surprise that major publishers take on few new authors writing books sympathetic to male perspectives.

But I believe – all right, I hope – that the pendulum will swing back again. How much more thin ‘chick lit’ can the book-buying public consume? I think there will be an increasing appetite for sometimes challenging books which have reasoned arguments at their core. I hope so, anyway – before we all drown in a tidal wave of books on astrology, the healing power of crystals, and dead children who reappear to friends, parents, and grandparents as angels. My blood boils at the cynicism of authors who dupe their readers for personal gain.

Literary agents and publishers are looking for ‘marketable’ authors, we are told. Often this appears to mean authors who are young, female, attractive, and able to speak fluently about their work, dropping terms such as zeitgeist, schadenfreude, hubris, and post-modern into their conversation. For those of us who fall into few or (in my case) none of the categories deemed desirable for new authors, self-publishing is the way forward. We end the chapter with an interesting story – my thanks to AuthorHouse:

In 1982 Olympic Coach Tom McNab topped the Times Bestseller list with his first novel, Flanagan’s Run. Translated into 16 languages, the book occupied the top spot in both the UK and Europe, selling hundreds of thousands of copies worldwide. But when Tom approached his publisher to release a new edition in 2009 he was refused. Despite the new generation of readers yet to be introduced to the novel, and the imminent release of a Miramax film adaptation, the publishing house was not interested.

Undeterred, Tom approached AuthorHouse to enable him to re-publish the best-selling novel himself. During an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Open Book programme in May 2010, he explained the rationale behind his decision:

‘My attitude was that if Flanagan’s Run was good enough to be read by hundreds of thousands of people all over the world in 1982, then there must be another group of people equally capable of enjoying it… I read about self-publishing in a newspaper, it told me AuthorHouse was one of the best companies, so I simply found them on the web and wrote to them – that was it.’

Published to widespread critical acclaim, Flanagan’s Run tells the epic story of a 3,000 mile marathon across the United States. Set in the depression-era, the book follows 2,000 hopefuls as they begin the gruelling race from New York to Los Angeles; a race ultimately beset by danger as the American sports establishment try to scupper the event.

Praised for both its well drawn cast, which includes such disparate characters as an ex-miner from Scotland, a Mexican trying to save his famine-struck village, a feisty showgirl from New York, a bare-knuckle boxer and a team of Young Nazis, and its vivid descriptions of the race, Flanagan’s Run captures the pain, motivation, commitment, and satisfaction of running, while offering an enduring look at human experience and ambition.

About the author: Royal Air Force officer, triple jump champion, physical education teacher, Olympic coach, author, athletics historian and motivational speaker, Tom McNab has enjoyed a hugely varied and successful career. Born in Glasgow in 1933, he became national athletics coach for Southern England in 1963, and published his first non-fiction book, Modern Schools Athletics, in 1966. Over the next forty years he established a reputation not only as one of the world’s leading sports coaches, but a talented author and historian. Two-time British Coach of the Year, he worked with a number of international athletes, the British Olympic Bobsleigh team and England’s silver medal-winning Rugby squad in the 1992 World Cup, while also winning the Scottish Novelist of the Year award in 1982, bringing TV-AM into being in 1983 and working as technical advisor for the film Chariots of Fire, which won four Oscars. Now a commentator for ITV and Channel 4, a freelance journalist for the Observer, Sunday Telegraph, Times and Independent, two time novelist and prolific playwright, Tom’s talents have no bars [author’s note: bars?]. In the past twenty years he has become a much sought-after lecturer and is recognised as one of the world’s top business speakers.