The adventure of publishing a book

a reply to: RedKaliBlack
The catch is that the publishing houses don't seem to be eager to gamble on an unknown name, and I don't have either the experience or the right geographical location to go around the American conventions and talk shows.

It's a very tough business; the first step is often getting an agent, as there are very few houses that accept unsolicited manuscripts these days. But there are a lot of shaky agents, too. Research is absolutely critical, because there are a lot of people making money off of people's desires to publish. a reply to: DISRAELI

Progress report;
I think I've delivered to the publishing house everything they needed, and the project is presumably continuing on their side.
The manuscript itself, of course, with some last-minute tweaking like converting a long quote from Sun Myung Moon into a paraphrase. His followers would not have approved. I was obliged to eliminate some features, like having the chapter name as the page-header on every page, which were originally put in when i thought I was preparing for an e-book. I had chosen a 22 pt font, which was much larger than they wanted, for the same reason.

I was asked for a cover-photo. Since I'm publishing under the name "DISRAELI", for the sake of the continuity, and trying to keep my real name in the back-ground, I sent an old black-and-white school-photo, showing me as a studious ten year-old (which does at least have some psychological truth in it). They asked me where it came from, probably being nervous of copyright claims, but I was able to assure them that it came from my own albums and I have others of the same era.

They also wanted a 155 word biography. It's not an easy trick, producing a reasonable biographical account while withholding most of the details, but I think I managed it rather neatly.

Then there was the transfer of money from my sterling account to their dollar account, which involved what my mother would have called "fun and games". Computers have made it possible for banks to devolve most of this work from Head Office to local branches. The downside is that the transfers are now being done by staff who are non-specialists, and I don't imagine my local branch does this kind of thing very often. The list of bank details provided by the publishers had the heading "Wire Instructions", and the clerk asked me "is that the name of the comopany?" Fortunately I used to work in Abbey National's cheque-clearing centre, in the same building and environment as their Foreign Payments department, so I knew enough to help me steer my way through.

The first hitch was that the provided bank details did not include the physical postal address of Wells Fargo. The online form which was being filled in positively insisted on having that address, and would not continue the process until the space had been completed. So I was sent away to find out. But in that previous experience I was regularly handilng a thick book called a Sort-Code directory, containing such details, with pages for SWIFT Codes at the back. Remembering this, I was succcessful in tracking down a SWIFT-Code directory online and got the address from there.

On my next visit, the process went through with apparent success. But at the end of the week, the intended recipients reported that nothing had reached them. I had received my bank's wriiten confirmation of the debit that same morning, so I went through it closely and discovered the glitch. The clerk had taken an "ABA number", listed near the top of the details, and typed it into the space intended for the receiving bank account number. To be fair, I had double-checked the form originally and made the same mistake, failing to spot that the accurately typed digits were the wrong set.

Going into the weekend, when banks are closed, I felt that this was a headache rather than a disaster. The number we gave Wells Fargo would surely be an invalid account number, if only because it was a digit too short, and of course the account name would be wrong as well. I knew that procedures existed for sorting out this kind of problem, and I even remembered some of the jargon. I was confident that the issue could be resolved, but I just didn't know how long it would take.

In the event, it solved itself. Returning to the bank on Monday, I found that Wells Fargo had sent the funds back to my account without waiting to be asked. That is, the amount had been "returned" without needing to be "recalled". The transfer was then completed on the third attempt.

That is another reason for not doing this kind of project more than once.

a reply to: DISRAELI

I just came across someone I think also uses the publisher you're using. Michael Edwin Q.

Does Advantage do his marketing? Because if they do, don't let them do yours.

a reply to: Atsbhct
"Marketing" would have been a separate payment, which I haven't opted for. You are saying that it wouldn't have been worth much anyway?

a reply to: DISRAELI

Marketing is so crucial. I don't know if they do his, but by the looks of the book series I saw, there were lots of fake reviews, poor cover design, just poor marketing over all.

Things are hotting up now.
At the end of the week, I received by e-mail two draft "proofs" of the main text of the two books on Revelation and Song of Solomon.
The Song of Solomon copy was impeccable. 47 pages. A little gem.

Revelation is a more complex issue. The first thing I noticed was that the intended Foreword had been accidentally replaced by the Foreword of the Song of Solomon book. Certainly not by me, because I've checked my copy of the version I submitted. I think the clue is that they also detached the dedications which I typed in at the end of both Forewords, and moved them to a more suitable place. Evidently they achieved this by cutting out the Forewords temporarily, and then pasted the wrong one back in.

On the other hand, the other big mistake is defintely mine. When i did the Revelation series of threads ten years ago, no doubt fondly remembered by many ATS members (the late nights nearly killed me), I compiled a Bible Reference Index, indicating the threads where references could be found. More recently, I compiled a revised version for book purposes, indicating the relevant chapters of Revelation. When I was collecting together the various components of my manuscript, I somehow managed to incorporate the wrong version of the Index. That too must be corrected.

I've been making some initial moves in the marketing area, and told my publishers about them in the interests of good coordination. For the sake of continuity with my ATS identity, I am writing under the pen-name DISRAELI, or at least "Stephen Disraeli", for formal purposes. StephenDisraeli is already the name of my Twitter account, which I'm going to reactivate. As part of keeping my real world self in the background, my response to their request for a cover photo was the black and white school photo which I've now uploaded as an avatar. I've decided to make this my authorial "trademark", so it's going to appear in other places.

I've got thoughts about advertising in Christian Century and/or Christianity Today, so I've subscribed to the print issues so that I can get a feel for what kind of thing they might accept and I might be able to afford.

I've had early thoughts about review copies and complimentary copies. But that must wait until I've got print copies in my hand.

Current state of affairs;
Having sorted out the "interiors" of the two books, the cover deigns are now under consideration.
A week before Christmas, they sent me samples of stock images to see if I fancied any of them for the Revelation cover. As it happened, one of them so effectively expressed my concept that the Atonement is the driving force behind the events of Revelation, that I expressed a preference for it.

At the same time, I sent them a photo which I think could be good for the other cover. It happens to be a black-and-white portrait of my great-grandmother, thoughtfully looking away from the camera. I think this image (or something like it, if that one turns out to be unusable for printing purposes) would reflect my interpretation that the woman of Song of Solomon is a wife who feels that she's been abandoned.

The draft copyright page identifies the books as "printed january 2022". I don't know how many authors the firm is dealing with, but I imagine that a whole raft of books is going through this process at about the same time, in preparation for the trade convention anticipated in March.

A friend went the self publishing route with a book of poetry... I don't know what is plan was as amount of purchase print but they were good quality hard cover pocket sized.

Amazon might do the same thing as they publish .pdf to kindle and sell on their site non digital copies. As well as feature in adverts on the Kindle.

But most of those self published for a fee; I've ever looked at come off as a gym membership... or buyer beware as in you're only going to get out of it what you put into it.

a reply to: Crowfoot
I thought of kindle-publishing as a possible last-resort option if I couldn't get anyone else to take it on. But I did want print copies, as well as e-books, so that something could survive if the internet collapsed. Someone who writes on Revelation has to think about these things.

I think of these two books as the kind of investment which might make the author's name well-enough known to interest a main-stream publisher in looking at the other potential books I've got in stock.

a reply to: DISRAELI

I noticed the books popular with the Christian crowd are the ones that take a movie franchise like the Lord of the Rings or The Matrix and make a devil of a conspiracy out of it in metaphorical sense... as a sort of "revelation" into its "true" meaning.

That sort of thing really bothers me personally; but that's where the publishing happens with real publishers in regards to Christian or bible centric authorship.

Latest update; I am informed today that both books are now available for "pre-publication" ordering. I won't publish a link now, because I'm aware that I will need to ask for permission first.

I understand that both books are about to be presented at the National Religious Broadcasters' convention in Nashville. I won't be there, though, except in spirit. I'm on the wrong side of the Atlantic (for convention attending purposes, anyway).

It wouldn't be appropriate to try to "market" them on this thread, so I won't go into more details.

I've been promoting them rather more actively on my Twitter account recently. The result is an increase in the number of daily "impressions" gained, though from a low starting-point, and eight "link clicks". I'm not quite sure what an "impression" entails, but I suppose the implication is that more people there know of my existence, though not many of them have been lured into making "pre-publication" orders.

We seem to be getting closer to an actual publication date. For some weeks they have been available on the website for "pre-publication ordering". They should have been available as e-books as well, but I think this had been forgotten until I sent the publishers a prompt. They seem to have a skeleton team, with the result that they may be relying too much on memory to keep track of everything that needs to be done. Once before Christmas, and once again afterwards, they tried to sell me the idea of getting the books promoted at the trade convention in March, something which was already included in my contract. Since my reminder, the Song of Solomon book is now on offer as an e-book, but I'm still waiting for the other one.

However, there are signs that things are moving again. As from immediately after Easter, the "shop" page of their website lost the distinction between "new" books (at the pre-publicatiion stage) and the rest, presenting all of them on one combined. The actual status of the individual books has not yet changed, but I hope that is the next stage. At least one of the benefits of this re-ordering is that the Song of Solomon e-book takes pride of place, as the first item listed, apparently by virtue of being the most recent publication.

I've just been told that the Revelation book is also available as an e-book. So we're virtually up and running, though I won't regard it as being official until the print books are available as well.

a reply to: DISRAELI
Nearly there. The author's copies of the paperback arrived today. I assume that a number of "new books" (visible as "pre-publication" on the publisher's list) are going to be released for publication together, to maximise the public relations effect.

a reply to: DISRAELI
Actually, the plot thickens. The paperbacks are already available (I've just discovered) on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble, perhaps have been for a while. So I reckon that is "published" enough for me to start on various internet and print copy promotion schemes. I know I'm effectively in charge of promotion on my side of the Atlantic, anyway, because the American publishers won't be doing it.

originally posted by: theatreboy

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: theatreboy
We'll have to see, but geography is still an issue.

Either way, send me a link when published, I will buy...especially song of solomon

I've just sent you a link via PM

originally posted by: scraedtosleep
a reply to: DISRAELI



survey of Song of Solomon.

I'm interested in reading that.

Also I wrote a novel and will be getting it professionally edited next year to hopefully be ready for publishing.
Got any tips.

I've sent you a link via PM

There are new developments in this important venture.

I think it's an important venture, anyway.

I went to the London Book Fair earlier this year, wh ich was something of a damp squib for me since I did not realise the need to make advance appointments to meet people. But when i first told them of my plans to go, my publishers Advantage offered to publish one more book for me free of charge, so I'm taking them up on that offer with respect to a book on Daniel.

And since then I've been in touch with Austin Macauley, who are taking on Prophets, Priests, and Politics, to be published next year. They are "hybrid publishers", and I'm still in the world of self-publishing for this book at least, but at least they should be doing some marketing, as compared with Advantage who leave me to my own devices. They ask for "first refusal" on my next book, and if all goes well I could ask them to take on "Christ died for the ungodly", which is the most important manuscript I've got.