PETER COOKE – Author and Publisher

I was asked the above question quite recently by a new reader. She was quite complimentary about the book, but couldn’t understand why I didn’t get a mainstream publisher. The simple answer is that none of the mainstream publishers I tried showed any interest. They also took a very long time to reply. About this time, I attended a Creative writing course where several published authors were speakers. They were all disillusioned with publishers, but for different reasons. One had been a best-selling children’s author, but couldn’t get her much-in-demand sequel published. “because we have used up our budget on a celebrity”. That book was a resounding and expensive flop!

So I followed the advise and self-published. A word of warning to anyone considering this option. There are many people out there, often called vanity publishers, who like nothing better than to relieve naive writers of their hard earned money for doing very little. The headlines of the Writers News ( August 2007 edition) screamed yet another warning about a vanity publisher. I can speak of this first hand, since I too lost money to one of these people, despite getting good reports from another writer that they were sound.

What is the difference between self-publishing and vanity publishing? Try the link to Jonathon Clifford’s definition and help on the blogroll for the best answer on the web. Basically only you can be a self-publisher. If anyone else publishes the book for you, it is vanity publishing.

Many published authors are turning their backs on mainstream publishing. They have become very disillusioned with the publishing world. Make no mistake though, self-publishing is no easy option. You are completely responsible for all aspects of the book, including marketing and hopefully sales. Although setting up my own company Petan Publishing was a very steep learning curve (practically vertical!) marketing is the most difficult. Without the big advertising budget and the economies of scale enjoyed by the large publishers, it is difficult to persuade booksellers to stock your item. The only option, is persuasion and persistence.

So do I regret it? Not at all. It’s been a very interesting and rewarding experience (if a little traumatic at times). I have made a lot of new friends and the feedback from readers has been very sustaining. I’m so grateful to those people who have taken the trouble to say how much they liked The Glass Dagger and to ask when would the second book be out?

It’s quite amazing how the smell of toasting bread can rouse you from even the deepest slumber. At least that’s my experience. I tried snuggling down under the quilt, but no use, that smell lured me downstairs to another day. Now after a quick shower and the inevitable toast, I’m back at work on my second book The Crystal Ship. Or, at least I would be if I wasn’t writing this blog!

Writing about the sixteenth century is considerably more difficult than writing about experience during your own lifetime. To set the scene for the reader, it’s very important that they should see the sights and smell the smells. Even the Elizabethans had toast. Much effort goes into research and even though I spent three years doing the basic research for the Glassmaker Series, I still need to consult references to portray the scenes as accurately as I can. Which reminds me, I must look up how long it would take a sixteenth century sailing ship to sail from Cyprus to Venice. In these days of being able to get to the far reaches of the earth in a relatively few hours (subject to no bombs or strikes) it’s difficult to realise how communications have altered. For instance to send a letter post-haste from London to Plymouth in 1570 took about twelve hours, give or take an hour or so. Today it takes…ah..er…well not every thing’s faster. Enough of all that, back to The Crystal Ship.

p.s. If anyone is sufficiently interested to read a little about the books in the Glassmaker Series try the link to Petan Publishing, where extracts are to be found.

It’s quite scary to think that this my first weblog might be read by more than one person. I say might, since until now, I have not posted , or modified the blog at all, nor have I publicised the site in any way. Chances are, it will just be another piece of flotsam floating along the multi-million currents of the world wide web, unloved and unread. Ahh…!

Strange to tell, these few words are giving me more trouble than the many thousands that went into my first novel, The Glass Dagger(the first book of the four book Glassmaker Series-should I be so lucky as to survive that long!). That had a well researched plot that had been streaming round my head for years. Eventually it burst out into the light of day last September, but only because I set up my own company and published the book. More on that later. Suffice it to say, it was a very, very steep learning curve, but I have no regrets about doing it.