ePublishing

I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.  Actually I believe it’s everyone’s right to change their mind.

One of the goals I set myself was to finish this draft of my WIP by the end of February, and send it out to agents/publishers in March.

I finished the draft and two beta-readers have kindly done a great job of reading and giving me feedback.  They made some insightful comments and I’ll be working on that this week, but I have decided not to send it out to agents or publishers.

I attended an interesting workshop late last year run by the New Zealand Society of Authors on publishing.  Among various speakers was Mark Coker of Smashwords.  The timing of the conference was good, coming as it did after my experiences of having a book published in the UK. 

Over the past few months I’ve done a lot of research into epublishing, and have decided I have nothing to lose by trying this.

Don’t get me wrong, the elation at receiving a publishing contract, and the feeling of approval and confirmation that someone believed in me, and my writing, was huge.  Ultimately however, there is a lot wrong with the way the whole system works.

Living in New Zealand, I wrote a book set in New Zealand, which was published in UK, but because the distributor doesn’t have connections in this part of the world it makes it almost impossible to see my book in bookshops here.  Yet people can buy it via online retailers. 

The electronic readers – Kindle, Nook, Kobo etc. – are not yet as popular here as in the States, but it is increasing all the time, and those who have them are fervent advocates.  I know because I’ve become one of them.  Yes I still love my paper books, but with the prospect of longhaul flights looming, and being away from home for a month, my Kindle makes absolute sense.

I started this blog wanting to note my path into publishing, and this is another exciting part of it.