Tag Archives: digital publishing

BUSINESS OF BOOKS: DEAL FEVER

Posted on by

It’s always a great moment in an author’s life when that email arrives. You know, the one which says something along the lines of ‘we’d like to publish your book’.

Cue general celebration – but even so, for me it was a case of once bitten twice shy. A little like when your first boyfriend turns out to pick his nose and snog anything in a skirt. You wonder if you’ll ever trust anyone again but after a little time to reflect, you realise that you have to.

I was lucky because for me that wonderful email came from Amy Durant, Editorial Director of Sapere Books – and I’d worked with her before. Last year she co-founded Sapere with Marketing Director Caoimhe O’Brien and Operations Director Richard Simpson and has since taken on a carefully selected stable of authors. I am still rather pinching myself that I’m one of them.

But being me, I proceeded very cautiously. I went over the contract with a fine tooth comb, making sure I understood and was happy with every clause before I committed. I checked out how their authors’ books were doing on Amazon and was pleasantly surprised. I even openly flirted with another publisher. In fact, I must have driven them to distraction.

But now I am very proud to say that I have a two book deal with Sapere. The first will be a re-issue of Another You, which I withdrew when its previous publisher went into voluntary liquidation, and the second is also a romantic novel looking back to World War Two. Both will be published in 2019.

Last Friday I was able to announce the deal to the world. It was such a special day with so much support from other writers – and from Sapere – in my inbox and across social media. The warmth of the writing world is a quite extraordinary thing and I’ve waited quite a long time to have some good news to share.

But now the hard work starts, and following hot on the heels of all the excitement was an email from Amy which highlighted our rather different expectations for the second book. Cue panic – and frantic messages back and forth to my go-to writing buddy, Kitty Wilson. Was my trust misplaced? Was the whole thing about to fall down around my eyes before it started?

Then common sense prevailed and with some trepidation I replied to Amy offering her an early draft. I hate doing this as I’ve been caught out before, but needless to say her reply put my mind at rest. It will be alright. The author-editor relationship is an important one and I have such respect for Amy I know how lucky I am to have her.

But that aside, one of the most exciting things about signing for Sapere is the feeling I’m in at the start of something new – something which could be quite extraordinary. My gut feel is that they won’t just remain one of the smaller digital publishers and that they’re really going places. And I am absolutely delighted to be travelling with them.

 

 

Best Endeavours, Best of Spirits: Jane Cable’s on what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag

Posted on by
best-endeavours-best-of-spirits-jane-cables-on-what-happens-once-that-digital-publishing-deal-is-in-the-bagBEST ENDEAVOURS
 
Jane Cable’s blog about what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag continues.
 
BEST OF SPIRITS
 
For a writer of ghost stories Hallowe’en offers apparently boundless opportunities to promote your work. I benefitted greatly from this when my first novel, The Cheesemaker’s House, hit the bookshops one September and my friend and PR Lisa Holden was able to secure some wonderful reviews in seasonal features.
 
2016 is The Cheesemaker’s House’s fourth witching season so once again I decided to make the best of it by running promotions on Twitter and on Facebook to give away iBooks. While I won’t ‘sell’ my books for a big fat zero on Amazon (or anywhere else, for that matter) I’m happy to give iBooks – and paperbacks – as competition prizes because it opens the doors to new readers and requires a certain amount of engagement from them. And as you may have gathered, I just love engaging with people who love books.
Jane Cable, publishing, writing
This year my local writers’ group, Chindi Authors, has been supporting #LovetoRead (more of which in a few weeks) and as part of our efforts those of us with sufficient courage have been videoed reading from our books. My offering – the first chapter of The Cheesemaker’s House – can be accessed via my website here http://janecable.com/the-book/4577579495 . Do me a favour if you do visit the link… listen, but don’t look. But at least I can take comfort in the knowledge that next time I’ll dress more carefully.
 
Much as I love writing ghost stories I fell into it by accident. The Cheesemaker’s House didn’t start out that way, and The Seahorse Summer began life with a very different ghost. But I have a genuine fascination with the fictional possibilities presented by the ripping of the veil between this world and the next and with every new character from beyond the grave I want to stretch the boundaries a little bit more.
 
This year the Hallowe’en fear factor increased when Reading Writers asked me to judge their autumn competition which was for a short format ghost story. One poem and eight prose pieces later I realised that writers across all genres had been prepared to give it a go. Fantasy, thriller and humour were all represented and the winner used characters from his military work in progress to brilliant effect.
 
It was also a new experience sitting in front of a room full of writers and giving them feedback on their work. Most were extremely gracious (although I did detect a pursed lip or two), but technical errors aside at the end of the day a winning story is a matter of personal choice. It made me realise just how lucky I was that The Cheesemaker’s House found people who loved it… and just happened to be judging competitions.

BEST ENDEAVOURS BEST EFFECTS: Jane Cable On What Happens When That Digital Publishing Deal Happens

Posted on by
Jane Cable, publishing, writingBEST ENDEAVOURS
Jane Cable’s blog about what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag continues.
BEST EFFECTS
There are moments when the penny drops and you think ‘so that’s how it’s done’. And last week, in a palatial room in Reading Town Hall, the smallest coin of the realm came tumbling down in my direction.
The occasion was the launch of Claire Dyer’s latest collection of poetry, Interference Effects. I have known Claire for several years, firstly as a fellow author (although more senior by several ranks) and more recently as a friend. She is also an award winning poet – and now I know that she is absolutely expert at holding launch events.
I find the idea of a book launch of my own both terrifying and strangely alluring. Not because I’m scared to stand up and read – no, I can manage that (thanks to my mother’s insistence on extra-curricular speech & drama lessons at junior school); more because my grass hopper mind can never decide exactly what to do. And even if I could decide, then I’d have to organise it.
First problem: where would I hold it? I live near Chichester, so that makes a certain amount of sense, but none of my books are set there. The Seahorse Summer is based in Studland in Dorset so there’s a logic to holding an event there – but I don’t know anybody, so would anyone come? I’d like to raise some money for Words for the Wounded, so perhaps London. At which point I run screaming for the hills.
Claire held her launch in her home town; it’s really the only sensible thing to do and the room was packed with her friends, fellow writers, former colleagues and other supporters. And I mean packed. When my neighbour Ali (who introduced me to Claire in the first place) and I arrived – late – having  battled and lost with Reading’s one way system and early closing multi storey car parks, we could barely edge into the room.
best-endeavours-best-effects-jane-cable-on-what-happens-when-that-digital-publishing-deal-happens
And what a room; easy access (signposted) from the street and inside muted decoration and elegant windows soaring to the sky. A huge platform on which Claire stood to read her wonderful poems (complete with fully functioning sound system); a generously proportioned sales table manned by her publishers, Two Rivers Press; a grand piano in one corner and wall to wall coat racks set at some little distance from the action.
Every detail had been considered. Entertainment while the queue to have books signed snaked across the carpet comprised a talented gentleman cutting silhouettes and a lady pianist working her way through classical preludes. Waiters kept appearing with trays of drinks and canapés – including gluten free options – and the conversation flowed with the wine.
In the centre of it all – the poet herself. Hair neatly coiffed, make up perfect, classic black dress and sparkling rock ‘n’ roll shoes. Having a whale of a time – in her elegant, understated way. By the time Ali and I left I felt uplifted by Claire’s poems and in awe of the whole event. Not only that but a huge lesson was beginning to dawn on me: if you can’t do it as well as this, don’t do it at all. Thank goodness The Seahorse Summer is an ebook…
Claire Dyer’s Interference Effects is published by Two Rivers Press and available through their website and on Amazon. To find out more about Claire and her work please visit www.clairedyer.com.
 
 
Jane Cable is the author of two independently published romantic suspense novels, The Cheesemaker’s House and The Faerie Tree, and a sporadic contributor to Frost. The Seahorse Summer tells the tale of how two American soldiers born sixty years apart help forty-something Marie Johnson to rebuild her shattered confidence and find new love. Discover more at www.janecable.com.

BEST ENDEAVOURS: TO DO MY BEST. Jane Cable’s blog about what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag continues.

Posted on by
publishing, digital publishing, writing, BEST ENDEAVOURS
 
Jane Cable’s blog about what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag continues.
 
TO DO MY BEST
 
This last week has been one great big long to do list; not just in my writing life, but in my business life as well, catching up with all the client work and admin swept to one side while I’ve been polishing The Seahorse Summer.
The single most important thing no-one ever told me about being a writer is that you spend more time marketing your books than you do producing them. If you want anyone to read them, that is. You can’t just put your book out there and wait for the crowds to come; particularly with the emergence of Createspace it really is true that everyone can publish a book, which makes the fiction market a very crowded place.
So, what’s been top of my writing life to do list this week? 
Jane Cable, publishing, writing First up I have recently joined The Romantic Novelists Association and to make the best of my membership I need to get involved: write my biography for their website; fire off emails to join various groups; add my details to their Author Talks list; send off my cheque for the winter party.
And talking of websites, there’s a great deal of updating to be done on my own with words and pictures to be prepared for my wonderful webmistress to beautify and publish in due course. Not to mention a PR campaign to be costed and planned for when The Seahorse Summer comes out. Oh, and cover quotes – let’s not forget cover quotes…
Next my local independent author group Chindi Authors (www.chindi-authors.co.uk) is in the middle of planning a series of events coming up to Christmas and I need to start pulling my weight again. There’s also the opportunity to record a few Youtube videos which will be really useful so I need to pull my finger out and practice – not least because the sight of a camera normally sends me fleeing for the hills.
I also need to start pushing my existing books again with a giveaway to be planned for The Cheesemaker’s House in the run up to Hallowe’en. Provided Hallowe’en doesn’t run up to and past me while I’m thinking about it, that is.

But one task this week has been a total and unadulterated pleasure, and that is a return to my part finished manuscript. It’s set in

Lincolnshire and features a feisty archaeologist and when I put it down in July to concentrate on The Seahorse Summer I had doubts about how well the story was working. Last week I curled up on my sofa over several early morning cups of coffee and lost myself beneath those huge winter skies, feeling the cold earth under my finger nails, hearing the voices of the past in my head. It was fine – it was actually better than I remembered.

And it was bliss to be writing new words on a fresh page again.

 

Jane Cable is the author of two independently published romantic suspense novels, The Cheesemaker’s House and The Faerie Tree, and a sporadic contributor to Frost. The Seahorse Summer tells the tale of how two American soldiers born sixty years apart help forty-something Marie Johnson to rebuild her shattered confidence and find new love. Discover more at www.janecable.com.

 

Best Foot Forward: Jane Cable’s blog about what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag continues

Posted on by

Jane Cable, publishing, writing
BEST ENDEAVOURS

Jane Cable’s blog about what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag continues.

BEST FOOT FORWARD

Editing involves a great deal of sitting down. Far more than my slightly dodgy back can manage at the moment anyway. So after being glued to my office chair for a few hours I balanced my laptop on a box file on the ironing board and tried that (standing at your desk being all the rage). It helped, but not a great deal as I found it slightly awkward to type.

What does work is going for a walk in the middle of the day and I am hugely blessed to live in a small village tucked under the South Downs so peace and quiet and country air are only ever a few steps outside my front door. And while tramping around the lanes is freeing up my back muscles it does exactly the same for my mind.

Agent Felicity has cleverly crafted my elevator pitch as a writer as “love with a ghostly element in a beautiful setting” and I’ll go with that. Completely. And beautiful settings inevitably require walking.

publishing, what happens when you get a publishing deal

The Seahorse Summer is set in Studland Bay in Dorset and opens on the sixtieth anniversary of a rehearsal for D-Day which went horribly wrong. I visited the village exactly ten years later and on my walk up to the cliffs made special note of the wonderful countryside around me; the daffodils dying back on the banks, slowly being replaced by primroses; the tractor rumbling across the fields; tiny birds swarming the hawthorn hedges; enticing glimpses of the sea below. Minute observation helps me to create a credible world for my characters to inhabit.

Every day, as I walk, I do the same thing. It’s a great discipline for a writer. I always say that to write good dialogue you need to remember you have two ears and one mouth. To write great descriptions you need all five senses.

Yesterday the earliest touches of autumn were making themselves felt. Cow parsley dying back to reveal blackberries – some fruits ripe and squashy between my fingers, others in tight green fists. The tiniest hint of chill on the breeze which carried the pheasants’ calls and the wood smoke from a distant bonfire across the valley. The strict definition of meteorological autumn starting on 1st September becoming a reality before my eyes.

Time is, indeed, marching on. But I have finished the character edits for all but Marie and next I need to review each paragraph, making sure it is essential to the story. The book has changed so much since its first iteration I need to remove the distracting loose ends – and in the process make sure that every scene is adding something for the reader.

Jane Cable is the author of two independently published romantic suspense novels, The Cheesemaker’s House and The Faerie Tree, and a sporadic contributor to Frost. The Seahorse Summer tells the tale of how two American soldiers born sixty years apart help forty-something Marie Johnson to rebuild her shattered confidence and find new love. Discover more at www.janecable.com.

 

 

BEST ENDEAVOURS: what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag

Posted on by

janecablepublishingagreementThe first in a series of blogs about what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag!

BEST FRIENDS

If you write, it’s a moment you dream of – the moment you learn that a publisher wants to buy your book. There’ll be champagne, fireworks, violins playing sweet music… Actually – when it happened to me – I didn’t believe it.

I read the email my agent, Felicity Trew, sent about three times and then she called me. I don’t remember much about the conversation to be honest. Then I went downstairs, told my husband, and drove into town to do some last minute pre-holiday chores.

It was only as I walked from the car park that the news began to hit home. Just fifteen short months earlier I would have been straight on the phone to my mother, always the biggest supporter of my work, but who could I share the excitement with now she’s gone? Who would understand? Another writer, that’s who; someone who’d been on the same journey – someone who was a good friend I could rely on to keep quiet. Even though she actually screamed when I told her: “Jane – oh my god – that’s amaaaaaaazing!”

janecablepublishingdealblog

Bookish bestie and blogger Becky Edwards (walkingnormally.blogspot.co.uk) is the person who’s kept me sane during the two months it took for the contract to be finalised and signed. You need someone to do that. I kept thinking it was all some terrible joke and that Endeavour would change their mind. Every delay… even when the final contract got lost in the post… was agony. But it’s over now: the contract is signed and I can go public.

Part of going public involves writing this blog. Endeavour is one of the new breed of UK digital publishers and must be the biggest in the game, bringing out 25 new titles each week. This deal isn’t going to be like working with one of the ‘traditional’ houses – there will be no waiting a year or more for a book to appear – things are going to happen fast and furiously from here on in.

Digital is a route that many authors seeking publication will be looking to take and so this blog will not only be of interest to the reading public but also to other writers. The intention is to share the reality of the hard graft, sweat, and maybe even tears along the way as I embark on the latest phase of my writing career. I want it to be useful; I want people to comment and ask questions. I also want to give Becky a break!

Jane Cable is the author of two independently published romantic suspense novels, The Cheesemaker’s House and The Faerie Tree, and a sporadic contributor to Frost. Find out more at www.janecable.com.

 

 

 

It Takes Two – The Idea Behind KISHBOO by Sharon Boothroyd

Posted on by

It was my husband Keith who had the idea of producing an e-magazine in the summer of 2014. He has pro web design experience and I had written all the text for his corporate client websites, so we were used to combining our skills and working together as a team.

We called our publishing brand Ryecorn Digital Publishing, after Ryecorn, the fictional Yorkshire town in my kindle chick- lit novella.
Keith designed all the unique graphics for the chapter headings and he also designed the book cover for me, too. I was really pleased with his design. The free android app version looked great too.

To keep costs down, we set up a free website to help promote it: www.ryecorn.orgfree.com

We had already enjoyed minor success with another online project of ours called ‘A quick read.’ This entailed uploading stories onto our website and onto the accompanying free android app.

We didn’t charge writers a fee for publication, and the website cost around £60 a year. Even though we were overwhelmed with work, as time passed, we couldn’t see how the project could develop, so sadly in 2014, after two years, we decided to close it down.

So – we had published online,on kindle and on the android app format. We both really warmed to the idea of publishing an e-mag on 3 digital platforms.

It Takes Two - The idea behind KISHBOO by Sharon Boothroyd


What could we call our magazine though? We thought of hundreds of names, but the domain names were all taken, so we hit upon the idea of blending our names to create something truly different. We really hoped that the name ‘KISHBOO‘ would stick in people’s memory.

It would be non- profit making project. We’d fund the competition prizes through the competition entry fees, and we now realised that we could use online advertising to help cover the cost of our website.

pic.KISH_2In August 2014, we were ready to launch the project! However, the actual magazine wasn’t published until October, as we needed stories and articles to fill it.

I began to send press releases out and my network of writer friends helped spread the word  for us via social media. Keith worked hard on search engine optimisation, and I began to tweet for the first time in my life.

I was worried that we would receive no articles at all because at the moment, we are unable to pay writers. However, we can offer them free promotion of their kindle books and blogs within their articles. I wasn’t even sure we would get anyone entering our competition. I needn’t have worried – the comp entries and articles began flooding in!

Back issues are easily available – here’s what the first KISHBOO looked like:

pic.KISH3Here’s the cover of the second issue, which was published in January 2015: pic.KISH4

We are now very working hard on our third issue, which will be published in April 2015. It’ll be packed with even more features.

Please visit: www.kishboo.co.uk
Find us on facebook: www.facebook.com/kishboo.mag
Follow us on Twitter: @KishbooMag

 

 

Kobo Aura HD lands on store shelves today

Posted on by

Kobo Aura HDKobo Aura HD Hits Shelves In The UK

Frost recently went to the launch of the Kobo Aura HD. We tested it out and loved it. If you also want a piece of the action it lands in WH Smith today.

The Kobo Aura HD, the definitive eReader for the dedicated book reader, goes on sale 25th April 2013.  With a global product launch that took place in London on 15th April, the Kobo Aura HD delivers the best eReading experience with the highest resolution 6.8” E Ink display available on the market today. Its sophisticated, book-inspired design is available in Ivory, Espresso and Onyx.

 

Kobo Aura HD offers the highest-resolution screen available in an eReader today. At 265 dpi, the spacious 6.8” Pearl E Ink touchscreen offers 30 percent more reading surface and the closest experience to print-on-paper – showcasing text and high-resolution images beautifully. The device’s 1GHz processor makes page turns fly and is the fastest eReader on the market – 25 percent faster. Kobo Aura HD has 4GB of storage (expandable up to 32GB) to easily store thousands of eBooks, and has a battery life of up to two months, making it the perfect eReader for people with a passion for the written word.

 

Price:  £139.99

WHSmith