Publish non-fiction book or not?

[Misty_Blue]

I have a bit of a dilemma. I wrote a non fiction book approx 50K about a dreadful experience I underwent last year, where I bought a new build house in Spain and the council refused to allow me to connect to electricity/water for almost a YEAR. (Due to some corruption/scandal with the developers.)

Anyhow, after a few months this resulted in having the british press at my door and was eventually documented on a TV programme. The producer of the channel told me, "You could write a book about your experience as its pretty shocking," so I got it all down.. but once I did, I prevaricated over publishing it and put it aside, as I felt I would be throwing a really personal diary into the public domain, (as it was quite a painful thing to write even) and I started on fiction instead. However, my friends say I'm daft, that it could be a better way to get a first publishing deal.. what do you guys think?

[K1P1]

Misty,

This sounds like a personal choice you've made, not a professional one. I'm not sure we can give you advice when the issue is your comfort level publicizing something you feel is private.

[aka eraser]

Maggie makes a good point. This whole experience is relatively recent and perhaps a bit of distance (via time) will help settle your somewhat contradictory feelings. Let it rest a while. It doesn't sound like a time sensitive story.

I don't how know litigious Spanish society is but you might also want to consider that aspect. Sounds like that book could embarrass some folks. You'll want to make darn sure your legal ducks are all in a row (though a publisher could help you there too).

[Lauri B]

Hi Misty,
You also want to consider whether or not it's an interesting story to EVERYONE in the world--it sounds like a personal nightmare, but if you weren't personally involved in it, would you buy a book about someone's problems getting electricity to their vacation home? That's the way a publisher will be viewing the book, so you need to keep in mind the book's marketability.
Good luck!

[Misty_Blue]

Thanks for the opinions. I may let it lie for a bit I cant even read it, let alone re-write it as its just far too painful.

Nomad, the marketability of such a book sure is huge and sorry it wasnt a vacation home, I moved here and its of great interest to the thousands of british investors who are buying (or intending to buy) here in the southern coast of Spain. The problem I had is due to a scandal and bad practices, which is recently rocketing throughout the coast of spain. Many spanish property forums are going nuts over it. Many british folk don't realise it.

Thousands of new houses purchased by foreign expats are in danger of being demolished by spanish governments, because they were built by developers who had no legal rights to the land. Its a real bad situation. Not only bad developers here either, the Marbella council itself was recently disbanded and arrested over bribery and corruption.

Fortunately my problem is not one of an illegally built home (or it might have been in the queue for demolition), but that my developer did not acquire sufficient paperwork to allow me to connect to utilities (a legal requirement in spain), my lawyer was corrupt too, he failed to tell me about this missing paperwork when I bought the house, and just wanted to make a sale.

The council didnt care either that we had no water/elec, and they took a year to issue the relevant paperwork so that we could connect to utilities. So when my family moved in the developers told us we could connect up (lies) our only access to water was a tap outside in the street and we collected it with buckets. No heating, no cooking facilities, no light.

We weren't even allowed to get a telephone/internet connection as without the paperwork, my home simply didnt exist in Spain. All this suffering after paying a quarter of a million euros for my home!

I thought by writing my experience it would warn others who most definately will fall into the same boat as I did. My current lawyer said as long as i dont 'name' the developer in a book there is no problem. But as much as people say to me that this experience could be a big seller to the british expatriates here in spain, i just cant go back there in my head right now.

[Jamesaritchie]

The only real way to know whether a book will sell is to try to sell it. Everyone thinks they have a bestseller on their hands, but the reading public gets to decide what sells and what doesn't.

The only possible way to know if you have a winner on your hands is to look for an agent or a publisher, and see what they have to say.

But you lawyer's advice aside, you may have to name names, or no one will have any reason to believe what you say.

[bethannerickson]

Hey James,

Sorry. I have to disagree with you on a minor point.

With just a little rudimentary research, you can get a good idea of public interest.

Sure, you can't necessarily tell whether your particular book will sell, but you can find out if the subject has captured the public interest. If this is the case, you can strategically market pretty much any quality book and it'll sell whether you self publish it or gun after a publisher and/or agent.

Just my two cents.

:)