- Joined
- Apr 19, 2008
- Messages
- 140
- Reaction score
- 5
- Location
- Hastings UK
- Website
- www.hastingspress.co.uk
In 2002 I wrote/published a collection of short biographies of some notable women who lived in my town in the 19th century. There were nine in the book, it sold fairly well, about what you would expect for one small town.
In 2006 I decided not to pay the annual maintenance fee to the POD printer to keep the book on his system. I'd let it go out of print and replace it with a revised, enlarged version, to be published in the autumn of 2007.
So I decided to expand geographically to the whole of my county. I thought I would probably find about 50 notable women. Well, this grew to 100, then 200, then 300 and now to my astonishment I have 580, and that is after rejecting about 20 for not being notable enough.
This was partly through having a webpage which invited people to suggest names to me for my consideration. Also, in October 2007 a huge online database went live, which gives me access to nearly 100 newspapers and magazines, all text-searchable, published between 18000-1900. By using clever advanced searching I managed to find women that would otherwise have escaped my notice (via obituaries and interviews etc). I don't have to pay for this access because I get it via a university which employs me as a "special guest lecturer" from time to time.
So this book, which was going to be a paperback of about 100 pages, is now a hardback of 304 text pages, 32 pages of plates, with 63 gloss photos and 189 images within the text, including photos of the houses they lived in, press cuttings about them and cartoons and drawings of them.
The typesetting has been a nightmare because every time I thought it was finished, I found another notable woman, which messed up everything. Several times, after I had laid out and numbered all the plates someone sent me a photo of one of my subjects, which threw the whole thing into disarray. I changed the title of the book at least 30 times and the subtitle at least 50 times. The introduction went into 54 drafts!
But it is now almost ready to go to print - PHEW!
I'd have to say that finding out every detail I can about the women is my favourite part of the writing process, and designing the cover (I do everything in Adobe Indesign) is my favourite part of the publishing process.
My least favourite thing is doing marketing, publicity, admin and accounts. Yuk. But a necessary evil and I am always open to suggestions and willing to learn marketing skills.
My current problem is: I still have not decided upon a price for this book. I spent an hour on Amazon looking at similar books (female biography or women's history) in hardback and of about 300 pages. They ranged from £12 to £65 so that was no help to me at all!
Helena
on the sunny south coast
in the UK
xx
In 2006 I decided not to pay the annual maintenance fee to the POD printer to keep the book on his system. I'd let it go out of print and replace it with a revised, enlarged version, to be published in the autumn of 2007.
So I decided to expand geographically to the whole of my county. I thought I would probably find about 50 notable women. Well, this grew to 100, then 200, then 300 and now to my astonishment I have 580, and that is after rejecting about 20 for not being notable enough.
This was partly through having a webpage which invited people to suggest names to me for my consideration. Also, in October 2007 a huge online database went live, which gives me access to nearly 100 newspapers and magazines, all text-searchable, published between 18000-1900. By using clever advanced searching I managed to find women that would otherwise have escaped my notice (via obituaries and interviews etc). I don't have to pay for this access because I get it via a university which employs me as a "special guest lecturer" from time to time.
So this book, which was going to be a paperback of about 100 pages, is now a hardback of 304 text pages, 32 pages of plates, with 63 gloss photos and 189 images within the text, including photos of the houses they lived in, press cuttings about them and cartoons and drawings of them.
The typesetting has been a nightmare because every time I thought it was finished, I found another notable woman, which messed up everything. Several times, after I had laid out and numbered all the plates someone sent me a photo of one of my subjects, which threw the whole thing into disarray. I changed the title of the book at least 30 times and the subtitle at least 50 times. The introduction went into 54 drafts!
But it is now almost ready to go to print - PHEW!
I'd have to say that finding out every detail I can about the women is my favourite part of the writing process, and designing the cover (I do everything in Adobe Indesign) is my favourite part of the publishing process.
My least favourite thing is doing marketing, publicity, admin and accounts. Yuk. But a necessary evil and I am always open to suggestions and willing to learn marketing skills.
My current problem is: I still have not decided upon a price for this book. I spent an hour on Amazon looking at similar books (female biography or women's history) in hardback and of about 300 pages. They ranged from £12 to £65 so that was no help to me at all!
Helena
on the sunny south coast
in the UK
xx
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