Amazon best-seller writer K M Weiland outlines the six steps you need to take to successfully publish a book in a recent piece published on Cultured Vultures.

Self-publishing, she says, depends on two different skills – writing and marketing and you need to be very good at both, although in the long run writing is the most important skill.

Professional help is another must. You can’t successfully self publish a book by yourself and you will need professional editing, proof-reading, a cover and perhaps someone to typeset your book for print, or prepare e-books for you.

You need a website to showcase yourself and so that readers outside of your immediate circles can find you and you need to build a following on social media.
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Read the full article here. 

Jane Tulloch's book Our Best Attention published through Comely Bank Publishing is still the number one best-seller at Blackwell's Edinburgh book shop (Scottish books) as of Wednesday 27 January.

We're delighted with the success of the book, which Jane self-published earlier this month. The book has sold so well, she has had to order a re-print already. 

Jane is about to embark on a "tour" and will be visiting Corstorphine Library, the Mother's Union, West Fife Farm Women's Club among others over the next few months.

You can buy Our Best Attention here or via Amazon, Blackwell's and other outlets. You can also keep up to date with Jane's progress through her blog. 

Calling all budding writers... Have you got 100 words in you - 100 words that you can use to create a short story?

That's what the Friday flash fiction challenge is all about - 100 words used to create a short story and you can see other people's wonderful efforts over at our sister site, FridayFlashFiction.

if you are interested in writing and self-publishing, Friday Flash Fiction is a great place to start as it allows you the opportunity to flex those creative muscles. 

You can submit a story here. 

What’s in store for self-publishing in 2016? That was the question addressed in a recent Publisher’s Weekly article by Jennifer McCartney.

While 2015’s highlights included the release of The Martian (originally a self-published book), several authors achieving New York Times best-seller status and the book Beautiful Redemption by Jamie McGuire becoming the first self-published novel to be stocked by Walmart, there has been a general slowdown in e-book sales in general (a 10 percent drop).

Experts reckon the trend in fluidity will continue – with people moving from self-publishing to traditional publishing, and back and further exploration of hybrid publishing options. A Digital Book World Survey found that hybrid authors earn the most money, followed by traditionally published authors and then self-published authors.

Smashwords’ founder Mark Coker says that pre-orders continue to be a key feature that drive sales – for example, in 2015 some 10 percent of authors took advantage of the site’s pre-order function and those titles accounted for two-thirds of its top 200 best-sellers. The most popular genre is romance.
Shorter stories are also a growing trend – particularly because more and more people are reading on their phones.

The challenges for self-published authors remain – mainly the reluctance of book stores to stock them, although this is something Coker predicts will change as more and more independently published novels continue to reach the best-seller lists.

The other challenge is the lack of traditional media coverage. While social media coverage for self-published titles flourishes, reviews for independently published books are difficult to achieve – unless you pay for them or opt for customer reviews. 

Read the full Publisher's Weekly article here.

For the week ending 17th January 2016. Spotted it yet?

Spiffing Covers listed its top list of writing resources that can help writers.
The resources come from advice from top writers and include gems such as:
 
Henry Miller – “Work on one thing at a time until finished”.*
 
George Orwell: The Four Motives for Writing (1946) - “Sheer egoism… Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen — in short, with the whole top crust of humanity.”
 
Ernest Hemingway: "Find the best writers, pay them to write, and avoid typos at all costs."
 
John Steinbeck: “Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish.”

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*Disclaimer - one Comely Bank Author is currently working on two books at once AND blogging repeatedly.

​The official launch of Our Best Attention by Jane Tulloch takes place this evening at Blackwells Book Shop in Edinburgh.

Jane's debut novel tells the story of Murrays, a fictional department store in Edinburgh, its staff and its customers. It is set in the 70s and the story brings to life a group of varied and likeable characters (and one or two baddies as well). 

If you would like to buy a copy of Our Best Attention, you can buy it from our book store or you can buy it from Blackwells (53-62 South Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1YS) or The Golden Hare (68 St Stephen Street, Edinburgh EH3 5AQ), Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords and iTunes.

Finally, Jane Tulloch's Our Best Attention, which features tales from a fictional department store in 1970s Edinburgh, is published today priced £9.99 as a paperback or £1.99 as an ebook.

In addition there's an official launch on Thursday 14th January in Blackwell's Edinburgh where Jane will take part in a conversation with Comely Bank Publishing founder Gordon Lawrie before signing copies of her book. Gordon shares a few words of his own in the Writers' Diary section but everyone here at Comely Bank Publishing offers Jane their heartiest congratulations.

Berforts Press, the long-established print firm used by Comely Bank Publishing in recent years, finally closed its doors in November 2015 with a giant auction of all of its remaining plant. It's a blow to everyone – the workforce, obviously, but also to authors and publishers and to readers, too. No other printer matched their quality at the same price, and the unit cost of printing books might well now rise by 50%. It's hard not to see that being passed on to the customer. We've held our prices below those of our neighbouring publishers until now, but that might have to end.

It's not as if Berforts wasn't a viable concern, either. Their problems appeared to start with a large piece of refurbished printing gear (not used in paperback production) which hadn't taken well to being moved and refused to give reliable results. The resulting costs of redoing projects, together with the damage to reputation, proved terminal.

The irony is that, no sooner was Berforts put into administration than the fateful piece of machinery suddenly kicked into gear and ran trouble free until the day Berforts closed its doors, but by then it was too late.

Who says all's fair in business?

Ready to implement those writing resolutions we suggested earlier this week? Here's an easy way for you to implement resolution number one: write 100 words a day.

Every Friday, our sister website FridayFlashFiction publishes - guess what? Flash fiction! all you need to do is write a 100-word, original story and submit it to the site. Nice and easy hmm?

If you want inspiration, why not check out the website and see what other writers are creating?

The publisher Penguin Random House has sold its self-publishing division, Author Solutions.
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Author Solutions was acquired in 2012 for integration into Penguin and was sold to an Arizona-based private investment firm on 31 December.

Penguin CEO John Makinson had said at the time of the acquisition that it would allow Penguin to participate fully in what he described as the “fastest-growing area of the publishing economy”. The company was run as a separate business.

Author Solutions was the subject of a lawsuit in the US which was eventually settled out of court in August. The business had faced accusations from authors that it was trying to make money from them, rather than for them.

In an article on the website The Bookseller, analysts said they thought Author Solutions hadn’t been seen as a “good fit” for the brand Penguin Random House. (Penguin and Random House merged in July 2013 after the acquisition of Author Solutions.)

We know – this news piece isn’t going to score 10 out of 10 for originality as every business or organisation leaps on the bandwagon of resolutions (with the thinly-disguised implication that you buy from them to help implement your resolution) but hear us out...

We DO have some useful suggestions!

Start small. The reason most people don’t write regularly or complete what they have started is because they aim too high. Established novelists whose only job it is to write books can and should force themselves to write 2,000-plus words a day. You should aim for a ridiculously small daily word count – 100 words. Success begets success and if you keep up your very small writing target, then you will soon find yourself out-doing it.

Enter competitions – free ones for the most (a lot of competitions are complete rip-offs) as it is good discipline and, as the saying goes, you’ve got to be in it to win it! The odd paid competition is a good idea too, as long as it’s a well-established, prestigious and trust-worthy organisation.

Practice what you are not good at. Rubbish at descriptions? Look out of your window and describe what you see. Awful at dialogue? Write conversations between characters and read them out loud to see if they sound ‘real’.

Join a writer’s group online or otherwise. These people will be your colleagues and you will learn from them. Plus, they are the only people you can hope to read your book and give you good advice. It’s a big job to read someone’s else’s book and critique it and other writers will understand what a big ‘ask’ this is. You must, of course, return the favour at some point.

Outsource editing and proof-reading. Trust us, you can’t do this yourself.

Finally, need a kick-start? Here at Comely Bank Publishing we run a useful synopsis service. We’ll critique your synopsis and a first chapter (of up to 4,000 words) in return for you buying one of our books. The choice of book is up to you.

Good luck with your writing in 2016!
 
 
 

Happy New Year to all of you from all of us at Comely Bank Publishing.

If your New Year resolutions include reading more great books, well then - see our book store for some fabulous reading material. Similarily, if your New Year resolutions include getting more "me time", then readinmg is the perfect way to spend quality time by yourself.

And if your New Year resolutions include writing that novel you know is inside us, our synopsis service can help you out. In exchange for purchasing one of our books, we will look over a synopsis and first chapter for you and give you feedback.