On (my) Writing

A Journey into the unknown.

It had never been my intention to be a writer. I didn't leave school thinking I'd love to be an author. In fact, quite the opposite. I left school with very little in the way of English qualifications. The thought of essays, comprehension and précis being a part of my life after school didn't interest me at all. Of course, as I moved through the Royal Navy, report writing became a necessity. I also had to sit English exams for promotion.

The inciting incident, the seed, that created the idea for the book, The Chain Diaries, occurred in November 1994 but that wasn’t what inspired me to write. I was out one evening with a bunch of mates, as you do, and was recounting the story of meeting the woman at Heathrow airport. (You’ll need to read the section on why I wrote the book to catch up here.) When I’d finished telling the story, one of them said something along the lines of, “You tell a good story, you should write it down.” It was still a few years later that I first put pen to paper, metaphorically. This was after I’d done a few classes online and a short Open University credit on Creative Writing. I still found that the creative aspect of my writing was troubling. I found an article, almost by accident, on screenplays and script writing. What I found fascinating was the minimalistic approach without the need for flowery prose. Generally speaking, there are four aspects to a script: Location, Action, Character and Dialogue. I started writing a screenplay in May 2019.

There are other nuances that professional screenwriters can use but for a newbie like me, this was a revelation. This enabled me to tell the story in short bursts and to a script reader, they would be able to understand it. I submitted my finished screenplay to a competition in the States in November 2019, twenty-five years after the Heathrow incident. I paid extra for constructive feedback and was rewarded when, in June 2020, I received notification that my screenplay had made it to the semi-final stage. Sadly, it got no further but quite an achievement for a newbie. The feedback I received enabled me to 'improve' the script for a possible re-entry at a later date.

I’d got the bug. Once the excitement had died down (in me, not the film making world), I decided to use the screenplay as a template for my first novel. Using the four main parts of the script, I fleshed out the pages until, in November 2021, I had over 140,000 words as a first draft. A standard novel is considered to be eighty to one hundred and twenty thousand words.
Note: It may not be for everyone, but I found having the screenplay as a template for my novel invaluable. Free screenwriting software is available.

At the same time, November 2021, I signed up to a Write That Book Master Class organised by renown public speaker, Michael Heppell , just after completing the first draft. As I already had the words, I didn’t so much need help with the writing, but I was looking ahead to the editing, publishing, and marketing aspects that the course advertised, and it was essential to getting my book ‘over the line’.

It took another nine months, which included, editing down to one hundred and twenty-eight thousand words, creating an audio version, setting up cover designs, (one for Amazon and one for Mixam ), building a website including PayPal integration and ISBN registration. I was able to work most mornings, in the afternoons I was looking after my wife. In May 2020, I sent the manuscript and cover designs to a company called Mixam who print books. I’d only asked for three copies as these were going to be handed out to people to proofread. These were received with much fanfare, in my mind at least. I now had a tangible object that I could touch, feel, read. Quite a moment.

On the fifth of August 2022, I felt the book was ready. There were a few hoops still to jump through regarding cover design and formatting as this had changed since submitting the proofread copies, but these were overcome quite easily and the people at Mixam were a great help.

I received one hundred hardback copies from Mixam on the 23rd of August and began selling them from my website. On the 25th of August I submitted the manuscript and cover design to Amazon where they are now available as a paperback and for the Kindle.

In September, I made the book available for the KOBO platform.

Things to consider

Writing Tools. There are many people who still prefer to write longhand into a notepad and transcribe this later to a computer/tablet. It will need to be made digital at some time.
I used Microsoft Word initially to type up my manuscript and authors I know have used this to fully publish their books.
Any respectable word processor is suitable for creating your manuscript, although, the standard requirement for many print companies and Amazon is that you should export it as a print ready pdf file. Make sure your chosen word processor can do this. Having said that, I have found out that in some cases, a Word document will be accepted.

Grammar Checking tools. Microsoft Word’s standard grammar checker (or your word processing tool of choice) should suffice, however, there are some things that are not consistent or patently wrong. It’s still valuable for ongoing spelling, grammar checks and word count etc. A point to note, typewriters and pens do not come with a spell checker.
I’d recommend downloading the free Grammarly add-on. This works not only in Word but also in web posts such as social media etc.
There is a free software application called Hemmingway Editor that you can download. You copy and paste your manuscript into it, and it marks up and gives you a score on your writing style. You can paste a chapter in at a time and the lower the score, the better, supposedly, your writing. It will let you know if it considers a sentence is too long, if you’ve used too many adverbs and certainly makes you re-read some of your work with a critical eye. You will get a score and the idea is to get as close to zero as possible though threes or fours seemed perfectly adequate to me.
There is an online site, WordCounter that will not only count the words in your document, but also count the number of times you have used a particular, two, three, four or five (and more) word phrase. I found this invaluable during the final editing stage where I’d used, ‘a couple of’, around two hundred times.

Typesetting. There will be many purists who declare that you cannot do a professional typesetting job using a standard word processor. The industry standard typesetting tool of choice seems to be Adobe’s InDesign. This can be quite expensive, but I was offered this as part of a deal with someone I now work for.
I asked a question in a writing group to someone who made such a statement, my question was; “What can you do in InDesign that you cannot do in MS Word?” They were unable to tell me, however I did use InDesign for my manuscript (typesetting only,) and I did so for a specific reason I’ll get on to that shortly.

The Font. There are considered industry standards for the type of font used for specific book genres and between Fiction, Non-Fiction, and children’s books. This usually centres around serif (the font with the ‘bits’ at the top and bottom) or non-serif. I can’t give every type here but look at some of your favourite books and determine which is more pleasing to the eye.
A fiction book, a novel, tends to have a serif font such as Times Roman , whereas a non-fiction book tends to be non-serif such as Arial or Calibri. This is not set in stone and the best thing to do is to look through books by your favourite author and see what they have done.

Font Size. The first book I printed, for trial purposes, received a number of comments that the font was too small. I was using Times Roman, size 10, mainly because the book was huge, and I wanted to keep the page count down. It was a mistake, and I increased the size to 12 for the publication run. I also had to increase the leading which I’ll cover next. This increased the page count (and printing cost) considerably.

Leading. Leading is the distance between the lines of text and is specified, usually, in font sizes. In Word, you can specify by line spacing, and the first option is 1, then 1.15 and this increases to 2, however, if you go into the options and select ‘Exactly’ you can specify a point size. (12pt, 14pt etc).
As a rule of thumb, I have found that selecting a leading of two points above the font size, it has worked for me. So for a font size of 12pt, I would select a leading of 14pt.

Kerning. Kerning is the distance between letters. Whilst this may be important in the Desktop Publishing field for posters and such, and it is possible to change this in Word, I have found no reason to change the kerning in my Word manuscript before publishing.

Book Size. I used an external print company, Mixam, to produce a number of hardback books and they did a good job of it. The standard size for their books seems to be A5 (5 ⅞” x 8 ¼”). When I sent my book off to Amazon for a paperback release, their standard book size was 6” x 9”. The difference meant I had to change the format of the whole document, including the cover design. I believe that you can deviate from the standard book sizes and for my next one I will try to make sure the book sizes are consistent.

Margins. There are four margins to consider, top, bottom, left and right. The top margin needs to have space to allow for chapter titles, author names, page numbers, depending on where you want page numbers. The bottom margins need to have space to enter page numbers, see previous comment.

Gutter. The gutter is an extra space on the inside margin so that the text does not get ‘lost’ in the crease of the book. There are calculations for guttering, and this is generally based on how many pages your book is. The more pages, the more guttering is required.

Chapter Numbering. The jury’s out on chapter numbering regarding font, size and decoration, although, looking through a number of books, where it goes is fairly consistent. A new chapter usually starts around a third of the way down the page. The number is either in words or numbers and may or may not include the word, ‘chapter’. I guess, this is up to you, there appears to be no concrete rules for this. Decoration: Very often there is a small image or icon close to, above, below or alongside the chapter title. Again, this is a personal preference.

Page Numbering. Page numbering is generally in one of six places, left, centre or right on the top margin, or left, centre or right on the bottom margin. The size and placement is up to you. It can also deviate between alternate pages so, for example, far right on the right-hand page and far left on the left-hand page. Where the page numbering starts is a separate issue. Looking through a series of books, I would suggest starting at the prologue, if you have one, otherwise chapter one. Earlier than this and you’re encroaching into the supernumerary pages such as the copyright page.

Paragraph Formatting. There are a set of standards for formatting paragraphs depending on where they sit in a chapter and what function they perform. The first paragraph in a chapter starts about halfway down the page, under the Chapter Heading (see above). It is not indented and may have a drop capital to start the chapter. Except for Point of View (POV) changes, each new paragraph in a chapter will start with the first line indented. It is recommended not to use tabs to indent as this is sometimes too much. The indent is not cast in stone but looks to be about half of a standard tab. For each POV change within a chapter, the first line will NOT be indented. A POV change is where the scene completely changes, and the reader is taken to a completely different area with, possibly, different characters. Each time a character speaks, their dialogue is indented in line with the other, non-POV change, paragraphs. Each character’s dialogue should start on a new line. If one character speaks, then there is some exposition and they speak again, this can be included in the same paragraph.

Cover Design Tools. Probably the most subjective aspect of the whole book publishing process. What works for you might not work for someone else. If you design a book cover, get people to comment on it. Design a few and get people to choose their favourite. There are many tools available to design book covers, starting with the industry favourite, Adobe Illustrator, however, there is a cost implication to using this one. Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and other photo manipulation software can also be used but I would suggest using something that has ‘layers’ so that you can change the opacity of individual elements. Online, there are sites that will take you through the process of creating book covers and one of these is www.canva.com. There is a free version, and there is a ‘Pro’ version where you can subscribe and have access to more images, more functionality. Of course, the subscription costs. There are sites that will allow you to download royalty free images such as www.pixabay.com. You can carry out a search for your chosen subject and need to check each picture. There are hundreds to choose from but make sure they are royalty and attribution free. I have made an attribution in my book to one of the picture providers, it’s not necessary though. One thing to be aware of, Mixam, the print company I went with, say they require the cover to be a print ready pdf in CYMK format. At the time of starting, my photo editor of choice was Photoshop Elements, the cut down version of Photoshop. It did not export in CYMK, only RGB. However, on doing some digging, I found out that Mixam did accept RGB, they just prefer CYMK. On the Mixam site, I downloaded an image template, and this gave me the size for the front cover, back cover and spine. Three separate files. The image still took some tweaking. Be aware that each template, whether downloaded from Amazon or your external printer of choice will have a small margin around the outside, the bleed area, where they do not want you to place any text or important imagery. This will prevent the important stuff being cut off when it goes to print.

Self-Publishing

It's a circus.

Phew! That’s the hard work out of the way. Now to get published, it can’t be that hard – can it? Lingua in maxillam.
Publishing Your Book. I generally consider that there are four methods to publish a book. (If there are more, please let me know.)

• Traditional Publisher.
• Vanity Publisher (They might not like this term.)
• Hybrid Publishing (Pay for what you get others to do.)
• Full Self-Publishing. (DIY)

Traditional Publisher. This involves finding a publisher willing to take you on. They will consider, genre, style, age of reader. You can find a publisher in a number of ways.

• Online Search
• Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook
• Phone Book
• You're really lucky and one contacts you.

You could end up sending out fifty (or more), query letters and a negative or no response from all of them. It’s a waiting game and until someone realises your genius, you could be waiting a while. Stephen King's Carrie was rejected thirty times, J.K.Rowling's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, eight times, Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind, thirty eight times.
A traditional publisher will have full control of your manuscript once it has been accepted.
They are specific in their submission requirements. Keep to them.

• They can change stuff at will.
• They will have editors.
• They will have copywriters.
• They will have typesetters.
• They will have cover designers.
• They will assign it an ISBN (You could use your own.)
• They will, in many cases, not all, market your book. It’s worth it for them to do so.
• You will get a percentage of the royalties, a rough guide (from the internet), each publisher will be different;
• Hardback: 15% (You get £1.80 per £12.00 book)
• Paperback: 7.5% (You get £0.90p per £12.00 book)
• Mass Market (?): 5% (You get £0.60p per £12.00 book)
• You do NOT pay anything up front for a traditional publisher.

Vanity Publisher. Once you mention on social media that you are publishing a book, you will be inundated with sales pitches from different ‘vanity’ publishing houses.

• You pay up front for the services you require.
• They sell ‘packages’. These could include but are not limited to.
• Full Package - You do nothing except give them the manuscript.
• Printing, editing, typesetting, marketing, cover design, ISBN Registration, Amazon inclusion and ePub.
• If you’re happy to do bits yourself, cover design for example, these can be removed from the pricing.
• The general consensus among writing circles, is do NOT pay upfront for publishing although, to be fair, it is probably the most painless way to get your book out there.
• Some VPs offer marketing services, which are an added cost, otherwise you market it yourself.

Hybrid Self-Publishing. You pay for the bits you can’t do yourself. This can apply to Full Self-Publishing as well as using a Vanity publisher.

Full Self-Publishing. You do everything yourself except the proofreading. You will need external proof-reader(s) to go through your manuscript to check for typos, grammar mistakes and continuity errors. You can pay for this or offer it out on social media and see who gets back to you. Alternately, give it to a family member who has nothing better to do with their time.

ISBN Registration. An International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is required for each printed format of the book you are publishing. This means, if you are having a hardback printed by one company and a paperback by another company, you will need two ISBN numbers. This is what I was told at the time, I have since found out that this might not be the case and one would suffice. An ePub/Kindle version of your book does not require an ISBN.
In the UK, the ISBN distributer is Nielsen, their website, will have all of the details required for buying and registering ISBNs.
At the time of writing, one ISBN costs £91.00, however, there is a scale. The more you buy, the cheaper each one costs. I went for the ten option. It was a no brainer, especially as I was going to need at least two.

ISBN Bar Codes. One thing the prospective author might be unaware of is that the barcode on the back of most books is separate to the ISBN number and these cost extra money. Of course they do. They are not too expensive and, just like the ISBN numbers, there is a sliding scale depending on how many you purchase and these are also available from the Nielsen website.

If you’ve purchased ten ISBNs, why would you not purchase ten barcodes which is cheaper than buying six?

Selling your book locally. I first produced one hundred hardback copies of the book through a company called Mixam and these were delivered to my house. The hundred books cost around £780.00, £7.80 each. I chose to sell these at £12.00 (plus postage and packing). I called this batch a numbered, signed, limited edition that I would either sell locally or post out to the UK. Posting away from the UK is prohibitive in terms of postage costs. I had two people say, “to hell with costs” and I subsequently sent books to the Republic Of Ireland (£9.10 postage), and France (£9.90 postage). The postage was passed on to the purchaser.
Initially, I used my website to sell the hardbacks either locally, in which case no postage was involved, or posting to UK addresses. I charged £3.00 for postage and packing though as it turned out, this was a bit 'light'. I had planned to use Evri (Hermes) at £2.99 but they were going through a transition so in the end, opted for Royal Mail at £3.35 for second class. Add another £0.50 for the padded envelope, I made less on a posted book than I did on a locally purchased one. This usually involved cash or direct bank transfer as this was the most profitable. (No commission). Selling at £12.00 a book, I stood to make £4.20 each. If you use PayPal or a card reader, there are commission costs to consider.

Selling on Amazon. Amazon has its own software, Kindle Create for producing the manuscript file to upload for paperbacks and the Kindle, however I wasn’t keen on its formatting so used a pdf produced by InDesign for the Amazon paperback.
I chose to go for paperback books with Amazon because the profit margin was much better. I would have had to sell the hardbacks on Amazon for £13.76 to make £0.01p profit. If I sold the hardbacks for £16.00, I might make £2.00.
I could sell paperbacks on Amazon for £12.00 and make about £2.00 on royalties per book, however, Amazon will allow the writer to purchase ‘author’ copies of their own book. My book was about £5.20 per book so I ordered ten books. For me this worked out at around £5.80 per book including postage and packing. I could then sell those books for £12.00 locally, and potentially make £6.20 per book. Amazon will allow you to buy up to 999 author copies. Author copies do NOT count against your selling numbers on Amazon. Sorry!
Amazon prefer the front cover, spine, and back cover for paperbacks to be sent as one file. They also have a template that you can use, and woe betide anyone that goes outside the boundaries of the template. The file will be rejected!

Amazon Kindle. Amazon’s Kindle Create software is used to produce the file needed to upload that can be used for the Kindle release. Copy and paste your document, excluding supernumerary pages such as copyright, acknowledgements, and bio, these will be added later.
Kindle Create is free to use and there is a learning curve associated with it but not that steep.

British Library. A part of the ISBN registry process requires you to notify the British Library (BL) that you are publishing a book, who the author is, who the publisher is and quite a few other details. At some point after your book has been published, you will be contacted by the BL and it is a lawful requirement that you provide them with a printed copy for their archives. I sent them a paperback version, Author’s Copy at a cost to me of around £5.80 + £3.35 p&p. Pretty neat to know that a copy of my work will be forever stored in the British Library.

Marketing

You won't sell a book if no one knows about it.

How do you let people know your book is out there?

• Author Website
• Local Press
• National Press
• Local Radio
• National Radio
• Social Media
• Book Fairs/Shows
• Amazon Advertising

Author Website. Do you need one? You could possibly get by without one but from my own personal experience, I'd say it was essential to marketing your product, namely, your book. It can also tell your prospective readers, and prospective publishers, so much more than information about your book. If you add a PayPal button, you can also sell directly from your site.
To get your own website up and running, you need a couple of things; a domain name. This is what your website is going to be called, and a host. This is where the files, images etc will be stored.
The domain name is fairly cheap and simple to organise, there are numerous companies offering domain name registration. They usually have a deal for the first year for as little as £0.99 with the second, and subsequent years costing around £11.99. This will all depend on the type of domain extension, (the bit after the name you have chosen) for example a .co.uk domain is a lot cheaper than a .com domain. There are many domain extensions out there. (.net .limited .co .uk .tv .bike .sale .org.uk .info .me .me.uk)
There are also many site hosting companies out there, possibly the same company that provided the domain name. Have a look at the following site, The top ten hosting sites in 2023. As well as the sites, there's also some good info.
Can you do it yourself? There are many website building sites out there, Wix, GoDaddy , Ionos to name a few.
Probably the biggest question is, how much to build a site if you can't do it yourself?
If you don't have a 'friend' who can do it for you, you could search online, a company called Fiverr list the services of many software and website developers who will do just that. The costs will depend on the complexity of your site's requirements. My only concern with using this service is that if you ever need updates, you are reliant on these people.
There are 'drag and drop' development sites available, such as Wordpress and although there is a learning curve, a couple of people sat around a laptop should be able to sort it out in no time. A lot of the previously mentioned hosting sites also offer a 'drag and drop' option.

Local Press. If you know someone, or even know someone who knows someone, it is probably worth reaching out to any/all local newspapers. If not, go to their 'letters' page. They usually have a 'local interest' section and in most cases, it is free. Unless you take out an advertisement.

Local Radio. These too will have 'local interest' slots. Contact them direct, you should be able to find out their contact numbers from their websites.

National Radio. A bit trickier but not outside the bounds of possibility. You'll need a good 'selling' point but what have you got to lose?

Social Media. As it was explained to me, if you have five hundred 'friends' on Facebook and sell your book to one percent of them, you've sold five books. If you have five thousand 'friends', that's potentially fifty books. You need to increase your social media following, or increase your 'Tribe'. Other social media sites such as Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and even, for an oldie like me, Tik-Tok offer avenues into marketing. Setting up a 'campaign' on Twitter is simple enough but you have to have something to say to promote your book. And you have to post often and at regular intervals. Once you've posted, you need to respond to any comments within a timely fashion.

Book Clubs/Shows/Fairs. Trawl social media or even local newspapers, many will have information on local clubs. This might also lead to information about book fairs where you could display your wares.

Amazon Ads. Amazon Advertising costs money. There appears to be no upper limit but before you take the plunge, there are a number of free courses you can take to get information and get started on the Amazon Ads trail. You'll need to log in/sign up and I'm currently going through the courses.