One of my resolutions for January which I may or may not renew each month through 2013 is to post at least one blog each month. 2012 has overwhelmed my blog. My first book, Washing up in Malta, came out and I traveled a lot and I started working on the second book.
Another resolution for January is to write 500 words a day on the next book. I have managed to do that since I returned to Malta in October and I am almost at the end of the first draft but have bogged down so have decided to leave it for a couple of weeks over Christmas and New Year. When I return from a week's trip to Djerba in Tunisia I'll get going again.
I'm learning a lot, probably the hard way, about publication. From idea to book in hand, Washing up in Malta took me longer than my PhD, at least ten years. The idea emerged when I recorded some of my mother's stories before she died but the shaping of the story waited until after I finished my day job in 2008 when I set up this blog and started practicing the craft of writing. Many drafts later and I had a manuscript to send off to publishers at the start of this year.
I was rejected by silence or by polite letters of praise with the inevitable 'However'. It seemed that I had left my run too late and was doomed to the bitterness of the scorned writer or years of pouring my energy into pursuit of a publisher. I didn't like that idea and with my 8th decade looming on the horizon, I don't have a lot of time to wallow. There are at least two more book ideas in my head and I wanted to get going. I decided to publish through authorhouse.uk. It's called author assisted publication.
I felt very worried at first. When you're on a fixed income, the bright young things on the other end of the phone were asking for a lot of money. I was relying only on my own judgement about the quality of the work. I resisted the hard sell to double the cost and have what seemed to be just a line edit. I took photos for the cover, more photos to go inside behind the poems I wanted included at the start of sections, and did a final rework on the manuscript. It was a scramble to get it all off before departing on the first leg of my round-the-world trip.
The process was fast. As I traveled, I was passed on from one publishing section to another and had the support of different groups of relatives as I went. My sister in California helped me negotiate proof changes and cover design alterations. My cousins in New Zealand and Australia encouraged me with interest. In Brisbane, I held the first hard copies in my hand. It felt good.
Much of the rest of my stay in Queensland was about letting go of Washing up in Malta and doing research for the second book, Songs for a Blind Date. That is one of the threads I am writing into "Songs". But the last phase of marketing a book is particularly hard when you have self-published. I am resisting the hard sell of putting out more money to get Washing up in Malta noticed by a wider reading public. I feel uneasy about the thought that my book might be read simply because I have put out a lot of money to have it come up at the top of electronic search engines or get featured at book fairs. So Washing up in Malta will remain in my life for a while longer as I find ways to personalise the selling of the book through book readings and identification of particular readerships such as travelers and the Maltese diaspora.
In my next post, I'll say something about what Washing up in Malta is about. In the meantime you can find it on Amazon.com, Amazon.com.uk, authorhouse.co.uk or on my Facebook page under Josephine Burden
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