My Experience With Publishing

Hello guys! I hope you're all enjoying the Summer, hopefully you're all able to spend more time outside this year, I know that's what I'm looking forward to.

Today's post is another confession like one about publishing this time and my two cents on the industry from what I've seen and my experience with getting To Catch a Rebel into print.

I did a post some time ago on my writing and publishing journey for To Catch a Rebel and for the most part it was bright and dewy eyed. Now I want to get raw and honest with you.

So let's start from the time when I got my publishing contract. I got my contract to publish my book which was all good but that wasn't. You see there are many types of Publishing houses out there and each of those houses offer different types of publishing contracts. Olympia Publishers, they had a traditional contract and a contribution based contract.

With a traditional contract, the publishers pay for all aspects of the the book, editing, proofreading. cover design, marketing, etc. and some cases they give you an advance which is money for your book upfront.

With a contribution based contract, there is no advance and you have to pay a fee to publish your book. This was the contract that I received. I had to pay £2000, in 10 installments. Was it worth it? Yes and no. For example most of the marketing efforts were done by me and not the publishers, so that I don't think it was worth it in that regard and in terms of editing there wasn't much of that apart from some proofreading. However they had great cover designers and people who just formatted the book well. I'm glad for my time with Olympia, no matter the cost but how with the continuous rise of self-publishing, with people having more control over their work and being able to keep up to 70% or more of royalties (I get 20% royalties from Olympia), I've been considering that option for my next books.

So maybe there is a budding author out there who wants to know which publishing option they should go for, all I can say is shop around look at what's out there before you make your decisions. If you get a contract make sure your find out what everything means and what you're entitled to, whether in finances or the rights to your work. If you can, get a lawyer to look through it with you. I for one know the allure of traditional publishing and having a prestigious or at least known company on your book spine, but sometimes it isn't worth it.

Now, I'm not saying my sequel will not be published by Olympia and I'm just saying I'm taking a lot of things into consideration and if you're thinking of getting published, you should do the same.

Now speaking of To Raise a Banner, I'm more that half way though the first draft. All I can is that it really raises the stakes, more secrets to reveal and more twists.

That's it for today, I'll write to you soon.