Click Accept

Yesterday morning, 5 January 2012, I received the second and final printed proof of Chasing Innocence. At midday yesterday I clicked 'Accept' on the printer's website. About 20 seconds later the book was listed as being available for printing. Which means it's done, finished, good to go. Ready to be bought, shipped and delivered into the eager hands of Amazon buyers all around the world. Of course there would be the obligatory spanner in the works - I updated Nielsen's who manage book data in the UK, and brought the publish date forward from 31 January to NOW. But Nielsen's takes a few days to update and Amazon is stuck in the pre-order state. That will fix itself in the next few days, I had just hoped the pre-orders might get shipped for the weekend.

So, yesterday was full of a thrilling sense of jubilation, expectation and a huge chunk of hope. It was a marker for the end of a process and in so many ways, the beginning of something else. I look back to October 2007 when I first had the idea for Chasing Innocence, to the months and months of daydreaming and the uncertainty of how to even start a book, what should a first chapter contain? Who am I writing for? What style should I be writing in? Of Sunday afternoons in Borders reading through a stack of Chapter Ones while drinking tea. The uncertainty of it all really stands out. Of trying to find time to write as I started a new job and found myself commuting 3hrs a day, and then moving house. I did leave the uncertainty behind at 60,000 words in October 2008. I got my head down and finished the first draft in April 2009 - one morning after four months of 5AM starts. I felt then a sense of jubilation just as I do now, little knowing just how much of the journey still stretched before me. Just like it does now I suspect. The rest of that year and much of 2010 was spent taking the rough draft and making it as good as I could, while learning the very important and difficult art of getting feedback and taking criticism. I recall the endless mistakes and the steep learning curve. The very steep learning curve. The wasted time, the wasted months I spent preparing letters for agents, another lesson learned. Of trying and failing to give the whole book a consistent grammatical narrative.

Throughout the whole process I had been determined the book would be a product of my creative endeavours alone. I knew a lot of people that spent a lot of time TALKING about writing books, I knew a lot of people that spent a lot of time studying writing, researching and attending lectures and conferences. A lot of people that spent a lot of time involved in the concept of book writing without actually doing much of it. I never have been any good at studying something and applying the knowledge seamlessly to the real world experience. I would and did learn all my mistakes the same way I have always learned them - the hard way. I wanted the experience of actually writing a book to shape my knowledge. The process also gradually brought about a startling realisation - that I am a bit of control freak. Having lived 44 years as me, this had never once occurred to me. The irony being I know people exactly like this and often shake my head sagely and might even voice the thought that they need to, 'Let go.' Once I realised that was also me, I tried to understand it. I'm control obsessed, not because I don't think anyone can do it better, it's just that I doubt anyone to fully realise what I have in my mind to a finished product that matches my expectations. Others say I'm just driven, others say I'm mad. In Chasing Innocence this had led me to create a great story and great characters. I wasn't sure though. I mean I thought I had, but I was also full of self doubt. I spent the close of 2010 and early 2011 toiling over and over grammatical issues that were artefacts of many lessons learned, that I couldn't rectify because I'd been looking at them for so long. I realised if I was to progress, I did need to let go. I needed help.

I came to Daniel Goldsmith Associates via a literary agent recommendation and lots of research. There are a lot of companies willing to take your manuscript and make it a book, but too many of them are like production lines with limited capacity for quality. I wasn't even sure what the next stage towards publication might be, I just wanted to know what a professional editor thought of the book. I wasn't even sure what to expect.

If there was ever justification needed in my letting go, Katie Green is it. I contracted Daniel Goldsmith to provide editorial feedback on Chasing Innocence and in return I got from Katie a detailed and illuminating report. It turned out the story and characters were everything I thought they were, the epilogue didn't work and some of the chapter endings needed tweaking. Some things weren't clear. There were some real grammatical issues. I made almost all the changes Katie suggested and her second editor report confirmed that the grammatical issues remained. I wonder if she ever contemplated that she would be the one to eventually fix them? I got two colleagues to read Chasing Innocence. Others had gone before them but these were the last two. The first read the pre-Katie version, the second the post Katie version. The first confirmed what Katie said in less specific terms and the second reader gushed. I decided it was time I took the next step. I decided I would publish Chasing Innocence. There was no way I would hand it to the production line of self publishing companies. I wanted the control being my own publisher afforded me. I wanted the finished product to sit beside a 'properly' published book and look better. It seemed a natural move to use Daniel Goldsmith to help with this, they were a trusted commodity in an arena I knew little of. The service they offered also afforded me more interaction. As the publisher I would have final say at every stage.

The first step was Katie Green's great achievement, she heroically copy edited my whole book. Reading the manuscript for the first time after this process was a moment of triumph and utter relief that will be difficult to ever better. The copy edit was justification for the part of me that realised I could not fix the problems, over the part determined to belligerently do it alone. In return Katie had given a great story a consistent grammatical narrative and made it a great read. A huge difference.

The proof edit was done by a freelance editor who also works for some of the established publishers such as Transworld. Having never fed back to Daniel Goldsmith anything on a book's quality other than the content of the professional proof edit, she told them in Chasing Innocence we had a bestseller. The proof edit gave the manuscript a professional shine and highlighted two flaws that caused several late nights. In producing the book's front cover we surpassed my wildest dreams. I had provided Daniel Goldsmith with a stunning image. Getting that image was one of the most remarkable experiences and the combined effort of a photographer, make-up artist, model and my direction. The graphic designer turned it into something quite jaw dropping. He produced a cover that sells the book at first glance, for my mind, and puts questions in your mind that only reading the book will answer. You can't really ask more of a cover. The final stage was the mystical art of typesetting. Something I know a lot more about now. Daniel Goldsmith produced a layout that took the eye easily down the lines of text and from page to page. A typeset that was easy to read and very importantly, took my higher than average word count and made it 366 pages. A fact that becomes more important when you consider each and every page impacts the cost of printing the book.

In clicking 'Accept' yesterday and releasing Chasing Innocence for printing, I was completing another stage in a personal journey. Getting my book into the hands of lots of people, is the next stage. One that I need to balance alongside the two books I intend finishing over the next twelve months. Finishing this leg of the journey and putting Chasing Innocence in a position where people can read what I write, took learning something about myself, and embracing it. It was a lot of hard work, at all times a wonderful creative experience and through collaboration, I saw the book grow into a polished product through the input of many people. WE really did do it.

Shades of Grey

The real thing

Last week, two days before Christmas Eve, I received the printed proof of Chasing Innocence. The proof is for me to accept everything is correct, that there are no errors in the cover or layout. Once I click 'Accept' on the printer's website, the book becomes available to buy. For those that have bravely pre-purchased, it means the book will be printed and despatched. Accepting the proof is a big thing. I was totally in awe of the proof - from the fact I was actually holding my book as a real book for a start. It also looked sensational and everything inside looked great. It would have been easy to simply accept the proof and get giddy at the prospect of it being packaged and sent on its way. I didn't though, because, well, life is never that simple. I did cuddle the proof some more and alternatively stared adoringly at the front cover, and eventually got down to checking the front and back for errors. I then started on the interior layout. It occurred to me very quickly something was wrong with the print. I cornered Prid, handed her the book and told her to read a page of two. She said all the right things that included lots of wows, and wonderfuls. And then cautiously closed with the statement: 'I can see dots in the text.'

There were indeed dots in the text. You only really saw them while reading in a well lit room, but it screamed: 'Amateur hour'. One of the things I have worked very hard to do, is make Chasing Innocence look like a commercially produced book. Not looking self published is not a matter of vanity for me, its about the authority professionally published books come with. If you trust the book as a polished product  then that allows you to buy into the content. Self Published books come with an expectation there will be a lesser standard. As a consequence you hold back from fully committing to the story because you are looking for the errors. I don't want this AT ALL.

So I didn't want dots. I pondered a lot of causes. Maybe the printer budgets for a certain amount of ink per page? Maybe the quality of print won't be the same as those used by commercial publishers? Except I was using one of the biggest and most respected printers in the industry: Lightning Source. So was there something wrong with the PDF bookblock submitted by the typesetter? As a publisher it is my responsibility to make sure the bookblock, the book's interior text,  meets the printer's requirements. As with every stage of this process there had been complications, three different versions of the bookblock had been produced. For the final incarnation I had checked the chapters were in sequence and that the bookblock contained the whole book, I completed some technical checks and submitted it along with the book cover. A few days later the proof had arrived. The next day a colleague picked the proof off my desk. The colleague is Tim. He has worked in the printing industry and has lived the creation of this book on a weekly basis for the last two years. Once he had confirmed the cover was sensational he flipped it open and took a look inside. 'It's printed in greyscale.' he said after two seconds of contemplation. 'Have you noticed the dots?'

Greyscale text printed in Black and White

Greyscale would be a word that haunted my every thought for the next 7 days. The book's contents are printed in black and white, which can't translate greyscale to the printed page, which caused the dots. But how had I got greyscale in the first place? The typesetters had used QuarkExpress v9 (QE9), an industry tool for formatting the book's contents. I had the source layout file used by the typesetters. A quick download of the trial version of QE9 confirmed the source text was a perfect black. So converting the layout to PDF had somehow changed black text to greyscale. But how, why?

In trying to replicate the problem I hit a brick wall of printing terminology. But I do subscribe to lynda.com, which I can't recommend highly enough. I spent three hours that night watching through publishing printing tutorials. This gave me the basic understanding for producing the bookblock PDF for printers. Creating the bookblock through QE9 showed varied results. Sometimes the output text was greyscale, other times black. So we come back to, why? This is where I learned about the difference between RGB and CMYK. The former is a three colour standard we see every day, it is used to produce colour on our computer and TV screens. It is the colour used by QE9 to produce the black text on the screen. CMYK is a four colour standard used by the printing industry. Lightning Source, my printers, had very specific requirements for bookblock creation. I realised the typesetters had produced a bookblock that exceeded these standards but in doing so QE9 had converted black RGB to greyscale CMYK. The interesting irony was it didn't do this every time. So how did I produce a bookblock that would work?

I spent the next five days juggling Christmas duties and learning everything I could about the different standards required for producing print ready bookblocks that weren't going to surprise me when they landed on the doormat. This included more hours on lynda.com and paging through the venerable Aaron Shephard's website and the numerous books of his on publishing I own. Of course his books contained most of the answers but before the detail had meant little. I now had context and studied the semantics of producing a printer friendly bookblock. Aaron Shephard's key advice was to use the Adobe Distillor for creating Adobe PDF files, and leave as few decisions on output to QE9 as possible. I researched Lightning Sources' exact requirements for printing standards and finally I had output that had black text. I then followed their specific requirements for checking the content is compliant and then I uploaded it. That was last night. The new proof should arrive sometime next week. Failing any further 'learning opportunities', I will be clicking 'Accept' with a huge sigh of relief.

Book Cover - Back Cover (And the back cover Blurb)

I admit, I had very little idea for what publishing a book would entail when I started on the journey. I knew I didn't have the skills to do this alone, so I turned to a Literary Consultancy - Daniel Goldsmith Associates. I had already used them for the edit of the book and the feedback they provided made the story better. They would now be responsible for designing the cover, they would copy edit, proof edit and typeset the whole book and bring it to a print ready stage. Lorena Goldsmith of Daniel Goldsmith Associates would take my story and work with me to make it a book.

One of the many elements we spent a lot of time on would be the Back Cover Blurb - the text you read on the back once the cover has enticed you to reach for the book. As Chasing Innocence will unlikely appear in many bookshops, the cover blurb would also be important for the description page on Amazon and Kobo, the two main vendors. The back cover blurb is a perfect example of the many small pieces that comprise a completed product, and how something so innocuous can develop from a simple concept through the collaboration of several minds, to something that sends chills down your spine when you see the finished product.

Katie Green started with the 603 word final version of the synopsis. She took key none spoiler elements and gave them flow and and proceeded them with a question: 'What would you do if you saw a child kidnapped?' I took this framework and expanded in some places, contracted in others and made the blurb read as I wanted it. I deleted the initial question because it didn't work for me, it sounded too non-fiction. I pinged the changes back and received the grammatically corrected version. I accepted the changes and that version of the blurb appeared in proof copies of the cover. Seeing it on the cover though made it immediately obvious it was too long. About a week later I whittled it down and Katie took that version and did a great job in changing the balance of  paragraphs and description to make it an interesting read. It pulled you to the story. At this stage the blurb was 80% done, but it was missing something. Everyone kind of knew this and it kind of just sat there. But then we got nearer and nearer finalising the cover, and with that the need to finalise the back cover blurb.

It was Lorena that eventually nailed it. She said we needed some question or quote at the top to add context for how the blurb is read. I didn't see it for the great idea it was at first, because the words bouncing around in my head were: 'We need a quote.' How was I going to come up with one of those at the eleventh hour? I didn't want to use a question like Katie supplied at the beginning, as I had already discounted the only one I could think of. I wanted something that said: THRILLER FICTION. My mind spent every minute of that night buzzing through concepts and the different dialogues within the story. I guess I must have dozed but it didn't feel like it the next morning. But I did now have three quotes from the book. The first related directly to Sarah, it works in the book but didn't work with the blurb, it was a bit too Rambo. The second quote was a great scene setter, but once you had read the quote it kind of hinted at a twist that occurred in the second act. So that was ruled out. The third quote I didn't want to use because it is very creepy. It is one of those lines you write and feel a little dirty because you wrote it. One of those lines that you have to write because bad things do happen to good people, and for a book to be entertaining you have to make the reader want to look away, and then look right back. The third quote was perfect.

It was added and suddenly what the blurb said now had a very dark, thriller context. It was 95% done. There were a few niggling sections that needed altering, but now we had context with the quote, they were easily sorted. And here it is. The exclusive first look at the BACK cover including the finalised blurb. It sends chills down my spine at least.

Click for the full sized image

We now also have a finalised front cover too. It looks stunning but you will have to wait a few days for that. For those that have pre-ordered Chasing Innocence don't worry about the price on the back cover. This will be discounted by at least 40% by the time the book is despatched to you.

For Authors (Getting Published)

There is a saying that goes like: 'A good book will always find an audience.'

Finding that audience via the modern publishing industry is going to be extremely tough. You, the author, may have a great story and a product that is genuinely commercial. The reality is you will have to be marketable for your book to stand any chance of finding that audience.

To get any face time with a publisher you will first need an agent. Getting an agent is going to be nigh on impossible and extremely time consuming for you. Back in the olde days people sent manuscripts to publishers. That was back when getting a printed copy of your manuscript was very difficult. Just as hand typing a script was. With the advent of personal computers just about anyone could knock up a script, print it and send it to the publisher. The publishers became swamped and Literary Agents evolved. Except a decade after the technical boom more and more people are sending in scripts and the agents are swamped too.

To make their task easier, each agent will have specific requirements that will necessitate different criteria for submitting your work. The reality is they are very busy, they will rarely read more than your cover letter. If they get to your synopsis, they often won't read your submitted chapters. Agents very seldom take on any new authors, because when they do they have to sell your manuscript to a publisher to make any money. They are incredibly selective about what they choose. The submissions they receive will be spread across the spectrum of 'not good', through 'average' to 'good' and 'very good', in decreasing increments. Very often what they choose will be down to circumstance and individual perspective, like I said, it will be as much about you.

There are no stories of walls covered in rejection slips here, because I quickly realised the futility of the whole process. I submitted to thirteen agents in total and spent a lot of time making sure the submission contained exactly what they requested. It took months. It felt increasingly like writing an inventive begging letter. I got five replies. Two were short emails from summer interns, one from the very nice Camilla Bolton at Darley Anderson, and two others as photocopied rejection letters including the signature.

For me the question is simple. What is it you want from publishing your book? If it is notoriety or acclaim within the publishing industry, then you need to come up with a innovative idea, write a flawlessly innovative book and make yourself notable. And preferably find a way around agents. Good luck, I hope to read your book some day.

If you want to entertain and enthral, to have people read your books and hope above all hopes, to carve out a modest living, then you will need to find some other way of getting published. For me the choice was easy. I want people to read what I write.

To start you need two things. You need a great product and you need self belief and determination. That's possibly three but the last two are kind of intertwined. In getting a great product you cannot afford to cut any corners, to hope it will just work. You have to look at your work from every angle and when those nagging voices in your mind tell you something doesn't work, you listen. Same for the proof readers. You cannot afford to be precious. Know what you're writing and who for and take on board everything within context for what you want to achieve.

As for self belief, who knows where that comes from? Wherever you get it from, you're going to need unimaginable quantities. The irony is everyone assumes I have bucket loads. Of course I don't. I wouldn't be human if that were the case. So many times I have despaired and I admit, shed a tear or two at the overwhelming sense of fear that I might fail. Every time I have these dips I eventually come round to a very simple saying: 'Just Do It'. It should be tattooed on me somewhere. Just like I live by the saying: 'Every journey starts with a single step'.

So, you might be asking, what about being published and all that? Well, that's the interesting bit. That's why I created Creative Crow. I became my own publisher. You might call that self-publishing, and maybe even sneer a little, many do. Judge the book by it's cover, I like to say. I like to say that a LOT these days. The cover for Chasing Innocence matches the content.

The boundaries between self and (real) publishing are quickly diminishing in terms of potential quality. I believe the publishing industry is about to go through a major but gradual change over the next decade. I can only see agents becoming a minority, that publishing companies will focus on and consume the increasing number of successful independent (self) publishing authors like large corporates currently do with tech. start-ups. The self publisher makes a good idea, shows commitment in bringing quality with a commercial product, and someone might take notice. Right now I am loving this whole process, the creation and production of my books. And most important, what I write being available for anyone to read at the click of a button. It's about being in control and not about my book and it's begging letter waiting in vain hope. Who knows where it will lead.

For Authors was originally posted on the The Creative Crow Publishing Site For Authors page

Who do you think you are?

When failure is a modern cliché it is easy to step back from even trying. Getting published via traditional paths is beyond difficult if you are not notorious. It leaves you with a hard choice - you give in or you publish yourself. The harsh truth is that over 80% of self published books sell less than 100 copies.

Which screams: Give in now Potter. Although it is encouraging that over half the fiction books sold anywhere, are thriller/crime. That is all I want, to write stories that are enthralling, violent and touching. I want to entertain modern minds, both of women and men. The question is: With one book written and two others in development, how do I get lots of people to read what I write?

You need a good product. I have that, I'm pretty sure. Then you get it out there, which is a story for another day. And then you need to get it noticed. For established authors getting noticed is easy, you type their name into Amazon. The cover art for these authors is usually iconic, images that confirm what you love about the  experience. Admittedly I do have half a very established name, but anyone expecting magic here will be disappointed. At least in the realm of casting spells. Occasionally I manage magical, I like to believe.

So how does no name Potter attract readers? Word of mouth for a start. But even before that I need cover art that isn't just iconic, it must stop the casual browser in their tracks. It seems obvious this imagery for a thriller crime novel about lost innocence, should contain a beguiling woman. That seems as obvious as it was to make the books main character a woman. You have to be careful though. Real stories of lost innocence abound, they are a small niche. My imagery, immediately below the title Chasing Innocence, needs to make it very clear fiction is on offer - fast, violent, enthralling and touching. The image must tell a story and create questions in the casual browsers mind. Questions that need answering. It must make the casual browser click the books thumbnail, so that when they are presented with the cover -  a beguiling woman, haunted, resilient, a warrior. They are consumed by a need to know the woman's story.

For this kind of imagery stock photos are not going to do it, I know, I tried. You need a great photographer and above all, you need a special kind of female model. That model took a long time to find. She has now been booked, along with the photographer and the studio. In two weeks I will be sat in that studio watching the imagery being created. Of course I will doubt myself, who do I think I am, playing at publisher? But I could never not do this. It's about failure not being the default option. What would be the point having poured my creative soul into the book's content, if I did not invest the same into bringing it to everyone's attention?

Definitely not the beginning

The dream was not to write a fiction book and see it published, the journey was to write fiction that would be read and enjoyed by a lot of people. The realisation has been that good fiction is not made with an idea, or by finishing the writing of a great story. These are simply parts of the journey, the first third as it happens. You get the great book on the second leg of the journey - the edit, the repetitive spit and polish that smooths and one day we hope, will keep your audience breathless for each page turn. The final leg is getting people to read it.

Traditional paths to publishing will be closed to all but the famous and notorious. Unless you the author are marketable, then you probably won't be touched by any agent or publisher. The truth is, even if you were picked up and signed to a contract, much of the marketing and taking your book to readers, will have to be done by you. So why sign your rights away if you're going to be responsible for selling your book anyway?

This last leg of the journey, the part that will take your product to the millions staring wide-eyed at Amazon, will almost certainly be the hardest. This is the stage I'm at now. I have a product - a fiction/crime novel that has been edited and beta read to death. It's about to go through the copy, proof, typesetting and cover design mill. I will be my own publisher - Creative Crow has wriggled to existence. I hope you will join me on this part of the journey as we buff and tidy and hurl Chasing Innocence at the digital world. Along the way I also hope to cover some of what went into writing the book and continue detailing the processes for creating the next two books.