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judith barrow's avatar

It seems to me, Rosy, that unless you are a "celebrity" for reading the weather, being in a jungle, a 'House', singing, newsreading - anything except being "only an author", you just have to plod on. We will never get interviewed on the TV (celebrities celebrating celebrities - it's a closed shop - see @jeremyvine.) No point in fighting against that, I tell myself, it's a fact of life these days. And we write because we have to, can't stop, enjoy writing. Self published or trad published, if we want to sell, we have to promote our work as best we can - and hope that readers find us ... somewhere. So sending congratulations on having finished and having published a book. I'm sure you'll find a way to republish - and good luck.

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prue batten's avatar

I’m so sorry you were subjected to the scam, Rosy but rest assured, you are just one of many. In all the years I’ve been writing, there’s always been stories of the nasties who try to suck newbie authors in.

I think the best any budding writer can do is join the Alliance of Independent Authors https://www.allianceindependentauthors.org/

who have lists of registered and reliable players within publishing. ALLI works tirelessly to keep indie authors safe.

I can also only reiterate that whether you’re trad published or indie published, you’re expected to sell yourself. And if you don’t earn the required sales in a contracted time, you will be paying back every penny of any advance. It’s important to keep a sense of reality over the idea of being a writer. It’s hard work whether one is indie or trad - you don’t make a lot of money either way and you have to complete manuscripts inhumanly fast. It’s just the way it is.

As to self-publishing taking ages to get the books out there … it's fast and easy.

Once your ms. has been edited and formatted (excellent folk out there who do it) and you have a cover, it can be uploaded and available literally overnight as an e-book (which is where the biggest market is) and a little longer as a print book. An audiobook takes ages longer, is very expensive and will take you your lifetime to recoup.

One more thing you need to remember is that an agent or publisher often prefers to see your runs on the board. They aren’t going to sign anyone they don’t think will be a runaway success - it’s too costly to try and push an author with no profile in this cut-throat book world.

I hope I haven’t depressed you, I’m sure you knew all that anyway, and good luck.

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