Christine Dillon

I have just had another phone call with yet another innocent wanna-be author. Another person launching into a new business but being too independent. Jane* (pseudonym) has written a book and wants to get it published but like many first-timers her expectations of having a book published are way out of date. She has romantic notions of a publisher just waiting for her manuscript to drop across their desk. The publishing world has changed Most first-timers do expect that the…

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After three years of publishing fiction, I finally have enough novels in a series to make a box set. Yet another new thing to learn in this long journey called ‘self-publishing’. WHY BOTHER? One of the main challenges facing self-published authors is being ‘discovered’. This doesn’t simply mean becoming popular but more importantly, people actually knowing our product exists. One way to increase the likelihood of your book being spotted is to produce the same book in multiple formats. For…

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The new author scenario Book launch day arrives. The new author is beside themselves with excitement, but they probably don’t know that their expectations aren’t realistic. Self-published authors will be able to see their online sales day by day but traditionally published will often have to wait three months to see the first figures. Once the sales start, they hope for reviews (5-star ones, of course), and nowadays we also want to build our newsletter subscribers and often imagine a…

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