• About Me
  • Books for Writers
  • Contact
  • Genealogy
  • Latest News
  • Novels
    • Mr Cavell’s Diamond
    • The Daughters of Red Hill Hall
    • The Drowned Village
    • The Emerald Comb
    • The Forgotten Secret
    • The Girl from Ballymor
    • The Pearl Locket
    • The Secret of the Château
    • The Stationmaster’s Daughter
  • Short Stories
    • Shortcut Through Time
  • The Forgotten Gift
  • The Girl from Bletchley Park
  • The Girl with the Emerald Flag
  • The Lost Sister
  • The Storm Girl
  • Work in Progress

Kathleen McGurl

~ Where past and present collide…

Kathleen McGurl

Tag Archives: self-publishing

Glutton for punishment? Or just procrastination?

13 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by kathmcgurl in Books

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

poll, self-publishing

I told myself that once I’d got my two How To books out in paperback, and my Regency romance published as an ebook, I’d return to my half-written WIP and get the first draft completed before allowing myself to be side-tracked onto something else.

But now I keep thinking how nice it would be to see Mr Cavell’s Diamond in paperback as well. Maybe I should go for it. In terms of sales it probably won’t be worth the effort, but it doesn’t cost much (if I can get my son to do the cover) so maybe I should… It’s much harder work formatting for print, so that ought to put me off…

I’ve seen comments that having a print book available lends weight to the ebook, and although you might not sell many print copies you will probably sell more ebooks just from having both formats available. No idea if this is true – haven’t noticed much upsurge in sales of my How Tos since publishing the print book; they’ve just carried on ticking away nicely at much the same rate as before.

What do you think? Should I, or not? I’ll take a vote. Eyes to the left, nose to the right, if you please!

Advertisement

The genesis of my novella

09 Friday May 2014

Posted by kathmcgurl in Books, Writing

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

books, editing, self-publishing, Writing

I didn’t set out to write a Regency romance novella. Not at all. I set out, way back in 2010, to write a full length novel. This was to be my practice novel, my prove-I-can-stick-at-it novel, my must-reach-the-end novel. I just wanted to write 80,000 words or more, then edit them into some sort of shape. I’d tried and failed at a couple of novels years back, and this time, wanted to show myself I could do it if I really tried.

I’d been researching my family tree, and had come across some characters who fascinated me. When I could no longer find out any more about them I decided to fill in the blanks via fiction. This, I thought, could become a novel. I knew even as I wrote it that it was possibly only of interest to me and my immediate family, but I wasn’t trying to write a commercial novel – I was just trying to complete something of novel length. Didn’t matter what.

So I wrote it, edited it, got some professional feedback on it (which said nice things like I was good at dialogue, my characters were well formed and developed well, I had some nice description which made the settings come alive; and also said what I already knew – that the novel was not commercial as it stood and would need a complete restructuring if I wanted to do anything more with it), and then I put the novel away. Its job was done – I’d written and edited 80,000 words. Gave myself a pat on the back for that.

So with that novel under my belt I went ahead and wrote another, this one 93,000 words, knowing I was capable of it, and having learned a lot about how to structure long fiction, and how I personally like to write. This one ended up far more commercial, and one agent nearly took it on last year. Nearly, but sadly not quite near enough. 😦 Anyway, onwards ever onwards – I’m now mid-way through a third.

But, those characters from my first novel kept nagging me. There was a large section in the middle which was basically a love triangle. What if, I thought, I chopped off the irrelevant beginning and the boring end, cut out superfluous characters and unnecessary plot strands, and strengthened what was left? Would that make a book in its own right?

It was a wonderful lesson in major editing. I hacked and chopped and pruned, then added a new first chapter and tidied the end, then rewrote the entire thing. It was great fun to do. I ended up with 50,000 words and a story which hung together nicely. And is STILL based on my family history research, although I changed the surnames of the main characters.

My lovely son created a cover for it, and I published it a couple of weeks ago, as Mr Cavell’s Diamond. Those who’ve read it seem to like it, judging by the reviews. So that makes it all worth while.

And the lesson is – never, ever throw anything away. Nothing you write need ever be wasted. You never know when you might come up with the perfect way to use some of your early scribblings!

 

 

Mr Cavell’s Diamond – now published!

29 Tuesday Apr 2014

Posted by kathmcgurl in Books

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

book, good news, self-publishing

Cover image - smallDelighted to announce publication of my Regency romance novella, Mr Cavell’s Diamond. It’s currently only available as an ebook, but if it does well enough I’ll do a paperback version as well. I uploaded it last night, and was over the moon this morning when I found it had already gained a 5-star review on the American Amazon site. The reader must have bought it as soon as it was available and read it immediately. She or he is a fast reader (and no, it is not someone I know!)

Anyway, here are the links if you’d like to take a look.

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

Things I Wish I’d Known…

02 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by kathmcgurl in Books

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

books, self-publishing

… before I started publishing my books in print.

1.  Formatting for print is a lot more complex than formatting for ebook publication.

2.  It takes a lot longer to get it right. And you go cross-eyed going through it for the 59th time.

3.  Just because the formatting looks ok on the Word document does not mean it’ll be right when converted to PDF, so it needs rechecking then.

4.  My crappy computer won’t convert to PDF. Had to copy document to memory stick, run upstairs, and ask teenage son to do that.

5.  This made teenage son roll his eyes and groan. Even more than he usually does.

6.  Page breaks on the last line of the page in Word will end up adding an extra blank page on the PDF, thus throwing out all your chapter starts.

7.  Teenage son’s friend is pretty good at using Photoshop and creating me nice covers, front back and spine.

8.  Cover has to be PDF and under 40MB to upload to Createspace. Teenage son’s friend first sent it as a Photoshop document, 1,715MB. Then he converted it to PDF and it was 80MB.

9.  If you use free PDF Compressing software you might compress too much and lose detail. I did, with one of the covers, but I uploaded it anyway. It wasn’t good enough.

10.  When CreateSpace say the cover must be under 40MB to upload they mean it. So when teenage son’s friend managed to send me a version of the cover at 40.2MB it still wouldn’t upload.

11. Teenage son got fed up of being the go-between between me and his friend.

12.  It’s lovely getting hold of the first proof copy of your book, even if it turns out not to be quite right.

13.  Proof copies are printed in the USA and shipped across. You have to buy them and pay for the shipping. So it is worth checking everything you can (a) before you upload and (b) online on CreateSpace before you order the proof copy.

14.  Even after all your checking there’ll still be something wrong. Your mate will spot that within seconds of you showing him the finished, published article.

15.  Nevertheless, after all that it is rather lovely sitting here admiring a box of print versions of my books. I’ve done it.

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Short Stories and How to Write Them  print edition is available from all Amazons now. Price £4.99 or less if Amazon decide to discount it.

Ghost Stories and How to Write Them print edition is available from all Amazons now. Also £4.99. Both books are also available from Barnes and Noble as print books.

Both books are second editions – extended from the original ebook with extra stories and discussions and a section on story prompts. The ebook has also been updated to the new, longer second edition.

 

Coming soon…

20 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by kathmcgurl in Uncategorized

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

books, CreateSpace, self-publishing

…print versions of both of my How To books.

I’ve been busy learning how to publish through CreateSpace, adding content to create a second edition, formatting the books for print, and persuading a lovely young man (friend of my son) to create covers for me.

It’s a lot of work but I’m getting close.

I was SO excited when CreateSpace allocated me my ISBNs!

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 245 other subscribers

Blog post categories

  • Blogging (14)
  • Books (70)
  • Campervan (6)
  • Challenges (2)
  • Competition (1)
  • Free Download (1)
  • Goals (7)
  • Holiday (4)
  • News (1)
  • Running (2)
  • Uncategorized (40)
  • Writing (39)

Tags

Alps book book deal books bournemouth Carina characters charity Christmas cock-up Competition covers CreateSpace Daughters of Red Hill Hall editing Emerald Comb endings English language free Genealogy Gertie Ghost Stories Girl from Ballymor goals good news grammar Hengistbury Head how to inspiration Lake District Melvyn Bragg middle third Morgen Bailey motivation mountains Mr Cavell's Diamond Mum nanowrimo New Years Resolution novel Pearl Locket pier to pier planning podcast poll pretty things projects Promotion recommendations review RNA Running Sales self-publishing short stories Simon Armitage skiing storm swimming The Drowned Village The Forgotten Gift The Forgotten Secret The Girl from Ballymor The Girl from Bletchley Park The Lost Sister The Secret of the Chateau The Stationmasters Daughter Tignes time time management weekend work-in-progress writers block Writing writing advice

Archives

Follow me on Twitter

My Tweets

Pages

  • About Me
  • Books for Writers
  • Contact
  • Genealogy
  • Latest News
  • Novels
    • Mr Cavell’s Diamond
    • The Daughters of Red Hill Hall
    • The Drowned Village
    • The Emerald Comb
    • The Forgotten Secret
    • The Girl from Ballymor
    • The Pearl Locket
    • The Secret of the Château
    • The Stationmaster’s Daughter
  • Short Stories
    • Shortcut Through Time
  • The Forgotten Gift
  • The Girl from Bletchley Park
  • The Girl with the Emerald Flag
  • The Lost Sister
  • The Storm Girl
  • Work in Progress

Blog Stats

  • 33,641 hits

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Kathleen McGurl
    • Join 245 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Kathleen McGurl
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...