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All you need to self publish a book (your book) is a story, recommended editor (important,) knowledge of Quark Xpress or someone that does and a printing company. Try to use one that specializes in printing books. You can create the cover of your book using Photoshop, but it does have to look professional. The printing company can print the ISBN No. directly on the book, which you need! I think you purchase the ISBN through Nielsen Book Data who also register your book so it is available for sale through Waterstones etc. The book has to have a bleed, so before setting out all your pages using Quark Xpress get the recommended print bleed from the printers. Make sure you check with them re the format as you do have to change the colour format if it has artwork. You can add your book to Amazon yourself. Before I give you the website for Nielsen book data I would like you to seriously think before self publishing as it is not for the faint hearted, it is costly, time consuming and takes up a lot of space in your house. The other thing to remember is you will never compete on price with big publishing companies and some people just expect to pay cheap prices whether it is a Limited Edition or not! If you have a great name it will get used by other businesses and people who can cause you no end of problems.
After investigating Self Publishing scams I went over my book sales with Borders before they went under. I have a record of a conversation with one of their staff saying they had sold 27 of my books. So I sent Cystic Fibrosis £27 from those book sales. They only paid me for 10 books and owe me for 30 books a total amount of £300 outstanding. The Police told me I would be lucky to get 4p per book if I took action. Have you been scammed? Have you had a bad experience with a Self Publishing firm? Team up and lets all fight for justice together!
Here is my Butterfly Lullaby book launch at the Dylan Thomas Centre, which was kindly funded by the Government with help from Cultural Enterprise (Phil Cope) which is sadly a service that got axed just when I needed their support. I created all the fairy costumes, promoted three lovely places in the UK and give £1 to CF charity. I also co wrote the songs for the Butterfly Lullaby album. My book is totally unique and that is probably why so many book companies are making big money out of all my hard work at my expense, with not a penny going to the charity or me for printing expenses. When you see your book advertised for £85 new yet some book sellers are selling your book at a loss so you cannot even cover the postage, charity and printing costs that is when you know you have been ripped off! Especially when your book is being sold for £9.99 and underneath some book seller is selling it for £32. Say's it all really!
When you send your book recorded delivery to a TV show with an original video of the fairies saying their names and it never turns up. That is when you know you have something special and you have to be on your guard! There is no way this book and video went missing by accident, it was stolen. And with four years of hell stopping me from Trading and seeing my books sold all over the Internet for big money is proof enough for me that I have something amazing and that is why I am getting ripped off.
I had the chance to work with a man who has over 30 years in children's TV here in the UK. And Cyber Bullies destroyed it by making it impossible for me to promote my products. Where is the law when you need it? Sadly I am not the only Mum who has suffered from this sort of bullying and had to stop trading! Mum's have no rights! Considering all the money us Mum's have invested in our business I really think it is the Governments job to protect us and supply us with IT help that stops the bullies, especially as the people that cause problems should be in jail and not surfing the net. Too much money goes on people that don't work, where is the help for people that have invested in creating a business but cannot trade because of bullies? This is one big reason why I would tell you not to self publish because no one will help you when it all goes wrong, innocent people have no rights!
After investigating Self Publishing scams I went over my book sales with Borders before they went under. I have a record of a conversation with one of their staff saying they had sold 27 of my books. So I sent Cystic Fibrosis £27 from those book sales. They only paid me for 10 books and owe me for 30 books a total amount of £300 outstanding. The Police told me I would be lucky to get 4p per book if I took action. Have you been scammed? Have you had a bad experience with a Self Publishing firm? Team up and lets all fight for justice together!
Here is my Butterfly Lullaby book launch at the Dylan Thomas Centre, which was kindly funded by the Government with help from Cultural Enterprise (Phil Cope) which is sadly a service that got axed just when I needed their support. I created all the fairy costumes, promoted three lovely places in the UK and give £1 to CF charity. I also co wrote the songs for the Butterfly Lullaby album. My book is totally unique and that is probably why so many book companies are making big money out of all my hard work at my expense, with not a penny going to the charity or me for printing expenses. When you see your book advertised for £85 new yet some book sellers are selling your book at a loss so you cannot even cover the postage, charity and printing costs that is when you know you have been ripped off! Especially when your book is being sold for £9.99 and underneath some book seller is selling it for £32. Say's it all really!
When you send your book recorded delivery to a TV show with an original video of the fairies saying their names and it never turns up. That is when you know you have something special and you have to be on your guard! There is no way this book and video went missing by accident, it was stolen. And with four years of hell stopping me from Trading and seeing my books sold all over the Internet for big money is proof enough for me that I have something amazing and that is why I am getting ripped off.
I had the chance to work with a man who has over 30 years in children's TV here in the UK. And Cyber Bullies destroyed it by making it impossible for me to promote my products. Where is the law when you need it? Sadly I am not the only Mum who has suffered from this sort of bullying and had to stop trading! Mum's have no rights! Considering all the money us Mum's have invested in our business I really think it is the Governments job to protect us and supply us with IT help that stops the bullies, especially as the people that cause problems should be in jail and not surfing the net. Too much money goes on people that don't work, where is the help for people that have invested in creating a business but cannot trade because of bullies? This is one big reason why I would tell you not to self publish because no one will help you when it all goes wrong, innocent people have no rights!
Here is a little OOAK fabric book I made called Colour me a fairies wish, based on
the above story. This is something you could quite easily create yourself if you are looking
at just creating one book with your story and art for you to treasure forever:
If I was to go through all the problems I have had from the start it would fill a book. And I need to move forward and do something else, so back to arts and crafts and finding a good agent to find me a publisher for my other children's stories. But I bet anything in many years to come my work will be worth thousands and I will be looking down from heaven saying "it's not fair, we had such a hard life, just like Van goh!" Some rich idiot will reap all my hard work, like they always do! Being working class is just like being the middle child, you never get the attention you deserve.
I created an audio story for charity called Sunset Bunny the Easter Fairy which is on Amazon and I Tunes. All money our end to go to the charity. Has anyone made any money through I Tunes or Amazon with Audio stories or songs? Leave me a comment!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sunset-Bunny-Easter-Fairy-Jakson/dp/B004223UJU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302889401&sr=1-1-catcorr
My ex self published a wonderful book of poetry called Poetic Laughter. The name in itself stands out. But he is getting not one penny in royalties and wants to stop them printing the book. When I did some research on this self publishing company I came up with a list of very unhappy authors. Some have come across people that have purchased their books, but they have not received a penny from this company:
http://www.complaintsboard.com/?search=trafford+publishing&everything=Everything
If there are any happy or unhappy authors reading my blog. I would love to hear your story good or bad, it all helps so please leave a comment. All comments have to be approved so no spam. Whatever you decide to do re the self publishing route, I wish you the best of luck. Remember Waterstones will not stock your book in their store and even though people may order your book it is not guaranteed the order will go through because it is a lot of hassle for them to order. Although I sold some books through Waterstones I also had people turned away.There are a lot of snooty people in this world that will slam the door in your face. But there are good people too, you just have to really search hard to find them and keep knocking! Remember though, even if a book store does take your self published book, it will be sale or return, and you are very unlikely to ever see any money! Especially if they go bankrupt. Your books will be sold on and you will see them all over the Internet for big money with not a penny going to yourself for all your hard work and expense. What a wonderful world we live in NOT!
But lets leave this doom and gloom blog on a high. Through self publishing I got to liaise with a famous man from Children's TV and nearly got to create children's personalised stories with him. The only reason it did not happen is because the law does not protect the working class and bad people can do what they want re destroying someone's hard work. If the law worked I would be able to claim for loss of earnings.
Also I got to meet Ric and Maggie from the Enchanted Manor where we performed at the Enchanted Manor in front of famous fairy artist Josephine Wall who sells her work for thousands. My child has a sketch she did with Josephine, which is something we will treasure. Ok so the Cyber Bullies crashed and burned my videos so I have no record now of the event where my partner Jakson Lee sang Butterfly Lullaby and the Butterfly Princess danced. But I got to write a song for the Enchanted Manor which they play on their website. They have been on many TV programmes and have won many awards for best Bed and Breakfast.
I do believe you should always follow your dreams, but it is time for all Governments in all Countries to give protection to the little people who are trying to work and earn a living, as we deserve it! You will find the little people with no money are usually the ones with the biggest hearts.
I came across this link about successful self published authors. The adventures of Peter Rabbit by Beatric Potter is a famous example of a self published author. It makes me want to research this more.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-a3jNOzMyiIJ:www.simonteakettle.com/famousauthors.htm+self+published+authors&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&source=www.google.co.uk
Here is Nielsen Book Data if you feel you have the stomach for it. But remember any book site can sell your book on the Internet but it does not mean you will get paid! I am most certainly going to find an agent even if it takes me 10 years or so. Good luck!
http://www.nielsenbookdata.co.uk/controller.php?page=176
www.butterflylullaby.co.uk, fairy songs, fairy portraits, art and crafts for children, music, fairy music, true stories, poems, children's stories, free fairy network for businesses and stay at home Mum's (Mom's)
