Hi Julianne, all the way through reading this I was saying "GO INDIE" as in self publish. I'm sure there are enough ofbus that would love to read your memoirs. Lots of options: kick-starter, amazon publishing, ebook, Web published behind a paid firewall and so on.
In other words please don't delete it, I'm sure it has more value to you than that.
Memoir seems to lend itself well to serialisation and some authors are having great success here on Substack now, some with paid subscribers and some free. Writers like Anna Schott are showing how well memoir can fit into instalments and how quickly audiences can grow for it. Novel serialisation is also taking off but I see some writers struggling to adapt to the medium, despite the heritage of serialising novels in newspapers. Deciding instalment size and form seems a particular challenge in fiction.
One thing I like particularly about Substack, and the community it's attracted, is the warmth and adaptability of the readership. Publish what you like when you like, without endless punters commenting that you post too often, or too little, or too tentatively or too loudly, or with too many paragraphs, or too few commas, or any of the other twaddle some folks seem obliged to peddle on other platforms. So far, at least, this platform is a decent environment in which to communicate with people who might be interested in your work, which you can monetise if you wish but don't have to, and a great place to find other interesting writing. I like it anyway, and I don't like much else online these days!
You've reminded me that Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles was serialised in a newspaper, back in the day. I read somewhere that Hardy had to edit it slightly as the original had too much 'succulence'!
Really? That's brilliant. Can't help imagining his expression telling his colleagues that! Aren't Dickens and Conan Doyle famous for releasing their novels as serials as well? Emma Darwin is serialising a novel on Substack at the moment, for paid subscribers. A couple of other authors I know are making good money doing it too. The sad truth seems to be that nobody much reads books at the moment. I heard that fewer than five percent of big-five-published titles in the UK last year sold more than a thousand copies. If I have that right, it's a shocking state the trade industry is in.
Hi Julianne. Sadly the ghosting business is everywhere. I've written, produced and directed four plays in central London over the last ten years. I had to learn very quickly that the person you met (often through a friend) at the end of your show who is raving about your work, tagging you into every social media post and bombarding you with emails afterwards can ghost you effortlessly - not even letting the prospect of making the mutual friend feel awkward get in the way of their behaviour. It's really, really odd but it happens to everyone and you just have to "shine it on". Easier said than done, I know. But...we do! I know for sure I would kill to read your memoirs - I love AAE! All the best, Jamie.
Publishers these days want dirt from memoirs, especially when you're a musician. They want headlines, and yes, they expect you to participate in a dog-and-pony show. All of this is sadly more important than the quality and substance of your writing. It's not a deficiency on your part by any means. There's no shame in not being enough of an attention whore for today's tastes.
I find it baffling that publishers expect musicians to have ‘dirt’ to spill. Why would being able to put words and musical notes in an appealing order predispose anyone to living any more of a ‘scandalous’ life than anyone else? I have no idea.
All you have to do is look at the success of the book "I'm With the Band," written by a groupie and full of private details that should have been kept that way. It didn't matter that they didn't even know who she was, all that mattered is reading dirt on musicians. I couldn't imagine even wanting to read that trash, let alone write it.
Having just read this piece I think you write beautifully and I'm sure lots of people would be interested in reading your story, however 'swirly'. The idea that someone has to be 'famous' (is that with a big F, you are still very famous and an influence to me as a woman in her 50's) to have something worthy to say or to have to jump on the promotion bandwagon is a sad indictment of our times. I hope you find a way to produce something that you are happy with, please don't press delete, everybody has a story to tell and there will always be someone who appreciates the telling of it.
I think you can self publish on amazon, I have a vet friend who turned all her odd encounters into a book, I imagine amazon would take a big piece of the cake.
The only thing you don't get, from what I've experienced, is a great cover quality, just nice, but you can tell everyone in a foreword why it's self-published, if you run out of other options. Also find someone who can design the cover beautifully, to mitigate this main problem.
I don't know what the likes of Unbound eventually take (they sound like a bit of an unresponsive nightmare to deal with), but with Lulu they deduct the print cost and the rest of the money is yours. Amazon is similar but I would imagine they take more. Then all the advantages are yours. You can update whenever you want, you don't have an editor demanding you chop 25% of it out as they want to do the book as small as they can get away with. Some small publishers even use Lulu without telling their authors! With Amazon there's the Kindle option (and they allow you to also publish via draft2digital which reaches Apple, Kobe etc.)
The only thing I haven't tried yet is Amazon, which is next on my list, as I want to see what happens with their hardback covers. Lulu only do hardbacks in America, so I have never made those available, because the postage for people outside the States would be astronomical. It's possible Amazon also print them in this country?
I couldn't stand the idea of in-store appearances either. I'd rather concentrate on the next project. There's always something. At least knowing you have these options means you can rest easy that you will get your book(s) out, which is a good thing to know.
I totally relate to this but from the perspective of when I was more engaged as a fashion photographer. Endless non replies from people I had literally talked to only the previous season with what appeared to be the requisite amount of conviviality. I felt the same thing, it's fine if it's a no but just write the email.. it's 1 minute of your time, it's not hard.
All that said, please never hit delete on the book! I just know somehow it's going to be great.
Thanks Suzi. I've looked at Unbound before, but since seeing what happened to musicians when Pledge Music suddenly folded, it gave me cold feet. I'll look again though.
Would also really endorse Unbound - I've co-funded 4/5 books on there and it's a great business. Lovely to see you on here Julianne - I saw AAE 25+ times back in the day, mainly with The Mission
Came here to suggest Unbound. They seem to give a voice (as long as you get pledges - they're a business obviously) to people who don't fit in a pigeonhole. Tom Cox is a good example, who's published their last four books through Unbound.
It goes without saying that I think most of your loyal fanbase are the ones that will truly enjoy your book if it's ever published. That's not to say others won't but unless there's some massive scandal or something that's ignites the public's interests, then the publishers won't see pound signs to get them interested unfortunately.
But you never know what the future holds and let's pray you never press "delete"!
I really hope you do publish Julianne, because I for one would love to read what you have written!
Hi Julianne, all the way through reading this I was saying "GO INDIE" as in self publish. I'm sure there are enough ofbus that would love to read your memoirs. Lots of options: kick-starter, amazon publishing, ebook, Web published behind a paid firewall and so on.
In other words please don't delete it, I'm sure it has more value to you than that.
All the best
Lee x
Memoir seems to lend itself well to serialisation and some authors are having great success here on Substack now, some with paid subscribers and some free. Writers like Anna Schott are showing how well memoir can fit into instalments and how quickly audiences can grow for it. Novel serialisation is also taking off but I see some writers struggling to adapt to the medium, despite the heritage of serialising novels in newspapers. Deciding instalment size and form seems a particular challenge in fiction.
One thing I like particularly about Substack, and the community it's attracted, is the warmth and adaptability of the readership. Publish what you like when you like, without endless punters commenting that you post too often, or too little, or too tentatively or too loudly, or with too many paragraphs, or too few commas, or any of the other twaddle some folks seem obliged to peddle on other platforms. So far, at least, this platform is a decent environment in which to communicate with people who might be interested in your work, which you can monetise if you wish but don't have to, and a great place to find other interesting writing. I like it anyway, and I don't like much else online these days!
You've reminded me that Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles was serialised in a newspaper, back in the day. I read somewhere that Hardy had to edit it slightly as the original had too much 'succulence'!
Really? That's brilliant. Can't help imagining his expression telling his colleagues that! Aren't Dickens and Conan Doyle famous for releasing their novels as serials as well? Emma Darwin is serialising a novel on Substack at the moment, for paid subscribers. A couple of other authors I know are making good money doing it too. The sad truth seems to be that nobody much reads books at the moment. I heard that fewer than five percent of big-five-published titles in the UK last year sold more than a thousand copies. If I have that right, it's a shocking state the trade industry is in.
Hi Julianne. Sadly the ghosting business is everywhere. I've written, produced and directed four plays in central London over the last ten years. I had to learn very quickly that the person you met (often through a friend) at the end of your show who is raving about your work, tagging you into every social media post and bombarding you with emails afterwards can ghost you effortlessly - not even letting the prospect of making the mutual friend feel awkward get in the way of their behaviour. It's really, really odd but it happens to everyone and you just have to "shine it on". Easier said than done, I know. But...we do! I know for sure I would kill to read your memoirs - I love AAE! All the best, Jamie.
Thanks Jamie. The Substack response has really spurred me on to get more done on the memoir, as have encouraging comments such as yours. Thank you.
Publishers these days want dirt from memoirs, especially when you're a musician. They want headlines, and yes, they expect you to participate in a dog-and-pony show. All of this is sadly more important than the quality and substance of your writing. It's not a deficiency on your part by any means. There's no shame in not being enough of an attention whore for today's tastes.
I find it baffling that publishers expect musicians to have ‘dirt’ to spill. Why would being able to put words and musical notes in an appealing order predispose anyone to living any more of a ‘scandalous’ life than anyone else? I have no idea.
All you have to do is look at the success of the book "I'm With the Band," written by a groupie and full of private details that should have been kept that way. It didn't matter that they didn't even know who she was, all that mattered is reading dirt on musicians. I couldn't imagine even wanting to read that trash, let alone write it.
Having just read this piece I think you write beautifully and I'm sure lots of people would be interested in reading your story, however 'swirly'. The idea that someone has to be 'famous' (is that with a big F, you are still very famous and an influence to me as a woman in her 50's) to have something worthy to say or to have to jump on the promotion bandwagon is a sad indictment of our times. I hope you find a way to produce something that you are happy with, please don't press delete, everybody has a story to tell and there will always be someone who appreciates the telling of it.
Ah, famous with a small 'f', that's me! Thanks for taking the time to write those kind words, Heidi.
I think you can self publish on amazon, I have a vet friend who turned all her odd encounters into a book, I imagine amazon would take a big piece of the cake.
Thanks Robert, but I want to avoid Amazon, for many reasons, not least their cake-slice greed.
Self-publish. Spare yourself the pain. Get royalties every month!
I know it's worked well for you, Mick. Thanks for the advice. It's been put in the burgeoning 'options' pile!
The only thing you don't get, from what I've experienced, is a great cover quality, just nice, but you can tell everyone in a foreword why it's self-published, if you run out of other options. Also find someone who can design the cover beautifully, to mitigate this main problem.
I don't know what the likes of Unbound eventually take (they sound like a bit of an unresponsive nightmare to deal with), but with Lulu they deduct the print cost and the rest of the money is yours. Amazon is similar but I would imagine they take more. Then all the advantages are yours. You can update whenever you want, you don't have an editor demanding you chop 25% of it out as they want to do the book as small as they can get away with. Some small publishers even use Lulu without telling their authors! With Amazon there's the Kindle option (and they allow you to also publish via draft2digital which reaches Apple, Kobe etc.)
The only thing I haven't tried yet is Amazon, which is next on my list, as I want to see what happens with their hardback covers. Lulu only do hardbacks in America, so I have never made those available, because the postage for people outside the States would be astronomical. It's possible Amazon also print them in this country?
I couldn't stand the idea of in-store appearances either. I'd rather concentrate on the next project. There's always something. At least knowing you have these options means you can rest easy that you will get your book(s) out, which is a good thing to know.
I totally relate to this but from the perspective of when I was more engaged as a fashion photographer. Endless non replies from people I had literally talked to only the previous season with what appeared to be the requisite amount of conviviality. I felt the same thing, it's fine if it's a no but just write the email.. it's 1 minute of your time, it's not hard.
All that said, please never hit delete on the book! I just know somehow it's going to be great.
Have you looked at Unbound.com as a community supported publisher? This sounds like exactly their sort of thing
Thanks Suzi. I've looked at Unbound before, but since seeing what happened to musicians when Pledge Music suddenly folded, it gave me cold feet. I'll look again though.
Would also really endorse Unbound - I've co-funded 4/5 books on there and it's a great business. Lovely to see you on here Julianne - I saw AAE 25+ times back in the day, mainly with The Mission
Came here to suggest Unbound. They seem to give a voice (as long as you get pledges - they're a business obviously) to people who don't fit in a pigeonhole. Tom Cox is a good example, who's published their last four books through Unbound.
Nice little insight.
It goes without saying that I think most of your loyal fanbase are the ones that will truly enjoy your book if it's ever published. That's not to say others won't but unless there's some massive scandal or something that's ignites the public's interests, then the publishers won't see pound signs to get them interested unfortunately.
But you never know what the future holds and let's pray you never press "delete"!
No scandals, massive or otherwise, Simon!