I know Regency romance is not to everyone’s taste, so for those of you not interested, you can stop right here.
Publishing is a steep learning curve. It is frustrating, slow, but also interesting and fun. In my search for information and improvement, I have joined the Authors Guild of America, where there is a very active and varied community of authors, all connecting and asking for and giving advice to each other. I have learned much from there.
The idea that if you can get an agent to take you on, you are invited to a posh lunch and thereafter everything is done for you has been firmly squashed. Unless you are Margaret Atwood, or a celebrity with a misery memoir to sell (Prince Harry, perhaps?) Stories abound of people being fired by their agents, agents unable to sell to publishers and so on. Even if the publisher acquires your book, nothing is secure. Publishers go out of business, the editor assigned to you leaves and the replacement hates your book, they publish but it does not sell…
Of course, you can always self-publish. But I have always had a niggling feeling that if nobody wants to take on your debut, it is probably not polished enough yet, or not good enough. Once you know the ropes, things will become easier. But self publishing is expensive, unless you are an expert at editing, proofreading, cover design, formatting, etc. Otherwise you have to hire people to do all these things.
And after all that, once your book is actually on the market (drum roll!) you still have to sell it. Again, unless you are a well-known author guaranteed to sell thousands of book, you can forget about book tours and organised readings paid for by your publisher. Also every single publisher expects you to take an active part in selling your book which, as I have slowly been finding out, consists of the dreaded social media, blog tours, getting your friends to review your book (much harder than expected) and other stratagems, such as paying for Amazon or Facebook ads. And your options depend on where you live—are there book fairs in your vicinity, friendly bookstores or libraries? In my case, none of that is available, since I live in the French countryside and I don’t think I know anyone who reads in English! Luckily there is plenty of advice to be found online.
I was thrilled when I landed my publisher, Cupid’s Arrow, who are a small indie outfit in San Jose. They are lovely people, but overwhelmed by having to do it all themselves. Communication is slow. Information hard to get. And you mostly have to deal with your own problems. But the printed copies are great, especially the hardback (I was not expecting them to have hardbacks available.) My editor, Lisa, is wonderful.
I am not expecting to make much money out of this, but I do need to sell enough copies so that the publisher will take on the next book in the series. I have therefore applied myself to marketing the (damn) thing.
The Authors Guild provides members with tools to build a simple website for free, and human help where needed (shoutout to Hector, my saviour in hard times.) Within the website, I have set up a Reader’s Club, where subscribers can sign up to get freebies (extra content, short stories etc.) and news of upcoming publications. At the moment I am offering a free short story plus a curated list of books. If interested you can join here
I also set up an Instagram account and try to produce ‘content’ (who knew I would be getting into this at my age—but it’s actually quite fun, once you get around the tech.) The account is called mmontroseauthor Here is a post
I hope you are suitably impressed, and that some of you will join the Reader’s Club and/or take a look at my IG account. If you do, please let me know your thoughts. I always welcome feedback and comments, as you know.
Letters from Athens 