Cover Artwork

Right, having managed to scrape together half an hour to sit down and compose a blog, I set out to do just that.

I'm in the process of discovering the joys and the exhaustion of being both a writer and an artist.

My first book is just about ready to publish and after much thought, much submissions and a lot of disappointment (would it hurt for these people to at least send you a rejection note), I've decided to go self published through the medium of RPG.NOW, a print on demand service that a friend of mine is already using, hence the recommendation.

Reasons for this:

1. To get published these days you have to have an agent.
2. Said agent has to be paid.
3. Said agent has no legal responsibility to push your book to the publishers and therefore can sit on your manuscript for years and be paid for the privilege.
4.Said agent will, when you get published, take 17% of your pay as their cut.
5. As a new, first time author you will be lucky to be given 2% of the profits as your royalties.
6.Therefore, if the publisher makes 1 pound profit from your book, you will be lucky to receive 2 pence and your agent will want 17% of that.
7. Publishers are only responsible for the printing and posting of your book to bookshops and the like.  It is the authors responsibility to maintain their website, their fan base, twitter feed, blog, contacts with writers' circles, organise talks and book signs, convention visits and generally do everything to actually shift their books off the shelves.

With all of that I decided that I might as well do all that work (which I would be doing anyway) and receive 100% of the profits, particularly as half of everything I receive has to be put aside for the tax man anyway.

The reasons I'm using a print on demand service is because:

1. It is already on the Internet so I don't have to worry about trying to make the links into that market.
2. I won't have to store piles of books every where.
3. If Mother takes another bad turn and I have to revert to being her carer for three months I don't have to worry about my e-mail inbox filling up with orders and complaints for books that I haven't had time to view and therefore, haven't completed.
4. In short a print on demand service is like a publisher but a lot more approachable.

The only thing I have to make sure of is to employ a very good editor to make sure my book is up to scratch, which I have already done so the written part of my book is jut about ready for publishing.  However, that engenders the downside of doing it myself, which is I need to have the cover artwork done.

See as I'm a artist as well as a writer, I can do the front cover myself but that does mean that my time is being gobbled up almost faster than I can credit, especially when I look at all the other stuff I have to squeeze into it.

As I mention to WillowRaven the other day, "As a writer and an artist, I don't sleep much."