Feng Shui Assassin started off as a labour of love - and as the years went by became a labour of loathe until, with much gnashing of teeth, it was completed in 2008.
During the time of writing the urban fantasy genre exploded across the shelves of Ottakars (now Waterstones). Moody vampires, misunderstood werewolves and precocious witches in all their guises strained for attention and I thought that Feng Shui Assassin would fit snugly as a distinctly ‘different’ urban fantasy/thriller.
Reading into the world of book publication and the industry in general I was fascinated in the skewed business model that only gave a measly thin slice of the pie to the writer. An author would typically earn 7 - 12% of the cover price or a set fee (£4,000) for a brand book such as a Dr Who imprint. Why couldn’t a writer earn more from their work?
My thinking went along the lines of - if a writer could earn a living wage from their first book onwards, imagine the increased quality, output and all-round niceness that a writer can dedicate their full-time to their writing from the outset.
I reckoned that a writer should earn ‘around-a-pound’ for each book that s/he sold. A quid shouldn’t be too much to ask for - after everyone else’s cut.
To have a better understanding of the publishing business, and to satisfy my own ego (having started many projects that never saw completion) I decided to self-publish.
This blog was a year-in-the-life of a self-published book. Following Feng Shui Assassin through publication and onto the shelves (both virtual and physical). The end is almost upon us, and so over the next few posts I’ll be dishing up what I’ve learnt and pitching in with a couple of observations.
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