How to keep calm as a writer in the mucky/murky world of publishing.

Blog - 8d Press website

First up, writing your novel has to be your number one passion. If it’s not, I seriously wouldn’t bother. Find another passion but know this, a passion is something you wake up to do, live to do, feel broken if you can’t do, long to do, and know that nothing will stop you so if you feel this about your developing story, that’s all good. If you don’t, then pack away your notes and get on with your life.

So you have passion; you’re writing your novel - you believe it’s great but you’ve been sucked into all these myriad of YouTubers who are promising you the world in terms of knowledge that will fling you into the arms of some traditional publishing house, some amazing literary agent, some seven-figure deal that will solve all your monetary worries. Sorry, but it just doesn't work like this. Rule number one - when it comes to YouTubers, don’t hand over a single penny of your money. Ignore most of them and don’t waste your time surfing the internet and YouTube for these types of chancers. Believe me, I’ve done it and it sent me mad.

When it comes to having a writing strategy, go old school and push away all distraction so you can concentrate on your w-i-p (work-in-progress).

Do NOT be tempted to join any Facebook writers’ groups either - they are often simply a platform for people to advertise their self-published work. If you must join a writer's group, I suggest you do it old-school, join a community group that meets once a week in the village hall. Too much social media will rip your mental health apart.

Think of it like this, the 1-2 hours you spend scrolling Facebook per day and reading posts, is 1-2 hours you will never get back for your novel. If it helps, turn off your internet at the modem and go off-line for the time you need to write.

Remember to break down your novel - the writing of it - into bite-size pieces - write scenes, not chapters as a way to deal with the enormous task at hand.

Guard your novel as something precious. Take it seriously but don’t be tempted to talk about it too much when you’re writing it because you’ll get sucked into conversations about it that might just pull you into a negative spiral.

Tell yourself you’ll have a deadline to finish it, even if it’s six-months away. In this respect you could plan to write a little bit on certain days of the week and aim for a first draft in six-months.

Don’t even think about how you are going to promote or ‘sell’ your novel at this early stage. Put an invisible fence around your story and your writing life and don’t be tempted to get into promotions right now.

Decide if you’re going to find a literary agent (hard stuff) or a publisher (hard stuff) or self-publish it. The choices are there and so are the never-ending nightmares. Keep it all simple. I recommend reverting back to a childlike state of mind where things are black and white and a lot simpler. Tell yourself, you’re writing your novel and you’re going to find someone who likes it enough to take it on. Have one - and one only - source to refer to in this. I recommend Query Tracker - the link’s here - and no - I am not recommending them as an affiliate rather as someone who has tried it.

Once you are nearly finished your novel - near the end of writing it, create an account with Query Tracker and start approaching agents. But remember, literary agents ALWAYS work to genre, so make sure you know roughly what your book’s genre is; historical fiction, romance, thriller (more on that in another post).

Your agent will ask you, if you hear back from them, how many Twitter followers you have, and again this is for another post, but if I had to recommend one social media platform, I would recommend Twitter (I've linked my account here). If you only ever have one social media account, create this one and start building followers there. More again on that in another post.

The moral of this story is: to keep sane, keep things exceptionally simple. Give yourself a certain amount of words to write a week - say between 1000 and 5000 words a week, enjoy the ride, cut out the noise and further down the track create a Twitter account and a Query Tracker account and don't waste time with endless social media accounts and Youtube advice. It won't end well.

More soon, love 8d Press.

Being authentic in a mass-market world

This is from the heart and has a simple message; 8d Press has recently been battered from all sides with requests to go digital, to produce ebooks, to belong to the digital world in terms of production. These requests have been taken with all good humour, with thought, with research done into the value of these ideas. We love people getting involved with the Press, giving us their ideas, hearing their thoughts and we understand the digital publishing world more than most.

We're super-experienced in ebook design, formatting and marketing. We know the benefits of ebooks like the back of our hand, but in terms of 8d Press going forward as an independent press we've got to be strong, be authentic, be us, be me, be real, be true to our original pre-internet desire, to produce artisan books that are keep-sakes as well as powerful odes to the stunning array of writing talent all around us.

It's always so tempting to go with the 'market' and produce - as a business and publisher - books that the the world can read in an instant - as with ebooks - but we have a different perspective. We love the rare, the unique, the physical and the authentic, and this is our point of difference. We love independent booksellers, we love the touchy-feely nature of books, hanging out in independent bookshops and getting to know our customers who buy from us online, often in person through email correspondence/friendships.

This makes us who we are: paper book lovers. Digital leaves us feeling soulless and flat. We want to leave our 'digital exposure' to the monolith that is digital marketing and developing an online presence, getting and retaining customers and be happy with this marriage of the old and the new.

In this labour of love that is 8d Press, we have to feel 'in love' with our product every moment of every day and nothing gives me more pleasure than producing physical books; from the selection of the type of writing that gives us goosebumps, to the design and the production; it makes us/me so, so, so happy in a way that producing a digital book never can.

I must keep looking at the mission statement printed in the rear pages of LUCENT, An Ode to Nan Shepherd's The Living Mountain, and getting comfort from our/my authenticity. Be authentic in everything you do. Love Jo xx

The Literary World is a closed shop!

This statement - known and felt by us - has been a bugbear at 8d Press for as long as we can remember; the infuriating, tear-producing, anger-instilling closed shop that is the UK and the World's literary 'industry' because make no mistake, publishing is a business large and true.

Why has it always been about fads, latest trends, famous people writing their 'memoirs', celebrities turning to novel writing 'out of the blue' and being given immediate accolades?

We've seen it all; the closed shop mentality of the big FIVE publishing houses and their many various imprints of which we are all so aware, even if we don't know it.

The publishing world is a hard cruel place; it's full of privileged, privately educated, white middle-upper class so-called 'experts' who run with the trends and cash in. Yes, they are businesses we know that, but in being what they are, the big publishing houses don't take risks on new talent (this is something we do, more about that later!).

And then there is Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) which has as many pros as it does cons, but that's another story. Despite what's advertised by Youtubers who want to sell you courses that cost hundreds of pounds, promising that if you follow their advice you will make a massive living writing self-published books, very few writers make a living from KDP; that's a fact that most writers never admit or share with anyone.

The Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) states in a recent report (and the Society of Authors UK) backs this up, that the average yearly income for writers is approximately £8000 and this is for those doing reasonable well with backlists, agents (or not) and a total love and immersion in writing that comes from it being a 'heart-job', a love affair with words and stories and something you simple 'must do'.

Which leads to the question, if this is the average yearly income for writers, how do writers live? Well, they have jobs, full-time jobs, part-time jobs, any sort of job just to survive, and very often these are the ones with published books behind them, an agent, support etc etc. Which also begs the question, if this is the case, how come no one ever talks about this? Pride is what I say and I know. Writing is not something I would ever recommend doing unless you have the calling; it's such a shit job that I am surprised that anything ever gets written. And this also leads to the glorious pool of unknown writer talent which is out there. Who supports them? Why would they ever want to go banging on the doors of the Big Five, let alone try and get a literary agent to help them achieve publication?

Publishing in my opinion is one of those rigid industries that is almost impossible to penetrate, no matter your talent. It's all about who you know, where you're based, whether you have any capital in terms of notoriety. You can fly your own identity politics flag and hope for traction there, but unless you're in the public eye, there is not much hope for you. Publishing is also an anachronism, buried in traditions of old. The Big Five publishing houses make attempts at rewriting the rules, based on identity politics and yearly hash-tagged trends, but the financial bottom line is always present.

And so it should be, I suppose. But then again, why? Paying staff, renting glamorous offices in central London, keeping up the image is all very well, but who suffers the most? It's always the writer who gets a tiny fraction of the dregs at the end of the long arduous road from acceptance to publication.

And this is where the 'ad' for 8d Press kicks in; not so much an ad but a shout-out that we're determined to do things differently. Number One we're a small press with mighty ideas; we're basically a one/two man band. We're a kitchen-table press or a small studio press (we don’t own a kitchen table), with decades of experience in publishing/writing/advertising/copywriting/graphics/book cover design/mentoring/counselling/cheerleading and all associated branches of service.

We've got two new opportunities out there at the moment; one is our LONELINESS opportunity, as listed on Creative Scotland. Click here to read it; and our ravishingly wonderful new imprint, Little Black Books which is a by-invitation-only opportunity. Both opportunities are paid opportunities, with mentoring and support built-in as naturally as air on the top of the mountain.

Our brand, while feminist, wants to celebrate men too, so we're branching out to reach men and their stories. We're also going to move forward with supporting completely unknown talent and we're determined to find them. We want writers who have NEVER been published before to contact us with their submissions. So many people feel intimidated by the massive monolith that is traditional publishing. Self-publishing is an exercise in madness (we know!!!).

So 8d Press is the calm Madonna in the storm; a quiet presence in an overwhelming world, where, if you are an unpublished writer and you feel or you have been told that you have a way with words, you can contact us, phone us, submit to us and we'll read you work, listen to you, offer advice or maybe even publish you in a gorgeous printed book of beauty. We have a direct phone number - a mobile phone number - and we’re always available for a chat. We believe in those secret stories written by unknown writers, we believe in the forgotten, the overlooked, the rejected, the inexperienced.

We know which side of the road we're standing on, and it's on the quiet side, next to the forest and the loch.

Come and find us there.

Jo - Founder 8d Press

hello@8dpress.co.uk

www.8dpress.co.uk