Tips for Authors
The move from my original WP blog(s) to this new location (2011) is now complete. I loved the old title of my business blog … Books, Marketing & Self-Promotion and wanted to continue to use it here but I have decided that it was just too long. So, henceforth, this will be know as “Tips for Authors.” I’ve moved many of my original blog pages here as the content seems to remain virtually the same in the book publishing industry but I have updated them where I felt necessary. There will be more to come and I will try to keep my posts short, but hey, I’m a fiction writer and detail is my specialty that’s why my husband and I work so well together!!
If you’ve arrived here and this is the first page you have read … this website is a series of blogs by moi, author, Joyce Sandilands, a Canadian-born author from the lovely Pacific Northwest and Victoria, British Columbia. This website/blog is all about my own SELF-PUBLISHING experience with my then partner-in-life, Bob Whittle. ( I finally persuaded him to marry me in 2006. It was a 2nd for both of us.)
Bob (65 in 1998) and I (somewhat younger thank goodness!), began our book writing journey 13 years ago in Aug. 1998 when I decided I simply had to publish the 3rd novel he had written during a 3 1/2 year health crisis … a book we entitled, Lizzie : Lethal Innocence (I think I better write a post on book titles too! This one has given us no end of trouble.) Suddenly thrust into the unknown world of (self)publishing, I grasped all the experience I could muster from a collection of jobs and life experience of my past 50+ years and set out to introduce what I thought was an amazing work of literature to a local audience. With me editing (utilizing receptionist & legal secretarial skills) and organizing the publishing and marketing of Lizzie (real estate sales and ad writing experience) on a shoestring, I set Bob loose on his early morning Timmy’s coffee mates armed with a supply of our newly published book and eagerly waited to see what would happen.
Incidentally, writer Bob was now known as author* J. Robert Whittle (his real name – in quite small letters on the book cover). Within 2 weeks, with the help of the books he had sold and comments from our first readers, he gained a lot more confidence in his new talent and he began to talk to anyone he came near and the word began to spread. I should point out that ‘confidence’ had been Robert’s middle name since a youngster! Four weeks later at Christmas, we were pretty sure we had a winner (whatever that meant) and having sold 500 copies before March, we printed another 1500 copies. That summer we began selling this book from our market table at James Bay Farmer’s Market, never having heard of any writer/author of a novel having done this anywhere before.
* we were aware of the controversy that self-published authors were not ‘real’ authors in the eyes of ‘professional’ publishers and discerning readers, so at first we never referred to Robert as an author even though his name was on the cover.
***2000 copies sold in Canada within 2 years was what we were told constituted a Canadian Bestselling book.
Surprisingly, sales continued miraculously and slowly one customer at a time … in person! Once we realized how much readers love to meet authors (and especially my husband it seemed judging by the women purchasing his book), we simply gave them what they wanted! He had quickly become a new author and was soon known by readers in many corners of the world thanks to our city’s tourist appeal! Within two years, we had begun selling at other craft venues as well and Lizzie was Robert’s first of 3 Canadian Bestsellers** and, I might add, his name became larger on the book cover when it was reprinted!
Images: L to R: Robert with our first Gold IPPY Award (2007), my booth at the Schwartz Bay ferry terminal (2001-2003), my summer stand at the Country Market (Saturdays 9-1), and Robert talking to a reader at his Bastion Square book stand (C2007).
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So, this blog is firstly about me and how I persuaded my husband to write a book, and how my husband, even while fighting for his life, began this new hobby of writing. And how we turned our labour of love for Lizzie into a successful mini-publishing business over 13 years (so far). We now have 12 novels, 3 bestsellers, 2 IPPY Gold winners, and several self-narrated audio products. We began as raw amateurs with no knowledge, but lots of enthusiasm … and we believed in that little book (at least I did)!
I hope, through this blog, to be able to make your journey of manoeuvering through the complicated world of Self-publishing or Indie-publishing, as it is now trying to be called (in an effort to give it some class!), a bit easier for YOU. If I can do this, you can too!!
