Monday, May 14, 2007

Novel handed in for printing

It is now the middle of May, and I have a deadline for the production of the novel 'Okraalom'. I hope to be able to send a copy or two with my daughter to Russia when they leave in July. It is also an opportunity while the family are away in Russia to travel to the North Island and visit my brother and possibly other relatives, at the same time trying out the market mainly by going to all the likely booksellers in the main cities with copies.

Yesterday I did some research at the central library on marketing of books, whether the author is self publishing or has managed to get a publisher. Neither prospects are good in the present climate, which seems to be quite frenetic. So many books published in a desperate attempt to find the one that catches on with the public. So many books 'remaindered' on the bargain tables of bookshops. One book out of a thousand manuscripts accepted by many publishers, the rest form a reject 'slush pile'. How to get one's book noticed when the 'noise' out there of writers fighting for attention is 'reader-deafening'; so most readers just settle for the established few globally-known authors. (The quality of many of these authors' books deteriorates with too much repetitious writing, but they make money from their 'name', rather like some artists.)

Anyway, one thing that has to be done is to connect my book to my web site and to this blog site, even though neither is going to be much help in publicizing 'Okraalom' because I don't have the connections to these sites that would put them on the map with the search engines. On the other hand, I have found quite a few possible e-mail sites to investigate, to see if they would give some publicity to 'Okraalom'. That will be my task while I'm waiting for the printing to be done.

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