After a year or so playing around with self-publishing I am moving back to the traditional publishing route. Why? because in a brief e-mail from cornerstones they pointed out one aspect from my writing. I was using a passive sentence structure as opposed to an active sentence structure. I thought wtf! I didn’t even notice. I did a degree, and we must have covered most subjects, but I suppose I can get caught up in the excitement of writing.

Self publishing has been my Shed

I’ve been happy tweaking around with the whole self-publishing shebang but I really think it works better with standard fiction. You know a 70k spy thriller or action- packed science fiction novel. I am writing stories that are targeted at a more specific genre. Well that’s my excuse. I have still enjoyed picking and creating my own book covers. Trying to build up an audience with very little money. I have learned about getting reviews, getting an editor, using the right advertising. Maybe it does take somewhere between 2k and 5k to really launch a book these days, but I am getting by on a less than shoestring budget, and can only do small hits.

The Traditional Publishing Route

I think the big guys or gals are right. I feel my novella Once When We Were Human is complete because it feels that way to me. But on a recent look at it I was surprised to still find a few grammar errors, so it will be great to work with serious professionals and editors to doubl- check my work. Also with Emily’s Adventure I liked the idea of extending Emily’s journey so it wasn’t just all doom and gloom, and this was picked up in the report.

I will focus on these two books with my mentorship which is bloody expensive at £600 for 12 1 hour lessons. This is my preferred method as I feel I will be working with people who have industry experience and have one eye on the craft and the other on the market. I was never clear about my genre, and a style was only starting to form. I Just need an agent and contract to appear. The dreamer is still dreaming.