Self-Publishing Panel – Three Perspectives with Sarah Higbee, Phil Williams & Richard Buxton
Thursday 11 April
Self-Publishing is an increasingly popular choice for writers as an alternative to, or in parallel with, traditional publishing. With so many options available, it can be difficult for writers to assess which option is right for them and what level of professional support they will need to ensure a quality product.
Sarah Higbee, Phil Williams and Richard Buxton have all self-published in their own genres and will each briefly present their self-publishing experience and perspective before fielding questions from the audience.
The Q&A session will be structured with the following broad subject areas tackled in order:
- Pre-publication - Completing your manuscript
- Publication - Book and eBook production
- Post Publication - Marketing and Promotion
Please bring your questions and join us for a relaxed night of discussion.
Review of the meeting
Richard Buxton, Phil Williams and Sarah Higbee talked about their experiences of self publishing, and beyond. Afterwards there were focussed Q&A sessions – and other points of view from members of the audience.
Richard (www.richardbuxton.net ) spoke first. He took three years to write his first book, and then spent another 18 months courting agents. Richard joined the Historical Novel Society (https://historicalnovelsociety.org ) and many members were enthusiastic about self publishing. In consequence he worked with Lucy Llewellyn of Head and Heart Publishing to produce his book. Lucy spoke to us last year.
Sarah (www.sjhigbee.com ) teaches creative writing and writes science fiction/fantasy. She wrote SFF for more than ten years, and self-publishes through Amazon. She emphasized that successful self-publishing requires novel series (especially in SFF, once readers understood and enjoyed a new world/universe they wanted to spend more time in it).
Phil (www.phil-williams.co.uk ) has spoken to use before about self publishing. He writes EFL textbooks and steampunk SF. Game changers for him were
- Studying courses, e.g. Mark Dawson’s SPF course (https://selfpublishingformula.com )
- Learning about on-line advertising, how it works, how to do it
- Joining writing communities (e.g. www.allianceindependentauthors.com ).
A full account can be found in the members’ section, and their slideshow is there too.
Next month’s meeting, Thursday 9 May, change to previously published: Sarah Palmer, freelance editor (and former chair of WSW) speaking about what editors do.