WordFest Crawley and Christine Mustchin

The panel discussion on self publishing at the Crawley WordFest was an interesting experience and well attended. There were four of us, all with different experiences of self publishing. One was a graphic artist with long experience of the publishing trade and so fully able to utilise his knowledge when he decided to self publish his own self illustrated fiction. He was in it to make money and had indeed done so very successfully. A second panel member was a business man who had self produced three non-fiction books and drawn on various contacts to ensure optimum print ready works. He confirmed what we all held to be true that there are three phases to being an author - writing the work, publishing it and then marketing it. The third panel member described her success in previously publishing a work on dolls' houses. Her current project is to market her novels published with assistance from a profesional company. As the final member of the panel I was keen to point out the different models of self-publishing - 1. do absolutely everything yourself (IT skills essential) 2. get help for certain aspects of the process eg editing, cover design 3. hand it over to a reputable to a reputable self publishing firm. I made sure to emphasise the need to distinguish between so-called vanity publishers and bona fide self publishing firms. Both will require you to foot the bill but with the latter you have total control and retain all rights, plus ownership of all the copies of the books produced. The evening was well chaired by a member of Crawley Library and there were a good number of questions and discussion. Thanks to Jo from Waterstone's for her input into the evening and to Jamie from Waterstone's for conceiving and implementing the whole project . A first that will surely be repeated. Christine Mustchin