When I finally finished the first draft of Amazing Gracie, the thought of setting up my own publishing company didn’t even cross my mind. In fact, at that point I knew little to nothing about the world of publishing – including that a first draft of a novel should never be sent out to prospective literary agents. But, eager and naïve as I was at the time, that’s exactly what I did.

So approximately sixty literary agents received the first three chapters of the first draft of Amazing Gracie. And approximately sixty literary agents sent those first three chapters back to me, completely unimpressed with what they’d read (or not read in many cases, as was quite obvious to me).

Seeing as I was beginning to run out of prospective literary agents, I decided to try something new – and I submitted my novel to an author’s advisory and critique service. Their feedback was very positive and very useful and I ended up adding an extra 20,000 words to my novel on the strength of their advice – not to mention tackling several tough rewrites. Amazing Gracie was now truly finished and ready to be resubmitted. But who could I submit the novel to now that almost every literary agent in the country had already turned it down?

With hope in my heart, I tried submitting the novel directly to publishers. But there were only a handful of publishers who would accept unsolicited material and, after a long wait, I received back praise from many of them but still no offer of a publishing deal. It seemed that everyone liked Amazing Gracie but nobody was willing to take a chance and either represent or publish it.

Finally, I was contacted by a small publishing company who said they wanted to publish my book. As you can imagine, I was absolutely thrilled. But then my publishing contract arrived and I realised the company were nothing more than a vanity publisher - they wanted me to pay for the privilege of publishing my book with them and then sign away all my rights to the material. Needless to say, I turned down their very kind offer!

Not long after that, another publishing company got in touch and offered me a partnership publishing deal. I very nearly accepted, as they came quite highly recommended. But by this point I was already looking at other options. I'd been reading numerous stories of authors who'd self-published their novels and been quite successful as a result and, after spending some time researching self-publishing, I decided that it was the best option for me.

Quite simply, if nobody else was going to publish my book for me, I was just going to have to publish it myself! All I needed was time, money and my very own publishing imprint – and that’s how Troll Boy Books was born.

What have you learned along the way regarding establishing a publishing company? If a writer/reader wants to set up a publishing company, what words of advice can you give?

First of all, it’s not something to go into half-heartedly. Publishing a novel takes a lot of time, dedication and money – I wouldn’t recommend that anyone decide to get into publishing just for the fun of it. You have to believe completely in the novel you’re putting out and you need to have a clear idea of what you’d like to achieve and how you are going to go about achieving that goal.

For any first time publisher, I think it’s vital to get some help. Publishing is like any other business, so to begin with getting some practical advice on how to run a small business is crucial. This will allow you to set up your publishing company itself and prepare to trade.

You’ll also need to learn about the world of publishing and book production and how it all works. There are many different aspects to publishing a novel, including obtaining an ISBN number; commissioning a cover illustration and design; getting the text proofread and typeset; and arranging for the book to be bound and printed – and many of these things will be difficult to oversee without any prior knowledge.

So for anyone thinking of publishing a novel, I would say the most important thing is to do your research long before you begin. Read writing magazines; how-to books; interviews with self-published authors; anything you can lay your hands on. Find out all you can about the reality of publishing, both the good and bad – and then decide whether or not you really want to proceed.

Also seek out recommendations of respectable publishing consultants – those who will help to guide you along your chosen path. Of course you have the option of going it alone, but for your first book it might be safer to have a mentor on call who can advise you, put you in touch with the right people, and generally just be a sounding board for all of your problems and questions.

I really don’t think I could have published Amazing Gracie quite so successfully without the help of the consultant I employed – she’s been more than worth her fee and I’d urge any first-time publishers to seek help of a similar kind.

Please comment regarding the various venues to publish a writer's work today and its benefits/drawbacks. (New York, e-publishers, self-published, small press).

Well, I’d think that for most writers, having their work released by a mainstream publisher would be the preferred option. It was certainly what I was aiming for when I first wrote Amazing Gracie and, despite my success in publishing my first novel, will likely be the route I initially try to take once my second novel is written and ready to go.

Through setting up Troll Boy Books and publishing Amazing Gracie I’ve learnt an awful lot – and the experience has been an enjoyable and fulfilling one. By self-publishing my novel, I’ve been able to remain in control of every aspect of my book’s production and marketing – something that wouldn’t have been possible had a mainstream publisher bought the rights to my work.

Then again, had Amazing Gracie been released by a mainstream publisher, I wouldn’t have had to worry about ISBN numbers and typesetting and cover designs and everything else that goes into publishing a book. Instead, I could have passed the responsibility for the production of Amazing Gracie over to my publishers and concentrated on writing book number two. Because there’s no doubt that, while writing a novel and holding down a day job is difficult, writing a novel, holding down a day job and running a publishing company is next to impossible. So inevitably a writer’s output will suffer if they decide to undertake the publishing of their work themselves.

But if a writer has been turned down by the established publishing houses, both small and large, and they truly believe their work is good enough to merit publication and a place on bookshop shelves, then self-publishing just might be a viable option. Of course, self-publishing has also been known to lead onto bigger and better things – like in the cases of Robert James Waller (The Bridges of Madison County) and G.P. Taylor (Shadowmancer) who were both snapped up by big publishing companies only after self-publishing their debut novels and proving that their books would sell.

Every writer is different and what works for one may not work for another. I’d imagine that most writers would prefer to see their novel published in the traditional book format, rather than made available as an e-book. But e-publishing is certainly the cheaper alternative and could lead to a novel being published in less than half the time it takes to produce a traditional book – and with much less effort involved on the part of the writer. Which leaves the writer free to do what they do best – write!

Return to
Romance & You (Articles)

Return to Home Page