Self publishing

THE put-down merchants call self-publishing vanity press, but maybe that should be insanity press, because it is damned hard work.

I grew up in a sub-culture which praised self-production by indie musicians, but the same generosity of spirit was not extended to self-publishers of literature where the general feeling was the product was not good enough to be bought by a mainstream publisher.

Without boring you with all the details, the economics of music production and book publishing are similar. The physical reproduction of a CD or a book is only a minor part of the cost for a big record company or book publisher with economies of scale. For the music company, recording and promotion are big ticket items, while for the book publisher, editing and distribution are costly.

Another common feature is music and book publishers having a poor history of predicting a hit, so they tend to try to reproduce past hits with a twist rather than take a chance on the new.

The muso or writer can do recording or editing a lot cheaper, if often less effectively, than the corporates. But of course, indie artists could never hope for economies of scale in production which also allows multiple distribution of review copies. But the production-cost gap has narrowed with greater economy in short-run CD pressings and the development of printing on demand.

Enter Bent Banana Books and its publication of my novel Iraqi Icicle, a detective thriller with a difference, or quite a few differences, really.

Don't tell anyone, but I am Bent Banana Books.

I am producing my novel Iraqi Icicle through printing on demand and the production cost per unit is only four times or so that of the big publishers. This might not sound good but it is. Before POD, it was seven or so times the cost.
Now, I can see how I go against the majors in marketing my novel in a crowded marketplace. Which is what I am doing with you, right now.

You can buy Iraqi Icicle in soft cover from www.lulu.com or www.lulu.com.uk
If you like the sound of it, buy it or if you would like to have a nibble first, buy Iraqi Icicle Book One At Play as an e-book from www.lulu.com It's inexpensive and the first of a four-part series.

Tell all your friends and make up for those misguided hip people who have been deriding self-publishing for years while they have supported independent record production.
Spread the news,
Bernie

Write on!

I've got writer's blog. Sorry about that punishment; I couldn't resist.

I have recently self-published a novel Iraqi Icicle, set in and around Brisbane, Australia, from 1986 to 1992. Like my play, Tosh: the Musical (visit www.toshthemusical.com ) it has popular music history central to the fiction.

In the play Tosh: the Musical, I look at Peter Tosh, Bob Marley and the Wailers, and the Jamaican reggae scene from its beginnings with ska in the 1960s until Tosh's murder in the 1980s.

In Iraqi Icicle, I am, in part, into the history of Brisbane alternative guitar pop rockers The Go-Betweens which formed in 1977 and broke up in 1990.
The band reformed a few years back with its songwriting nucleus of bassist/lyricist Grant McLennan and guitarist/music writer Robert Forster.

McLennan was born in 1958 and died in autumn, 2006. If you do the maths, he did fulfil the hope of dying before he got old, as the Who's Pete Townshend wrote in My Generation.

I am a few years older than McLennan but the novel is not about my generation. It might strike a chord with any fans of indie rock music between the 70s and 90s. Or those interested in the place of popular culture in the world. Or anybody who has ever pondered the relativity of good and evil. Or someone chasing a bit of black humour to light up our dark times.

I am a journalist by profession or trade or job or whatever. As well as doing general reporting, I write a couple of columns a week and they usually have a bit of a giggle in them. I find it hard to resist and both Tosh the Musical and Iraqi Icicle have humour.

I've an idea the novel Iraqi Icicle might appeal to the present generation of alternative music lovers throughout the world. I wrote both Tosh the Musical and Iraqi Icicle, in part, to give hope to (or at least entertain) teenagers and 20-somethings of today. They have got the rough end of the pineapple, as we like to say in Australia, living in the most despicable of times.

That's probably enough of an introduction, except to say you can buy Iragi Icicle in soft cover from from www.lulu.com or www.lulu.com.uk or, as an ebook, it is serialised in four parts at www.lulu.com

It is published by Bent Banana Books which is my own publishing house, but do not tell anyone that, as they might think Iraqi Icicle is less than a professional publication.


Spread the news,
Bernie