What do we mean by success?

August 13, 2018

What do we mean by success?

Fran Macilvey Fran Macilvey, Path To Publication, The Rights & Wrongs of Writing 0 Comments

What do we mean by success?

Authors tend to be a species driven to succeed. So what do we mean by success? Here are my current top five ideas about what ‘success’ means.

~ A successful person does not compete with others, but pushes themselves to do the best they can with what they have available to them – time, money, opportunities, energy, inspiration – at any one time. When we know we have done the best we could, there is no room for regret.

~ A successful person first sets goals that are achievable and easy to reach. Two small goals are better than one big one. Once we meet our small goals, we can set bigger ones, until goal setting becomes our favourite game. Set the goal, believe in it, and watch the outcome!

~ Success embraces ‘failure’ as an essential part of what it means to succeed. Without ‘failure’ – maybe we could redefine that as ‘investing in alternatives’ – how can we decide what we prefer?

~ Success as a concept is surprisingly subjective, so we need never get upset when other people have different ideas about what it means for us; instead, we focus on what we enjoy, and what we can do, and we take ourselves forward tenderly, hopefully and with deliberate intention, not overly concerned with other people’s opinions.

~ Success means nothing if we are unhappy. To be happy – content, peaceful, at rest with oneself – is one of the highest aims in life, and however we define it, our success should serve that end. If first, we can be happy whatever we are doing, success is already agreed, and nothing further then depends on any goal we have in mind. Instead, our happiness gives us energy to move forward more easily and confidently, whatever we are doing.

Johannes Vermeer, ‘Young Woman with a Water Pitcher’

Thanks for reading!

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August 9, 2018

Making Miracles

Fran Macilvey Fran Macilvey, Fran's School of Hard Knocks, Making Miracles, Memoir 2 Comments

My third book, Making Miracles is now complete and published under my imprimatur, Heartwell Publishing. Thanks so much to everyone who has helped make my latest dream come true.

My third book, Making Miracles, brings to a conclusion my various attempts, over the course of fifteen years, to encapsulate in three books – which follow in a loose series – what I have learned in the course of my varied life: how I have moved from profound unhappiness into contentment and have, hopefully, become a more deliberate creator of my own happiness.

Many people can and have managed to find meaning, purpose and happiness throughout their lives without needing to write about it; but I guess that writing has been my means to obtain peace, to learn to live with my frailties and come to terms with them. Writing is one way I have found answers and become a happier, kinder person, more at peace with myself. And perhaps, through what I have written, I can encourage others to think the best of themselves.

Making Miracles is the outcome of a dream diary that I kept over the course of fifteen years. Throughout that time, and as an ongoing process, I have been sent many reassurances and messages which make it increasingly clear to me that guidance – call it what you like; as long as it works, I have no particular attachment to names or concepts – is available all the time, and that we can each make use of our own guidance. Keeping notes or a diary has no particular significance, but makes it easier to remember things and learn from repeating experiences.

Thanks for reading.

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July 28, 2018

Holiday blues

Fran Macilvey Fran Macilvey, Happiness Matters 2 Comments

Holiday blues

I have the holiday blues: I love listening to the music of older, experienced singers. I find as I get older, that I respond to their gentle irony, their humour glimmering though wonderful, wistful lyrics. Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, singers I would not have given a thought to when I was younger, now console me in ways that I can’t articulate. They’ve been through hell of various kinds and learned so much, and they give the gift of their compassion though their songs. I’m grateful.

It’s the long Summer vacation here and it has been hot, there has been a drought in many places. I have decided I’m not doing a lot of work at the moment, that I deserve to rest and have a bit of fun while the schools are closed. So that is what I’m doing: reading books, relaxing and spending time just being happy. But there are threads of duty and necessity that trip me up, the trips of crossed wires and strange puzzlements. So I learn to release these while listening to the wise guys strumming on their guitars and singing sweetly ironic songs.

I still have deadlines, the itch to write, emails…and I would like to get my next book finished – at least a clean, full draft, by the end of August. Think I’ll make it? I’m not sure, but I’ve got to try, I feel, or else I shall become the message carrier, answering other people’s needs and purposes. To do that from choice is fine; to do it without thought, every time anyone ‘needs’ a thing, is less good. This doing things for others is a very old part of mummy territory, and one that needs careful watching. As Seline said today “You do a lot for your Mum.” Thanks, my lovely daughter, I’ll bear that in mind, and start doing more for myself. Pause for rather wistful reflection, while listening gratefully to holiday blues.

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June 29, 2018

For the love of passwords

Fran Macilvey Fran Macilvey, Path To Publication, The Rights & Wrongs of Writing 0 Comments

For the love of passwords

There are a few accounts to set up if we are venturing into indie publishing. Again, using my choices as a model – which can only be a rough guide, since we each must make our own choices, which are multiple and varied and constantly changing – this is a summary of the accounts I have to help me with publishing. For this, it does help if you have a love of passwords…

~ An Amazon account from which I can publish my book as a paperback with its own ISBN, (which I have bought and paid for). Known as CreateSpace, this platform is the traditional way to publish POD on Amazon.

~ Another Amazon account which allows me to publish my book in kindle. Kindle is the e-book format that Amazon uses, exclusive to that company. It is now possible to publish both kindle and POD format books on the same platform – KDP – which stands for Kindle Direct Publishing, and if you are new to publishing, I recommend you do this.

~ An IngramSpark Account, which enables me to publish both POD books and e-books for all distribution outside Amazon. There are four possibilities you can select from when setting up your account, and it is possible to ask IS to publish for you to all other platforms. I use IngramSpark because I like their distribution list, and I love having a UK base from where I can order copies of my POD quickly.

~ An account with Nielsen UK ISBN store – from whom we purchase ISBNs.

~ An account with Nielsen’s Title Editor – where we register details of our book(s) so that they can be added to a national database and found easily.

There are other platforms and publishing models to consider, and the markets are constantly evolving, so what I have noted here is only a very rough outline of what is required. Please do your own research and make your own choices. It takes time, and once set up, the publishing of books becomes easier.

Best of luck, and thanks for reading!

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June 28, 2018

A bit more about ISBN numbers

Fran Macilvey Fran Macilvey, Path To Publication, The Rights & Wrongs of Writing 2 Comments

A bit more about ISBN numbers

I should like to say a bit more about ISBN numbers, though let us be clear that a book can be published without an ISBN, which stands for International Standard Book Number.

However, if you are aiming to publish and want people to find your books, I strongly recommend buying your own ISBNs and allocating them to your book(s). An ISBN is a cataloguing tool that many libraries and public search facilities insist on. Once allocated to a book, an ISBN lasts a lifetime, ensuring that a book need never get lost.

I think the best way to elucidate on the workings of ISBNs (they are not complicated, but the way they work together can be) is to take examples from my own publishing choices. So, briefly, I publish on Amazon, to their internal market only (that is, within the Amazon group of companies only).

I also publish with IngramSpark, which gives me a UK base for sourcing copies of my books at affordable prices. I find that if I rely solely on sourcing books through Amazon alone, they may come from the US, in which case the costs of postage are prohibitive and the waiting times are frustrating.

The key to making this work, is to have no overlaps in the markets among your different distributors. So therefore, I publish on the Amazon internal market only – I avoid their extended distribution option – and publish with Ingram Spark, with the result that IngramSpark are my source for all copies outwith the Amazon network. No overlaps.

In this scheme, I use two ISBNs – which we can purchase singly, or in batches of ten – and allocate the numbers as follows:-

First ISBN – is for the paperback POD on both Amazon and on Ingram Spark.

Second ISBN – is for the e-book available outside the Amazon network though Ingram Spark.

To be clear, Amazon, always allocates a unique ASIN number to all e-books they publish in their kindle format on their platforms. There is no other option for Amazon e-books. But Amazon does allow publishers to use their own ISBNs for their print on demand paperbacks. Which is the same ISBN used for POD books on all other platforms, in my case, Ingram Spark.

I can run Ingram Spark and Amazon alongside each other because I opt for restricted distribution of Amazon products to the Amazon group of companies only, where the other distributors have no remit to venture. For sales outwith Amazon, Ingram Spark is my preferred distributor.

My next post will be my last before the long vacation, when I shall be taking time off to be with family. Thanks so much for reading, commenting and sharing.

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June 26, 2018

A few more thoughts about book cover design

Fran Macilvey Path To Publication, The Rights & Wrongs of Writing 2 Comments

A few more thoughts about book cover design.

Given the importance of every book cover, here I offer a few more thoughts about book cover design

There are programmes available free on the web – so much is free to use on the web to assist indie publishers – for anyone who wants to design book covers. The wealth of experience grows more sophisticated and user friendly every day. There are tutorials and lots of free on-line help – as well as some excellent books! – to get us started with book cover design.

But, speaking as someone who loves to write, has a busy life and lots to do, I decided early to outsource many aspects of book cover design. I rely on a wonderful designer who not only has done many fabulous book covers, but who works incredibly fast and has an incredible grasp of detail.

There is a lot to think about, when considering book cover design. As my first book has a certain look and feel, and since my first three books are a sort-of series that hang together, we decided early on to try and emulate that in the later covers. Which gave my designer something to work with.

If you are coming to the market with your first book, think about design, style, the unique ‘fingerprint’ you want your book to have, and what it says about the genre and content. To make a cover that is distinctive, that stands out from all the other books of its type in the market, and yet which fits in with the broad conventions of that genre – I hesitate to offer examples, in case that causes offence to some readers – might be a challenge, but has to be attempted. A quick glance through book covers in different genres will show that there are distinctive differences. (Tudor epics have often featured a woman in period dress with her head enigmatically missing. Recently, heads have been reinstated…)

First find an excellent image, which works well as a thumbnail – the size of an image typically viewed for on-line sales – and which has the image the right way round. (If landscape, with the image at the right-hand-side). The search for a good image is time consuming but actually a lot of fun. You’ll know if it works for you when you see it.

Thanks for reading

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June 24, 2018

Basic elements of book cover design

Fran Macilvey Path To Publication, The Rights & Wrongs of Writing 0 Comments

Basic elements of book cover design.

Briefly, a book cover will have the following elements:-

~ a publisher name. As an indie publisher, you may want to have your own publishing name, one which reflects the genre and content of your book. If you are thinking of publishing more than one book, or a series of books, you should definitely invent for yourself a publishing name that is meaningful to you.

~ A publisher logo. If you look on the back of books, you will see many publishers have logos. Be inventive, or thoughtful, about initials, images, ideas. Get out your felt-tips or design tools and find an image or logo that works with your publishing name.

~ A price stated in a given currency.

~ Space for an ISBN number, assuming you will be getting some ISBNs of your own and allocating these to your books, which I recommend. If you are investing in your own ISBNs, and wish to have your book available in paperback and also as an e-book, you will need two ISBNs, one for the paperback (usually but not always sourced as a print-on-demand or POD paperback) and another for the e-book. That is the theory. More often, virtual platforms allocate a unique ID number to e-books published on their platforms. They can also allocate free ISBNs to POD books, but if they do so, then they become your publisher, so beware of that.

~ Blurb for the back cover. Read up about blurbs, and recon on having about three hundred words, with a headline grabber of about twenty-five words, and a catchy race through the plot which will sell the book to your readers. (Not a synopsis: a sales pitch.)

~ Metadata and BISAC codes – which can be researched on-line. These are categories that you think most closely correlate to the subject matter of your book, so that it can be catalogued and found easily anywhere. It helps indexers if you use metadata and if you are careful with your chosen categories. I use a process of elimination: Take the whole list – which is finite – and delete all that definitely don’t apply, then refine the list further. Be careful to use categories that have a broad appeal.

~ The size of your book and the width of its spine will depend on your personal preference, the type of book you have written, and the number of pages in the finished book.

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June 21, 2018

Basic requirements for book publishing

Fran Macilvey Path To Publication, The Rights & Wrongs of Writing 2 Comments

Basic Requirements for Book Publishing (continued)

Turning to the points I made in my previous post before we can think of publishing, we need a decent enough book that we want to publish. By which I mean, we must accepted that a published book moves away from our sphere of influence and ends up as semi-public property.

My first book, Trapped is the story of my life with cerebral palsy, and, as such, publishing it was a huge leap of faith into the unknown. Would it be savaged by the critics? Would I die beneath a barrage of criticism and coruscating comment? The answers, as it turned out, were no, thankfully. But fears such as these need to be considered, then quietly put to one side as we prepare to launch our book on the unsuspecting public.

A good editor – or whizz editing skills – is as essential to a good book as a good story. And if we decide that publication is our eventual aim, it might take ten years to reach that goal. So there is, really, not a lot of hurry when we are setting out to publish our work. It helps if our intentions grow more and more solid, as we take the time to look around for a good editor: someone who understands us, agrees with our motivation and helps us to reach our goals. That said, at all times we have to retain ownership of the writing and editing of our work.

Once a book has been written, polished, edited, re-written and proofed, it will eventually be ready to be typeset (the word we use when referring to a print book) and formatted (the process of producing a book in an e-file, such as mobi files). So ask your contacts if they can recommend a good typesetter. Perhaps your reading research will have given you a few ideas, a few contacts you might email and obtain quotes from. As in any other creative endeavour, follow your hunches, and double check everything.

Thanks for reading.

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June 19, 2018

What we need when we publish our own books

Fran Macilvey Fran Macilvey, Path To Publication, The Rights & Wrongs of Writing 4 Comments

What we need when we publish our own books

What follows is a brief summary of points to be remembered when we are publishing our own books. And I suppose the most obvious question to start with is, are we going to publish with only one platform – we all know, I think, which platform I am alluding to here – or are we going to go with multiple platforms?

The basic requirements for an indie publisher are:-

~ A decent enough book which we want to publish. By which I mean, a book that we are prepared to write, publish and let go into the public domain. If we can’t handle the thought that, once published, our book ceases to be our private concern, the chances are, it is not ready to publish yet.

~ A good, empathic editor who can find the flaws in your manuscript – it’s safe to assume that an independent editor will find some room for improvements which we will then be pleased to work on.

~ A wonderful typesetter and formatter to take our manuscript and turn it into something resembling a wonderful book.

~ A wonderful book cover designer. Unless we would like to do this for ourselves. There are some good programmes available that make this possible.

~ A look, design or set of ideas that we can give to our book, so that it stands out from the crowd. Photos, images, such as those available from Shutterstock, are a useful archive of ideas to look through. Consider landscape, portrait, thumbnail images…

~ ISBN numbers to give our books a unique ID number. ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number. A book does not need an ISBN to be published, but if it has one, it will always be easier to find, than if it is published on multiple platforms, each allocating the book an e-ID number or the publishers own ISBN.

~ A little cash to make the dream a reality, and to help us decide which of the tasks of publishing we will do for ourselves and which we are happy to delegate. No point feeling overwhelmed before we even begin.

~ A love of passwords and on-line accounts, because there will be a few to set up.

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June 16, 2018

What I have learned about publishing independently

Fran Macilvey Fran Macilvey, Path To Publication 6 Comments

What I have learned about publishing independently.

There are several things we need to decide, when making up our minds whether to self-publish. My next series of blog posts will attempt to summarise what I have learned about publishing independently.

There are a series of basic questions that need to be answered before we even think of publishing a book.

~ Have we got the time to do some research – aka read some books about publishing – that will help us decide what our priorities are, for example, whether we want to outsource cover design and formatting, and if so, how much we are prepared to invest in this? The cost of services on offer to prospective publishers is as variable as weather on a spring day, so reading about and researching the various options is vital.

~ Do we have a regular income that will support the initial outlay of publishing? Unless we are able to source the expenses of editing, proofing, ISBNs, typesetting, formatting, imagery and cover design at low cost, some of these will crop up. Yes, some platforms allow authors to publish for free, but it is really vital, when learning about costs, to appreciate what that means. For example, if we publish on major virtual platforms for free, the platform will usually allocate to our e-books the equivalent of an e-ISBN number, which means that effectively, the platform becomes our publisher of that e-book.

~ The financial implications of publishing are not always obvious at the outset, so it is vital to be aware that the cost of services that are offered to would-be publishers can vary from several hundred to several thousand pounds. Do research the markets and options carefully.

~ Do we have time to write and edit endlessly, until we have a good enough book? There is no-one else out there setting our publishing deadlines or chivvying us up to get stuff sorted and sent. We become our own diary keepers and deadline setters.

~ Are we interested in writing, publishing and promoting? Because if we are going to be publishing, we need a good enough product, which means that writing and editing will come to the fore. Thereafter, promotion will be part of what we do, which will, of necessity, eat into our writing time. But each of these has its part to play. So decide which, at any given time, is your priority, and don’t beat yourself up if you can’t do it all, all the time.

Thanks so much for reading.

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