No short story this week as I’ve had my organisational hat on. A while ago a book blogger asked if I would like to do an interview and you can read it here:
Love of Fiction interview link
You might believe an independent author only writes books – not true! 😀 They also have to be marketing agents, research analysts, cover design artists, IT specialists, editors, proof readers, admin staff, lawyers and detectives.
The last came to mind when a question was asked in a writers’ forum regarding copyright. The author in question had originally been traditionally published, and her publishers had obtained permission to use a few lines from an old song in her book. She was unsure whether it would still be valid when she self-published using a new ISBN (International Standard Book number – a way of identifying individual books. Different numbers are necessary even for various formats of the same book, e.g. paperback, hardback or eBook.)
Over time, the copyright owners of the song had changed hands, been taken over, merged, relocated and generally done everything to make themselves difficult to find. The alternative was to ‘publish and be damned,’ taking the risk of being sued for millions of dollars and having her book blacklisted. Eventually she tracked them down, paid a nominal fee of about £50 and was good to go.
If you’ve ever wondered why it takes so long to produce a book, this might give you an insight. Add to that the problems caused by Createspace being migrated to Amazon KDP, resulting in an overwhelm where for weeks it’s been impossible to upload new books, and it’s not surprising Monks with quill pens had an advantage.
On the positive side, the interview reminded me of what I have managed to achieve over the past few months:
Republish ‘ABC Destiny’ in eBook format with a brand new cover. (The revised paperback will be available when the dust from the take-over dies down.)
Publish the compilation of fantasy short stories ‘Weird and Peculiar Tales,’ in both eBook and paperback.
Start the ball rolling for my publishing imprint Quirky Unicorn Books.
Update and collate my Amazon author pages.
Update and set up a Goodreads author page.
Post some short stories to my Facebook author page.
So there you go. Reason number eight million and ninety-six from the Procrastinators book of excuses. I hope you’ve found this small insight useful; please feel free to comment and check out my books at
Amazon UK author page
Amazon USA author page
© Voinks September 2018
