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Who's in July 2014 Writing Magazines
Yes, it's that time again...
Who's in July 2014's magazine? The magazines probably wont be in the shops until 5th June so DONT EXPECT THEM UNTIL THEN.
If you spot yourself, please let us know which magazine and WHICH PAGE; and the name the article appears under if it differs from your Talkback name. If you spot someone else, PLEASE LET THEM post the details here.
Remember: if mentioning a story, dont give away the ending.
Comments
Well done, Sallyj - I'll look for it if/when I find a copy.
Recognised a couple of names, including sally j's- well done.
p.s. we're now a bit stuck with our friends while our car is being repaired. Hoping to get it back tonight, but Uxbridge is now looking distinctly shaky!
Fingers crossed for the car repair.
However, I don't think the judges are abiding by their own guidelines. I am sure that I have heard and read more than once, and certainly in David St John Thomas's speeches in 2007 and 2009, that it is crucially important that the person who is awarded self publisher of the year really has done all the publishing tasks themselves, and can show that they marketed the book extensively.
At the ceremony in 2009 I chatted afterwards to the winner, asking her what programs she used for typesetting, layout and design. A very wealthy woman, the wife of a a bigshot QC I believe, she told me she hadn't done anything herself except write the book! She had thrown pots of money at it -- thousands of pounds -- on a professional cover designer, professional typesetter, professional editor to rewrite it, etc. The book had no webpage, wasn't marketed anywhere that I could find through extensive "Googling". It was women's history and I wanted to buy a copy, but it wasn't available in any bookshops or online. She didn't need to sell a single copy because money was no object.
I had done every task myself (editing, cover design, interior design, typesetting etc). I paid nothing to anyone except the book printer who printed from my preformatted PDF, so I felt disgruntled that we weren't all on a level playing field.
I see the same thing has happened this year. The winner employed professionals, it says so on page 26:
"commissioning the eye-catching cover illustration, specialist layout design, copyediting".
When I see that an author has engaged an editor, alarm bells ring. We do not know to what extent an "editor" re-writes the text. I am currently employed by a major publishing house as a book editor, and so I know darn well what the word "editing" can mean - anything from tweaking the odd phrase to completely rewriting a very poor text.
The runner up was the same. On p27 it is admitted that the author "assembled a team of...professionals to help her polish and refine the text...finally enlisting a freelance editor...and commercial design service."
I believe this goes against the spirit of the awards as laid down by the original organisers. If you employ a team of professionals to re-write your text, typeset the book and design the cover, to my mind you are not a self-publisher at all. You are someone with a shedload of money to spend on (practically) "buying" yourself a self-publishing award by employing professionals to do all the tasks.
This is totally unfair to the authors who genuinely do all the tasks themselves.
If I invited you to my house and showed you a magnificent tapestry on my wall, saying I'd done it myself and it had won first prize in a tapestry competition, then it turned out that I'd paid a team of stitchers to do it, I am sure you would disagree with my description. Or if I offered you a home cooked meal, and you found out later that I'd picked up the phone and had a take-away delivered?
I'm not happy about this at all.
Helena
Outsourcing some aspects of production is well within the rules of the Awards for as long as we've been running them, and indeed expected in modern self-publishing.
If you can do your own editing, cover design and all the rest then that's excellent. I don't see anything wrong with those who can't paying for a professional to do these things though.
Just thought... wasn't there a thread started recently where someone was looking for grammar-checking software?
Surely all small businesses work this way? You make money on sales and reinvest it to make the product as good as it can be.
Now, I'm looking forward to settling down this afternoon for a browse.