Natalie Allan

Just a quick update on the writing projects. Although I haven’t managed to do any more research on becoming my own publisher (as in, open up my own small press to publish my own books (see my recent blogs on “My mission for 2010″: http://blog2.natalieallan.co.uk/?p=120 and http://blog2.natalieallan.co.uk/?p=123)), I have, however, cracked the whip on the writing projects and they seems to be going fairly smoothly.

I now have 50+ poems (half of which are edited and finalised) for my book of collected poems I intend on publishing in 2011 (not bad, to say I only started working on this batch in February), and I need about 150 to 200 more so the book is average paperback size. So far, I’ve been writing 2-3 poems a day, four days a week. I estimate I should have enough poems for my book by the end of September. I’ve already begun the design of the cover and the typesetting of the internal pages. It’s really exciting!

I’m plotting a new novel as well. This one is the backstory for “Village of Vampires”, the novel I already have in 4th draft, and was originally going to be a novella on some of my characters to help refine the nitty-gritty details about them so I could finally finish this draft. And as all the best laid plans go to waste, this book seems to be turning itself into a novel, and there’s so much prize information in there, “Village of Vampires” looks to be its sequel and the new novel needs to be (written) and read first in order for the reader to understand it! It’s an integral part of the world-building also. So once again, “Village of Vampires” has been put on the back burner. But at least this project is remotely relevant to it!

The things we do for our characters…

What are you writing right now?

So, we all remember my mission for 2010, right? The one where I intend to finish the content for my book of collected poems and become my own publisher by setting up my own publishing house under my own name and publish the said book? Well, things are under way on this. I have so far completed:

• Basic research about how to do this and what I need to know and do (more advanced research will come when I cross that bridge);
• Begun organizing and editing my existing poems and putting them into “categories” of how I’d like them to appear in the book;
• Designed the cover of the book (okay, so this was 8 hours and 4 drafts worth of work that didn’t need to be done yet, but I had fun doing it);
• Begun the layout in a typesetting program and begun typesetting the preliminary pages of my paperback.

This is all fun and games. I’m able to write, be creative, and learn something new all at the same time – which are three things I absolutely love to do! Sure, there will come paperwork, and print costing, and business setting-up, and taxes to worry about, a market to find to sell my book to — but who cares about that when I’m on a huge learning curve? And, when I do get to that stage, it’ll be a walk in the park because I’ve already set up and run my own business in the past when I used to make and sell handmade greeting cards, so I already know the anatomy of a Limited Company.

However, while I’m doing all this, my novel, Village of Vampires, has been sat on the shelf — and that’s really bad. I’ve been putting off working on it because I know I have to go through that horrible process of querying literary agents and facing rejection. Then the realisation hit me — if I’m going to become my own publisher, I can publish this book myself, too.

What can I say? Sometimes the most obvious things can sit right under your nose and you don’t notice them.

I now feel a renewed and added enthusiasm for Village of Vampires. I’ve wanted to see that book in print so badly since I began working on the synopsis last October. Now, I can realise that dream without having to go through the pain and torture of the query process and the rejection and heartache that comes with it. And I’ll get to keep 100% of all proceeds from the sales — an added bonus, as always.

All I need to do now, is run these two books side-by-side while researching the business of publishing oneself, and hopefully in a few months, I’ll be able to publish one or the other of these books!