My ‘weekly’ blog has become a monthly one! Oh well, another resolution for my New Year’s list.
My goal was to get ‘Southern Cross Safari’ published in time (12 November 2014) for the start of the World Parks Congress (WPC) in Sydney, so it could be sold through the Congress bookshop. I finally discovered that the shop was only displaying IUCN titles, with no sales. However, the shop manager kindly displayed my book, so I kind of achieved my goal.
I eventually had 20 copies printed for promotion and advertising, just in time to take to the WPC. Unfortunately, the shop was tucked away at the end of a huge exhibitor’s hall, so wasn’t visited by many of the 6000 delegates attending. However, I was delighted to bump into an old uni friend who I hadn’t seen for many years. Louise was volunteering at the Congress, and she liked the book so much she became my first sale.
So the book is finished, looks good, and reads well. I’ve now decided to find a publisher. The problem with self-publishing print books is distribution, ie getting the book into shops. Publishers have networks; self-publishers don’t.
If I were to self-publish, I would have to pay for printing, pay for distribution and pay the retailer; and lose money.
The other self-publishing alternative would be to sell through my website and through local outlets in Canberra, but it’s a small market compared with the rest of the country.
On a positive note, the book is now on Amazon and Smashwords as an ebook, and soon Apple, thanks to the sterling efforts of my friend An (Rubida ePress). Even if you are not an ebook fan, you will be able to sample about 15% of the book at no cost to you – and no profit to me! The ebook sells for about A$11.60, compared with A$30-35 for the print book.
The other thing I intend to do is to sort through my thousands of digital images and create an online picture book on my website to complement the written narrative.
Meanwhile, back at the World Parks Congress – it was a huge event, in fact, it was almost too big. Although it ran for 8 days, the first comprised half a day of introductions and partying; the final half day summarised proceedings before the farewell barbeque; and the Sunday in between was a rest day. This left just 5 days for the more than 900 presentations – talks, debates, workshops, dialogues … as I said, too big. All these contributions, and the many formal and informal discussions on the side, were finally distilled into a single document called the ‘The Promise of Sydney’.
The Promise will drive the international protected area movement for the next decade, the time span between WPCs. It’s worth a read and can be viewed at: http://www.worldparkscongress.org/about/promise_of_sydney_vision.html
Happy travelling – see you next week!