Just wondered about this,as there seems to be quite a lot of intelligent people on this Forum.Also the variety of professions,from teachers to IT staff makes me think there should be someone.Also would be interesting to know what their book was about.

kind of...self published with a few friends:

"life is wonderful on kelvin flats", a collection of poems...

available from central library!

:)

Originally posted by pete_fcs
kind of...self published with a few friends:

"life is wonderful on kelvin flats", a collection of poems...

available from central library!

:) Will ask for that the next time I am in the central library.Especially now Kelvin flats arent there any more,its a bit of Sheffield History isnt it Pete ? Can you give us a few lines then ? :)

Do magazine articles count? (not telling you what it was though!)

Originally posted by pete_fcs
kind of...self published with a few friends:

"life is wonderful on kelvin flats", a collection of poems...

available from central library!

:)

Yup!!

I was in on this too!!

My son loves going into the library and asking them to put my name in the computer and then telling them that that is his mum's book!!

Ey oop pete, we were famous for a few weeks weren't we?

Hiya,

Yes - had about half a dozen books on various types of personal computers published in the 1980s, about the Amstrad, MSX and Sinclair Spectrum computers.

I also had two books on amateur radio published ('Newnes Short Wave Listener's Guide' the 'Amateur Rdaio Computing Handbook' and , and two editions of a book on Chaos theory and fractals (The Chaos Cookbook).

I've also had a couple of hundred articles published between 1982 and now in the amateur radio, electronics and computing press.

I'm just tidying up a book on radio wave propgation which I'll probably be self-publishing, and have some booklets on amateur radio matters that I'm currently self-publishing and that sell reasonably well.

Joe

Originally posted by JoeP
Hiya,

Yes - had about half a dozen books on various types of personal computers published in the 1980s, about the Amstrad, MSX and Sinclair Spectrum computers.

I also had two books on amateur radio published ('Newnes Short Wave Listener's Guide' the 'Amateur Rdaio Computing Handbook' and , and two editions of a book on Chaos theory and fractals (The Chaos Cookbook).

I've also had a couple of hundred articles published between 1982 and now in the amateur radio, electronics and computing press.

I'm just tidying up a book on radio wave propgation which I'll probably be self-publishing, and have some booklets on amateur radio matters that I'm currently self-publishing and that sell reasonably well.Now thats what I call an author!

Joe

Not yet.

Damn the fact that I didn't back up those made up Star Trek stories I wrote prior to the last time my PC died :(

I'm still busy working on my trashy novel. :D

I've never had my own book published, that would be great! Just the odd random article or poem here and there mainly.

Dont know what happened to my last post but just wanted to congratulate Joep . Now thats what I call an author.:thumbsup:

Originally posted by pattricia
Will ask for that the next time I am in the central library.Especially now Kelvin flats arent there any more,its a bit of Sheffield History isnt it Pete ? Can you give us a few lines then ? :)

a part i can remember of "kelvin flats at night":

when the bin bags rustle in the cool night wind
and taxis trundle along infirmary road
looking for late night revellers

kelvin remains

an empty echo
a stage with no actors
a giant with no clothes

Originally posted by pattricia
Dont know what happened to my last post but just wanted to congratulate Joep . Now thats what I call an author.:thumbsup:

Thanks!

I also have a fair number of short stories and radio and film scripts. I've had a bit of interest in the scripts but nothing of my fiction has yet entered the public domain, so to say, so that's my goal now.

I'd love to get a collection of short stories published.

Joe

Originally posted by JoeP
....
I'm just tidying up a book on radio wave propgation which I'll probably be self-publishing, and have some booklets on amateur radio matters that I'm currently self-publishing and that sell reasonably well.

Joe

joe, i would be interested if you had any advice on self publishing!

as you will see from my "www" below, i have a load of photographs, mostly of estates in sheffield i have lived in.

do you have any advice on what it would cost/ how best to put together a few hundred copies, say 64 pages of b/w photo's???

any insights gratefully received!

:)

Originally posted by pattricia
Can you give us a few lines then ? :)

And a few from one of mine .........

Sometimes I feel like killing my neighbour!!

Sometimes I feel like kiling my neighbour
Noisy ba****rd!!
He has a rock group in his kitchen
Underneath my kitchen
Underneath my skin

If he wakes up my baby once more
I'll do more than smash his door
I'll chop him up
Put the pieces down the garchey*

No-one will notice anything
Because it smells anyway!

*Garchey was the waste disposal system in the kitchen sinks which stank horrible no matter how much you cleaned it!!

Originally posted by pete_fcs
joe, i would be interested if you had any advice on self publishing!

as you will see from my "www" below, i have a load of photographs, mostly of estates in sheffield i have lived in.

do you have any advice on what it would cost/ how best to put together a few hundred copies, say 64 pages of b/w photo's???

any insights gratefully received!

:)

So much will depend upon the quality of the illustrations.

If you want high resolution, glossy finish, heavy paper then you're looking at high cost. Most publish on demand printing, for example, is not good for works with a lot of high quality illustrations because it's difficult to get the price right for a low print run.

Also, size. Again, to be cost effective most self-publishing excercises will go for the usual 'paperback' size. Most books that are heavy on illustrations will be a larger format, and typically have stitched bindings rather than the more usual half stitched / half glued.

My first piece of advice would be to identify the format of the book - i.e. mainly pictures with explanatory text or mainly text with explanatory pictures. Once you've got that, that's a start.

Also, do you intend to make money or just publish to preserve and spread your work. There's a difference; the former is a business, the latter is a labour of love, and that will dictate your budget and print run.

Start from there.....

Hoep this helps,

Joe

I know Dannyboy has been published quite a lot, he even runs workshops on how to get published, see here (http://www.danielblythe.moonfruit.com/) for a list of his work.

I've had several papers published in academic journals, plus chapters in academic books [social science/science], and have just signed a contract to co-edit a book with a fellow academic and friend. I am also an Editor of a leading social science journal.

Previous to my academic career, I had articles published in various newspapers and music magazines.

Originally posted by JoeP
Thanks!

I also have a fair number of short stories and radio and film scripts. I've had a bit of interest in the scripts but nothing of my fiction has yet entered the public domain, so to say, so that's my goal now.

I'd love to get a collection of short stories published.

Joe Yes, and I love reading short stories,especially by H.E.Bates. He wrote about the English countryside,and his endings were always unusual or sad,which I think is more like real life. You can read a book of short stories,and get more satisfaction from it,as you finish each story,then close the book.I should imagine that the short story is how a lot of authors start up.

Originally posted by JoeP
So much will depend upon the quality of the illustrations.

If you want high resolution, glossy finish, heavy paper then you're looking at high cost. Most publish on demand printing, for example, is not good for works with a lot of high quality illustrations because it's difficult to get the price right for a low print run.

Also, size. Again, to be cost effective most self-publishing excercises will go for the usual 'paperback' size. Most books that are heavy on illustrations will be a larger format, and typically have stitched bindings rather than the more usual half stitched / half glued.

My first piece of advice would be to identify the format of the book - i.e. mainly pictures with explanatory text or mainly text with explanatory pictures. Once you've got that, that's a start.

Also, do you intend to make money or just publish to preserve and spread your work. There's a difference; the former is a business, the latter is a labour of love, and that will dictate your budget and print run.

Start from there.....

Hoep this helps,

Joe

thanks for your help, joe, i shall ponder on what you have said!

pete

back in the eighties i used to 'gig' alot with a guy called si spencer...

he went on to write...erm...erotic literature for adult mags, then became editor of deadline comic, and ended up writing scripts for grange hill and east enders!

:)

Originally posted by JoeP
[B]......

My first piece of advice would be to identify the format of the book - i.e. mainly pictures with explanatory text or mainly text with explanatory pictures. Once you've got that, that's a start.

i was thinking along the lines of j wrigley's books on sheffield...gloss paper, b/w, mainly just full page photo with caption.

Also, do you intend to make money or just publish to preserve and spread your work. There's a difference; the former is a business, the latter is a labour of love, and that will dictate your budget and print run.

ah yes, the old vanity publishing thing!

well i'm not after the money but i reckon it would sell 100-500 based on the experience of the kelvin flats poetry book (100 sold in a few weeks and lots of free publicity thanks to my local media p.r. skills!)

:)

Originally posted by JoeP
Hiya,

Yes - had about half a dozen books on various types of personal computers published in the 1980s, about the Amstrad, MSX and Sinclair Spectrum computers.
Joe

I think I have a couple of them!

Yes, several, with over a million words in print at the last count (my books have been used on courses both as recommended texts and as secondary reading at universities all over the world and have been cited in other books, articles and even in government reports. I have reviewed many book proposals for publishers and have reviewed books both prior to and after publication and have also written publisher’s blurbs. As I prefer to retain my anonymity on this forum, I will not be more specific.

I remember when my first book was published, I went down to London to see it displayed in the bookshops (oh the delights of Charing Cross road). The novelty soon wears off however. Although I am working on quite a big project at the moment, I’ve recently turned down several offers from publishers to write books for them. It’s the old story – before you have a track record, publishers don’t want to know: afterwards they sometimes pursue you rather than the other way round.

Here is some free advice for aspiring authors (I am speaking here of writers of non-fiction) based on my experience as an author and reviewer of book proposals.

Firstly, take some time to identify the publishing houses appropriate to the type of book you wish to write (i.e., does the house publish your kind of stuff?);

Secondly, take some time over the publishing proposal. Make sure it is well-written and well presented. You can only get away with back of an envelope stuff if you are a sought after author. A famous (or notorious) head of a publishing empire once told me that if you can write a good publishing proposal, the odds are you will have the capability to write a good book. I have found this to be generally true;

Thirdly, take pains to stress the marketing potential of the book. Will it sell? This is what publishers will be really interested in. For you, the book may be a labour of love. For the publisher, its business. They could just as well be selling baked beans for all most of them care about the intrinsic merits of your magnum opus;

Fourthly, if you have no history of publications in your CV, it might be best to find a co-author who has. Publishers will be reluctant to take a gamble on you if you have no track record as an author;

Fifthly, don’t set too much store by the ‘come on’ signs you might get from publishers in the pre-contract stages. They often show enthusiasm in the early stages, just to get you to come up with a detailed proposal for them to scrutinise (what they will then do is to send the proposal to one or more reviewers for their comments). Until you sign the contract, you haven’t got a deal, however enthusiastic they appear to be;

Sixthly, don’t worry too much about deadlines. Although the publishing house will be within its rights to cancel the contract if you miss the deadline for completion, this is unlikely to happen. If they want it, they will wait for it and so deadlines are likely to be flexible (I have only ever met one deadline, and that was because I didn’t know any better at the time). Remember the adage though that a book is never finished, its abandoned – so there has to be some cut off point.

Seventhly, once you hand the manuscript in, you should not think at that point that your work on the book is done. It will be copy edited and proof read and will probably be returned to you with all sorts of weird squiggles and corrections. This is a laborious process and is likely to take several weeks (or even months). Personally, I prefer to do the proof reading myself, but there are professional services available (although these are not cheap).

Anyway, best of luck to any aspiring authors. But remember the old adage ‘everyone has a book inside them – and in most cases, that’s precisely where it should stay!’

Just a quick addition to the words of LordChaverley - the last two books I had published were done without me seeing any sort of paper proofs!

The work was submitted to the publisher as Microsoft Word files, and a set of files were returned to me with some editing done. Then I had to go through these files and do any corrections required.

I found this approach a lot harder than working from paper proofs, and a couple of errors did find their way through to the final published editions. The first time I saw one of my books in a bookshop was in Thins bookshop in Edinburgh, where I was viisting family. It was great. :)

Like LordChaverley says, though, it soon wears off. :)

And the money isn't the brilliant either - but it's great fun!

Joe