Knit-your-own paperbacks: or, The Hours Are Long But The Pay Is Poor… :)

Dedicated Tyack & Frayners may be interested to know that I’m well on the way to producing the first three books as a print anthology.

I have to say, this is purely for the love – my print sales are ABYSMAL, which I don’t mind in the slightest as long as the ebooks are selling well, which they are. (Darlings, I’d publish on birch bark and papyrus if that was what you all wanted.) Myself, I love a good print book to grab, mash, smell, break the spine of and drop in the bath. I still don’t own an e-reader. Which is not to say I’m in any way anti-ebook: that would be senseless, given how I make my living.

But it occurred to me lately that – Goddess forbid, and I’m guessing book formats would be the least of my problems in such a case – the internet is fragile for all its seemingly infinite octopus-tentacle power, subject to solar storms and magnetic-pole reversals, and as for electricity – well, a year and a half living off-grid has taught me not to take that for granted, either. So, imagine: there I am, severed from the Web up on my windy hilltop, and other than my Samhain prints and the two Midwinter Prince books, I do not actually have a proper hard copy of any of my FoxTales! I Must Fix This.

Also, for me, there is a tremendous frisson in seeing Paperbacks On Shelf. (A little like Bums On Seats for a theatre manager – the bottom line, so to speak.) So, essentially for myself and for the handful of readers – and I know you’re out there because every so often I get a hopeful email from one of you – who share my love of print, I’m working on a project to get every one of my FoxTales nicely produced through Createspace, and I thought T&F would be a good place to start. I’m well advanced through volume one – Once Upon a Haunted Moor, Tinsel Fish and Don’t Let Go – and then I’ll do the same with Kitto, Guardians of the Haunted Moor and Third Solstice.

It’s actually a massive project, due to my lack of formatting skills. The Midwinter Prince books were my first foray, and they’re acceptable but not great. Eventually I’ll republish them, using the mojo I’ve learnt since. I thought about paying someone to do the work, but now that I’m getting a grip on the process, I’m actually enjoying it. When I can’t cudgel anymore words out of my brain – when I’m at, I guess, the point where a saner person would reach for her knitting – I open that manuscript and tease away with section breaks, headers and footers, page numbers, guttering and cover art. It’s weirdly restful. (I won’t be using the image here as the cover. I did noodle around with it, but decided on a single, bold image instead, which I’m hoping will look rather handsome with my “trademark” T&F Candara font.)

So watch this space, if you’d like the feel of a lovely physical T&F volume in your hands! I’ll let you know as soon as the gargantuan task is finished and volume one is available.