The Launch.

Well, we've done it. We're off. The books are published - epublished - and available. We are Writer's Choice and now we need readers' words to sell our books.

The great experiment has provoked a great deal of comment in New Zealand since I've had PR articles in writers' magazines, online and in newspapers and on the radio.

Several people asked me I didn't wait for a 'real' publisher. Indeed there are people who said I should wait however long it takes. Having had cancer and coming very close to death I know how short life can be and how little time I have left. I know my work is publishable and marketable. My short stories have all been print published. My novel has been assessed and critiqued and agent/editor checked. It was short listed in three unpublished/first novel competitions. What more can I do?

Learn to write a selling query letter, someone else suggested. But why? Why do I have to beg an agent to take me on? Why do I have to wait on their whims and moods before I can reach a publisher?

Go with a Small Press, another person told me. But the marketing work is as much as if I had self published, and the ones I liked had long waiting lists.

Writer's Choice will support us in our ups and downs. We'll learn and perhaps, it seems to me, we'll do better financially. This, for one who is an overqualified, out of work, near starving and frustrated with the lack of employment person, is important. The government unemployment allowance is not even a bare minimum and any boost to near nothing will be gratefully welcomed.