A name at last. Writers Choice is born. We are a multicultural, international group of writers - sounds serious doesn't it? - who think it's time to experiment with some of these non-traditional means of publishing. Does that sound convincing?

Our Logo is being discussed. We have a rather novel idea from an artist friend which I really like. Have to have a vote of course, but all is proceeding amiably.

Suddenly we have a September/October Deadline and it's all a bit panic inducing. I am having doubts about my work being good enough yet the anthologies of stories I will e-publish have already been published in journals and magazines in Australia, Canada, the U.K. and the USA.

What we writers do to ourselves in the way of put downs and self doubt is crazy. My novels are off to competitions and then to some Small Presses. Maybe I will be able to earn money and self respect again!

So how is the publishing cooperative going?
Slowly.

Step one, find a group name that will be our brand.
As yet we cannot find something with panache. We have several good names but nothing exceptional. Fortunately everyone is good humoured about it. No fussing. Rule number one is professional polite and civilised behaviour at all times and we abide by it. It's the only way to get a group working together without misunderstandings.

Email is a poor form of communication because voice and tone are lost. It's easy to misunderstand what is said. And those wretched smiley faces don't really help. They merely make an email look like a kindergarten effort! As we email short notes to each other we stick to Rule One! It has helped.

We started with six and are now four. I think we'll hold at that and see how we do. There is a so much to do but the bulk of the work requires that group name. I think it's time to chase everyone for suggestions, again!

I am learning at last. I can link my blog to another. I think! I wish my IT expert son-in-law lived nearby. Why all this bother about tech skills? Well I've done it. I've finally stopped dithering and blethering and have struck out as an independent novelist publisher.

Oh, not on my own. Nor did I succumb to the wiles of a scam publisher. No Publish America stuff for me. No, I've found a few writer colleagues who feel like I do about the whole Traditional Publishing scene and are prepared to work with me as a cooperative group who will publish together under our group name.

It's a hard way to go. Attitudes are set. The Historical Writers Association will not allow me to join if I go this way and don't wait the 19 years is it Ms Morgan keeps quoting. In New Zealand I will be called a vanity publisher and my credit as a tutor of writers will fall! Some of my trad published writer friends will sneer. Others will cheer as they struggle with editors who ask for radical cuts or additions to make their novels 'easier to understand' or 'more marketable,'

But I am convinced that the almighty power of Trad publishing, with its pernickety editors and despotic agents, is broken. Indeed unless they adapt and change a lot more swiftly than they are doing, then they will fade away, moving sideways into conglomerate units producing mass information and nothing else.

I don't know how our group will manage all the details yet but we advance one step at a time, cheering each other on and regarding this as an experiment. It's an adventure but one we control. It's rather nice to have some say in cover design and pricing. And good to know that our novels go out to be read as we intended them to be.

Cooperation?

Steam has been pouring out of my ears all week. In one of those coincidences which seem to happen as a needed push or kick, tales from writer friends who have publishing contracts with the traditional big name publishers popped into my inbox or post box and all of them conspire to shove me towards self publishing.

I cannot believe what publishing companies can do. Apart from the one friend who been dumped because of lack of sales I have been steaming over the editing done to another writer pal's first novel.

This writer's editors chopped the really marvellous ending and insisted on a smaltzy, sloppy, not accurate historically ending be written instead. The novel is a great literary historical. The bloody fool editors keep trying to turn it into a Hollywood action adventure. Quite spoilt the story with their additions which are supposed to make the novel sell more! I seriously doubt they will help sales.

But from all this fury has come the determination to join with a couple of writer friends and make a self publishing cooperative. We aim to run an experiment and see if our novels, the ones agents and editors like but..., will sell as ebooks.

Why?

Why is it that publishers are really pushing marketing novels by slotting them in to boxes?
I am tired of finding a novel which looks right, the blurb reads enticingly well, but when I read it I find it's not at all what the marketing promises.

I've thrown several novels back at the librarian with a snarl recently, because they promised to be historical novels, but turned out to be Romances. No, I don't mean a novel with a romantic relationship as a subplot. I mean the darned thing was a full blown Romance with a pretty historical setting. Yet it was marketed as a serious historical novel.

There's a trend to market literary historical novels as if they were genre romps. I'd have missed several excellent novels if I had studied the blurb and not listened to my friends.

Why do publishers think we all want candy floss reading? Why do they market well written, challenging novels as if they were easy reads? It puts readers off.

More Emperor's New Clothes

The more I think and discuss the state of publishing right now, the more I am growing to believe that writers have been brainwashed.

Right now traditional publishers require us to go through agents. Agents have read it all and seen it all. They are bored. Titillate them with something like Jane Austen and the Zombies and they jump. Give them a literary novel by an unknown and they might well yawn.

I didn't realise exactly how too much reading can spoil your appreciation of a story. I have suddenly found myself 'read out'. I have been reading a book a day for years and there really is very little new in the way of plots. What wakes me up is a well written 3D character, an unusual setting and the writer's unique voice. This means I judge writing more harshly than a reader who is not 'read out'.

If I do this how much more will an agent or publisher's editor do so?

Readers don't mind another thriller about a serial killer. I've had to review too many. Readers don't worry about head hopping POV changes. Writers and agents frown upon them. Readers don't mind all sorts of things which agents do care about and tell us about how dreadful they are on their websites, in their tweets and blogs.

Perhaps we writers should call the agents' bluff. Perhaps, if we are desperate to be published traditionally, we should produce pastiches of famous, out of copyright novels with something weird tacked on. 'Christmas Carol with Aliens' or 'David Copperfield, Robot'?

Or perhaps it makes sense to go the self publishing route? Readers are out there reading some appallingly written, self published novels with relish. They just like a good story.

Should writers or shouldn't writers?

If you can get writers to ignore the stigma attached to self publishing fiction and discuss it seriously it seems that the biggest stumbling block is knowing if the novel is actually good enough to publish.


There's the rub indeed. How do you know your novel is publishable? If you haven't got a support group of published writers who can help you decide, what can you do? Who will tell you? And where do you get the courage to do it?


There is so much badly written work being self published and any writer who has a C.V. of published works does not want to add to that pool.


So how can a writer find out if the novel is publishable? Sending it to an agent or publisher in the traditional way very rarely brings any helpful comments.


There are manuscript assessors. The U.K. assessors often are or were publishers, editors or even retired agents. My American friends think it is dreadful to spend money on a critique. "Do it yourself," they holler. But how many writers have the confidence to weigh up their own novel? We often think it's ready to publish but is it truly?


There are novel competitions, some are free, others cost a lot, but if the novel is short listed, or merits a critique then surely it has publishable value? Or does it?


There are now publishers' schemes like the Macmillan New Writers scheme or the Harper Collins authonomy: http://www.authonomy.com/faq.aspx website which depends on reader popularity. Problem there is that there is always someone somewhere who hates your novel and someone who loves it and it might be possible to rig support!


So where do writers go with their novels, the novels which agents say "it's good but I don't where to publish it."? Where do writers go with those novels which get good critiques but no agent or publisher takes on? Where do writers go with short listed or competition winning novels which still don't get a traditional publisher?


What do we do? I'm thinking we need a writers' publishing collective for self publishing, with editors to guard against the hopeful new writers who have a way to go yet before publishing standards are reached. Oh, and excellent PR people to blow away the 'vanity' or 'not good enough for real publishing' comments.