Cycling publishers in the UK

pottssteve

Hiya!

I'm writing a book along the lines of autobiography/travel/cycling/humour and am interested in approaching publishers. I suppose it's closest to the sort of Tim Moore stuff (French Revolutions etc.). Can anyone recommend a UK publisher, please? I thought of Velo press but they are in the USA and wouldn't get the jokes...

Thanks,
Steve

disgruntledgoat

Yellow Jersey published French Revolutions did they not?

oscarbudgie

I have a little experience of this - 3 books in print, another I'm writing now (nothing to do with cycling) -

Send it everwhere

Don't expect any money

Chip \'oyler

oscarbudgie wrote:

I have a little experience of this - 3 books in print, another I'm writing now (nothing to do with cycling) -

Send it everwhere

Don't expect any money

What you gave your writing away for free?

oscarbudgie

Chip \'oyler wrote:

oscarbudgie wrote:

I have a little experience of this - 3 books in print, another I'm writing now (nothing to do with cycling) -

Send it everwhere

Don't expect any money

What you gave your writing away for free?

Not quite !
I mean that the money you earn is not likely to reflect the effort made. First authors often get no advance at all. Publishers and editors will want to make you feel like they're doing you a favour putting your book out. I was 'lucky' and got an advance of £1500 on my first book. The last book I only got £500 for - on delivery :roll: but that's with a much bigger publisher where sales are far greater (its consistently in the Top 10,000 books on Amazon) hence higher royalties. Even then writing doesn't really pay unless you have a good number of consistently selling books in print.

Le Commentateur

Buy a copy of Writers and Artists Yearbook (it has contact details of all UK publishers, plus which of their many imprints publishes the kind of book you aspire to have published) and do as oscarbudgie says.

Commissioning editors constantly get unsolicited manuscripts and many will just bin them immediately or give them to an editorial assistant to skim read and appraise.

Perhaps you could pick out a relatively self-contained section that could be revamped as a magzine or journal piece? Might help in the long run if a bit has already been published somewhere.

pottssteve

Thanks for the advice, chaps.

mroli

Hello mate,

My father in law is a publisher and we were talking about this just the other night. Basically it is immensely hard to get your book published and even harder to make money out of it. We know a writer who met with critical success, some commercial success and he never made more than £8k a year from his novel writing career over a 30 year period.

This is not to say that you would not make it, but just a word of warning that the perception of having success is a lot more real than the actual having success. Publishers will often go to established writers with projects (such as journalists etc) as they have a track record of writing stuff that is liked by people. I would say it is something akin to music - lots of people have dreams of pop stardom, but very few make it. And nowadays, even if you have a hit, you might not make that much money out of it.

What Oscarbudgie says is true (unsurprisingly given that he has first hand experience). If you know anyone in the publishing industry at all who can give you advice, help you with editing and proofing etc then that is a very good idea. It would also help you before you go before a publisher/editor to have the book whipped into shape a little.

The other thing I would stress is check and double check what you've written - make sure it is coherent, spelt correctly, scans and makes sense. Make sure it also conveys what you want it to convey too - you may well only get one chance (IF you get a chance).

I'm sorry if this sounds a little pessimistic, but just writing something will make you a better writer and is a good thing to do. And if it never works out for you - there is always vanity publshing and you can flog it to people here! And if you sell a million books you can always tell me - told you so!

pottssteve

mroli,
Thank you for the advice. I wasn't labouring under the impression that I was the next JK Rowling, but I feel that the book might be appreciated by cyclists with a sense of humour...! I'm just gathering info at the moment; as I said I've got about 30,000 words but it's not finished. It may well end up being published posthumously at this rate.

PS - Would your Father in Law be interested in having a look at it, free of charge?!