Self publishing and the London Writers' Club

Living in the north of England means that I don’t get to writers’ events in London very often. It seems unfair that so much of the networking and socialising happens there when so many of us live somewhere else. It can feel a bit like being the only girl not invited to the party! So I thought that I’d take advantage of being in London to do some catching up, and I’ve just come back from a very interesting evening at the London Writers’ Club, which meets in the basement of a bistro called Tibits just off Regent Street. It’s an interesting mix of authors, agents and publishers and the atmosphere is friendly and welcoming. The speaker was author Miranda Glover who writes contemporary women’s fiction and she was talking about the uncertain future for writers and the benefits of self-publishing. Miranda’s novels are published by Transworld, but she has just set up Queen Bee Press with a small group of fellow women authors and they’ve published their first joint collection of short stories called The Leap Year. There are twelve stories, each one set in a different country and each story features a woman going through some kind of transition. Apparently the book has done very well - reaching number 4 on the Amazon chart for short fiction. But it does help if you can get a quote by Kathy Lette on the cover! Networking, Miranda stressed, really does work.
With so many authors now without a contract, or writing the kind of books their publishers don’t like, self-publishing seems a very attractive option, especially now that it’s so easy to market a book electronically. It was a fascinating evening - and the wine was good too!