29: Creative Process Review

Posted in Diary posts on April 27th, 2011 by Peter Baker

27 April 2011

When I got off that plane from South America in 2007 – the bit between my teeth – I’d calculated that writing a book might take a few months.

Complete fantasy.

With hindsight, such naiveté was probably for the best. Read more »

28: Clear Blue Skies

Posted in Diary posts on April 9th, 2011 by Peter Baker

9 April 2011

After securing the publishing deal for The Jolly Pilgrim, I experienced a two-hour period of elation, then knuckled down and focussed on next steps. Eyes on the endgame.

Top of my to-do list that afternoon was getting the hem of a suit fixed. That meant a visit to Sam, proprietor of ‘Smarty Pants’ dry cleaning and one of my local Manor-Park homies. Naturally, we talk about stuff. Read more »

27: The Publishing Deal

Posted in Diary posts on March 8th, 2011 by Peter Baker

8 March 2011

The Hot Hive is an independent book publisher based in Worcestershire. I first heard of the company last autumn, via a couple of authors who’d secured a deal through it. Given what I was then learning about the book-publishing world, said deal sounded very good, but at the time it was one more lead I didn’t have time to follow up. Crucially, I got my hands on one of the Hot Hive’s books. It was a thing of beauty. Read more »

26: Literary Distribution Systems

Posted in Diary posts on February 26th, 2011 by Peter Baker

26 February 2011

‘I’m not sure The Jolly Pilgrim should go to market via a traditional route – it’s a dusty industry caught between austerity, stumbling into the next Harry Potter and pants-down terror of the internet. In this epoch, quality can find its way to the surface under its own merits. Read more »

25: Network Mode

Posted in Diary posts on February 19th, 2011 by Peter Baker

19 February 2011

My stage-one approach to the publishing industry (more of an all-guns-blazing charge, really) didn’t produce a hit. So I spent a weekend pulling together my communication tools, bought, assembled and fired-up a laser printer, then drew a deep breath and started to network.

The most useful part of networking turned out to be sitting down with published writers and interrogating them about their experiences. Read more »