Creative Ink Publishing

Blog 62 – Creative Ink Publishing

Beth Glanville – author of The Imaginist – which she has published on Lulu.com
recently emailed me as she was writing a feature on ‘Self Publishing’ and asked me to comment on my experiences with MY NOVEL – BLACKBERRY PROMISES.
It’s a tricky one this, as technically, Creative Ink Publishing is a small, if not ‘bijoux’ one might say, independent company. True, my own novel BLACKBERRY PROMISES – has been published by Creative Ink, and I am part of the company. But we started out by publishing Patricia Sentinella’s collection of poetry and parting shots – ‘Dear John, Dear Anyone …’
After Pat’s book launch we did a number of readings in libraries, Missenden Abbey etc and we have sold all books printed and now selling on Amazon Kindle.
Creative Ink Publishing then mounted an international writing competition on the same theme as Pat’s collection and in the broad sense published a dozen of the best monologues from the catch. I say ‘in the broad sense’ as we produced a high quality film ‘Dear John, Dear Anyone …’ available on DVD at £5 for the Heart charities.
It was, at the same time, that MY NOVEL – BLACKBERRY PROMISES – was published by Creative Ink – powered by a superb company – Spiderwize – whose care and attention to writers is second to none. From that we have mounted the international competition on the theme of ‘Promises’ – entry fee of £5 to go to the Heart charities. The best dozen will be Epublished and there’s a view to myself and Elaine Mulvaney – winner of the Dear John comp – turning one of the stories into a film script supervised by Tony McHale, producer of ‘Holby City’.
So in the strict sense I haven’t self published and see Creative Ink Publishing as a new and innovative form of publishing. No-one certainly has lost money. The comp entry fee have raised already over £1000 for the Heart charities and with two books on Amazon and Amazon Kindle we might be able to buy ourselves some blusher.
We hope everyone’s happy.
Do I recommend self publishing? I say, try 5 agents first. I spent two decades with two very big literary agents. They were wonderful people but I kept missing the big five publishers by inches. I then had to do something that Miss Tea Tree Oil has done to my ailing feet. I had to take my literary destiny into my own hands.
Do I regret it? No. But I might have paid someone to proof read my own words – as a writer can’t do that. But that’s in hand and I’m lucky enough or hard working enough to have sold my print run and am printing more with corrected changes. We learn.
I’ve packed Beth’s novel in my holiday suitcase and I’ll take my sunhat off to her.
But if any of you have exhausted the traditional path of publishing, do try Creative Ink before you go Lulu.

• Just two places left on the summer ‘Get that Book out of You’ Thursday morning course beginning April 25th. Tuesdays are full.
• If you have liked MY NOVEL – BLACKBERRY PROMISES – please post a review on Amazon and thank you if you have already done so.