publishing pomes?

I am currently just over halfway through a three-month period of sabbatical leave from serving the church I love. It’s been refreshing, enjoyable (and hot). A question I have been asked a lot before and during this time is, “What are you doing?”

Some sabbaticals include global travel, worthy projects and life-changing experiences. Mine has focused on words, as you may have gathered if you have read any of the bloggages I have released into the wild since the beginning of June.

I have been writing a novel, which may well never see the light of day but which is an experience I am enjoying.

I have been writing bloggages (as you know) with the intention of continuing this once my sabbatical leave has ended.

And I have been writing pomes (sic). Last week I had a thought: ‘Perhaps some people would like to read my pomes in a book rather than scattered across this site, I wonder if I could publish them.’

I have no idea about the answer to the first part of that thought but decided to investigate ‘self-publishing’. I had no idea it was so complicated. It’s not a matter of just getting a book printed.

The book needs a title.

Hmm, what to call a collection of my pomes?

The book needs a cover.

Probably reflective of the title of the book.

The book needs some pomes.

I wonder if I have written enough to justify creating a book.

The pomes need some sort of organisation.

How can I put them together in sections that make some sort of sense.

The book needs an International Standard Book Number (ISBN). If it’s to be published and sold it needs a unique 13 digit number, and you can’t just make it up you have to buy one. This unique number means that your book can be found easily by someone wanting to buy it. There are online publishers who seem to make it relatively easy to answer most of the questions above and if I go for Kindle Direct Publishing they even provide their own ISBN, but that means I can’t sell it anywhere else.

Which brings me to another series of questions: How or where will I sell the book? (or more to the point will I sell any copies?) How many do I print? Some ‘print on demand’ publishers print a copy when it is ordered, which saves printing loads and having them stacked up in my garage, but they take a proportion of the book price to do that (fair enough I think). Others have a minimum print run – scary.

And a copy of every published book (including self-published) needs to be sent free of charge to the British Library so they have a copy of every book.

I am beginning to wonder if it’s worth it.

I bet the people who were inspired by God’s Spirit to write down what has become our Bible (the best-selling book of all time) didn’t have to think about any of these things. Would it have been produced if they had? How different would the world be if the Bible hadn’t been written down?

So thanks to the inspired authors, the papyrus makers, the meticulous copiers, the document preservers, the distributors, the translators, the manuscript illuminators, Mr Gutenberg, the printers, the refiners, the scholars, the typeface designers, the linguists, the interpreters, the publishers, et al…

Simple?

Be blessed, be a blessing