On Wednesday I won the Creative Flow Poet of the Year Award on Dundalk FM and then on Friday, just before lunchtime, I got a call telling me that Original Writing (who published my novel The Rising Son) were going to cease trading at 4.30pm that afternoon. I’m still not 100% sure what all the implications are for me and the book at the moment .
For now the main thing to know is that if you want to buy a copy of The Rising Son please go to my website (www.briankirkwriter.com ) and order it there.
I know I will probably never see whatever royalties I might be due up to this point, but I’m keen that the book will continue to reach as large an audience as possible. Since the launch in mid December the book has sold over 500 copies and I’ve received great notices and reviews and huge amount of positive feedback from readers. On the bright side, I own the rights, I have the text and cover image files and I have a printer in place who can produce copies for me. Distribution is the big issue now. So if you are a publisher or if you know a publisher, perhaps you might consider taking the book on. It’s ready to go; there are no costs beyond future printing costs and the book has a ready market with schools and libraries around the country. Later this month I’ll be doing my first library and school visits.
Please contact me if you think you might be able to help me with this. All advice is welcome as I’m still trying to process the events of Friday. Thanks for reading this and please feel free to share! Brian
Hi Brian, i too am in a state of flux. my book The Stillness Within The Storm was only published on 8TH Jan 2016 via OW.
Sorry to hear that you’ve been hit in this way after what has obviously been a lot of hard work for you. Time is obviously of the essence here so my advice would be to consider self-publishing rather than waiting to get a new publisher onboard. I would first of all contact the two major Irish wholesalers – Argosy and Easons Wholesale stressing the amount of books you’ve sold so far, the critical acclaim you’ve garnered (with quotes from established writers) and your future marketing and event plans. If one of them comes onboard to take copies into their warehouse, get your printer to print copies asap and get them into the warehouse for distribution. Wholesalers will let bookshops know of the book’s availability but you may need to follow up with bookshops individually asking them to consider stocking the book (making sure you tell them of who is distributing it!) Hope this helps, Bob.
Thanks Bob for the advice – I’ll be talking to Argosy tomorrow morning and hope that they will continue to distribute. I’m still waiting for Eason to come back to me. While I sort out the ebook and Amazon side of things I have plenty to be working on.