All the wonderful people who helped with my publishing process for ‘Pink Granite’

All the wonderful people who helped with my publishing process for Pink Granite

I thought this might be a useful read not only for those who receive my newsletters but also for anyone curious about independent publishing. So here goes:

Unlike Redhair and Daffodil Friend, the creation of Pink Granite  was relatively short. The first book took the whole of my performance career to manifest. Pink Granite was born within two years. You can see previous blog posts about the development of Pink Granite. And if you go far back enough in the archives, there’s plenty of information about the creation of Redhair and Daffodil Friend.

I thought I could structure this post by honouring the people who have helped me with Pink Granite.

Like solo performance, writing a book may sound like it’s a one-woman effort, but, just like solo performance, it’s not. It’s a team effort with a lot of technical support required along the way. The solo effort and responsibility is in the management of the team.  This  has to be bought in or may be part of a paid app subscription or human offer subscription,  but is often due to the sheer bigness of heart of my supporters. Become a supporter and subscribe to my newsletter.

First I will  focus on the dedication and acknowledgments  in the front and back matter of the book. These people are mentioned  in the book.

Dedication in Pink Granite

It has to begin with the late Fiona Fearnhead to whom I dedicate ‘Pink Granite’. Fiona was a very close friend. She became a noted palaeontologist following her extensive and varied teaching career. We met at teacher training college when we were 18.  I attended her funeral during the movement development phase of ‘Pink Granite’. You can read more about her here.

 

 

 

There were patient, brave people who read the first draft:  Nia, Andrew, Sandra, and my cousin Jo. There were creative people like my husband Richard who walked the Llŷn Peninsula with me and supported me during the mini launch.  Then there was  Sandra along with the 2022/2023 project group: Mary, Caroline, Andrew, Natalie, Sian, Paule, Simon, Paul, Penny, Rachel and Beate who all contributed to the creative themes I discovered. You can read the blog post about this here.

 The Editor

I found Catherine Dunn by scouring the lists of editors in the Alliance of Independent Authors’ pages of approved partners.  Catherine is very thorough and quirky. She is from Leicestershire, where one of  the deepest seams of Pink Granite is quarried.  She is a great find. She assisted me on three occasions during the process of forming the manuscript for Pink Granite and proof-read the final document again after we changed the font size.

Not everyone is mentioned in the book so here are the others:

People who helped me form the blurb

Mairin, Ali, Richard and Jo/Otis:

As you can tell from the  email, I was planning the launch in April 2025. It was another six months by the time everything was ready.  You can read about the approach to Fru’s illustrating in the previous post.

Research

Extended family members contributed visual and family history fragments of  information to supplement my own research: Waterfields, Oswalds and Middletons.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For many years I, like many others have trawled Myheritage.com and ancestry.co.uk for hints and links, building the most complicated structures of once, twice and three times removed.

Production, Marketing, Distribution, Mentoring

The patient teams at Bookvault, the producers and distributors of the book  help with my direct sales and wider distribution, along with  Ingram Spark who will jump on board later.

The process of learning all the nuts and bolts of getting a book to market are made so much more interesting through the wonderful network that is  the Alliance of Independent Authors. (Alli) I have been so inspired by the knowledge and experience of the creatives I have found there. I arrived on their pages  listening to Joanna Penn’s podcast during my re-election leaflet drops back in 2021. Deciding to not stand again for re-election in 2024, ensured I could focus more on creative work, something I sorely missed when I was a councillor. I remember squeezing in opportunities to listen to Alli’s podcasts, accessing the profuse assortment of publication aids and workbooks between 2021 and  2024, when I was preparing to publish Redhair and Daffodil Friend.

 

 

 

 

 

As was the case with my theatre journey, marketing the work is proving to be a challenge.  I am starting slowly realising that it’s best to learn how to do it rather than pay expensive fees and sit back hoping it will all just happen.  It hasn’t and it doesn’t.  I decided with Pink Granite to take a deep dive into this and invest my time grappling with the ‘how’. I spent a very small amount on purchasing an online course with Shelby Leigh, I also  spent a whole weekend attending SelfpubCon25 where I learned so much about the self-publishing process that has set me up for the life of the books I think.  I began talking about the project throughout the development process and also created a number of films that illustrate the integration of the writing  process with my movement practice. Please contact me if you would like access to those.

I believe these will form part of the collection of assets that will help with the creation of a teaching programme I hope to develop for this project.

Creating Assets

As well as editing the films and research photographic materials, I reserved some investment to prepare for the  launch and post launch, commissioning Liam Jackson to design my publicity materials including a book mark.  I used Replica Print for print production. Both are Southport based. I was able to use an ARC reader’s quote to help with the promotion.  Thank you Ellie.  You can see more here

Early Purchasers

I want to give a shout out to my pre-launch  readers, especially those who pre-ordered and waited patiently for Bookvault to produce and deliver. You know who you are. Also those readers who attended my mini-launch at Wine and Words by Watson in Southport.  Thank you James!  Also thank you to Andrew Brown, a local Southport based journalist who responded to my press release within 24 hours producing  this first piece of coverage as a local author

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Buy the book here

Thanks for reading.