The answer isn’t complicated, it’s those people who you ask to read your book before you publish it. I’ve touched on this subject a few times in my posts so why write about it now?
My latest book, A Concrete Case of Murder, took quite a while to write. Too long for my liking. Writing is never an easy process but, due to a confluence of adverse circumstances, writing became impossible for some months. Since retiring, I have been publishing two books every year, however, A Concrete Case of Murder took over eighteen months to complete. Having a series of ten books already published, most of which were well-received, I found myself getting a little paranoid about this latest one. I think that my paranoia was mostly triggered by an offhand remark someone made which was something to the effect of, ‘If it was hard to write it will probably be hard to read’. It was not a comment I appreciated all that much.
And so, the seeds of doubt were sown. All I could do was carry on writing and then trust to my readers.
Continue reading
I started categorising my blog posts when I restyled my website and I was surprised that I had only blogged once about self-publishing. So, here is blog post number two. In talking to other authors, I realised that quite a few of them have only tried the traditional route because they are either still unaware of what self-publishing can do or find the whole process a bit opaque or even scary.
Firstly, like my main character Mac Maguire, I identify as being disabled. However, I’m not in a wheelchair like the sign says. Why on earth a depiction of a very specific disability is used for all disabilities is beyond me. We need a new sign but we also need some new words. 
What you call your book may be one of the most important decisions that an author will ever make. It will be the first thing that readers see on your book page, it will feature on your book cover and hold centre stage in all your advertising efforts. And yet you may never find out how successful or not your choice has been. Once your book is published then the title is what it is. It’s baked into the whole thing.
Patrick C. Walsh Author 