denysfisher.com

This is a question I get asked fairly regularly and the answer is:
Very soon, I hope!

Recently, I have been seeking permissions for quotes and other snippets of intellectual property that feature in the book – and it turns out these can take some time to secure.

I am at the stage of planning where/how to publish, though. Originally I had intended to go down the route of conventional publishing and I submitted proposals to more than 50 Literary Agents during the first half of 2024 – but none of them took on my masterpiece! I did get some nice comments, though, and also a bit of very useful feedback – which I have acted on in my later drafts.

That being said, I don’t think I have the energy or motivation to submit my book to the remaining agents that I didn’t contact first time around. It can take many hours of work to put a professional proposal together (I think the longest took me around 3 weeks of fairly constant work) – and I do get why that is necessary – Literary Agents are putting their time and reputations on the line whenever they take a book on, so you really need to ‘wow’ them with your work. A properly worked proposal gives an agent a lot more to go on when they’re choosing the handful of projects they will take on, out of the hundreds or thousands they receive.

But after 50+ submitted proposals I think I’m done with that route.

So this is heading towards self-publishing, isn’t it?

Well, yes – in a word.

My wish, now, is just to get the book out there, so that people can enjoy it. The quickest and most direct way of doing that seems to be publishing the book on something like Amazon/KDP. That platform has global reach – as did Spirograph – so it seems a sensible way to go.

At 145k words my book is also a little long for conventional publishers, perhaps – but I stand by that length and believe it’s appropriate. It’s very hard for me to see where I could chop out 45k words, say, just to get it down to a conventional length. In a previous hard edit I pruned 10k words away, but towards the end of that process I felt I was cutting into bone rather than fat.

Although it seems likely that I will publish on KDP or a similar platform, I do want to have a real-world book launch event, and I’m looking into the options for that at the moment. More details as I get them.

So that is the state of play, regarding my book. I’m determined to get it out this year, so for those of you who are interested to read my father’s humorous and intriguing story – you shouldn’t have to wait much longer.

Your continuing patience is much appreciated!