1. for my last book (Radical Gardening, 2011) I made a deliberate choice NOT to go with a radical publisher. My thinking was based around the idea that, if I went with a leading gardening press, that publisher would help me get reviews and attention in places where I wouldn’t normally feature, including all the specialist garden magazines and media. I though this might help me reach a readership that wasn’t simply my normal one of–apolos, political cliche imminent–old and new lefties. Wider sales, wider readership, getting the ideas out there. RaGa was a Book of the Year in the Independent on Sunday, and had a terrific review in the, er, Telegraph (a right wing newspaper for those not au fait with UK press landscape), and lots of other mainstream coverage, so praps the choice has been effective.

2. I’m not rejecting radical publishers, I just thought for that particular topic (gardening) it would be worth trying a different approach. And BTW the quality of the book produced is really very good–inc 80+ colour and B&W images, an in-house picture researcher doing the job of sourcing and permissions (I acknowledge a small grant to help here), a light copy-edit and detailed proofing, a commissioned cover, all for £12.99 per book. Several reviewers commented positively on the quality of the product.

3. Anne talks about the importance of editing the text. I.e. the author submits the draft manuscript to his/her editor, who then reads it carefully over a period of time and offers suggestions on how to tighten it up. In my experience this is the bit that can get easily lost–it’s demanding in terms of time and concentration, and because we all submit word docs now it’s easy to rush on to the production schedule. The BEST experience I ever had with editing was with a US university press editor, who sent me 6 pages of detailed critical comments on my MS. Once I’d put my nose back into joint (I was an experienced author by then, I knew how to write, I thought) these were the most useful direct contribution from a publisher to my own writing process. For my next academic book (Shakin’ All Over: Popular Music and Disability, by the way, out next year) I have gone to a second US university press. Both academic and general publishers: find the time to read carefully the author’s draft MS and offer constructive comments on improving, tightening, sharpening it up, that’s way I like in an editorial process.

4. What I have done in the past year or two is embrace the digital possibilities of dissemination, publicising, as a key new aspect of my writing. Simple and obvious enough: I have a fairly extensive personal website where I link to all my books and other writings, including all the open access material, Google Books of mine, etc, etc. I update it with a new front page blog-style thing every 2-3 weeks. This has been quite a lot of effort on my part as well as learning new digital skills but it definitely works in terms of profile and impact.