Elisabeth Storrs is the author of The Wedding Shroud, the first book in a trilogy set in early Roman times. Elisabeth has long held a passion for the history, myths and legends of the ancient world. She graduated from the University of Sydney with a degree in Arts Law having studied Classics along the way. She lives in Sydney with her husband and two sons and over the years has worked as a solicitor, corporate lawyer, governance consultant and is now a corporate writer.

So you’ve been writing for years—slaving over one novel until a transfusion is needed to replenish the blood you’ve sweated.  Confused over varying opinions, you’ve murdered enough of your darlings that you’d be gaoled for life if your words were children. And after constant editing you find yourself murmuring each noun, verb, phrase and sentence of your manuscript by heart.

Rejection has strengthened your character (you hope). Perseverance has become your mantra. Above all, the need to escape into a world of imagination has become as vital to you as eating, sleeping and working at your ‘day job’. And then, if you are lucky, the impossible happens. The stars align and suddenly your novel is accepted, not only by an agent but by a publisher as well. You start upon a giddy ride, not quite believing that you are now moving through a process that you’ve only visualised: structural reports, copyediting and proofreading.  Suddenly your words are typeset, not just typed upon a screen. The heft of the paperback in your hand is a marvel. Seeing your name upon a cover is like a dream.

Expectations are high. Your publisher’s reps work hard to sell your title to bookshops, and a lot of money is expended to market it in magazines and newsprint. The launch is celebrated with laughter and bubbly. And then the publicity merry-go-round begins. . .

After ten years of researching and writing my novel, The Wedding Shroud: A Tale of Ancient Rome,  I was fortunate enough to have it traditionally published. The experience was wonderful and I was delighted to have commissioning and copy editors who helped me polish it to publishable standard. What I didn’t realise, though, were two basic facts: releasing a book is a gamble, and success needs to be immediate.

Publishing houses place a large bet when financing a book.  In the past, they were prepared to back debut authors in the belief that, over time, such writers could build up a following. Alas, no longer.  If a writer is unable to sell enough books in the first few months of publication, their novel is soon “spine” outwards, then no longer stocked at all, as the relentless release of new titles pressure the booksellers to make room on the shelves. Soon the only avenues left to sell a novel are online or as an ebook. Yet publishers tend to price digital books far too high due to a business model with a supply chain built on bricks and mortar. In effect, the author’s cheaper e-version is in competition with their higher priced paperback. Guess which one a publisher would prefer to promote?

I’m an Australian author. The paperback version of The Wedding Shroud was only published in Australia and New Zealand. This proved a problem because I soon discovered that my main readership is located in the USA and the UK. For an overseas reader to buy my novel involves prohibitive delivery costs. As a result, being able to publish an ebook is crucial in order to reach a world-wide audience.

Sales of The Wedding Shroud were respectable but far from meteoric.  After six months I found myself in the predicament of many other midlist authors—marooned! I was expected to generate my own publicity and market my book via a constant presence in social media. And yet I had no control over its high price as both an ebook and a paperback in online bookstores.

So what was I to do? (more…)