Anyone attempt to write a book?

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Re: Anyone attempt to write a book?

Postby RYP » Mon May 15, 2017 2:44 pm

Self publishing is always an option, but you would have to build in a pretty aggressive marketing campaign. Most people don't want to be an author that badly.
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Re: Anyone attempt to write a book?

Postby soren » Fri May 19, 2017 4:32 am

Darcy wrote:The rejection letters are starting to come in now!

So what makes one able to brag in bars......"I'm a writer"???

a. having written a book
b. being published
c. having received a certain amount of rejection letters?


d. Selling poetry by the sheet on street corners and/or internet ad copy

e. Paid per post on internet bulletin boards. I had a ton of Netpond points when they went under. Before bitcoin caught on, it was a digital currency that *almost* worked in the Red Light district of Amsterdam, or I am *almost* more charismatic in real life than I am on the 'net.
trouble :)
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Re: Anyone attempt to write a book?

Postby Ozymandias » Sat Aug 19, 2017 7:05 am

I wrote a book on my July 2007 road trip from London to Liberia in a 1974 Land Rover Series III. Mainly did it to keep an account of the journey for later in life. I tried shopping it around to a few publishers in 2008 but never got anywhere, which was a shame as it was a great journey (especially the Senegal to Sierra Leone bit)! In the end the only thing that got published about it was a few articles for specialist Land Rover magazines and this piece on Polo's Bastards: http://polosbastards.com/west-africa-monrovia-or-bust/

I have had a few travel guides published by Bradt (Angola and Equatorial Guinea) but that process is a little simpler than writing your own fiction / non-fiction book. I'm hoping to write the Bradt Guide to Guinea-Bissau next year, assuming the government is onboard.

I am currently putting the finishing touches on a book about my June 2016 kayak expedition down Angola's longest river (the Kwanza - 1300km). Again, have no idea if a publisher will pick it up but it was such an epic journey it would be a shame not to share it. Also, our documentary on the trip and my talk at RGS in London got a fair bit of attention, so I'm hoping that might drive book sales. We'll have to see! You will all be the first to hear about it if I do get a publishing deal!
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Re: Anyone attempt to write a book?

Postby Ozymandias » Thu Feb 15, 2018 10:42 am

RYP wrote:I was given quite a large advance to write my autobiography. Random House was pissed that I did it in small vignettes that seemed out of order. My editor was fascinated by my pure bravado in trying something new. People hated it. People who loved adventure loved it. I wrote it that way I remembered things in my head not according to the way you are supposed to write a book.

I spend a lot of time in Colombia hanging out on the beach in between breaking people out of jail and I read only one book. Men Without Women by Hemingway. I was impressed by the ability to get a deeper image of something by reading things out of order and then after reading everything the sense that you actually knew more about the person by how they thought not a linear structure of how they wanted you to understand their life.

As for fiction. I have only written one book "Raven" and it was tough. I simply started writing and had to remember every single thing that was happening the weather, what was in the characters pockets etc. I did the opposite by keeping the hunger, timing, distance, temperature exact.

https://www.dpxgear.com/raven-robert-young-pelton.html


If you want a masterclass in out of sequence, stream-of-consciousness autobiography, check this out. I read it to find out about her time in Angola but found the whole thing fascinating:

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Re: Anyone attempt to write a book?

Postby Ozymandias » Thu Feb 15, 2018 10:43 am

RYP wrote:Self publishing is always an option, but you would have to build in a pretty aggressive marketing campaign. Most people don't want to be an author that badly.


The alternative is now to use a crowdfunding publisher like Unbound. Zero risk (from a financial perspective) but you still need a pretty aggressive marketing campaign. Check out how our book on the Angola kayaking expedition is doing: https://unbound.com/books/kayak-the-kwanza/
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