The self-publishing experience

The latest self-pubbed Capel
novel, An End to Innocence

I've been a professional writer for over 20 years, but when I first started to get into writing, I wrote a number of novels which, despite getting positive feedback from publishers, never made it into print. For a long time they languished in the electronic equivalent of the back of a drawer, but the relative ease of modern self-publishing made me wonder if it was worth digging them out - and it has been a really positive experience.

I've now published five of my Stephen Capel detective novels - three written way back when and just updated to introduce trendy aspects such as mobile phones, plus two written over the last couple of years. I used Amazon's Createspace platform, and though it appears somewhat overwhelming to start with, if you take it steadily it is surprisingly painless.

For the interior of the book, I've used the Createspace formatted Word template on offer to download, which provides a very professional looking layout. The default page size is 6x9, but that's rather large for a typical mass market paperback, so I opted instead for 5x8. One early lesson from getting a printed proof is to go for cream paper rather than white, which yells 'self published' at the reader.

Similarly, for the cover I made use of a template - the PDF version - which I read into my graphics editor and used as a backdrop layer to set up the cover. It is possible to use a built-in cover designer on Createspace, but assembling your own allows for a lot more flexibility.

Once you've got the basics in, it's really important to print off a proof copy, both to make sure the layout works well and so someone else can proofread it - one thing the professional publishing process has hammered into me is that it's very difficult to spot all the mistakes in your own writing, and a proofreader makes all the difference.

Then it's just a matter of a final on-screen check and pressing the button to get publication in motion. (There's a bit more fiddling around over pricing and distribution, but it's straightforward.) You can have a finished copy of your book dropping through the letterbox within a few days. And your book can get to your readers even faster as a few more clicks sends it through to KDP - the Kindle development platform, providing a professional ebook finish, again via Amazon. One useful tip here picked up from the pros, is it's a good idea to do a slight variant on your book interior for the Kindle version, moving the copyright page to the back of the book.

Then all you have to do is make the world aware of your book - the hardest part, I suspect. I've had very positive feedback from readers who aren't friends and relations - but it is difficult to become visible in this kind of market. Even if the books don't become bestsellers, though, it's great that there's a chance for people to see them rather than leave them at the bottom of that fusty virtual drawer.

If you're interested, you can see all my fiction offerings here, mostly at the bargain prices of £6.99 for a paperback and £1.99 for a Kindle copy.

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5. However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense

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