Portobello Book Blog

I was contacted recently by a local author Tabby Stirling who asked if she could share a piece about her Unbound adventure with my blog readers. I have supported a few books on Unbound, a literary crowdfunding publisher, so was happy to find out more about what Tabby’s experience has been like so far and how things are going with her quest to get her book published.

An Unconventional Signing

I am a signed author with Unbound! I’ve been waiting for this moment since I was 6 years old.

Now for the unconventional part.  My publication is only guaranteed if I raise just over £10,000 in pledges.

The question that I am always asked is the ‘Why’ and the ‘How’ of Unbound. Their authors have to raise pledges to fund our books and people can become laser focused on the money side of things. 

A pretty dirty word when unpublished authors are obsessed with the mantra that the money should always flow TO the writer, not from them. With a number of nefarious vanity publishers out there who do charge to ‘publish’ your book and generally give a tiny amount production service and even less with promotion, it pays to be cautious.

In this case, the money IS flowing to the author, we just have to perform like very imaginative seals to get the pledges in and it can be exhausting.  Ann Jean Hughes from The Pigeonhole talks about what it takes to get a project of the ground.  She explains that ‘its zealousness marked by trial and error, plus lashings of dogmatism, undermined by the need to fail fast when that dogmatism proves wrong’. (The Literary Platform, 2016)

I think she nails it there because there is only so much that social media can provide, promotion-wise.  Feeds have become so saturated with cheap book alert retweets that most users don’t register them at all.

Unbound was founded by three writers: Dan Kieran, Justin Pollard & John Mitchinson who believed there should be a publishing model that was limited only to the best writing & not the genre of the book.  Most importantly, they offer to help writers place their books into readers hands quickly, without having to wait for an agent to sell it for them. Contemporary publishing is known to be agonisingly hard to break into for new writers.

It is imperative that writers have more than one road to travel towards traditional publication rather than this wide mouth , tiny throat approach that is in place.  

Unbound offers a real chance of traditional publication and a distribution deal with Penguin Random House.  Like other publishing houses, they have a tough submissions process and they recently managed to attach the indomitable Scott Pack to the business, the ex-buyer of Waterstones, and a real powerhouse in the industry.

With a longlisted Man Booker Prize author and ‘The Good Immigrant’ surging into the bestseller charts, Unbound’s star continues to rise and I am delighted to be part of their trailblazing ascension.

If you are feel inspired to pledge for my novel about the dark heart at the centre of maid culture in Singapore then please click on the link and thank you very much. PS.  There are some great pledge rewards too!

https://unbound.com/books/blood-on-the-banana-leaf