We might have sold the Knumptywagen but – oh-my-word – our journey continues! And no matter the ups, downs, hairpin bends, dark tunnels, closed roads and alarming mishaps we encountered on the open road, they now dissipate into heavenly reverie compared to the angst of our self-publishing journey.

When we set out to create a proper paperback book, The Knumptywagen Journals seemed a dream to be fulfilled. With over 90,000 words of content already extant from our ten years and 40,000 miles of motorhome ownership, the heavyweight aspect of book-publishing seemed ‘oven-ready’ and ready to roll. 

Sadly, the traditional publishing world thought differently.

The first hurdle was to find an agent, as it was clear from the outset that no recognised book publisher would entertain any manuscript which hadn’t been submitted (and therefore pre-vetted) by such.

Your humble scribe therefore spent almost a year, on and off, pre-empting and then sending The Manuscript to over thirty different literary agents around the UK, each of which required slightly different criteria for the submission, so each needed to be bespoke – and each took much time.

Many of these agents, diligently researched and selected from the hefty Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook, purported to be interested in debut authors – but were then sadly too preoccupied with their existing list to consider any viable sources of new material. When a successfully published and encouraging writer-friend had also written that “crucially, being rejected made me feel like a proper writer” it was with the same perverse sense of anticipation that I looked forward to my first rejection.

As is the way with the 21^st century commercial world, however, I achieved sadly very little in the way of rejection and much in the way of absolutely no response whatsoever. “If you don’t hear back from us within 60 days of your submission, please assume we’re not interested in your manuscript.” Oh, and yes, “please do advise us if you’ve sent your submission to any other agents”. To be true to my art and in a misguided attempt to reassure each agent that they had been selected especially, I was initially naïve enough to actually wait for the 60-day dwell-time to elapse – but then figured out that 30 submissions x 60 days equated to almost five years of hanging around for rejections which were never going to come my way anyway. 

As it was, I recall receiving a short handful of actual turn-downs, often within hours of submission, hence likely to have been sent by either maniacally fast speed-readers high on printers’ solvents – or more likely impassive and illiterate digital bots without a care in the real world.

In what became my final agency incursion, I did actually receive some constructive feedback which suggested that whilst the manuscript itself was ‘an entertaining read’, the content lacked a marketing ‘hook’ and was therefore unlikely to be considered viable in the competitive market I was keen to penetrate.

With another literary friend having already undertaken a self-publishing venture, this alternative route seemed increasingly attractive and so it was, encouraged by the Former Chief Navigating Officer and indeed her gifted self-publishing birthday ‘voucher’ we set out to do so and be damned.

It probably doesn’t realise but the traditional Book Publishing Industry – having been at it in these sceptred isles since around about the fifteenth century – is a very mysterious closed shop, from which we upstarts are to be subtly discouraged at every turn. Thus, if you want to sell your book, you’ll need an ISBN*. If you want an ISBN, they’re available through a single (some would say monopolistic) source. And you can buy one. Or ten. And no intermediate quantity in-between. And one will cost you over 50% of the total cost of ten. And if your printed book is successful enough to warrant being turned into a holiday-friendly e-book, then you’ll need a separate ISBN for that. So what the hell, you might as well buy the ten, as they last forever (or at least for as long as you remember you own ‘em – and your younger family members know where you’ve put them for safekeeping.)

So, now you’ve bought your ISBNs.  But for that to go on the back of your book and make it saleable, you’ll need it translated into a barcode. You’d like a barcode? Well, of course. Oh, no, sorry, they’re not included – so let’s all go “ker-chingggg” again . . . and there’s your lovely barcode. And now that you’ve bought both, you’ll need to register your ISBN. Yes, that’s right – you now need to register your ISBN with – guess who? Yeeessss, the organisation from which you’ve just bought it. Oh no. Simply buying the ISBN from us doesn’t mean its registered with us. Here’s a form to fill in.

And so it goes on. Everything is done at arm’s-length and online, so there’s no transparency of process; no gauging nor indication of how long anything will take: hours, (working) days, weeks – hopefully, please God, not months – and the alleged ‘help and support’ pleases itself and only responds on a reactive basis, often confirming what you already know and neatly side-stepping the question you initially posited. In this respect, having filled in numerous forms to open numerous ‘accounts’, you discover at the next turn that your book still isn’t listed anywhere – because yet another hitherto-unknown organisation now needs another form filling in – mainly to enable A to talk to B to talk to C, who’s liaising with D and without whom E couldn’t possibly process the requisite administrations. 

So, plain-sailing it definitely ain’t and – 23 weeks downstream from buying my demi-score of ISBNs – I am still obfuscated in my attempts to get the bloody marvellous book made available within the high-street retail environment. And when I do, I’m quietly suspicious that I’ll still be in a per-copy-negative-equity-situation since every A, B, C, D and E will have helped themselves to a cut of the already extremely competitive retail price.

 *For those readers of an inquisitive nature and who actually give a hoot, the International Standards Book Number is that fiddly little numeric code you’ll find on all published books, enabling it to be uniquely identified when you’re in the library. Or Foyles.