Ellie Fleur Johnson, "Phonetic A Bee Seas"

Hello fellow Creative Writers, let me formally introduce myself to you: I’m Ellie Fleur Johnson. I graduated with an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Leicester last year, and since then I have been working on a novel which centres on themes of feminism, sisterhood and rape culture. I have also freelanced in marketing, shadow-writing and copy-writing. But that’s not what I’m here to discuss today!

Ladies and Gentleman (and non-binaries), I'm here to tell you I have written and illustrated a book, which I have self-published. The book is called Phonetic A Bee Seas, a rather hilarious pun on ‘ABCs,’ if I say so myself. Follow Tommy Fire-Tiger and Daisy Wood-Dog as they explore the Phonetic Alphabet together. You may be fooled by the cute cartoonish drawings inside, but this book is strictly NOT for children. Phonetic A Bee Seas includes the following: sex and drug references, adult language, graphic images and bad puns. 

What started off as a silly inside joke between myself and my partner quickly developed into random doodles and nonsensical scribbles. I found that the project was something to focus on  during lockdown, a release and diversion.

My partner is a pilot and uses the Phonetic Alphabet on a daily basis. It's something I have neither remembered nor understood. My anxiety builds every time a person uses it to spell out their postcode: 'Echo Tango Foxtrot Six Seven Nine Bravo Sierra.' I’m left trying to form some sort of sentence out of the mess, flabbergasted. Aghast. Or worse, they ask me to use it. Why not 'Egg Toe Fishfingers Six Seven Nine Bumblebee Sausage-Loops'? It’s beyond me. 

My book explores the ‘real’ Phonetic Alphabet whilst also suggesting a fun alternative. It’s for those who use it on a daily basis, those who want to learn, or those who enjoy an easy laugh. You can find it available to buy here.

If you’d like to delve deeper into my writing then my website here is the place to go.

Here’s a cheeky preview of Phonetic A Bee Seas ....

"Small Press Publishing: The Dos and Don'ts"

By Isabelle Kenyon

I started writing Small Press Publishing: The Dos and Don'ts because, when I started publishing anthologies at the end of 2017, there were no books or advice columns out there for new publishers. I contacted every single publisher on the Northern Fiction Alliance page (around 50 UK publishers) and offered to work for free, explaining that I had already taught myself a lot about the business, but now wanted to apply that knowledge to a professional team (in a small press, you often do every single part of the publishing process, but ideally, you have the budget to allocate roles and salaries, so I was intrigued to see how this worked). Unfortunately, only two people replied and they said they didn’t have the capacity to take me on.

This frustrated me because I knew I wasn’t a hindrance to their day-to-day activities – I’ve always worked hard and independently. Instead, I just tried harder to work through the legalities of becoming a sole trader, sorting out a distributor, developing relationships with bookshops, etc., myself. A lot of those publishers now book tables from me for the Northern Publishers’ Fair which I organise!

It’s entirely possible to build your own niche within a busy book market. You have to be organised, determined and have a supportive network, who are passionate about the kinds of books you produce. My network is predominately supportive US readers who I communicate with on social media, and book bloggers who give so much of their time to reviewing my titles (thank you!).

With this book, I wanted to help the many who are never given work experience, by talking them through the steps that I have gone down over the past two years. I’ve also interviewed a series of small publishers in various genres because all publishers run their businesses differently, and I wanted to show those varying models.

There is a lot more to succeeding as a publisher, and as a business, than a good idea. You need to maximise your chances of success. In this book, I take the reader through the process of branding, working with authors, the publishing schedule, marketing and distributing and how I started my business. For example, in one section we look at:


Important questions to ask yourself before you launch your press

What is it about your book or your publishing strategy that encourages customers to choose you? For example, I believe that, for Fly on the Wall Press, it’s the quality of the books and the diverse range of voices, which we represent.

As a publisher, you need a very clear idea about what your books represent and why your publishing niche is important in the industry.

Why do you want to open your own publishing press?

What previous work experience will help you to do this?

What qualifications or training do you have, which will help you with your business endeavour?

Which future training courses do you want to complete in order to develop your business?

Especially on a small press level, you are your own best advocate and if people are interested in your books, it is usually because they are interested in you and what you stand for. To begin selling books, you must be able to sell yourself as a business owner. Have confidence in what you are doing and really define what your press represents.


About the book

Small Publishing: The Dos and Don’ts, by Isabelle Kenyon

Start with a good idea.

Set up your own business.
  
Fill a niche in the publishing industry and turn your hobby into a full-time career.

If you feel passionate that you can fill a niche in the publishing industry, but you haven’t managed to get your lucky break so far, this book is for you.

If you have already started running your own online magazine, small press or are publishing your own work in book form professionally, this book is for you.

With interviews from Indigo Dreams Publishing Ltd, HVTN Press, Louise Walters Books, Newfound Journal, Ghost City Press, Broken Sleep Books, Mason Jar Press, Queen of Swords, Neon Books and more.

The book is available from Fly on the Wall Press here.


About the author

Isabelle Kenyon is a northern poet and the author of This is not a Spectacle, micro chapbook, The Trees Whispered (Origami Poetry Press) and Digging Holes To Another Continent (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, New York) and Potential (Ghost City Press). She is the editor of Fly on the Wall Press, a socially conscious small press for chapbooks and anthologies. In 2020, she will be published by Indigo Dreams - poetry chapbook Growing Pains - and Wild Pressed Books (short story 'The Town Talks').

​She was shortlisted for the Streetcake Experimental Writing Prize 2019 and for The Word, Lichfield Cathedral Competition 2019. Her poems have been published in poetry anthologies by Indigo Dreams Publishing, Verve Poetry Press, and Hedgehog Poetry Press. She has had poems and articles published internationally.

She will headline at Cheltenham Poetry Festival  2020 and has opened Coventry Cathedral's Plum Line Festival.  She has performed at Leeds International Festival as part of the 2019 'Sex Tapes' and for  Apples and Snakes' 'Deranged Poetesses' 2019.

​She is a fierce dog lover and a confessed caffeine addict.

So You Want to Self-Publish?

By Alicia Christina Saccoh

I am a self-published author. 

I won’t tell you how that came about, because it’s a very long and dramatic story. Kind of like a superhero origin story, except both of my parents are alive, my first love has not betrayed me, and my superpower is making characters kiss—as opposed to super-strength or whatever.

What I will tell you is what it means to self-publish. This isn’t a how-to guide or anything like that; I just want to share the basics of this lesser-known career path. 

So, first things first: what am I actually publishing?

I write romance novels. Of course, romance is a vast genre that includes countless sub-genres and niches—but I won’t go into that, because you either know already or couldn’t care less. 

The important part here is the practical connection between my work’s genre and my actual job. See, when you’re self-published, you’re not just responsible for writing down whatever story is camping out in your head.

You’re also responsible for all the things a traditional publisher would take care of, such as covers, editing, marketing and promotion, distribution, pricing, and so on. 

You have to be a businessperson as well as a writer, from watching the chequebook to deciding if your story is even worth being published.

That’s right. Self-publishing means rejecting yourself.

It also means learning your market. To self-publish successfully, you must know your genre and ideal audience inside out. You must learn which reviewers your readers trust, what kind of cover catches their eye, and how many lines of promotional text they can read before getting bored. 

You have to know which semantic fields elicit an emotional response in your readers, and which bore or even disgust them. 

Will your reader come over all hot and bothered at the phrase ‘dirty, dominant and demanding’—or will it remind them of the over-familiar creep at their local coffee shop who doesn’t understand the word ‘no’? 

Somehow, you have to figure out the answer to that question. If you don’t, no-one will read your books. And if you don’t receive regular praise and attention, you will shrivel up and die. 

(Only joking. But you will shrivel up and die without food, which costs money, so if you’re interested in self-publishing, pay attention).

As well as marketing, self-published authors handle the technical side of production. I publish my books digitally, via a single store. That keeps things simple; I don’t have to worry about physical copies, or about dealing with multiple websites. 

But I do have to format my books, and use the appropriate metadata, and all that rubbish. I am not a technical sort of person, and that’s putting things mildly. 

For example, I only recently found out that the ‘.doc’ or ‘.jpeg’ written after a file name affects the kind of file it is. Or shows what kind of file it is. Or something. 

Whatever. I never claimed to be an expert.

Despite my ignorance, I get by—because I know what I need to know. And with a career like self-publishing, that is the ultimate key.

Know what you need to know.

Self-publishing demands a diverse range of abilities. A self-published author must be a writer, editor, designer, marketer, publicist, accountant and businessperson all at once. For those of us who enjoy a challenge, that’s fantastic—but it’s still hard. 

So knowing exactly what you need to know—and therefore, what you needn’t bother with—is vital. In fact, you’re interested in self-publishing, that should be your starting point.

That’s right: I wrote a blog post on self-publishing, just to conclude with the fact that you guys need to research self-publishing.

I may be a professional author, but trolling is my passion. 



About the author
Alicia Christina Saccoh is a final year student at the University of Leicester. She is a full-time romance novelist, writing under a pseudonym, as well as a beauty blogger, social media influencer, and public speaker.