Laura Howard: Self-Publishing a Memoir with Lisa McKay

8/1/12

Self-Publishing a Memoir with Lisa McKay


While reading one of my favorite blogs Alexis Grant's The Traveling Writer, I ran across an interview with author Lisa McKay.

After reading about her self-published book,  a memoir about how she met her husband Mike, Love at the Speed of Email, I decided to invite her to do an interview on my blog.





Things we talked about:


  • Lisa grew up loving to read, and decided to try writing at age 18.

  • She worked on her first book, a novel, for about 10 years.
  • Lisa didn't know what to do with it when it was done, it was a 170K word manuscript
  • She found a wonderful editor who worked with the core of her story to rewrite the manuscript.
  • Lisa learned the craft of writing and structuring a novel.
  • No matter how good you think your ms is, it needs good editorial feedback
  • Spending time on building platform can be helpful, but learning to write a good book must be the priority
  • Her first novel was published traditionally, the second book, a memoir, is self-published
  • Use topics in your book to attract a readership, ie. her book is about long-distance relationships and she will write a mini-book for blog visitors who are in LDR.
  • Decided not to use Kindle select, but published through all online distributors.
  • Self-publishing costs money, time and effort to have a quality book.






Love at the Speed of Email is Lisa's memoir based on her relationship with her husband Mike. Both of her published books are available at major online book retailers.

Visit Lisa at LisaMcKayWriting.com 

or on Twitter @lmwriting



1 comment:

  1. Lisa & Laura ! Great thoughts ... and yes, I believe that ALL of the promotion in the world won't sell a great book. Editorial feedback is necessary and valuable! I learn something NEW all of the time L) Writers need to hone their craft, then there's a much better chance that the readers will come !!

    xx

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