Personal - Writing is bliss, getting published isn’t

I recently consented to an interview and click here to read the online version. However, just in case you cannot read it for some reason, I've reprinted parts of it (the ones which relate to me anyway), here.

IN the legal industry she couldn’t even say “boo!” without asking permission.

So for this one-time lawyer, publishing a book was a chance to make her own decisions –– be the boss.

What a learning experience it turned to be.

Armed with hours of research on the Net, countless surveys in bookshops and some tips from pals, Aneeta Sundararaj met her printers.

Then all the decisions she had ever wanted to make, piled up at her door –– from the type of paper to the space between lines.

She sat down with the typesetter almost every day, checking the work done and freaking out as lines went missing from pages of The Banana Leaf Men.

Aneeta drew her own cover design and printed her own leaflets to promote her book.

After the reviews, when orders came pouring in, she drove around town doing the delivery –– all by herself.

In the meantime, she had set up her own company to market the book and designed a website from scratch.

Now an editor and e-book entrepreneur, Aneeta recalls that when she was “going it alone”, she was alone in every sense of the word.

On the first book, she had help with only one thing –– a small launch party, a bookstore agreed to take on.

“It was a very valuable learning experience but I wouldn’t do it again,” says the writer who’s gone on to her second book, Snapshots, written with some friends.

For Snapshots, the group had only one bill to foot – for the editor they hired. For The Banana Leaf Men, she spent close to RM20,000 to print 2,000 copies.

The reality, says Aneeta, is that publishing locally is a tough business, because not many are interested in local English language books.

“I do want the money but let’s be realistic, there’s a reason why there’s only one J.K. Rowling.”