When bugbears can turn you into an author

I've been reflecting for some time now on how my irritations with the London Underground became fodder for my book The Little Book of Tube Etiquette, which has been published for six months now.

Every day we use the tube and every day I used to get wound up over someone's behaviour. So, on a rainy, wet night my friends and I discussed our 'pet peeves' over a bottle (or three) of wine and sure enough the tube came up in conversation.

We started writing which rules should be put in place on the back of a serviette.  A few weeks later when I was dry cleaning my suit, I found the serviette and, with a smile on my face, I began to play around with the rules. The manuscript lay untouched for another six months until my boyfriend, now husband, found the document on our computer at home.

He fell about laughing and when I came home from work, he started to add some of his own ideas. Together we made some amends and when we were satisfied with it, he pressurised me to publish it.  What I should probably mention here is that he's a publisher and so it didn't take much convincing.

His company http://www.gibsonpublishing.co.uk/ (or http://www.self-publish-my-book.co.uk/) specialise in self-publishing and so he was able to commission one of his illustrators, the very talented Pete Duffield (http://www.peteduffieldcreative.com/) to bring all my weird and wonderful characters to life. And, did he! He even put me, my husband and some of my friends in - all in larger than life charicature form!

Rather than this being a shameless plug for Pete or my husband's business (although by all means visit their websites if you're interested!), the point is that everyone has a book in them.

The Little Book of Tube Etiquette is now available online at a number of retailers and, thanks to my husband's know-how, was featured in a host of magazines, website reviews and national newspapers all with pretty good reviews.  As such, my book has been selling rather well and we've made back the publishing costs already. He's done the same for a lot of other people.

So, if you've written a book, or if you just have a bugbear that can be turned into something pretty funny, don't be disheartened by the stress of trying to find a publisher where the odds of getting a book deal can be rather out of your favour (Stephanie Meyer, author of the Twilight series, saw hundreds of publishers before someone saw the potential in her books and she strongly believes that it was luck with that one), self-publishing can be the way to realise your dream of being an author and get your work out there in the public eye.  It needn't be expensive, with the right advice and placing you can make your money back quickly and, if you do strike a deal with a big retailer, you really can make it.  Some self-publishers take royalties but good ones don't so all the money you make from selling your books is your own.

We are currently in talks with a number of retailers who have shown a strong interest in The Little Book of Tube Etiquette for their Christmas stock.  Wish me luck!

But, most importantly, self-publishing can work if you give it a try and be prepared to put your own work out there - just make sure you do your research and choose a good self-publisher that gives you plenty of advice and support whilst remaining true to your work.