My route and the objectives to writing and publishing ‘A Magdalene Rose’

I have been writing for many years. For the last 27 or so years, I have been producing articles about Consumer issues and sometimes, the actual human rights attached to those everyday rights. It’s led me to also submitting over 80 stakeholder reports to National and trans-National political bodies, to advocate for the Consumer position.

Photograph of a copy of ' Magdalene Rose'

In 2000, just before the COVID lockdown began, I started to write a very short book, my first, on an important consumer issue. The book sought to break down the key and sometimes complex issues associated with contaminated aircraft cabin air on flights. It provided an insight into the historical issues both practical and legal, and hopefully reduced the complexity of the chemical compounds information, associated with this decades-old problem. It laid a path on what to do should any consumer experience the fume events associated with toxic fumes entering the cabin environment. By 2021, ‘Gaspers - Clean Air for Passengers?’ was born and published as an eBook.

At the same time I was writing ‘Gaspers’, I began writing ‘A Magdalene Rose’, though the latter wasn’t finished until the summer of 2023. When I say finished, that was after some 4 read-throughs and edits.

During this latter period I had already carried out extensive research on publishers, agents and self-publishing. I had also carried out research on marketing (I already had extensive marketing experience in providing a service), but I needed to understand the very different world of marketing a physical product.

If there is one early mistake I made, it was submitting my manuscript to an agent and a couple of publishers. The reason for my mistake became evident when the agent very kindly spoke to me about my book. Whilst we had a very positive discussion about its premise and the interest it would generate, they considered that it needed to undergo the process of a developmental edit and a copy edit. They also gave me advices on typesetting and obtaining a professional design for the book cover. This they argued, would demonstrate that I had committed myself to the manuscript and the product as a book for publication. I later discovered, from a publisher that parts of the industry were following the practice of some record companies, where they sent potential recording artists away to record their works, market their product and to establish a customer-base or a following, to demonstrate proof of concept; there was an apparent growth amongst publishers to adopt  these same mechanisms to be persuaded by a proof of concept.

So in 2024, I set about developing a beauty parade of developmental editors and designers. Once my ‘partners’ were selected, the work began in earnest by mid-2024 and by the end of the year the book was ready. It was a much better product that I had created in 2023!

I’m going to save for another time my experiences with publishers and agents, but I will say I had some very fruitful contact with some of these professionals. In particular, one took the time to explain the realities of their operations and what they perceived to be their low-hanging fruit, in other words, recognising what they sold best and how that fruit would put money in their coffers.

Having run my own business, I understood their raison-d’etre!

I realised that as publishers and agents know and understand their market and what makes them money, I too had to understand the nature of my own product and indeed its worth.

But these publisher’s didn’t just leave me there, they took the time to explain to me the actual mechanics of publishing and how I should think about what I had produced, how it could be published, to understand and find and establish my market and more importantly, to treat my book, not just as an important vehicle to bring to life the stories of 4 remarkable people, but to treat the book as a business.

They were so generous with their time and provided me with a point-by-point plan for self-publishing.

It was at that point that I decided that I had to respect and understand the world of traditional publishing, and how they too were defined businesses with their own set of objectives.

At the same time, I also had to understand how the business of publishing and selling books was changing right under their feet.

Subscriptions, hybrid-entities, off-shore printing, the growth of a whole support industry – legitimate or not, the rise of niche bookshops, the growth of multi-media options, eye-watering terms and conditions, was all leading many to take the plunge themselves and take control of their income from their product. And all of this was on the back of the substantial learning I achieved from self-publishing ‘Gaspers’!

I have followed that plan and I can happily say that by finding and establishing my markets, everything is flowing according to the plan. Sales are not just good and steady, but what has surprised me are the geographic markets the book is reaching and indeed where the interest is coming from. But it is a full time job, to maintain the visibility of the product, to react and develop as to how a product is sold, but above all, to maintain a high standard for those who want to receive your book.

The point-by-point plan I am following is now leading me toward a new consumer market and different type of considerations for the launch of the eBook and the soon to be released paperback of ‘A Magdalene Rose’.

In my dealings with publishers and agents and latterly, bookshops, I have found that whilst there is a growing expectation that an author invests both in themselves and their product, there are some who hold views that authors should not expect much in the way of remuneration. It is a complaint that I have often seen expressed by authors, be that about the advance, royalties, sometimes offset against development costs, that they are the poor cousins in the publishing food chain.

It is an interesting subject-matter, and certainly from the limited discussions I have had on such matters with publishing professionals, I feel that this is a somewhat moot point, where the massive growth of ‘out of copyright’ reproductions and AI-generated products, should perhaps lead to a more mature discussion on the question of remuneration.

In the face of these new threats and challenges, I have discussed this with other authors and indeed visual artists. Without exception, there is now a clear recognition that we have entered a new period, whereby human production, human artistic endeavour, without any AI enhancement, now carries with it a premium. There is clearly a market for those who wish to consume the celebrity tome or AI-generated content, and that is fine; that is clearly what some people want. But on the flip side of that coin, there is the very real desire amongst consumers to seek value, both in monetary and consumption terms from something that has been created, without enhancement, by another human. It is about the essential connection between humans, a human experience, a human imagination, with all its imperfections.

I believe that authors and artists should be properly and fairly remunerated, that is why I set my prices fairly and competitively and that includes the setting of discounts for bookshops. But I also believe in providing a good quality product and customer service to all.

Amongst all of these considerations, there is another equally important and defining central reason why I want ‘A Magdalene Rose’ to succeed. In researching and writing this book, I have realised that I have become the living voice for 4 remarkable people, a discovery made over many years. A discovery that has its roots in curiosity, love, tears and joy and the joy of defiance.

These four people were once invisible, but no more.

Their stories I believe are already echoing around the world. The book now helps me to bring their experiences into the heart of Irish political society, arguing as I will, for their recognition, and with it, Justice.

A Magdalene Rose is both mine and their manifesto, and a manifesto for a much wider audience.

Who said writing and publishing a book was straight-forward?