Now, what's all this about self-publishing?

Although Mrs R remains wonderfully positive about Murphy the merdog, I’ve got a nagging feeling that Murphy has not been received well. (I’ve had similar feelings about past work – a sitcom at the BBC) Surely, if my agent thought Murphy was great he would have been on the phone.....”Hey, Refugee, this Murphy is bloody amazing, I just couldn’t put it down, had to reread it and passed it immediately to Lars Von Trier...and he wants to start filming it next month...oh, and I’ve got a 10-figure book deal for 6 more Murphy books”.

So, I’ve been thinking....
Maybe I should think about self-publishing.
In my limbo hours I’ve looked at 4 different websites that publish books. I narrowed the sites down to 2 – iUniverse and Lulu.
There is a major difference between these 2 companies. Whilst you pay up front for iUniverse to print your book, Lulu only prints ‘on demand’. I’ve looked at the Lulu ‘process’ for getting a book published – including getting an ISBN code and a listing on Amazon – and it looks fairly simple.

I’ll wait another week or two – when the illustrations/book cover have been completed.

No news is good news....maybe!

After three weeks and further word from my agent...I’m not sure if that’s....
a) Bad news, or,
b) Good news.

The wait is rather daunting.
Mrs Refugee, who was the second person to read Murphy the merdog, remains unshakeably positive – what a brick she is!
Mrs R’s critique was...”very good indeed – it should be a film”.
I suppose I'd better get another couple of bars of Green & Black’s for Mrs R!

The title is...’Murphy the merdog’

Murphy, the novel, has now sat with my agent, Ian, for a couple of weeks and, as a copyright is now implicit, I can reveal the title of the book is.....MURPHY THE MERDOG.
I had a short reply from Ian upon receipt of the book which made my heart sink – the publishing business is in a real funk and Ian had flagged up a couple of issues on the first 2-3 pages....gulp!

In the past week, I’ve also mentioned the title to a dozen friends now and....only about half of them ‘got’ the title of the book and understood the implications of a merdog. (Three remarked that Murphy was a ‘murdering’ dog!) In fact, it’s quite satisfying that some people didn’t realise what a merdog is. Which brings me to the cover illustration......

I’ve commissioned a superb illustrator, Cathy Balme, to execute the cover and, other work allowing, she should finish it by the end of the month.