Intentions

My intention with this blog is to document the development of an experiment. The goal of the experiment is to create a web site and printed book, to be called Observing Gothenburg. In doing this, I want to explore the possibilities for self-publishing afforded by modern technology, and to teach myself how to go about it. My immediate objectives are, by the end of November this year (2006), to have created an Internet site and a printed book. The Internet site to have commercial and non-commercial facilities for downloading texts, images and sound files; the book to be available as an illustrated, printed text (utilising print-on-demand technology), and also as a spoken-word text (in MP3 format or equivalent).

By providing myself with a publishing opportunity and deadline, I hope to encourage myself to complete writing a book, (something which I have, to date, signally failed to manage without a publisher's deadline). When completed, I intend to use the book as a sort of portfolio. With this, I hope to influence commercial publishers, agents and others to take an interest in my work and creative ideas. The objective of this blog and of the Internet site, will be to advertise the book (and myself).

I am fully aware that most self-published books sell few copies commercially. From what I've been reading, it seems typical that only about 100 copies are sold - often, I guess, to the author and his or her immediate circle. Still, 100 copies sold seems a reasonable target for the book and I will be very satisfied with sales which allow me to break even. At the moment, I don't know whether 100 copies sold will be above or below the break-even point, but this blog gives me a place to identify the costs and the break-even point as I go along.


This is me.