Enid Blyton - The Untold Story

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Hermes

Enid Blyton - The Untold Story

Post by Hermes »

Hello everyone,
My name is Brian Carter and I’m the author of a forthcoming book: Enid Blyton – The Untold Story. I’m so pleased to make this first contact with members of the Society which I joined in October, 2011.
I’m also pleased that Tony Summerfield chose to publish in this Forum my first letter to him giving notice of a forthcoming book about Enid Blyton. The letter was published 18 Apr 2013, under the heading: Books about Enid Blyton. This publication has, in some way, prepared members for this post which shows the progress the book has made since that first contact over ten years ago.
Now after years of trying to find a publisher, I decided to publish the book myself. To this end I’ve just launched my website to promote the book and you can see it by clicking here: http://www.enidblytonbio.co.uk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Here you can also find information about a pitch I launched in a crowdfunding website called Gofundme to raise funds to self-publish my book.
This is all for now. I’m looking forward to a lively discussion following your visit to my website.
Brian
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Re: Enid Blyton - The Untold Story

Post by pete9012S »

Looks very impressive Brian.I have made a small donation to start the ball rolling.I'm sure I won't be the only one who would like to support you in this exciting endeavour. :D :D

Best Wishes

Pete
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Re: Enid Blyton - The Untold Story

Post by Tony Summerfield »

Hello Brian, just to get things straight October 2011 was when you registered on these forums, but that does not constitute joining the Society as there are a number of people who post here who are not Society members. Your subscription actually ran out earlier than that when you did not renew it after receiving Journal 44, so at that time you ceased to be a member of the Society.

You are right that I put your letter onto the forums earlier this year, but I did point out under it that I had received it ten years ago. I read your manuscript (which I believe you have since revised) four years ago and having heard nothing from you for over three years I did wonder if you had abandoned the book. I looked through your website very thoroughly last night ( after you sent a message to enidblyton.net) and I saw that you were asking for donations so that you can self-publish the book, but the amount you are looking for is £20,000. I wonder if perhaps we might have to wait another ten years before we actually get to see your book as this is a huge amount to ask for!

I wish you good luck, but I have to say that I am fairly dubious about whether you will be able to raise this amount of money.
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Re: Enid Blyton - The Untold Story

Post by pete9012S »

I wonder how much it cost 'Dr blank blank' to self publish his book 'The blank blank blank blank blank' ..(just trying to save Anita any extra pruning!! :wink:)
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Re: Enid Blyton - The Untold Story

Post by Tony Summerfield »

Not all that much, Pete, as they would be printed to order, and there can't have been all that many of those!
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Re: Enid Blyton - The Untold Story

Post by Poppy »

Goodluck with the book, Brian, but like Tony, I think £20,000 is a lot to aim to earn through fundraising. I think it would take a lot more than the odd person finding the website through chance and giving a pound or so. You'd have to promote it really well and perhaps even hold several events which would all add up to costing you a fair amount from your own pocket. I don't intend to dampen your enthusiasm, but I'm just trying to look upon it at a realistic angle. I hope your plans all go ahead, however and when it does come on the shelves I will be sure to buy a copy! :D
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Re: Enid Blyton - The Untold Story

Post by Ming »

I'm actually surprised that it can take £20,000 to self publish a book, I'm sure Keith published his Island of Fog series at a much lower cost without compromising on quality.

Brian, maybe you should look around to see whether you can find a different source to self publish from without costing you an arm and a leg?
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Re: Enid Blyton - The Untold Story

Post by Tony Summerfield »

I meant to say in my original post, that you want to be a bit careful with remarks like this on your Home Page:-

THE SUNNY STORIES MAGAZINE
Did you know that the Famous Five series of books that had such a powerful grip on the imagination of children the world over began as a serial in this magazine?


This is simply not true, as the only Famous Five book to get serialised in Sunny Stories was Five Go Off to Camp which was the seventh book in the series. If people are going to read statements like this on your Home Page they are going to wonder just how accurate some of your other observations are.
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Re: Enid Blyton - The Untold Story

Post by Moonraker »

Were I to invest, I would expect far more than a signed copy of the book and a bonus book about making money! I don't think you'd last very long in the Dragons' Den with an offer like that, Brian. As Ming asks, why do you need £20,000? It seems odd to say the least for an author to ask for donations of this amount when there is no return on their investment. If the book did become a success, you would reap the profits while the investors get nothing.

As the Dragons would say, "I'm out!"
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Re: Enid Blyton - The Untold Story

Post by MJE »

     Is your main aim to *sell* the book (i.e., make money), or just to put your ideas on Enid Blyton out there in the world and get readers? If the latter, I suppose there would be nothing to stop you just publishing the entire content of the book on a web site, which would be publicly available. I've written far less than a book about Enid Blyton - just a few web pages, really - and yet, if you Google "Enid Blyton" almost certainly one or two of my pages will come up in the top few dozen listings. So it's probably not too hard to get that kind of publicity. Of course, I don't make a cent or penny out of it, and never expected to when I did it.
     I suppose you could also arrange the book to be behind a pay-wall: give some samples as teasers to entice readers, and offer the whole thing for a price - but I'm guessing you wouldn't make many sales that way, as people seem to have come to regard everything on the web as free, or that it *should* be free - and setting up a pay-wall would very likely immensely complicate the whole web-site idea - from a design point of view, and additionally you'd have to set up the mechanism for collecting the money that came from sales.
     What you describe seems to be an example of what I've heard described as "crowd funding". I don't really understand how that works, and can't see why such a scheme would motivate large numbers of people to donate money for a stranger's private project - but apparently it does work occasionally, although I do wonder if that is mainly for cases that could be considered to be of a charitable nature (a child with cancer, or something of the kind). But I'd consider the odds massively stacked against me if I wanted to raise 20,000 dollars or pounds for the purpose of self-publishing a book of my own. Still, good luck, all the same.

Regards, Michael.
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Re: Enid Blyton - The Untold Story

Post by Fiona1986 »

I know of your site Michael, though I haven't been on it in a while. I just did a Google then and it didn't come up in the first 8 pages - though I'm pleased to see our blog on page 8! (Though I know the order can change depending on which international version of the Google search you are using.)
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Re: Enid Blyton - The Untold Story

Post by Poppy »

Although you have mentioned the possible idea of having a website, Michael, I could understand why Brian might not want to agree to this. There is nothing like having work in book form, for a starter. This means everything is together and compact instead of being spread out over pages online. Another point is, I would guess Brian is looking to make some money out of this project if he is looking to invest £20,000 in getting it published. In website form, it would make no money, unless of course you use some of the options you have listed.
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Re: Enid Blyton - The Untold Story

Post by MJE »

Fiona1986 wrote:I know of your site Michael, though I haven't been on it in a while. I just did a Google then and it didn't come up in the first 8 pages - though I'm pleased to see our blog on page 8! (Though I know the order can change depending on which international version of the Google search you are using.)
     Oh - so you're saying it's possible I can get references to my own site more quickly than that simply because I'm in Australia. I guess I didn't think of that.
     But that is a ridiculous way for Google to operate: if I want to search for information on any topic, I don't want a bias towards certain pages solely because they happen to be in the same country as myself. Do you know if there is a way to switch this off in Google, and get results that are not biased towards any particular country? I use Google a lot, so knowing this would be very useful to me.
     (Clearly this has caused me to get an unrealistic idea of just how prominent my mentions of Enid Blyton are on the Internet. Not that it upsets me a lot - I originally hoped I could create one of the best Enid Blyton sites, at least within the range of coverage that I was aiming to give - namely a *very* detailed book listing, plus selected reviews of books - but I don't fool myself that my site is anywhere near that high quality I originally hoped for: I am aware it is hopelessly out of date, that I am unlikely ever to catch up now, and I have even thought of removing it from time to time.)

Regards, Michael.
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Re: Enid Blyton - The Untold Story

Post by MJE »

Poppy wrote:Although you have mentioned the possible idea of having a website, Michael, I could understand why Brian might not want to agree to this. There is nothing like having work in book form, for a starter. This means everything is together and compact instead of being spread out over pages online. Another point is, I would guess Brian is looking to make some money out of this project if he is looking to invest £20,000 in getting it published. In website form, it would make no money, unless of course you use some of the options you have listed.
     What you say, Poppy, is undoubtedly so, and I understand why Brian may not be interested in free web-site options. But the question is whether it will be possible at all to get a given book published through the normal channels - I believe it is extremely competitive, that there are hundreds of books "wanting" to be published for every one that a publisher chooses to publish. If I wanted to publish a book and I learned that the chances of success in this were very low, I might decide to opt for one of the other avenues, and abandon the attempt to make a profit, and instead content myself with at least reaching an audience.
     Regular publishers don't charge an author any money at all for publishing a book: they either publish it (and may offer the author an advance on royalties), or they don't publish it. If an author is planning to invest many thousands of dollars or pounds in publishing, it sounds as if either a "vanity" publisher or self-publishing are being considered. You would have to do very well indeed to recoup such a major investment, and I suspect it would be far easier and less time-consuming to earn that money by washing dishes or something. Less satisfying, perhaps, if you are an aspiring author - but it would get the job over quicker, leaving you free to spend non-earning time writing.

Regards, Michael.
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Re: Enid Blyton - The Untold Story

Post by Moonraker »

Poppy wrote:...if he is looking to invest £20,000 in getting it published...
But isn't it the general public who are coughing up?
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