How English Were the Kings of England?

If you read enough historical fiction about English royalty you learn pretty quickly that English is about the last thing any of them were. I was reminded of this oddly enough by a comment in Edward Rutherfurd's RUSSKA when I read a comment that Czar Nicholas II was mostly German. And he was regarded, for a while anyway, as the Father of Russia.

I thought I would take a look at some English kings to see just how English they were. I will start with that extremely English King Edward III.

Edward III
Father: Edward II's mother was Spanish, but let's just call Edward II English so we can get on with this exercise, OK?
Mother: Isabella's mother was also Spanish but let's call her French for now.
Making him: for simplicity's sake, let's call him 1/2 English and 1/2 French

I apologize to matrilinealists.. I am going to continue to simplify the mother's lineage.

Edward, the Black Prince
Father: 1/2 English, 1/2 French
Mother: Flemish
Making him: 1/2 Flemish, 1/4 English, 1/4 French - probably just as well he got skipped.

Richard II
Father: 1/2 Flemish, 1/4 English, 1/4 French
Mother: English
Making him: 5/8 English, 1/4 Flemish, 1/8 French - well rounded, as they say was his mother.

Henry IV
Father: same as Edward III
Mother: English
Making him: 3/4 English, 1/4 French - gettin' there.

Henry V - Do they get any more English that the hero of Agincourt???
Father: 3/4 English, 1/4 French
Mother: English
Making him: 7/8 English, 1/8 French - way to go, Harry!

Henry VI
Father: 7/8 English, 1/8 French
Mother: French
Making him: 5/8 French, 3/8 English - no wonder he was so confused.

Edward IV - now it gets complicated...
Father: Can we call Richard, Duke of York, English enough?
Mother: And how about Cecily neville?
Making him: Does this make Ned English enough?

Edward V
Father: English enough
Mother: English enough
Making him: English enough

Richard III
Father: same as Edward IV
Mother: same as Edward IV
Making him: English enough

Throw a little Welshman in the woodpile, and you get the next set, though while Edward VI could be called English enough his sister Mary I was half Spanish...

And then after thoroughly English enough Elizabeth, of course, we go to half Scots and .... well, you get the idea.

It actually gets more complicated once it was easier to import foreign royalty...

P.S. Yes, I know they didn't use the Union Jack until later... this is symbolism.

Biography: Lawrence, King of Críslicland and Earl of Cleethorpes

This is a fictional biography of a character in the novel, An Involuntary King: A Tale of Anglo Saxon England, by Nan Hawthorne. If you plan to read the novel, you should be warned that the biography covers the events therein as well as after.

Lawrence, King of Críslicland (764-795), Earl of Cleethorpes (795-832)
An Involuntary King: A Tale of Anglo Saxon England, by Nan Hawthorne

Born 3 January 746, died 17 September 832.

Lawrence was born in Lincoln in the fictional kingdom of Críslicland in 746 AD, the second surviving son of King Arneth of Críslicland and his wife, Edith. His elder brother was the ætheling or heir to the throne, Arneth. IN about 756 King Arneth traveled with his two sons to Tatherwood in the neighboring kingdom of Affuynshire, also fictional, and the boys were betrothed to the two daughters of King Edwærd and his wife, Mairéad. At that time, the two kings, who were strong allies, arranged to create a stone bridge over the Riber Trenta near Cromwell in Affuynshire.

In 764 King Arneth's brother Nifhmund was convinced by ambitious men to begin one of his several rebellions against the crown. The ætheling and Lawrence, now a housecarl of his father's, participated in the battles. While they were away they got word that Edith, the King's wife and the two young men's mother, had died after a long and painful illness. Not long after Nifhmund made a last desperate ploy for amnesty for his deeds by claiming that he had the monks at an abbey hostage as surety of peace. When Arneth and his two sons and their army arrived at the parlay place, Nifhund killed first the king and then the ætheling. Lawrence in turn killed him while a battle between the two forces raged behind him. The battle was won and Lawrence, at 18, found jhimself the apparent heir to the crown of Críslicland.

The Witan was scheduled to meet some months later to choose either Lawrence or another member of the "cyning" to be king when word came that Nifhmund's old allies were laying sieve to the river town of Spalding on the souther border between Críslicland and East Anglia. Lawrence's decisive victory there assured his election as king. He was married to his childhood betrothed, Josephine, and crowned on the same day in June of 764.

The first few years of lawrence's reign were filled with tragedy, battle and treachery. First King Edwærd of Affynshire was killed. As his wife and their elder daughter were already deceased, this left only the ætheling Lorin and his sister, Lawrence's queen. Lorin was a bookish youth so his nation's Witan offered the throne to Lawrence and his wife, Celtic kingdomn's often giving positions of governance to the female line. Lorin became a high functionary in Lawrence's court.

The large kingdom of Mercia that lay on the southwest border of Críslicland was ruled by the historical King Offa, an empire builder. His border lords continuously raided lands near the Críslicland fortress of Grantham. In an ultimately successful war to drive these lords back into Mercia, Lawrence was badly wounded. He recovered and rejoined his wife in Lincoln soon after she gave birth to their first child, Peter. Lawrence behan his buiolding of a fortress in the northeast near the estuary of the River Humber which others christened Lawrencium. He and his young family took up residence there and soon after Josephine gave birth to twin daughters, Caithness and Elaine. A close friend of Lawrence's was murdered by Nifhmund's son, Gadfrid, whom Lawrence had generously pardoned afte Spaldin. Believing the friend's death was a suicide after the man's own bereavement when his wife died in childbirth, Lawrence and Josephine adopted their son Tavish and raised him as their own.

Learning of the head of her mother's family's illness, Josephine traveled to Keito Uxello in Affynshire. While there she was caught behind the lines when a cabal took military control of the kingdom. Lawrence and his army arrived at Ratherwood to find the leader of the cabal, Malcolm of Horsfort, locked up in the strongold. While engaged in besieging Ratherwood Josephine, who had been fighting alongside her cousins oppsing the cabal, was reunited with her husband briefly and set out again for Lawrencium and their children. Learning that her party had been ambushed on the road east, Lawrence took a contingent of soldiers and was met by two of the cabal leaders and suffered a damaging defeat. He returned weakened to the siege of Ratherwood. Just before diplomatic efforts by Josephine's cousins succeeded in bringing the Briton lords back to Lawrence's side, the king learned that Josephine had made it back to Críslicland. The siege was over, Lawrence took Ratherwood, and the army prepared to return home.

As they prepared Lawrence learned that Gadfrid, the cousin he had left behind in charhe of the home guard in Lawrencium, had seized power and was holding his wife and their children hostage. His efforts to rreturn to Lawrtencium were stymied by the need to retake LIncoln and other strongold's from the usurper. One of his earls, Harold of Grantham, turned traitor and imprisoned Lawrence, who with the hellp of supporters, escaped and returned to punish Harold. In the meantime Josepphine and the children escaped Gadfrid with the help of a Breton mercenary lord in love with her. When Lawrence finally arrivbed at Lawrencium he had no idea his famly was not within the strongold. He personally led a company into the stronghold through a secret passage and killed Gadfrid. Not finding his family he lerned that they had fled but not where. He sent couriers to all ports, finally locating and being reunited with the queen and their four children.

The years following the usurping were relatively peaceful. Offa continued to harry the southwestern lands and also Affynshire, which Lawrence had put in the hands of his wife's cousins. It was the shocking raid on Lindisfarne in 793 by Vikings that led ultimatley to the decision, in 798, for Lawrence to give up his throne. With offa encroaching to the south and the worsening raids by Vikings, followed by King Ruallauh of Affuynshire's declining health, lawrence decided to treat with Offa to take over both kingdoms believing that Offa would be the stronger barrier to the Norse and Danes. He abdicated in 798 and became Earl of Cleethorpes, formerly known as the town and strongold of Lawrencium. His son, the ætheling, Peter married one of King Offa's daughters and became an important leader in the Mercian juggernaut. At the time of Lawrence's abdication and King Ruallauh's death, Caithness was married to the King of East Anglia and Elaine an abbess. Tavish remained with his adopted parents, married Lorin's daughter Ystradwel and remained a loyal supporter until Lawrence's death in 832 at the age of 88. He was survived only shortly by his wife, Josephine, who died in 835.

Not very much is known of Lawrence's life after 795. He had to fight off Viking raids continuously. It was during a short lull in the incursions that the former king of Críslicland spent his last days in contented peace with his beloved Josephine.

[Source, Lawrence's creator, Nan Hawthorne. The image of King Lawrence at the beghinning of this biography is not original. If you are the artist and object to our using it to represent the character, just contact us and we will remove it. The drawings of Lawrence with his wife and with his young son Peter is an original Hawthorne drew in about 1969]

The Seventh Sense

"I'm an author. I see fictional people."

What a Sixteen Year Old Girl Hath Wroght

Besides all the romantic stories my friend and I wrote from 1964 to about 1970, we had not gotten old enough yet to let lack of talent stop us from drawing. The drawings below are from 1968 and depict scenes from the story line about Elerde saving Josepnine from the fire and Lawrence's reward for his balor.


Josephine visiting Lawrence in his sickbed. This one by Nan.


Elerde finds Josephine in the burning tower. Laura, age 15, drew this one, as well as writing the scene.


Elerde receiveshis commission from a bedridden Lawrence.

Edinburgh Castle Jigsaw Puzzle

Time out for some fun!


Edinburgh Castle

This is one set of pieces.. you can change to fewer, more and many different shapes. Just click on the picture.

Anglo Saxon Lyre

Next Debate: What Standard for Accuracy in Historical Fiction?

fter failing so miserably to get my point understood in my post "Mistake Amateur Reviewers Make" understood, this time I am just going to ask the question, not opine on my own behalf. For the record, I was not talking about authors in that post but in essence saying that good books should not be subjected to bad amateur reviewers. OK, 'nuff said. Now on to the debate inadvertently raised by that post.

THE QUESTION: What level of historical accuracy should a novel be held to?

The Positions: None

My oft-quoted (by me)husband would probably say that fiction is ficrion and readers should just understand that. He would say that to demand absolute accuracy is impossible, that for any number of reasons, the fact that history itself is often fiction, the fact that the whole point of a novel is to interpret and to put words in historical figures' mouths, absolute slavish accuracy is not an appropriate goal. He's on one extreme of this debate, and all I will say about that is that I don't agree with him that accuracy is not important at all.

The Positions: Complete Accuracy

The other extreme, the group I called accuracy nerds in my early post, is the other extreme. They will quibble with anything, everything, and often for reasons of their own. They insist that even words that entered the language later than a period should not be used, no matter how little later.

You, dear reader, probably fall somewhere in between these extremes. I do as well. You understand that a historical novel cannot, by definition, meet the standards of historical nonfiction. It is supposed to be an interpretation of what really happened. It is, like all fiction, speculative, guessing at what might have been one person's nature, another person's feelings, and another person's motivation. Nevertheless you have standards for what may be interpreted and what must conform to the record.

So that's question. What must conform? What might one legitimately dither with, what must adhere to known facts?

Susan Higginbotham, author of The Traitor's Wife and Hugh and Bess, offered this to the discussion via comments on the earlier post:

I agree fully that one shouldn't let one's personal prejudices color a review and that writers have to fill in gaps and do a certain amount of interpretation. But having characters alive and kicking five years after they died, or adding or subtracting twenty years from a historical person's known age, or confusing a historical person with his grandfather by the same name or title isn't interpretation, it's just plain sloppy. Worse, it just gives people who hate historical fiction another weapon with which to criticize the genre.

Use the comments section of this post to register your position.

Thank you to all who debated the reviewer post and who are ready to make their points here as well.

"The Battle for Spalding" from An Involuntary King: A Tale of Anglo Saxon England

Excerpt from An Involuntary King: A Tale of Anglo Saxon England by Nan Hawthorne -- get it now at http://www.shield-wall.com .

Lawrence watched the sky to the east. As he saw the rays of the morning sun break through scattered clouds, he signaled to a man on the crest of the bridge to light a torch with his flint and tinder, knowing that as soon as he saw it, Athelwick would send his soldiers forward onto the ships. Lawrence himself turned to face the camp and stepped forward, signaling the lines of the shield-wall to do so as well, creating a wedge of destruction.

The shield-wall pushed forward as one. When the men in the camp who were awake looked in the direction of the noise of men bearing down on them they saw a solid wall of painted ash bristling with spears and other weapons moving inexorably forward. Their own shouts of warning woke the sleeping men, who hardly had a chance to leap up and grab helms and weapons before the wall was just a few feet away. They had no time to form a defensive wall of their own. The king’s men came forward, repositioning to skirt tents, regrouping to form a circle around each one before investigating whether there were men inside. When the tent proved vacant or the men within were killed, these same men from the shield-wall melded back in behind those who had stepped beyond. Those soldiers stepped over campfires deftly, engaging and cutting down any man whom they encountered. Soon they were stepping over the wounded and dead.

The resistance was fierce once the king’s shield-wall had reached into the camp. The men there had more warning and therefore a chance to get ready for them. Lawrence was in the front line of the wall, his shield up and the man behind him holding his own shield over the king’s head to protect him. When a spear came forward, glanced off the king's shield, it stabbed behind him, and he felt the shield over him slip back and down and heard the man cry out. With little delay, another shield was above him and another man behind him.

Lawrence kept his seaxa ready to attack his enemies and to go to the aid of the men on either side of him. A man bearing down on him with an axe cried out as Lawrence’s right-hand companion thrust forward with his own seaxa, dispatching the attacker before his axe even struck the king’s shield. Minutes later, the king returned the favor as a tall man bore down on his defender with a long sword. Lawrence bent quickly to thrust his blade under the man’s shield and into his groin.

The wall kept moving irresistibly forward, taking blows from and cutting down the enemy. Lawrence was almost through the camp when he met a foe in better armor and better armed. He did not know the face, but it was clear this man was one of the leaders of the challenge to his crown. The king made a sound that started out as a growl and amplified to a roar of rage as he attacked the man savagely, almost stepping out of the shield-wall. The man tottered back and fell over a comrade on the ground. Lawrence and the two men on either side of him closed in and made short work of the prone commander.

Though men streamed in from the flank of the camp in a seemingly never-ending flow, the smell of blood and men’s guts was a palpable mass surrounding the king. The bodies piled up enough to become barriers. When they saw their dead far outnumbered the remaining force, the hapless enemy threw down their weapons and waited for death or capture. They could see astonished faces atop the town of Spalding’s palisade walls in the full morning light.

Two Waycooll Things for Historical Novelists!

Promo Paks: Nearly-Free Marketing for Authors (New and Improved!)
By Janet Elaine Smith

Whether you publish your book through a traditional publisher or on your own as a "free range" author you are going to have to do some mighty marketing on your own. Unless you are a Star like Stephen King or J. K. Rowling, the publisher ain't gonna do much of it. That's why this book is such a treasure. It is as useful to the independent as the signed author. It is sensible, practical and easy to put into action. And it is filled with information, addresses, tools and ideas. As a mostly pretty shy person, no really, I especially appreciated the part where Smith tells you exactly what to say when you walk into a bookstore to get them to carry your book. If it is a POD book and with curling lip the manager says "Oh it's a POD book" for instance, Smith says to point out, "Yes, but that means you don't have to buy a whole case... just two or three." This is a woman after my own heart... drop the defensive response and look at things from the other person's point of view.. and speak to their advantage. Get this book! You need it.

"Historical Novelists Do It in the Past"

Here's an icebreaker to grease the way into talking about.. and selling.. your novel! Available through CafePress, you can have this provocative message put on a t-shirt, cap, tote bag, stickers, magnets, a mug or any of plenty of other items. Just imagine walking into a bookstore with this on. Or a library. Or any number of other places. Who could resist coming over to you and asking you, "Are you a historical novelist? What do you write?" Believe me, I know... it's happened to me. If you are as proud of your books as I am of mine but as shy, you will be grateful that you don't have to put yourself forward, but simply beam with pride and answer their questions. You can find this design and other historical novelist and medieval theme items on the Shield-wall Productions store at CafePress.com.

Get "Today in Medieval History" for your Wweb Site

How would you like your blog or web site to boast a daily calendar of events that took place in the Middle Ages?

It's easy.. and there's no charge!

You already have permission. Just let me know where you put it.

Instructions

For your bloglist: "http://todayinmedievalhistory.blogspot.com/"

For your RSS reader:
"http://todayinmedievalhistory.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default"

For your web page, try using the bloglist address in:
RSSFeedReader at http://rssfeedreader.com/.

You can also receive the daily calendar by email. Just follow this link to Feedburner .

Here are just some of the events we have listed on Today in Medieval History:

9 June 721

721 – Odo of Aquitaine defeats the Moors in the Battle of Toulouse.

15 May 1567

Mary Queen of Scots marries James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, her third husband.

17 April 1397

Geoffrey Chaucer tells the Canterbury Tales for the first time at the court of Richard II. Chaucer scholars have also identified this date (in 1387) as when the book's pilgrimage to Canterbury starts

30 April 1006

Supernova SN 1006, the brightest supernova in recorded history, appears in the constellation Lupus.

Authors!

If you would like your book mentioned on Today in medievbal History, just send me the date of the historical event you illustrate, a link to your book or web site, and an excerpt from your book that describes the event.

Write to hawthorne@nanhawthorne.com

All I ask is that you leave my blurb about my novel in when you put information from Today in Medieval History on your blog or on discussion groups. I have a lot of fun putting this daily calendar together, but I am doing it to spread the word obout An Involuntary King: A Tale of Anglo Saxon England.

By the way, you can get a print copy of An Involunrtary King now for a deeply discounted price of $14.95 or the Kindle version for $6.36! Just visit Amazon.com.

Your Choice: Historical Fiction or Fictional History?

s an author, have you chosen - or would you choose - to write fiction about real historical figures or purely fictional characters in a historical setting? Or do you portray historical figures within a story that is mostly fiction about fictional characters? Why did you make that choice?

As a reader, do you have a preference? Why?

Please share your answer in the Comments.

I am fascinated with everyday people's lives, so although my first is about a king and a queen, they are figments of my friend's and my imaginations. I intend to pursue completely fictional characters in historical settings in most if not all of my future novels. I am more interested in how average people interacted in these intriguing times. And I must admit I prefer novels that at most drag historical figures through like props or preferably offer me the more obscure. Just personal preference.

So let's hear from you!

When the Magic Just Ain't There

have been working with many aspects of a new novel and sharing my thoughts and ideas with you here on Booking the Middle Ages for a couple months at least. As you know it has been a rocky road, and I think I know why now, thanks to a comment my husband made this weekend. he told me that he noticed how happy I was while I was working on An Involuntary King, and how of late I seem more discouraged and dissatisfied I am most of the time now. he is right. The joy in writing has become a chore.

Does this mean I only have one book in me or only one set of characters? I don't think so. Other writers have told me to relax and not force it, the spark of joy will come along in its own time. My Capricorn nature makes me grumble, "But what about all that research I did? I don't want to throw it away." But nothing like research is ever thrown away! It's still there, waiting to be useful, or at least enriching my life with its content.

I've been thinking about writing and the ton of ideas that jump into focus constantly for me. I have decided to play with as many or all I want for a time and see which radiates joy or at the very least is fun as heck. Here are some of the projects I have bouncing around in my brain.

1. Death in East Wellow and the other plots I have come up with starring Kerrick Trevelyan and taking place in Anglo Saxon Winchester in the late tenth century. This is the book that has been stymieing me, but it need not go away... just gestate for a while.

2. Random Acts first draft is all but done, a Napoleonic era erotic romance with the main characters a man named Jack Random. I have wanted to write something erotic about a fellow named Jack Random since I was in college.. and all I will say is that it should be obvious I am not old enough to have been in college during the Victorian period...

3. I would love to write more about my characters from An Involuntary King. I could write a sequel about "what happened next" or turn my attention to other characters. I could take Elerde into his attempt to get into a battle so fierce he could not survive. I could write the origin stories of Shannon and Rory. I could even write about O'Donnell and MacDhui and how they met and how they became involved.

4. I am starting a Fantasy Writing class by Rob Parnell and using a character I have played with on Ghostletters. She is a spubky Seattle police officer who finds herself able to turn into a lioness. This modern fantasy would fit right in with the current popularity of books in that genre.

5. Apparently the one subgenre of historical fiction that is doing well is young adult. I could try my hand at that, taking people and events from the middle ages and putting late teen characters into the middle of them.

6. Erastes passed on a call for submissions for short novels some time ago, which I decided to let pass me by, but have since thought about and found a fascination with. It was supposed to be a story of gay people in the military, and my plot involved two men, one English and one French, who come together at the Battle of Waterloo.

So what shall I do? How about everything? It took me 35 years to get An Involuntary King into novel form. Why stress about another few months for the second book?

And besides the above I have some ideas I won't share, because they are so good you will steal them! ;)

Job Discrimination

"Fictional characters need not apply."

Please Share Your Work with People Who Are Blind

The Kindle2 Has Added One More Tool

Authors, reach a group of voracious and engaged readers: people who are blind or partially sighted.

Technology has exploded the field of accessible reading beyond the old half speed "talking book" discs and recorded cassettes. People who cannot read print now can receive their reading materials via dowloadable books from a few different sources. Whereas it used to take months or even longer for a book to make its way into a format a person who is print disabled to read, now we can have access to books almost as quickly as the general public. Make sure your books are part of this cornucopia opening up.

I am an author, and I am also a severely visually impaired reader. Once upon a time I had to wait for reading material to be made available through the National Library Service (NLS) of the Library of Congress. The developing ebook and related technologies have changed that very much for the better!

You can make sure your books reach people like me by making them available through the following digital formats:

1. Digital text. You can make your own book available as a text or accessible PDF format through your own web site, but if you understandably worry about piracy, consider going through an organization like BookShare.org. Under the Chaffee Amendment to the copyright law in the U.S. an organization can make books accessible to people who are certified as blind or otherwise print impaired (dyslexic, for example.) Access is limited only to those people who could not pick up your book and read it and no one else.

For more information look at http://www.bookshare.org/about/donateBooks and click on Publishers or Authors. Tell them Nan Hawthorne sent you.

2. Kindle. The Kindle2 is not yet fully accessible as the speech output available for books and magazines is not functional for the device's menus. However, people with low vision or who have help can still access the books. The voices are excellent. There has been some wrangling about whether making your book available for speech output will cut into your audio book sales. Let me assure you that few sighted people will opt for the computer voice over a professionally narrated book. In fact, I think Amazon.com is rather optimistic that this will catch on. In the meantime, people like me benefit, because I am used to worse reading voices than Kindle's. You can block Amazon.com from allowing your book to be readable by speech engines, but I ask you not to. Put your book on Kindle and let us h ave at it.

To learn about putting your book on Kindle, see http://dtp.amazon.com. You can ask your publisher to arrange this or do it yourself.

3. Publish an ebook. An ebook can be as simple as a plain text version of your book. To make a better product though, you can look into a number of resources. Self Publish eBooks is a site with information on software to produce ebooks, ebook publishers, and advice on all aspects of ebook publishing and distribution. Just make sure when you are either creating tyour own ebook for sale or going through an ebook publisher that the final file is in a format acfessible to to screen readinf and braille output applications that blind people use to access their computers.

This is just one of the sites that can advise you on self publishing an ebook: http://www.selfpublishebooks.com/index.html

I also recommend becoming a member of the Independent Authors Guild. It is free. Even if you publish through a a traditional publisher, this group of mostly independently published authors share a ton of information on all aspects of publishing including marketing ideas. Most traditionally published authors receive little or no help with marketing from their publishers, so learn from us what we have come up with as a matter of necessity.

But why give your book away at all? You aren't necessarily giving your book away. You can sell ebooks and certainly you can get your cut in Kindle sales. But even if you donate the book to a group like BookShare or even give a digital text version to people who are print impaired, remember you are giving to someone who would not have bought your book anyway. It simply would not be accessible to them. Nevertheless, they do talk to other people about books they enjoyed and buy books as gifts. You lose nothing and you gain some excellent karma and the potential for more sales. Plus you will have reached a particularly appreciative group of readers. Just come by AccessibleWorld.org's many book discussion groups to hear for yourself.

Jon the discussion at AccessibleWorld.org by plugging in your microphone and downloading the safe chat application at http://www.acccessibleworld.org .

I personally thank you for taking away the sting of walking into my county library and knowing that only a tiny number of the treasures that occupy all those shelves is accessible to me.

Nan Hawthorne
http://www.nanhawthorne.com
Write to me at hawthorne@nanhawthorne.com.

"But No One Will Buy a Book Like That!"

How often have authors heard from agents and publishers that the book they just bled creative blood to create is simply not something people will buy?

For instance, I know someone who was told by a publisher that no one will read a historical novel about a gay man, especially if he narrates it himself.

Well, they said that about Rosalind Welles' African American romance novels. Now that genre is one of the fastest growing in the United States.

Listen to the story from the June 2, 2009, Morning Edition on npr.org .

Indie Book Marketing: Some Early Insights

e have just started the discussion in earnest about the marketing gap between traditionally published books and indie books. (Join us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/indiebookmarketing.)

There will be a great deal to discover and discuss, but by and large our first efforts seem to reveal that most traditionally published authors do not get as much actual marketing help from their publishers. If this is accurate, the problem may turn out to be not that indie authors are not served but rather that no authors other than the blockbusters are served.

We continue to explore and discuss what we perceive as the Marketing Gap. Here are some observations we have made so far.

1. Editing services. Not exactly marketing, but certainly has a negative impact if your book shows that it was not thoroughly and expertly edited, from historical accuracy to location of commas. Traditional publishers do this as part of their contract with an author, while indie authors must either perform the editing themselves or if they are smart pay for editing by a professional. And that ain't cheap.. and can make or break an author's ability to self-publish.

2. While it appears that traditional publishers don't do muych of what an author might think of as marketing, they do provide promotional materials, says janet Elaine Smith . Bookstores receive piles of it directly from publishers and from distributors.

3. Libraries generally make acquisitions decisions with the aid of a select group of journals. As a rule these journals do not rebiew self-published books. So even if the author sends the galleys of a book prepublication as required, they likely accomplush nothing more than paying the postage.

Now remember, we are only in the early stages of discussing and coming to any conclusions about all this. The barriers we uncover are not insuperable. But you have to know a wall is there before you can climb it.

Join us and help find the barriers and the solutions!

Analysis: Indie Book marketing - an ad hoc group exploring the marketing gap between traditionally and indie published books.

For a group specifically to share book marketing ideas, see Writer2writer Marketing Books.