Hodge is an older bloke in the far north of NZ who wanted to help his community, pass on skills he had learned, and thought a book had to be the best way to do it. He didn't have a lot of IT skills but BriarsBooks came into his picture and now he has a print edition, Kindle print on demand book and an e-book as well. Happy Chappie!
Beating technical problems
Distance, remoteness, poor internet, and minimal computer skills didn't stop him.
Just a small compact book of 60 pages. One man's life-long fascination with memory and how it works, and a large dose of practical kind-heartedness led this author to make a book to help people develop and retain a good memory. Hodge is a builder by trade and not a writer, but he had discovered all sorts of tips and aide-memoires he wanted to pass on.
Hodge spent about 15 years getting his book together and when it was ready he went online to find what he did next. Enter BriarsBooks.
Self-publishing was the obvious route. Quick, trouble-free, small print runs, and reprints when he wanted them.
Hodge had no idea what he wanted for a cover, he had a new laptop and next to no computer skills, the internet was unreliable, he was about 600km away from me and often inaccessible. Fortunately, he had a daughter who lived close enough to help out and she had computer skills. It saved the day.
Don't You Forget It was one of those books that could be done remotely, by internet, emails and phone calls. Author and agency never met in person. And the internet - though erratic - co-operated enough to allow drafts of cover and interior layouts to be sent for approvals. Hodge also wanted digital files for upload to Kindle Print-on-demand and an e-book, which BriarsBooks produced for him. Hodge and his sterling daughter managed to upload them to Kindle with only a couple of misadventures.