Author presents The Silveries book series
Testimonial
"For people who don’t know a lot about publishing, it’s the ideal place because of the hand-holding. And the finished product is excellent. It took about six months from initially contacting SilverWood for it to hit the streets. I took up their marketing advice and had a lot of help with social media, with Facebook and Twitter posts to get me started."
Angela Dandy | Thriller Author
Author profile
As a child Angela Dandy wrote many creative stories; she had a great aunt who was a prolific author and her family did say she would be the next writer. However, Angela only wrote business papers during her career, spending over 33 years working in major corporate roles in London. Taking early retirement in 2000, she travelled extensively with her husband, when she began finding time to write as a hobby. She finished her first manuscript, Lakeside, while travelling in the USA but it lay gathering dust until 2015 when she finally self-published it. After taking ten years to complete her first book, Angela challenged herself to write the next one much faster, starting the writing in 2016 and completing the book in 2018. After successfully publishing it in April 2019, she went on to write the third and publish it just a year later.
Challenge: changing people’s expectations of the elder generation
Observing how people treat the older generation while caring for her mum, Angela didn’t particularly like the tone people often used when talking to them or about them. This gave her the spark of an idea to create a series, nicknamed The Silveries. The first book, The Silver Sting, shows how resourceful older people can be at solving their own problems and working as a team. It features the residents of Magnolia Court, tracking down the unscrupulous property developer who had scammed them out of a comfortable retirement. The vibrant characters set aside age and infirmity as they go on their quest to seek retribution. Second in the series came The Silver Dollar, a thriller which re-visits the lives of the residents at Magnolia Court as they unravel secrets from the past.
Publishing journey: reassurance at every step
After spending three months writing to publishers and pitching her manuscript for The Silver Sting, Angela returned to the idea of self-publishing. Her first experience with publishing Lakeside hadn’t been fantastic, so she was looking for a company who would create a high-quality product for her. She says, "I did look at online publishing, like CreateSpace, but I’m not that I.T. savvy and I felt I wouldn’t have the time to learn it and then do it myself." When another author and friend recommended SilverWood Books, Angela contacted them and was delighted with how responsive and professional they were. She was given a single point of contact and publishing assistant, who answered all her queries straight away. "SilverWood was recommended to me as a company who were very good at holding your hand; I asked them all sorts of questions and I’ve always had excellent answers from them."
For both books, Angela found the copyediting was a critical part of the publishing process. Even after the copyedit was complete, SilverWood insisted that Angela check the interior layout line by line before going to print.
"The copy editor did a fantastic job. She did more for me than going on any creative writing course; she listed everything that needed checking down to the letter - and I had a big re-write to do. It was about eight detailed pages of recommendations, but I learned so much from her feedback. When it came to The Silver Dollar, I had just two pages of comments and there were no significant changes to make. However, there were still things to change on the layout, just small formatting edits to make."
Finished product: a professional quality book
Angela says the proof of SilverWood’s professional approach shows in the quality of the finished books. When it came to the book cover design, SilverWood proposed two options for The Silver Sting, so Angela decided to consult friends and family to help her choose - the image introduces the characters sitting on a bench. For the next in the series, The Silver Dollar, she went for a much darker cover design to suit the story.
She sums up, "SilverWood know their business and are very good communicators; I like to talk to people on the phone but as time went by, I found it worked very well, working by email. The second book went absolutely seamlessly. I’ll certainly stick with SilverWood for the third in the series."
Work with SilverWood:
Discuss working with SilverWood's Helen Hart by dropping her a line here.
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“If you’re thinking of self-publishing, I hope you don't go at it alone. With a team like SilverWood behind you, you have the support you need to publish the best work you believe in.”
