JANUARY 2 01 8

Your guide to self-publishing

Book Cover Redesign • Indie Scouting Report •
Ask the Editor with Betty Sargent •
First Lines from BookLife Authors • 60 New Titles Listed

A Win
For Indie
Authors
After embracing self-
publishing, Ian Andrew,
the winner of the 2017
BookLife Prize, sets his
sights on helping other
independent authors
BY NICOLE AUDREY SPECTOR

F
ace Value, Ian Andrew’s detective
thriller and the winner of the 2017
BookLife Prize, is packed with action
and suspense. It’s easy to imagine that a
first draft was dashed off in a storm of
passion, the author seldom pausing to
apply edits until after everything was
down on paper. But, in fact, Andrew edited
the novel section by section as he wrote
it, taking contemplative breathers to review
and perfect each scene before advancing
to the next.
 ® INDIE SUCCESS
“That constant back-and-forth
allows me to tighten the story
as I go,” Andrew says. “I also
like my details and write almost
visually, so I have to be cautious
that I don’t slow the story down
too much because of that.”
Andrew, who has worked as
an intelligence officer special-
izing in antisubmarine warfare,
is also mindful to give readers
the grit and adventure they may
associate with upper-level mil-
itary operations. But, most of
this stuff is pure fiction.
“The majority of real intelligence gathering work
is boring, but with a novel you get to leave out all
of the humdrum and concentrate on the exciting
highlights,” Andrew says. “I think being able to
use appropriate language and having a handle on
the equipment and techniques helps set up believ-
able scenarios.”
Writing under a pseudonym from the rural south-
west of Western Australia, Andrew self-published
Face Value, the first of the Wright & Tran series, in
2015, followed by the second in the series, Flight
Path, in 2016, and the third, Fall Guys, last spring.
“I went indie in 2014 after I finished my first novel,
A Time to Every Purpose, [which was] cross-genre,
not easy to pigeonhole, and had a religious twist to
it,” explains the 52-year-old writer. “Also, I wasn’t
20 years old and didn’t have the luxury of waiting
for a decade or more to be ‘discovered.’ After the
fifth rejection letter, I decided to go it alone. When
it featured as an Amazon bestseller in not only its
genre, but overall in the top 100 Amazon lists, I felt
quite vindicated.”
Help an Author Out
Andrew also feels a calling to help other authors
get their work out there. He’s been running Book
Reality Experience, a publishing-on-demand service
since 2015.
“Having learnt by trial and error how to inde-
pendently publish a novel, I thought it would be
good to run some training courses for other authors
wishing to do the same,” Andrew says. “After a
lot of the training sessions, authors said thanks,
but then asked if I could publish it for them. That
brought about the Book Reality Experience.” Along
40 B O O K L I F E , J A N UA RY 2 2 , 2 0 1 8
with ambitious writing plans
Ian Andrew (by this time next year he
anticipates having the fourth
Wright & Tran novel published
and the fifth nearly completed),
Andrew plans on further build-
ing out BRE.
Now for the kangaroo in the
room (hey, he’s in Australia):
what will he make of this
BookLife victory? Well, first he’ll
finish processing the shock of
the win.
“Not in the slightest did I think
I’d win,” Andrew says. “I simply
thought the fact that the competition included a
[critique] from the professional reviewers of
Publishers Weekly was too good to miss. As each
round went by and I continued to progress, I became
more excited, yet was just happy to have gotten
as far as I did. I am honestly not sure what the
reality will bring, but I would like to think a major
opportunity would be for increased exposure of
my novels to a much wider audience.”
Less unclear is what he’ll do with the $5,000 writ-
ing stipend. “Part of it will go on a gift for my wife,
Jacki, and part of it will go on a signet ring for me,”
he says. “I think it’s important there are some tactile,
material things that I can look to and that will remind
me of the award. Most of it will be plowed back into
the business of writing and will probably fund a
promotional trip back to the U.K. in April.”
On a broader note, Andrew is hopeful that this
achievement will give a boost to fellow indie crime
authors—and perhaps the self-publishing category
as a whole. “[Indie] crime thrillers are already an
amazingly strong genre, so I don’t believe that it
needs much in the way of help; however, in the
wider indie author world, a high-profile award like
this—backed by an industr y powerhouse like
Publishers Weekly, with almost 150 years of history
behind it—can’t do anything but strengthen the
indie author brand,” he says. “I honestly do not
see that indies and traditional pathways should
be pitted against one another. I see it simply that
indie offers a new way, new opportunities, and
added diversity for the world of books.” ■
Nicole Audrey Spector is a writer whose work has
appeared in the Atlantic, the New Yorker, and Vogue.