Lynette McClenaghan

Nosferatu

November 2014 I presented a workshop at The Victorian Association for the Teachers of English (VATE). The focus of the presentation was as teacher to teacher about creating an Ebook and self-publishing. Within the cohort an academic booked into another workshop jumped ship to attend my presentation. This group were delightful to work with, because most of them wanted to learn more about self-publishing primarily for the benefit of their students. This workshop was pitched to assist teachers to collaboratively publish digital and print anthologies of students’ work. At the close of the session I was given a warm round of applause.

On a sourer note, since self-publishing and beginning this endeavor over four years ago, I have received numerous requests from people who want to pick my brains. They don’t read my work and I suspect don’t read my BLOGS or SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS which give advice based my experience. I return polite emails of either encouragement or useful tips. More irritatingly, I normally receive no thanks. No writer should feel at the mercy of these VAMPIRES. The best was a request from a horror writer who asked me to buy his book and review it. He attempted to flatter me by noting a good review I posted for another writer. I was willing to do this in exchange for him doing the same for me – it wasn’t reciprocated. I bought the book anyway; it wasn’t very good therefore I posted a negative review.