Davitt College evening class on self-publishing concludes with excited students holding their own books in their hands

Rightfully proud self-published authors with their own books in hand.
Back row: Lisa Verdekal, Siobhan Leddy, Agnes Nyland.
Front row: Aideen Mulligan, Bennie Scahill and Eithne Ring

Once again, the dreams of a group of authors were fulfilled as they received professionally produced copies of their own books. The self-publishing evening course at Davitt College in Castlebar culminated at Books@One; a community bookshop in Louisburgh. Over an eight-week period, self-publishing instructor Alex Blackwell walked the participants through the discipline of correctly formatting their text, to laying out their book and designing their own book covers. The results speak for themselves and the authors can be justifiably proud of their achievement.

The course was targeted at people who had a partially or completely written manuscript. It is also applicable to people who do speaking engagements themselves and are asked for further reading. The objective of the course, under the tuition of Alex Blackwell, author, commercial printer, marketer and self-publishing professional, was to provide the participants with the ability to correctly format their manuscript as a book, design their own book cover and publish their book online or have them printed at Books@One.

Getting a book published is today something anyone can achieve; and it need not cost anything. With the skills taught in the course and some determination, one can upload digital files of a finished and formatted book. It is then listed on the likes of Amazon who sell one copy at a time without anyone ever having to further intervene.

The goal of each student was about as different as one might expect.  One course participant produced a lovely cookbook with the intention of printing only a few copies as Christmas presents for the family. A family history book will be of interest to people in the local community, some illustrated children’s books may find a much wider audience, and the list goes on.

As Alex Blackwell explains, “What constitutes publishing has changed considerably in recent years. With the availability of the Espresso Book Machine at Books@One, an author may choose to only print one copy as a memento, a handful of copies as Christmas presents or as review copies, or go on and sell their book to the world on Amazon on an equal footing with the largest publishing houses in the world.”

For more about the courses at Davitt College or to sign up, go to: mayosligoleitrim.etb.ie/nightclasses or call Davitt College 094-902-6172

For more about Books@One go to: booksatone.ie or visit them in Louisburgh

To learn more about publishing your own book, go to: whiteseahorse.ie/Self-Publishing