HOWZAT

If they’re not going to do anything with it, then why would I let them have it? I thought, stuff this, maybe I should do it myself again.”

So, de Falbe reimmersed himself in the world ruled by bar codes, ISBNs and the unavoidable truth that even booksellers judge a book by its cover. “There’s no point in being kind to people for kindness’ sake,” says Jonathan Main of Bookseller Crow on the Hill, an independent bookshop in south London that tries to be nice to authors who are going it alone. “If the book doesn’t look as if it’s going to compete on the shelf with a mainstream title, then it’s unlikely to be worth stocking,” he adds. “We probably reject about half just by looking at them, and probably another quarter again by reading them. If they look okay, however, we are prepared to give them a go on a sale-or-return basis.”

Even the design bit is relatively easy. “Any intelligent person could do it,” Adeniran says. “The difficult thing is knocking on doors.” Marketing — the ability to persuade a shop not to say “Thanks, but no thanks” to a book that has already been turned down by publishers — requires an entirely different skill set to writing. “There are good writers and there are people who are good at self-promotion,” Boyle concedes. “To succeed at self-publishing, you probably need to be both, which, as a general rule, is mutually contradictory.” Even now that he has been taken up by the mainstream, Taylor lays down his pen each autumn to tour schools; Adeniran has a well-presented website, is active in the blogosphere and has drummed up readers by speaking to book groups in libraries.

It’s no coincidence, though, that the more successful self-publishers already know something of the trade. Anderson founded The Travel Bookshop, made famous in the film Notting Hill, and concedes that she would never have published Halfway to Venus without her contacts book. Boyle worked at Faber in copy-editing and graphic design for 14 years before going freelance. As for de Falbe, he is uniquely able to comment on self-publishing from both sides of the fence. It was he who pressed 24 for 3 into Jagger’s palms at the John Sandoe bookshop, which he co-owns and runs.

“As a bookseller, one treats self-published things with kid gloves. I’m going to be looking for an excuse to say no to the vast majority. But if you know your market, and can reach it independently of the industry, then it makes sense to self-publish. I wouldn’t have done it had I not run a bookshop. No way. I felt confident that I could sell a number to customers whom I know well.”

Out of a print run of 2,000 — 1,000 fewer than for his first novel, which he is also reprinting — he has sold 120 in John Sandoe alone, and the book isn’t officially out until tomorrow. So much the better if he could even get a nice review. But that really is a lottery, and an expensive one, because there are up to 80 literary editors who expect to be sent a copy for free. At £2 a copy, plus p&p, de Falbe’s have just been sent out, and he hopes to harvest plaudits to match those from William Boyd, Jonathan Coe and David Mitchell for his previous two. “But I know perfectly well some literary editors will think, ‘Oh, God, another self-published book. Pass that to the Oxfam pile.’ ”

Dreaming Iris by John de Falbe is available from The Cuckoo Press, 10 Blacklands Terrace, SW3 2SR; www.johnsandoe.com. Sarah Anderson’s Halfway to Venus is available in bookshops and at www.umbrellabooks.com. For Sade Adeniran’s Imagine This, go to www.sades-world.com. 24 for 3 by Jennie Walker is published by Bloomsbury

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