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I'm
Stuart, the owner of Fiction4All, and this story is all about how, and why, I
created Fiction4All and developed it into what it is today. Fiction4All
was established in February 2005. It seems a long time ago now, but the
reason for setting up Fiction4All is as fresh in my mind today as it was back
then. At the turn of the century I decided to do what a lot of wannabe
writers do - they write a story. That took a year or more of my life and then
I started the daunting process of looking for an agent - without success.
Undeterred, I then decided to send my precious script off to a number of well-established publishers here in the UK,
where I am based, and you guessed it - before long the rejection letters from
some started to arrive. Then, of course, there were the organisations that
never bothered sending any form of reply. By
chance, and an ill-wind, I spotted an advert in a newspaper for a publisher
seeking authors and I jumped at the opportunity. At the time I had never
heard of vanity press so it was inevitable I would fall for it. They wanted
just over GBP2000 to get my book published in print (the internet was not a
major player in those days) and they promised the earth - book signings,
advertisements and so on. So I paid them the GBP2000 and waited. And waited.
To cut a long story short my book, which was a private investigator story
that their review panel had lauded (yes I know it was a con now, but at the
time it felt great to get a positive response), sold exactly 4 copies in the
first year and then they decided to kill it off! That was the final straw for
me - they took GBP2000 for effectively nothing. Modern Word Editor has made a
better job of the "editing" phase than their expert supposedly did
in those days. So,
some head scratching later, and a chance contact with another author who had
been similarly treated, and I decided to do something about it. The big
publishers were apparently seldom interested in new, aspiring authors, and
the only alternative option seemed to be the trap I, and countless others,
had fallen into, and continue to fall into right up to today. Fiction4All
was established with a view to making it relatively easy for authors to see
their work on sale without it costing them a fortune to do so. Actually, the ethos of Fiction4All was to make it free for
an author to get their book published, where the author submitted their
well-written story in a presentable manner, according to our guidelines - the
advent of the digital age made this easier than some might believe possible.
So, going the route of selling online, the model I started with was if a book
sold online then it was worth creating a print edition, even though at the
time things were not as straightforward as they are today. For
several years now, Fiction4All spent time and money acquiring other UK
publishers and their imprints, and for the sheer need to make money by
selling what people were buying online, this involved a foray into the world
of adult fiction. Over a few years Fiction4All acquired three
well-established publishers from the world of adult fiction, namely The
Olympia Press, Silver Moon Books and BDSM Books. In 2019 Fiction4All added AdultEbookShop to its growing portfolio. Together
with their authors and contact lists, this made it possible for us to grow
into a wider market, exploring the growing number of websites selling this
kind of material, while at the same time reminding ourselves of our roots in
General and Young Adult fiction. In
2020 Fiction4All added to its General Fiction portfolio by acquiring Double
Dragon Books and some of its former authors. In
2021 we decided to expand our interest into audiobook production. In 2023,
amidst growing concerns of children being safe online, we split the adult
books away from our general fiction and non-fiction and the adult books now
all live on A1AdultEbooks, though the submission and publishing processes
remain on Fiction4All. In
2024 Fiction4All hired a professional marketer who is working to get our
brand more widely known and attract a younger customer base than we have
previously enjoyed. This is leading to a raft of changes as Fiction4All moves
into a new, and exciting future, so there will be much more to tell you about
in 2025. With the need for new skills on the block, we are also making plans
to welcome narrators, editors, artists and others to our sites, making their
skills available to authors. At
this point in time Fiction4All has about 900 authors who we have published or
acquired from the above publishers. Not all these authors continue to write
but a significant number do and on a regular basis. We have a substantial
online presence with the option to distribute our own author books on sites
such as Barnes & Noble, Smashwords/Draft to Digital, Google Play and
various other sites. Please
see our other guides for more information on what we publish and where we
distribute books. We
publish books in 4 sizes:- Micro books range from 5000 to 15000 words Short stories range from 15000 to 25000 words Novellas range from 25000 - 45000 words Novels are any book over 45000 words All
books, with very few exceptions, are firstly created and sold as digital
editions, and, where authors opt into our distribution packages, books are
distributed on various sites according to each author's choice. We
also produce some books as paperback editions. Please read our document on
paperbacks for more details. Fiction4All
provides for two types of authors. Type
1 - Exclusive - the author wants Fiction4All to do all the work, including
script layout, formatting and checking on things like grammar and spellings.
The author wants us to distribute their work where we can.. Type
2 - Self-Publishing - the author either wants to publish their own book on
Fiction4All/A1AdultEbooks and provide the formats they want to sell, or get
Fiction4All to create these formats from a supplied script. The authors can
decide if suitable size books can be created as paperbacks under our
Novels4All program, and sold only on our own sites. Whether
you are a Type 1 or 2 author, please take time to absorb the information in
our style guide, it is there to make it quicker to get your book published in
both digital and where appropriate, print formats. Regards Stuart CEO
Fiction4All |