Lost and Found author talks about self-publishing

08 Jan 2010

Lucy Cavendish self-published The Leap Year with other members of the Contemporary Women Writers' Club.

Lucy Cavendish, journalist and author of the novel Lost and Found, has revealed that she was recently involved in her first-ever self-publishing project.

The Leap Year is a collection of short stories which the author produced with several other members of the Contemporary Women Writers' Club, including the novelist Miranda Glover.

The decision to self-publish was taken as the authors didn’t feel that the stories would necessarily be jumped upon by regular publishers.

Each contributor put £250 into the kitty and a home-publishing kit was bought – though not without trepidation.

She told the Telegraph: "Both Miranda and I are conventionally published novelists, so of course I initially winced at the idea of self-publishing. The cliche is of mad people publishing letters to their dead aunts."

Self-publishing is widely believed to be increasing in popularity, particularly as advances for new novelists from regular publishing houses become smaller.

Children's author GP Taylor began his career by publishing his work himself.


ISBN: 9780141030197

by Jade Caulfield