Publishing advice for local budding authors
Ten years ago, New Plymouth based publishing consultant Ocean Reeve was the recipient of the New Zealand 2010 Supreme MYOB Awesome Service Award in recognition of service at New Zealand’s premiere selfpublishing company at the time, PublishMe, based in Taranaki.
Less than 12 months later, Reeve had relocated to Australia where he continued developing his skills and knowledge in the industry working with various publishers in Sydney and Brisbane before launching his own publishing company in early 2017.
During his time in Australia, he has managed various elements of the publishing process.
Over the past five years, Ocean has travelled through Western Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland presenting seminars on the industry and options for authors, inspiring creatives to bring their stories to life with confidence and assist them in marketing and
On March 11 at Puke Ariki in New Plymouth, celebrity speaker and endurance athlete Lisa Tamati launches her book, Relentless under the Ocean Reeve Publishing brand.
Ocean will attend the launch in support of Tamati’s book, but felt it was time to bring the knowledge and insight he has gained back to his home country.
He is presenting five distribution. free two-hour seminars on the options for new authors, book marketing and distribution, audiobooks and more in Cambridge Library at 6pm Friday and Te Awamutu Library at 10am Saturday.
Using his career in educational, trade and self-publishing, plus working with almost 5000 authors in almost 20 years, Ocean brings insight into an unregulated industry that can often take advantage of vulnerable new authors.
“In 2018 Bowker reported a 40 per cent growth in selfpublished books in the US alone,” says Ocean.
“You combine that with the spike in small unskilled self-publishing companies trying to capitalise off this growth and struggling trade publishers needing to find innovative marketing strategies to meet sales targets, it’s the author sitting there in doubt on which way to go.”
Bookings need to be made directly with respective venues.