Category — Publishing & Indie Presses

I’ve been neglecting this blog terribly the past several months – it’s as if after quitting my Day Job I’ve put everything on hold ’til I’m finally outta there! Not really; I’ve been doing other things, notably, thinking about ways to get the news out there about The Forever Friends Club: the great little easy-reader chapter book my little press has just produced!

The book’s gotten fantastic reviews. Adoptive Families magazine called it “a delight,” and Motherhood Later said it was “ a wonderful twist to the adoption tale.” Plus, it has tons of free downloads, including a complete educators guide as well as a printable kit so kids can start their own club for forever friends!

I love this little book and I know that once adoptive families (and all families!) get their hands on it they’ll love it, too!

If you want to be eligible for one of 3 copies of this well-reviewed, well-written, and beautifully illustrated book about a group of kids who put the friendly in friendship, please comment below this blog entry and answer this question by May 30:

What makes a good friend?

Well, folks – spring has sprung! And I only have 9 weeks left of work at my Day Job until I’m free! Free of the Day Job, that is. I’ve been working for my family business quite a bit – that, plus my press and my cataloging business (plus my kids, of course, and the little one’s plethora of dr. visits these past few months) have been keeping me busy and will continue to do so forever!
Here’s a quick update on what else has been going on with moi:

• My small press’s newest title, The Forever Friends Club, is puttering along. Sales are off to a slowish start but then again, marketing’s been off to a slowish start, too. As with all my other titles, I don’t get too concerned about the book’s first month’s sales. That’s the luxury of being a micropress. I’m in it for the long haul. The book’s gotten some fantastic, well-deserved reviews. Next stop: blog tour!
• I’m really excited about a new writing project: retold ghost tales of the Carolinas! Not sure what my plan is when they’re done – to produce them myself or to find another publisher – but they’re super fun to write.
• We’ve extended the deadline for submissions to Bless Your Heart, the anthology I’m co-editing with Kay Marner about parenting children ‘easy to love, hard to raise’ to June. Kay’s offered some advice on her blog to people interested in submitting.
• On Easter Monday we’re doing a give-away of The Big Fun Guide to Tar Heel Country through our Facebook page. Fan us to enter.
• On May 8 I’m teaching a workshop at Central Carolina Community College on self-publishing. That will be an adventure! How to cram seven years’ worth of what I know into 5 hours?
• I’m enjoying writing a blog and newspaper columns about energy efficiency as a way to educate people about the benefits of energy audits and weatherization.
• I’m rewriting the novel I wrote a couple years ago for a small publisher in California. They accepted it (after 4 rewrites) and had a publication date…which passed, was reset, was passed again…and I’ve come to believe they won’t ever publish it. It’s a decent enough story, however, and worth a 2nd look. That’s a big part of my summer’s plans.
• I need to write teacher’s guides for Mishka and When I Met You before I do a big mailing in the fall. The reception for the Teacher’s Guide for The Forever Friends Club has been really good; I think it’s a great, useful tool for teachers, guidance counselors, and parents who want to use the books in the classroom. Plus, it is a marketing tool! You know how I love marketing tools!

But first, finish the Day Job!

If you are an author I want to be sure you know about the usefulness of Google Alerts for tracking reviews, mentions of you, results of PR activities, or whatever it is you’re interested in following on the web. I won’t get into the hows of creating a Google Alert for oneself- Google it! – but suffice it to say it is very useful, particularly when trying to keep track of ones promotional efforts.

I have Google Alerts set up for me, the titles of my books, the titles of books my publishing company has published, and the authors who have published with my company. Come to think of it, it would behoove me to set up a Google Alert for my company, too. That’s only logical.

It’s because I have a Google Alert set up for my books that I recently came across a brand-new book review for Mishka: An Adoption Tale. Mishka came out in 2007 – not that long ago in people years, but ages ago in book years. Most of the reviews for that book came out in late 2007, early 2008. A couple of bloggers reviewed it last year, but that was it the result of a little blog-tour experiment by yours-truly. But this review, sitting smack-dab in the middle of a website devoted to International Adoption, was completely unsolicited and unexpected. The very best kind of review a book could get!

Just read a couple of articles that I found very interesting.

1. Presto Book O – Why I went ahead and self-published.

2. Room for Debate: Do School Libraries Still Need Books?

#1 showcases a guy with a good attitude and a good plan. Self-publishing the way it should be done. And a business model and marketing plan that makes sense for him.

#2 bums me out. Even though most of the experts they queried said yes, books are still needed, I think it’s worth noting that with the exception of one school librarian and the headmaster of that private school that threw out its entire library collection, all the rest are experts on new technology. So I guess that makes it all that more meaningful that they think books are still needed. I did find it very odd that the people in the debate were the aforementioned technology experts and 2 people who work for private high schools. Why didn’t they talk to to the people who work with the rest of the world - i.e. the majority? Why only exclusive private schools where you can assume the kids all have access to technology 24-7? The rest of the world isn’t like that. The digital divide actually exists, folks. But maybe not to the readers of the NYTimes…

I’m a little bit embarrassed about what happened yesterday, mostly because it could have been avoided by simply THINKING about the ramifications of accepting a shipment of books at a storage facility with no loading dock or overhang whilst it was pouring rain (and paying a small fee for the shipping co. to keep the boxes over the weekend)…but these are the results:

The cardboard boxes got wet. Very wet. To prevent the water wicking into the books (which, for the first time in my little adventures as a publisher I didn’t have shrinkwrapped in plastic) we brought all the books home and unpacked them from the boxes.

Books are fine.

Boxes are trashed.

Husband still annoyed.

Next on the agenda: repacking the whole mess when the new boxes I ordered arrive.

Does Random House have problems like this?

I’m a bit behind in really using web 2.0 to promote the books I publish through my little independent press, but since I’m on the eve of promoting my press’s next book, The Forever Friends Club, written by Sue Gainor and Sarah Gibson, and illustrated by Miranda Mueller, AND November is National Adoption month, it is an opportune time to try new things, like making book trailers.

In preparation, I’ve been looking at book trailers for picture books on the Internet. I’ve found a few that I think are well done.

First, here’s one for Up! by Kristine O’Connell George, illustrated by Hiroe Nakata:

I like it because, while the text stays still, the illustrations move, which gives the impression of animation although the image is static. It’s also a very clean, clear, playful trailer with un-annoying music. It’s also short, but not too short, and importantly, isn’t the author reading the book.

Here’s another one that is super-cute, for the book Chicken Butt, written by Erica Perl and illustrated by Henry Cole. Within about 3 seconds it pulled my 7-year-old in from the next room over:

I really like the 3-D effect of the first few frames, and I also like the voice-over. Again, the music is unobstrusive and the illustrations amusing and well chosen.

Here’s another I found for Captain Cheech, a book by Cheech Marin and illustrated by Orlando L. Ramirez. Again, the soundtrack is appealing, and I like how the words are animated, but you can still read them. No voice-over, but kids laughing and water splashing add a layer to a simple soundtrack:

The trailers I seem to like have a couple things in common: they’re short, they’re cute, and the creators have paid special attention to the soundtracks. They also give the impression of animation although confined to static artwork.

Have you made a book trailer for your book? Let me know how it went for you, how you came up with the design of the trailer, and what tips you might have for a book trailer newbie. Feel free to post a link to your book trailer in the comments section, or post a link to another book trailer you think serves as a great example.

Hey! Is your child easy to love, but hard to parent? DRT Press (my baby easy-to-love, easy-to-parent business baby) wants you!

DRT Press is seeking personal essays written by parents of children with ADD, ADHD and/or other mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders for a book about the experience of parenting children with such conditions, for publication (expected) in January 2011.

Essays in this collection will be ones in which parents who care for challenging children can see themselves.  Parents/readers will laugh, cry, and find comfort in these stories.

Focus should be on the feelings and experiences of the writer/parent, rather than simply a description of the child and the child’s condition, behavior, and treatment.  We are looking for honest feelings, lessons learned, epiphanies, commonplace and extraordinary experiences.   Although we are not looking for how-tos on the best way to parent a behaviorally challenged child, we would like to see essays that give parents glimpses of what has worked for individual parents.

To read more guidelines, including HOW to submit and WHO to submit to, please go to the DRT Press website.

I read this article “Publishers Must Change the Way Authors Get Paid,” on PublishingPerspective.com with great interest. In it, the author argues that traditional publishing houses should pay authors more, since in the current publishing environment authors seem to bear the burden of marketing. Here’s what she says:

Times have changed, and with them, every aspect of the publishing landscape is morphing. And from my vantage point, nowhere is it changing more than in marketing. Authors aren’t waiting and watching to see what publishers aren’t doing for their books — they are jumping in feet first and months ahead of their houses to make sure there’s a serious marketing and publicity effort.

And publishers aren’t gnashing their teeth over the author’s involvement anymore — they are encouraging it…In almost all cases, publishers are making it clear that they expect authors to supplement their marketing/PR effort in various ways and, in some cases, even soliciting the author’s help with both time and yes, money.

As a result, today the author’s marketing/PR effort is often equal to or even greater than what the house is doing.

I have no doubt that this is the case if one is dealing with a large publishing company. I don’t have personal experience with this, but I’ve heard many writers describe magnificent marketing plans and I wonder if they are seeing a true return on their investment (of time or money) since they are making pennies every time a single book sells. Since I am self-published (and only recently have begun to publish others) I make anywhere from $4-10 every time one of my books sell. So even a modest booksigning or storytelling event is worth my while. And any marketing I do always pays off. Of course, I did put up a significant sum to publish my books, and even if I’m making dollars and not pennies for each book sold it takes a while to earn my output back. But if I were only making 35 cents for every book I sold, I’d probably think twice about doing appearances or giving out free bookmarks. Why would I be doing it? For the fame?

I’m not saying traditional publishing isn’t the way to go. Fact is, my books have such a small niche audience that they’d never have seen the light of day in a business where selling 10,000 copies in a year is small potatoes and bookstores are the primary ways of selling books. Even if my books were the best written picture books in the world they would’ve never made the cut. If my books were for a more general audience, however, there’s plenty to be said for the marketing and distribution channels of a large traditional publisher. Plenty. Heck, I’m working on something right now that I’d love to submit to a big house. I’ve certainly submitted my share of ideas and manuscripts to traditional publishers, big and small, in the past and I will continue to do so. But it’s important to enter the situation wisely. Authors get paid for their work.

1. You have $15,000-$20,000 just sitting around and you can’t think of anything better to do with it.
2. You are positive that you can do a better job picking an illustrator, a designer, a distributor, and marketing the book than the big publishing companies that have been creating award-winning books for years and years.
3. You have the best story in the world (that’s been rejected by every publishing house out there, but still, it’s really good!) and you know everyone will love it!
4. Your son’s pre-k class really liked it when you read it to them.
5. If you publish it, they will come.

Yes, yes, I know. I was being facetious. But truthful, no?

Okay, now for real.

1. Your book fills an untapped niche.
2. You’ve done your research and you know that there’s a market for your book, and…
3. You know how to reach your market.
4. You have the time, energy, and passion to get the word out about your book to the people who will buy it.
5. You have created a solid business and marketing plan and have read every book out there on self-publishing, lurked on the self-publishing listservs for months, and have a detailed schedule for production and marketing. Despite all this, you know you have a lot to learn, but you’re ready to take the leap nevertheless.

Hey ya’ll -

I’m rocking the Web 2.0! Just made a fan page for my small press on FB.

Here’s the link, in case you want to be my fan: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pittsboro-NC/DRT-Press/105121020847?ref=mf

The Big Fun Guide to Tar Heel Country, our most recent book, has its own page: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=15776054398

Come on, be a fan! And if you have tips on using social networking sites to promote your books or your small press, please leave a comment. Information is power!