Category — Interviews

This is the second interview in a series of discussions I’ll be having with owners of small, start-up presses who specialize in books for children. It’s my hope that by interviewing these folks we’ll all get a better sense of the trials and successes of D.I.Y. publishing. Some of the people I’m interviewing started as self publishers, and some of them started publishing other people.

If you would like to be considered for an interview, please contact me at adrienne@drtpress.com. My goal is to do at least an interview per week.

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Ellen Feld, owner of Willow Bend Publishing, a small press devoted to publishing books about horses for young adults, shares what she’s learned over the past seven years operating her own small press. With upwards of 50,000 copies of her books sold, she obviously has tapped into the keys to marketing: persistence, a good product, and above all, knowing how to reach her market.

Q: Ellen, on the Willow Bend Publishing website there’s a lot about how you started writing about horses. When and why did you make the leap from writing about horses to publishing your own books about them?

A: I’ve been writing for horse magazines for about 25 years as a freelancer. These magazines are both regional and national in scope and the assignments kept me fairly busy. But at one point, I was between assignments, and as any writer can relate, felt the need to write. So I wrote a short story. A few friends read it and said it was quite good and that I should expand it into a book. I took their advice and wrote the book. Thinking it would be easy to get my book published as I’d been published countless times in magazines, I was in for a rude awakening when I submitted my manuscript to various publishers and received form letters back from each one saying ‘no thanks.’ Not one to give up, I decided to self-publisher. That was back in 2001. Now, with over 50,000 books sold, I’d be hard-pressed to go with a traditional publisher.

I never really thought about running my own publishing company, it just happened. As I sold more and more of my first book, I was getting asked when the sequel was coming out. Now, seven years later, I’ve got a regular following of horse enthusiasts, a full-time career with my publishing company (although I also have a “regular” full-time job), and when I took a year off from writing to concentrate on promoting, I had a lot of “oh drat,” reactions for fans at book signings who thought I’d have a new book this year. It’s been a ton of work but also a ton of fun!

Q: The key to small press success in a big press world is creative marketing. Can you share some of the more creative things you’ve done to market your books?

A: Creative marketing is definitely the key. I spend almost no time marketing to book stores. It simply isn’t worth the small sales and big headaches that I get from them. About 70% of my sales are through events such as craft fairs, big state fairs, horse shows, etc. These are direct sales which translates into sales at full retail price and there are no returns. I also sell to shops dealing specifically with the horse world. These “tack shops”tend to be small and although they may only order 10 or 20 books at a time, they tend to be very loyal, and again, they never return books.

Q: What has been the most successful way you’ve marketed your horse books? What has been the least?

A: Most successful: Remember all those magazines that I mentioned above? Well, I used my connections at those horse magazines to get FREE publicity. Having great relationships with the editors, I found that each one was enthusiastic about giving my books press. They’d write reviews, run any press release I sent them, include full-color pictures of the covers, and even include the books in their annual gift giving guides. One of those magazines, although focused on horses, was focused primarily on model horse collecting. They’d reviewed all my books and when they were looking for a book to package with one of their model horses, they came to me. They purchased the first book in my series, created a model to look like the horse in the book, and sold it nationally and internationally. In essence, they were marketing for me, plus they bought thousands of my books. It was a win-win. Since all the other books in my series are listed in each book, those buying the book/model set were all now aware of all my other books.

- Least successful: Signings in the big book stores such as Barnes&Noble. They never drew a crowd. However, some of the local, small, independents draw 10 times as many people. They’ve got a much more loyal following and I’ve found customers in those stores eager to support local authors. I’ve also had little luck advertising on the big, horse specific websites. These sites get up to a million hits a month, but are expensive to advertise with, and produce few results.

Q: Do you have any words of wisdom for people starting out in this business, particularly those who are interested in publishing for children?

A: Keep plugging away. The horse model/book sale didn’t happen overnight. I wrote for the company’s magazine for several years and had an excellent working relationship with them, and still do. Also, use your connections. If you’re written for a magazine, don’t be shy – ask them to run a press release about your new book. The children’s market is really tough and competitive so you must work at it every day. Think of new angles to market. Is your book about a dog? What kind? Approach the breed organization to see if they’d like to sell your books. There are also loads of local clubs for every breed of every animal. They all need to raise funds so ask them about using your books as fundraisers. Whatever your book is about, there’s probably a club somewhere promoting that topic. Tell them, then show them, how perfect your book is for them.

This is the first interview in a series of discussions I’ll be having with owners of small, start-up presses who specialize in books for children. It’s my hope that by interviewing these folks we’ll all get a better sense of the trials and successes of D.I.Y. publishing. Some of the people I’m interviewing started at self publishers, and some of them started publishing other people.

If you would like to be considered for an interview, please contact me at adrienne@drtpress.com. My goal is to do at least an interview per week.

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This interview is with Faith Axel, the owner of Magical Child Books, an imprint of Shades of White.

The four picture books that Magical Child has produced since start-up are:

An Ordinary Girl, a Magical Child, by W. Lyon Martin.

Aidan’s First Full Moon Circle, by W. Lyon Martin.

Watchers, by W. Lyon Martin

& the forthcoming Rabbit’s Song, by S.J. Tucker and Trudy Herring

Since I started DRT Press about the same time as Faith Axel started Magical Child Books, I feel a certain kinship with her. We both serve niche market (although our markets are wildly different) and we both have made our main focus children’s picture books, which are expensive to produce and difficult to sell. And from the sounds of it, it looks like we’ve both come to a certain crossroads in the lives of our small presses. What to do next? What do we need to do to achieve the next level?

What inspired you to start Magical Child Books?

In 2005, Lyon Martin’s first book came out with a different publisher. Unfortunately, the publisher was unable to support her marketing efforts. She had several book signings arranged and the publisher couldn’t deliver the books to the retailers in time for the events even though the books were ordered weeks in advance of the events. She became frustrated and disillusioned. But she still believed her book could be a good seller. We’ve known each other our whole lives, so when she approached me with the idea to become her publisher, I agreed. We had to wait for the contract with the other publisher to expire and we hired a lawyer to draft a termination letter so there would be no mistaking her intentions to remove the book from their list. Between her creative skills and my graphic design background we took the book from an okay paperback to a high quality trade hardcover. That’s how Magical Child Books was born.

Have you always had the entrepreneurial urge, or is it something you’ve had to work at as you’ve worked at building your small press?

I’ve been a freelance graphic designer since 1987. I’ve worked with big and small companies. The decade before moving to Missouri where we are based now, I spent working on business-to-business graphics with a small advertising firm. A lot of the skills needed to build a book company from the ground up are ones I already possessed. The hardest thing I’ve needed to learn as a small press has been marketing. No matter how many books a person reads on the subject, it’s a talent some people have and some people don’t. So that part of the business, I’ve had to work at constantly. Still have to. The other skill I’ve had to grow has been bookkeeping and organization. With our fourth book coming out in 2009, we’ve added two new authors to our group. Magical Child Books is based on a traditional publishing model, so we are paying royalties to them. Keeping track of the books sold is a full time job. Record keeping has to be constant and detailed. Keeping track of which accounts need to be billed was also a learning experience. Most of our vendors pay really fast without need for reminders, but the larger distributors can be frustrating to deal with. Invoices are often paid months late. It makes for cash flow nightmares when it’s August and you are still trying to collect on invoices that were due in February.

Did you have a business plan when you started out? If yes, have you stuck to it?

Business plan? What’s that? The goal is to have a new book out once a year, and sell enough books during the previous year to pay for the upcoming year. But having anything formal and written down, no, nothing like that. I’ve tried to add print advertising to my marketing efforts, but the return has been so negligible we probably won’t bother with it again. Direct mail works best. I plan send out a set number of pieces every week. Sometimes things get so hectic around here some weeks the mailings don’t go out. Sales are always better when we stick to the mailing plan.

Like with my company, DRT Press, Magical Child Books publishes for a very specific niche market. How have you managed to reach your market?

A lot of word of mouth. A lot of traveling and one on one selling. Blogs and mailing lists, contests. The first book has gotten a good foothold in the market. We’re not selling a lot, about a couple dozen of the title a month but it’s steady and given the size of the company and our niche, I think it’s great. The second book is tied into the first book on Amazon and that helps sales with it. It’s got some catching up to do with the first title, and I feel I am still dealing with customer dissatisfaction with the paperback version of the book. I’ve heard from more than one purchaser they are replacing their first paperback copy with the hardcover copy because the paperback fell apart. I’m guessing some other folks aren’t willing to try another title because the lack of longevity of the paperback and don’t bother to find out our books are all reinforced library binding. That’s the kind of binding used by school libraries for books that will see hard use.

Has anything surprised you about marketing your book, or has it gone according to plan?

I wanted to broaden the market we were reaching with our third book, so it’s aimed at a larger, less specific market. The plan backfired. The book is selling so slowly I’m worried if we’ll ever see a return on the printing investment. The slow sales may derail the one book a year plan. The reasons for the slow sales are obscure, but may have to do with a bad choice of title, or a cover that isn’t enticing enough. People who actually do purchase the book love it. Getting them to that point has been difficult.

Do you have any advice for people who are thinking of starting their own small press? Any great resources to suggest?

If you need to make a living from it, don’t quit your day job. At least not until sales are steady and consistent. Like any other business, it’s going to take a lot of work. My husband says I work on the books 25 hours a day, eight days a week. And it gets even more intense when a new title comes out. If you don’t have lots of time and a solid source of income, don’t try and publish a book.

When I first started out I bought a half dozen books on marketing in general and marketing books specifically. The only one I reference constantly is by Fern Reiss. It’s part of her The Publishing Game series, Bestseller in 30 days. I don’t do all the suggested activities, mainly because the book is gear for non-fiction adult titles, but I do all the ones applicable for the children’s fiction market. In fact, the biggest complaint I have against book publishing and market advice in books or on web site is that so little of it can be used to market a children’s title. It makes me feel as if I have to reinvent the wheel.

What’s your dream for Magical Child Books? Where do you want to be a year from now? Five years? Ten?

My dream for Magical Child Books is to achieve the reputation of a quality small press in the children’s book industry. I want the press and the books we produce to be taken seriously by the other professionals in the children’s book market. Someday, I’d like to be contacted by the editors of The Writers and Illustrators Children’s Book Market for listing in their annual publication. Having our name included in the listings will open up a lot of avenues that are closed to us now.

Our 1-year plan is just to sell more books. We’ve put out 4 books in 18 months. It’s a huge investment, and we need to make some of it back before we can even entertain any new titles. Children’s picture books take several years to get ready to publish, and right now we don’t have a new title in the works for 2010. We may not come out with one unless a really great story comes to our attention. So far all the submissions we’ve received were not even close to what we are requesting on our web site. Sadly, the last one arrived with the name of the company spelled wrong. I mean really wrong, not just a typo. I put a lot into my books I expect any author or illustrator we may end up hiring to have the same drive for quality. I may look five years into the future when the titles I already have out are all holding their own, but right now I’m just aiming to end the year in the black. It’s going to be really tough, sales for all retailers and even the big publishers have been terrible this year. People are feeling the pinch because of the economy, and book sales are slumping. I just want to keep Magical Child Books healthy enough to see an upturn in the economy and be there when it happens.

Faith Axel can be reached through the Magical Child Books website.