Self-Publishing: Running the Numbers

According to Jerry Waxler, author of the Memory Writers Network blog, “I have been attending writing conferences for years, where the advice from established writers has always been to look at self-publishing as a last resort. That advice is now officially ended.”

Interest in self-publishing has never been higher, and it’s entirely doable today. In fact, it’s entirely possible to use a Print-On-Demand (POD) do-it-yourself service like Amazon’s Createspace subsidiary to produce a single volume without investing a single penny in anything other than the cost of printing and shipping.

This no-investment option is perfect for people who are only interested in producing a handful of books for family and friends. It becomes more complicated and challenging when you have a story you want to have noticed (and bought!) by the general public. To gain the attention and respect of the general public takes more time, effort, and – let’s face it – investment of time and/or cash. Below is an overview of publishing elements you absolutely must attend to if you want to have a professional-quality manuscript that will receive the notice you strive for:

Editing
It’s absolutely necessary to have more than one mind and two eyes involved. At the very least you'll need four to six astute "beta readers." At the very most you'll need a professional editor. I use beta readers to check the professional editor's work!

Layout and Design
I've seen some ugly, sloppy books from indie (independent) presses. I mark them down in reviews, and won’t buy from that company or author again. Layout isn't rocket science, but especially if you do it with Word, it takes a huge amount of patience and ability to attend to detail. If you use graphics, you add another dimension of complexity. Precise placement on book-size pages, with controlled wrapping – it’s enough to drive even an experienced user screaming into the night.

You may not even know about details like page and chapter headers, publication data page, Table of Contents (do you need this?) line spacing ... all things that differentiate a professionally produced volume. If you want a commercially viable book, you may need help attending to these details.

Cover
Covers are critical! People see the cover. Even if they don’t judge you book by it, they will form a first impression, whether on Amazon, the shelves of bookstores, or in the library. If you create your own cover, bone up on what needs to be where, and use focus groups of friends to refine it.

Promotion
If you want your book to be noticed, you'll have to send out lots of review copies. To whom? You’ll want too a blog tour. Which blogs? Promotion is a never-ending challenge with more facets than a diamond. You may want to use a publicist.

Cost
All of these services add up. For a 200 page book (around 50,000 words), depending on the level of need, editing will run an average of $3000, maybe more. Layout and design may be another $500 or more. Add another $200 for the cover. With shipping from the printer to you and then to to the reader, 40 review copies will run around $9 each, for a total of $360. So ... you have an investment of around $3000.

You’ll also want to spend about $120 to buy your own ISBN. You can get one for free, but using your own lets become an independent publisher with a name of your choosing. If you use the free one, the Print-On-Demand service will be listed as the publisher. 

A website is another requirement. That will cost another $80 or so per year for a hosted web domain. You'll probably want to pay someone at least $300 to design your site.

Bottom Line

Editing Layout ISBN Review copies Website Web hosting (annual)

$3000 500 120 360 300      80 $4360

Now assume you set the price of that book at $17. The cost to print on a per-copy basis will be around $8, plus shipping to you, so we'll modestly assume your actual net on a per copy basis will be about $7. To recoup your investment, you'll need to sell 623 copies! That's fairly modest, and if you've invested all that income and get decent reviews, it’s an achievable goal. Income from additional sales can go to buy a new computer and fund your celebration party. Book sales probably won’t fund your retirement!

You can control costs by doing a larger print run, but then you also have to store 1000 books (they come 48 to a box, and the boxes are about the size of a small microwave. Figure out where you'll put 22 of those boxes) and cartons of shipping envelopes. You’ll need to mail books out as they are ordered, plus ship supplies to Amazon and ... you'll probably want to invest in fulfillment services which will eat up most of your savings, maybe more. 

That's the reality of self-publishing. If you master layout skills, or barter your layout services for Susie's editorial eye, you trade time, and conserve cash. Which is more important? Which do you have the most of?

These are all factors to consider as you determine whether you really want to publish your own book, and the value of packages of support services if you do.

Write now: spend some time journaling about your hopes and dreams for your book. Run some numbers and think things over. Balance the option of a simpler book for a narrower audience versus making that big splash. Follow your dreams, but don’t walk into total fog.  

If I Had My Life to Live Over . . .

for one or more “do-overs” — would I really want that?

These questions remind me of a book a friend recently passed along to me: If I had my life to live over, I would pick more daisies. It’s not a new book but the content is classic, timeless in its truth. Editor Sandra Martz crammed every page with amazing poems and stories written about things the authors might do differently if they had a Do-Over. The stories are rich, poignant and brave.

Memories and stories of things we might want to change are chock full of juicy story seeds, just waiting to sprout. Few topics can provide such fertile beds for spinning tales of truth like regrets, and few topics provide as much opportunity to spin our truth in any of several directions. One thing about the stories in this book that make them powerful for me is that the authors never say straight out that they regret their choices. They just tell the story leaving me room to consider my own reactions.

Some people hesitate to write simple stories, thinking they “should” be writing book-length memoirs. If you harbor such thoughts, be done with them! Find a copy of this book – quite likely it’s in your library – and experience the power of a simple story.

So, I ask first, what would you do differently if you had your life to live over? And also, would you want to have “do-overs”?

Write now: Think of some decision or action you regret and write the story. Take your time and rewrite it as many times as it takes to make it as powerful and poignant as it can be. You don’t have to show it to anyone, but write it as if you will. Who knows? You may change your mind, sooner or later.

Or, write an essay about your reasons to for wanting or not wanting “do-overs” on all or part of your life.

The Power of Song

Today I rode along with my husband to a distant dental office so we could continue on to do some shopping in that part of town after his appointment. Although I had not paid the least bit of attention to the background music, “The One that You Love” by Air Supply suddenly punched its way into my awareness as I sat reading in the waiting room.

For a few bars I sat stock still, listening with every fiber of my being, memory fragments flashing to the fore. I recalled a certain red suit I haven’t thought of for years and the open-toe slides I wore with it. I was transported back to our newly finished family room in Richland, a room I have not entered for twenty-six years. Rather strangely, no specific events or activities came to mind, but a flood of feelings hit me.

Following a hunch, I pawed through my purse and found a small sheet of paper and pen. I pegged the song as a 1982 hit (when I got home, I discovered it was actually 1981). I allowed the music to transport me back to that room on a bright May day, wearing that favorite suit and shoes. After soaking in the sound for a minute, I began jotting down the feelings and attitudes that came to mind.

Rather surprisingly, the first word that popped out of my pen was “foxy.” I don’t recall ever feeling foxy back then, but maybe it was just convenient to ignore that feeling. Mostly I felt wide open to ideas and opportunity, eager to learn and grow, and generally satisfied with the way life was unfolding and the progress my children were making.

But it wasn’t all sunshine and light. I also recalled feeling more than a little like I was acting from a script more than from self. I wasn’t exactly sure who self was yet, but hoped I was learning. I wasn’t sure I knew enough. And so on.

Of course as I brought these feelings to awareness and savored their nuances, certain events and experiences did speed across my mind.  I could have jotted those down, but should I decide to write in more depth later, I’ll remember them easily enough. The greater challenge would be to capture my mindset of that era, to get back into the character of me in that moment.

Fortunately my young teenage sons were seriously into Abba, Air Supply and Blondie, and I enjoyed them equally as much, so that music works like a charm, opening wide a portal to the past to revitalize the truth of those times and allow me to write of it with passion and depth.

Write now: pull out a favorite tune from forty or fifty years ago, or your teenage years (YouTube is full of music videos from bygone eras). Listen to it with pen and paper in hand. Play the song through one time while you relax with your eyes shut and allow the music to wash over you and send you back to that period in your life. Then play it again and note the feelings and memories that bubble to the surface. Use these notes to enrich a story about some event that comes to mind.

The Inside Dope

All of us, especially those of us who live in the public eye, have plenty of stories that can be told from a number of angles. There’s at least the public story, as told in press releases and articles, and there’s the “real” story as you experienced it. The “inside dope” story is the juicy one. When you write your life story, you have a chance to take your readers on a back stage tour and tell them “the rest of the story.” Here’s a purely fictitious example of the difference, adapted from a story told by management guru Tom Peters:

Press Release (Summary):
Credit card executive hops on a plane on the spur of the moment to fly to Africa to hand deliver a replacement card to Very Important Customer after canoeing up a raging river in the middle of a jungle full of crocodiles, rhinos, tsetse flies and malarial mosquitoes, with no regard for personal comfort, danger, cost or inconvenience to himself, his family, his company, or his community. What a hero! What service!
Inside Dope Story:
I’d always dreamed of a trip to Africa. I remember watching Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen, piloting that boat down the river in the face all those obstacles. What a man! I wanted to be there, to do that, but I never had time. There was always another deal to close, another fire to put out, another promotion to launch, another golf tournament or deadly benefit dinner to attend. Then one night Phil and I got to talking about his upcoming safari, just the two of us, over Glen Livet and Cuban cigars. I admitted how much I envied him and wished I could go along. Suddenly his eyes flashed the way they do when he thinks of a way to pull of a takeover or something, and a smile spread from ear to ear.
“Jack, I have this strong premonition I’m going to lose my credit card in Nairobi. Why don’t you hop on the company jet and personally bring your firm’s best client a new one? Hell, can you think of a better PR stunt? I’ll have a few extra guns and provisions. We’ll have the time of our lives, and every cent will be a write-off!”
How could I not? Of course neither one of us told anyone. We couldn’t afford to have it look staged. Actually, by the time he got there, he’d arranged to take off up some river so I’d have to follow him and make it look even better. He really did a great job of setting everything up, and even better, giving me the adventure I’d been dying for and something to live for, at least for a few weeks. I love that man like a brother!
The timing was perfect. Genevieve was on another of her frequent jaunts to Paris, shopping for more designer rags to wear to the boring benefits. I always have a back-up on call for appearances at Rotary clubs and other routine events, “in case of emergency,” real or convenient. And of course when the time came, marketing and PR went absolutely ape over this idea, and I’ll admit, it was a stroke of genius. I mean, leaking word to Tom Peters … absolutely brilliant! And of course Peters was slobbering like a St. Bernard. This was the sort of story he’d kill for. But that’s what I pay those guys for, to plant the seeds in fertile fields. I have a hunch a few people had their suspicions about the whole deal, but nobody said a word. After all, it paid handsome dividends, thanks especially to Peters. That’s what I get paid for — to field a team that can pull this stuff off.
Now, let me tell you about the trip…
You may have thoughts about which of those stories is True. In their own way, each is. Your life may not be quite as glamorous or your stakes as high, but you surely have some stories that can be told more than one way and make better reading from the inside. Write ‘em up. Come clean. Your family and the world want to know.
Write Now: Think of a story you’ve always told one way in public. Perhaps it’s one of your trademark stories, one that “everybody” knows about you. But you know there’s more to the story. Write the story with “the inside dope.”
Photo: Sharon Lippincott

Beware of the Elephants

I had a head start on Memorial Day. Four weeks ago my siblings and I gathered with our spouses and most of our offspring to celebrate our father’s 90th birthday. I joked with him that being at the party was a little like attending his own funeral, because he got to hear so many people recount flattering memories of him. He laughingly agreed. It was a little like attending his own funeral in a couple of other odd ways: it took place in an events center in the cemetery, and he wore a black suit – a story we’ll be telling for a couple of generations.

Not surprisingly, the entire weekend was full of stories of long ago. The ones we talked about were the good times, but I’m sure I wasn’t the only one making choices about which ones to bring up. I know we aren’t the only family with a herd of wild elephants living in our midst. There are the things we talk about and the things we let slide. in our case this seems fitting since, due to geographical diversity, we seldom see each other. (Twenty-five people convened from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, New Mexico, Texas, Illinois, Georgia, and Pennsylvania.)

On further thought I’ve realized that while it makes sense to stick to the smooth path at gatherings, the things we didn’t talk about contain the most meat and the juiciest story content. While we have plenty of hilariously funny stories, the gripping ones are guarded by the herd of elephants always nearby.

The question is how to go about this. Elephants can be dangerous, even deadly, as my husband and I learned from our guides in Chobe National Park in Botswana. Safari drivers are wary around elephants, keeping a respectful distance, a foot near the gas pedal, and avoiding confrontation whenever possible. Elephants are usually sedate, but you never know what will set one off, and they are a force to be reckoned with. Similar respect for relationship elephants is also well-advised.

Below is a list of suggestions for how to write honestly about the “good stuff” and still be welcome at family gatherings:

• Keep your writing private. This is always a safe strategy. You can always change your mind and share private material, but you can’t retract it once it’s been read.

• Limit distribution. As long as you confine readership to a limited audience such as a trusted writing group, you should be able to safely get the support and feedback you desire. You might also share with trusted family members, but that gets trickier. Things have a way of slipping out unexpectedly.

• Let the main characters read it privately. Sometimes reading a story is a powerful way of opening dialogues that otherwise would not take place, resulting in healed relationships and perhaps support for publishing your story more widely. But there are no guarantees. You’ll have to weigh the risks and make your own decision.

• Wait until the main character dies. You’ll probably outlive your parents, but depending on current ages, you may not want to wait that long. Ditto if your age group is involved.

• Wait until you die. If you are writing strictly for family, and especially if you have dark secrets of your own you’d prefer to to never confront, this may be a good choice. The Bridges of Madison County can shed light on this option, even though it is a novel rather than a memoir. Pay close attention to the reaction of the children Francesca leaves behind.

• Write your story as fiction. This option can free you to say a lot of things you might otherwise keep hidden. But do realize you’ll have to make drastic changes to keep insiders from inferring “the facts” behind your Truth.

• Tell your story to the world and let the chips fall where they may. You may find that it’s not nearly the big deal you thought it was.

Any number of variations are possible on these themes. Write your stories, privately at first, and then let your heart be your guide as you move down the path. Learn what you can from the writing, and then let compassion be your guide.

Write now: Recall some elephants from gatherings you have attended, whether they involve family or others. Write about these elephants, considering various points of view. See what you can learn from your stories, what new meaning may arise.

Photo: Sharon Lippincott

Don’t Get Tripped Up By Details

In life writing and memoir circles, Truth is always one of the hottest topics of discussion. In general, nearly everyone recognized that no two people see things quite the same way. The important thing is to write the story the way you remember it, to be true to your self. If people disagree, so be it. Suggest they write their own story.
Many details in your stories are a matter of personal memory, and there is no way to go back and check, so it’s your word against somebody else’s. There is no way to resolve such disputes, so write what you recall and let it go at that. However, there are a few instances involving verifiable facts where your memory can trip you up.
For example, I recently read a draft of a friend’s memoir. It included several paragraphs about Toastmasters. As it happens, I was an ardent member of Toastmasters for many years. I immediately noticed several discrepancies in the terminology used by my friend, whose involvement was relatively fleeting.
I just finished reading a book that mentioned Elmwood, a noteworthy historic house in Cambridge, Mass. I decided to locate Elmwood on Google Maps, and found it described in Wikipedia. The author stated that it was a nineteenth century residence. As I learned, it was built in 1767, a century earlier.
I mention these  seemingly petty points to show that there are some types of detail that people can check and call you on, and sooner or later somebody probably will. Fortunately these two examples are not the type of detail that will do any damage. For example, referring to Toastmaster evaluations as critiques will simply make it obvious to insiders that you weren’t seriously involved with the program, and in a way that error conveys a truth that’s far from damning. Misrepresenting the age of a building you admired from afar as a child – if that’s what you always understood or thought, hardly a problem.
Neither of these examples involve the sort of details authors would think to check. Other types it could matter more. For example, getting the dates of a ancestor or current relative’s birth or death wrong could set off all sorts of controversies among family genealogists in future years, and could cause friction sooner. Names matter (unless they have been deliberately changed). That’s the sort of thing you can check.
The best way to avoid errors like this in your final story is to check obvious facts yourself (that’s so much easier to do today than it would have been even ten years ago). Then follow my friend’s example and have a few people read final drafts to catch typos, find minor errors spell- and grammar-check overlook, and find flukes like this that you could never notice.
Write now: write about some of the landmarks you grew up noticing, including what you remember about their history. Then check them out to see if you find any surprises. You may be intrigued to learn all sorts of new information about them in the process and perhaps that will influence your story in some way. At least you’ll know your details are accurate. Another option is to pull out some old stories and do a little fact checking on ages, dates and similar details. 
Photo credit: Matt Brown

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Stories

What story does this picture tell? I was intrigued when I noticed it on A Writer’s Right to Keep Writing and followed the trail to bingobongo’s source image. I challenge each viewer to add a comment with a couple of sentences answering that question, and to do it before reading any of the other comments. I guarantee you that no two stories will be quite the same. Themes may emerge, but each story will have a unique twist. This illustrates that no two people see or understand the same way, and pictures require clear verbal communication to ensure that everybody is on the same page.

Now and then when we have a little extra time in a writing group, I pull out my folio of a few hundred pictures I’ve clipped to use as prompts for a freewriting exercise. Some are as simple as a single flower blossom. Others are complex scenes. Many feature people doing things or interacting with other people. The instructions are simple:

“Look through the pictures and select one that calls to you. Take a couple if you wish. Look at the picture for a minute or two, then start writing whatever story comes to mind.”

If we have lots of time, we may write for fifteen or twenty minutes, but more likely it will be five or six. No two people write about the same picture, so no two stories are the same. It wouldn’t matter if everyone wrote about the same picture. (No two stories would be the same.) People are always amazed at the depth and quality of the stories that emerge from this exercise. They tend to be rich in detail and highly personal. They always go home with dozens of new entries on their story idea lists.

Sometimes I use these pictures to start a story myself. They are great for smashing through a crusty case of Writer’s Block and they always result in stories I would not have thought to write on my own. Family photos are also a great source of story prompts.

If you want to start a collection of writing prompt pictures to use on your own or share with a group, assemble a selection of magazines, ideally with a wide variety of content and heavily illustrated. The pictures may be photos or any other art. I trim all the words. Other people leave words and sometimes incorporate them into the stories. I’ve used pictures from travel magazines and brochures, sports , history/culture (i.e. Smithsonian, Nat’l Geographic), home décor, cooking, parenting, news, and general interest magazines. Any size will do – half a page is ideal.

Another approach is to hit the web and search for pictures on sites like Flickr, Picasa, or Webshots. Select a topic and use Google’s Images tab to find pictures about it. Unless you plan to publish the picture, copyright doesn’t matter.

Write now:  just for fun or two overcome writer’s block, find one or more pictures and write about them. Begin a collection to share with a writing group, or invite a group f friends and neighbors to join you for an evening of writing fun.

Picture credit: bongobingo