For the past three months, Bryce Beattie, of the StoryHack blog, has been compiling and posting The Self Published Carnival. I’ve been a bit delinquent (as if you all didn’t already know that), so I just finally got around to looking over them in greater detail. They are fabulous! From writing to editing to marketing and more, the links on these carnivals are a treasure trove of helpful tips and tools for the self-publisher:

The Self Published Carnival #1

The Self Published Carnival #2

The Self Published Carnival #3

One of the magazines I started getting automatically once I registered my publishing business/book is Book Business. In their current issue, I was especially interested in the following statistics under the heading “Who is Reading Books?” in one of the articles. Here is what they reported:

• The average age of today’s book reader is 44, but 50 is the average age of the most frequent book buyer.
• 58 percent of readers are women; 42 percent are men.
• Women purchase 65 percent of books.
• 50 percent of Americans ages 13 and older bought a book last year.
• 41 percent of all books purchased are by buyers earning less than $35,000/year.
• $10.08 is the average price paid for a book last year.
• 31 percent of in-store or online purchases are impulse buys.

(Statistics presented by Kelly Gallagher, general manager, Business Intelligence, for R.R. Bowker and chair of BISG’s research committee.)

In an effort to continue to learn and develop more effective marketing strategies, I just finished the book, Marketing Strategies for Writers by Michael Sedge. The book is primarily geared toward those who have or are launching full-time careers as freelance writers, so not all of it was relevant to my situation. Here are some key quotes and thoughts that I pulled from its pages, though:

“The long-term goal of any good business plan is to consistently expand your market share.” p.18

“Concentrate on ‘thinking’ like a marketer. Opportunities are everywhere. The difference between success and failure is often your ability to recognize and take advantage of these situations.” p.24

“The first thing you must do to achieve marketing success is to step into the shoes of your customer, figuratively speaking. Always take the approach of ‘How can I help you?’ rather than ‘How can you help me?’ p.26

Ask, “Who am I? What do I have to offer?” [Sedge recommends making a list of qualifications and experiences that make you uniquely qualified to offer various services, articles, angles, etc.] p. 29

Two keys to keep in mind: 1. Be constantly looking for a need to fill; 2. the importance of networking cannot be underestimated. p.37

“You must never, ever call an editor [insert media rep, agent, bookstore owner, etc. for a self-publisher] with a vague idea or no idea at all.” p.59

“Have the mindset to consistently take initiatives. Never stop…and never, never, never take an initiative without following up.” p. 156

List your five major audiences and the five major ways you plan to reach each one of them (idea from John Kremer’s 5×5 matrix marketing plan). p.216

Last weekend, I experienced my first out-of-town book-related event for Pajama School. My sister and I traversed to the adjacent state of Colorado where I had secured a booth as a vendor at their annual state homeschool conference. A costly sum was required for a booth, but with approximately 4,000 attendees I was hopeful that I would sell enough books to break even.

The Vendor Hall opened at 5:00 on Thursday evening and remained open until 8:00. In those three hours I didn’t have a single sale, although I did have some wonderful conversations with other vendors and conference-goers. I also utilized this time to closely observe people and make notes for improvement. One thing that was peculiar to me was that many people looked at the back of the booth to see what the sign said (the sign identified the booth name and number), but then passed by without even looking at the display table(s) in the booth. I gleaned from this observation the importance of having an eye-catching banner that would draw people in (which I did not). Since that could not be remedied by the next day, I had to come up with an alternate idea if I hoped to sell any books.

So, Friday morning I arrived first thing at the conference, armed with my new approach: a brief 4-question survey. The idea was that I could collect answers to homeschooling-related questions of interest to me, generate conversations, distribute business cards for the Pajama School website, and hopefully sell books. The first three objectives were met quite nicely, but the fourth…not so much. It took me a little while to work up the nerve to stop people and ask them to take the survey – mainly because I don’t like to feel like I’m imposing on people. There were a few people who declined, but most people were more than willing to answer the questions. This helped build my confidence considerably.

It was curious to me how many people got genuinely excited about my book and exclaimed profusely about the need for it, but then walked off without purchasing it. I think if I was a better salesman, I could have turned some of that interest into sales, but I know how much I react to pushy salespeople, so I didn’t want to come anywhere close to earning that sort of a reputation. Instead, I just did my best to communicate effectively and encourage people, and then prayed that God would impress on their hearts to purchase the book. This resulted in a total of five books sold on Friday.

Saturday morning, it quickly became apparent that most people were in too much of a hurry to participate in the survey, so I adjusted my approach to just handing out business cards and giving a 15-20 second spiel about the book. This captured several people’s interest enough that they came over to the table and looked more intently at the book. Again, though, the interest it generated far exceeded the actual sales. Saturday’s sales total: five books.

Thus ended the conference – we packed up all but 12 of the books that we brought with us (in addition to the 10 sold, we traded 2 for books from 2 other vendors). There is certainly an element of discouragement in such an experience (not to mention a considerable loss of money!), and several of my other marketing strategies have fallen through as well. But I firmly believe, as John Quincy Adams said, “Duty is ours; results are God’s.” It’s proving to be a lot of hard work to learn how to market and sell my books, but I’ve still got 2,000+ in our garage that have got to go. So, let the work continue!

Whether I’m mailing in paperwork, making a phone call, or sending off an e-mail, one important realization to keep in mind is that it’s just another person on the other end. Especially when working with large companies, it’s easy to get lost in the idea that it’s some inanimate organism with no personal element. This perspective may result in sloppy work, stiff conversations, or canned-sounding correspondence.

As a self-publisher, you will have to make a lot of connections with bookstores – both local shops and big chains, distribution companies, news media outlets, niche market bloggers, and more. This can seem overwhelming and intimidating! But if you keep in mind that in every instance it is just a person on the other end, and ultimately it is a person (or a group of people) who will make the decisions regarding your book, it makes it easier to branch out and attempt connections that might otherwise seem impossible.

Whenever communicating with others, here are some thoughts to keep in mind:

• Be professional, but personable.
• Express appreciation for their time and service.
• Jot quick handwritten notes of thanks when appropriate.
• Be prompt and thorough in responses, and take whatever steps of action are recommended.
• Be respectful, even when you receive negative responses. (i.e. don’t burn any bridges!)
• If possible, familiarize yourself with the person or organization so that you are more aware of how your book will appeal to them, and how you can add value to what you are offering them.

We’ve sent a number of press releases about Pajama School – stories from the life of a homeschool graduate to local media outlets and to national homeschool association leaders, but now I’m keeping my eye open for other opportune connections. For example, USA Today ran an article the end of last week about homeschooling. The story was written by Greg Toppo (the national K-12 education reporter for USA Today), so I began looking for a way to contact him directly. The search proved highly unsuccessful. There is no handy list of editors with contact forms on the USA Today website, and none of the articles include a link to connect directly with the writer. I did find what appears to be his facebook page, but this seems like a highly inappropriate way to go about making the connection. 🙂

In my search, I came across this helpful list of recommendations on How to Send a Press Release. Apparently, it’s akin to spam to send press releases to an editor without making prior contact. There is a drop down menu option of Press Release on this feedback page, but it seems less than professional to copy and paste a press release into that form field. And the probability of it being routed to and read by the appropriate editor seems pretty low since there has been no previous personal contact. So, that’s my dilemma of the day. Any thoughts or advice?

I’ve been so bad about keeping up with this blog for a couple of months that it’s hard to know where to pick up! However, one of the biggest questions aspiring self-publishers face is where to get their books printed. Since I had such wonderful experiences with the two printers I used, I thought I would give a little background info and pass them along as resources.

There are two primary types of printing available: Print-on-demand (POD), or offset printing. Even though POD is becoming increasingly popular, I knew that because of quality, interior layout, and cost considerations, I wanted to do an offset print job for the official print run of Pajama School. So I began contacting different printers, giving them my specs, and getting quotes. Here’s the information you need to be prepared to give in order to get a quote (I’ll demonstrate by including the specs I chose for my book:

Book size/Trim size: 5.5 x 8.5
Number of Pages: 336 (Early on I just had to guess how many pages the book was going to be; I started with 256 and had to get an updated quote once I knew for sure how many pages it was.)
Quantity: 2,500 (I got quotes on several different quantities and compared them to see what was the most realistic and cost-effective.)
Text: one-color (black) on 45# hybrid white (444ppi) (I tossed around the idea of doing a brown ink interior, but it was significantly more expensive, so I opted to stick with black.)
Cover: 4-color on 10 Pt. C1S + lay-flat gloss film lamination
Binding: Adhesive bound soft cover
File type: printer-ready application and PDF files

If any of the above looks like a foreign language to you, I encourage you to order the free Publishing Basics Book. It includes some helpful information about different paper types, in addition to many other details. Also, the companies I contacted were more than happy to send me samples of various paper types and weights, and covers that they had printed. Do as much research as you can on your own, but then don’t be afraid to ask your printer contact for clarification or help understanding what the different specs mean.

Offset Printer Recommendation
It’s kind of a long (but amazing!) story of how the Lord led me to the company I chose for offset printing, but I would highly recommend them to any self-publisher! The company is called Jerico, LLC. and is based out of Sisters, Oregon. You can send an e-mail to Eric Weber if you are interested in getting a quote on your book project. Eric was extremely helpful and patient in answering my questions and explaining anything that I didn’t understand. He was always prompt in responding to e-mails (the only means of communication we ever had!), and went above and beyond what I expected to make sure that I was pleased with the final product.

Short-Run POD Printer Recommendation
Since I knew I wanted to do a small run of about 40 books to send out as Advance Review Copies, I also had to check into a POD option. The two main companies I had heard about were 360 Digital and Lightning Source. After filling out some forms, reading lots of information, and making contact with representatives at both places, I opted to go with Lightning Source. The process is very extensive (so brace yourself for the long-haul!), but the information is very thorough and I found the customer service to be excellent. Just be sure you read everything carefully and follow all the guidelines! I poured over tons of pdf files and all the help sections on the website to be sure that I understood what I was getting into and how to do it. Then I sent all the appropriate files and links to my cover designer and interior layout designer to make sure they knew how everything needed to be formatted and submitted.

Lightning Source provides other services for authors in addition to printing, but since I didn’t want to mass distribute digitally printed copies of Pajama School I didn’t utilize anything other than the actual printing. Using them for the first print run also gave us the opportunity to proof a hard copy of the book and make changes to the final manuscript before sending it to Jerico. It’s pretty costly to make changes once you receive the proof from the offset printer, so the more changes you can make ahead of time, the better!

Hopefully this information is helpful. I’m anticipating having some more time over the summer to post regular updates on this blog again. As I’m learning first-hand, once the book is printed and released, the work has just begun!

One of the things I have been doing some research into over the past several weeks is payment processing options. As long as I am doing on-line sales, what I’ve currently got set up through PayPal works just fine. But I’m also going to be doing some off-line sales and need a working solution for those who would want to pay via credit or debit card.

I had heard of a Christian company called Cornerstone Payment Systems that sounded promising, but after a week of failed attempts to submit their on-line form, and having two e-mails returned as undeliverable I gave up on that option. So today I started investigating the options through PayPal. The Virtual Terminal was looking like a viable option until I saw the pricing chart – $30/mo. fee + a per transaction fee of 3.1% + $0.30. Eek! Perhaps I will find that the pricing is competitive with what I would have to pay to use a credit card processing company, but I still have no idea. I can’t imagine making enough in book sales at this point for that to be a cost-effective solution!

Still need to do some more research, but I would love to know if anyone has any recommendations for credit card processing companies. Also, I’d love to get some input on whether you think it would mean a significant loss in sales if I opted not to accept credit/debit cards at this point for offline sales. I just have a single book, priced at $14.99. Is it unreasonable in this day and age to limit people to paying with only cash or check? Any advice or opinions?

Wow…I can’t believe it’s been almost a month since my last post! It’s certainly not due to a lack of working on book-related projects. I have lots of things I want to post, and some really helpful links I want to share, but for the moment I thought I’d just post this list of Top 10 Reasons to Self-Publish. The inspiration came to me quite suddenly this week in the aftermath of the arrival of my truckload of Pajama School books (hooray!) and as I thought back over the long process that it took to arrive at this point. Enjoy! 🙂

1. You’ve always heard people complain about high levels of stress in their jobs and you’d like to experience some of that first hand.

2. You have too much money sitting in your savings account and would rather take the risk of printing a couple thousand books, having no idea whether they will sell or not.

3. You’ve gotten a little too comfortable with your current skills and responsibilities and want to try something new that will make you constantly feel like you don’t have a clue what you’re doing.

4. You think you’d enjoy the mental stimulation of juggling all the details that publishing houses usually employ 25 different people to handle.

5. You want to test the love and loyalty of your family by periodically acting like a crazy wreck and seeing how many times they are willing to help pick up the pieces of your emotional wreckage.

6. You get a thrill out of doing cost comparisons and trying to figure out what supplies you will need for order shipping and where to purchase them and how to ship them.

7. You love filling out on-line applications and waiting for days to have your accounts approved and/or updated so you can cross items off your to-do list and move to the next item.

8. You’re feeling a little rusty on your math skills and want to spend hours calculating how much square footage your order of books will require and what size boxes you’ll need in order to ship the various quantities that will be ordered by customers and wholesalers.

9. Your current workload is too light and you wish you had a list of extra projects to fill all of your free time. In fact, you’re curious to try eliminating sleep from your regular routine and see how long you can maintain your sanity.

10. You have dreams of spending the rest of your life doing shameless self-promotion and exploring every possible marketing strategy to hopefully sell all those books you’re storing and maybe even reclaim some of your life savings.

If I felt last month like I was going to need a house to store the inventory of 2500 books, this month, I feel like I’ve just put a down payment on a house! All the self-publishing books warned me that I should expect to spend approximately $10,000 the first year in order to launch my book – Pajama School. I almost choked the first time I read that figure. At least I had the forewarning, though! In light of that information, I basically put myself on a spending freeze beginning last summer so that I could funnel as much money as possible into my savings account. I usually operate on a pretty slim margin as it is, but I started foregoing almost everything but the basic necessities so that I could afford to self-publish my book.

Well, now I can say that it was worth it! Yesterday, I wrote the check to the printing company for 50% of the final print cost. As soon as the books arrive, I’ll write a check for the remaining 50%. As much as the careful planning and saving helped, though, I could not have reached this point if it weren’t also for the Lord’s provision through the unexpected generosity of some amazing benefactors. I believe the Lord has called me to write this book, and He has led the way even when I didn’t think it was possible!

As a word of advice, though, to others who are planning to self-publish. Don’t underestimate what it will cost to produce a high-quality book! Start researching, cost-comparison shopping, and – above all – saving as soon as possible! 🙂