The Tears and Triumphs of a New Author
Chapter 16
In about 10 days, UPS showed up with a package from Authorhouse –my author’s copy!
It is a long and arduous process from conceptualization to writing to editing and finally, to waiting for the finished product.
We excitedly opened the package and held in our hand the fruits of our labors.
Lady Justice wasn’t just a figment of my imagination anymore ---she was real!
Feelings of joy, pride, accomplishment and fulfillment flooded us as we held our new creation.
Not to be overdramatic or to trivialize the comparison, but the feeling was not unlike bringing new life into the world.
We hugged and laughed and examined our baby from cover to cover. She was beautiful --- everything we had hoped for.
I had received an email from Authorhouse saying they would not start production of our order until we had received and approved our author copy. I sent the email and called my book sales representative. By this time it was nearing the end of October and my goal was to have the books in hand for the Christmas shopping season, so I begged her to rush the order and she said she would.
During this down time, two things happened:
First, my mind wouldn’t shut down and the next adventures of Walt, Maggie and the other senior characters started popping out. I began writing the sequel to Lady Justice before the first book was in print.
Second, Peg and I spent hours on our deck, rocking and planning our sales campaign. Since the story was senior oriented, we decided on book signings at every senior citizens complex within 100 miles. We now live in a small rural town, but spent most of our life in the Metro Kansas City area, and we knew of dozens of libraries that could host a signing for us. And, of course, we were sure that once the book was available, all the bookstores would be excited to sponsor a local author.
So we rocked on our deck and planned and dreamed --- moving a thousand books would be a piece of cake.
My philosophy has always been, “If you can dream it, you can achieve it”. Unfortunately, sometimes reality gets in the way.
Finally, the day arrived and we saw the UPS truck coming down the driveway. He backed up to the garage and started unloading box after box after box. When it was all over and 1,065 books were stacked in our garage, we looked at each other and a wave of panic hit us.
What have we done?
Monday, January 18, 2010
Sunday, January 10, 2010
The Tears and Triumphs of a New Author - Chapter 15
The Tears and Triumphs of a New Author
Chapter 15
My manuscript was now in the hands of “Team Pearl” of Authorhouse.
I had negotiated a “rapid release” in the package I purchased. Knowing that most publishers state in their website, “ If we accept your book, we will publish within 2 years”, I wondered if rapid release meant a year and a half.
Imagine my surprise when I received an email in just one week with my completed galley and cover.
The next step was to read the whole thing again looking for errors or editing we had missed.
We were told that everything was on hold until we either accepted what had been sent or submitted corrections.
We were cautioned that once we sent our approval, it would cost our firstborn child to make any other corrections. We felt pretty secure since we were both over 65.
Finding no glaring errors, I sent the email confirming acceptance of the galley and cover and we were on to production.
I was told I would receive my author’s copy in about a week.
With Authorhouse, I was given the right to set my retail price and I was given a program to calculate my royalty based on varying retail prices.
Tough decision.
Naturally, anyone wants to make as much as possible but if the book is priced too high, no one will buy it.
I decided on $10.95 for the paperback and $14.95 for the hardcover, my royalty being just over a dollar a book.
At that point, I was introduced to two new departments at Authorhouse, marketing and book sales.
The package I purchased included a marketing kit and a book signing kit. I was sent an email requesting the verbiage I wanted on the materials. The marketing kit contained flyers, postcards and business cards and the book signing kit contained a large poster, bookmarks and more postcards. We decided on the verbiage and sent the email.
My next contact was the gal in charge of selling me my own book. Her first order of business was to negotiate a price per book depending on the number of books I wanted to order. I informed her that I had already negotiated a price and told her the terms. She seemed surprised and asked that I forward the email with the negotiated price, which I did.
In a few days she responded and said they would honor the price for an order of 1,000 books or more. I asked for a price breakdown on lesser amounts and the increase per book was astronomical!
I had negotiated two cents per page plus $1.28 for the cover, making my 180 page novel cost $4.88. With shipping, my price per book was $5.35.
If I was going to sell books on my own, it only made sense to order a thousand.
What the heck! In for a dime, in for a dollar, and I placed the order.
Chapter 15
My manuscript was now in the hands of “Team Pearl” of Authorhouse.
I had negotiated a “rapid release” in the package I purchased. Knowing that most publishers state in their website, “ If we accept your book, we will publish within 2 years”, I wondered if rapid release meant a year and a half.
Imagine my surprise when I received an email in just one week with my completed galley and cover.
The next step was to read the whole thing again looking for errors or editing we had missed.
We were told that everything was on hold until we either accepted what had been sent or submitted corrections.
We were cautioned that once we sent our approval, it would cost our firstborn child to make any other corrections. We felt pretty secure since we were both over 65.
Finding no glaring errors, I sent the email confirming acceptance of the galley and cover and we were on to production.
I was told I would receive my author’s copy in about a week.
With Authorhouse, I was given the right to set my retail price and I was given a program to calculate my royalty based on varying retail prices.
Tough decision.
Naturally, anyone wants to make as much as possible but if the book is priced too high, no one will buy it.
I decided on $10.95 for the paperback and $14.95 for the hardcover, my royalty being just over a dollar a book.
At that point, I was introduced to two new departments at Authorhouse, marketing and book sales.
The package I purchased included a marketing kit and a book signing kit. I was sent an email requesting the verbiage I wanted on the materials. The marketing kit contained flyers, postcards and business cards and the book signing kit contained a large poster, bookmarks and more postcards. We decided on the verbiage and sent the email.
My next contact was the gal in charge of selling me my own book. Her first order of business was to negotiate a price per book depending on the number of books I wanted to order. I informed her that I had already negotiated a price and told her the terms. She seemed surprised and asked that I forward the email with the negotiated price, which I did.
In a few days she responded and said they would honor the price for an order of 1,000 books or more. I asked for a price breakdown on lesser amounts and the increase per book was astronomical!
I had negotiated two cents per page plus $1.28 for the cover, making my 180 page novel cost $4.88. With shipping, my price per book was $5.35.
If I was going to sell books on my own, it only made sense to order a thousand.
What the heck! In for a dime, in for a dollar, and I placed the order.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
The Tears and Triumphs of a New Author - Chapter 14
The Tears and Triumphs of a New Author
Chapter 14
Now that we had selected our publisher, Authorhouse, and tested the market, it was time to pay the piper and get the book in print.
We paid our fee and soon began receiving e-mails.
The first was from the team assigned to transform our manuscript from a word document to a real book. The e-mail was quite lengthy and gave us detailed submission instructions including type size, indentions, spacing, page breaks, etc. PAGE BREAKS! WHAT’S THAT?
Back to the Internet. After reading everything we could find relating to their instructions, it was back to editing.
We had opted not to pay the HUGE fee for professional editing, so my poor wife and I had been over the manuscript a bazillion times. Each time we found corrections. It’s amazing how many times you can read something and whiz right by glaring errors.
So we read it again, and again, and again, until we were relatively comfortable that all the commas, quotes and page breaks were in the right place.
My poor sweetie read the whole thing at least eight times. She’s a trooper!
The next challenge was the full color cover. This was included in our package price. We had been working on ideas during the writing process and knew with a title like Lady Justice Takes a C.R.A.P., we needed a “wow” cover.
My wife and I have a combined 51 years in real estate sales and I am blessed to have a partner who has mastered Photoshop and Publisher and has created beautiful postcards and flyers.
Authorhouse gave us a website to look for images to use on our cover. We soon discovered that it would cost us $100 to purchase the rights to an image at that site. Wow!
Back to the Internet. We found www.Dreamstime.com and purchased the rights to the perfect image for our book for $5.00. It pays to shop.
Peg put together a beautiful cover.
We attached the manuscript and cover to an e-mail, and pressed “send” and our journey had begun.
Chapter 14
Now that we had selected our publisher, Authorhouse, and tested the market, it was time to pay the piper and get the book in print.
We paid our fee and soon began receiving e-mails.
The first was from the team assigned to transform our manuscript from a word document to a real book. The e-mail was quite lengthy and gave us detailed submission instructions including type size, indentions, spacing, page breaks, etc. PAGE BREAKS! WHAT’S THAT?
Back to the Internet. After reading everything we could find relating to their instructions, it was back to editing.
We had opted not to pay the HUGE fee for professional editing, so my poor wife and I had been over the manuscript a bazillion times. Each time we found corrections. It’s amazing how many times you can read something and whiz right by glaring errors.
So we read it again, and again, and again, until we were relatively comfortable that all the commas, quotes and page breaks were in the right place.
My poor sweetie read the whole thing at least eight times. She’s a trooper!
The next challenge was the full color cover. This was included in our package price. We had been working on ideas during the writing process and knew with a title like Lady Justice Takes a C.R.A.P., we needed a “wow” cover.
My wife and I have a combined 51 years in real estate sales and I am blessed to have a partner who has mastered Photoshop and Publisher and has created beautiful postcards and flyers.
Authorhouse gave us a website to look for images to use on our cover. We soon discovered that it would cost us $100 to purchase the rights to an image at that site. Wow!
Back to the Internet. We found www.Dreamstime.com and purchased the rights to the perfect image for our book for $5.00. It pays to shop.
Peg put together a beautiful cover.
We attached the manuscript and cover to an e-mail, and pressed “send” and our journey had begun.
Friday, January 1, 2010
The Tears and Triumphs of a New Author - Chapter 13
The Tears and Triumphs of a New Author
Chapter 13
Having determined that we were going to publish with Authorhouse and negotiated a price, we decided to give the book a test run before we spent the big bucks.
We printed the manuscript and took it to OfficeMax and had ten copies printed and spiral bound. We distributed the copies to friends and family and held our breath.
Mixed reviews.
One copy went to my 46 year old son who was a 22 year police veteran. He immediately pointed out that police departments in the real world don’t operate like depicted in my story. DUH! I reminded him that this was not a “true crime” drama, but a comedy/mystery. It doesn’t have to be real! Naturally, I was disappointed, but then they gave the manuscript to my daughter-in-law’s eighty-something grandmother who LOVED IT. Right On!
We gave a copy to another published writer in our small town. Her book was an autobiography of her life growing up and published by a Christian based publisher. She liked the book but couldn’t give us a review at that time because of off-color language. OOPS!
We gave a copy to some “senior” friends of ours who are avid readers and own an orchard on the highway to Branson, Mo. When they read the chapter where Walt and Maggie take a trip to Branson, they wondered why they didn’t stop at the orchard, so I re-wrote the chapter to include the orchard. They loved it!
We gave a copy to Peg’s 87 year old mother who lives in a retirement village and reads a novel every two days. She has read hundreds of books and knows every author. She was the one who needed to love it because she was our target audience. She absolutely ate it up and passed it around the complex for her other senior friends to read. She said one lady laughed so hard she almost peed her pants. BINGO!
We soon discovered you can’t please everyone, but we pleased our target audience and you can’t beat that.
FULL SPEED AHEAD!
Chapter 13
Having determined that we were going to publish with Authorhouse and negotiated a price, we decided to give the book a test run before we spent the big bucks.
We printed the manuscript and took it to OfficeMax and had ten copies printed and spiral bound. We distributed the copies to friends and family and held our breath.
Mixed reviews.
One copy went to my 46 year old son who was a 22 year police veteran. He immediately pointed out that police departments in the real world don’t operate like depicted in my story. DUH! I reminded him that this was not a “true crime” drama, but a comedy/mystery. It doesn’t have to be real! Naturally, I was disappointed, but then they gave the manuscript to my daughter-in-law’s eighty-something grandmother who LOVED IT. Right On!
We gave a copy to another published writer in our small town. Her book was an autobiography of her life growing up and published by a Christian based publisher. She liked the book but couldn’t give us a review at that time because of off-color language. OOPS!
We gave a copy to some “senior” friends of ours who are avid readers and own an orchard on the highway to Branson, Mo. When they read the chapter where Walt and Maggie take a trip to Branson, they wondered why they didn’t stop at the orchard, so I re-wrote the chapter to include the orchard. They loved it!
We gave a copy to Peg’s 87 year old mother who lives in a retirement village and reads a novel every two days. She has read hundreds of books and knows every author. She was the one who needed to love it because she was our target audience. She absolutely ate it up and passed it around the complex for her other senior friends to read. She said one lady laughed so hard she almost peed her pants. BINGO!
We soon discovered you can’t please everyone, but we pleased our target audience and you can’t beat that.
FULL SPEED AHEAD!
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