The Tears and Triumphs of a New Author - Chapter 16

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?

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.

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.

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!

The Tears and Triumphs of a New Author - Chapter 12

The Tears and Triumphs of a New Author Chapter 12

After spending hours on the Internet checking self-publishing websites, we compiled a short list of five possibilities, which included Authorhouse, X-Libris and I-Universe.
As I was scrolling through the web pages, I found a page that read, “ don’t sign with Authorhouse until you read this”.
It turned out to be a page from the website of a publishing company called Dog Ear. They had a whole section of their website dedicated to comparing all of the packages of the top self-publishing companies side by side.
We found that each company offered multiple publishing programs from “bare bones” to “all the bells and whistles”.
The Dog Ear website compared the packages and prices of their various programs to that of their competitors. Just looking at the prices published on the various websites, it looked like Dog Ear was offering a pretty good deal.
Each website had a link to request more information and I sent my name and phone number to each company.
I soon received calls from each of them, eager to explain their services, programs and prices.
When they discovered I was not signing up immediately and that I was shopping several different publishers, I was informed that they were conducting a year-end close out (this was in September) and they could give me a special deal if I acted quickly. Imagine my surprise!
I soon started receiving e-mails detailing the “specials” and follow-up phone calls.
I have never been a hard-ass when it comes to buying something. I look at the product and the price and if it’s what I want and reasonable, I get it ---- if not, I don’t. But I soon found that if I shared with one publisher what I was offered by another, the deal became sweeter.
After a week or so of negotiations, I decided on Authorhouse. They are the largest company and offered the most for my money. I wound up with their most expensive, fully loaded package for $600 less than the website price.
The only company that would never negotiate the price was Dog Ear. Their price was the lowest in the beginning, but by the time negotiations were over, it was all about the same.
I saved EVERY e-mail, especially the last one that detailed all that was to be included at the final negotiated price.
One detail that is not included in any company’s package is the price they will charge you, the author, to purchase your own book for resale. Dog Ear was one that used their price as a selling point and I had negotiated a two cent per page plus $1.28 for the cover.
In my final pitch to Authorhouse, I said I would take their package if they would match that price. After several days, I received an e-mail confirming the price.
We had a deal.
It turned out that Authorhouse had a separate department for each phase of the process, selling the package, building the book, marketing, book orders, etc, and I discovered that in many cases the right hand was not aware of what the left hand was doing.
Thank God I saved all those e-mails with the details of our final negotiations.
They came in handy later on.

The Tears and Triumphs of a New Author - Chapter 11

The Tears and Triumphs of a New Author

Chapter 11

Although we were discouraged by the lack of publishers who would pay us to publish our book, we were amazed by the vast horde that would take our money to publish.
How to decide?
We personally knew two other published authors, so why not pick their brains and learn from O.P.E., other people’s experience?
We met with our two friends on separate occasions. They were both supportive of our efforts and more than willing to share their publishing adventures and advice.
Although neither of these authors was self-published, both shared that while their books were selling well locally. They were not getting the national coverage they had hoped for.
They both cautioned that we should read any contract offers very carefully and be sure to retain the ownership of our manuscript.
We learned that even traditional publishers don’t necessarily offer all of the services a new author should have.
The publisher of one of our friends left the job of obtaining the copyright to the author. He applied and had been waiting two years for a response.
Not a happy story.
With their experiences in mind, we began searching the Internet websites of the self-publishing companies.
Knowing absolutely nothing about the publishing business, I had always assumed that once your book is ready for publication, your company will print the first edition, store multiple copies in a big warehouse and have them ready to ship when the orders come pouring in.
DUMMY!
What I found was that all self-publishing companies are P.O.D., print on demand.
What’s that?
In my limited experience, I pictured printing a book to be a long, laborious process.
In POD, apparently a single book can be printed and shipped in 72 hours.
Live and learn.
As I continued my research, I discovered why self-publishing companies are POD instead of printing multiple copies to warehouse ---- they don’t expect to sell any!
I also found that there was another name for the self-publishing companies --- vanity publishers.
Apparently, there are lots of folks out there who just want the thrill of seeing their work in print and don’t give a hoot if they sell anything.
Then there are those who publish poorly written and unedited manuscripts that are doomed to failure from the beginning.
But the message to the author is the same ---you pay the price, we’ll publish it.
Because this is the nature of the business, the self-published author is at the bottom of the food chain, the step-child of the publishing industry.
Unfortunately, all self-published authors, regardless of the quality of their work, carry this stigma.
You can’t submit to a mainline publisher without an agent and a legitimate agent won’t take you if you don’t have a track record.
So, you bite the bullet and self-publish, and like Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter, you are branded with the big “SP”.
Where is the justice in this?

The Tears and Triumphs of a New Author - Chapter 10

The Tears and Triumphs of a New Author

Chapter 10

Our research so far left little doubt that we had the proverbial snowball’s chance in H--- to get picked up by a mainline publisher or represented by a legitimate literary agent.
Discouraged? Of course!
Whipped? Not by a long shot!
I’m sure the careers of many writers are nipped in the bud at this point.
Everyone dreams of being accepted by a publisher or agent. Naturally, we had visions of advances and royalties, travel and fame. But when those things didn’t come, the only other alternative we found to get ‘Lady Justice’ in print was to self-publish, and that takes hard cash.
Not everyone has the financial resources to self-publish, so I’m sure many great novels die at this point along with the dreams of their creators.
As we began to dig into the tangled web of self-publishing, we had some serious moments of soul searching. “Is it good enough?” “Is it worth the investment?” “Can we make it work?” “Can we afford it?”
Did we have doubts? You bet we did!
When my character, Walt, suffers a serious setback in his law enforcement career, his old friend and mentor, Professor Skinner offers this advice:

When things go wrong as they sometimes will
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill
When care is pressing you down a bit
Rest, if you must, but don’t you quit.
Life is queer with it’s twists and turns
As everyone of us sometimes learns.
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won if he stuck it out.
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow-
You may succeed with another blow.
Success is failure turned inside out-
The silver tint in the clouds of doubt.
And you never can tell how close you are
It may be near when it seems so far.
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit
It’s when things seem worst that you must not QUIT!

OK Professor, we won’t throw in the towel yet.
Let’s take some time and study the many companies who are eager to take my money to publish my book.
Sucker? Maybe. We’ll see.