I’m no businessman.
Technically I’m not a businesswoman, but I’m not good with planning things and I’m chronically cautious. So when I finally decided that I was ready to release this book, I was as slow as molasses.
But it was ready, ready as it would ever be, so I sent it to a few literary agents. No luck there. Then I looked up every publisher in the south. Most of them you need an agent. Looks like I’m stuck there again. Finally, I got a phone call from a publisher that had rejected an earlier submission. The man said he really liked the story, and even asked for more information and the modern dummy. I learned a lot from all that. Some of the things I learned I thought I would share with you.
Dummies are NOT Books
Pretty much all my short professional career I’ve been working with something called a dummy, which is a mockup of the words and illustrations that will be there on the final product. It only has one or two finished pieces, and is a work in progress.
However, I didn’t realize that you are NOT supposed to send this to a publisher. At all. It confused them, because they thought that the book alternated between black and white, and colored images.
So if you are planning on sending a manuscript to a publisher, only send what they ask for. Don’t go above and beyond. You might confuse them. In this case, it would have been better if I had just sent art samples and the manuscript.
What is a Publisher?
I don’t know what the specifics are but with some smaller publishers you’ll end up paying for books. Like, paying for the books to be printed.
That’s fine if you go somewhere with the understanding that you’ll be paying for books. For example, if you’re going to a book printing service. But some publishers will be publishing the book and selling it themselves, paying you royalties, but require you to buy your own copies. They will also ask you to send people to their website instead of working through a book distributor. Since most bookstores go through a big distributor called Ingrahm, if your publisher isn’t working with them you won’t be able to sell on the big websites or stores without paying out of pocket to sell on Amazon.
In that situation, the royalties made by the book sales in smaller venues might not be enough to make up for the higher cost of working with a smaller business. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to break into niche markets and areas. It didn’t work out for me, but if you have a tight-knit community ready to fight with you and for you, it might work. It would also be better if you were willing to travel and speak about your book, and made your money on speaking appearances, book sales, etc. In that case, the higher cost of the books might turn them into collector’s items. Again, different things work for different people.
How about a Printer?
My original plan was to print a couple hundred copies of my book at a local printer. Sure, I wouldn’t be able to post them on amazon or Barnes and Nobles (see above), but if I traveled around and worked hard, I might be able to make up my money spent in printing. That was also the main reason I created this website.
That was before I found out about printer/distributor hybrids.
Certain printing services do work with Ingrahm to make your books available to books and libraries all over. I plan on visiting as many bookstores and libraries as I can as soon as the book is up in Ingrahm, so I can set up signings, events, and promote it as much as possible! All of that is going to be on me, but I am ready to fight for my Tessa!
Granted, I’m still not a great businesswoman, and it was a big investment on the front end, but I’m cautiously optimistic. It’s a huge change to my original timeline and strategy, but I think it will be all right in the end.
Let’s hope.
TIME
This process is LOOOOONG.
It takes forever to get things done.
When you’re self-publishing and printing, things can go pretty quickly. You just need to edit, typeset, test print, print. With my first book, that’s what happened. So my timeline with this one was based on that.
Bringing in a publisher means deferring to other people and their timelines. You don’t know when things are going to get done or when people will be able to respond to you.
Dealing with a service is the same. Since you’re working with a service, you’re waiting in line with everyone else who also signed up for that same service. You can’t jump in front of the line. It means being willing to wait.
So here’s to the wait! Let’s hope it’s worth it. In the meantime, I’m working on some cute Tessa Tee Shirt designs. I want to make this debut as epic as possible…. when it eventually comes.
