| Questions about the Story of My Other Body Why did you decide to self-publish?
writing, it would have taken two more years, minimum, before people could read it. I already had the validation from editors and agents that the story was compelling and well-written; they weren't persuaded they could sell the number of copies the book industry wants to see. So I revisited my goals and decided this book wasn't about making money or being a best-seller. It was about executing a book I could be proud of and moving it into the hands of readers it might help -- and it has. In the end, my dream was about opening doors for myself as a writer and sharing this story with as many readers as I could find, and I didn't see a reason to wait. Life's too short to keep all your dreams on someone else's calendar. How hard is it to self-publish a book?
a 10, and losing and burying a child is, oh, a 30 -- then self-publishing a book is about a 4. Maybe a 5 or 6 if research and business planning are not your thing. Given a reasonable budget -- $5,000 to $15,000 dollars, depending on what kind of book you're publishing -- all the resources are available for you to professionally produce and market your book. The part most people don't realize is how hard you have to work to remind people that the book exists. This takes an enormous amount of time and a significant range of skills. And you have to keep doing it as long as you have copies to sell. That can be a very long time. The other part most people don't realize is that a first-time author has to do that marketing work even if a big publisher puts her book out there. The difference is that the big publisher can afford to put copies in all the bookstores for at least 3 months so that the book is easier to find, and the big publisher has better contacts with the big reviewers. Why can't I find My Other Body in a bookstore?
that's okay; it's still a real book even if it's not in the chain stores. Remember, most novels and memoirs stay in the mass market 3 months only. You blink and they're gone. So for a micro- publisher like me, getting a book into the chain stores can be a Mt. Everest effort for a handful of sand in return. Online bookstores -- Amazon's and my own site -- have been much friendlier homes for my first book. Have you tried to get on Oprah?
promoted on national television. That doesn't mean I don't believe in my book! (Or my dog.) It's about economics. See, if someone like Oprah mentions a book, that publisher had better have a printer ready to run 24 hours a day for a while to handle the sales. There had better be PR people and distribution people and sales people and at least one accountant and one lawyer. My book doesn't have the money or machinery behind it that Oprah needs and that I would need. I'd love for her to read it, though, because it seems to me this story might mean something to her personally. I wouldn't care if she never mentioned it again. If I knew how to get it into her hands as a gift and not a request for publicity (they throw away unsolicited books) I'd be right there. Are you ever going to publish other people's books?
them I'm a one-book press; I'm not set up to publish other stories. I will say I'm in a planning phase, considering what I might do next with the press. It seems a shame to let these hard- earned skills go unused. |
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