To publish or to be published

To publish or to be published…that is the question. I find each writer has to answer this for themselves and for their work. For us, we went the self publishing route. This is not and was not a choice made lightly. Many things must be taken into consideration-
1) How big is the book?
2) Are you willing to pay all of the extra people?
(proof reader/converter/ISBN/barcode/copywrite/printer/ect…)
3) Are you willing to do the research?
4) Having to write and obtain permission for places or people used in the book.
5) Marketing…this is a big deal…knowing who to write letters to…weather to send a book or a press release…getting people interested

These are but, a few of the issues we had to discuss before we chose to do it all. Chris and I being the creative type had delusions of grandeur. Thank heaven we had Rose. She put us to being practical. When we made our final decision to publish the book on our own, she was there for us. Just as Chris and I had clicked creative juice on the book, Rose’s creative side shone in the publishing arena. There are contracts for work you need to dole out and some to be signed. If they made it past Rose it went to Cindy, she does all my legal work.

This part of writing a book takes 20-30 hours a week of my time. Walter and Dale both help by giving us new ideas and editing. All of us knowing it will take 6 months- 1 year before it takes off. My upfront costs for book 1, was just under $2000. We had to rush to make our Christmas deadline. I was sad as a handful of mistakes had to slip by us.

Launching the website to go with the series was not as easy as one might think. It had to be gone through and really scanned to make sure the content did not go all over the place. The product line was also a hard thing to develop.

Going into book 2 was much easier. We knew what to expect and what was expected of us. I allowed more time for every phase wanting to make sure it was better than book 1 not only in content, but also in editing.

What advice would I give other trying to accomplish this goal?
1) PROOFREAD your book at every junction
2) Don’t assume your book is the only one on the market
3) Take classes in Marketing (useful weather or not you have a publisher)
4) Ask for help from family and friends

All in all, I am happy with our choices. It has not been easy; it is a long wait for return on your investment, but to me, it has all been worth it. I am new to publishing and still learning. I have been asked if we would publish books other than the ones that we write…the answer is yes. I review manuscripts that have been sent to me and if I like it and believe in it, I would publish it.

I hope this helps to answer most of the questions I have been getting. I love the mail and e-mail from the fans and new authors. Thank you all so very much.