Here I go again. I am starting
another new blog posting my fourth such. The other three are more personal, but
the third was supposed to be in regard to my writing life. Not much was written
on that site.
This blog is going to be ever so
slightly different, not totally personal, but, more or less, my writing life
and all that accompanies the aspects of writing. I will probably include things
like, writing reviews to book, movies whatever pops into my mind the day I am
writing.
Right now I am focused on getting
my books of poems marketed and sold, which requires me to finish my web site,
which by the time you read this it should be up and running. Nevertheless, I do have a couple of novels and screenplays
finished, but a big re-write has to take place before I get ready to publish
them. So, the poetry is being working on now.
I am hearing that if you are
not a big name or have a boat-load of money; poetry is one of the hardest
things to publish, or for that matter, finding a manager or an agent to help
you get published. That old saying is, you can’t get published if you don’t
have an agent and you can’t get an agent if you are not published.
Also, during this decade, I had
been in contact with four or five Print-On-Demand (POD) publishers. Heck they
called at least twice a month to find out what was going on with my manuscript.
The only problem I have with PODs, they want anywhere from $599 to $16,000 to
publish my manuscript.
And, on top of that, they all
seemed to a-la-Carte everything which in turn drives the price up considerably.
As it is I am one of those poor starving artists (writer). In fact my lunch, today,
was a-la-carte, PB&J, some fries and lots of water…
A few years ago I set about trying
to self-publish my book of poems. I had finally compiled all of my poems, and
those of my nephews and nieces, and made a large format book, 8.5 by 11 sizes.
That, in its self was quite a lot of work, so I ended up completing 20 books
and sending them to my family members.
After all were sent I noticed quite
a few errors. And the problem, well it starts with me and ends with me, but, I
had given the manuscript to a few “friends” to have them read it and check for
errors. They returned them, with the errors checked in red. So, I redid the
manuscript and printed up a batch, then mailed them off.
It was then I noticed more errors.
I should have checked and re-checked the final manuscript more than once, or I
guess I was just being way too lazy. I have noticed, in my past, proofing
wasn’t one of my main suits. Still isn’t, but I am making headways in that
department.
For this manuscript, I let my
neighbor read it, give me an opinion, to let me know what she thought about it.
And she did a very good job. Of course I did catch a few she missed, but she/I
got the job done.
Another hold up for me was
pictures!? I had read, after I had put all of my pictures and clip art in to my
manuscript that Microsoft states, I cannot use any picture or clip art for
commercial purposes, even though I had purchased the program, MS Publisher or
Word. Meaning, I can produce 10,000 flyers, brochures or whatever, with the
pictures and clip art as long as I don’t sell em.
So, I had to re-format my
manuscript, uh, take all of the pictures out. So, the first edition only has
pictures of my mother and siblings, and I think a picture of a tree, a picture
I took.
That also meant that I had to go
and polish up my camera and take some of the pictures I needed. I needed a
picture for the cover of my book and I had taken a few pictures years ago, but
I couldn’t find them, still can’t find them to this day.
I was out jogging in my
neighborhood one day (I do this every day) and I happened to see the perfect
picture for my cover. But it would be a few weeks before I got up the nerve to
go up and knock on these people’s door and ask if I could take a picture of
their garden. One day they were having a garage sale and the door opened for
me. I got the perfect picture.
One day, back in March, a couple of
years ago, I was on Amazon.com and I clicked a button, I don’t remember
clicking anything, but I was directed to a site called CreateSpaces. I read
into it and found out it was a publishing site, connected with Amazon.com, and
they would publish my manuscript for free! Well, for $39.95 if you get the Pro
version.
I think I read everything on the
site about 5 times, just make sure it was true. Not really a catch, though, but
they would get about 60% of the profit, meaning on a $10 sale, I would get
about $3.85. This was fine with me, because I didn’t have to pay up front.
Anyway, I went through with
everything and on June 14th 2010 my book of poems was there for all
to see on Amazon.com. Now, I just have to get people to buy it. But, I only
sold 40 or so books. Marketing, it would seem, isn’t my cup of tea.
It’s kind of funny, because I am on
quite a few social group pages with over a thousand online “friends”. For the
longest time I have heard people ask when I was going to publish my book. Well,
it’s here!! I guess I am going to have to send an invite to everyone on my
pages, separately, so they become aware that my book is on sale.
I know I am not going to make any
money off of the sale of my book, but it was written from the heart, for my
mother and what she did for me in my lifetime. But, hey, 300 sales wouldn’t
hurt! I’m just saying…
In this new age of publishing one
has to have at least a web site. Well, it’s coming. For all intent and purposes
it’s finished. I just have to do a few more checks and then publish it. And
then figure out the marketing aspect of this game. I have flyers, bookmarks and
a couple of other things that I plan to mail, email and add to my web site in
the next few days. I am getting the hang of this marketing thing.
And of course it wouldn’t hurt to
mention the second book of poems I just published this past June. As mentioned
above, it’s coming around, slowly, but it’s coming.
Manager, agent, or not, I am going
to get this done. I am looking at steak and Lobster in the future…
