Lulu Titlescorer

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This is kind of a fun tool that my friend Olivia pointed out to me – the Lulu Titlescorer. It’s designed for fiction books (which mine is not), but it’s interesting to try it out and see what it comes up with. I tried both my current title – the one I plan to use when I publish my book, and my working title – the one I had been using up until I switched to the current title. I’m happy to report that my current title has a 63.7% chance of being a bestselling title, whereas my working title had only a 31.7% chance of being a bestselling title. So, now that I have the definitive word from Lulu, what a relief that I switched to my current title. 🙂

I’m Stuck

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It’s time to finalize a title for my book so that I can move forward in some other areas – like acquiring a domain name, developing a website, deciding on a cover design, etc. The only problem is that I’m stuck, stuck, stuck. It became apparent last week, after getting some helpful advice from my cover designer, that the working title I’ve been using needs to be replaced with a more appropriate title. Here’s a great piece of advice she offered,

“…try imagining that you know nothing about your book at all. When you pick it up, what would the title and picture have to ‘say’ for you to know what it’s about and want to read it? Then start brainstorming with that as a base.”

So that’s what I’ve been trying to do. I’ve been praying a lot and also reflecting on some of the things Todd Hafer (the workshop presenter at last Friday’s Write it Right workshop) emphasized in his presentation. He is the one who created the book division of Hallmark and he said he receives 700 books/book proposals a month! The number one thing he looks for is a “hook.” He illustrated what he meant by explaining that since he deals a lot with gift books, what he looks for is a book that will cause someone to read the title and think, “This would be perfect for so-and-so!” Transferred to the book buyer looking at books for themselves, it might be along the lines of a title that would cause the potential buyer to think, “This is just what I need!

The title must captivate while also accurately reflecting the tenor of the book. Somehow I feel like I’m expending more mental energy trying to come up with a title than I am writing the whole rest of the book!

Information Overload

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I feel like my brain could explode at any moment. I finished reading How to Make Money Publishing from Home by Lisa Shaw this week while I was out of town and got about halfway through How to Publish Your Nonfiction Book by Rudy Shur before I realized that I was reading words but my brain was no longer processing what I was reading. This may be partially because the latter of the two books is so geared toward preparing a book for submission to a publishing house that the information seemed too irrelevant for my situation. So I did something I almost never do. I quit reading it. I abhor the thought of leaving things unfinished and often continue reading a book even if I’ve lost interest just to “cross it off the list”, so this was a big step for me.

In my efforts toward “vigorous self-education“, I’ve allowed myself to do something else I rarely do – skim or [gasp!] even completely skip certain paragraphs or chapters that I don’t perceive to be beneficial to me at this point. Normally I’m a read-and-process-every-word sort of person, so you can see I’m really branching out these days. 🙂

While these weeks of intense study and absorption in the field of self-publishing have been incredibly beneficial, I think I’m ready to adopt a slower pace as I try to retain the things I’ve learned and explore some new resources. I’m also really excited about some new approaches I’m going to be studying in the coming weeks as I start outlining the next steps in the self-publishing process for my book. Stay tuned for new developments and exciting announcements in the coming days!

The Self-Publishing Experience

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Last week, I mentioned that I signed up for a workshop on self-publishing. I’ve been out of town and without Internet access this week (I finally found a Panera with free wi-fi so that I could catch up on some other projects!), but I wanted to do a quick post with my notes from the workshop…

A couple of friends and I attended the Write it Right workshop at Perfect Peace last Friday night. There were approximately 20 other people in attendance and Gina Nachtigal, author and self-publisher of On the Same Page, did a wonderful job giving us an overview of the self-publishing process.

She started out by highlighting some of the key differences between using a publishing house or self-publishing:
Publishing House – has total control over your idea and work, long delay (at least 9 months)
Self-Publishing – you have all the control, possible to have a manuscript printed and available within 5 weeks, you keep the profit

Once you have a finished manuscript, there are two ways to self-publish:
1. Hire a printer and you can be your own publisher – must print at least 1,000 copies to make it worthwhile
2. Print-On-Demand (POD) – good for a fewer number of copies, not as much profit margin

Cons of self-publishing:
* You have to finance the whole project yourself or find someone willing to fund it for you.
* Big responsibility on your shoulders (editing, design, printing, distribution, etc.)

The Process
* Pray a lot! Ask God for wisdom (James 1:5).
* Know what your goal is. Who is the book going to benefit?
* Decide if printing with a commercial offset printer or POD will better serve your needs. (You can literally feel the difference.)
* How to get a copyright – effective upon creation; $35 to register the copyright – http://copyright.gov
* ISBN – uniquely identifies a book – block of at least 10 required ($275)
* Barcode – $25
* How do you know when the manuscript is ready? When you think you’re almost done, have somebody else read it. And then have somebody else read it. Sometimes what we want to say doesn’t come out right. It is perceived differently than we intend. Have five or six people read it before you hire an editor. Have an editor in the profession edit the book.
*Shelf appeal – no typos on the back cover! Get endorsements – local friends, ask God to open doors. Take time to research what you want the book to look and feel like. Spend a lot of time comparing and researching the competition.
Weight of text pages – ask printer what they would recommend (50# or 60# paper on the inside)
* Once you choose your printer, find samples to make sure that your customer service rep is on the same “page” as you.

What do you do once the books have been printed and delivered?
* Don’t put them in the basement! See if bookstores will take the books on consignment to sell them. Perfect Peace will consider book proposals – the message must be compelling and go through an extensive review process.
* It’s also easy to put your book on Amazon.com. The Internet is a good way to market.
* Write a press release. The fact that you have written a book is news! Look for places to get book signings – church, library, school, bookstore, etc. (Watermark Books is very open to local authors.)

Deb Raney added some tips on how to have a successful book signing:
* Don’t give out the book to all your friends. Encourage them to come to the book signing. Crowds generate enthusiasm.
* Ask the location if there will be multiple events that day. Try a multiple self-published book signing with several other authors.
* Have your own website. Absolutely essential in the 21st century. Keep track of your site visitors.
* Give something away. (Pens, chocolate, matching bookmarks, bookpads, ask for overs from publisher and cut down to use as postcards, cut the spine off and use as a bookmark)
* Stand instead of sitting, be welcoming, (sitting behind a table seems to turn people away)

Once you’ve self-published, you have a finished concept you can send to possibly get picked up by a publishing house.

Each workshop attendee received a $10 gift card for Perfect Peace and a wonderful packet of materials provided by Mennonite Press in Newton, Kansas. The packet included a booklet with information for self-publishers, a brochure for Mennonite Press, a lovely pad of paper and several sample print jobs from Mennonite Press. It was very impressive!

Gina was incredibly encouraging and gave all of us hope that it is not impossible to successfully self-publish our books. She also reminded us that God is the one who has compelled us to write and we should continually ask Him to provide guidance and contacts along the way to help us finish the job. The workshop was very well done and I look forward to attending the next one in a couple of weeks.

Self-Publishing Blogs

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You will notice that I’ve started a blogroll on my right sidebar for blogs related to self-publishing. I’ve only got a couple there at the moment – blogs that I’ve just happened across in my research thus far. Surely there are many more self-publishing blogs out there! If you have such a blog or know of a good one that you would recommend, please leave a link to it in the comments or drop me an e-mail with the info. I would love to connect with other bloggers who are traveling this path or have already traveled the path to self-publishing!

The Official Launch!

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Welcome to the Journey to Self-Publishing Blog!

Today marks the day that I am officially going public with the announcement that I am writing a book. To be honest, the thought of making such an announcement scares me to death! Up until now, I’ve been able to just work on this project at my leisure, writing as I feel inspired or compelled, and only being required to share updates with the select few people whom I had already informed about my writing project. Yet, in many respects, that’s exactly why I started this blog. I need a little more pressure to actually buckle down and finish what I’ve started! Deadlines are my friend. 🙂

My hope is to spend a lot of time this summer working on my book – both writing and preparing to self-publish, since that’s the route I’ve decided to go. My tentative schedule is to write on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and to research other aspects of self-publishing on Tuesdays and Thursdays so that by the time I’m done writing, I’ll have a clear idea of what to do next. My goal, Lord-willing, is to finish writing before the end of this year and have the book published and available for purchase the early part of 2009. I’m hoping to blog a brief update each day of my progress and post helpful information I find along the way. I’m [obviously] a novice at this book-writing and publishing work, so I value any input, advice, suggestions, helpful links, etc. that anyone wants to pass on!

Now, off to do some writing!

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