What I learned Publishing My First Book

authors Tim Hill, Kim Wolterman & Warren Martin

Last night I participated in a panel discussion about the good, the bad and the ugly of publishing your own book at the monthly meeting of the St. Louis Publishers Association. I was joined by children's book author Tim Hill and fiction writer Warren Martin. Since I write non-fiction we had the most common genres covered. It was a lively discussion! There were many new faces in the audience, and they had a lot of questions. It is so fascinating to me to hear people talk about the topic of their books. So many stories...

We each discussed our experiences with the actual writing process of the book, editing, design, printing options and distribution channels we have used. All of us agreed that it is best to use a professional for the editing and design functions, and not do these things yourself or with the help of amatuers. Too much is riding on how your book will be viewed and accepted. Warren found out the hard way when he hired a cut-rate editor for his book, and negative reviews began appearing on Amazon due to grammatical errors. The blessing of using Amazon is that he was able to quickly take the book down, have it re-edited, and upload the revision. He didn't have 1,000 books sitting in his garage that he would not be able to sell.

The three of us have very different ways of getting our books sold. As a children's author, Tim spends a lot of time in schools and sells his books directly to his target audience. Warren finds that most of his book sales come from Internet sales, whether through Amazon or his own website. While I do sell some books online and through presentations, the majority of my sales come through specialty shops.

I still think the best advice I ever received was to write a book proposal. I know most writers balk at this, especially if they are going to go the independent publishing route. But creating a proposal forces you to really look at why you are writing the book in the first place. Who is your audience? What other books are your competition, and what makes your book different from the others in the market? Where will you find your audience? How will you sell to them? For more on why you should write a book proposal, check out my slide presentation on the topic.

Why I Write

It was suggested to me that I write a blog describing the process of developing and publishing my book. As this topic really doesn't fit in with the content of my other blogs, I thought it would be better to form a new one.

I suppose like most people I have always wanted to write a book. In my mind's eye, it would be a book for children on the process of composting. My husband and I own a commercial composting facility, and as I spoke to classrooms it quickly became apparent that there are no good books for kids on the subject.

Time passed, and though I took a class on writing for children, the composting book just never jelled for me. I became interested in researching the history of our home as it neared its 100th birthday. I wanted to obtain the coveted Century Home plaque awarded by our local historical society. Thinking it would be a cake walk, I headed to the local library for information, and then to the county government center. Long story short, it took three years and ultimately a trip to Chicago to find answers to the questions of who our house had been built for, and in what year. Determined to remove the frustration and put the fun into house history research, I decided to write a book to help others discover the stories of their houses.

The best thing that I did was sign up for a community college class on how to write, publish and promote a non-fiction book. Then I signed up for the follow-up class. Bobbi Linkemer's classes were just the thing I needed to get my book organized and on track. The second best thing I did was to write my book proposal. I was well aware that due to the limited audience for my book, a traditional publisher would probably not be interested in it. So, why would I need a book proposal, you might ask. The answer is quite simple - the book proposal makes you think about you book from another perspective. Why are you writing this book? Is there really a market for this book? What other books are out there on your subject? And why are you the best person to tell the story?

The book proposal is work, no question about it. But, as Bobbi reminded us, everything you do for the proposal will be used by you again in and for the book. It is not a waste of time. I just can't understand why anyone would write a book without doing the proposal research first. Why would you put all the effort and expense into a book only to find out there is no market for it? The exception to all this, of course, is if the author is writing the book only for him or herself, or to share with family. Obviously if you have no intentions of selling your book, there is no need to write a proposal.

More on the book next time...