A House History Book

house history book

There are many ways to get your book into print. If you have a story that relies heavily on photos and you only need a couple of copies of the finished product, then one of the online photo book services may be just what you need. I have used shutterfly.com and snapfish.com with good results. I recently finished a photo book on the research I have compiled on the history of my house. There are many photos in the book, both historic ones that I obtained from descendants of the previous owner as well as pictures I have taken over the years as we have made changes to the home.

I only needed one copy of the finished product for myself, so with the coupon I had the book was fairly inexpensive. These two companies, as well as their competitors, are always running specials so there is no reason to ever pay full price for a book. In fact, through the years I have received many coupons for free books.

The quality of both companies is comparable, so it may come down to the length of the book in terms of which one you select. Snapfish allows a lot more pages, so be sure to compare the specifications of the companies to see which one will fit your needs.

Creating a Photo Book

Old Chain of Rocks Bridge

In 2014 the St. Louis region celebrated the 250th birthday of the City of St. Louis. A major portion of the festivities involved the placement of 250 (plus a few to grow on) fiberglass birthday cakes around the area. Painted by local artists, the cakes were placed primarily in locations of historical significance. The Cakeway to the West adventure was part scavenger hunt and part history lesson. It took me to places in the St. Louis area that I never knew existed as well as locations I had heard about but never visited. At the end of the journey, over 4,000 photographs had taken up residence on my hard drive, and three of them ended up in a juried art show! I knew that I wanted to put together a book that would have one cake on each page, meaning I was looking at printing a 250+ page, full-color book.

The online print on demand companies such as Amazon's CreateSpace or Lightning Source have gotten poor marks for the quality of color photos in their books. There are, however, numerous options for producing photo books online. They are mostly designed for casual photographers who want to turn their photos into a keepsake book - not one that they intend to sell. While these services produce photo books you can be proud of, they are an extremely expensive option. Most of them have page limitations that ruled them out for this project. I put together a comparison of the most popular companies.

photo book comparison  

From the illustration you can see that there was only one company that was capable of producing the desired number of pages for my book. With Blurb, you can either produce your book online, which is how the other services work, or you can download their software and work on the book on your computer directly. While I have used both Shutterfly and Snapfish in the past, I have never worked with Blurb before. I tried both their online service as well as the software, and I never quite got the hang of either one of them. Trying to add additional text boxes or photos to the pages was difficult, at least for me. In the end I decided that because this project was so immense, I did not want to take the time for the learning curve Blurb was presenting. I do know other people who have used the service and have seen some of their books, and Blurb does offer a high quality product.

I went with Snapfish due to the fact that they offer a maximum of 150 pages, so I knew I could get my book done in two volumes. Both volumes are now complete, and I have received Volume I. The book looks great, and I am pleased with the result. If you are looking to create a photo book of your own adventures, there are some good choices available for you.

Cakeway to the West book cover

Cakeway to the West interior page

Cakeway to the West interior page

Publishing Your Own Book

Kim Wolterman kicks off the class

The St. Louis Publishers Association (SLPA) offers a book publishing class through our local community college once or twice a year. I usually organize the class and then serve as the moderator, also throwing in my two cents worth when warranted. Our most recent class was a full house, with thirty writers signed up. I like to ask each person to give their name and a short sentence or two on what they are writing about before the class gets started. I think it is fun to see the genres people are writing about, and it also offers an opportunity for folks to connect with other attendees who might be writing about a similar topic.

Over the course of four hours we cover traditional versus independent publishing, getting your book into print, book design, ebooks and how to get your book into the marketplace. It is a lot of material to cover in the short amount of time we have, but the purpose is to give an overview of the whole process of what to do once you have written your book. From our perspective as an organization, we want to make sure that authors know about our monthly meetings. All of the topics covered in the class, and more, are discussed throughout the year. For all of us, the SLPA was the place where we learned what to do next and made the connections to get the steps done. If you are a writer, check to see if there is a publishers association in your area. The help and support you receive will be invaluable.

My First Television Appearance

Keith, Pat, Kim and Robin on set

Yesterday I was part of a panel discussion about book writing and publishing on local cable television station STL TV. Hosted by Robin Boyce, City Corner is a current events program about the people, places and events in St. Louis. Joining me on the panel were Christian romance writer Pat Simmons and publisher Keith Antone Willis, Sr. Pat talked about writing books that are set in St. Louis, Keith discussed his upcoming book that is geared towards helping salespeople learn how to sell, and I was able to talk about writing niche books and gave a shout out for the St. Louis Publishers Association. I think that it all went well, and I am eager to see the tape of the show. It was not live, so they are putting the finishing touches on the tape, including the segment that was on after ours. Hopefully it will then be posted on YouTube and I will be able to share a link.

Introduction to Publishing

Peggy Nehmen and Kim Wolterman

On Saturday the St. Louis Publishers Association (SLPA) held a four hour workshop on how to publish a book. Our first class was offered in March of this year and was so successful that we decided to have another one in the fall. Part of the mission of the SLPA is outreach, and we used to conduct mini-workshops at local Borders stores every Saturday in March during Small Press Month. With the demise of Borders, we looked for other opportunities to help authors understand their options when it comes time to publish their books. Working with the local community college seemed like a great alternative for us.

In addition to making arrangements for the class, I served as the moderator and of course added my two cents worth when appropriate. We began the class with Warren Martin of Little Elephant Publishing giving an overview of traditional publishing versus going the independent publishing route. Pros and cons of each were discussed. Linda Austin of Moonbridge Publications covered how to get books into print and into stores. Her presentation was followed up by Peggy Nehmen of Nehmen-Kodner Graphic Design. Peggy provided information on why it is important to make sure a book looks good inside and out. Because ebooks are such a large part of book consumption these days, Bob Baker discussed the most widely used ebook services and distributors. Last but certainly not least, Tim Hill provided an informational and entertaining look at how to get books into the marketplace. We wrapped the program up with personal stories on what marketing techniques have worked best for us in the past.

This was a lot of information to cover in four hours, but I think we provided a good overview of the publishing process and gave the attendees guidance on where they can go for help.

Getting Your Book Published

Kim Wolterman, Getting Your Book Published

On Saturday the St. Louis Publishers Association held a four hour workshop on what authors need to know about publishing. Held at the St. Louis Community College Meramec Campus, the course covered traditional versus self-publishing, getting your book into print and the marketplace, making your book look good from a design standpoint, eBooks and book marketing. We had 27 attendees of all ages and writing backgrounds, and they certainly had a lot of wonderful questions. It is always fun to hear what other people are writing about, and this group was no exception. I am hoping that we see some of them at future St. Louis Publishers Association meetings!

To CreateSpace or Not to CreateSpace - That is the Question

Just as a frame of reference, my first book Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed(room)? Researching a St. Louis County, Missouri Home was printed here in St. Louis and is available on my website and in local bookstores and gift shops. From Buckeye to G.I. LeRoy C. Kubler The War Years, 1942-1945 was uploaded to Lightning Source, which then prints the books as they are ordered and also distributes the books through Ingram. My ebook Keys to Unlocking House History was produced through Smashwords, but because Amazon does not play well with others I also uploaded it through Kindle Direct Publishing to make sure that it could be sold on the Amazon website. While Amazon does show all three of my books if you enter my name in their search engine, my house research book is essentially unavailable and my WWII book says that it will ship in one to three weeks. In this age of instant gratification, a delay in shipping equates to a lack of sales.

I have been thinking about how to resolve these issues. In doing research on the Lightning Source versus CreateSpace issue, it appears that I can go ahead and upload the PDF of From Buckeye to G.I. to CreateSpace and have it sell from there in addition to Lightning Source. There are trade offs with both companies, but it seems prudent to have the book in both locations. I guess the biggest issue will be whether the original PDF, which was formatted by the designer for Lightning Source, is also acceptable to CreateSpace. I won't know until I upload it. I am keeping my fingers crossed on that one as I do not wish to go back to the designer I used.

I have never been overly concerned that Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed(room)? is not for sale on Amazon. Because my audience is limited to the St. Louis area, it didn't seem to be that big of a deal. But I am rethinking that stance. For now I think I will start with From Buckeye to G.I on CreateSpace and see where that takes me.

To Publish or Not to Publish...That is the Question

This morning I had a meeting with clients to discuss a book that they are just beginning to write. For the time being, I am functioning in the role of book coach. I told them, as I would advise anyone who wants to write a book, that they need to first determine who the audience is for the book. (And PLEASE don't tell me that the book is for "everybody"! There are very few books, especially non-fiction, that will appeal to everybody.) Until you determine who is going to read your book, you really don't know the correct way to write the book. So that is a huge hurdle right from the get-go. But I think they are up for the task. In the meantime, they have a public relations firm who will be looking at existing books in the market to see who is their competition.

The conversation made its way around to the publishing aspect. Like most authors they would like to go with a traditional publishing company. However the nature of their topic is fairly time-sensitive, in their case meaning others will probably be getting similar books out sooner rather than later. I told them that even if a traditional publisher picked them up, the book would not be out for 1-2 years after they submit the manuscript. That is not an option, really, unless an educational publisher has a quicker turn around time. I offered to publish the book under my company name. I have considered doing books by other authors in the past, but it really comes down to the contractual arrangement. Who pays for what? Who handles distribution? What about the marketing? How are the sales split? These are all things that would need to be resolved. I also would probably want to pick up some liability insurance coverage as well, since I could be sued along with the authors if something is awry in the book. There are lots of things to think about.

Having said that, I think it would be exciting to publish a book for someone else. It would also add more credibility to my publishing company. For right now, I am just going to enjoy helping these two authors make their dream a reality.

Reflections on 2011

Since it is the last day of the year I have been doing some reflecting on 2011. I did manage to get two books written and published this year, which I suppose is not too shabby. I continue to struggle with technology issues, mostly the fact that my house history website is still unavailable to me for posting. Getting a new person to help me with website frustrations is at the top of my list for 2012 resolutions.

I have been thinking a lot about where I see Provenance Publishing going in the new year. I really don't have a new project in mind for myself at this point. I thought about doing a short ebook on researching your Webster Groves home, but do I really want to go to the effort and expense to produce a book that has an even smaller market than my first book? I don't think so. While I contemplate that, I did at least set up a Facebook page that will give Webster Groves residents suggestions on where they might find records to help them with their research.

I have been talking with an author about consulting on his book project. I like the message of the book and think that I can offer valuable advice on how to write and publish this book. That would be a new direction for my publishing company, and that excites me. So I guess we will see what 2012 brings.

Book Roundup

As the end of the year approaches (!) I am trying to get a handle on the Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed(room)? books I have out on consignment. The St. Louis Genealogical Society has had 5 of the books since day one and I have received no payment from them. The weekend before last when I was in their office I noticed that only 2 books remain on the shelf. Have they sold 3? My neighbor bought 1 there, so I know I am owed for at least that book. The lady in charge of the shop is a little hard to get in contact with, so I have sent her an email and hope to hear back from her soon.

The Webster Groves Historical Society is the easiest to deal with. They had sold 3 more copies of the book, so I went over there yesterday and was paid in cash for those. While I was there, a local woman was looking through the original Webster Groves tax books in an attempt to research the history of her home. She has checked my book out of the library a couple of times, so she was familiar with me. I gave her a few pointers on other places to look. It was a little disconcerting to hear her say that our library told her they have nothing except my book (yay!) and a CD with a spreadsheet on it listing some of the tax payments. There is so much more at the library than that! When our library renovation is complete I definitely want to schedule a session on how to research the history of your home.

The current president of the historical society asked me (again) to serve on their board. Unfortunately their board meeting conflicts with the St. Louis Publishers Association meetings, so I just can't do it. I told her (again) that I would really like to work with the archivist in organizing the historical society collection. No one knows exactly what we have, which is a shame. That is when she told me that the archivist left this summer to move to Oklahoma. She then wanted to know if I would take over. I explained that I am not an archivist - I am quite sure there are things one should know about handling and storing the old records. (Such as the fact that our original real estate tax records dating back to 1897 should not be on metal shelves close to the floor in an old building!) I really would love to help, but I am a bit concerned that if I step forward I will be biting off way more than I want to chew. I'll have to do a lot of thinking on that.

Today will head over to Puddn'head Books. The last time I was in there they were getting ready to move across the street, so we decided that I would bring more books over after the move. At that time they only had one book left on the shelf and I had given her 9 the time before. So I will be looking to collect some money there as well.

All of this points to one of the biggest drawbacks of self-publishing. In addition to being the author and the publisher, you also become your own distributor - at least in St. Louis where the one distributor was driven out of business when Borders collapsed. This means you have to be responsible for getting your books out in the market, tracking them and collecting payments. Definitely not the fun part of the job.

Book Signing

As I had mentioned in an earlier post the lovely folks at 6 North Cafe invited me to hold a book signing and presentation about researching house history at their Ballwin location. We had selected this morning as the date, and what a beautiful day it turned out to be. Sometimes that can be bad for an author event because people want to be outdoors during these lovely fall days. The event was promoted by the cafe through their social media and local contacts as well as by me.

Things started out on the wrong foot for me as my mapquest failed me. It said it would take me 17 minutes to arrive at my destination, and that 6 North Cafe would be on the right hand side of the road. I allowed 30 minutes for arrival, thinking that on a Saturday the time would be adequate. First I was overshot the address. In my defense, not too many of the businesses have an address large enough to read while operating a car. A few more trips up and down Clayton did not reveal the business to me. I finally stopped and asked the kind lady at Clarkson Eyecare if she knew where the cafe was located. Fortunately I was close, and it was on the left hand side of the road, not the right. Bottom line is that I was 20 minutes late and I was mortified by that. As there was no long line of fans waiting for my arrival, it was not that big of a deal. My tip of the day is to always ask your host for help with directions! I do not know why I didn't do that since I was unfamiliar with the area.

As it turned out no one arrived to buy my house history book or to hear my presentation. (Though I did sell one copy of From Buckeye to G.I.) So you might think that I am disappointed in the outcome. But you would be wrong. Four other authors came to the cafe, two because I had been announcing it and two by coincidence I believe. We had a wonderful discussion about traditional publishing versus self-publishing, ebooks, marketing, printers - you name it. It was fantastic! In fact, I would love to see all of us, and more, get together for coffee once a month or so to share ideas.  Even though the St. Louis Publishers Association meets once a month, there is never enough time to have the kind of conversation we were able to have today.

Top all of that with a fantastic cup of brewed tea and an amazing pumpkin scone, and my author event was great!

A Day with the Masters

Yesterday an incredible event for authors and publishers took place in St. Louis. Brian Jud, Judith Briles and Dan Poynter spent a full day here at a Book Marketing Summit. For an extra fee of $75 there was an opportunity to have dinner with the three of them on Friday night to brainstorm ideas for marketing your book. At first blush that seemed a little pricey, but when you consider that you would have the undivided attention of three publishing powerhouses, it actually might have been a deal. We had tickets to the Fox Theatre, so attending was not an option for me anyway. I will attempt to summarize what I learned from each of the three "Masters".

 Dan Poynter started the morning, so I'll begin with him. I have a lot of respect for Dan and heard him speak last year at Publishing University. He is the author of, among other books, The Self-Publishing Manual. I always tell people that if writing a book is like giving birth to a child, then Dan was my birthing coach. His book really helped me understand how to set up my publishing company as well as produce and market my first book.

• set up Google Alerts to notify you when you, your book, or your topics of interest are mentioned anywhere on the Internet
• even if you are going straight to an ebook with your manuscript, still have some print books made up to distribute for review and promotion
• doesn't recommend that you pursue brick and mortar stores, but if you feel you must then offer to do a mini-seminar there NOT a book signing
• if you are going to use different publishing company, google the name of the company + fraud or scam to see if the company is legitimate

Judith Briles was the second speaker, and she is the author of 28 books and has, indeed, been on Oprah. She is known as The Book Shepherd and the founder of Author U.

• in 2010 with the New York publishing companies, only 10 books sold over a million copies; the average book published by them only sells 500 copies
• she recommends placing a QR code on your business cards, bookmarks, etc. so that those with smart phones can scan it and gain immediate access to your website
• make sure that the main page on your website is not static, but changes with your tweets, Facebook feeds, etc.
• Facebook is the 8th largest search engine so have a page for each of your books in addition to yourself
• guest post on the blogs that your potential readers might be following

Brian Jud is also an author and publisher, and his latest book is How to Make Real Money Selling Books.

• know who your market is and where they shop
• book marketing is a simple as pie - plan, implement, evaluate
• shopcompanion.com and mantra.com can help you determine different retailers that might sell your book
• aptac-us.org is a website that gives information on selling to the government

This is but a small overview of what I learned yesterday. It was an  information-packed day that was well worth the the time and money I spent. St. Louis was very lucky to pull in three speakers if this caliber, and some credit goes to the St. Louis Publishers Association for making it happen. I have a long list of things to do now!

Brian Jud, Judith Briles, Dan Poynter & Bob Baker

Out of the Blue

Yesterday I had two interesting phone calls. The first was from a mentor and friend who asked if I would be interested in teaching her adult education class at the community college this fall. She is having some medical issues that will prevent her from being able to teach. I am very flattered that she thinks I am qualified to teach the class, but quite frankly the call caught me totally by surprise. I have been giving the question a lot of thought, and we are going to discuss the matter further today.

The second call came from the owner of Six North Cafe, a family owned business with two locations in St. Louis. They periodically have authors come to the cafe and talk about their books/do book signings. She got my name and phone number from the owner of Pudd'nhead Books, which I thought was interesting in and of itself. The authors are scheduled to come in either late Wednesday afternoons or Saturday mornings. I am very interested in this opportunity, but if I decide to teach the class noted above then Wednesdays would be out for me. But it sounds like fun!

The Price is Right

After discussing my book price with my representative at Lightning Source (LSI), as well as showing the proof to a couple of established authors, I decided to leave the book price at $9.95 for right now. As one author pointed out, I will be discounting the book 55% for all wholesale outlets, so I need to make sure I make something off of each book once the printing costs are taken into consideration. Not to mention trying to recoup the cost of layout and design fees. My Lightning Source rep said he is very interested in WWII history, and because this book is high quality, he would not hesitate to pay $9.95 for it. (Hope he puts his money where his mouth is!)

The next decision I had to make was how many copies to order for myself. I get the books greatly discounted from LSI, in fact much less than I anticipated. I know I could not have gotten them printed in St. Louis for this price. I decided to start with an order of 20 copies since I had to pay for postage and it wasn't that much more to ship 20 than to ship 10. I know I will easily sell 10 to my family members, and I will be marketing the books to some Cincinnati retail outlets as well. I also need to mail one copy to the Library of Congress as required by my application for a Library of Congress number.

With regards to my smashwords.com account and my ebook Keys to Unlocking House History, I am still waiting to be approved for the premium catalog. Normally this takes two weeks, and I resubmitted for inclusion on June 15th. I was hoping that since this was a re-submission and that I hired a designer familiar with smashwords to make the changes, I would breeze through a second time. Apparently not.

Progress

Today I received the revised copy of Keys to Unlocking House History from my Smashwords formatting wizardess, along with an invoice for $20. Really? I spent more than $20 trying to decipher the Smashwords manual. I know who is getting all of my future ebooks for formatting. I uploaded the revised document to Smashwords and it flew right through the first acceptance level. Hopefully this will put the book on a fast track to get in their premium catalog.

I also learned today that the proof of From Buckeye to G.I. has been mailed to me, and I should be receiving it tomorrow. I am very excited to see the print quality of Lightning Source, and to learn about their distribution channels. I really don't intend to purchase too many copies for direct sales - probably just enough for my family and perhaps the Delhi Historical Society and veteran's association in Delhi (which is where my father lived). I do wish that I had targeted completion of this book to coincide with Memorial Day. That would have been a good launch day for it. Unlike my house history research book, I am not sure that this book lends itself to speaking engagements. Unless I tailored the presentation to the importance of documenting the stories of the WWII vets before it is too late?

Not So Lightning Fast

Approval of my account with Lightning Source (LSI) finally arrived today. This was after emails going back and forth on completion of online forms, downloading of multiple documents requiring signatures, and faxing forms back to LSI. In talking with more established LSI clients, apparently this is all new as they never had to complete all the paperwork or experienced any delays. My word to the wise is to apply for an account with LSI well before you are ready to send a book to them for printing.

Having just downloaded the six page document on uploading my book, the next step is to see if I can make that happen. I am hoping there is something in there about uploading large files, because I had problems sending the book back and forth to my designer.

On the ebook front, I was informed by Smashwords yesterday that there are two problems with "Key to Unlocking House History", preventing it from getting into their premium catalog. One has to do with Heading formatting and the other to do with NCX for the e-pub format. Googling these two items resulted in me understanding that I have absolutely no idea have to fix the first problem, and no idea what the second problem actually is. So I have emailed one of the ebook conversion specialists recommended by Mark Coker to see if she will take this on, and how much it will cost me. I am definitely learning something new every day!

Cover Up

My new go-to cover designer should be sending me a copy of the cover of my dad's book this weekend. She was going to work with the cover Katie came up with and somehow marry it with the spine and the back of the book. I am excited to see how it looks. She was complimentary of Katie's design, so that was good to hear. Of course, she could have just been trying to be nice, but I did ask her for her opinion and said modifications could be made to it.

I am still waiting for Lightning Source (LS) to approve me as a publisher. They sent me an email with a bunch of questions I had to answer, like how many books do I intend to publish with them in the next year? and will the books be print ready or would I need design assistance from them? I didn't realize that they were in the position to be so picky. Maybe they are only accepting publishers who will do a lot of books. If so, I'll need to explore my options. Perhaps Createspace? When this book is finally ready to go to print I don't want it languishing because LS can't decide it they want me or not.

Smashed It!

I finished up the revisions of my house history research book, following closely the ebook offered by Smashwords on how to successfully send a submission to them. Taking a deep breath, I hit the upload button. I had to take a few more steps because I got questions back from them (such as "Where is your cover?" and "Where do you want your money sent?") Now frankly, if they had you complete the online "paperwork" first before telling you to submit, these issues could have been resolved ahead of time. But regardless, I got everything sent to them and bam! My ebook went live! It was quite amazing. I am still awaiting approval to be added to premium status, which gets me in their premium catalog for distribution to major retailers. That can take up to two weeks, so I am hoping all my diligence pays off in getting me into this status quickly.

Keys to an E-book Cover

The e-book I am working on, a revised vanilla version of "Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed(room)?", is coming along. I still believe that I will e-print this book through Smashwords, so I turned to them for assistance with the cover design. Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords, provided me with a list of freelancers who will assist you in getting the interior of the book Smashwords-ready, as well as those who design the e-book covers. I am still attempting to do the interior myself, but I selected a woman from Mark's list for the cover design. We have been exchanging ideas back and forth, and I sent her a copy of my original book cover to show her what we did for the first book. The e-book version will be called "Keys to Unlocking House History". I like where she is going with the cover. She is cleaning up a scan of an abstract to use, and I had asked her to replace the house keys she had used with more antique-looking keys. I sent her a link to a free jpeg I found, as well as a photo of an old key that I had taken. She might be able to just duplicate the key a couple of times in photoshop to get the look I am seeking. I can't wait to see the next revision!

The Solution

Yesterday afternoon was spent researching a way to send the massive file of all the photos and illustrations for the book back to the book designer, once I finally finished making revisions to all of them. Originally I loaded the book including all the images on a thumb drive and mailed it up to him. Obviously from a time and money standpoint I would prefer not to use that method again if I can avoid it. I thought the free answer was going to be to upload all the photos and illustrations to my Mobile Me account, which I have had since last year and never used. Any uploaded data is stored in the "cloud" and you can give others permission to access your account. Sounds perfect, right? Unfortunately, Mobile Me does not support tiffs, which is the format the designer asked me to reformat all the illustrations into. Bummer!

My daughter suggested uploading my file to the ftp on my website, myhousehistory.net. That would be great if I even had a clue what that was all about. I did a google search on it and realized that once again I was in over my head. My husband also suggested that I bring the file to his office and upload it to their ftp on their server. But that would mean giving the designer access to their server, which I wasn't 100% comfortable with.

So here is what ending up working. There is a website called yousendit.com. I first zipped my file folder (super easy in Windows - just right click the file, click on zip and you're done!) and then went to the yousendit website. Because my file was in excess of 100mb (which is the "free" threshold), I incurred a charge of $9.99 to send the file. But that is less than a new thumb drive plus the postage to mail it, not to mention the mailing time delay. It took about an hour for the file to upload and be sent, and I got an email confirmation that it went to my recipient. I haven't heard back from the designer yet, so hopefully everything transferred okay. If it did, this will be my preferred method of sharing information, especially since I think most items that I will ever need to send will be under the 100mb threshold.