Adventures in self-publishing

So I promised to tell about my adventure in self-publishing my book. I decided to take this approach after a couple of years of rejection letters from publishers and agents, plus reading and hearing about how political the book publishing world is and that your chances of winning the lottery were probably better than getting a book deal. I had actually never even thought of the idea of self-publishing until my friend hh said, “Why don’t you try self-publishing?” I starting Googling the topic and lo and behold there were all kinds of print-on-demand, self-publishing companies with tidy, all-inclusive, self-publishing packages. All I needed was a click-enter on my VISA number and I’d be a published author! Who knew?! I’m getting too old for this hitting-the-pavement stuff.

So I scoured the various options and chose iUniverse’s “Premier” package for around $800 bucks. Their web site impressed me with the most complete and helpful information, plus they had strategic alliances with Barnes & Noble and Amazon so your book gets sold through those channels.

My manuscript was basically finished so all I needed to do at that point was clean it up to match iUniverse’s editorial guidelines and hit the submit button. Everything is handled by email (“Only about 10% of our communication will be by phone…” they tell you) and the process is pretty fast. They have a schedule of when things get done and are pretty good about sticking to it. I think there was only one time when I had to follow up on a delay. Once you get started, they assign a single “PSA” (Publishing Services Associate) to you, so you only have to deal with one person. Although this drops off instantly the second your book is finalized and published. Now whenever I have a question I get bounced around to new associates and have a hard time getting my questions answered. More on that later…

So after you submit your manuscript, you wait about 3 or 4 weeks and then you get an “Editorial Evaluation” by email which is an impressively thorough review of your book, your marketing copy, and your title. The feedback I got was both encouraging–they felt the book was marketable–and constructively critical. There was a slew of great suggestions, but they were pretty tough on me, and I ended up doing a complete re-write of the entire book.

The nice thing about the process was that you could move it along as quickly or as slowly as you wanted. You can do the whole thing in about four months or you can take up to a year to complete your book. After the next submission, my booked moved into the typesetting and design phase and here’s where things took a bit of a turn from the blissful self-publishing path I’d been on.  The typesetting of the manuscript was done quite nicely…a fair bit of back-and-forth ensued with the occasional mistakes on their part that I suppose is to be expected. However, the disappointing part was the cover design. It was really awful. Very basic, ugly font, ugly colours. It looked like they used a template and just dropped my book title into it.  They give you a second kick at the can as part of the package price, so I sent them a mock-up idea and a bunch of sample book designs and colours that I liked. The second version they produced was an exact and very basic set up of my mock-up (which was meant to just give them a few ideas).

I was pretty frustrated at this point because what good is a book if you have a crappy cover, so I actually had to hire my own graphic designer and shell out another $300 bucks to get a decent cover design. Luckily, in my corporate writing business, I work with a wonderful designer from Guelph, Ontario named Art Kilgour. He did a beautiful cover design for me that I am really pleased with.

Throughout the publishing process, iUniverse was very good about asking for feedback on their services, which I diligently provided in written form two different times. In both surveys I mentioned my problem with the cover design and how I had to solve it by spending more money separate from their publishing package. I told them I wanted someone to follow up with me and discuss the situation. I heard nothing. I also sent two different emails to two separate PSA’s and they did not respond to either of those complaints. When I get a chance, I’ll try to press them further and let you know what happens.

All in all not a bad experience and I’m happy with my first book. However, next time I will probably try a different company because of the cover design issue and the lack of customer service follow-up by iUniverse. –C

Guy Talk

Hey guys…if you’re in the Toronto area or within listening range of 1010 CFRB check out a new radio show launched in April called Guy Talk. From their own description: “The underlying premise of Guy Talk rests in the question: Why Won’t Men Grow Up?” Well… I don’t need to add anything more to that!  The creator/hosts of Guy Talk are Dale Curd and Owen Williams, both private practice counsellors in the Beach area of Toronto. I know Owen because my partner and I had a couple of sessions with him during the first year we lived together that saved us from nearly killing each other. I’ve worked with my share of counsellors and therapists over my many years of bad relationship choices and horrific shared parenting conflicts, and Owen is probably the smartest, most effective therapist I’ve ever met. Wish I would have met him years ago. He is stunningly wise about couple behaviour and does a lot of work on men’s issues, as does Dale Curd.  Check out Guy Talk, Sunday nights at 10:00 p.m. –C

Marianne

If you’re into spiritual studies and you’ve never heard of Marianne Williamson, read on because you should check out this amazing spiritual guru. Marianne’s been on the book-writing and speaker circuit consistently since the early 80’s. Back then I lived in New York City, and she used to speak at the Town Hall theatre every month. Me and some co-workers at my night job would jump on the subway over our dinner break and rush downtown to catch as much as we could of her lecture. Yes, she’s now become pretty commercial and she’s one of “Oprah’s Friends,” but the real treat is listening to Marianne speak. For the past 30 or 40 years, she’s been preaching spiritual concepts from A Course in Miracles – an inspiring and radical book about dissolving the spiritual ego, unconditional love, and universal peace. Marianne has an incredible energy when she lectures. She never refers to any speaking notes and can easily evangelize on The Course non-stop for 60 or 90 minutes straight. When she takes questions from the audience or you hear her on radio Q&A shows, she tells it like it is and cuts right through a person’s ego nonsense. Check out Marianne’s web site to see if she is lecturing near you or you can also hear her on XM radio at different times throughout the day and Sunday mornings from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m. (eastern) — C