Friday, December 02, 2011

Self Publishing a Book

  
   Self publishing a book is something I've looked into in the past. A friend of mine wrote a cute holiday story for children and about 10 years ago we collaborated our talents. Our plan was that she was in charge of the writing and I was going to do the illustrating. We spent months researching the idea of submitting her story to well known book publishers. Worried that the story would get overlooked or worse...rejected...we thought perhaps self publishing was the way to go. But through our research we learned that it was pretty costly and back then we had to order tons of books ahead of time. We didn't have the money to invest in a large number of books. And even if we did have the money we feared we might have hundreds of books left on our hands if they didn't sell.


   Those facets of self publishing a book were enough for us to make our decision. But another other issue with self publishing is that you have to do all the marketing yourself. As I said, this all took place more than 10 years ago and our children were all so much younger than they are now. There was no way I would have had the time or energy to go out and work at selling a book.

    The mother of another very close friend of mine self published a book and I know she spends quite a bit of time out of town. She travels to various book stores across the country and many times she leaves her book signings only having sold a few books. It's not an easy gig.

   However, time has marched on and my kids are older and much more independent. Every once in a while I think of that darling story...especially now that the holiday season is upon us. Maybe I'll have to get in touch with my author-friend and start talking again about this business idea. Who knows?? The new year is closing in on us...my business will slow down after the holidays have passed...I might just have some time to devote to a new business. That might be interesting!

   Okay...gotta put a stop to my day-dreaming and get moving. Our high school boys football team is making it's way to the state playoffs and I will be spending the evening with my family cheering them on!

   More fun to come...until then,





2 comments:

Linda Lewis at Creative Artworks! said...

Oh, I hope you and your friend do this, Jane. I'd buy the first copy!

Jane Loedding, Artist & Owner said...

I'd love to resurrect that story. I'll have that on my list of possibilites for 2012! Thanks for your encouragement! It means alot to me. :D

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