Tag: publishing

Posted on

Build It and They May Not Come

Field of Dreams. Photo (2006). Madmaxmarchhare of English Wikipedia. Wikimedia Commons.
Field of Dreams. Photo (2006). Madmaxmarchhare of English Wikipedia. Wikimedia Commons.

I decided to become my own publisher (Yooper Publications) when I realized I was going to write an entire series of walking tour books based on European cities and their historical events and historical periods of time.

I’ve learned a lot

I entered the fifth and final phase of the publishing spectrum the moment we published (and picked up) the first book, Where Did They Put the Guillotine? —A Walking Tour of Revolutionary Paris (1789–1794)–Volume One. This final component is the marketing and public relations portion of my journey. In other words, getting people to become aware my books exist. You remember the movie where they build the baseball field in the middle of the Iowa cornfield? It was the “build it and they will come” type of mentality. Well, not true in the case of trying to sell one’s book in an industry where 2.2 million books come on the market each year (walk through Books A Million sometime and take a look at the competition—that should sober up every aspiring author). Read More Build It and They May Not Come

Posted on

The Eyebrow Effect

Do Authors Make Money?

I was having a cup of coffee with a woman who owned a public relations firm in Nashville. She specialized in handling authors with the marketing of their books. So I asked her, “How do authors make any money on their book?”

She answered, “They don’t, at least not until the third or fourth book.”

Huh?

She went on to explain that the economics turn positive when a self-publishing author writes a series of books as opposed to a “one and done” book. As the author builds their audience (or tribe) over a period of 18 to 24 months, he will have probably written his first two books. By the time the third book is written and published, the audience is there, and they begin to buy the third book. If they like it, they will go back and buy book numbers one and two. She said this is when the author begins to make money.

Photo by Scmagnetismo (2008). Wikimedia Commons
Photo by Scmagnetismo (2008). Wikimedia Commons

So I have this series of three walking tour books in Paris planned for publication over the next two years: Where Did They Put the Guillotine?—French Revolution (1789–1794), Where Did They Burn the Last Grandmaster of the Knights Templar?—Medieval Paris (987–1547), and Where Did They Put the Gestapo Headquarters?—Nazi-occupied Paris (1940–1944). Keeping in mind what my friend the PR lady said, what is the sequence I should pursue as far as writing and publishing these three books (keep in mind, it’s really four books as the French Revolution turned into two separate books/volumes).

The Eyebrow Effect

Read More The Eyebrow Effect