Getting the book ready

Somethings things are self-explanatory or intuitive and you just pick them up easily. Until now that was the case with getting my children's book ready. (See previous posts on this subject - I'm getting ready to self-publish a book through Lulu.com).

The idea for the book - one of many stories I've written but the first to be published - came to me from a remark one of my daughters made. Once that seed of inspiration was planted the story sprouted almost of it's own will. Then it sat for a couple of years, languishing. I did send it to 3 publishers, none felt it was a good fit for them. Finally, I asked a friend from Kung-Fu class - Lorna Foot - if she would be interested in illustrating some of my stories. She took up the challenge with enthusiasm and started making pictures right away.
Then I realized that I had to venture away from being just a writer to being an editor/publisher. I had to storyboard the book - deciding which scenes to illustrate, what text to put on which pages etc. My wife Niqi and I did this together and it was a lot of fun. We've both read so many children's picture books to our daughters over the years (librarians know us by name!) that this part of the process was comfortably intuitive. It was easy to envision what we wanted and divide the story up so I could give Lorna direction as to what to illustrate.

Then once we got the pictures, another intuitive creative process came in putting the pictures and words together. Choosing the font, placing the text just so, placing the pictures just so, etc. Again Niqi and I did this together - we make a good team - and it was wonderfully exciting fun and came easily to us.

I also have a marketing and publicity plan that came to me intuitively and that I'm excited to put into motion. More on that in future posts.

But, before I can do that I have a hurdle. The actual publishing is giving me a headache. Now, if I had the capital, I could hand things over to Lulu for a fee and get them to do the rest. But I don't have that kind of cash just now and I would really rather learn as much as possible. But though I can grasp the concept - ISBN number gets you into catalogs and enlarges distribution, hard-cover vs. soft-cover, etc etc. - the details are frustrating. File formats, embedding fonts, binding types, blank page insertions, copyrights, doing the spine for the hard-cover, full-bleed print, non-bleed print, pricing, royalties, mark-ups etc. etc. There's a lot to learn. And none of it is coming with the same ease as the rest of the project has.

I feel I'm so close. If I can just get it on-line in the right format with everything in order so people can buy the book (Lulu is print-on-demand so books are produced as they are purchased) then I can relax and focus on telling everyone to buy my book (hint, hint :o). After that I don't even have to handle any physical sales - Lulu takes care of that. I just promote it and wait for the checks to come in. My Kung-Fu Sifu sells some instructional books the same way and they've provided him with some fairly stable long-term passive income. As he says - once it's out there, it just keeps making money for you forever. That's exactly the type of passive income with low start-up and overhead Ive been searching for. And not only that, but this is just the first book. I have many more already written, and hundreds of potential books in my head. I now have an enthusiastic and talented illustrator I've partnered with who brings the products of my imagination to life on paper. And lastly through the internet and print-on-demand self-publishing the means for a solid, inexpensive, low maintenance sales vehicle. The potential is just enormous!!! It's so close I can almost touch it! And unfortunately that eagerness is getting in the way of me calmly concentrating and learning how to do these last steps.
The good news is once I learn it, I'll have a new skill that will hopefully serve me well for many years to come.

There's an exhilarating sensation of hope and possibility that comes along with this point. I'm trying to savor it and remain confident. Because at the edge there is always some doubt.

Wish me luck. I'm about to push my sled down a new hill and see how things go!