OK, Here's Something I Would Have Never Expected

Hey there. So today is the day my novel - Why Is Crater Lake So Blue? - is officially released, although that really doesn't mean anything in this weird, small-publishing world.

Amazon has been selling copies and I know a couple bookstores in the Northwest have put some copies out. There's even one copy in the Burnside store of Powell's Books - the biggest independent book store in the world - in Portland, Oregon.

Wholesalers are really in charge (a loose term) of how your book is distributed - or not - to the resellers. For example, if you check out Border's website right now you'd find my book in the database but it wouldn't include the cover photo and would be calling it a paperback rather than what it is - a hardback. At B&N, no photo, wrong ISBN number, no description. At Powells, no image. That's so sad to an expectant author but in the long run it's just exasperation rather than a huge problem. I think.

And at Amazon this morning they say the book hasn't been released yet despite the fact that they sold books last week. What it means is they ran out of books and they don't know where to get new ones.

All this is due to something happening on the other side of the country. The NY wholesaler who distributes the book to the giant wholesaler - Ingram - doesn't have the final paperwork settled on. Thus all this database stuff is in disarray. At least that's what I think is happening.

I won't know for sure until I start calling people Monday morning. Sheesh. And then the book tour starts Saturday in Klamath Falls, Oregon. Can't wait to find out what will go wrong there.

So you want to write books?

Michael LaLumiere
http://www.whyiscraterlakesoblue.com/

Welcome To The Self-Publishing Business

Kim and I received a few more rejection letters. It was now official, I was at a total standstill regarding these manuscripts. And as a newbie I was surprised to have reached this standstill so soon in the project. As a former professional in the publishing business I thought I knew better.

Then one day I stuck "Self-publishing'' into the Google search window. I was shocked by what I found. There was a big, wide world based on self-publishing. Before that moment I had no idea. I was embarassed I didn't know anything about it but I was determined to discover what I could as fast as I could.

The self-publishing business is way farther along now than it was back then. The rise of improved digital printing and Internet marketing have changed everything. We're at the beginning of the end of what the Book Publishing World use to be.

At that time - 2 plus years ago - vanity presses were trying to morph into POD (Print on demand) companies. Their goal: get a chunk of your money up front. Some gave you an expensive but quality product. Others gave you an expensive box of nothing much.

I settled on Lulu.com. The great thing about LuLu was there was no expensive up front fees. Basically, you could get a book printed digitally and see how it turned out. This was great for seminar books that I wanted to sell but not so good for a full-color picture book.

They couldn't print hardcovers at the time. And color reproduction was only so so and cost prohibitive for retailing. So now I had a soft-cover, color picture book where the color wasn't great. I would have to sell it for $16. Nobody's going to buy the product for that price if at all.

I was stuck again. Oops I forgot to tell you the trials and tribulations of finding an illustrator for the book. Sorry, it nearly put me in a coma - i must have burned it out of my memory.

Michael LaLumiere