Q: I have a book I’d like to self-publish (or, if possible, find a regular publisher). It’s a translation of an existing book. All the self-publishing companies I’ve talked to don’t do books in Spanish.
I’d suggest contacting the Center for the Study of Books in Spanish www.csusm.edu/csb/english. They have a very detailed website and should know which companies are best to deal with in this area. 1:2/04
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Q: I have a children’s picture book (as the author) scheduled for publication in October with a U.S. publisher. I have other similar stories that I’d like to promote, but I’m not keen on their time-scale for production (i.e. 2.5 years to get this book from submission to publication). I’d be interested in your comments on self-publishing.
With regard to your question, I know the long schedules for traditional publishing can be frustrating. However, I think there’s still a lot of value in going with an established publisher, particularly with a well-respected house. Self-published books and products don’t tend to be well received here because many aren’t well produced, and they often don’t have wide distribution. This makes it difficult even for books that are done well to compete for review attention. So, while you may be able to get a new book or product into the market more quickly with self-publishing, odds are that you’ll take longer to get it established or won’t be able to build the credibility you need for it to succeed. 1:2/05
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Q: I have self-published a bilingual English/Spanish picture book and have been sending it to bilingual directors at schools in my state. How would you suggest I broaden my promotional and marketing efforts?
There are a number of national organizations that can provide outlets and information on reaching people interested in bilingual, Spanish language and books of Hispanic interest. General information on this market is available from The Center for the Study of Books in Spanish for Children and Adolescents. This organization has a collection of books in Spanish from around the world, as well as Spanish/English trade and textbooks. It also collects journals and publishers’ catalogs. Each November, The Center holds a national conference in San Diego, entitled “The Conference on Books in Spanish for Young Readers.”
Information can be obtained by contacting The Center for the Study of Books in Spanish for Children and Adolescents at California State University at San Marcos, San Marcos, CA 92096, (619) 752-4073. Isabel Schon is the director.
Reforma is primarily an organization of librarians whose members also include educators and business people interested in serving Spanish speakers. Reforma publishes the quarterly Reforma Newsletter which does review children’s books in a column called “Para Ninos.” They also publish a membership directory and sell mailing labels. For more information about Reforma, contact Mary Dodge, Auraria Library, Lawrence at 11th Street, Denver, CO 80204, (303) 556-3521.
Other organizations you may want to contact are:
Review media include:
Key distributors are Hispanic Book Distributors, 1665 West Grant Road, Tucson, AZ 85745; Lectorum Publications, 137 W. 14th Street, New York, NY 10011; and Bilingual Publications, 270 Lafayette Street, S. 705, New York, NY 10012. 8:9/94
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Q: Do first time authors always have to spend or invest some money to get their first book published?
Your cost should be limited to the money and time spent querying publishers and sending out sample outlines or chapters for consideration. A publisher who is interested should cover the cost of printing, marketing and distributing the book.
If you have gotten a response from a publisher who has asked you to contribute to, or cover, the cost of printing, you’ve reached a “vanity press”. They will basically act as a printing service to create copies of your book. This is more like self-publishing than it is like working with a mainstream publishing house because you are shouldering the financial burden and will probably have to do your own marketing to help the book sell. These companies generally will list your book in their catalog and in some promotional material, but will not give your book much individual attention.
I would advise against working with a “vanity press” unless you’ve exhausted all avenues with mainstream publishers and have decided against self-publishing. 10:11/95
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Q: My publisher is letting two of my backlist books go out-of-print and I am considering publishing the books myself. I do school visits and think I could sell a lot on my own. Do you think this is advisable? If so, how should I proceed?
If you think you can print a large enough quantity to keep down the cost, sell what you print and still make a profit, self-publishing is a good idea. School visits can provide a stable base for selling your books then you can decide whether you want to expand your distribution through other channels.
The first thing to do, whether you are planning to self-publish or not, is to ask the publisher if you can buy the films they’ve made of your books. Once you have those, you’ll be able to reprint without resetting type and shooting new negatives. If you are not self-publishing the books, you can offer the films to other publishers who may be interested in bringing your books back into print. 10:11/95
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Q: Are subsidy publishers listed in Children’s Writer’s and Illustrator’s Market more reputable than those not listed?
According to the editor of Children’s Writer’s and Illustrator’s Market, they will be taking all subsidy publishers out of the book, beginning with the 1997 edition. She said the ones that have been included in the book were those companies they had not received complaints about, but she didn’t have specific knowledge about them otherwise.
My view (which she shares) is that it is better to look for a “traditional” publisher, than to contract with a subsidy or vanity publisher. Authors and illustrators have had problems with some of these presses — which can charge high rates, can publish books in a lower quality format, or can be misleading about the marketing and promotion they do. For example, I was asked by a family member to review a contract and marketing proposal from a large vanity press. The letter praised the author’s book as particularly marketable and provided examples of a press release and ad that could be done for her book. She was enthusiastic until we looked at the copy more closely and I pointed out that the text was so generic that any other children’s book could have been substituted for hers. It seemed possible –and even likely — that they had not read book to write the letter.
Some houses may do better than that, but I’d still recommend self-publishing and controlling what the book will look like and how it is marketed, rather than paying a subsidy publisher. There are also many small regional and specialty publishers that publish excellent books, and which are often overlooked by new authors and illustrators who hope to get books published by the New York trade houses. 10:11/96
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Q: I feel uncomfortable about publicizing my books. How do other authors handle this?
Every author or illustrator has a different degree of comfort with this. Often it just takes some practice and time to get used to the idea. However, some authors use a pseudonym or a company name to work under when they promote their books (not something I’d advise, or feel is necessary). Others hire part-time help to make calls for them, or contract with an agency to do the work.
Keep in mind, though, that if you were running another kind of business — a store or a service business for example — you would know from the start that you would have to promote it. The key is to market your book in a professional manner.
When doing publicity:
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Q: I am a writer and publisher. I’ve hired an illustrator and I would like to know what rights she and I have with regard to the characters. She has been told that she has the rights to the characters and can do whatever she wishes with them. She also feels that she should be entitled to any royalties I receive on the books, or on other products that evolve using the characters. We signed an agreement that she will be paid a flat fee for her work, and she agreed. How can I know if the price is fair, or should be different?
According to Kendra Marcus, owner of Book Stop Literary Agency, “Ownership of characters and images of those characters should be negotiated in advance and outlined in a written contract or agreement between the publisher (buyer) and illustrator (seller). A typical publisher agreement for a flat fee (outright sale) would include a grant of rights for a specific term (Illustrator hereby grants, transfers and assigns all rights, title and interest in and to the illustrations to Publisher, including without limitation, all copyright rights, worldwide and in perpetuity.) It would also detail how the Publisher could use those rights (e.g. Publisher shall be entitled but not required, to publish and distribute the illustrations or any parts thereof in any manner it chooses, to make any and all modifications to the illustrations that it chooses, and to include the illustration in any publication, in all forms of media now known or hereafter developed, without any further payment to the Illustrator than is provided for herein.) In addition it would state how much would be paid for those rights (e.g. In full consideration of all rights granted above the publisher agrees to pay the illustrator a fee of XXX…). The price for such a sale is completely negotiable and should be calculated keeping in mind how extensively the images will be used (number of copies expected to be sold) and for what period of time.” 5:6/00
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Q: Someone else is self-publishing a first book that she has written, and has asked me to illustrate it. What types of (financial and rights) terms would be reasonable for me to negotiate for? Also, I wonder if you can suggest a website or book that deals with this type of issue for illustrators.
In general, I think you’d be better off trying to market your work to an established publisher, but if you want to pursue this, Agent Scott Treimel of S@ottTremill NY literary agency, recommends that you “Ask an upfront per-copy royalty (five to ten percent of retail price) for the first printing. The agreement can be renewable upon each re-printing.
Another option, but one he calls a riskier arrangement, would be to have the author/publisher “compensate you with an advance against royalties, payable bi-monthly, semi-annual, or etc. Here your earnings would be reliant upon sales– plus accurate accounting and timely payment– so seek a higher royalty. Be sure earnings are payable as the books sell and not after the production/distribution/etc. investment is recouped.”
As for a book, or website, you may want to check with the Graphic Artists Guild at www.gag.org. About.com also has a section on illustration, http://publishing.about.com/cs/illustration, which may be of interest. 11-12:02
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Q: Making Hay out of Snow in Texas
It does snow in Texas, but almost never in South Texas – in fact, in 2004, there hadn’t been a significant snowfall there for more than 100 years. So, when it did snow that Christmas Eve – more than four inches in many towns – it was dubbed a Christmas miracle. For one Texas native, Clark Childers, the event marked the beginning of a self-publishing marathon that, in less than three years, has sold more than 120,000 units of its first books — two for adults (Snow and More Snow) and one for children (More Snow for Kids). Now RedCab Media, the company Clark, a screenwriter, co-founded with his mother, Kathryn Childers, a Corpus Christi TV personality, is publishing its next children’s book, entitled Texas: The True Story of the Lone Star State.
What the Childers’ recognized about that historic snowfall was that it captured the imaginations of many thousands of people who rushed out to be part of the experience – building snowmen, making snow angels – and who, the Childers expected, would want to buy their Snow books. Their challenge was to keep the momentum while getting the books done, to press, and into wide distribution. They knew from the beginning that the schedule meant they’d have to self-publish, and they found distribution through a chain of Texas grocery stores which ordered 10,000 copies of “Snow” right up front.
Childers describes their experience as “gorilla publishing” and says, “We made these books our lives. Getting a book from concept to shelves in six months was a monumental effort. Getting two was a miracle. Without the lessons learned from the previous year’s publication of Snow, the next two would never have happened. Work on More Snow began in March 2006, and we had it on shelves late October. The writing of More Snow for Kids began in March, and the first dummy was completed days before the SCBWI’s August 2006 conference. On the advice of SCBWI members and guest speakers, we delayed printing a week, made changes to layout and design, and began the “gorilla movement” book tour for the kids. We decked our twenty-five foot AirStream trailer with snowflakes and illustrations from the book, created paper snow glasses, printed t-shirts and scheduled two signings a day in locations across South Texas. It was non-stop.”
He admits they broke a lot of publishing rules, but that was because there wasn’t time to find out what the rules were. He says, “Of course, when I talk about breaking the rules, I’m referring to self-publication. At every major publishing industry event I’ve been to, I find myself fighting to make our little self-publishing company sound like it’s a lot more than it is. In order to do that we’ve had to take on many hats: publicity, marketing, distribution, school readings, newspaper, television, print ads, television ads, songs, lyrics [for the accompanying CD]…everything….We absorbed the risk and took control. The way we were able to do that is we found our distribution before we wrote the book, and we sold our product before it went to print. It may sound like a completely unique situation, but I believe it can be done by other authors if they know where to look. You just have to be willing to take over the marketing of the book once it becomes available.”
While Childers points out that they had marketing experience, good contacts and some money to put behind the project; they were also able to get a lot of in-kind support from people and organizations who believed in their project. And while they were fortunate to have such a special circumstance, they were essentially acting to fill a need in the marketplace. Childers allows this is a different kind of publishing than many authors set out to do. “The best advice I have is to find a niche, a source of funding and/or distribution outlet, then write your story. You might not be able to publish that one great story you love, but if you’re a good writer, you can always come up with another.” His plans for RedCab, may include publishing other authors’ books; acting as intermediary between authors of niche-related books and companies, foundations, and non-profits; and consulting. Information on the Snow books is at www.texassnowbook.com.
10:11/07
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