POD Diary

From May to August of 2007, I wrote a novel and edited it twice then had no idea what to do with it because I was already thinking of a new project to write next. It was part romance, part comedy, and I didn’t know which market to shop it to. So, I let it sit.

In October, Amazon.com announced its ABNA contest to find the next breakthrough novel. I decided to polish my finished book and submit it as an entry. I made it into the contest, but was cut in the second round in January of this year.

So, there I sat with a finished novel. In December, I finished the second project I had started. Now…TWO finished novels! I got an idea on how to improve the first one, so I began rewriting and editing it again! I began shopping them to publishers and agents. I sent the first one out less because I thought the second one would appeal to a wider market. Rejections began to roll in. But I really wanted to publish that first novel, now entitled Stealing Wishes, because I had put so much time and effort into it. So, I have since decided to use Lulu to do it.

This page will serve as a diary of my publishing process to hopefully be a good resource for others who frequent this site often and may be looking for suggestions or advice. Feel free to ask questions or make comments, or share your own ideas if you have them.

Here’s where we are so far…

Three weeks ago: I began formatting my Word document manuscript to a 6×9 page size. I changed the margins and added page numbers. I added the blank pages at the beginning and end like you find in regular novels, and which Lulu requires for ISBN assignment. I added a copyright page (also required), a title page, and a dedication page..consulting other traditional books I own for alignment suggestions and for what the copyright page should say.

I added necessary pages so that my chapters always begin on the right side. I’ve noticed some traditional books do this and some don’t. Some more recent titles I looked at go straight through with no blank pages, chapters starting on the left or the right. But I did find some with blank pages so that the chapters always begin on the right. Any thoughts? I like the right side format so I went with that. I also “fully aligned” my words so I have that crisp straight line down the right page. I also added a picture to appear on my title page between the title and my name.

Two weeks ago: I started a new project on Lulu.com but kept it private. I uploaded my manuscript and examined the created PDF file to see if it was to my liking. It was, so I began working on a book cover.

The Book Cover: For the idea I had in mind, I grabbed a camera and set up a photo shoot using props I wanted on the cover. These were old photos, a cup of coffee, and some lose change. After several snapshots and different angles, I uploaded my photos to my computer and chose the best one. I played with color variation a bit, using Adobe Photoshop Manager, and finally had something I liked.

Using the Paint program on my computer, I created a 7×10 file which would serve as my cover. The reason for the slightly larger size is for the bleed over when you start creating your cover on Lulu. I chose a blue background for the entire cover, then I stretched my photo across the middle from the left edge to the right. After choosing a font and size, I typed my title across the top and centered it between the top of the book cover and the image, and then did the same with my name below the image. After a few adjustments, I had a nice cover. Well, I thought it looked nice. Keep reading.

I quickly uploaded it to Lulu and then used Lulu’s cover design to do the spine and the back cover. I chose a slightly different shade of blue for the spine. I put the title and my name in white, and chose not to print the Lulu logo on the spine. For the back cover, I used Lulu to color the back cover all black. Then in white, I typed in my blurb description of the book. I could not find a way to make it fully aligned down the right side for a nice crisp straight line. If anyone knows how to do this, let us know. I even tried typing my blurb in Word and doing a full alignment, and then copied and pasted it into the Lulu screen, but it didn’t work. Oh well, this would not be my final product anyway, so I left it as is for now.

The Sample Copy: After a few minor adjustments and some spell checking, I ordered a sample copy on Saturday, May 3rd. My cost for the book was $9.99. Shipping was $7.44 for Priority Mail. The book shipped from New York on Tuesday, the 6th, and arrived at my home in St. Louis, Missouri, on Thursday the 8th. Wow! Excellent shipping time! (Note: Media Mail would have been cheaper, but would have also taken a few days longer to receive. Also, Lulu does not offer any tracking for media mail, so if the package is lost in transit, you are out of luck.)

No, I didn’t have to buy a sample copy, but I believe it helps to have the book in hand to get a feel for it. How is it going to look to the reader? It really helps to step away from the monitor and spend time with the book during this process, so I highly recommend taking the time and money to do this. I spent $1.99 on some red ink pens so I could immediately begin revising the text which is what I am still doing at this time.

The Book Cover: I hate it. The lettering on the cover is fuzzy. My photo looks great and the quality is excellent, except there is an orange shine in the top corner, which probably came from a vase which was sitting on the table where I photographed the image. There’s also a glare in the bottom right corner which I didn’t notice before, and the collage placement of my photographs is not very good on the top right side. Back to the drawing board.

The Interior: Wow! The inside looks great. The gutter, that space down the middle between the pages, is a little tight and I found myself having to open the book wider to be able to read it. So, I’ll have to fix that margin. Also, the page number at the bottom is too close to the text. I will bump it down. I also think the top margin is too wide, so it may need to be adjusted as well. I am still currently reading the text, but so far, my spelling and grammatical errors have not been too bad. My red ink pens are getting some use though!

Marketing Investments: Yay! My economic stimulus package arrived via direct deposit on May 6th. I’m using most of it to pay bills, but I decided to treat myself to a few helpful books I’ve been wanting. They are: Jeremy Robinson’s POD People and Janet Elaine Smith’s Promo Paks. I immediately began reading POD People and highlighting ideas in it. It has been a great motivator. I even posted about it in LLBR as being a valuable resource. Total investment: $25.93. I haven’t read Janet’s book yet, but I will post more about it when I do. By the way, just an aside that doesn’t really matter but Jeremy’s book contains spelling and grammar mistakes. See…no one is perfect!

May 10th and 11th: So here we are. I’m still revising the inside, checking for errors, and marking up the sample copy with my red ink pens. I’ve read all of POD People and have begin looking into Jeremy’s suggestions for book cover help. Jeremy suggests a program called Gimp. I downloaded it for free and began toying around with it, but I didn’t find any options that were better than what I could do with Paint. I decided to keep trying. Jeremy offers book cover design on his website. For POD, his price ranges from $700 to $850 dollars. I emailed him but have not received a response, but then I started having second thoughts. Determined to do this myself, I quickly talked myself out of spending that much money for someone’s help and began Googling other options.

I came across a highly recommended site called Book Cover Pro. Has anyone else used this? It’s amazing! It even comes with templates where you just add the text, images, and choose colors. Done! It’s $167.00 dollars to download it to your desktop. I guess I stimulated the economy a bit more, because I decided to buy it. Called Mom to wish her a Happy Mother’s Day while the download was taking place, and by 7pm Sunday night I was playing around with full wrap-around book covers.

Total investment in this POD project so far: $212.35

May 13th: I’m accustomed to waking up at 6am, feeding the pets, and drinking 3 cups of coffee while sitting at my computer to check email, read blogs, and do some writing before leaving for work. Last year, while completing two novels, I discovered I was most creative in the early morning. Today, I used that time to play with Book Cover Pro. It’s pretty basic and easy to maneuver. I had a decent cover up in about thirty minutes, which I decided to save and try to upload to Lulu just to see if it would transfer to the Lulu system okay. It didn’t.

Here’s a key component to remember if you are doing a full one-piece cover. Your entire cover should be 926.27 X 666 Postscript points (12.86″ X 9.25″). I changed my cover size in Book Cover Pro, but when I uploaded it to Lulu it was too big. It was around 1000 x 700. So, there is just over 1/4″ size difference between Lulu and Book Cover Pro. No problem. This was just a test anyway. I still need to collect a few more images for my cover, some of which I’m going to photograph myself. Learn how to adjust the pixels if you are using your own photographs. You’ve probably seen “300 dpi” mentioned out there. When using BC Pro, I’ve discovered the images will be very small if the pixels aren’t high enough, and if you adjust the size of the image it will distort the picture.

In other news, in POD People, Jeremy Robinson says a lot of his success was due to his author blurb from James Rollins. He writes quite a bit about how other POD authors should try very hard to get a blurb too. Well, it just so happens I know about three authors. I asked one of them about writing a blurb for me, and they said yes! I’m still working on the other two.

May 14th: I’m over halfway through editing the review copy. I spent a lot of time last night playing with the book cover some more. I got out the camera and staged the photographs I needed and took some really good shots which will work well on the cover. Yesterday at work, I quizzed a few people about that blank page before chapters so that the chapter always begins on the right, which I mentioned earlier. Most had never noticed and had no preference. That’s when it hit me. If I get rid of those blank pages and let the chapters go straight through, starting on the left or the right, it would decrease my page count. That means it might also decrease the base price of my book! So, this morning I immediately changed the manuscript and got rid of those blank pages and uploaded it to Lulu for another trial run. Guess what? My base price dropped from $9.99 to $7.69. That means if I wanted to mark it up 5 dollars my list price goes from $14.99 to $12.69. That’s a $2.30 difference off the cover price which keeps the book even more affordable for readers. Lesson learned!

Evening of May 14th: As I’m writing this, I’m attempting for the third time to upload my book cover to Lulu’s advanced book cover option. I’ve been writing down the measurements of each test, which Lulu tells me is wrong, trying to find that magic postscript number which will equal 907.62 x 666 Postscripts. With the measurements being slightly off between Lulu’s system and BookCover Pro, as I mentioned earlier, it’s been a real challenge. Especially since each upload takes about 5 minutes for Lulu to convert. I know. I know. Patience. My work on the cover this morning turned out great though. I finally have an excellent cover which I’m extremely proud of, making the $167 dollar investment definitely worth it. I even sent it to work to share with a coworker to get her opinion. She liked it and said it would appeal to her if she saw it in a store.

May 15th: 6am, fed pets, drank coffee, and immediately started testing the size of the book cover again in BC Pro to see what the magic number would be to get it to upload to Lulu. Test 12 was it! It’s 11.5w X 8.5h in BC Pro, which uploads to Lulu and meets the criteria for 907.62 X 666 postscripts. I swear I felt like a Dan Brown character cracking a century-old code. But it’s done! Now I just have to finish editing the ARC I bought and make those changes and then it’s time for the ISBN. FYI…those of you planning on purchasing an ISBN, don’t forget to leave room for it on the back cover! Lulu will generate the barcode for you and add it to the cover, just make sure no text or pics are going to get blocked by it.

May 16th: I’m an idiot! Yesterday afternoon I discovered that the manuscript file to my second test on Lulu was the wrong file! No wonder my page count and price dropped. It wasn’t from getting rid of those blank spacer pages. It was because I had uploaded a totally different project from my desktop which I haven’t even finished writing. GEEZ! I know. I know. I need to slow down. But of course, when I uploaded the correct file, I also had to redo the cover because Lulu was now giving me a different postscript requirement because of the number of pages. The reason behind this is probably because the spine will be a different size. But it only took one more test to get it right. Wow! I’m getting good at this. My new page count is 241, down from 255 after I removed those blank chapter spacers. And my new net price is $9.35. Not bad.

I also chatted with a Lulu rep last night because after using the advanced upload for my full cover, it would only show me a small business card size picture of it. I wanted to see something larger so I could examine the quality of my cover. I learned you have to click on the book cover image listed under the files being used in that project. That will show you a larger version of it, and I must say, my new cover is AWESOME!

I only have about 65 pages of the ARC left to edit and then I’ll be ready to start touching up the manuscript. I’m also toying with the use of a professional photo for the inside of which I have permission to use from the Library of Congress. But….I haven’t decided yet. I think this photo might set a different tone for the novel than what I intended. We’ll see…

Sunday, May 18th: This is the day! I finished my edit of the ARC copy last night and made all the changes to my online file. That part was the worst, I have to say. I hate editing! But it has to be done, right? I decided against the picture I mentioned a few days ago, but I did add a quote page to the front of the book. I also wrote a new blurb for the back of the book and had to reformat the book cover to make room for my ISBN and barcode. Some news about that blurb….beware when you are writing your description to go into the book page on Lulu. It can only be 1024 characters…NOT words…characters. That includes spaces! Also, MS Word kept telling me my character count was right on, but Lulu kept telling me I was over.

I had a lot of trouble keeping my back cover blurbs out of the spine. Creating my book cover in BCPro and then uploading into Lulu took several tries. I still hate that you can only see a small business card photo of your cover with the perforations. When you click on the cover image file to see it up close, the perforations are not there so it makes it hard to judge if the words on the spine are too close to the edge.

Now let’s talk about pricing. I ended up setting the Lulu retail price at $15.95, making my revenue $5.28 for every copy I sell through Lulu. My own author price is $9.35. So, my distribution price (Amazon.com, B&N, etc) will also be $15.95 but my revenue will only be $1.32. I wonder if the recent Amazon/Booksurge POD tiff had anything to do with this? I may lower the $15.95 price, overall cutting away at any profit to be made through global channels. It literally pays to redirect people directly to Lulu to buy your book! The E-book is set at $7.50, of which I will receive $6.00 for each sale. E-books tend to be the more popular purchase anyway when someone is buying directly through Lulu.

One more complaint concerning pricing…each time I changed the cover, I would also have to go through all of the book description screens again and resave them. Nothing had changed on them so it was a quick process, but when I got to the pricing screen, Lulu kept changing my price from $15.95 to $15.94. I have no idea why. Not a big deal, but for someone who might think nothing had changed, it’s easy to overlook and miss this.

I went ahead and purchased the “Published by You” package to get my ISBN. Tack on $99.95 to my expenses. I also purchased a 2nd review copy ($9.35) and chose USPS Postal Priority Shipping ($8.16). Based on the first review copy I purchased, I should hopefully receive the book this coming Thursday. That’s a total of $117.46 spent today.

Total investment in this POD Project to date: $329.81

If I can sell a total of 55 Ebook versions of this, I will have made back my money. 62 paperback copies sold through Lulu will cover it. 250 copies sold through Amazon!

Ready to see the new cover? Click here! The good thing is the book is already available for sale on Lulu. Now, I’m just waiting to receive my next review copy, and to be approved for and assigned my ISBN. We’ll pick up there when that happens because I’ll have to make more revisions. Lulu doesn’t format and add your ISBN and bar code to the back if you created your own one piece cover. I also will have to add the ISBN to the copyright page.

May 21st: Good news! This morning I received a confirmation email that my order for the next review copy shipped. In tracking it, it was picked up at 5:04pm by the US Postal Service in Rochester New York yesterday. So, I’d estimate it might be here tomorrow, if not, it will definitely be here on Friday. You’ve got to appreciate such a quick printing and shipping time from Lulu! Stay tuned, in an upcoming entry I’m going to post some pictures!

May 22nd: Got an email from Lulu last night letting me know my ISBN number! BCPro has an option where you can type in your ISBN and price, and literally within seconds, it generates the bar code on the back of your book cover and then you just have to move it around to wherever you want it. Checked tracking on the book and it is in St. Louis but probably hasn’t arrived at my local office yet. I look to receive it tomorrow.

May 23rd: YAY! The book actually arrived yesterday (Thursday). I continue to be amazed at how well Lulu’s printing company packages books. Quality is definitely the focus here. Click on the links as I go along to see pictures. This picture is the box that the one single book came in. The box is just over 11 x 14 for a 6 x 9 book. Inside the box, there is a flat piece of cardboard which the book is shrink wrapped to. It is padded nicely inside the shrink wrap, surely preventing the book from water damage if the package got wet. I was very excited. This picture is like the birth of my book since I’m seeing it for the first time. The return address on the box is Lulu in North Carolina, even though we know the box shipped from New York.

Now, here are the problems I’ll have to fix. At the bottom on the front and back cover there is a small white line indicating either the printer messed up the cut or the printing of the cover, or my dimensions are off. More about this later. On the back, my blurb runs too far to the edge, so it will have to be adjusted too. And just as I thought, the words on the spine are too close to the edge. The interior looks great though. My title page on the inside is not centered, but that’s a quick fix. I also have to add my ISBN to the copyright page. And I’d like to add my name and the title of the book to the headers of each page. I tried playing around with that and didn’t have much luck, so I decided to give it a rest for now and come back to it. Anyone out there who has advice on doing this, please post it here!

Now, more about that white line. At 9pm last night, I decide to chat with a Lulu rep. Chat is a nice feature for Lulu, but the people chatting with you aren’t always as efficient. I was chatting with Chris M. I explained to Chris about the white line on the cover. It does not appear in my file on my computer, and it did not appear on Lulu after the upload. Remember, I did 13 test uploads having to resize this cover over and over again before Lulu accepted the upload. After waiting about 10 minutes for Chris to investigate, he comes back and begins telling me things that are wrong on the inside of the book.

Confused, I ask him if this affects the book cover. He had forgotten (quite quickly) that I did mention the problem was with the book cover. So, we start over. He opens the file and discovers my cover measures 13.04 x 9 when it should measure 12.25 x 9.25 (+ spine). I explain to him that I am using BC Pro and that I discovered the measurements aren’t exactly the same for some reason. His suggestion was that I switch to Photoshop because “that’s what lots of other people use. I explain that I did 13 tests in resizing the cover before Lulu accepted it. Each time during the first 12 tests, Lulu told me the size was wrong. On the 13th try, Lulu accepted it so I assume that means the size was finally correct. Or was the Lulu computer system just giving me a break because each test took 10 minutes to do anyway and I was on my 13th round?

Chris is adamant that the sizing issue is the reason for the problem. Fine. I’ll resize it. I’ll add .25 inches to the cover’s height in BC Pro. Does he think that will fix the problem? He repeats the sizing specifications to me again which I previously mentioned, so I repeat to him how I think the two systems are different. He repeats to me about using Photoshop. I repeat to him that Lulu should not have accepted the upload if it was still wrong. Chris repeats the sizing specifications to me again. It was almost as if my typing in the chat was not being “heard.” 45 minutes pass and Chris has been of no help, except he says he’ll “mention” my problem to the engineering team. I copied him on the links of pictures I had uploaded as a reference, but he said he couldn’t look at them.

I ask Chris that if I change the height in BC Pro and add .25 inches and reload it to my Lulu files, will he take a look? He says sure. I make the adjustment and upload it. He takes a look and tells me again that my sizing is wrong and not to Lulu’s specifications. I tell him we already covered that, but that the white line is only .25 inches across the bottom and can he just tell me if the new file would get rid of the white line. He gives me another dry answer about measurements, probably because he doesn’t know the answer to my question. At this point it is now 10:05pm. I’ve wasted an hour so I give up on Chris M and go to bed.

Overall, the book looks great. Shipping was fast. The packaging was great. The quality of the book is superior. The euphoric feeling of seeing my creation in print was well worth it. The problems I’ve mentioned here are trite and can easily be fixed. My biggest disappointment of the evening was the chat session with Lulu rep Chris. I’d much rather be told up front that he doesn’t know what I should do and he’ll have someone get back to me, rather than spend an hour repeating myself and still not getting answers to my questions.

Sure, the white line may come down to a measurement problem on my part, but I’m a little upset that the Lulu system accepted the file at the size I uploaded it at after I made changes 13 times. AND the white line is not present in my online view of the cover on Lulu. In my eyes, that tells me the white line shouldn’t be there, but sure enough, there it is on the physical copy. I’m not saying my personal issue is Lulu’s problem, but it definitely is a problem with their system that needs tweaking. I should be able to SEE this type of problem online at Lulu before choosing to print a copy of the book, measurement specifications or not. If my measurements are off, the Lulu system should not accept the upload. After all, it did reject my cover 12 times before. End of story.

So, there are some changes to be made. An ISBN to add. Some formatting and measurements to work on. Luckily, I have a three day weekend coming up. Oh, and anyone wishing to have a transcript of the chat session with Chris is welcome to it. Just let me know.

May 24th: I decided to seek out more help from Lulu and posted my “white line” dilemma in the forum yesterday. I immediately got a response from a Lulu forum moderator telling me to email orders@lulu.com and provide all the information above. So, I did. Within an hour, I got an email reply from John H letting me know that the bleed of my cover probably needed to be a bit bigger. Here’s what John H said…

The only thing I can advise is that both the basic dimensions and then the dimensions needed for full bleed are stated on our Help section. It is only when you have sized to what is needed, will your book print as it should; this is sadly regardless of what bleed problems do show or do not show on the print ready files or whether the system accepts the file or not. The singular most important thing on this, is , to save the files to the dimensions needed, at the outset.

Yeah, yeah. I still have issues with the fact that he says “regardless of what does or does not show on the print ready files.” And that it took 13 tries for me to get Lulu to accept the file, only for it to still be wrong. Why was the upload accepted if it was still wrong? Overall, leading me to believe it was finally right. Oh well…

Last night I made some adjustments to the interior. I added the ISBN to the Copyright page, along with some other information to make it look more like a published book. I added my name and the title to the header of each page, and I also changed the page numbers to include the first few pages (title page, copyright, dedication, etc.) in the count. I also added a second quote in the beginning which I’d been thinking about. It really helps set the tone of my story.

Now the dreaded book cover…last night I adjusted the words on the spine so they will hopefully be more centered. I also moved all of the images on the front to the right a bit so they will be more centered as well. I added the ISBN and bar code to the back. I’m going to completely rework the blurbs and description on the back though. Right now, it appears to be too much and too close to the left edge. See this picture.

I also have to toy with the dimensions again and go through the upload process (hopefully not another dozen times) to defeat that white line. Geez….I could write a whole other book about that WHITE LINE, couldn’t I? Hopefully on Sunday or Monday, I’ll order another review copy.

Outside of time, my financial investment still stands at just over $325.00…which is still less than the Premium Package Lulu offers as part of their relationship with Borders.

May 25th: Despite the past two days’ diary entries being long, the corrections which I made yesterday did not take long at all. I changed the bleed size, adjusted the letters on the spine, redid the entire back cover, changed the price of the book, and adjusted the dimensions of the entire cover. It only took three more tests before Lulu accepted the upload again. Based on the information I’ve collected from my forum post, I think we are good to go this time. I did have to reposition the pictures, title, and my name on the front cover to look more centered once I changed the dimensions.

I’m definitely beginning to feel like a “pro” at this stuff. But only the next review copy will tell, which I ordered last night. So, let’s add another $17.33 for book and shipping to the running total. Due to the holiday, I look for it to arrive on Thursday or Friday just like last time, even though I ordered it a day earlier. We’ll see…

Total investment for this project to date: $347.14

One more thing to note: Since I changed the price of the book, that also changes the number of copies I’d have to sell to recoup my investment. I actually LOWERED the price! At this point, I just want to sell books. I’m not worried about profit, but just for fun, let’s take a look at the numbers, shall we?

My new list price is $14.00 for hard copy. I get 67 cents for every copy sold through a retail channel (B&N, Amazon, brick and mortar, etc). That’s 519 copies to earn back the $347 I’ve spent.

I get $3.86 of every copy sold through Lulu. That’s only 90 copies! Quick….everyone rush to Lulu now and start buying….please…anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

I also lowered the E-book price to $5.00, of which I get $4.00 of every download sold. That’s only 87 copies to sell!

I’ve also gone ahead and made the book available on Amazon.com for those who have an Amazon Kindle Ereader. I think it will sell there for around $7.00, of which I have no idea how much I actually get. But I’m not planning on it being much, if any, because I don’t even know anyone who has one of these Kindle things.

That’s it for now. I’ll pick up again upon arrival of the new review copy. Thanks for reading.

May 29th: My next review copy shipped on Tuesday night, again from New York. It should arrive today. Hopefully this will be THE ONE! Keep your fingers crossed. In the meantime, I’ve been surfing the web for marketing opportunities. I’ve lined up a Top 500 Amazon Reviewer to send a copy out to who will hopefully review the book. This came about from some information I found on Kaye Trout’s blog. Check it out if you haven’t already. It’s packed with tips from other POD authors!

Also, Todd Fonseca (the author of The Time Cavern) emailed me to say thanks for his review. He mentioned that he had made a Book Trailer for his book. It’s pretty neat, and Todd inspired me to attempt my own Book Trailer. So, I started on that this morning. For more examples, go to YouTube and just do a search for “book trailer.” I suggest taking a look at the videos by author Rick Reed. He has trailers for almost all of his books, and they are awesome. Most of them have received over 1,000 hits. Todd asked my opinion of this internet marketing tool, and I must admit I haven’t had one. I plan to talk to Rick though to see how the trailers might have helped book sales. Look for a post about this coming soon to the main review page!

May 30th: Right on time, the next review copy arrived yesterday. NO WHITE LINE!!!! And yes, there are still some changes to make. I know, I know, I am probably just being picky but I really want to put my best book forward. I’m still having issues with the title and author name on the spine. Once again, they are too close to the left side instead of being centered. Here’s a photo. On the back, the redesign looks much better except the ISBN bar code is almost touching the bottom of the book. Here’s a photo of the back of the new copy next to the old copy. I’m debating on moving all of the words on the back over closer to the spine just a bit. They look okay now, much better than the last copy, but there is still quite a bit of space now on the right side. On the inside, there is only one problem. Somehow the first page of Chapter 1 got bumped to a left side page, creating an extra blank page between it and my quote page. It’s not in my file though. That’s just one of the quirks of Word I think because sometimes when I’m reading it, I’ve noticed it bumps a page back and forth as I scroll down. Weird. Any thoughts?

Only one last thing to mention…the color quality of this book is not as good as the copy I received before it, even though I made no changes to the pixels. I’m sure a Lulu rep would find some obscure reason to blame it on the author, so I’m not even going to go there. If you looked at either of these books separately, you’d never see a difference. But, put them side by side and the new copy almost looks faded or cloudy. It’s a very small minute detail which most people would not even catch. Here’s a photo. The new copy is on the left. Look closely at the title and at the picture of the latte and you can see the difference in color quality.

Thanks to Todd Fonseca, I made a book trailer. It’s not the best, but I like it. Check it out here if you are interested. Oh, the cost of using the service to make it (animoto.com) was just 3 dollars which I paid through Paypal. My video is only 1:09 minutes long. You can make a 30 second one for free! Or you can pay the 3 dollars to add more photos and make a longer one.

Total investment in this project to date: $350.14

June 2nd, 2008: I made what will hopefully be my last few changes to the book on Friday. The spine has been my biggest concern. I reloaded the cover probably 3 or 4 times on Friday, making a slight move to the words on the spine each time. I went ahead and ordered 2 copies this time after making the changes. Add another $28.84 to my running total.

That will be 4 copies I own now, not counting the very first one with the old cover and the interior which I marked up with a red pen. Two of these will become my own personal copies. One is being mailed to that Amazon.com reviewer I mentioned, and the other will probably be mailed to Rick Reed, the author who was generous enough to provide my blurb. I do plan on ordering some more though for marketing kits and other things. Carolyn Howard-Johnson says to be careful with how many free copies you give away. Make your friends and relatives buy a copy! Read who you SHOULD give a book to here!

This weekend was spent continuing with my online marketing campaign which will hopefully pay off in the end. I’ve had a blog on Amazon since my first book came out. For those of you who might not know, Amazon has a program called Amazon Connect where authors can blog right on their book page and connect with their readers.

You can post things about your book, post pictures from book signings, and even let readers know what you are working on now. I haven’t received too many comments there, but that’s okay. You never know who is reading it! Here’s a link to my Amazon blog. And I’ve linked that page back to my own blog at www.shannonyarbrough.com, so I can at least keep track of incoming clicks and there have been a few from Amazon, so I know the Amazon blog is being seen. Oh, you can also add friends and connect with other authors, so I think it’s a valuable resource.

I won’t comment on the Amazon/POD drama here right now. I have already voiced my concern about that in a post on the review blog. But let’s face it, Amazon isn’t going away anytime soon. As much as I would like to join the boycott (if there is still one), if I don’t use it now to my potential then I could be throwing possible sales in the trash. ‘Nuff said.

As much as I hated MySpace when I was on their before, I went ahead and signed up again and created a page just for my book. Again, you can add friends and post bulletins. I’ve made it a point to search out indie bookstores and add them to my friends’ list. Also, here’s a good tip. When someone adds you as a friend, leave a comment on their profile page “thanking them for adding you” and include a picture of your book and a blurb about it. You have to post the picture in html for it to appear, so get a photobucket account or something to help you with this. Again, it’s free advertising for the people who might visit that person’s page but may not yet be on your own friend list. I also added my Book Trailer to the MySpace videos section.

Speaking of indie bookstores, not only have I been connecting with them on MySpace, but I also spent a lot of time yesterday just Googling them and finding their websites. I then looked for contact email addresses or community relations contacts and started creating a list of them. I plan to email them press releases of the book once it’s available for distribution. I know this works too! It’s a long story, but a reader of my first book emailed me a few months ago and I asked him where he’d bought my book. Expecting to learn he’d bought it online, he had actually picked it up off a table in an indie bookstore who I had mailed a postcard to long ago.

Speaking of snail mail, I haven’t even begun that campaign. I did find a ton of bookstores with no websites or emails, so it may be worth it for me to mail postcards to them. Right now, I’m really trying to tap into my free opportunities on the www. Let’s hope it pays off!

Total investment on this project to date: $378.98

June 10th: My two new copies that I ordered arrived last Thursday right on time. I was out of town by then for a 4 day weekend, so I didn’t get a peek at them until I returned on Sunday. They look awesome! I finally worked out the problems with the spine and got the title and my name centered. The printing quality of both copies was superb. The entire book, inside and out, is my best book. Finally!! I wouldn’t change a thing. So, last night I clicked on the “APPROVE” button on Lulu which is sending it now to Bowkers for approval. My confirmation email said it could take about 8 weeks. I’ll get an email if anything is wrong. Fingers crossed that I’ve done everything right!

Today, a book arrived which had been on backorder for me. It’s a copy of John Kremer’s 1001 Ways to Market Your Books, and cost me $18.45. It’s a whopping book at 700 pages, rated 4 and 1/2 stars on Amazon and has received over 100 reviews. So, I look forward to learning something from it and will keep you posted on how helpful it is.

So what’s next? We’ll count down the days until the book is available through retail outlets such as Amazon.com and B&N. While waiting for that to happen, I’ll try to write some about marketing ideas and tips which I’m working on to promote the book.

Total investment on this project to date: $397.43

June 17th: Last night I ordered 1 dozen copies of my book. Let’s add $122.04 to my running total. One of these will go to Rick Reed, the author who wrote the blurb for my book. One will go to the Amazon reviewer I’ve mentioned. A few will go in media kits, which I’ll discuss later. And two or three copies will go on my own bookshelf. But one copy is being used for a promotion on my author weblog right now. I’m holding a contest and giving away one free copy. If you’d like to sign up, then click here.

Total investment in this project to date: $519.47

June 19th: I received an email from Lulu today saying my ISBN has been accepted into the Bowker’s system, which means as systems update it is now available to all companies who use the Books In Print system. That was pretty fast, 11 days actually since I finalized the project on Lulu. The email also states over the next 6 weeks the book will be uploaded to Amazon, B&N, etc. In speaking with other Lulu authors, I know this process can happen much quicker, especially with Amazon. I’ll keep you posted. I’ll be checking Amazon every day!

June 20th: I’m not on Amazon yet, but I did get an email from Lulu last night saying my dozen copies had shipped and will be here next Tuesday. I went with UPS shipping this time since it was a bit cheaper than Postal Priority. Here’s some interesting information…my sales rank on Lulu for this book was at 65,000 prior to today. The only copies sold are the ones I’ve purchased. Today, my sales rank jumped to 34,000. I didn’t know the Lulu Sales Rank counted your own sales. It might as well, I guess. Every sale helps no matter who bought it.

June 21st: Woo! Hoo! Just sold my first copy of my book to a friend’s relative who was visiting. They gave me $15.00 cash. That brings my investment down to $504.47! Hey, gotta start somewhere!

June 24th: The dozen copies arrived today packaged nicely in a huge shipping box with two nice white file-type boxes on the inside. The books themselves were shrink wrapped and in foam wrap in traditional Lulu fashion. See picture here. Unfortunately, shrink wrapping six books per box caused them to slide on the inside, which caused slight bending. See pictures here and here. The bending is typical in trade paperbacks and happens when you bend the spine during reading anyway. Since these are new books, laying them flat or shelving them tightly between other books will work out the bend.

However, the sliding of the books in the shrink wrap caused slight damage to the corners and edges on the lower part of the spine. This often happens when books bump into one another while a bookseller is shelving them. It’s typical shelf wear causing the book cover to peel or fold upward alone the edge. Although this is minor and not something I’m going to report to Lulu, it’s still disappointing. Six of my twelve copies have this damage in the exact same spot. See pictures here, here, here, here, and here. The sixth copy also has some goo on the cover. It’s usually run-over from the glue used on the spine, resembling a scuff across the front cover. It’s in the lower left corner. I used the flash in one pic so you could see the scuff marks. The glue is the white spots in the second pic. See picture here and here. This copy is the worst of the six.

I work for a wholesale medical book distributor by day, and I know very well how hard it is to pack and ship books and avoid any damage, even this minor. A picky book retailer would call these six copies into me in a snap and report them as damaged or defective and want to return them. I’d have to issue a call tag and pick them up from them at my company’s expense. The bookstore receiver doesn’t usually invest time in packing them well to go back, so they will get knocked around in a box coming back to me and receive further damage.

Let’s add on the money and payroll my company already spent on receiving the books, shelving them, picking them for the order, packing and shipping them out, money spent on getting them picked up again, brought back to us, payroll and time spent opening and processing the return, and then trying to issue a claim with the publisher to return the books back to them. Profit margins are really tight with book sales anyway, so not only have we made no money on this sale, but we’ve love money in payroll and shipping expenses.

Now, this is just an example, but a very true one. Most booksellers aren’t this picky and will probably just shelve these books to avoid having to call the vendor. Most of the books will receive the minor spine peel during shelving or while being pulled off a shelf by a customer and put back again over time anyway. It is very minor at this point. The one with the goo would 8 out of 10 times be returned to the vendor, or a customer would probably ask for an additional discount since it is very visible damage. Since I am using most of these as review copies, I’m not too upset but it is still disappointing.

June 25th 6am: It’s been six days since the Books in Print acceptance email, and guess what? I checked Amazon.com this morning and my page there has started to load. Click here to check it out! The page is pretty bare bones right now. There’s no blurb, no pic, and no option to buy it from Amazon. I should note that this is pretty normal. Amazon’s system crawls, but more and more information will be added to the page in the upcoming days, along with the book blurb and a connection to my Amazon blog. I immediately uploaded some of my own pictures of the book covers. Most Amazon marketing tips that I’ve read suggest you do this. Upload pics from readings and signings, or just candid shots of you and your book. Make it look interesting!

I headed over to B&N’s website, totally expecting the book to not be there at all, but it is!! Click here! Notice the book cover is already there though. I didn’t load it as B&N doesn’t give you that option to add your own pics.

Neither website has an option to buy it yet, but I’m sure that’s still loading. Notice on the Amazon page though that a 3rd party seller already has a copy listed for sale. They are selling it at the $14.00 list price, and list it as being in stock. Interesting. Might I point out they are also in New York. Don’t hold me to it, but I’d almost bet money that’s Lulu or someone associated with Lulu. I’m tempted to buy the copy just to see where it comes from, how long it takes to get it, and if I get credit for the sale.

June 25th 2pm: I’ve been watching both the Amazon and B&N listings all day. Both now have BUY buttons loaded. Good ole B&N has been beating Amazon on speed. I wonder who will get the abstract loaded first? Amazon has more potential for marketing and tags and other things an author can do to try to increase visibility, so I immediately started tagging and adding search suggestions. Ahhh, marketing! Now the real fun begins. I’m mailing a copy to Rick Reed, the author who wrote the blurb on the cover, today as a gift. And sending one to a Top 500 Amazon Book Reviewer as well. That leaves me with ten copies which I will use in my marketing kits. Check out vistaprint.com for some affordable personalized products…pens, post-its, postcards, business cards, etc. You can even get so many free products; you just have to pay for shipping. I’m thinking of doing some post-its to include in the marketing kit.

There are now 4 “USED” copies available from third party sellers on Amazon.com. These people obviously have every book on Amazon “available,” such as A1BOOKS. Yeah, right. You know they just drop ship. I added my own “collectible” copy to the list, a signed first edition for $20.00. For those who’ve never sold their own books on Amazon, I should note that Amazon gives you a shipping credit of $3.99 for standard and $6.99 for expedited shipping. They charge the customer’s credit card and all you have to do is ship the book. Amazon will deposit your earnings into your checking account, but please note that Amazon takes a commission from every sale. I should make $23.99 from the sale if the customer chose standard shipping, but once Amazon takes its part, I only profit $21.65. That’s $1.65 for shipping, after the $20.00 I listed the book for. Now, the book didn’t cost me list price, so I’m making a bit more from the sale, but I just wanted to make you aware that Amazon’s commission typically cuts into your shipping. They look like they are doing you a favor by adding on the shipping, but their cut takes away most of that, if not all in some cases.

June 27th: I have lots of things to update you on today. Remember those six slightly damaged copies I was complaining about a few days ago? The more I examined them, the madder I got. I noticed some smears in the ink on the cover of two copies, so I decided to email orders@lulu.com and let them know after all. I inserted links to the photos which I linked to here a few days ago too. I got a reply the next day, and Lulu is sending me six more free copies!

Amazon.com beat out B&N on getting the abstract of the book loaded! I signed up for the “Search Inside” feature today. For those who might not know what this is, it’s like offering a sample of the book to readers. There’s a link to it underneath the photo of the book cover if that book offers it. It let’s readers look inside and they can read about the first six pages. You have to send a hard copy of the book to Amazon which they will scan, or you can also send them the PDF. For those wanting to add this feature to their book, there should be a link under the book cover which will take you to the sign-up screen where you can read all about it.

Community Forums have also been added to my book’s page. I assume Amazon chose the forums based on the Lulu tags. So, I checked out the discussions in the forums today. A lot of them were about reading suggestions and “new books” so I replied to a few letting them know about my book. Hey, it’s shameless promotion, but the best promotion you can get when you self-publish is your own!

I also added a few more key words to the TAGS section. These supposedly help your book come up in searches when people look for those key words. I often think they just take up space, but I haven’t tested all of them yet. They can be pretty vague at times too. Amazon “clouds” the tags with bestselling DVDs in the same category. Obviously, the stand to make more money from DVD sales than books. But here’s a sample of how vague they can be at times…I searched “romantic comedy” and got a tee shirt that says HOPELESS ROMANTIC on it. I searched “gay fiction” and got The Incredible Hulk Season 1 download. Don’t make me angry, Amazon!

So enough about Amazon and B&N for a moment…check out www.booksense.com sometime. It’s an excellent way to find independent bookstores in your state. You can search by zip code and narrow it by stores that have a website. It’s an excellent way to build a mailing list or to contact locals in your area to get your foot in the door.

Here’s a picture of a store in my area called The Book House. I never even knew it existed!

Speaking of mailing lists, I typed up a nice little announcement and sent it out to everyone on my personal email list a few nights ago. I’m not organized enough to put together a regular monthly newsletter as some blogs and books have suggested, but I do plan to do a bulletin about the book and send it via email to all of these bookstores I’ve found through BookSense. I’ve also used BookSense to locate the ten stores I’m going to mail a marketing kit to.

Speaking of the kit, I’m still looking for cheaper sources for postcards and book marks. If I can’t find anything cheaper, I’ll end up using Lulu for that. They have an excellent marketing material package. I’ll probably go with just book markers and post cards, as I think business cards are useless in the book industry. I plan to go out this weekend and shop a few stores for some nice stationery to print some enclosures on, and hopefully to pick up a few “coffee” type gifts to go with the theme of the kits. Again, more about the kits later. I’ll share photos once I get started on putting them together.

June 29th: Yesterday, I created a “Listmania” list on Amazon calling it “Summer Reads for 2008″ and listed my book among other top selling books in my category that came out this year. This list will pop up on the page of all the books I listed, so this is another quick way to lead readers to my book. Jeremy Robinson listed this technique in his book, POD People. I was excited to sign in to Amazon today and see that I have received my first review, and a 5 Star Review at that. It came from the Top 500 Reviewer who I sent a copy of my book to. Check out the review here!

Went to the Book House yesterday, which I mentioned in yesterday’s journal entry. WOW! Books line every wall from top to bottom, and I’m not joking! New and old too! I spent $77. The employee was more than helpful, and I felt really good about the whole experience. I also asked if they hosted signings, and they do. So, I plan on going back there again when my bookmarks come in and I have a few more marketing materials in hand to sell myself.

Speaking of book marks, I searched the web yesterday for other cheaper means, and came up dry. I emailed Earthly Charms (I’m not linking to them because I don’t recommend them.) for a quote asking them how much 1,000 bookmarks would cost. They replied wanting to know how many I wanted. ??? Delete. I have worked in customer service most of my life. If I’m speaking to you and you have to ask me to repeat myself, I won’t like it but I will do it, all the while thinking to myself that you need to listen. BUT, if I WRITE an email to you, and you reply with a ridiculous response asking for information that was in my original email, I’ll take my business elsewhere.

I’m losing time and getting tired of searching, so I ordered 100 book marks and 100 postcards from Lulu yesterday. That’s $34.95 for the bookmarks, and $39.95 for the postcards, plus shipping. Let’s add another $84.97 to my total investment. I searched a few stores yesterday for stationery and “gift” type items to include in my kits, and also came home with nothing. But, thanks to a Cafepress account I have had for a few years, I had a $20.00 credit I could use to buy stuff. I designed a magnet yesterday and bought a packet of 10 for $15.00. Using the credit, the magnets costs me nothing.

I’ve ordered notecards and postcards from Cafepress for some photography projects before. They have a fast turnaround and the product is great. I highly recommend them if you want to be able to design your own stuff quickly and buy it at cost. You can even open a store and mark the items up a few bucks if you want to do a retail product tie in for your book. You upload your files/pics, set the prices, then Cafepress makes the product when orders are placed. They ship it, take the cost, and you get the markup. I’ve probably made around $200 on odd items over about 3 years, mostly apparel. You can get your profit as a payout or use it as a credit to buy stuff, so having that to use toward these magnets was great.

I’m thinking about downsizing my marketing kit to cut costs. I wanted to send out a small box with a copy of the book, bookmarks, information sheets, and a few gift type items. But, as this project comes together I’m discovering the book, sheets, bookmarks, and now the magnet will fit in a flat mailer. If I come up with some personalized sticky notes or ink pens, that would also fit in a mailer. That would save a ton on shipping! More on this later, I promise.

One more note for today, one indie bookstore replied to my press release email and told me they wouldn’t order my book because they only get a 15% discount through Ingram. I replied and said I thought Ingram gave at least a 20% to bookstores, if not more. I know the wholesale distributor I work for gets 25 to 35%. The bookstore replied and said the industry standard was 40%. HA! I plan to call Ingram tomorrow and quiz them on why this bookstore might only be getting 15%. I’ll keep you posted.

Total investment on this project to date: $589.44

June 30th 7am: Woo! Hoo! I checked Amazon.com this morning and I finally have a sales rank.

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #55,395 in Books

Someone finally bought a copy!! Now, according to several websites I Googled, this is a pretty broad spectrum. It’s an average of 1 to 100 copies sold per week. Let’s hope it continues to rise!

June 30th 2pm: Well, I’m not a happy camper right now. I called Ingram while at work today and my book is carrying a 15% discount across the board. So, the chances of a store ordering it on a whim, without a special order up front, because they received a marketing kit or postcard is very slim. That’s only $2.10 off the list as opposed to $5.60 off if they were getting a 40% discount. I was hoping for at least 20%. Oh! And we’ve slipped to #93,666 on the Amazon rank.

By the way, for those who loved my book cover so much, thank you! I’m now accepting orders from anyone who wants my assistance with their Lulu book cover. After spending so much on the BookCover Pro program, I’ve been antsy to put it to some more good use and maybe recoup my investment. So, email me direct or post a comment below if you are interested in my help. I’m charging $50.00 for a full cover: front, back and spine. Payable through snail mail (check or money order) or through Paypal online. That’s a steal considering some who charge $850 out there. yeah, I’m not trying to make a ton of money from this. I’m trying to assist other Lulu authors to put their best book forward.

Any takers?

June 30th 9pm: B&N loaded the synopsis (finally) at some point today after 3pm. I also just drew the winner for the free signed copy I am giving away tomorrow on my blog. Congrats to Gary Ellis.

July 2nd 2pm: I got an email from Lulu yesterday with the proofs of the postcards and bookmarks I ordered through them. They were nice, except for a horrible chocolate brown background, and they had my web address as http://www.lulu.com/content/2557841. I asked them to change the color to a lime green or bright yellow, and to change the website to either my store name or my webpage. They had a revision back to me by the afternoon. The background was a nice shade of green as requested, and they changed the web address to my own. I approved it, and should receive the materials in about two weeks via UPS.

Good news! I’m not sure if the sales were from bookstores or Amazon, but my Lulu Revenue Summary reports a sale of 3 copies today. Woo! Hoo! At 67 cents per copy, that’s a total of $2.01. Let’s update my project investment, shall we?

Total investment spent on this project to date: $587.43

Now, I’m pretty sure those sales are from Ingram because of the recent changes in Lulu’s Revenue reporting which I wrote about on the Lulu book review page. Read my post here. Notice it says that sales are reported on a monthly basis from the distribution channels, but it says sales reported from outside retail channels can take six to nine weeks now.

Well, I remembered that Jeremy Robinson gave an Ingram phone number in his book POD People which you could call to check sales on your book. I called the number today and Ingram says 3 copies have sold. Hmm…those are probably the 3 copies Lulu is reporting today on my revenue page, and I bet the six to nine week reporting window applies directly to Amazon.com only. So, I won’t know how many copies I’ve sold on Amazon for at least a few more weeks. Who knows? Maybe these 3 copies Ingram reports are from Amazon sales.

By the way, that Ingram phone number is 615-213-6803. It will ask for your ISBN, press one to confirm you entered it correctly, press one to check stock, or press two to check sales.

July 2nd 6pm: Those six free copies Lulu sent out to me had arrived by the time I got home from work today. These were shipped from Morrisville, NC, not the Rochester, NY address where the other books had shipped from. Wrapped in the traditional Lulu greenish blue foam wrap and shrink wrapped cello, the shrink wrap was a bit loose and had holes in it. A first for any Lulu order I’ve received. The books have the minor damage in the binding corner, but not as bad as the others did. Fanning the books out, the infamous white spot from where the cover has been worn looks almost the same on all the books. This tells me its from movement at the time of coming off the printing line, probably not from moving around in transit. Oh well, they were free. I’m going to post a few for sale on Amazon, beating out all of those other third party sellers who claim to have it in stock!

July 4th: Happy Independence Day, Everyone! I woke up this morning, checked email, and there it was. An email from Amazon with the title, “Sold! Ship Now!” I sold my first copy of STEALING WISHES on my own. It was one of those free copies which I listed, undercutting all of the other third party marketplace sellers. So here’s a good example of how this works.

I listed the book for $10.00. The good thing about Amazon is it’s free to list, and the listing stays live for 60 days, and even if the book doesn’t sell it still doesn’t cost you anything. Amazon offers a shipping credit of $3.99 for standard shipping, and $6.99 for expedited. My customer chose standard so they paid $13.99 for my book. This is where Amazon hits you: They take a commission from each sale which usually eats up their shipping credit right away, if not more.

My fee for this transaction was $3.84. That leaves me with $10.15 which will be deposited into my checking account in about a week. Now, I shipped a free copy to someone yesterday at the post office and via Media Mail, it costs me around $2.34. Minus shipping gives me a profit of $7.81. That’s about $1.36 less than my cost of a copy from Lulu. That’s $6.19 less than the cover price, but remember I listed the free copies that Lulu sent me so the $7.81 after shipping is a profit for me. Not much, but it’s a profit.

But here’s the kicker! No matter how you ship the book, you need to ship in a timely manner or the person can claim non-receipt. If they do that, they almost always win and get their money back, and likely end up getting the book anyway. So, I highly advise you to pay for delivery confirmation. I think that’s about .75 cents.

Yep, you can mark your book way up to make up for the shipping, but we all know customers are more likely to take the cheapest route. I have signed “collectible” copies listed on Amazon for $20.00, which would leave me getting around $14.00 (the cover price) after all is said or done, but I may never sell that copy as long as other people have their copies listed cheaper than mine. Heck, I have two more of my free copies listed for 10 bucks. So, it’s a game you play. Amazon pretty much screws you on the shipping expense when you are the seller, so just be aware of that if you decide to list your own copies. I’ll re-tally my investment after I’ve shipped this copy.

Also, I just added some more candid pics of me and my book to the Amazon page. Supposedly, this adds interest to your book’s page. Amazon has a new feature where you can highlight areas of the photo and add comments to it if you want, so that when customers roll over the photo with their mouse they can read the notes you’ve made. I opted not to do it this time.

July 5th: Remember the website vistprint.com I mentioned a few posts back which a friend suggested to me for lots of free stuff? Well, I had personalized a few things and added them to my portfolio, but had yet to order anything from them. This week, I get an email from them saying thanks for signing up and here’s more free stuff and special offers I can take advantage of. Cool!

I’m thinking of ordering 25 pages of letterhead with my book title, name, and ISBN on it. They have some cool coffee images and logos which I like. And I’m thinking about those post-it notes again too. I can get 25 pages of letterhead and 10 post-it note pads for just $24.99. Not a bad deal. I want to use the paper to type my blurbs and book description on to include as a press release, and include a post-it pad as a freebie.

Lots of stuff going on this weekend, so I’m going to have to give it some thought. I’ve been working on reviews for the main page, and I’ve gotten two emails from people wanting assistance with book covers! I’ll keep you “posted.”

July 8th: I called the Ingram hotline yesterday and its still only reporting sales of those 3 copies, yet my Amazon sales rank has been bouncing up and down from 70,000 to 300,000, leading you to believe I’m selling copies. Maybe I am, and those are being printed through Amazon’s Booksurge, and I won’t see sales figures for two more months.

In other news, I posted an ad in the Lulu forum offering to help others with their book covers. I’m only charging $50.00 for a full cover (front and back) design if the author provides me with artwork or ideas. (Jeremy Robinson offers full book cover design for $850.) Two people have already responded. I’m currently working with one author, and finished the other last night. The finished author paid me $60.00 and wants me to do another cover for his next book. Why this isn’t important to my book’s lifespan and promotion, I am recouping the money I spent on the BC Pro program.

Yesterday, I also shipped the copy of my book which I sold on Amazon. Due to the holiday weekend and all, I went ahead and shipped it Priority Mail which costs me $4.80. That only leaves me with $5.35 profit, but the book was free to me and the customer will get it quicker. Amazon has strict shipping guidelines on how quick you need to ship and how long it can take for a customer to get a book from you, so just be aware of that before posting your own books for sale out there.

With the sale of this book, and my new book cover design offering, here’s how I will be reporting sales figures from now on…

Total money invested on this project to date (after book sales only): $582.63

Total money invested on this project after all sales and services: $524.67 (This is the sales figure above minus $57.96 made from my first book cover design project. Paypal took $2.04 of the $60 as a fee.)

I spent $167 on the Book Cover Pro program, so another 2 or 3 book cover jobs at $50 each will have paid for it!

July 9th: The free magnets from CafePress arrived yesterday. They are quite nice. I’ll include them in a picture soon which I plan to take of the entire marketing kit I’m going to send out.

July 10th: The first person who I helped with their book cover paid me an additional 20 dollars for assisting them with formatting. That’s an additional $19.12 after the Paypal fees.

Total money invested on this project to date (after book sales only): $582.63

Total money invested on this project after all sales and services: $505.55

Another $99.92 and I will have paid for my BookCover Pro program! And I do have two more book cover projects in the works for people.

July 12th: Two things to report today. After helping two more people with bookcovers, I’ve made another $130.00. That got knocked down to $125.63 after Paypal’s fees, but my BookCover Pro Program is now paid for.

Total money invested on this project to date (after book sales only): $582.63

Total money invested on this project after all sales and services: $379.92

Also, I made phone calls to two B&N stores in Memphis this week, only because I used to live there and people I know still work there. I told them about my new book and tried to get them to short list it. One store said they would. The other said it’s non-returnable so a customer would have to prepay for it, but he’d mention it to the manager since they could override that and order it in since I was from there. (Fingers crossed.)

July 15th: My postcards and bookmarks arrived from Lulu today, shipped from Ashville, NC, and packaged quite nicely. I’ll post a picture of them soon when the rest of my marketing kit materials arrive. I’m planning on sending out at least 10 of the kits. While shopping a few days ago, I came across a package of ten plastic coffee cups and lids that you can buy for about $3.00. The cups are sort of decorative, so I got the idea of including one in each of the kits and putting stuff inside it as a gift. I’m still debating on this idea because it means I’ll have to ship the kit in a box (increasing the price of shipping) as opposed to shipping it in a flat mailer.

I also took advantage of one of the VistaPrint emails I got and ordered 25 sheets of letterhead with a nice coffee theme to it and my name, book title, and ISBN at the top. I also ordered 10 pads of sticky notes with a cut coffee picture on it, and my information printed on it as well. That was around $27.00 dollars, I think. I’ll update my total investment again soon. By the way, Janet Elaine Smith (author of PromoPaks which I mentioned buying a while ago) also uses VistaPrint for her marketing stuff.

Here’s what the marketing kit will consist of so far:

1 FREE copy of my book
1 Magnet
1 Sticky Note Pad
10 bookmarks
1 Press Release Sheet
1 Author Bio Sheet

I’m thinking of putting the magnet and note pad in the plastic coffee cup with maybe a few packets of Splenda coffee sweetener and some coffee stirrers. Again, I’m undecided about this mainly because of it increasing the size of the package which would increase shipping expenses. We’ll see….

July 16th: Good news today! Sold another copy through the Amazon Marketplace. I’ll be getting $11.85 from this sale after Amazon took their cut. And, I was hired to do another book cover for someone, earning me $48.25 after Paypal took their fee.

Total money invested on this project to date (after book sales only): $570.78

Total money invested on this project after all sales and services: $319.82

The one book sale took my book from being in the 700,000 numbers sales rank on Amazon up to 92,000. Isn’t that amazing what one sale can do? Not really. It just goes to show those numbers don’t really mean squat.

July 18th: Marketing Kits! Yeah, yeah, I’ve been talking about them and talking about them, but guess what? I’ve got pictures, and I’m finally ready to start getting these sent out. I stopped debating on the coffee cup idea and decided to just do it!

Here’s a photo of what the kit will include. Starting on the left is the coffee cup and lid which I’ll be putting a magnet, sticky note pad, and probably some coffee sweeteners or stirrers in. I got a pack of 10 coffee cups and lids for $2.84 at Tram-Law (that’s Wal-Mart backwards).

Above that is the letterhead I got through VistaPrint. I’ll print a press release on one, and an author bio and some blurbs on a second piece. The sticky note pad is above that, also from VistaPrint. I have ten of those. Then there’s a copy of my book. To the right of that, that field of lime green is the book markers I purchased through Lulu. I’m putting 12 in each kit. At the bottom is the postcard (front and back) also from Lulu. I’m putting one in the kit. And above the postcard is the magnet from CafePress. Those were free.

Since the coffee cup is the only thing that won’t fit in a flat envelope, I had to invest in a small shipping box. I started with 5, also from Tram-law at 97 cents each. Had to buy some packing tape too…$2.62. And I also bought some address labels for mailing the rest of my postcards…$3.67. Let’s not forget stamps for the postcards. I started with 60 although I have a total of 100 postcards. So, that’s $25.20 in stamps, plus shipping for the copy recently sold on Amazon. I also shipped a copy to the PODBRAM review site. Let’s re-tally my investment really quick then I’ll show you more pics.

Total money invested on this project to date (after book sales only): $615.42

Total money invested on this project after all sales and services: $364.46

Now those pics:

Close up of the magnet! Got 10 free from Cafepress!

Close up of the letterhead and sticky notes from VistaPrint! Got 10 sticky notepads and 25 pieces of letterhead.

Close up of the magnet and sticky notepad in the coffee cup.

Close up of the front and back of the bookmarkers and postcards I got through Lulu!

So what’s next? Well, I have press releases and author bios and blurbs to print on the letterhead, and a mailing list to start on for the postcards so I can print labels. Will any of this work? One can only hope. But we all know marketing is hit or miss, and without investing a little money and some energy into it, then publishing the book would be a waste of time. Remember, this is POD! You are author, editor, publisher, and marketer all rolled into one!

July 26th: It’s been a while since I posted anything. Yes, things have been quiet concerning the book, but not so quiet in my 9 to 5 world that keeps the bills paid. One of the woes of self-publishing is giving up and losing interest in getting your book read because of the day-to-day activities like jobs, school, and family that can get in the way. I’m not there yet although this is a busy month at work!! And don’t let yourself get there either…baby steps….baby steps… I’m putting a year into this project as a whole, including this diary, then we’ll see what happens.

Last Saturday, I took a trip back to The Book House and dropped off a copy of my book, a magnet, some bookmarks, and a post it note pad. I introduced myself as a local author, spent 60 bucks on books for myself, then left. My next local attempt at marketing will possibly be a visit to a book club whose home is another indie bookstore in the city.

I spent most of the past week surfing the web for the addresses of indie bookstores which are still in business. That’s the only problem with using a mailing list which you might find on the web, such as the one I’ve linked to here previously. Some of the stores may no longer be in business. My roommate mentioned a store he liked years ago when he lived in Virginia. I looked it up only to discover it’d gone under. After investing money in postage and postcards, I want to get the card in the hands of someone and not lost in “return to sender” world. My return address is not on the postcards, so it’s a one way ticket to somewhere. I’ve created a list of 30 stores so far and mailed 30 cards this week. I’m still delaying the marketing kits because I have not written my blurbs and bios yet. I’m also thinking of adding one more item to the kit and just have to find time to order it.

In the meantime, I’m already writing another book, reading too many for pleasure, and reading books for reviews on the main blog page, and writing those reviews. And I work full time and like to watch TV occasionally. It’s a juggling act, I know, but it is one I thoroughly enjoy!

In other news, I made another $60.00 this weekend creating a book cover for another Lulu author.  That’s $57.96 after Paypal fees.

Total money invested on this project to date (after book sales only): $615.42

Total money invested on this project after all sales and services: $306.50

July 28th: Here’s something interesting I noticed on Amazon today on my book’s listing…

Only 1 left in stock–order soon (more on the way).

Hmmm…isn’t this print on demand?  If they only have 1 in stock, will I be paid for the printing of that 1 copy, if it is indeed already printed.  And if so, how many were printed to begin with?  It hasn’t been four months, so I have no way of telling how many have actually sold through Amazon until they supposedly report their numbers to Lulu which will be every quarter.

In other Amazon news, I received a second review over the weekend from someone I don’t know, but it was a 5 star review!!  Check it out here!

August 1st: The Amazon Kindle version reached #5 in genre fiction yesterday.  It fell to #25 today, but it’s still up there!

August 9th: My Lulu Revenue Reporting was updated this week, so I finally know how many copies have sold through Amazon so far!!!  The money hasn’t been transferred to my bank account just yet, but I’m finally a paid author!  YAY!  I’ve also sold one download direct through Lulu.  Thank you reader!  I get $4.00 from that sale.  Remember authors, you make more when readers buy direct through Lulu, so send your readers there first!  I’ve been heavily promoting Amazon and the Amazon Kindle just to get the book noticed, but my tagline is “Don’t have an Amazon Kindle?  Don’t worry.  Download the book right to your computer at Lulu.com!”

Speaking of the Kindle, I’ve already mentioned that my book has been bouncing around on the bestseller lists there.  Since the Kindle is still fairly new, one sale on the Kindle can really bump you up the list and get you noticed, so invest some time in getting your book loaded to the Kindle.  You don’t even have to have an ISBN to do this.  So, you can go completely digital on Amazon if you want.

After all of these sales, it’s time to update my investment totals…

Total money invested on this project to date (after book sales only): $597.17

Total money invested on this project after all sales and services: $289.25

Now, if you are scrolling back up to compare these numbers to the last time I reported them, you’ll notice that’s not a big difference.  Remember, I took a bigger cut in my retail profits in order to keep the price of my book low.  I did the same on the Kindle version.  So, my largest profit was made from the Lulu download, but every sale still counts!  And with my tiny bookcover making business, I’ve almost worked off my entire investment made to date.

What’s next?  I still haven’t mailed out the marketing kits, but I have been creating mailing lists and have already sent out a ton of postcards.  I’m waiting on one more item for the kits to arrive next week, and then I’ll be shipping those.  So, there will be another postage expense coming up.

August 17th: The last item I’ve been waiting on for the marketing kits are stickers which I created through cafepress.com.  I wanted them to cover the “Dixie Cup” logo on the lid of the coffee cup I’m including in the marketing kit.  Unfortunately, you had to buy a roll of 48, so I’ll be including some in the kits as well. I ordered them a week ago last Thursday.  They shipped on Friday, the 8th, and I still have not received them as of today, the 17th.  According to tracking, they should hopefully arrive tomorrow.  Let this be a lesson never to ship via UPS Inovations. This is a shipping method in which UPS delivers the package to your local post office, which then delivers it to you.  They shipped from Ohio, and had this company just shipped via regular UPS or USPS, I would have received them in 2 to 3 days.  Geez…

Oh well, I still haven’t written up the press releases anyway, so I guess I should not be bitching too much.

August 20th: The stickers did arrive two days ago, in sheets of 6.  I used them to cover the Dixie Cup logo on the coffee cup lid.  I also put a sheet of them in each marketing kit.  I have three kits ready so far to be mailed.  One is going to Memphis, one to Nashville, and one to Atlanta.  I wrote a quick draft yesterday of the press release.  Once I complete it and an author bio, I’ll print them on the nice letterhead I bought, and then the kits will be ready to go.  It’s slow going these days.  The day job is busy this time of year, and by the time I get home in the evening I’m beat.  Heck, I don’t even feel like writing or reading.  It’s that bad.  But I’m still in the race!