I sure don't know everything about the book business, but what I do know is, it's darned hard to get a book published (in the traditional way) and just because you have a book between covers doesn't mean you should schedule a flight to Paris to celebrate already. I attended a media conference on publishing books and marketing. The stats were really eye-opening, and quite disappointing. It seems that unless you are a movie star or a congress-person, or an inventor of some miraculous cure for a dread desease, or some other sort of celebrity personality, the chances of your book selling big time in any of the retail stores around the country are just about nill. In fact, most published books end up on the super discount table or returned to the publisher.
I was quite surprised when my nice little book "The Lilibet Logs" just disappeared off the Barnes and Noble shelves about 6 weeks after they got there - and it wasn't because they were selling. It was because Barnes & Noble - like every other big book seller has a return agreement with the publisher. Hmmmm!
The statistics say that if you sell more than 500 books total in the lifetime of your publication, you have done well. If you self publish your book and sell more than 75 copies, you are above the average in the sales of your book. How disheartening is that?
What the book marketing guru did say (at least a million times) is, the success of your book, depends almost entirely on you - the author. This means if you really want more than a spiffy book authored by you, on your coffee table at home, you'd better be ready to jump on the marketing bandwagon.
As an artist - painter/sculptor, I guess you could say I've been on the marketing bandwagon for most of my life, so while these stats were pretty disappointing ( I thought getting my books published would allow me to jump off the bandwagon and spend a lot of time being creative), the stats made me aware that nothing much had changed in my life. Okay!
The other thing I learned from the guru was that self help books sell better than novels (unless you are Steven King). In that vein, I decided to write a self help book. I chose a somewhat unlikely subject (eulogies) which immediately limited the scope of readership, but I figured this would be a fun project and a test of my ability to make a rather negative subject into something worth reading. The title of my book is "A Few Last Words - Your Guide To Self Memorializing." It's a guide to writing your own eulogy and it's funny and informative and sensitive and people who have read it now that it's published, really like it. If you'd like to have a copy of this book, go to Amazon.com or order one from me at teawater@rocketmail.com So far so good.
The deal is however, I couldn't get a publisher to touch this book because it has no mass readership appeal. That translates to no monatary success. "Well," I said to myself, "If you're going to be in the self help book business, you may have to end run the standard publishing game and do a self publishing gig." I mean, once the manuscript was finished, I couldn't bear to see it laying about collecting dust.
Stay tuned and I'll talk about my experience in the self publishing department.
I've been a visual artist for something like forty five years. I've been extremly lucky in that I have a supportive and involved family - and my paintings and sculptures have met with steady acceptance and enough monitary success that I can feel good about my choice of career. A bit of native talant and a Northern European stubborn tenacity also helped me in a good way. At some point a few years ago, I decided that large wooden boats - of which I've owned three, are really just big sculptures in disquise - so I found a tired old classic ocean racer in Maryland and brought it back to St. Paul, Mn. where I spent two years restoring it to it's former beautiful self. It is 42' of lumber built in England in 1937 and now resides in Valencia, Spain where her new owner lives.
So fascinated was I in the process and in the challenge of my wife and I teaching ourselves to sail that I decided to write a book about the experience. I've always loved words and books, but never thought I would write one. The book took me a year to write, and once I sort of got in the groove, the task became very pleasant as I tapped away on my little keyboard. At some point the book was finished and I put the manuscript in the mail to a publisher in New York who produces nautical books. I didn't write a synopsis or a query letter or send three chapters that might characterize the book, or list potential competing books on the market because I had no idea at the time that was the way one is supposed to proceed. I just sent the manuscript and a short letter of introduction. I had approached this book project like I approach making art. I start, I work towards an end, I adjust as I go, and I don't fight the process because I am a proponent of the Japanese philosophy called "Wabi Sabi" whose three tenants state: Nothing is perfect, nothing is ever finished and nothing lasts forever.
This is not to say one doesn't strive for perfection, finish and long life. It simply means that I try to avoid the standard creative constipation that we all are so subject to. As I get older, this feeling gets stronger because time is now a factor. So, when I received an email from the publisher offering a contract to publish and a check for a thousand dollars and a promise that the book would appear not only on Amazon.com but would also appear on the shelves of Barnes and Noble - well, I was thrilled. I was also feeling like this was indeed very much like making any other art. You do your work, present it to the public and if the public likes the work, a circle has been made. Simple and fun - when it works that way.
The book was printed and distributed, I did some book signings, received mail from around the world from other wooden boat restorers, made a little money and had lots of fun as a new author. I still have fun with that book even though the boat is no longer mine. Since that was so much fun I decided to write more books. I've written two more and am working on another - and here's where things get hairy. In the process of writing these two more books, ( which has taken a couple of years) I've learned how incredibly lucky I was to get a publisher to accept that first little manuscript and how oblivious I was to the outrageously complex and convoluted publishing system as it exists today. Everyone said "Hey Jack, now that you've been published once, you're a shoe in for more books." NO! My second and third books had nothing to do with boats so my original publisher was not of course interested and he wasn't into connecting me with any of his publishing pals.
The more I learned about the system, the more unreachable the whole book writing idea seemed to be - and the numbers regarding submissions submitted and submissions chosen and the dollar return for the effort and the whole draconian set up in the publishing world made me question why I wanted to be involved at all.
Stay tuned and I'll tell you why - and what I did about it. If you're interested in the boat experience you should read "The Lilibet Logs" published by Sheridan House and available at Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble or Sheridan House Publishing.com
Hello. My name is Jack Becker and I'm on the air - electronically speaking. I'll learn how this blogging thing works (or doesn't) as time passes.
By way of introduction I should say I'm a writer of books, an author - have 3 published so far, and in the middle of 2 more. I'm a painter and sculptor, a husband, a dad and a grandfather. I'm a retired person (officially) but how really does an artist retire? I'm guessing it's just a matter of age and social security and keeping busy with things you like to do. I'll post some things that I do here and there, that might be interesting and invite comments or discussion. Let's see what happens. jb.
