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Date of birth? Is there a difference
in reader response to books as opposed to zines? cyn: Absolutely. A glossy, perfect-bound creation has an air of importance around it that a photocopied zine just can't compare with. This has little to do with the content, it's purely presentation. Also, it looks like a bigger project... so theoretically, more time and effort went into it. How do you decide
the price of your books? monica: Like cyn said above, it was a certain voodoo between how many free copies we intended to distribute to our families, copy-editors, media, etc... and how many we guessed would actually be sales copies. We worked it out that of the first 500, one-fifth would end up being used a promotion, so that left us with 400 to sell. At that point we figured out how much we would have to sell them for so we could recoup the printing costs, as well as end up having a little extra for some advertising and to put towards a second print run if need be. Once we got that price we compared it to what other local poets were charging for their collections and made our final pricing adjustments according to that. Unless you are offering something substantially different, you don't want to stray too far from the market norms. Why? because if a writer prices their works too low, the buyer will get the impression that there's a lesser value or importance to that work in comparison to others of its kind, at the same time if a writer prices their work too high, their potential sales will be limited. It's always good to honestly ask yourself what kind of pricing the market will take. What goes into
choosing a cover? Back cover blurb? There wasn't a way to sum up the content of the book without explaining who we are as artists... so we started with short bios. I think that sort of sets the tone -- we're both very different artists in many mediums, and that is reflected throughout the pieces in the book. It was also important to include a sort of "warning label" -- - I think that is the best synopsis of the project. The back cover quotes from the three artists to whom we sent advance copies just floored me. I swear I didn't bribe them! It made the project sound so important and dramatic -- - it actually sort of scared the daylights out of me. monica: cyn was the one who was schooled in layout and design, so I let her take most of the control of the cover art and design. I had a firm idea in my head of what I definitely wanted and didn't want and told her upfront. While I agreed that I wanted the whole design to have something "different" than your average book, I also wanted it to be simple and eye-catching and not too cluttered. Luckily she was thinking along the same lines. In any project that is a collaboration it is important to be able to let go of total control and trust the other person to do what they excel at. cyn and I came up with the overall layout concept, revising and developing and evolving each other's ideas as they got thrown out onto the table. We drew a lot of pictures of pages that night and scrunched a lot of them up too. When the concept was decided on, I left her to work. No sense in setting oneself up for the angst and battles involved with having too many cooks in the kitchen. Along the way we made changes here or there, sometimes I's catch something that could be more powerful if done slightly differently, sometimes she would. It ended up being a surprisingly, calm and diplomatic process and I think our two heads combined on this project made for a final product that neither of us could have come up with on our own. The back cover blurbs were done by people who a) knew us and b) were familiar with our work either on page or stage. We tried to pick people from different parts of the artistic community, as well as people who had a reputation within the scene. Back cover blurbs give the book a little more street cred and allow it to be pitched to a potential reader in a way that is different from your own voice saying what the book is about. After all who is better to say how something will effect or move a reader than a reader themselves? What's your editing/refining
process? Once the layout was complete, cyn and I did the first series of edits -- capturing typos and tinkering with our poems, following which we sent them off to our hand-picked copy-editors to tooth and nail. It was definitely important to have outside eyes read them over because they could catch errors that we just couldn't see because we'd already be staring at the damned thing for two months. They could also ask questions about things that were unclear within the poems themselves. "Did you really mean it like that?" And then we could say "yes" or "oops" depending on the case at hand. cyn: We each edited and selected our own pieces, and divided them up into the five themed sections. Then we had a long session where we fanned them all out across my living room floor, one section at a time, and arranged the pieces to flow together, play off each other, and compliment the next poem in order. After arranging the book into a rough deck, we each spent some time alone again to flip through, make a few adjustments, and check once more for typos and punctuation. A final version was sent to two of our friends for proofreading. (I think the only discrepancy was at the very end when we voted on whether or not to hyphenate the term "ass-rape".) I knew all along that there would have to be a typo or two in the book, and I found one while reading a piece live on CIUT's HOWL show. I nearly blurted out "I found one!" but didn't think that listeners would be as delighted as I was. What was your
print run and how much did it cost? How did you raise the money
to publish? monica: Deciding our print run had a lot to do with how many we figured we could sell and in what time frame. Storage and monetary investment remain important considerations as well. If cyn hadn't decided to pitch in the money from her savings, the whole project would have probably been funded on my line of credit. Plastic money spends just as well as the paper kind! What have you
done to promote it? monica: While we stacked up the time shortly after its release with local shows, the more recent emphasis has been on doing gigs promoting it outside of the city. This has been done with the help of our online friends and fanbase as well as a lot of research into what sort of reading series are being held in other cities, etc... The internet really has been a godsend as far as this aspect of promotion has been concerned. Once the bookfair season starts up in the spring, we hope to be taking it to places like Ottawa and Montreal. Bookfairs allow us to pimp it out to people who may not being into going out to readings or performances. As well, those sorts of things serve as excellent networking opportunities. How can people
get your book now? monica: We are currently also working on placing it in bookstores locally and beyond (through our own means as well as picking the brains of various distribution companies.) That said, they should hopefully be showing up on the shelves in the next few weeks. I, personally, am affiliated with the Coffeehouse.ca organization who will be plugging and selling it from the main site as well -- as I am a strong believer in having it available in as many places and ways as possible. It certainly can't hurt. The problem with releasing so close to Christmas was that no retailers would talk to us then. We're chalking up that little "oops" as a learning experience. What will you
do differently next time, if anything? cyn: I would not have the book launch in December. It's such a frantic time that it's hard to drag a lot of people out to shows, what with family parties and holiday stuff going on. Also, fall is a busy time in my industry, so spending all day on the computer at the day job, then coming home to do typesetting and layout on the book -- it was pretty stressful. It was also a busy season for the printer. That's the only thing I'd change -- have a book come out in the spring or summer. Why are so few
women self-publishing books? Also, a lot of people (not just women) find the financial investment involved daunting, if not completely over their heads. I don't generally have a few grand lying around to toss into anything other than absolute necessities. Thus it's tempting to push aside the hard work, that's not guaranteed to sell anyway, and spend the cash on something fun or frivolous. I think a lot of people also don't want to learn the skills needed to pull off such a project (typesetting, layout), and at the same time don't want spend the money to hire someone to do it for them either. It's a nitty gritty process together a full book from conception to completion. For instance, Some Words Spoken would have been a much more hellish project without the help and support of our friends. I don't know if I would have done it at all if I hadn't already been running my small press for a few years and had been looking into how it could grow in the future. cyn: Because women still earn 10-30% less than men, and don't have the money? Because they lack the confidence to take on large projects? Because women have a greater tendency to start small and inch their way up slowly, so they'll get to it in a few years? Because women are so busy running the world they don't have time for book publishing as well? All of the above? Honestly, I have no idea. Women certainly hold their own in the world of zines, so hopefully it's just a matter of time. I know for sure I'll be publishing more books in the future -- the experience has been terrifying but wonderful! ---------- (Psst! We're continuing the discussion on women publishing books over here.) Cynthia also has added her comments to the DIY Book Production article. |
