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mmerriamOver at the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
lobo_luna community, I've completed a question and answer session. I thought I'd post the questions and answers here as well.
Can you tell us the story of Shimmers & Shadows from both a creative and a business perspective?
“One foolproof way to make an editor look at you in panic and scurry off into the lounge, never to be seen again, is to stand next to them and say, ‘I have this collection of short fiction I’m trying to publish.’” --- Neil Gaimen @ The Riverview Theater, Minneapolis, MN. 2006
Oh, how true.
Shimmers & Shadows, came from a desire to have something to sell to people at conventions. By 2007, I had made several good small press and semi-professional sales and had become a regular reader at the multitude of SF/F/H conventions here in Minneapolis and St. Paul. The problem was, if a listener walked up to me after a reading or panel and asked where to find my fiction, I ended up directing them to my website and telling them that several of my stories were online and free to read. This wasn't satisfactory, in my opinion.
What I needed was something to sell them right then and there. I wanted to collect several of my stories, which at this time were scattered all over the internet or in hard-to-find small press magazines (no few of them in countries other that the USA), and have them in one nice book I could hand-sell to someone interest in my work.
I talked to several traditional publishers about the project, but the hard truth is that collections don't sell very well, even for established writers. As one small-press publisher told me, it wasn't a knock on my stories, or abilities as a writer: It was just plain old economics. They didn't think they could sell enough copies to make it financially viable.
In September of 2007,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
careswen and I decided we are going to do this ourselves. Of the thirty-odd pieces I'd sold and published to that point, the rights to over two dozen of them had reverted back to me. It was more than enough to publish a collection. The next important thing was to make sure we could produce a quality product. Too many self-published books look like crap. I was going to have to deal with the stigma of having self-published as it stood (despite the fact that each story had been vetted by an editor at a magazine): The book needed to look not just good, but professional.
I'm going to digress here a little and talk for a few paragraphs about self-publishing.
There are times when self-publishing and using print-on-demand (POD) is a perfectly reasonable way to produce a product. Good examples of a smart use of POD and self-publishing would be things like a cookbook published by a church group, or some bit of highly specialized and niche information, especially in support of a lecturer. A family memoir or history, or some other type of non-fiction is pretty reasonable. Even poetry has a long and fabled history of self-published chapbooks. Several small-press magazines use print-on-demand technology to publish their magazines.
But when it comes to your fiction (especially novels), the best advice I can give you concerning self-publishing, be it through POD technology or a vanity press, is (with a couple of very specific exceptions): Don't.
But Michael (I hear you say), you did with this collection.
Yes, but these stories had already been chosen for publication and vetted by magazine editors. These stories had (and this is the crucial part) been through the editorial process and deemed publishable. And that, my friends, is where the bulk of self-published fiction fails and why the bulk of self-published fiction is complete and utter crap. If your novel isn't good enough to be picked up by even a small press publisher, the chances are very good that it simply isn't good enough for publication despite what you may think. That's hard, but it's true. And yes, there are and have been really well written self-published fiction novels that sold pretty well: They are the exception.
I'll put it too you like this: I think I've got pretty decent chops as a writer. I mean, no one is going to confuse me for Neil Gaimen or Roger Zelazny, but I'm reasonably good at what I do. I believe in my novel that is out on submission right now with a deep and sincere belief. I think it is a sellable book, or I wouldn't be submitting it around. But if I can't find an agent or publishing house, I will put away and hope I can rewrite it in the future--when I've improved as a writer--and maybe find it a home at that point. I would never self-publish a novel.
Besides, in writing, money flows to the writer. Say it with me: Money flows to the writer. If you have to pay someone to publish your book, your book isn't ready to be published.
The two exceptions to self-published, print-on-demand fiction books are: 1) What I did, creating a collection of short fiction that has been through the editing and vetting process at magazines independent of the writer, and B) Re-issuing a novel you published with a traditional publishers that it is now out-of-print and the rights have reverted back to you. And you should only go this route after you have exhausted trying to get every likely traditional press you can find to publish it for you.
End of digression. Now, back to Shimmers & Shadows.
We leaned heavily on our LJ friends list, and I solicited advice from a couple of local people in the publishing industry. We decided on a size (6 X 9 trade paperback) and commissioned cover art fromtiny_wings, who's work had inspired a couple of the stories in the collection, and who I had been dying to work with on a project. Adam Stemple, Jaye Lawrence, and Hilary Moon Murphy, all fantastic writers, agreed to read my manuscript and give me cover blurbs. I already had a blurb from Scott Lynch.
careswen and I went over each possible story and piece of poetry, scoring them on a scale of 0-5 and editing them one more time with the Red Pen of Doom. We selected 22 of the possible 28 pieces to be in the collection, which we knew was going to make it a hefty book indeed. This was fine: we knew the cover price was going to be a little higher than a typical traditionally published book of equivalent size, and we wanted to make sure people got their money's worth. After much brainstorming back and forth, we decided on Shimmers & Shadows as the title.
We chose lulu.com to be our print-on-demand service because they do good work, especially in the paper quality and book-binding, which is important for a professional look.
In March of 2008,careswen and I sat down in the middle of the living room floor with the physical copies of the stories and poems. We shuffled them around until we had a sequence we were happy with. Going in, we knew which story would lead-off, which would close the collection, where the two poems would fall, and that the three Rija stories would be blocked together. From there we worked out themes, types, were the stories uplifting or downers, long or short, and tried to create a flow. The Reverend Selena was very helpful.
During this period we also worked with our artist,tiny_wings on the cover. tiny_wings drew some concept sketches and sent them to us. careswen made a rough sketch of what we were kind of looking for in the cover. tiny_wings drew more sketches. We settled on what we wanted, choosing a scene from one of the stories, "Rainfall," and I sent her pictures of the Minneapolis skyline to help her with the background art. Many of my stories are set in Minneapolis, and I wanted the city skyline in the background to be recognizable. More rough sketches, and we had found the basic idea, giving tiny_wings the latitude to make changes from actual scenes for artistic purposes. At this point careswen and I decided on fonts, both for the cover (Henry Morgan's Hand) and the interior (Garamond). All in all, tiny_wings produced 10 black and white concept sketches and 10 different versions of the cover before we said, "Yes! This one!"
Sometimes I wonder if we paid her enough.
Next up was me creating all of the business pages that go into a book: title page, copyright and publishing info, acknowledgments, copyright acknowledgments, dedication, more blurbs, table of contents, and about the author, combining it with the stories into a word document.careswen created the squirrel logo for our new imprint, Drey Books, and created the headers and footers and gutters. greykev cleaned up the back cover and made it sharper. Then came careswen converting the word doc to a .pdf. At this point I really wished we had some professional software, like Adobe InDesign, but she worked miracles with what she had.
In June of 2008,careswen uploaded the whole mess to Lulu.com and I ordered a proof copy. It was lovely. And we found some typos. We fixed them, and careswen worked her magic again. This time it was great, and we ordered several copies in anticipation of attending CONvergence. When they arrived, I held them in my hand and it was a great feeling. Here was all our hard work: All the stories written and sold, all the time it took to make a sharp-looking finished project, it was real, and I felt good about it.
Technical Details: Printed Trade Paperback. 392 pages, 6" x 9", perfect binding, cream interior paper (60# weight), black and white interior ink, white exterior paper (100# weight), full-color exterior ink.
There were some financial choices made, primarily in that we did not buy a distribution package from Lulu.com or purchase a block of ISBNs. The downside to this was that we couldn't list in Bowker's Books in Print and we couldn't list with Amazon.com. That was not as tragic as it seems: Once we determined what a distribution package or ISBN would cost, it made no financial sense. There was no way any big box brick-n-mortar stores were going to carry this book, and as for Amazon.com, we would have made next to nothing off of sales from them, given the discounts they require. We knew good and well going in that we would be hand-selling these at conventions and readings.
At best we hope to break even, and we are about halfway to that point in sales. But Shimmers & Shadows was never a project expected to make any real money. It has always been more about being a marketing tool, and something to sell at conventions and readings. And if it turns out to be a money loser, well, I'm still proud of the stories between the covers, pleased at how well the product as a whole turned out, and grateful to everyone who worked hard to make it a reality.
Now for the pitch!
If you would like a copy, you can buy it here.
If you would like a personalized copy, you can go to my website, click on the Make a Donation button and buy it directly from me using your paypal account. The book is $18.95 plus $3.95 for shipping in the United States, making the total $22.90. If you choose this option, please send an email to me at mmerriamATgmailDOTcom with your shipping information. For international orders, please email me with your address, and I can work out the cost of shipping.
lobo_luna community, I've completed a question and answer session. I thought I'd post the questions and answers here as well.Can you tell us the story of Shimmers & Shadows from both a creative and a business perspective?
“One foolproof way to make an editor look at you in panic and scurry off into the lounge, never to be seen again, is to stand next to them and say, ‘I have this collection of short fiction I’m trying to publish.’” --- Neil Gaimen @ The Riverview Theater, Minneapolis, MN. 2006
Oh, how true.
Shimmers & Shadows, came from a desire to have something to sell to people at conventions. By 2007, I had made several good small press and semi-professional sales and had become a regular reader at the multitude of SF/F/H conventions here in Minneapolis and St. Paul. The problem was, if a listener walked up to me after a reading or panel and asked where to find my fiction, I ended up directing them to my website and telling them that several of my stories were online and free to read. This wasn't satisfactory, in my opinion.
What I needed was something to sell them right then and there. I wanted to collect several of my stories, which at this time were scattered all over the internet or in hard-to-find small press magazines (no few of them in countries other that the USA), and have them in one nice book I could hand-sell to someone interest in my work.
I talked to several traditional publishers about the project, but the hard truth is that collections don't sell very well, even for established writers. As one small-press publisher told me, it wasn't a knock on my stories, or abilities as a writer: It was just plain old economics. They didn't think they could sell enough copies to make it financially viable.
In September of 2007,
careswen and I decided we are going to do this ourselves. Of the thirty-odd pieces I'd sold and published to that point, the rights to over two dozen of them had reverted back to me. It was more than enough to publish a collection. The next important thing was to make sure we could produce a quality product. Too many self-published books look like crap. I was going to have to deal with the stigma of having self-published as it stood (despite the fact that each story had been vetted by an editor at a magazine): The book needed to look not just good, but professional.I'm going to digress here a little and talk for a few paragraphs about self-publishing.
There are times when self-publishing and using print-on-demand (POD) is a perfectly reasonable way to produce a product. Good examples of a smart use of POD and self-publishing would be things like a cookbook published by a church group, or some bit of highly specialized and niche information, especially in support of a lecturer. A family memoir or history, or some other type of non-fiction is pretty reasonable. Even poetry has a long and fabled history of self-published chapbooks. Several small-press magazines use print-on-demand technology to publish their magazines.
But when it comes to your fiction (especially novels), the best advice I can give you concerning self-publishing, be it through POD technology or a vanity press, is (with a couple of very specific exceptions): Don't.
But Michael (I hear you say), you did with this collection.
Yes, but these stories had already been chosen for publication and vetted by magazine editors. These stories had (and this is the crucial part) been through the editorial process and deemed publishable. And that, my friends, is where the bulk of self-published fiction fails and why the bulk of self-published fiction is complete and utter crap. If your novel isn't good enough to be picked up by even a small press publisher, the chances are very good that it simply isn't good enough for publication despite what you may think. That's hard, but it's true. And yes, there are and have been really well written self-published fiction novels that sold pretty well: They are the exception.
I'll put it too you like this: I think I've got pretty decent chops as a writer. I mean, no one is going to confuse me for Neil Gaimen or Roger Zelazny, but I'm reasonably good at what I do. I believe in my novel that is out on submission right now with a deep and sincere belief. I think it is a sellable book, or I wouldn't be submitting it around. But if I can't find an agent or publishing house, I will put away and hope I can rewrite it in the future--when I've improved as a writer--and maybe find it a home at that point. I would never self-publish a novel.
Besides, in writing, money flows to the writer. Say it with me: Money flows to the writer. If you have to pay someone to publish your book, your book isn't ready to be published.
The two exceptions to self-published, print-on-demand fiction books are: 1) What I did, creating a collection of short fiction that has been through the editing and vetting process at magazines independent of the writer, and B) Re-issuing a novel you published with a traditional publishers that it is now out-of-print and the rights have reverted back to you. And you should only go this route after you have exhausted trying to get every likely traditional press you can find to publish it for you.
End of digression. Now, back to Shimmers & Shadows.
We leaned heavily on our LJ friends list, and I solicited advice from a couple of local people in the publishing industry. We decided on a size (6 X 9 trade paperback) and commissioned cover art from
tiny_wings, who's work had inspired a couple of the stories in the collection, and who I had been dying to work with on a project. Adam Stemple, Jaye Lawrence, and Hilary Moon Murphy, all fantastic writers, agreed to read my manuscript and give me cover blurbs. I already had a blurb from Scott Lynch. careswen and I went over each possible story and piece of poetry, scoring them on a scale of 0-5 and editing them one more time with the Red Pen of Doom. We selected 22 of the possible 28 pieces to be in the collection, which we knew was going to make it a hefty book indeed. This was fine: we knew the cover price was going to be a little higher than a typical traditionally published book of equivalent size, and we wanted to make sure people got their money's worth. After much brainstorming back and forth, we decided on Shimmers & Shadows as the title.We chose lulu.com to be our print-on-demand service because they do good work, especially in the paper quality and book-binding, which is important for a professional look.
In March of 2008,
careswen and I sat down in the middle of the living room floor with the physical copies of the stories and poems. We shuffled them around until we had a sequence we were happy with. Going in, we knew which story would lead-off, which would close the collection, where the two poems would fall, and that the three Rija stories would be blocked together. From there we worked out themes, types, were the stories uplifting or downers, long or short, and tried to create a flow. The Reverend Selena was very helpful.During this period we also worked with our artist,
tiny_wings on the cover. tiny_wings drew some concept sketches and sent them to us. careswen made a rough sketch of what we were kind of looking for in the cover. tiny_wings drew more sketches. We settled on what we wanted, choosing a scene from one of the stories, "Rainfall," and I sent her pictures of the Minneapolis skyline to help her with the background art. Many of my stories are set in Minneapolis, and I wanted the city skyline in the background to be recognizable. More rough sketches, and we had found the basic idea, giving tiny_wings the latitude to make changes from actual scenes for artistic purposes. At this point careswen and I decided on fonts, both for the cover (Henry Morgan's Hand) and the interior (Garamond). All in all, tiny_wings produced 10 black and white concept sketches and 10 different versions of the cover before we said, "Yes! This one!" Sometimes I wonder if we paid her enough.
Next up was me creating all of the business pages that go into a book: title page, copyright and publishing info, acknowledgments, copyright acknowledgments, dedication, more blurbs, table of contents, and about the author, combining it with the stories into a word document.
careswen created the squirrel logo for our new imprint, Drey Books, and created the headers and footers and gutters. greykev cleaned up the back cover and made it sharper. Then came careswen converting the word doc to a .pdf. At this point I really wished we had some professional software, like Adobe InDesign, but she worked miracles with what she had. In June of 2008,
careswen uploaded the whole mess to Lulu.com and I ordered a proof copy. It was lovely. And we found some typos. We fixed them, and careswen worked her magic again. This time it was great, and we ordered several copies in anticipation of attending CONvergence. When they arrived, I held them in my hand and it was a great feeling. Here was all our hard work: All the stories written and sold, all the time it took to make a sharp-looking finished project, it was real, and I felt good about it.Technical Details: Printed Trade Paperback. 392 pages, 6" x 9", perfect binding, cream interior paper (60# weight), black and white interior ink, white exterior paper (100# weight), full-color exterior ink.
There were some financial choices made, primarily in that we did not buy a distribution package from Lulu.com or purchase a block of ISBNs. The downside to this was that we couldn't list in Bowker's Books in Print and we couldn't list with Amazon.com. That was not as tragic as it seems: Once we determined what a distribution package or ISBN would cost, it made no financial sense. There was no way any big box brick-n-mortar stores were going to carry this book, and as for Amazon.com, we would have made next to nothing off of sales from them, given the discounts they require. We knew good and well going in that we would be hand-selling these at conventions and readings.
At best we hope to break even, and we are about halfway to that point in sales. But Shimmers & Shadows was never a project expected to make any real money. It has always been more about being a marketing tool, and something to sell at conventions and readings. And if it turns out to be a money loser, well, I'm still proud of the stories between the covers, pleased at how well the product as a whole turned out, and grateful to everyone who worked hard to make it a reality.
Now for the pitch!
If you would like a copy, you can buy it here.
If you would like a personalized copy, you can go to my website, click on the Make a Donation button and buy it directly from me using your paypal account. The book is $18.95 plus $3.95 for shipping in the United States, making the total $22.90. If you choose this option, please send an email to me at mmerriamATgmailDOTcom with your shipping information. For international orders, please email me with your address, and I can work out the cost of shipping.
