Maria Ellis's Blog, page 5

Indie publishing: the why’s in choosing the self-publishing route

I published my first book (a novel, literary fiction) almost eight years ago. It was not a very pleasant experience: to begin with the publishing house botched the launching of the book. It was supposed to happen at a large book fair. They ran out of batteries for the microphone. My book editor said to the girl who was responsible for it:

“Go and borrow some batteries from another publishing house!”

She flatly refused. Such a thing could not be done. So, two literary critics who were there to speak at the book launch, my editor and myself stood at the stand in front of the small crowd.

“Do you want to continue? Or should we cancel and do this another time?” my editor whispered, embarrassed by what was happening but powerless. I had a choice between screaming at the audience to make myself heard, or taking the chance that the event might never happen at all. I chose the second. Of course, the publishing house forgot all about it or… I’ll stop here and not speculate more on their reasons. The book apparently sold though I have no idea how many copies. I’ve seen recently that there is a second edition. I was unaware of it. As for being paid… the last time I contacted them through a lawyer friend, I received $100.

I published the second book five years ago. A story in verse for children, that I also illustrated (with great trepidation I might add). This time I chose a different publishing house, specialized in materials for young audiences. They told me that they will support me in whatever marketing endeavors I might have, but that the initiative would have to come from me. They didn’t have the budged (or the desire) to engage in such behavior. A year later I contacted them for some sales reports. I had not heard from them at all. The email came: “Lady, the book is not selling! We will give the stock back to the printer to be chopped up…” or something to that effect. This spring I saw it on the book shelf of one of the most popular book stores in the country. Odd… if it’s not selling.

Thus, my first forays into the world of traditional publishing left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Enter Amazon and CreateSpace! It’s free to publish your book with them… you just have to learn a whole lot about formatting. Then, there are a zillion other small things (the subject of future posts) such as cover design, tables of contents, mastering InDesign and writing a good author description. But I took the leap and published my first book this way, a story in verse again, for children: “The Bear’s Slippers“. I did not promote it at all – I cannot call mass-emailing friends “promotion”. I just uploaded it and left it there. It sold about 12 copies in a year. One of those went to my then-boyfriend, current husband. Two more found a home with my best friend. Sigh…

In the beginning of this month I self-published yet another book: “The Golden Cheese“. Another story in verse for kids between 3 and 7. The illustrations are much better and I am quite proud of it. I am also bent on promoting it. I don’t know much about the process though. It feels like stepping into the dark night with nothing to light up the path except a small dim light called “a hunch” that comes in the moment after asking the question “What should I do next?”.

I’ll keep a journal of my saga.

And write on…

NEW BOOK: “The Golden Cheese” is out on Amazon

This month I am celebrating a new book release on Amazon: “The Golden Cheese“, for the 3-7 age bracket. It’s about a lonely little mouse that tries to find cheese of gold, hoping that it would bring him fame, glory, riches and the love of others. He makes a fool of himself but in the end he finds the real golden cheese: a friend.

See the first few pages below and email me (see links in the profile on the right) if you’d like any of the pages in black and white, to color them as you wish!

Click to view slideshow.

 

The Mouse King Preview

I am close to finishing a new book, about a mouse and the perennial search for  cheese. Here’s a sneak preview of the main character. It seemed perfect for starting to participate in Illustration Friday, something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time now. The theme this week is “power”.

The Mouse King Preview

Patterning the Pattern

I’ve been taking advantage of the free-for-all classroom of all things human – YouTube – to watch tutorials given by various professionals in the illustration business. And so I’ve learned how to make patterns. This is the first good one I’ve made. Imagine it in the “cheese room”… (as in the house of a mouse).

New Bear Cover

The first book I’ve published through Amazon, “The Bear’s Slippers”, makes me cringe now. The illustrations are amateurish at best. But it was a good exercise for finishing a project like that with more elaborate illustrations… sketchy and pale though they are.

I’ve been making lots of progress lately (if I say so myself…) and decided to redo the “Bear…”. This is a sketch of the cover. I’m very happy with it. Of course, I have the finished picture in mind… The idea came to me while I was waiting for a train. I started sketching bears’ faces, then a guitar playing bear came out of my pencil, then some other bears that seem to watch him with different expressions. And suddenly I got this image of my little bear character cheering his dancing slippers on, while a little birds orchestra is playing some music. Et voila!

Two cool cats on the road

Two weeks ago today my fiance arrived in Bucharest with his car, to pick me up and move me to Belgium – bags, art supplies, laundry an’ all. No animals though. I even gave up on the plants (left them for the next person). I am not yet an official resident but according to European law, I still have a few more months to figure that out. So as far as I’m concerned, we are still two cool cats on the road… Or at least I am and he’s just waiting for me to settle down.

The witch, le bébé and the wardrobe

So the South of France came and went as quickly as a Gouda cheese sandwich in the morning (my basic food these days). It was three weeks ago but it feels like ages. This picture was taken in one of my favorite new places: a very old small city in the mountains, called Castelnou. The witch was welcoming. Le bébé was 3 months old. Now he’s almost 5. I need to renew my wardrobe. Oh yeah, and I moved to Belgium two weeks ago! Spells I tell ya…

Road trip – here I come!

I have four more days of work before leaving on vacation for the South of France. We’re going to take an 8-hour drive from Brussels, at night. It’s the perfect time of the year to do that and one of the best places in the world for me. I was trying to think of “the” song that spells road trip for me. My first (and ultimate) choice is still “Take It Easy”, a song I sang to during all of my road trips. I found a version I like on YouTube, from the Rock&Roll Hall of Fame (btw, since when does YouTube show video ads??). The only thing I don’t like is that Don Henley is not the vocalist. I love his raspy voice. But oh well… I’ll take it anyway. Highways, here I come!

Blue trees

The other day I spent the afternoon in one of the lovely parks of Bucharest, Cismigiu. I had the drawing course book with me (Betty Edwards, “Drawing on the right side of the brain”) and the chapter on color open. I tried one of her exercises and picked three complementary shades: I used the blue to tone the paper, the brown to draw everything in and put in the shadows and the (what I thought would be a “light beige”) light orange for the highlights. Then I picked whatever was in front of me as a subject. Interesting experiment. It was a bit enhanced by the scanner that’s not picking up the pale color pencils but I sort of like how it came out.

Bears reloaded

I’ve decided to apply my newly acquired skills in drawing to redrawing “The Bear’s Slippers“, one of my books for kids. The illustrations seem quite lame now and I’m seeing them (with a cringe) as nice first steps with growing pains. So, to prepare more and to do it better, I’m drawing bears from photos.