Alice Y. Chen's Blog, page 4

Positioning your book in the market

Hi Centipede Dragon friends,
Thanks again for hanging on as long as you all did for this post. In this new year, I have begun many new adventures, but I am ever mindful of what I could’ve lost in recent history, and ever grateful that things turned out such that I could return to writing for you!

While I wait to confirm the re-scheduled date for the focus group for book 2 originally planned for December 2016, I thought I’d forge ahead with our always winding journey in self-publishing. I left you a while back with a very daunting flow chart outlining all the tasks needed to be done prior to self-publishing, and all the tasks I faced immediately after publishing. A good number of them had to do with promoting sales of the book, which unfortunately IS the measure for success in this business. So that’s where I was, cold calling, cold e-mailing, preparing press kits, seeking out various local groups and opportunities to showcase my book. At every turn, each lead actually led to many more leads; trying to determine which leads to then follow up on was even more daunting than the flow chart bespoke.

But one very important piece of the puzzle that seems obvious to consider prior to attempting sales promotions is categorizing your book properly. Categorization has always been a part of organizing any book system, simply because if a person searching for a book doesn’t have a specific one in mind, but happens to like books about pandas, for example, then s/he can search for all the books that have to do with pandas and not for instance, start with all books about animals or even all books about bears.

However, if that search returns 127 books, and the person is giving this book as a birthday present, the party of which is in 32 minutes, said person doesn’t really have the time to go through 127 books about pandas to determine which might be best for the recipient.

So then say the recipient is interested in only factual books about pandas. Then the search can be narrowed to non-fiction books about pandas. Suddenly, there are now only 8 books to consider (these numbers are hypothetical). The point is is that the more defined the category, the more useful and productive a search is that will also likely lead to the finding of the most fitting book.

These search engines use search words that are associated with your book. Now, there are many universal systems that name the categories into which a book goes, and they start with very broad categories, with each category then getting broken down into more defined/specific categories. So thank you BISAC, for creating one of the many useful cataloging systems.

So, who then, puts your book into which category/ies? Answer, next post!

Apologies and thanks

Hi Centipede Dragon friends,
Have any of you wondered where I have gone in this month of December? I want to apologize for my absence. I have been dealing with a family medical emergency, so, I hope you will understand my sudden cancellation of the Dec. 6 focus group and the lack of regular posts.

I am happy to report that my family member is recovering well, but I will continue to be out until year's end. I wanted to let you all know that the focus group WILL BE RE-SCHEDULED for a date hopefully in January, 2017. And that the story of the making of Centipede Dragon WILL CONTINUE, once all has settled down.

This year I am especially thankful for the fact that a very special family member is still here with me, to see the next Centipede Dragon book launch, as well as all the milestones in life still to come! I wish all of you the most festive of holidays, and a bright, peaceful, healthful, 2017.

PARTICIPATE on Dec. 6!

PARTICIPATE

In the last post, I announced that I will be publishing book 2 in the Centipede Dragon picture book series, and aside from being as excited as I am, I’d like to ask for any local folks with 8 year-olds to be a critical part of the process toward this book launch!

On Tuesday, December 6, 2016, from 7–8pm, if you are local and have an 8 year-old child, you can participate in Charles Beatley Central Library’s (5005 Duke Street, Alexandria, VA 22304) weekly “Maker Cart Madness” event. Normally, this is an activities event whereby kids get to let their creative juices flow with an array of low to high tech materials. But on this occasion, I will be co-opting this event to get valuable feedback for book 2.

I will be reading AND showing the pictures for the entire book, and then will ask the kids questions that will help me understand what they understand about the book. Then we will do an exercise in character study and development, so the kids will be able to exercise their creativity as well! Please note this event is limited to 20 kids, but I sure would LOVE a full house!

Younger siblings are also welcome, as long as parents are present. PLEASE sign up to participate. Your helps is vital to making my book the best product it can be.

Happy Thanksgiving in advance. I’m so grateful for your continued support.

In the meantime...

Have you by chance been wondering what I have been up to these days, aside from writing my scheduled posts? You may have noticed that I hadn’t advertised for, nor posted a presentation wrap-up of, an event, until the September 24th double-event day.

The REAL reason I haven’t been more active with book one’s marketing, is because I have been hard at work on BOOK TWO! Unfortunately, this has meant I haven’t had much time to even think of, let alone schedule, new events, in between this and working my day job! I do feel disloyal, like I’ve pitched my old favorite stuffed animal for a shiny new one. But inspiration smacked me in the face over a year ago, leading to a tear with illustrating and writing book two. And here I am again, on the cusp (sort of) of publishing.

As a children’s book author, the marketing/promoting responsibilities do take a life on their own. Once you get published, you don’t get to lock yourself away and create your next book, and after that your next book. You have to be the ambassador for your book whenever called upon, and only you can be that advocate. You also have to be savvy about money decisions, time management choices, and social media options. For me, it was time to put the writing and illustrating hat on again. And though it’s undoubtedly my favorite hat, I must pay attention to ALL my hats equally. It won’t work any other way.

So, early in December (definitive date TBD), Charles Beatley Central Library in Alexandria, VA, will be kindly modifying one of their weekly evening events, Maker Cart Madness, to host me for a special “focus group” session for kids 8 years and older (but younger siblings are welcome so long as a parent attends with them). During this 1-hour event, I will read book 2 with the images, and get participants’ feedback. Then there will be an exercise on writing a story.

So, please come join me for this and have your child put their two cents’ worth toward my book!

Self-published, CHECK! Now what?

In our last post, I showed you what I spent within the first ~6 months of this self-publishing adventure, noting that the bulk of it was in the advertising. I should note that for this part of the process, that having a background in graphics allowed me to figure out a lot of formatting issues that a typical author might not be able to do herself. In this respect, I saved A TON on formatting and designing my book, which I have heard can cost in the thousands of dollars. So, although I gave you what I truly spent to get to the self-published stage, it’s safe to say that there is a wide variation in what this number could be. It may seem daunting to format your own book, but nowadays there are tools that will automatically do it for you, and forums to help you solve many technical issues. Again, patience and asking LOTS of questions will see you through this stage. There are so many folks out there who are willing to help, for FREE.

Now, I’m going to outline specifically for you each task I faced prior to the self-publication release date of July 2, 2014, and each task I faced immediately after.

When you look at each task in the graphic, keep in mind that each also required a good chunk of research time to determine whether it was a worthwhile pursuit for my book and my budget. For instance, let’s take a closer look at spending the money on having an established and respected organization like Kirkus to review my book. Now, the benefit is, a lot of well-known organizations that buy books take these reviews into account when purchasing new books. But what if the review is bad? Well, you don’t have to use it! The down side is the cost: $4–500.00, which was my entire budget. So, right or wrong, I skipped it.

The After column is the Before column on steroids. Plus, you don’t really get to check off the Before column items. Then, as you progress in your book career, you reassess the avenues not taken that may not have made sense when just starting out.

The take-home message is, you will be responsible for EVERY aspect of your book with self-publishing. And though I’ve heard similar reports from traditionally published authors (that they must do a fair amount on their own to keep their books in the public eye), I don’t feel so bad. But there are so many additional things you have to take care of yourself, like formatting your own book properly and designing your own cover because there’s no production department, creating your own marketing strategy because there’s no marketing department, or even figuring out how to position your book properly in the market because there’s no market analysis department (we’ll get to this in a future post)!

I recently joined ALLi, an independent author’s organization, and during a webinar one successful indie author said that learning how to use all these marketing and social media skills is frankly NOT OPTIONAL. There are always companies out there who will offer to do these services for you, but they come at a hefty price, and unfortunately many have been reported to be predatory. In fact, the nightmares reported involve authors sinking tens of thousands of dollars into a marketing company, and being stonewalled, or not getting anything in return.

It is daunting to delve into this world, but take it ONE STEP AT A TIME. A social media professional told me once that you should also just handle what you can, but whatever it is do it WELL. For me, it’s facebook, an e-mail list, goodreads, pinterest (admittedly I haven’t been on top of this one), and my website. Fortunately you can also link up social media sites; for instance, my goodreads blog gets automatically posted onto Amazon Author and SCBWI blogs, and I tweet my blog link directly from Mailchimp.

Remember, for every company out there who is willing to take your money to do the work, there is a free forum or group to help you sort this out on your own.

Finally, and most importantly, ask yourself this one question: can I afford to throw ANY amount of money down the toilet?

How much will self-publishing REALLY cost you?

Throughout this self-publishing saga of mine, I think you all might have been wondering how much all of this has cost me. And it’s a reality that I wish I had been more concretely aware of prior to beginning this journey. I frankly would have made a few different choices with my budget. And that is why I’m sharing this.

There are so many multi-variable decisions on how to prudently spend a very limited budget to help promote book sales. And it is important TO set a budget, because the more you spend before you even start selling, the more you have to make up before you start realizing profit. This graphic shows the money I spent from May–December 2014.

The decisions start immediately, before your book has even become a book, with selecting the appropriate ISBN (see March 29, 2016 post), a cost that ranges from zero to almost one-hundred dollars.

You’ll also notice directly under the ISBN line item, that the next entry is a copyright registration fee, and this one is non-negotiable.

Some POD platforms don’t require a title set-up fee, like the platform CreateSpace. The IngramSpark POD does charge this fee, and when I get to that part of my journey of why I used a second POD, I’ll repeat this cost chart format for that.

There is also a fee to get a Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN), but you actually have to decide to apply for a number assignment BEFORE you complete the self-publishing process. And even if you submit an application, your book may not be approved for an LCCN. So beware of where you are in your timeline, if this is important to you.

But the biggest variable in my costs was the postage fees for sending all the copies from the book giveaway. One of the reasons why this was the second highest cost on my list is because 1) I gave away a generous number of 20 copies, and 2) I didn’t limit the entires to the United States/Canada. I mean this is a multicultural, diverse book, so, what would be the point in NOT trying to capture a global audience, right?

Well, this logic may not have been the best for a first-time author with limited resources and NO established reputation. So, included in that postage cost was several books being mailed to various overseas addresses. Aside from the fact that for some I didn’t receive properly written addresses, to mail each of these pieces cost up to $12.00. And I only received one review out maybe 8 sent out overseas.

Then there was an issue with a copy not being received. So, another copy had to be sent.

Essentially, what I’m driving at is that the payoff of running a book giveaway on a global scale initially was not realized. If I did it today, I would have given away ten or fewer copies, and limited it to the US/Canada, at least, for this first book.

Overall, I think the costs for self-publishing are reasonable. Not counting the cost to purchase copies for your own sales at presentations (as you will eventually recover that), you may be looking at a budget of about $400.00. Which, from where costs were a mere decade ago (in the thousands of dollars), is quite reasonable.

Oh we fell for it all right!

Fall for the Book Open House, Charles Beatley Central Library, Alexandria, VA, @ 11am
It was another glorious visit to Charles Beatley, where the crowd is always enthusiastic and fun! Congratulations also to the two folks who won the raffle. If you have photos to share with me on my website, please contact me and send them my way! For a more in-depth look at the event, go to www.centipededragon.weebly.com/blog. And, if you attended an event and would like to sign up to have this post delivered right to your e-mail, use the "Contact" page on my website to send me your info!



Multicultural Festival and Book Fair, Lake Anne Community Center, Reston, VA, @ 2pm
A jewel of an event buried in the heart of Northern Virginia, this amazing festival hosted me to read and speak about Centipede Dragon, and then inspire the kids with crafts rooted in multicultural traditions (except the Centipede Dragon bookmark craft, of course!). To learn more about these crafts, head to www.centipededragon.weebly.com/crafts.... And, for more photos and captions from this event, go to www.centipededragon.weebly.com/blog.

If you would like to sign up to have this post delivered right to your e-mail, use the "Contact" page on my website to send me your info!

SATURDAY, September 24, 2016: TWO EVENTS, ONE ALICE

Hi all, and sorry for the radio silence followed by this "skimpy" post! I was on vacation last week, and this week am preparing for a double duty presentation day this coming Saturday, September 24.
At the end of the morning presentation in Alexandria, I will raffle off TWO Centipede Dragon books.
In the afternoon presentation in Reston, arts and crafts will be going on after the presentation: paper lantern-making, crayon-water color batik drawing, and make your own Centipede Dragon bookmarks are in the offering.
At BOTH presentations, I will do a short but (hopefully) tantalizing preview of BOOK 2: Centipede Dragon versus the Rascally ReptilLion!
I hope to see you in Alexandria or Reston!

Soldiering on

So, you’ve now heard about one of the biggest pitfalls to self-publishing, and that is, VARIABLE PRINT QUALITY. And not the kinds of problems that are author errors, like not proofreading, not caring about structure of design, nor quality of end product. No, I’m talking about print issues that are completely out of your control, problems which you couldn’t have conceived when you were receiving decent proof copies and being assured that any errors would be rooted out with each order.

You in effect have no idea what each customer will receive when s/he purchases your book. You can say to yourself, “You know, there are no guarantees in life,” or, “Chances are, they won’t even notice the flaws that I do,” but we all know that that is simply NOT the point. In my head, I was screaming, “We can figure out how to BOUNCE-LAND eight-hundred million dollars’ worth of rovers onto the surface of Mars, but we CAN’T figure out how to consistently produce 25 errorless copies of a paperback book?!?! WTF?!?!?”

(I was really thinking this, by the way. And please excuse my language.)

Aside from the months of preparation with the book’s production, I had also been simultaneously preparing for the launch (meaning the date it would be available for sale) of my book. Months before, I established this very blog post on Facebook, set up profiles for Amazon Author Central, Goodreads and Pinterest. I also figured out how to link my Goodreads account to my Amazon Author and SCBWI profiles, so that once a post went up on Goodreads, it would automatically feed to the other two. I designed and printed postcards, and then wrote, storyboarded, animated and narrated a video trailer. I contacted numerous local papers for interviews, and planned a Goodreads book giveaway–touted to be essential in marketing strategy for a debut book. I also started reaching out to what I hoped were relevant online blogs that could promote my book upon review, as well as local groups to try and get presentations lined up. Each marketing avenue took so much time to either hear back or set up.

So now knowing all this, I think you might have a better understanding as to why, in the face of knowing that a defective copy of my book could be distributed with each and every order, I decided to soldier on with this enterprise anyway.

Answer, simply put, was that I had invested my soul into publishing this book.

I had further invested my own money into getting this book into print, the nuts and bolts of which will be discussed, next post!