Difference between revisions of "User:J. D. Holiday"

Revision as of 00:09, 27 November 2007

Book Garden Publishing

• Jan
• 
• BookGardenPublishing.com
• My interests are gardening, writing stories for kids and self-publishing them. My sites has information for authors to self-publishing their own books, quotes including Jane Austen quotes, charities I like, and a list of search engines to list your own websites on, as well as my favorite places on the web and games to play, and fun sites for children.

       About me, J. D. Holiday, and THE BIRTH OF BGP

Insert non-formatted text here   After years of doing what all writers do with their work, submitting manuscripts to the big publishers and waiting for the rejection letter, I'd had enough. Don’t misunderstand, I wasn’t through with writing, which I love, but with the writing game. Too many hoops to jump through to attract publishers, editors and agents to your work. I’m convinced you either have to be part of the Unknown Secret Society (wink wink-nod nod), know someone who knows someone, or be lucky enough that the RIGHT person picks up your manuscript and likes it. Yes, I’ve had editors interested in my stories, I’ve had some short stories published, some in a Chapbook, and  I even had an agent, but in the end, no books published. Then, finally, along comes POD publishing.
   Print On Demand or POD was just starting to make it possible to afford getting books into print and I was hooked. If only I could get my stories printed, I thought, I could easily sell them. I turned to my sister, an artist, Doris Winterberg and asked her to do the pictures for one of my books. 
   I had joined an organization called, SPAN, Small Publishers Association Of North America. THIS would be one of the things that helped save my sanity. Through SPAN I was beginning to get an idea that I was maybe doing some things wrong though I couldn’t nail the facts down yet. 
   So we paid the money and signed the contract with a POD service. It was ALMOST a money making deal for them and was a heartache for me. I was told the book would be ready in eight months. We got everything in motion. Flyers to be mailed to newspapers, bookstores, libraries, and letters to accompany the review copies of the book were all ready to go. Then the galleys arrived! I thought they would look great and ready to sell. But they weren’t. They were a MESS!
   Among the things wrong were that the pages where the pictures should be covering the entire page, with the text embedded in the pictures, were on half the page with lots of white space around them. The text ran through the picture all right, but also out of the pictures into the trim off area! There was no way this was a finished book!
   Okay, so I cried and when I was done, I got to work.
   I knew enough about Photo Shop to show this company how each page should look. I sent the galley back with my examples.
   Weeks later, coming to my book release date, the galley was back. They failed to correct almost everything. Not even the few spelling mistakes were corrected. A release form accompanied the galley. It said this was it! According to this company, the book was ready to be published! They expected me to sign the release with nothing more to be done to correct the problems in it.
   My rep was unavailable. I kept calling but no one there would talk to me. I had no contact. For three weeks I called every day trying to find someone to tell me what was going on. I got a recording every time to leave a message, which no one returned.
   Then one morning a short email arrives from the Philippines. A woman named, ‘Sugar.‘ The email said, my rep was fired, the company had moved overseas and I was to speak only to her. She was my new rep and she said to be patient they ‘re working on my book. She would get back to me in two weeks. 
   I had no patience left. I emailed back telling her that I needed to speak to someone in charge. The reply from Sugar was, “we’ll get back to you.” 
   Being a quick study, I saw that there was a phone number on the email and I called it. A woman answered the phone with a thick accent. Sure enough, she used that company’s name and she knew Sugar. Sugar got on the line and spoke slow English. I moved ahead with my question. “Can I speak to someone in charge about my book?”
   “No. We are sorry,” she answered and repeated it after every phrase she said to me. “I don’t understand…(something about) business…We contact you…Thank you…Ok?…We call you when….”
   This is where I put in quickly, “What is happening to my book? And WHEN will they get back to me?”
   “In two weeks, Ok?,” she stated ‘sweetly.’ Which she was! She was nervous and had no answer for me other than what they instructed her to say.
   I felt almost as sorry for Sugar as I felt for myself. She wanted to end my call. Trying to be optimistic I accepted the two weeks more of being put off. 
   Here you can guess. No call from them after two weeks! I called. Got Sugar on the phone with the English phrase book dog-eared to the page where all sentences start with ‘We.’
   “We get back to you in two weeks,” Sugar started with.
   I explained it was two weeks, but she stated, “In another two weeks we will get back to you.“
   Through the next two calls, adding four more weeks to my time in never -never land and again in each call hearing, “We get back to you in two weeks.” Now totally exasperated, I could barely put two words together that made sense. I spit out, “They have to talk-to-me-the-it‘s-you-ahhh!”
   Somebody recommended I call the Better Business Bureau. I decided contacting them by email would be wise in my emotional state of mind. I was put half out of my misery in 150 words or less, when in TWO WEEKS I got my money back in full!

   My journey continues. I’m now painting, (yes, I can paint) the pictures for one of my children’s picture books and will publish my own books. The blow was also softened by the things I’ve learned from what I call, my self-publishing groups. They are a group of publishing professionals in the SPAN online discussion group. There are other good organizations out there but SPAN turned out to be what I needed. What I have learned from this discussion group and its spin off group for children‘s authors, the resources SPAN has for its members, the books I’ve read and the internet have begun to put my publishing future into focus.

What I can’t do, or do well enough myself, I can find the right people to do it for me. Oh, I’ll still do some things wrong, no doubt. But I have the tools to find the solutions to my problems. Listed on my For Self-Publishers and For Writers pages is information to help others find all they will need to write and publish their own books. Many of the books and websites I have found myself but many are by members of my discussion groups, some of the most knowledgeable people I've come across.

                                      Sincerely,           

                                      --Jan 15:58, 26 November 2007 (PST) J.D. Holiday

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