24 — Wednesday, April 19, 1989 — North Shore News Self publishing is hard work but can pay attractive dividends A FEW columns ago we looked at Nancy Wise’s How To Self Publish And Make Money, the definitive guide for Ca- nadian writers interested in publishing their own books as opposed to taking the more traditional route and dealing with an established publishing firm. At that time | promised that we would, in a future Books Now ar- tict2, examine the experiences of several B.C. authors to see how they’ ve fared with self publishing. This week we return to self publishing with first-hand accounts from the North Skore’s Gerry Smith and book-prize nominee Joe Garner. Gerry Smith, a 43 year-old receptionist with the Mt. Seymour office of B.C. Parks, had no previous publishing or commercial writing credits when she first em- barked on self publishing early last year. February was, she says, ‘*,..a depressing month for me. | was looking around for a hobby.’* COOK publisher Gerry Smith .-appetite for publishing. She could not have guessed that the ‘‘hobby” she chose, writing and self publishing a cookbook, would entail eliminating her social life, skipping meals and seeing every waking — and non-waking — moment for nine months oc- cupied by the project. “Y knew it was going to be a lot of work but | never realized just how much work that would be. I’d go to sleep thinking about the book, dream about the book and wake up thinking about the book.” Also of concern was the finan- cial outlay involved. “Perhaps one of the hardest things was to actually go in debt for the first time in my life.” Appetite For Living (302 pp.; AN EXCITING NEW CONCEPT “THE FREQUENT BUYER CLUB” It's Unique and Innovative and will Save You 25% to your membership. SEYMOUR BOOKS IS PROUD TO ANNOUNCE ae oa “Hy Become a Mernber and accumuiate purchase points to $4100.00 and save 25% on your next purchase. Join now and save tomorrow. Come into Seymour Books for full details and bring this ad to receive 25 purchase points immediately credited CORVENIENTLY LOCATED AT $12.95) a collection of over 250 imaginative recipes supplied by B.C. Parks staff from across the province, cost Smith $17,640 for an initial print-run of 3,000 copies. On the face of it, with the book selling briskly, it may seem that Smith’s investment will pay a pret- ty hefty dividend but there’s more to self publishing than simply prin- ting a book and then sitting back expecting a substantial profit. Here’s why. Smith markets Appetite For Liv- ing in three different ways: mail order, professional book distribu- tion (through two companies, Sandhill Marketing and Gordon Soules) and direct sales to book stores. The first yields the highest returns as her costs are limited to mailing and advertising, but it’s another story entirely with the other two outlets, Retail stores take 40 per cent of the cover price of her book while the distributors claim 57-60 per cent. Now a bit of basic math quickly reveals that, with a unit cost of $5.88 per book and distributors’ portions ranging from $7.38 to $7.77, Smith actually loses money on each book sold in this way. She could have avoided this net loss by going for a larger print-run (the cost per book with a 5,000- run would have fallen from $5.88 to $3.22 and increased her profit margin), but she was concerned that sales might not justify so many copies, Instead she chose to lose some money on the initial print-run, op- ting for exposure and an indication as to whether public interest would then warrant a second, more lucrative printing. Fortunately, Smith estimates that she will realize a profit of some $6,000 on this first printing thanks to the mail order and direct-sales components of her marketing strategy. Smith was largely able to make this kind of decision through a combination of guts and thorough preparation. She made a deliber- ate point of researching the market exhaustively and seeking tips from everyone she could. She then threw herself wholeheartedly into selling Appetite For Living. y $ we dh, at B a oe ba ad Ord | AVE. Joe Garner's experience has been markedly different from Smith’s, His first book, Never Fly Over An Eagle’s Nest, was origi- nally handled in the traditional way through a regional publisher, Oolichan Books. MIKE STEELE book reviewer With sales of 10,000 copies, Never Fly Over An Eagle’s Nest was a Canadian best-seller when Oolichan, according to Garner, decided that the market for this work had been saturated and declined to reprint it. Garner disagreed with this assessment, secured the publishing rights to it and set out to prove the publisher wrong. As things turned out, Garner made the right choice: now in its 20th printing, Never Fly Over An Eagle’s Nest has sold 56,000 copies. His stubborn refusal to ac- cept the publisher's view was the first step on the road to establishing his own company, Cinnabar Press, and the beginning of a solid, profitable business enterprise. Garner cites several reasons for favoring self publishing: “You lose control with a publisher and | felt that royalties (the industry standard in Canada is usually around 10 per cent) were much, much lower than | felt they should be.” This 80-year-old ex-logger has every reason to be proud of his accomplishments and the latest one may be one of the best yet. Here are just a few of the many works, ‘i TWO-TIME publisher joe Garner ---gains control. Never Chop Your Rope, which has racked up a remarkable record of 15,000 copies sold in just four months, has just been short-listed for the prestigious Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice annual award, a major coup for a self-published title. by well known Canadian artists, which are now on display at our galiery. \: ity Flower Girl A Winter's Glow Tempestuous Sky James Lumbers Alan Kingsland Sunday José Trinidad Little Gardeners Gallery Hours: Monday to Thursday ............ 9:30 - 6:00 Friday ... 9:30 - 9:00 Saturday ......ceseeeee 9:30 - 6:00 Also available are works by Carci Biack,,. Heather Cooper, Jack Reid and Les Tait. For information phone (604) 980-7216 103 - 1200 Lonsdale Avenue North Vancouver BC V7M 3H6