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There is a line from the movie “Hunt for Red October” delivered by actor turned statesman, Fred Thompson to Alec Baldwin playing ?’s Jack Ryan that has stuck with me all of these years. The exchange goes something like this:
Thompson: What’s their plan? (referring to Ryan’s hypothesis that the crew of the Red October wish to defect)
Baldwin: Excuse me?
There is a line from the movie “Hunt for Red October” delivered by actor turned statesman, Fred Thompson to Alec Baldwin playing ?’s Jack Ryan that has stuck with me all of these years. The exchange goes something like this:
Thompson: What’s their plan? (referring to Ryan’s hypothesis that the crew of the Red October wish to defect)
Baldwin: Excuse me?
Thompson: What’s their plan? Hell son, Ruskies don’t take a dump without a plan.
What’s your plan? As my wife and I near another milestone in our homeschool curriculum project we will in the near future be faced with what our own plan will be for publishing, marketing, warehousing, distributing, and collecting. As we have discovered in our information gathering, there are a lot of options out there for any business model. Even if you are thinking to yourself right now, “I’m going to go the traditional route…” you will still need a business plan, for you are about to enter into the business as an independent contractor of sorts.
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As we work with our consultant, we are learning from her mistakes and hopefully will not have to repeat them so we can make mistakes totally our own! If you produce anything in this life that you can proudly call your own, it would be your mistakes. You make them, perhaps goaded by some outside force, but they can be written, produced, directed, and starred in by yourself. So, our consultant showed us a few examples we will have in choosing a vehicle in seeing our dream come true. Our first act was to put together a dream team. This team would be made up of people who can help us see where we are going and get us through the rough spots when the dream is the only thing we can see in the midst of failure or trouble. Someone who can tell you the truth without jealous condemnation or mean spirited ridicule; someone who will identify with your dream and help you see alternatives or ride the ups and downs with you, someone who can cheer you on, and someone who will help you protect that dream. Along with this, we identified those who would be dream killers for one reason or another. With these people we do not talk about the project very much. The purpose isn’t to isolate yourself from criticism but to protect what it is you are seeking to do. Your dream team should give you constructive criticism.
The process we are faced with now is our vehicle. This is perhaps the most important decision to make. It will mean the difference between making a little money for your labor or a lot of money. It is the process by which your dream is realized. Our consultant, owner and CEO of a publishing company, showed us recently various models of how we could see our novels and curricula published. To recap, we identified what our passions were, identified a dream team, and next comes the “how”.
The first model she showed us was everything from printing to distribution and marketing where done by us. A quick word about the publishing industry is in order first, however. As my other newsletter colleagues have noted previously, it is not an easy market to break into. Several companies own all of the big printing houses and, at times, international ones as well. Agents and publishers get one thing when they agree to sign on a new author: money. It is a career and a living for them and for the big houses, a market driven effort to sell as many books as possible to keep shop open. Our consultant is a big supporter of self publishing if for nothing more than to keep the fruits of the labor closer to the source, the author. There are obvious questions of legitimacy to be explored, but a major publisher does not and can not guarantee quality. What they are primarily interested in is profit. How profitable will the author’s work be? A deciding factor for you might be who will own the rights to your work when all is said and done. Who gets paid for that work and how much? Explore your options carefully regardless of what you choose to do for a decision made today will affect you years from now.
Ok, back to the models. There are some obvious drawbacks to everything under one roof model. How much storage do you need? How much travel to market your work do you need to do? Do you set up an E-commerce web site and who do you pay to maintain it? Do you distribute through Amazon? Amazon discounts everything they sell and take a cut of the discounted price leaving you will decidedly less. They have world wide reach and will warehouse your books for you. Who takes care of that distribution? And finally, how much of this ends up out of your areas of strength so that you have little time to pursue what you do love to do? Our consultant’s company started out with this model and she confesses that if she could start over, she would choose a different approach.
A second approach was to do the writing, printing, and share the marketing with a second company who would warehouse, market, and distribute your work. An advantage of this approach is you can concentrate on fewer rolls and do what you love. The disadvantage is it costs more, making you less money in the end. The other models were all variations on this theme. The partner company took on more and more rolls until they did just about everything and shared the marketing with you. The more the second company did for you, the less you make and you are more author than you are CEO and publisher. ? is a company that specializes in giving smaller publishers and authors a leg up in competing with the world wide reach of the big companies while allowing you to just write. The question becomes, how much responsibility do you want to take on and how much less control of the purse strings do you tolerate. In the later examples, the second company pays you a percentage of each sale, not quite the royalty agreements of the big publishers, but certainly less than if you did all the work yourself.
Most of us just want to publish our creative work and see something come of the effort. Just as it is a huge world out there the opportunities are just as far reaching. Print on demand gives you more affordable printing of your work but at times on poorer quality paper and covers. Print set printers, those larger volume printers, give you a break as your order reaches into the thousands per run but you have to store all of those books and have capital to invest. There are hybrid publishers who do a little bit of both and, as we discovered, companies who will help you with managing a smaller publishing company by assuming those roles otherwise filled by hiring employees. Finally, there is the traditional route of Agent and major publisher. The degree of control and profit vary greatly as you look at each option. Make sure, however, that what you choose fits you for you don’t want to find out later that you’ve taken on too much, made very little for your labor, or find yourself just shy of your passion and dream.
I’m not the most patient person and at times the process has tried it greatly. I want to start earning some reward for all those years of work and creative birth giving. But, I know that the more we investigate and pray about where we are going, we will take the steps that suit us.
What is your “business model”? If you are planning to self publish you have to have some plan to see you through the rough spots when nothing seems to be going right.
If you aren’t going to self publish and go the traditional route, you still need a plan for you will be doing most of the marketing work anyway.
phil1861
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Since I am taking the self publishing route for my curriculum and novel, here are some information sites on W.com that might help steer you in the right directions, self publishing or not.
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Feedback from the 5/13/07 NL about essay writing
Chantelle Godwin 
Submitted Comment:
Reading this latest issue amused me- I was writing an essay for a certain school award when I decided to check my e-mail again! Thanks for this.
Shannon Jones
Submitted Comment:
I enjoyed reading this newletter. As a senior in college I understand the importance of the essay. However, as a fellow History major I feel compelled to point out that John Adams did not contribute to the Federalist Papers it was Alexander Hamilton.
Shannon
wordkrzychik
Submitted Comment:
Thank you for having the article on essays in this newsletter! it was helpful.
RadioShea
Submitted Comment:
Pookie,
Just a quick 'thank you' for the link to the Miss Snark blog last week. This site is an absolute gem for those who are very serious about getting published. I've been hooked on it each day, gaining multitude's of tips with a grain a 'snarkiness' that makes learning about the publishing industry an entertaining venture. Thanks again.
Dr Taher writes again! 
Submitted Comment:
It was a pleasure to read about essay writing. Perhaps you could expand on this a little more and write about the different types of essays. I prefer the ones that ask me to tell what I would do if I were a ____ for a day. Another favourite of mine is to write on human behaviour and sentiments.
Back in school, the emphasis was on syntax, spelling, grammar, handwriting and even the number of lines! In these days, more attention is given to the content, which is a much better thing.
SmokeyMtn
Submitted Comment:
I loved essays in school for an entirely different reason. If I was able early in a course to use my amateur psychoanalysis on the professor and get him/her figured out, then I could generally doze through the class or even skip classes and still pull A's and B's on an essay. I always read the text, but that usually took less than a week. Armed with this general knowledge and my estimate of the professor's personality and world view, I pretty much b.s.d my way through Government, Ethics and several other courses.
Dorianne
Submitted Comment:
I have read two parts that you wrote above on advice to writers. Thank you for the advice and the great examples. Maybe my writing will have more quality.
mronovitch
Submitted Comment:
What a great newsletter! I felt that I had to comment on it, because I have to work with those blue books now, and I'm constantly writing essays for my history and English classes. I love essay writing (when it's going well), and I'm glad you pointed out that essays can be used for persuasive free writing, not just for school!
Great newsletter!
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For Authors: July 25, 2007 Issue [#1771]
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