Self Publishing Revelations

I just put a book up on Blurb. It is my first attempt to sell a book that I have written. “I Like to Whine” is a result of my sister asking me to write something that addressed whining. She has 12 grandchildren and I suspect one of them may have been whining. I do books for my grandchildren. A favorite, starting with the 10 year old, years back, was about our pool sweep. He named the pool sweep as a toddler and he got a big kick out of a story about her. Many friends have looked at the books and suggested I do them for other people’s kids. The books are a labor of love and are specific to each child. There is no way I could do custom books for any kind or remotely reasonable price. Therefore I thought a more generic type of book would allow me to off set the huge number of hours by addressing a wider audience. All kids whine at some point so “I Like to Whine” was the first generic type of book I wrote to try and reach a wider, non specific audience.

I have free books at http://www.bentrim.info/ on uncomfortable topics such as “When Daddy Hits Mommy”. I intend to re-illustrate them, consolidate them under one cover and market them. Considering I am not much of a cartoonist, I have to draw my basic figures, scan them in, improve them and manipulate them to get what I want through hours of some what frustrating labor. Only frustrating in that I see other people who can draw what they see in their mind in apparently and effortless manner.

Blurb is not an ideal place to market a book. The cost of the book is not prohibitive but the shipping costs are outrageous for one book. Hopefully I can get someone interested in selling the book and I can order in quantity and decrease the shipping cost dramatically. At this point the shipping cost for one book is approximately 50% of the printing cost. It costs $13.00 to print the book and shipping cost on a single book is $6.53. I based the price on what I saw kid’s books selling for on Amazon. I neglected to consider that with the addition of the shipping charge; suddenly the book is very expensive.

It remains to be seen whether this venture will thrive or not. One way or another I intend to see my books published. I will keep you apprised as to how it goes and if you have any suggestions on how I can better accomplish my desire to be published feel free to comment or email me.