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(Article #4)

"Printer Details and Building Your Website"
Shelve it...Pick a Buddy for Your Book, and Web It Up!
(Self-Publishing Series)
by Lynne Schlumpf

In the last installment of our series, you decided on your domain name, and you've probably got about 40 packages from printers sitting on your kitchen table. We'll begin this time with a great way to handle these packages.

You'll want to decide first on a quantity of books you'll want the printer to run. If you choose too many, you might have a lot of them sitting in your garage for longer than you'd like. Too few, and you'll be going to press again very quickly.

The press runs get much cheaper with more books, but you'll have to put up more money in the beginning. By choosing 1,000 books in my first run, I was able to decrease the cost per book by about $2.00. It's a good thing I was able to sell them all. If you choose a large run like I did, you'll want to be sure to have a lot of room in your garage. A thousand books divided by 32 per box is a lot of boxes!

You'll want to organize the packages you've received, putting aside what I call "fanfare". Some of the printers who write to you will include some free books. You won't want to let those free books decide which printer you choose. As long as the books are of good quality bindings, you can set them aside. If they're not, that is one printer you can mark off your list of possibilities.

Find yourself a plain notebook you can use as your self-publishing notebook. You can also type it into something like Microsoft Excel. Create some columns in your notebook or spreadsheet that look something like this:

Company name
Representative's name
Phone number
Rude? Polite? Nonresponsive? Unreachable?
Cost per: 500 copies
          1,000 copies
          5,000 copies
         10,000 copies

Format needed: Adobe Pagemaker, Adobe Acrobat, Lasers?
What kind of cover?

You're ready to through go through all your packages, filling out your worksheet. Once you get as much information together as you can decipher from the packages, you'll want to call all the companies.

As you're talking to each company's representative, make notes in your notebook about their attitudes towards you. You'll also want to make notes about whether or not they have extra charges for things like UPC coding, cover rework, and overruns on the press. These are normal extra charges.

You'll also want to ask them about shipping. How will they wrap your books? You'll want to ask them to wrap your books in plastic inside boxes. This will protect the corners of each book from damage.

After you have called them all, sit down in your favorite, quiet place and decide what is most important to you. Try to imagine yourself working with any of the printers you called. You'll come to a decision based on what is important to you. You may want to pay just a little more to get personalized attention. This was my decision, after considering all factors. Finding the least expensive one might be more important to you.

Once you've decided on your book's other best friend, put aside your manuscript for at least two weeks.

"What? Why do I need to do that", you ask.

"Because it helps you to look at your book in a different light."

"Why do I need to do that?"

I ignored Stephen King's advice in his book "The Craft" when publishing my book. He said to put the manuscript aside for at least three weeks before performing the final rewrites. He was so right about that! I did not do this until eight months after my book had been published and sold out of several runs. I wish I had done it long before. I found so many things I would have changed instead. It was as if I was reading someone else's book.

You'll want to perform this exercise before you go to press. You could also give the book to someone you trust who is a writing friend, but you don't want them to be too much of a friend.

Your Real Estate Deal

You've probably decided on your own domain by now. Get yourself a copy of one of the following programs: HomeSite, Frontpage 2002, Dreamweaver, Hot Dog, or one of the two free HTML editors I offer at my SeedYourWeb.com site here:

First Page:
http://www.r66cci.com/1stpage2.zip

AOLPress:
http://www.r66cci.com/aolp20_32.exe

Try one of these to give yourself some practice first. You'll want to create some webpages on your local computer hard drive to get the hang of it. Create a directory called myweb or something and put your webpages in there. If you need a little tutoring, you can read some great tutorials here:

Frontpage tutorial download from my site:
http://www.r66cci.com/Frontpage2000tutorial.pdf

You can also visit these sites for some help:
http://www.boogiejack.com
http://www.webmonkey.com
http://www.newbieclub.com/

You can also try your hand at the WSMCafe, a free website builder sponsored by our hosting company by visiting here:
http://www.wsmcafe.com

As if I hadn't given you enough homework this time, you'll want to keep working on your 3x5 promotion cards, continuing to make notes for action. This time, go out and find this wonderful book: Grumpy's Guide To Global Marketing For Books by Carolyn Mordecai

Most of all, don't get discouraged! It'll all come together very fast. Next week, I'll write more about your website and we'll start talking about ebooks (electronic book publishing). Have fun and see you around the 'Net!

Copyright 2001 Lynne Schlumpf - No part of this article or series may be reproduced without the author's consent.

Lynne Schlumpf is the author of the new book "The Little Website That Could", a self-published effort that is making headlines, earning radio interviews, and selling like hotcakes. You'll find Lynne at http://www.littlewebsitethatcould.net and http://www.seedyourweb.com