Birth of a Collection
I first published my poetry collection/pamphlet Conception nearly two years ago after the birth of my second son.
I put the collection together to commemorate my two sons' thanksgiving. Initially, I only intended to print a copy for all of the guests but then decided I would also try to sell some copies. My main concern when deciding which poems to include was to create a balance between high quality poetry and poetry that would appeal to a more general non-poetry reading public so that it was suitable for selling as eg a mother's day or mum-to-be present.
Because I had only four months to put together and edit the collection (in time for the thanksgiving), I didn't look for a third party publisher. Instead, I decided to self-publish and print it from home. This also allowed me more flexibility and control in terms of printing on demand and being able to correct any errors (poem alterations!) not spotted in the proofing process.
The whole process was also a practical lesson in marketing, publicity and sales. Given the low average number of copies most poetry collections sell, I was pleased to sell around 30 books (on top of the 40 given to thanksgiving guests) without too much effort. I also printed a few individual, personalised, extended copies of the collection with extra new poems included.
Unfortunately, I then had problems with my printers. I still felt there was the potential to sell even more copies(selling/publicising through eg hospitals, baby shops and baby organisations, particularly with space for personalisation of the book to commemorate a specific baby's birth). However, without any means of printing new copies at home myself, I decided instead to put an audio version of the collection up on my website for people to listen to as a free podcast. I will also now be posting up a poem a day from the collection here on my blog.
Happy Reading!
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13/08/07 @ 20:49 · http://www.milltech-systems.co.uk I think buying our own printers to do it probably was more expensive than we realised at the time. In theory, we needed a new printer for printing our own photos etc anyway. We'd factored in ink costs but I don't think we realised how poorly some printers deal with large amounts of printing before the machine itself begins to develop problems and the quality goes. I can just about still do okay black and white printing on our machine but that's it.
I did get a fairly reasonable quote from a local printing firm in Malvern (I think it worked out costing about £3 a copy and I could have made the book maybe £4.99 instead of £3.99, not a great profit when selling through a shop taking a 30/35% off but probably ok to meet costs and maybe make a little on the copies I sold directly)but with a young baby and a toddler there were time and distance issues, not to mention being unable to make any changes after the final proof. It was a very valuable learning experience.
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14/08/07 @ 08:42 · http://www.writelink.co.uk/blogs/marilyn Since hubby and I publish a community magazine and market it as well as tout for advertising for Guisborough Town Pride, we've gained lots of experience with respect to how much printers charge etc. We've just recently had to put up the price of the mag. We are still managing to break even, whereas at one time we were making a profit of nearly £2,000 per year. That was after we'd paid the printer to produce the mag. The profit from the mag was then used to enhance Guisborough's environment.
One of the reasons for the drop in advertsiing, is that most of the original family businesses that supported us have either retired, or have been unable to pay the extortionate rent rises, or have been unable to compete with the supermarkets.
What with making up adverts to suit customers' preferences, together with continuing proof reading and editing before going to the printers, our computer was often left the worse for wear. We did get a grant though and now we have a computer at our disposal that we use for the magazine.
It's a constant battle, but an enjoyable one and as you say, it's been a very valuable learning curve and people often ask when is the next one due, which makes it all the more worthwhile.
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14/08/07 @ 10:41 · http://www.milltech-systems.co.uk I used to edit the local National CHildbirth newsletter/magazine. As you say, hard but rewarding work. I was quite fortunate that I didn't have to worry about the financial side. They already had a set printer before I took on the job and fortunately someone else was responsible for advertising leaving me just the editorial side and overall layout to do. Still, a lot of work!
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