Stone In The Surf Press

Make A Plan

I think it’s important to understand just how long things take to get accomplished.  This more than anything else is key to establishing the right expectations.  Why do I keep coming back to this?  Because, if you understand the processes, then your can set realistic goals.  Going back to my “Quality Circle” days, with realistic goals, you can have achievable success.  Nothing builds upon success like success its self.  Nothing dashes hopes and dreams like failure and set back.  Nothing assures failure like setting unrealistic goals. 

I had a dot-com client who had a business plan that basically had them making $10 million per month a few days after they released their product.  That product was a software which when installed on your cell phone would allow you to remotely down load files from your PC.  Pretty cool right?  I walked him to the window of his Market Street loft in San Francisco and pointed to a woman on the street who was using her cell phone.  I asked him how he was going to get a dollar from her purse into his company.  How long would it take to sell a new application to the cell phone providers, how long would it take to implement that feature and train the all of the sales people about that new feature?  How long would it take the phone company to add that functionality into their billing process?  How long is the cycle from payment from a customer to the phone company paying him?  And, how long does it take and what is the standard time frame for migrating and upgrading customers to new phone features?  He had no idea.  Leave it to the rental CFO to rain on the parade.  It was just a guess, but I figured it would be a little longer than the three months he had projected to his investors.  Being an “indie” is business and in business, successful people have a clear understanding of how long things take.

I’ll toss in a few more examples.  I’ve mentioned the client that asked me how fast he could be making $150,000 per year from his book.  I had to tell him, not with one book and not by publishing.  There are very few authors and publishers that make that kind of money.  It’s just not reasonable.  Are there those that do?  Yes.  And some make even more.  The vast majority do not.  This same client had spent over two years and never was able to get one of their four titles into print.  A feat their printer and I accomplished in a few short months.  The goal was to debut the four titles at the LA Times Festival of Books.  The partners debated over one of the titles.  It went back and forth whether or not to publish.  The printer and I had given them a decision date.  If the decision to go by the date was “yes” then the books could be printed and delivered via the normal process.  The date passed.  We gave them a drop dead date.  That date passed as well.  Now we were down to less than two weeks.  The decision was made to go to press.  The client was furious over having to pay expediting fees and I had to pick up the books at a UPS distribution center on my way to LA.

With Charlie’s Treasures, I knew had had an extremely tight timeline.  There was no room for error if I was going to make the Christmas gift season.  I raised the money necessary to open Stone In The Surf Press about a week behind my schedule.  Even so, I pressed onward.  I figured since the artwork was complete and the text had been well edited that the pre-press process wouldn’t take too long.  Neither the printer nor I realized how much work color matching Dian’s artwork was going to be.  Usually a children’s book has a few simple illustrations made up of primary colors.  Dian’s work was pastel and full of deep rich subtle colors.  It took the printer about eight to ten hours per illustration to finally match the colors of the originals.  We wound up sending the originals back east so that they could make a perfect match.  A scary proposition with pastels.  I feared they would open the box and find a pile of dust like an Etch-A-Sketch that’s been well shaken for three thousand miles.  So far so good.  The proofs were perfect and everything was a go.  At the last minute I received the proofs of the covers.  The inside text had been clipped and Dian’s name was miss-spelled.  They had to pull the books off of the boat in Hong Kong and reprint and replace the covers.  We missed Christmas.  It was a calculated risk on my part.  Finished books arrived in February.  Was I disappointed?  Yes.  Did I understand the risk I had taken? Yes.  I could accept the set back as a reasonable result of the risk associated with a condensed time frame.  Under normal circumstance I would have built in a much longer safety margin, but life and lawyers determined otherwise.  I now have reset my goal and am moving forward.

Realistic expectations of time will help to avoid, costly expediting fees and disappointment.

A question I’m asked frequently is “How long does it take to write a book?”  Answer, as long as necessary. Some people are adept at churning out chapter after chapter, while others struggle to master one paragraph.  One night while I was in New York I ventured down to Greenwich Village and slipped into the dark basement of one of those Bohemian clubs.  There were a number of authors reading excerpts from their works in progress.  One woman read a few pages she had labored over for three years.  I’m sure that was her life’s work and dream but at that rate it would take her a few life times to complete her first novel.  For most of us it depends on time opportunity, how well the stories flow, how much research you have to do, etc.  I find when left on my own, I’m good for between 4,000 and 5,000 words per day.  For stage plays, I can turn out one hour of finished play in about four hours.  Always true? No.  My first murder mystery play took weeks to research and out line.  The King of Rags one of the up coming books in the Chronicles of Adrian Smith series has started and stopped more times than I’d like to count.  My advice, is write at a pace that is good for you.  Like running, find your stride.  Don’t worry about how long it takes.  Better to have a work that you can be proud of than one that looks rushed.

Now set it down and forget about it for a week or two.  Then give yourself time for a good review.  Set it aside for another week and review it again.  Do this one more time.  I find by then I’ve just about beat the poor thing to death. 

Now send it off for edit.  Even if you are the greatest master of the mechanics of the English language, every manuscript can use a fresh set of eyes.  Depending on the length of the book allow them at least three to four weeks to work on your book.  Remember, you’ve just spent months pouring your life onto paper.  Your editor will be the first person to ever read it.  Usually an editor will read it once for content and feel, then go back with a eye for the details.  Editors are indispensable allies.  I’ve been fortunate enough to have friends who were willing to take on the monumental task of editing my work.  If you hire a professional editor, do your homework.  I’ve run into a few that were worth avoiding.  I had one tell me that authors couldn’t write and that she has to rewrite every book.  Check their references.

Once you get the book back from edit, you can have a few trusted friends give it a read.  If I do this I tend to pick people I trust will tell me if it sucks.  “That's nice” doesn’t do me any good in business nor in writing.  Then give yourself another week or two to put a polish on it.  Many books will tell you, write and rewrite and rewrite forever.  In my opinion it’s easy to get trapped in that invite loop of rewriting.  The advantage of this digital world of printing, there’s plenty of opportunity to edit and revise on the second printing.

So how long are we into this process so far?  I have one of those four foot long Year-At-Glance calendars on my wall.  I like the type that you can write on with dry erase markers.  That way I can lay out my schedule and work backwards.

Re-write #1 2 weeks

Re-write #2 1 week

Re-write #3 1 week

Edit 4 weeks

Final Re-write 2 weeks

Total 10 weeks

For this example I’ll follow the path I’ll be using for When The Force Isn’t With You.  Which the above time frame was just about dead on.  I’m going with independent printing of 100 copies and having the distribution handled by a third party.  Cover art will take me about two weeks to complete as it is rather complex and I only have a few hours each weeks I can dedicate to it.  Press ready text will take an additional week to create.  The printer will need four to five weeks to prep, preflight and print.  My distributor can have me up and running in about one week after they have books.

I’ll lay this out.

Cover Art 2 weeks

Prepress Interior 1 week

Printing 5 weeks

Distribution 1 week

So provided absolutely nothing goes wrong, I could be up and running in 9 weeks.  That means from the time you type those immortal words “The End” you could have your story available to the world in 19 weeks, just under five months.  Well almost.  In order for your book to be in Ingram (the largest book distributor) it can take an additional 6 to 8 weeks.  Now your at 27 weeks, right around 6 months, providing absolutely nothing goes wrong.  This time frame is the same whether you go with a POD, “Indie” hybrid or entirely.  This also assumes that while you are waiting for the books to come back from the editor, you are building your web site, working on promotions.  If you are going full fledge “indie” you’ll have to establish your merchant account and develop a system for taking and fulfilling orders.

Some people will claim you can do this process is far less time and you can, I have.  The key here to be reasonable in your expectations.  You also need to know how the industry works.  If your book is a good Christmas buy, most of the major retailers have already made their buys by March.  So if you want your book to be in front of them when they’re thinking about buying, it needs to be in print in the fall for the following Christmas. 

A lot depends upon how much time you have each day to dedicate to the process and how fully independent you want to be.  I tell people safely project on at least a year for your first title from the day you decide to take it into print until you are an up and running “Indie”. 

A lot too will depend upon how complicated you make your business.  Remember my references to Quality Circles, keep the first one simple.  I had David build my first website.  I just didn’t have the time to add that into my work load while I was trying to get Charlie’s Treasures into print.  This time around I decided I would learn how to build my own site.  I figured two weeks.  It’s been more like five and I still haven’t begun to master concatenated style sheets and html.  So much for my two week theory.  If it wasn’t for David’s patient mentoring, I’d be willing to bet the process would have taken two or three times this long.  Rich’s rule number 437, nothing is as easy to learn as it says on the side of the box.

This is as good a time as any to interject my thoughts on having your own website.  In today’s world I think it is absolutely essential.  Whether you go with a traditional publisher, a POD publisher or some form of “Indie”, a website is the most common way for people to find your story and you.  After all, that’s what this whole process is about, sharing “Your” story.  Most internet providers will provide you a simple website hosting with email and often times page templates that make creating a site as easy as cut and paste from a word document to the site.  Domain names can be picked up for a few dollars a year.  Do your homework and check out your options.  Some even offer merchant accounts.  Start simple.  There is plenty of time to add fancy stuff later.

In the following sections, I will share a little about what I’ve learned along the way about, writing, publishing and life. If you wake up every morning certain that you can’t make it through the day without putting words to paper, I hope it will help you to understand the world of writing and publishing.  I hope this will help you understand a bit about the economics, how to build a plan, a bit about marketing and most importantly how to set achievable expectations.  And, to know that there are many places where you can find support and encouragement to follow your dream.   

 “So What Have You Done About It Today?”

Richard Neumann