Multi-tasking in Self-Publishing

When you self-publish, you are often expected to do it all yourself, and that can mean some fairly elaborate multi-tasking. If you’re intending to publish your work independently, you might want to redefine “independent” to include some skilled help, so you aren’t out of your depth in certain areas beyond your expertise. Typically, you’ll need someone to help you define your concept clearly, and to help with the main substantive editing to shape your book. But that’s only the beginning of the process that occurs once your manuscript is completed. You’ll need to design your book and lay it out, copy edit and proof it, as well as create a cover, get an ISBN, and bar code, deal with printers and then market your creation. The costs for these and other aspects of the process vary considerably between service providers, so do your homework and go with the people you feel are most sympatico to your endeavour. You’ll be working with them for some time as your book reaches completion, so you need to not only feel trust in their professionalism but also develop a harmonious working relationship.

Or … if you feel up to it, you can multi-task the whole thing, and have that incredible satisfaction of doing it yourself!

isabella mori’s tea table book

Editing and preparing a poetry book is a wonderful process. It requires tact and delicacy as well as close collaboration with the poet. It just isn’t possible to spellcheck and copyedit such phrases as “quocking mongst a twittered groin” unless the writer is completely involved! This project had another layer of complexity as well, as isabella required that all writing is done in lower case, and she describes why in her introduction. Like all poets, isabella works with layout and line length and the look of the poem on the page, so again close collaboration was key to the success of this book. It took several iterations back and forth until we found the exact layout that worked for the poems, for the poet and for the publisher. I prefer to work closely with the writer so this process of review at every stage was very satisfying for us both.

This poetry project had the additional aspect of using images to illustrate each chapter section, requiring a more complex print process involving colour insert pages, which necessitated a more complicated layout and delivery to the printer. Happily, all this can still be done with print on demand, a technology that really does enable the printing of much more poetry than ever before.

Of course for years poets have been using the letterpress to produce their chapbooks and slim volumes in small runs. But poets without access to a letterpress can find this process quite expensive if they go to a print shop. Not only that, but the digital ease with which the print on demand process works means that the volume can be easily reprinted at any time, and at a relatively low cost per item.

One feature that differentiates this tea table book from other poetry publications is that the poet explains in prose the background to each poem, giving the reader another way in to the poem’s meaning and purpose. Balancing the prose and the poems, while still featuring the poem was a visual challenge that we both collaborated on.

One of the best aspects of being a book coach is seeing the final work as a book, not as an idea or as a manuscript. I sat down with the draft version of this poetry book and was amazed and impressed with the depth of feeling and the clarity of image that isabella had brought to the pages. The process was almost over (just a few minor tweaks to go) and the book was in its form at last. Poems from 1980 – 2006 were set out for all to read and relish. When the final version of the book was made public, the intense process had already vanished from our minds, leaving only the poetry – the voice of the poet.

For more on this book, and on isabella’s work, go to teatablebook.com.

Blogging Help?

One of the services we offer is blogging help. To those who are regular bloggers, this must seem unnecessary, but to others who are new to it, or who are not that computer-savvy, blog help is a must if they want to communicate this way.

You might think the old joke about jogging applies here: “I have someone who does that for me.” How can anyone blog for anyone else? This has been a topic of conversation among bloggers, and there is much to be said on the side that adamantly insists that the people who are blogging should express themselves personally, without intermediary. But time restraints, or computer problems, sometimes means that blog help can be needed.

Over the weekend I met with a client who has some extraordinary art work that she wishes to show online, and what better way to do that than by blogging? The hurdles to be overcome are many, not the least of which is simply navigating the blog software and finding out how to save the text. Some of what she wrote had not been saved actually, so luckily she had a backup of the writing that could reproduce the blog postings that had been lost. Then we had the obstacle of the image size. After going through the learning curve of the scanner and finding out how to use it, she learned how to scan her artworks, and how to save them, then I came in to help make them ready for upload. Each piece is very beautiful and the images are extremely symbolic and meaningful. They work very well on the screen, as the light passing through the textures is very compelling. Because they were saved in quite large formats, we went over the ways to make the images smaller, and more blog-ready. In the process we discovered that there were many areas still to be determined in this blog-to-be, many parts still to be done, and definitions of the relationships between the static pages and the blog postings, as well as header information was still to be worked out.

Just because the blog software like wordpress is so easy to use, and wordpress.com makes it so very easy to do, we mustn’t make the assumption that this means everyone will have the patience and interest in developing their own blogs. Experienced bloggers have all been there, learning how to post images, how to make the most of the blogosphere, and how to best communicate in this medium. It is a continually expanding area of expertise, always shifting. That’s where we come in with blogging help and assistance, at whatever level a client might need it. We can offer that experience to new bloggers, so the trial and error process is reduced somewhat.

At the end of the day, you get a great blog, and you can add to it yourself with confidence, or we can help provide content, research or links to enhance your blog presence.

Meet Carol Sill

Meet Carol Sill

Have you always wanted to write that book, but haven’t felt ready? Then you must connect with Carol Sill, founder of AlphaGlyph Publications Ltd.

A writer, educator and publisher, Sill helps writers and non-writers to get concept development, editorial, layout and printing help for their books. She has an extensive experience in production and distribution of media, including print, interactive and video, and applies this multimedia approach to the medium of print. As well, she also writes and manages many blogs for clients, including videoblogs.

Here Sill talks with us about her business, passions and purpose.

A Passion for Self-Expression
“Throughout my life I’ve always encouraged others to express themselves. From self-publishing early zines to encouraging women to use video to tell their stories, I developed a personal passion for all types of self-expression through media. I see the new media today and Web 2.0 (with Web 3.0 not far behind) as the perfect opportunity for anyone with a message to get it out there. And I’m very excited by the possibilities of the new Print on Demand technology to enable so many people to fulfill their dream of publishing a book.”

Her Big AHA! Moment
“When I was in the SFU Publishing Intensive Program I had a big AHA realization that all the technology and work that goes into book publishing could be seen as parallel to the film and video production process. The whole thing clicked in for me, updated my concepts of what publishing is and can be. I saw a way of bringing the sensibilities of all media back to print, to create lasting work in the most stable of storage media: the book.”

Bringing Out the Projects
“In starting Alpha Glyph, I was fortunate in that I had arrived in a place in my life and career where I could choose to work on projects that were important to me. I made the spiritually conscious decision to focus on bringing out the work and interests of my clients in much the same way as a midwife would bring her expertise to the birthing process. (This might give you some back-story to my tag-line: “21st Century books – from concept to delivery.”) Being in a position that allows me to enable clients’ work rather than select work for publication based on market influences has really freed me to follow this passion to bring out the compelling stories that need to be told, or the work of a lifetime finally gathered together for publication. ”

What Motivates Her
“I’m from the boomer generation, the people who wanted to change the world. I realized early on that the message via media is one way that minds are changed, and when we see the empowerment that comes from making your own statement, then the media is not just a communication vehicle, but a means of conversation and contact – with people, with ideas, with the potential for change. If even one person goes through the whole process, writes that book and gets it out there, then we have done our job.”

Secrets to Growing this Business
“Personal contact and going a good job are the ways this business flourishes: developing an excellent reputation. It is a one-to-one process which is unique to each client, and requires finesse, intelligence and a fundamental understanding of where the author wants to go with the book, in balance with what the book needs to reach its audience. There is no one secret to this process, but through our consistently solid and reliable presence the business grows.”

Greatest Challenge
“It’s all about understanding, and each new client brings a new challenge. Flexibility, seeing from the client’s point of view is essential when applying my expertise to the work. Making self-published books that have the same production values as trade publications may mean challenging the preconceived ideas that an author may have. For example, it may not be such a good idea for the client who wants to reach a wider audience to put that cat photo on the cover. Each step along the way is a close negotiation.”

Words of Advice – On Making a Difference
“One of the best things you can do for yourself is to put together a legacy for those who come after you. The process of summing up your life can be incredibly liberating and can lead you to new directions you hadn’t imagined were possible. It can be in images, in words, or even in mementos.

“When your experience is consolidated into print, you can offer this to others in a way that can be lasting and influential.

“There is a great sense of satisfaction that will come to you from finally getting that book out into the world. Instead of keeping it suspended as a dream or a wish, you can make it a reality, and I’m here to help you do it.”

Writing a Book: High on the List of Personal Goals

I’ve been so happy to see again and again on the various lists of personal goals that writing a book is right up there, usually in the top 5 or 10. This means that there are lots of authors and would-be authors out there. Everyone I speak with either has an idea for a book, has been writing a book, or knows someone who has a book in the works.

But these books are in the mind, perhaps only partially written, if that. And many of them will remain there, never completed. For even with the ease of print on demand and the presence of skilled editors, there are still so many obstacles that come between the would-be author and the achievement of that first goal of getting that manuscript finished. Most of these are internal challenges.

We have all heard stories of the publishing companies that take the author to a hotel and just force him to finish a manuscript for them. (I thought I’d find an image of the interior of a luxury hotel room, circa 1970, to illustrate this idea but I couldn’t find a match, so you will simply have to imagine it.)

Of course, you could go on retreat yourself, and there are many beautiful inns and B&Bs dedicated to writers. Here’s something that looks most unusual, the House of Writer’s Creativity Hotel Complex.

But if you decide to stay closer to home, consider our book coaching services. A book coach can definitely help by partnering with you and offering regular accountability, good advice and the stick-to-itness that you will need to get over the long haul. Writing is lonely work, and a relationship with someone who can help you carry through the process can make the difference between getting the manuscript done and leaving it as an imaginary project.

Tina McInerney’s Book on The Truth About Reading

I’ve been working on this very interesting project with Tina McInerney, and it’s been quite a journey. You can see more on Tina and her work in her blog. We’ve just listed the book project (and accompanying presentations) with Give Meaning, which is a great innovative fundraising site for individual and independent worthwhile projects. If you wish to support the idea of the project, we first need 100 votes to make the project active. Just log in to Give Meaning and vote to add your name to the list of supporters.

Here it is: The Truth About Reading.

When I first met with Tina and we discussed reading and the whole process, I immediately connected to all my McLuhan study, and his anaysis of the effects of the alphabet on culture, civilization and the mind. Here was Tina telling me the same thing, from her own personal standpoint. In a flash, I “got it” and was very keen to partner with her and her organization, the Society for the Immediate Awareness of Alternative Learning.

This project is a fantastically meaningful and complex process. To help produce a book written by someone who couldn’t read, and whose experience in the regular school system was so very destructive of self-esteem is a poetic process, engaging my full being – more than simple book coaching and editorial. It is important that Tina express this for herself, and not that I “package” her expression based on my preconceived notions. It is a welcome challenge to the grip of the alphabetic mind, yet requires me to use that very mind to express experience that occurs beyond its limitations. So that’s fun! And the project is so very worthwhile, aiming to help kids and adults who have gone through what Tina’s been through. We have some dynamite sample pages that Tina has put together, with words and images from her school days.

And my McLuhan media study mind is reeling with how powerful the hegemony of the written word is: people who know Tina very well were very moved by what she had expressed. They actually said that they hadn’t really understood what she felt, until they read it! This applies to all writers and individuals who need to express themselves, the written word still communicates deeply aspects of inner life and interior experience that may never be known by others any other way.

Redefining Memoir

Many people assume that self-published memoirs are the self-indulgent ramblings of old generals, muttered over a glass of port to obedient stenographers. Hey, that’s not what I think it’s about.

We are writing memoirs to create legacies for those who come after us. Your memoir can be a book of memories of the smells of your childhood, or a catalogue of the buttons in your grandmothers’ button box, or the compilation of the poetry you have never got around to putting out for anyone to read or the story of your father’s first wife that no one told you about until you were 23.

Why publish it? Well, because we value our lives, we value the life experience we have had to date, and we wish to put it into a form that can be lasting. We may not reach a wide broad audience, but our families will have a book or two that holds some of the history, some of the vision and approach to life that the memoirist has captured and put to paper. It is, in a sense, the way for us to live on. Not through fame, or fortune, but in the circle of those who mean something to us, or to whom our lives may have meaning. I am a firm believer in the process of gathering our past and bringing it into a form that has value, has meaning for those in the future, maybe even generations down the line. And why not?

So I raise my glass of port to the old muttering general, whose war stories do, after all, have value, and meaning. Not perhaps the value and meaning he may imagine they do, but for a nephew or a great-grandson, for a researcher in the future, and perhaps, even for the obedient stenographer,  the memoir can have a significance. A self-published memoir can perhaps find its way into the hands of someone who never knew the memoirist, but who can find something in it. And for the writer, the process of life-review that a memoir facilitates is a priceless experience.

Putting out your memoirs doesn’t mean your life is over, in fact it affirms the opposite. The process enriches and deepens your life. “Oh, you should write a book!” people say when they hear of remarkable events and experiences.  I go one step further, and say you should write a book to discover that indeed your life events and experiences are remarkable, just in their essence. Pulling out the essence of meaning from even the most prosaic daily life can create a poetic memoir.

Sitting down to write your memoir calls forth new facets of yourself, as you witness your life, or one aspect of it. Then you can share this intense process with those you love. With print-on-demand publishing, you can have your memoirs perfect-bound, distribute them to friends and family without breaking the bank.

At Alphaglyph, I help the memoir writing process with coaching, and I also can help with editing so the words will actually carry the meaning you want them to convey. Or simply to encourage the process and help with layout or printer contact. I help you take your memoir as far as it can go, and put it into form for you, helping it become a true reflection of the value in the sense memory, the mind memory and the heart memory of meaningful experience; the value in life – as lived.

Come Join the Circle

It was a real pleasure to help Susan Slack self-publish her comprehensive book for early childhood educators, Come Join the Circle: Singing and Dancing for Early Childhood Education. Her experience of many years as a children’s educator and dance leader is distilled in this book that encourages teachers to circle dance with young children for only 10 minutes a day. With the support of brain research, she presents a compelling argument for singing and dancing with children as a means of developing cognitive and social skills. Her sample lesson plan gives ample space for all the other disciplines to find their place in the inter-cultural approach that circle dancing naturally engenders.

What I found when working with her manuscript was that she was speaking from her true experience as an educator; there was no speculation in what she was bringing forward. And her love of sharing this experience was also very clear. Together we worked on finding the best way to bring the book out, and using her idea of using the four directions, the main sections were placed on a learning wheel to define four different approaches that one could take to the material.

It was like working on four books in one, and I participated in the project from the manuscript assessment to editing, book design and layout, as well as any refinements from the first draft of the print on demand version. One of the main challenges included creating a continuity within the 4 very different sections, and with the appendix section as well.

The extensive resource directory at the back of the book is extremely useful, and the appendix features musical notation for some basic circle dances to help any teacher get started. Truly a practical workshop in a book, this was a very ambitious first effort.

Crammed full of information, with illustrations, photos, music notation and resource list, Come Join the Circle is a fountain of inspiration brought down to earth to be shared and experienced by many.

We all know that kids need more physical activity than ever in this technological world, and we also know that the old games have to be taught if they are ever going to be kept alive. Group activities like circle dances offer a connection to our humanity, and it seems important for educators to find ways to incorporate these dances into their lesson plans. Susan goes one step further, and incorporates the lesson plans into the dances.

It was the first long-distance book I worked on and with email and phone we found there was no difficulty in connecting to work together, even despite the time difference between Susan in Florida and me in Vancouver. She now has a version of the book that she takes to workshops and sells direct from her website: www.readingrhythm.com. This version was printed through Lulu, and is available here through their secure site. It’s also available as an ebook.

Acknowledgement of Electronic Publishing

The changes in publishing that electronic technology brings are rippling through the trade publishing universe as well as through the world of authors who are now able to bring their work to the world. The National Library of Canada recognises these changes and includes the following statements in their information on electronic publications.

In a digital world, everyone can be a publisher. Much of the stigma traditionally associated with ’self-publishing’ is disappearing rapidly as an increasing number of individuals begin to produce professional-quality electronic publications. Through depositing with the NLC, self-publishers can help to assure that their work is assigned the proper identifying numbers, catalogued by the Library and made accessible in definitive form to the widest possible audience.

Free E-Book Download

It was interesting and dead easy to post this downloadable e-book that I did for Mansur Johnson: Shamcher: A Memoir of Bryn Beorse and his Struggle to Introduce Ocean Energy to the United States.

As you may know, Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion is one direct way to solve many of our energy problems today, and it offers benign power that does not pollute the atmosphere and contribute to global warming. As well, there are OTEC plants that can desalinate seawater at the same time, offering clean drinking water to many areas of the world that need it. Mansur’s story of the difficulties of getting this work known reveals a situation that we are too aware of: there are many technologies and solutions to the world’s problems that are ready to go. The problem is that vested interests keep these solutions from being implemented.

You can find the book here, as part of the Shamcher archive blog.

I described it as must-read for anyone interested in the efforts in the 70s to bring OTEC forward. Featuring correspondence excerpts from many of the people involved in this effort, this 135-page pdf book is a “who’s who” and a “what’s what” of OTEC development. Covering his work with Shamcher to try to bring OTEC to the attention of the US government, in particular the Department of Energy, Mansur has documented much of the correspondence and context of this effort, and is now offering this book free of charge.

Also available, on Mansur’s website: Murshid: A Personal Memoir of Life with American Sufi Samuel L. Lewis.

Free e-books are easy to prepare and present. I worked with InDesign, then just popped it into a pdf, and voila!