I consider myself to be very lucky and fortunate to have published all the projects on my shelf; each and every one of them is interesting and unique, and has produced some interesting challenges that have forced me to change and develop my business and processes.
Poems from a Teenage Dyslexic is no different!
Lira found me in Bangor whilst I was doing some bookselling for the university library, and showed me a document that was finished. Completed. There was nothing for me to do! Anyone who has read it can attest to the beauty of her words and illustrations; it was even laid out and formatted already.
Starting a project when most of the work is already done is an interesting experience, and definitely not one I would ever turn down! It has helped me realise I want to meet the authors wherever they are in their project – from not having started writing, to practically doing all the work themselves.
Publishers are meant to add value to a project to make it worth taking on the risk, and seeing as Lira had already done most of the production work, I thought I could assist with the marketing and distribution – BUT NO! Lira is a very well connected and established woman, and had already arranged talks and visits with her own connections.
This is truly a Lira Lewis appreciation post.
So, I took care of the printer – for my previous books, I went through Amazon because they were cheap and fast, but they didn’t print in landscape. After some research and asking around, I settled on Printech Europe, as recommended to me by Redstart Publishing. It was important to both me and Printech that trust was established, especially if we are going to continue to work together (which I think we will!), and they have gone above and beyond with helping me make the best decision for the project.
Here is where the learning happened – as Lira had designed her own cover, it was up to me to manipulate it to fit the page with a little extra wiggle room for the spine. I’ve not had to do this before, as previous project covers have been completed by illustrators who know what they’re doing, and I printed with Amazon who makes certain assumptions and prints digitally.
Printech, thankfully are nothing like Amazon; they talked me through my options and gave their honest opinion about their preferences for this project. I knew that changing how I print would end up costing me more, hence the higher price tag, but by far the most frustrating thing was constantly sending the documents through systems to have them in the correct format for me to edit with Affinity, then converting them back to include the crop and bleed marks and send them off, but not before zipping it and uploading it – again – to my google drive to share with the printer.
It was my own fault – I should have had the right size document from the start, but it turns out you can’t change the size of an Affinity document after it’s been created? What is up with that?!
Anyway, this learning curve has helped me realise two things; first, the value of an illustrator who knows what they are doing, and second, the value of knowing how much your time is worth. The day before launch, I was driving home with my dad, and explaining my frustration at the situation I had gotten myself into. He talked to me (it was kind of a lecture, but we move on) about how valuing and costing your time effectively is crucial to keeping projects manageable. I had spent maybe 4 hours messing around with the cover, trying to get it right for the printer, when those 4 hours could have been used pushing sales or working on social media posts or doing more research into new publishing methods. What I should have done – and will do in the future – is cost up a project as if I weren’t the authors publisher and add that figure to the print and design costs to produce a more realistic idea of what the project will cost. This is the break even cost; it’s meant to help me set the price per book so I can profit. It doesn’t include things like overhead costs (rent, insurance, subscriptions, wages) or royalties.
There is still much more to do for Poems from a Teenage Dyslexic, and there is much more for me to learn! If you want to help me out with that, buy a copy!