Continued from Part 3.
So I proposed to Nancy that we work together on getting her book completed.
In what was an extraordinary event for me, Nancy actually took on my invitation to work together to complete her memoir.
I would have the role of project manager and coach, and when ready, load the manuscript on the online print on demand sites.
Nancy stepped up to the plate. In less than a year Nancy was able to gather all the pieces of her story, from napkins and handwritten pages, stained by tears and smudged and wrinkled by the years, on various computers, and in multiple languages, and gotten everything on one computer.
- A word document for every chapter.
- A timeline to map out the events she wanted to include.
- A map of the timeline to the chapters.
- An attempt at moving through each chapter checking for spelling, sequencing, clear writing. But that work could only be done so well after months of laboring through the briar and ankle twisting, head banging, heart wrenching and exhilerating moments of her dramatic life. It was too much for the author to complete – exhausted as she was from the stress of her daily life and from exhuming the truth of a very complex and difficult situation spread across countries and infidelities. Work too that, I, as her book coach, could not do then, working in my free time, like Nancy, free-lancing for paying work. Work that other volunteers shied from, as editing really is a labor of great love, and an act of plastic surgery. At the time no other resources, no other volunteers could step up to that challenge, while book exhaustion kicked in. It was time to move ahead, alterations incomplete, but still an amazing life to reveal to the world. Bring it to the world. Take the next steps from there.
- There would need to be a quote for every chapter.
- The list of the song lyrics to include.
- Font and style formats.
- Nancy’s cover design implemented by graphic designer Eli.
- Putting the separate chapters into one large word document.
- Converting it to a PDF.
- Uploading it to Lulu.
- Trying to upload the Adobe Illustrator cover.
- Trying to upload a PDF of it.
- Getting by with clipping out images from the cover and uploading those to Lulu’s cover wizard.
- Altering the images to make room for the back cover text.
- Writing the summary.
- Setting the price.
- Printing a proof copy.
At last a copy arrived. The miracle of self-publishing, of print-on-demand. The miracle of bringing a book into form without having to be at the mercy of inaccessible literary agents and hard pressed publishers, who can leave an author’s work unpublished for years.
Who knew that getting a book published was basically selling one’s work to a publisher for what amounts to a licensing fee a small percentage of the cover price? Who knew that one might be lucky to even approach 25% of the cover price? Who knew that getting paid for a book is an advance, an advance on future revenues?
A few adjustments. An ISBN number applied to the cover. Request to sell the book via Amazon, in addition to Lulu.
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