Thursday, May 12, 2011

An Author Speaks: M. Michele George (Part 2)

M. Michele George has published her second book. In Part 1 of this interview, she spoke about the challenges she experienced while self-publishing her first book. Now with her second self-published title out, Book Blogette wanted to find out how the process was the second time around.

BB: Tell us about your second title, The Knotty Truth: Creating Beautiful Locks on a Dime!

MMG: The second book was released April 2011. Sales are slowly coming in. This book took a year to bring to market and costs roughly 2k to print. It was quite an investment to get a working manual with 268 pages printed in an 8x10 sized book. It will take roughly 100 books to clear that investment. If I can sell 10-15 books per month, I should do fine. Admittedly, the cost has been a deterrent to some. I chose to stick to my guns and list this manual at $29.99.  I needed to keep the book economical for the lay public while keeping it feasible for schools and institutions that will use it for their course offerings. Considering that most textbooks cost between 100.00-$300.00, this textbook is extremely budget friendly.

BB: Firstly, thank you so much for being this frank with us. Most authors want to hide their figures. Secondly, selling 100 books to clear investment is pretty decent. But, was this second book any easier to produce than the first and how long did it take?

MMG: The second book was easier.  However, it was still like having a child. It’s still a process that requires inception, embryonic development, birthing pains and delivery. It’s not easy, but the process was clearer. As a result, this book took 14 months to bring to life, verses the 10 years with the first one.


BB: Hahaha. OK. Well that's good to know. Do you have any publishing tips for other women who want to publish books on their own?

MMG: My advice is to write continuously. Don’t wait for a specific epiphany or thought flow to occur.  Sometimes it’s difficult to flow with thoughts for writing. By continuously writing, barriers can be broken and piece-mealed together into a chapter that may have never been written. That sure beats a blank piece of paper that develops into nothing but a blank piece of paper. I suggest for others to write in increments, carry a notebook at all times and use downtimes, waiting in the car, sitting at church before service, sitting at lunch, during breaks to write without ceasing. Writing 20 minutes a day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year for 1 year results in A BOOK…so write without  ceasing!


7 comments:

  1. Love the advice you offer in the last paragraph!

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  2. Loved the interview. Great work and questions. I am a new follower and look forward to reading more. Would love for you to visit my blog at http://mylife-in-stories.blogspot.com

    Donna

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  3. @ Janelle
    Thanks Janelle.


    @ Donna
    Donna, I hope you continue to enjoy the posts. I'm heading over to your blog right now and checking out your latest book review.

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  4. I think the author's approach to publishing her book and getting enough sales to justify her investment is very sensible. I liked her advice about writing for twenty minutes a day, and her hair is gorgeous!

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  5. Hey Cody,

    You're right. Once the creative part is done, we have to take off that expressive hat and put on the business one and move towards being more enterprising. And yes, she has some gorgeous locs.

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  6. Excellent post. Thanks for sharing, I want to learn more about the book. I'm thinking I need to buy it.

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  7. Maybe you do. I will be doing a review on it this weekend too on both this blog and keepiktinky,blogspot.com.

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