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New Moon Rising: Birth of a Children's Book Publisher
Installment #7: BEA was Great; Books Are Almost Here; We Move to Acquire MoreManuscripts
Color corrections on our first title, Hello Willow, came out looking good on the second set of proofs, and we told the printer to run it.Shortly after putting the wraps on last month's installment, Cate and I flew to Chicago for BEA, and PMA University immediately preceding it. We arrived at the Downtown Marriott in time to check in and freshen up before heading downstairs for our first scheduled session. Publisher and self-promoter par excellence, Dan Poynter, was one of the presenters, and he did a fine job prepping new attendees for BEA. Somehow, he got PMA to foot the bill for free copies of the new edition of his book "The Self-Publishing Manual," which was handed out to all attendees.
We attended one more session, then went to the cocktail party, where we did some fruitful networking. For the first time, publishing seemed like a small world, for we immediately began meeting people whom we'd read, read about, or corresponded with: Poynter (Para Publishing), Jan Nathan (PMA), Mardi Link (ForeWord), Marcella Smith (B&N), and many others.
The next two days were grueling: four seminars per day, 105 minutes each.. The cost to attend -- figuring airfare, hotel, meals, conference fees and incidentals -- was a strong inducement to attend a seminar during every session, pay close attention, take notes, and ask questions. I quickly got into the habit of sitting near the front row, because Q&A times were usually limited, and front-row-sitters get called on more readily. Most of the programs were excellent, and so was the food, while the general organization of the event was good. And the networking opportunities just kept coming; the people we met are a tremendously valuable resource.
BOOK EXPO AMERICA
Next was the main event -- BEA itself. We met with two distributors who had
offered us their services, then I charted a course to every other
distributor I could find, and managed to snag several unscheduled meetings,
some of which proved quite promising. Meanwhile Cate, who had scheduled only
one day for herself at BEA, spent most of her time talking with vendors of
e-book and print-on-demand services. While neither of these technologies can
yet serve our needs as a picture book publisher, the time will come soon, and
we need to be prepared.
Cate was off early the next morning, and I was back at the show, hitting up more distributors, observing how publishers were exhibiting and promoting their titles, and looking for publishers who might be interested in buying foreign rights to our books. I also picked up a few toys and promotional copies of books, which did nothing to lighten the load of distributors' catalogs I carried back to Rhode Island that night.
THE BOOKS
A few days before Chicago, we had sent the first set of proofs back to the
printer, with instructions to deepen the reds. When we arrived at the
Marriott, a courier pack containing the second set of proofs was waiting for
us. These were much better and, considering that we're gang-printing our
first two titles -- and that the art in Hello Willow leans heavily toward
greens and pinks, while that in Petronella is dominated by blues and purples
-- we felt that the printer had struck a good balance. Nevertheless, we felt
insecure about giving the go-ahead without another opinion, so Cate took the
proofs down to the exhibit hall and showed them to several designers and
(competing) printers there. The consensus was that they looked fine, so we
called our printer and told him to print the books.
(I stated incorrectly last month that our printer was using computer-to-plate methods on our job. I had assumed this because the first proofs were press proofs, not match prints. I subsequently learned that many Asian printers have special presses that they use just for proofs. Now, as we await our books, we wonder how closely actual production will resemble the results from the proofing press.) One benefit of being a start-up is the opportunity to set up the Accounting System exactly as you wish. Cate was pleased and surprised at the flexibility of QuickBooks Pro which, she says, can handle the majority of Moon Mountain's accounting with ease. One notable exception is royalties, which will be calculated on spreadsheets. Cate is still working out the details, but plans to have everything in place by the time we make our first sales.
DISTRIBUTION
Two cases of each title are on their way to us by air freight, and should
arrive next week, while the bulk of the shipment is in the middle of the
Pacific Ocean, and scheduled to arrive two or three weeks later. We had
hoped to have a distributor by now, so that we could send the surface
shipment directly to their warehouse, but one of the distributors insists on
seeing finished books first. Consequently, Cate's scrambling to find local
storage, and discovering what it will cost to insure the books and ship them
out again to a distributor. These unplanned costs will take a big chunk out
of our expected profits for the first print run, but as there seems no way
around them, we'll have to make it up on subsequent runs and subsidiary
rights.
With no distributor in place, we've accepted that Petronella's planned publication date of November is way too late for the Christmas season. We've therefore almost decided to postpone publication until the spring of 2001, at which time we hope our third title will be ready as well. We expect we'll be able to market Petronella much more effectively if we wait, but Cate, as our financial officer, hates the idea of keeping the books in inventory that long.
MARKETING
Meanwhile, I've got the mailing of pre-publication review copies of Hello
Willow almost set to go, the books themselves being the missing element. I
asked many knowledgeable people in Chicago whether it was acceptable to send
finished books as prepublication review copies. Some said children's book
reviewers still insist upon folded and gathered sheets (F&Gs) to consider
the submission "prepublication," while others said that reviewers understand
that F&Gs are an anachronism, and that finished books are acceptable, as
long as they're provided three months or more prior to the pub date. As
opinion was evenly split, we decided to forego the added cost of F&Gs, and
send finished books.
I spent many hours looking for just the right willow tree to use as a prop in publicity photos of Hello Willow's author and illustrator. I called municipal tree wardens, parks departments, and friends, and explored parks, golf courses and cemeteries, and finally found a good one in a Providence park, just minutes from our photographer's studio. Now I'm trying to set up the shoot by coordinating the schedules of the photographer, the author, and the illustrator with the schedule of events at the park, and hoping we'll have good weather.
The author and illustrator have been zealous in finding venues for readings and signings, and they're working together to develop an activity program for young children, based on the book. I'm trying to arrange an event at a Providence museum, to coincide with the pub date, that would include multiple sessions of the activity program, possibly a party for adults and, hopefully, book sales and press coverage. We've also begun planning a Hello Willow website, to launch simultaneously with publication. This month I spent a lot of time (and angst) revising our standard publishing agreement, then revising it again to meet the demands of an author who's work we want to acquire.
NEXT YEAR'S PROGRAM
When Moon Mountain first began receiving a respectable number of
submissions, we read them eagerly -- often putting aside other work to do
so. Now that we're in the midst of so many pressing projects, reading
submissions has become a low priority, and we understand why publishers take
so long in responding. We're probably exceeding our self-imposed three-month
reporting deadline on some. Sorry.
Out of the hundreds we'd read, Cate and I had identified six manuscripts we wanted to publish, although it took several more weeks before we found the strength of commitment needed to acquire them. We called the authors, and learned that all the works were still available. Some of the authors were excited, while others were less than thrilled by our offers, but everyone was willing to review our contract. Thus far, one has accepted our terms and returned a signed agreement, while four still seem to be plowing through the dense language, and probably contemplating how to negotiate better terms.
The sixth is another story. On the cover page of her manuscript was the note "retold from an unknown source." I queried the elderly-sounding author about this, and she told me she had heard the story as a child, implying that it was in the oral tradition, and that she rewrote the story in her memory as an original work. I was content with this, but Cate was not. She did an internet search for the title, and it popped right up -- written by a Newberry winner, no less. While the story is out of print (and may be in the public domain), the text appeared in full on more than one website, properly credited to the original author, and nearly identical, word-for-word, to the manuscript we had in hand. I called the "author" back the same day, told her what we had found, and withdrew our offer. She seemed quite baffled.
It was lucky for us that the "author" had (for reasons we don't understand) raised a red flag over the manuscript, and that the original was so easily found, for we might have published the plagiarized book and only found out afterward -- with serious damage to our credibility and bottom line. We have decided to put all future manuscripts we wish to acquire through an internet search, followed by a review by a teacher, a children's librarian, and possibly a bookstore owner.
Then there's our "third" book -- the one we had hoped to publish this year, but that went onto a back burner while the author/illustrator spent months reviewing the contract, completing other commissions, and moving to another town. As the most experienced and well-published of our contributors thus far (with the exception of the deceased author of Petronella), he is in the strongest bargaining position and, once we finally got discussions re-started, he pushed us hard on both royalties and rights. It was helpful that he is Cate's cousin, for it forced me to keep my temper (after a fashion), and that enabled us -- after three or four contract revisions, a meeting, and several phone calls -- to reach verbal agreement on all points.
THE LAUNDRY LIST
More events of the past month:
... Cate has made much progress setting up our accounting system, in
preparation for having books to sell. And she entered all the historical
data for the company, to date.
... We decided that project management software was too cumbersome to be of
any help in organizing our projects and tasks, so we're working to establish
a simple calendar program system to do the job, supplemented by a
paper-based tickler file.
... Our state-supplied business consultant has persuaded us as to the
importance of updating our business plan, and we'll get started on it this
month. He even wants us to have an exit strategy, which seems funny at this
early stage, but Cate says it could have serious ramifications for the
company's accounting structure and taxes.