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New Moon Rising: Birth of a Children's Book Publisher
Installment #3: Moon Mountain is Spending More Time On Books, Less on Becoming a Company
Although we have fairly well-defined functions, with Cate in charge of financial issues, and myself as head of sales & marketing, we collaborate on most editorial and artistic decisions.
We went to a party last weekend and I found myself explaining yet again what it is that Cate and I do. "We're setting up a children's book publishing company," I say. The next questions force me to clarify that we are not writing or illustrating books, and that we don't own a printing press. That elicits the Blank Stare, which translates as, "Then what does a publisher do?" So I name some of the essential steps of the process, and the response is "So you're basically a middleman between the author and the bookstore?"
At that point I stifle a sigh and explain, "We're just like Random House. Only bigger." That gets a laugh and, even though he doesn't know what Random House does, at least he's seen their logo on a title page, which allows the conversation to move on to other topics.
Activities at Moon Mountain Publishing, Inc., are looking more publisher-specific as of late, and a bit less startup-generic (although there's still plenty of that going on). Illustrations for our first book are well advanced. We've identified a book manufacturer, know how much it's going to cost, and when it's going to happen. We've submitted our first proposal for a "special" sale. And we're reviewing a stream of manuscript submissions. We're beginning to get a feel for what it is that publishers do.
The Books
Illustrator Jennifer O'Keefe has been putting a huge amount of effort into Hello Willow. Most of the illos have gone through four or five versions, each of which has been faxed, emailed, FedExed, or hand-delivered to us, along with extensive notes seeking feedback on content, design, or execution.
Because this is both Jennifer's and our first book, our contract specifies a certain amount of interim reporting. Most artists might resent this level of oversight, but Jennifer encourages it, and Cate is happy to work with her with closely, responding to questions and meeting periodically to hash out major issues. We all feel it is making Willow a better book, and it is a useful mechanism to raise technical issues in a timely manner, such as: what, if anything, should we allow for the gutter? and need we be concerned with the texture of the art paper when it comes to scanning?
Designs are now complete for all but one or two illustrations, and color studies are well advanced. Jennifer will begin final paintings in a matter of days and, even though we just approved a deadline extension, we're comfortable that the book will be ready for the printer on schedule.
For the cover of Petronella, our other book in process, Cate has been working in parallel with the illustrator, Margaret Organ-Kean. The two bounce designs back and forth, trying to get Margaret's spectacular painting and Cate's cover design and lettering in sync with each other. Cate is a talented amateur calligrapher, but she is facing a hard decision whether to spend many, many more hours trying to make her lettering perfect, or farm the final implementation out to professional. I'm trying to be both encouraging and objective about it, and I'm beginning to sense that you can't do both.
Aside from the cover, however, we haven't seen much of the progress on Petronella. That's because Margaret's contract doesn't require any interim reporting and, with more experience than Jennifer, she is competent to direct her own efforts without our input. We remain assured of her professionalism and have every reason to believe that we'll receive great, finished work on schedule. But that doesn't entirely assuage our nervousness on the subject.
Meanwhile, I'm chomping at the bit for finished covers for both books. We have yet to seriously attempt to sign up distributors, and we realize that time is getting tight if we want to be included in the fall catalogs. But with no publishing track record, we know that no one will commit to us until we've got at least a color comp to show. The whole-wall corkboard is a great tool for visualizing and critiquing many images simultaneously -- as in an entire picture book layout.
Trolling for Manuscripts
It might sound idyllic to established publishers who are overloaded with manuscripts, but we were not getting an adequate number of submissions to fill out our 2000 schedule, to say nothing of 2001. I spent a fair amount of time surfing websites and posting descriptions of our requirements, but responses were few, and mostly awful. Finally, I emailed a request for submissions to about 30 literary agents, and within a day or two started to get some action.
We were amazed at how writers and agents seem to ignore guidelines. We requested picture book manuscripts: got pitched on YA novels. Specified no religious or holiday themes: received same. Requested stories: got poetry and riddles. It appears that good stories, with strong narrative structure, positive themes, and content appropriate for illustration, are hard to come by. If you're reading this and think you've got the right ms., query us at:
Printing, Financial, Legal
Cate spent much of the past month making important accounting decisions. She chose to use the accrual basis of accounting, rather than the cash or "mixed" methods. In deciding how to account for the occupancy cost of our home business, she weighed the relative merits of expensing direct costs, using the standard home-office deductions form, and setting up a rental entity, and chose direct expense. She investigated what startup costs must be amortized, as opposed to deducted (significantly: legal fees for incorporation and state filing fees). She also closed out the books on 1999; filed our tax return; sent out 1099 forms; did cash flow projections for the first half of 2000; finalized the paperwork for a line of credit, obtained an advance, computed the interest, and set up a record-keeping system for repayments.
Cate's overall accounting goal is to have a system that will easily provide whatever information we may need in various situations -- many of which we can't envision right now. And even though there's little likelihood we will ever need to be audited, she wants the financial statements to meet Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, just in case.
Better she than I! We also obtained business insurance; filed a DBA statement for the Moon Mountain Proprietary division, and started to look seriously for an attorney with real expertise in publishing. This last item was prompted by a question concerning the assignability of certain subsidiary rights relevant to a manuscript we hope to acquire.
Marketing Activities
We have written, but haven't yet mailed our first news release, announcing our existence as a trade publisher. That will probably happen in the next week or two, along with the first release from Moon Mountain Proprietary, to a different, business-oriented list. We've also been developing various publicity materials, including: mock-up reviews for our first books; review copy acknowledgment and request forms; a bounce-back card that recipients of our mailings can use to confirm or change their contact information; and a brochure or flyer describing our proprietary publishing capabilities.
The best part of our job is watching the books take shape. This is a well-advanced color study (not final art) by Jennifer O'Keefe for our first book, Kimberly Poulton's "Hello Willow."
Proprietary Publishing
Somewhat belatedly, we began researching the promotional products industry, and soon learned that the great majority of sales occur through distributors. So now we have another set of distributor relationships to establish, and another set of standard business practices to learn about.
And we...
So that's what publishers do! We're simply passive middlemen whose role it is to impede naturally occurring commerce between authors and bookstores. By the way, I've got this manuscript from a fellow named Grisham that I'm not using. Anyone want it?
Feel free to contact Moon Mountain with comments, questions, suggestions or submission queries at
After working with a publisher's consultant, we revised the number of copies we planned to print, resized one of the books, and requested new printing quotes based on gang-printing the two titles. We got the best response from the regional representative for a Korean book manufacturer, who took the trouble to visit us at our office. This gentleman's command of English is not perfect, but this proved to be a benefit, because he took extraordinary pains to understand our questions, and to make sure that we understood his answers -- something that may not have occurred with a rep who assumed we understood printing jargon. When he asked if this was our first experience printing overseas, and we explained that it was our first experience printing, period, he assured us that he would pay close attention to our job to help us along. We ran his quote by our consultant, who said we're being treated very well. We haven't yet made the down payment, but we're confident we've found a good supplier. Based on the new print quotes, we've begun revising the title P&Ls yet again.
It was time to begin serious work on our publicity mailing list. We purchased a second license for our Now Contact software, installed it on Cate's computer, and configured the server application so that we could both work from the same database. I spent much time in public libraries copying entries out of media directories. These were transcribed into the system, along with key media recommended by various publishing how-to books, and a handful of alumni and church newsletters and hometown newspapers with personal relevance to Cate, myself, and our authors and illustrators. The media list is now 177 names and growing. I'm still seeking a free, concise source of information listing newspapers that publish children's book reviews or have special "parenting" departments.
Our most focused marketing effort to date has been a proposal by our Moon Mountain Proprietary division for a special sale to a prospect in an industry that typically doesn't use books. (Because we believe our approach has considerable commercial merit, plus the advantage of being unique in this industry, we're not yet willing to reveal much about it yet, but we certainly will after we make that first sale.) This required more printing quotes, some careful consideration of profit margins, and a week to write, rewrite, and format the proposal. It's been two weeks since we submitted it, and we're trying to get a meeting with the prospect. If they don't bite, it's an idea we can attempt to sell, quietly, to others in the same industry.
...researched software for fax blasting; set up and learned how to use our new accounting program; reconfigured our calendar/organizer software as a server/client system; began looking into doing our own website edits (while having necessary changes made for us by our website designer in the interim); registered our website with dozens of search engines; acquired a new color inkjet printer; moved a free set of flat files into my office; installed a doorbell extension so we can hear the UPS man ring when we're downstairs; installed a phone extension so we can hear the business line ring when we're upstairs; began another construction project to create inventory storage in the half of our basement not already taken up by our office; registered with the Library of Congress's online Preassigned Card Number program and obtained our first LCCNs; and worked with the Independent Publishers of New England to help establish a time and place for that fledgling organization's next meeting.