Choosing is a real quandry for me. I was at the same presentation on self-publishing. My brother owns a printing shop so I can get a good deal on printing, color photos and all but I learned when I had a back yard nursery that I was good at propagating plants but not at marketing them. I am afraid it would be the same with books, I could self-publish but then I would be entirely responsible for marketing them. The prospect of greater profits and retaining all rights has some appeal also. But if I never complete my book it is all a moot point.

I have known several successful self-publishers. They sold most of their books at lectures they gave and at other public appearances.

Without ever having self published a book myself (but I might do so some day), I guess it can be of help to cooperate with other self-publishers who write on different but associated or proximate topics.
For gardening that might be for example cooking, floristry, pottery, decorating, astronomy, birds and all kinds of wildlife, keeping chicken or other small animals, health topics, vegetarianism, outdoor activities or nature photography.

Thus the burdens would be shared, and it might bring more fun and success for all people involved.

I have just taken the first wobbly baby-steps at self publishing, self producing, self promoting, self warehousing... Only my project is not a book but a magazine/newsletter/tabloid focused on local gardening issues. I have been putting the pieces together for about 3 years and finally decided to just jump in. Here is what I have learned so far:

The numbers and calculations mentioned in the how-to books on this subject are way off. None of these books recommend gardening as a subject and I assume this is because of the seasonal nature of the business. I've bought all the books, listened to many lectures and workshops and taken one online course in self-publishing. (I work for a small publishing company full time during the week).

I targeted Garden Centers as a distribution point and have not been warmly received. Very few want to be bothered with one more product, even though they think my publication is a good idea. It could be because it pressures them to purchase more advertising than they already buy. It could be that they don't see a solid return on their existing advertising dollars. It could be that as a low cost product they just won't make enough profit from it to consider adding it to their product line. Even with me offering it on consignment and providing the display rack and merchandising it for them each month, only 2 out of the 15 inner city garden centers agreed to carry it. Local bookstores claim to love the "idea" but have so far not agreed to carry the publication. The area botanic gardens have strict rules about the merchandise they offer and so far haven't figured out a way to carry my product.

The percentage of gardeners that will purchase the product when they see it is lower than I was told to expect. I was advised to plan on 25% of an audience to buy the product, I expected 10%, and I only got 3-5%. Selling is hard and time consuming.

Not to sound discouraging - I still believe that this idea will work. It is just going to take a lot longer and be a lot harder to get off the gound than I was led to believe. I have learned that I am good at more than I thought I was but weak in areas where I thought I wouldn't have any problems. And that "gardening" may be a year round activity but the marketplace isn't active 8 months of the year, so as a theme gardening is a hard niche to make huge profits in.

My advice to all considering this road - take the risk. Big changes are in store for book and magazine publishers, self published items will eventually be the only locally themed products available in many regions of this country.

TriangleJohn,
I think that a newsletter is HARDER to market than a book in that such a publication is not as routinely sold in retail establishments. It's hard enough to get garden centers to sell books (I sell the majority of my self-published gardening books to book stores) but a magazine/newsletter is a harder thing for them to stock and display. If you haven't provided a stand/holder for your newsletter in the past, I would recommend doing so. Having a counter-top holder that attractively displays your publication might make all the difference.

In general, however, I think a regional newsletter/magazine is best mailed to subscribers, and you might even want to approach local garden centers to take out ads. (They may be more likely to stock the publication if they have an ad inside.) Local garden clubs should receive free copies to give out, and you could offer to give a seminar at garden centers and then give out a sample copy of your publication after the presentation.
Keep us posted
C.L.

I had noticed that many slick/glossy mags were switching to a tabloid sized format with higher grade paper than newsprint but less expensive than magazine stock - so I figured a garden tabloid would be a nice change of pace, different than the standard magazine look and feel with larger pages, more info, more photos etc. I wanted it to mostly be a "what's in YOUR garden?" type of community paper, showing photos of projects and favorite plants and interviews with area gardening glitterati (we have quite a few). And to NOT be focused on $30K landscapes, just simple backyards in ordinary neighborhoods. I thought that with digital cameras and email being so mainstream nowadays, receiving this input from the readers would be a snap. I was wrong. I have a few die hard readers that send me stuff every month but not enough to fill a page so I have to stretch the truth and create my own or travel about taking snapshots and forcing info out of neighbors (time consuming).

My offer to the local garden centers was a discount on advertising (first month free, % off after that depending on the size) if they agreed to be a distribution point for the tabloid. I had two styles of racks, countertop and floor, neither was large or intrusive. I would deliver and maintain the inventory and hand them a monthly bill. They could call, fax or email any special instructions. I started promoting in February. Started printing in March. By May I had only 4 stores selling my publication out of the 15 immediate area garden centers. One store is a plant nursery only. Without normal gift merchandise they sell a lot of my papers but even then they have never called, faxed or emailed me for any reason, they also never found the time to write the copy for their ads, I just handled everything. The other large store was slow to warm up to the idea and told me they doubted any would sell. I stocked them with 25 on the first of the month. In one week I returned and their buyer gushed about how they had sold all of them,, "you brought me 10 right?" I explained that I had brought 25 and that I had more in the car. She said "bring me 5 more"!!!!! keep in mind that they are on consignment, you only pay for the ones you sell, the rack holds 25. She only wanted 5. They eventually got to where they were selling about 50 per month. They never even cared to place the free ad.

I decided when sales slowed down in July to drop the size from a commercially printed tabloid to something I could print myself at Kinko's and focus on subscriptions -- so the gardening tabloid became a gardening newsletter. I still love putting it together, love taking the photos, drawing the illustrations, writing some, editing some, and producing the product myself. I have learned that I can produce a product people will pay money for. Now I have to learn how to get them to submit stories and photos for it. This will take some time but in the end I believe it will set my publication apart from all the others.

Maybe I will submit something for your newsletter
Eddie

I'm interested in how the finances work on a project like this. How much do you charge for a copy, and what part of the revenue comes from ads? Would you move more copies if the publication were free, and the ads produced all the revenue? If you had a higher distribution, the ads would be worth more to the local merchants, but I don't actually know if this is a viable alternative.

Our local newspaper has a quarterly gardening section, like many do. It is full of ads and has *mostly* inane copy with lots of pictures of million dollar seaside gardens that don't relate to anything its readers might be able to create. They obviously have the distribution part nailed down, since it is delivered with the paper, but the thing is free and apparently makes money for the newspaper.

Would this work for you? An advantage would be that you could present the same copy and photos on the web, which might bring in other types of advertisers without adding much to your costs.

CLF has some really good ideas - getting garden clubs involved is an excellent one. They might rise to the challenge of submitting articles and/or info, especially if you devoted different issues to different clubs - a little competiton is a wonderful thing. Their members are likely to have photos on hand, too, for out-of-season material.

An issue focusing on a specific botanic garden might end up in their bookstore/gift shop, getting the subscription info into the hands of many people.

Here's more of the nuts-n-bolts of the project, I just hope my info helps anyone else out there wanting to get something done and realizing that the only way "its" gonna happen is to do it yourself.

First of all, some background: I have worked as a commercial artist, illustrator, cartoonist for around 25 years. Though I make very little money as a book illustrator (projects pay less than the fee for writing), my graphic designs and commercial art publications have won numerous awards both national and statewide. Still, being a graphic artist isn't a goldmine. I currently work for a small scale publisher that produces those free press tabloid style papers you see in every medium to large sized city. I design ads all day long, Monday thru Fri. I also work for a high-end plant nursery on weekends. This is where I got the idea that a local publication focused on gardening would be the perfect home based business for me. I am very active here on Garden Web and organize local gardening events, tours and plant swaps. Even though I've only lived here for four years I love this area and its weather and the gardening potential.

They refer to the size of any projects potential customer base as your 'universe'. My universe is huge. This area has over a million people and when you consider that 85% of the population considers themselves gardeners - that's a lot of potential newsletter readers. Within one hour you have 4 major botanic gardens, each with a completely different direction, and about 60 garden themed or "outdoor living" businesses. There is also a dynamic market scene involving plants at both the State run Farmer's Market and a city run Flea Market (combined = 34 year round vendors).

The city paper has a decent gardening section every other saturday; their ad rates are outrageously high; they have around 12 year round ad contracts (all small sized ads) and during the spring can swell to almost 2 pages of ads each Saturday. The articles are about half from locals and half from syndicates.

I started this whole thing thinking that if 5000 papers (32 pages, 4 pages of full color) cost me only 28 cents each, I could sell them for $1.50 - split it 50% with the vendors (which is a better deal for them than standard magazines), which would equal my postage costs for subscibers. In other words I would at least double my money no matter which way I sold the paper.

I learned that you can sell 100 papers through one location in May and only sell 12 in June (spring is OVER!).

I learned that the minimum order for webpress printing is 1000 pieces and only one printer would even do that (thank god he was down the street instead of across town). When you're starting out and working 7 days a week, it can be kinda hard to unload 1000 papers all by yourself.

I learned that selling ads takes months upon months of rubbin elbows with the businesses - they just don't buy ads on the first visit. They also demand results, if your ad does't improve sales right away they will not be buying a repeat ad. They are exhausted by salespeople calling them every 10 minutes - no matter what you are offering, you are just one more voice taking up their time. If you can't get close to them first thing in the morning you won't be able to impress them (I'm at work at my real job first thing in the morning).

Seeing as the average sales per store was more like 12 copies each month (outside of the few springtime months), I would need 200 locations to turn a profit and unload most of my product (assuming subscriptions would increase each month). I don't have this many locations.

more bad news...

Buying the minimum of 1000 pieces the price goes up to 98 cents per issue. Postage per item is $1.06 instead of the planned for 55 cents because I don't have the required 200 addresses to qualify for bulk rates. So, I'm losing money, lots of money each month. I also don't get many subscribers, the few that I get come from people I meet with face to face at gardening events. They tell me they love the newsletter but I feel that their purchase is more like charity - but at this point I need the money to bad to care.

I think the garden centers will change their minds if I stay at it long enough. I think I need to quit my weekend job in order to market this project better. I also think that gardeners do a lot of planning and reading during the late winter and early spring - so my January/Feb/Mar issues will be colorful and feature last years successes and failures in the garden instead of just wintertime activities.

The annoying parts - people don't hesitate to tell me about a typo. I get phone calls every month complaining about poor gramar or punctuation - even though the masthead states that I am wearing all the hats on this project for now. And I get plenty of people that want it for free.

TJ: maybe put it to the nurseries, etc. this way: offer to include a small (2-3 ci) coupon for free for 3 months, redeemable at their store (at their cost, of course). Make sure the coupon is unique to your zine, and if it's used, they'll have the proof they need.

On the backside, you could have something on the front mentioning the "$93.50 worth of money-saving coupons inside". (Heck, the Sunday Philly Inquirer does it...why shouldn't you?) Folks might be more willing to pay $2.50 for the zine if they can potentially get tons of coupons. And speaking as an industry guy, I can assure you that I personally would be thrilled at the idea if someone put it that way. All it costs you is a bit of ink and paper.

Self-pubbing certainly has its attractions, and definitely has a potential for disaster. I'm writing a book now on natural history of bristlecone pine aimed at the folks who visit these trees by the thousands at several nat'l parks and forests. I've done five books with publishers, 3 of them with university presses, but I'd like a chance to go unedited in terms of content. I am not following in any footsteps because this book presents a rather unique situation. I actually designed one of my university press books, so I feel I can do that. I can be my own editor, which is a bit less dangerous than being one's own brain surgeon. I can promote and market fairly well from past experience. I can make contracts for printing and binding. But what a pain that all looks like. Some can be alleviated by farming out production to a book packager; or getting a publisher to contract for distribution and marketing. But still, it looks like a high price to pay for artistic independence!
Meanwhile, I keep writing, not knowing how I'll handle it when the damn thing is finished.

Another point to consider is, What do you consider a success? I only say that because as an artist and illustrator I used to design nature-themed T-shirts, and once (only once) I got a sweet deal from a catalog company where I had to design a complete line of shirts for their international catalog. If you look at the time spent meeting their specs and turning in the project on their schedule (once again while working a full time job and a part time job) - and compare it to the tiny amount of money my royalty actually brought in... I could've made more money printing the shirts in my garage and selling them at a small town's earth day celebration in one weekend. Is it more successful to have sold a multi-thousand order or to pocket more money???? I learned that playing on the mass market field isn't always better and really isn't that lucrative.

Pinetree:
It LOOKS like a pain if you haven't done it, but it really isn't such a big deal. For me, the key was Dan's book, The Self-Publishing Manual. He broke it all down into a step by step process...

If you'd never made a carrot cake before it might seem like a huge project, especially if you've never seen a recipe. But once you have the recipe, and see that it's a series of fairly simple steps: first this, then this, and finally that, it becomes understandable and doable.
C.L.

Thanks, C.L., for the encouragement. Of course you are absolutely right. Another good way of looking at it is what my wife's harp teacher used to tell students confronted with more advanced music than they had tackled before: "It's not hard, it's just new".

Pinetree30

John, thank you for the copy of your newsletter. It is very attractive and chock full of great information. The variety of topics makes it better than your "run of the mill" newsletter and the photos are excellent. I might just submit a few to you.
The article on Angel's Trumpets was quite thorough and explains why so many of our New Orleans teenagers are ending up in the ER lately from sampling the flowers!

Hey all, what do you think of On-Demand publishing?

Here's a link: www.lulu.com

Oxford University Press makes one of my books available on a demand basis. The print seems a tad too black, especially on the back cover; and the four color plates I was so proud of are now in black and white.
And the price is now $19.95 instead of $15.95.
Worst of all, before deciding to do this, they remaindered at least a thousand of the original printing.
I find the whole thing appalling.

I am in the process of self-publishing. I will be using an ordinary printer and printing 1000 books for the first printing.

Since my book is only of interest to a certain group, I will have almost no selling to do myself.

This has a working title of "Insects, Pests and Diseases of the African Violet Family." So you see it is not a public interest book but will be of interest for a certain group of people.

I intend to sell through magazines for this audience and sell through Ebay as well.

I am using "How to Publish, Promote, and Sell Your Own Book." I advise anyone who is self-publishing to get some kind of manuel. This particular book tells how to get an ISBN number, Library of Congress number and many other facets on the subject of self-publishing.

Nancy in Montreal