Did you know it costs tens of thousands of dollars to self-publish a quality book?

Date: August 15, 2014

Author: Bobbi Holmes

Get out your bags of money if you want to make it in this crazy world of self-publishing. At least, that is what some folks seem to think.

Yesterday I watched a CBS news show clip (from Dallas/Forth Worth) tell its viewers that to get out a quality self-published book expect to spend tens of thousands of dollars. I had to replay that segment several times to make sure I heard him right—yep, tens of thousands of dollars. Wow, where do these guys get their misinformation?

They started out by saying you can self-publish for free on Amazon’s Kindle platform, and go print-on-demand, which is also free. There the person who orders the book pays for the printing costs. They capped off the segment by reminding viewers of the other costs necessary for a quality book, which they listed as: Editor, Cover and Reviews.

When I shared this information with a private writers group I belong to—a group where a significant number of the members make serious bucks as self-published authors, some of which are names you would recognize but I will resist the temptation to drop—one suggested media outfits were doing the bidding of the big six, out to inject fear and uncertainty into the process to steer writers toward traditional publishing. I suggested maybe instead it was some Indies putting out this bogus information—to scare off the competition.

While I don’t know where this guy got his facts, I strongly disagree with his inflated numbers.

The news segment mentioned a quality self-published book needed an editor, cover and reviews. Let’s see what those things actually cost in the real world.

Editing
Earlier this month I shopped for a new editor on Elance, a site where freelancers pick up jobs. I received 50 bids for my 80,000 word manuscript. Some of the applicants were qualified—some were not. The range of bids was all over the place, from a little under $200 to $3,600. Editing costs can vary, depending on what you expect from your editor. This price range seems pretty typical from my past experience with shopping editors and from what I hear from other authors. Many self-publishers also hire proofreaders.

Covers
For the super frugal, an author can use the cover generator over on Amazon or pick up one of those pre-made covers offered online, for sometimes as little as twenty bucks. But, a quality cover can be had for under $500. Prices will increase if you want original art, instead of purchasing stock images.

Reviews
Paying for reviews is a controversial practice—and I’m surprised CBS listed this as a must have. Indies I know—successful Indies—don’t pay for reviews. If they do—and get caught—expect the wrath of the Goodreads crowd and bloggers to come down hard.

One expense they failed to mention was formatting. The manuscript document needs to be formatted one way for an eBook and another for a print copy. If you publish at more than one eBook vendor, such as Barnes and Noble or Kobo—how you format the book may be slightly different from what you upload at Amazon for Kindle. Many of us—those who are computer savvy and comfortable with Word—do this ourselves. Other authors farm this out.

In my opinion it does not take tens of thousands of dollars to self-publish a quality book. It takes talent, hard work and determination. Self-publishing is by no means a get rich scheme—yet neither does it require you be rich in order to self-publish a quality book.

When life interferes…

Date: August 14, 2014

Author: Bobbi Holmes

Categories: Bobbi Ann Johnson Holmes

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At the end of May I received two comments on my blog in response to my post “Instead of a treadmill desk – a jogging trampoline!” I intended to respond but life got in the way. My husband came down with a mystery infection and then had emergency surgery the first week in June. He came home after almost a week in the hospital and had to undergo six weeks of in-home IV treatment, with me playing nurse.

Things are sort of getting back to normal around here. Sort of.

Don hasn’t been back to his office, but he’s off the IV and now going to physical therapy about three times a week. In spite of his pain and fatigue he’s getting some work done (he is a real estate broker), but that means he’s moved into my home office and we are sharing a desk. I bought one of those little devices that hook up two computers to the same monitor and keyboard, so both of our desktop computers are on my roll top desk.

I don’t use my desktop computer much these days—and prior to Don getting sick, I used to put my laptop on the desk’s keyboard drawer when I wasn’t standing on the trampoline typing.

When Don came home from the hospital the trampoline got shoved aside. I’ve just recently set it up again, yet I’m not using it at the level I was before, for one thing Don and I are still sharing the office, and when I write I can’t do it with anyone in the room. This means I often retreat to the living room couch with my laptop, to find solitude necessary for me to write. Fortunately it is swimming weather, so the pool gives me a daily work out.

As for my writing, yesterday I sent my latest book off to the editor—Haunting Danielle. I normally write fiction under my pen name, Anna J. McIntyre and non-fiction under my real name. But Haunting Danielle is a little different from my other McIntyre books, so I was trying to decide if I wanted to publish under my real name—or the pen name I normally use for fiction.

I decided to publish the book under both names. Why? you ask. It will let my McIntyre readers know the book has a slightly different flavor from my other titles under that name, yet like the McIntyre books it is character driven.

One of my greatest marketing failings as an independent author is creating a series that doesn’t neatly fall under a specific genre. I did this with my McIntyre’s Coulson Series—and now I’ve done it again with Haunting Danielle. I’m trying to pin it down–a ghost story, paranormal mystery, with a splash of romance and maybe a bit on the cozy side. There’s no graphic sex in this one—and while many of my readers insist McIntyre romances are on the clean and sweet side, some reviewers claim there is too much graphic sex in my books. Go figure.

Haunting Danielle is the first book in a new series by the same name. Look for its eBook release on September 1, 2014.

Spanish rice – made with cauliflower instead of rice!! YUMMMM!

Date: August 12, 2014

Author: Bobbi Holmes

Categories: Bobbi Ann Johnson Holmes

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When I grew up our family never had rice. But my husband’s step-father was from Hawaii, and white short grain rice was something they had at almost every meal. Fried rice for breakfast, stew served over rice, rice instead of potato—rice, rice rice. So for my husband and I, rice became a regular staple in our family’s diet.

We started slowing down on the rice a number of years ago, and turned exclusively to brown rice (the rare times we have it) after my husband was diagnosed with diabetes. Rice is rich in sugar and carbs.

Our son is into the paleo diet lifestyle and told me how he makes fried rice using cauliflower. During the last few years I’ve made pizza dough and tortillas with cauliflower—both of which I enjoyed. Yet, it is a heck of a lot of work.

Last night I was making tacos and wanted a side dish. I had a head of cauliflower in the frig, so I wondered—could I turn it into mock Spanish rice??

As it turns out, making rice from cauliflower is a heck of a lot easier than making pizza dough or tortillas. For all three recipes you have to toss the cleaned and trimmed cauliflower into the food processor to “rice” the cauliflower—turning it into tiny rice-size pieces.

But with pizza dough and tortillas you have to microwave the riced cauliflower and then squeeze out the water. The squeezing part is a pain. But making rice was easy and it was delicious! I will definitely make it again.

Directions
1. Clean the cauliflower, removing stems and leaves. Cut in pieces and toss in a food processor to chop it into rice-size pieces.
2. Dice half an onion.
3. Dice a fresh serrano hot pepper. More if you like it spicy, or use a can of diced green chilies.
4. Toss four or five fresh tomatoes in the food processor. Pulverize then add the chilies.
5. Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a large frying pan.
6. Sauté the onions in the hot oil until translucent.
7. Add riced-cauliflower. Stir and allow it to brown slightly.
8. Season liberally with whole cumin.
9. Stir in the tomato mixture and lightly salt.
10. Brown a bit and then add grated cheddar cheese and take off the burner. Allow the cheese to melt.

I understand the amounts for the ingredients aren’t exact—I made the recipe on the fly. But it will give you a general idea of how to make it, if you want to give it a try.

Yummy and healthy!

EDIT: I forgot to include the garlic. I gave the dish a few shakes of powdered garlic with the cumin. This is what happens when I start making recipes up and don’t write everything down!!