createspace

The other day I received a review copy of “Chatfield Story.” There were a few oddities in how endnotes were done which made me wonder who the publisher was. It turned out to be booksurge, a do it yourself publisher. Booksurge has since become createspace. So that cleared up why there were a few oddities in endnotes (and in a few other minor areas), it was because the author had 100% control over the product and decided that this was the way they wanted to do endnotes. I’m not a huge fan of their endnotes but I’ve seen publishers do even odder things so its not a huge issue. Personally I prefer footnotes but there are nearly as many ways to do notes as there are publishers so I don’t get worked up when publishers don’t use footnotes or do something else odd.

Anyway the book made me curious about createspace. The book itself is wonderfully put together, if the endnotes had been done a little differently I don’t think I would have ever known this was a do it yourself book otherwise.

It prompted me to find out more about createspace because I’ve had my own issues getting my work published. A brief review of my manuscript’s status; the peer review came back positive, suggesting some changes (which have been made) before publishing but not needing another peer review before then. But the head ranger at the one battlefield indicated that he would never allow the book to be sold in his book store, I’ve since found out that basically he blocks all new books on his battle from appearing in his bookstore (unless he published them, which he has not yet done). The other two battlefield parks I’ve worked on have been enthusiastic about the project. I’ve received tremendous support from both and have completed two other manuscripts along the way, only one of the battlefields has yet to be done and only because I have not had the time to get there and put in the leg work needed (and probably won’t now for the foreseeable future).

But that one park ranger scared my first publisher to the point that they decided not to do any of the books, even though they also thought all the projects were worthwhile. I have not sent the manuscripts to any other publishers because they will eventually run into the same road block with the ranger. In my mind it seems like why bothering to send a manuscript off, get good peer reviews and then have it all end when they try to get it sold in the park. So the fact that createspace books have an ISBN number and can be ordered by any book store, and by anyone on amazon made me very interested. Yes, I would like to walk into the battlefield book store and see my book, it probably would also be a great source of sales, but on the other hand I tend to buy few books at battlefield book stores, instead buying them at home online. I support the battlefield stores by buying t-shirts, maps, pins, hats and the like, things that I cannot find online. So maybe not being sold in the battlefield book store is not such a horrible thing.

The tough part of going through createspace will be not having a publisher’s marketing team working with me. I’ll have to do it all myself. I’ll have to do all the marketing myself. As I’ve learned through some publisher’s blogs (Ted Savas’ in particular) the author needs to do a lot of that work anyway, the publishers do what they can but if the author sits back waiting for the sales to roll in they will wait in vain. The publishers do help with some of the major advertising and helping to focus the efforts, but if Savas Beatie published my book I’d probably have to work just as hard to get people to buy it than if I published it myself through createspace.

The financials at createspace do seem pretty good. For example if my book was 350 pages (a reasonably accurate figure) it would cost me $8.50 to print a book, or if I upgraded to the pro plan it would cost $5.05 per book. The pro plan costs $39 per title and if you sell more than a dozen it pays for itself. If I then sold the book for $20 I would get paid $7.50 per sale at the createspace estore, or $3.50 per sale through amazon. On the pro plan those figures jump to $10.95 at createspace and $6.95 at amazon. I don’t really know what royalty figures are at other publishers but from what I’ve heard I don’t think $6.95 is a horrible royalty, although I could be wrong.

So I’m really considering publishing these three books through createspace. They are all not 100% ready to go so I could stagger them a bit, print one every 4-6 months or so, to make sure they are perfect. One other major roadblock doing it this way is that there is no copy editor to check my work, nor is there any peer review. I can accomplish both on my own by sending it to people (and having to pay them as well), its just one more thing that is not done for me. That’s part of the reason I think getting one out every 6 months is a reasonable goal as it allows time for me to get it in the hands of other readers.

Do you all think I’m crazy for going this route? Any advice to give, pro or con about the createspace versus established publisher route?

Peer Review Process

Last week I promised some more information on the peer review process and here it is. This is what UT Press does, I'd imagine other publishers are pretty similar.

The reviewer has 4 possible recommendations. There is:
1) I strongly recommend publication
2) I recommend publication. I offer some suggestions for revision, but the author's adoption of these should be left to the discretion of the press.
3) I recommend the press proceed with consideration of the manuscript if the revisions suggested in the attached report are made.
4) I do not recommend publication.

My buddy who has been published thru UT a few times said that usually the first report comes back marked #3, very rarely is it marked #2. My first review came back marked #3. Those changes were made and the same reviewer read it again and marked it #2. That second version was also sent to a second reviewer and he marked it #2.

UT also sends out a list of questions the reviewer should think about as they read the manuscript. I'm not going to retype the list as its pretty lengthy but it mostly deals with things like; is the scholarship sound, does the manuscript make any significant contribution to its field, how does it fit in with other books in its field, could the organization of the book be improved, are there any stylistic revisions needed and finally what other suggestions for revision are there? The UT editor also includes a cover letter in which he highlights the changes he thinks are most needed.

In my case it is kinda interesting that some of the things the first reviewer wanted added (and I did add) the second reviewer wanted removed. For instance the nature of my book meant that there was not a large bibliography and it was suggested that I add some of the major secondary books on the battle so that readers would have an idea of where to go to learn more about the battle. The second reviewer did not like this idea believing the bibliography should only reflect books that were cited in the book. I see his point (in fact that is how I had originally done it) but that meant that no modern treatment of the battle appeared in the bibliography. Perhaps this could be solved with a section titled "For Further Reading."

Back to Writing

I previously posted that my Shiloh manuscript had gone down in flames due to one negative review, despite one very positive review. The negative reviewer though is in a position to mess things up if my publisher tried to fight him on the issue. So that's why the two reviews were not given equal weight. Its pretty clear to me that if I pursued the Shiloh manuscript with another publisher they would eventually run into the same road blocks and the project would die again.

Instead I have decided on another plan of attack. I was also working on similar projects for Chickamauga and Chattanooga (which both kinda died when the Shiloh project died). Both were completed and waiting review. I will now go back through and rework these two projects, using some of the guidelines given by both reviewers of the Shiloh manuscript. When these two books are in better condition I will send them off to other publishers. I have two in mind, one my friend Matt suggested and another that I know one of the principals at.

My idea in pursuing my projects in this order is that if Chickamauga and Chattanooga get published then doing Shiloh will be a no-brainer to continue the series. And at that point if the same negative reviewer says he'll block it he will look a bit sillier and the publisher will have two other books worth of backing to say that the series is a good idea despite his concerns and that they are gonna publish it. If he really wants to prevent the book from being sold at Shiloh, he is in a position to do that, but it would look silly to have that book sold at every other battlefield but not the own its intended for. Is all this possible? Maybe. When I was doing the Chickamauga and Chattanooga projects the park guys I talked to about it were positive to the idea. The best response I got to the project was from Terry Winshel at Vicksburg, but I currently do not have the time to do that one. I think if I had the time that one might be the easiest to get through the publishing process because Winshel is behind the idea. He'd probably give me lots of help researching plus he would be a logical person for a review and his review would be along the lines of how to make it a better book than if the project was viable.

The next few days are gonna be a bit busy around here but hopefully this weekend I'll be able to devote some time to the writing process again. Reread all that I wrote, figure out what areas to flesh out more, rework my maps, plus whatever other ideas pop into my head.

Blog stats

It seems like yesterday I started this little blog. (Today is actually day 84 and this is post #99) I thought it'd just a fun way to share some stuff I've done and am working on. And it has been. But I've been amazed at how well its been received.

Blogger has a little program that tracks how people came to my blog, and all sorts of other information about them. For instance I know that my blog has been viewed in 45 countries worldwide, which I find astounding. I can also see that every state in the Union has visited my blog, except for North Dakota and Mississippi. Colorado has the most visits, which is understandable since that's where I am and I'm probably getting a lot of hits from my fellow roundtable members. Rounding out the top 5 are Tennessee, Ohio, Virginia and California.

Also at some point today I will hit my 1000th unique visitor. I started the day with 995 unique visitors so it will happen sometime today. Those 995 people have visited the site 2478 times and viewed 4542 pages.

These numbers seem like a lot to me but I can tell from the referring sources that some other blogs are getting a ton more traffic than me. That's fine, I never really thought I'd get much traffic, I just wanted a place to write. I think writing is one of those things that you've got to do everyday, just to keep yourself sharp. The more you write the better you'll be and even a little bit everyday helps. As past readers know I recently had a setback on a publishing project. After mopping around a bit and lacking the proper motivation I'm now ready to dive back into that again. I had to think of a new way to attack the project, now I have my plan and I'm ready to go again. So in the near future I'll probably use this space more as a diary detailing the ups and downs of my plan of attack than for the battlefield tours that have so far been a staple. Of course my project ties directly into my touring so there will probably be things in the research that prompt a post on as aspect of touring.

Anyway thanks for joining me on this journey so far and hopefully you'll stick with me a bit longer.

Thanks for the encouragement

Just a quick note to thank everyone for the encouragement over the last two days after my post about publishing travails. It was good to see that. I'll keep everyone posted in the future about my projects. Maybe one of them will show up in your local bookstore and you can say you knew me when I started a little blog. :)

One of the better lines of encouragement came from Laurie Chambliss's This Week in Blogs. I got a chuckle from this line: "Nick's own prospective book has hit a bump in the road due to conflicting opinions from two manuscript reviewers. We trust this is just a Lew Wallace moment and it will be straightened out shortly to make a dramatic appearance, later than expected but at just the right moment after all."

Thanks to everyone.

Publishing Travails

I'm not sure if I've talked about it much on here before but I am working with the University of Tennessee Press on a few projects. I'm not going to discuss projects on here in any sort of detail, a little tip a published friend of mine gave me. Yesterday I got back the second review of my Shiloh manuscript and it was pretty negative. This was not really a surprise as I had talked with the publisher the week before and he had already given me the recap. So even though I knew it was going to be negative I'm still a bit bummed and not in the mood to do much of a post today.

What really is the difficult part of this is that in the packet was another review, it actually was that reviewer's second review of the manuscript. And his review was extremely positive. He had a few changes to make, mostly it was about things that I'm pretty sure are not public knowledge but that he knew from his own research. And that's fine, I'm all for making changes and tweaking things. But the second reviewer's comments and changes were basically a complete overhaul of the manuscript, changing what it was all about. He was envisioning a completely different book than what I was working on. Plus some of things that had been added because of comments from the first reviewer were not liked by the second reviewer. Not sure how I would change those. Both reviewers have solid reputations, the first reviewer does have quite a bit more published, so its not clear cut whose comments should get precedence.

Plus some of his comments were essentially lies, he said I would not be able to use a particular map and said that since I wouldn't be able to use it the whole manuscript seemed plagiarised. I actually know the mapmaker and have his permission to use his map with some alterations we discussed. So I knew I was on solid ground but the reviewer had no idea of this arrangement and instead of just pointing out that permission would need to be granted he said that he knew I wouldn't get that permission. So that was very annoying. Go ahead and tell me where the facts are wrong, or what interpretations you don't agree with, but don't make up stuff.

Also the way he was talking about the book he envisioned it made me wonder if he hasn't already thought of something along these lines, that maybe his negative reaction was partly fueled in response to someone else beating him to the punch on one of his ideas. I just have a hard time believing that my manuscript was as bad as he says after reading the two reviews from the first reviewer, plus comments from my publisher. Those other reviews and comments were pretty positive, in fact the first reviewer's recommendation was to go ahead and publish the manuscript with or without his most recent comments. So to then see the other reviewer say to never publish it seems quite odd. One of the reviewers is wrong, of course my instinct is that the favorable reviewer was right.

In any case the manuscript is dead for now. I'll probably rework it down the road but not for awhile. That also means I will most likely need to find a different publisher for this project. UT is still interested in some of my other projects so I don't need a new publisher for everything. Just another part of the up and down world of publishing.