I get by with a little help from my friends!
Fortunately this Broke Diva has some cool friends. The book I have written is for grades K-4. I have a friend in Miami that teaches children in that age demo and had her read the manuscript. She loved it - yes! And even lent her skills in editing it for me - what a great girl. Her name is Amy and I am giving her a shout out! She told me she could not wait to read it to her class.
I also have some PR friends. Dawn, sent me a lovely and very LONG list of children's book publishers. My other home-girl, Andrea read and revised my query letter to prospective agents - because apparently you need one of those to get the publishing houses to even read your manuscript.
And lastly my long-time friend/sister and writing partner, Jamiyla sent me some pointers on query letters. I put all of our ideas together and redid the query letter ready to send. Ok so that's down.
NOW, on to money. As it is, I cannot afford to self-publish at this time. I just enrolled in school to elevate my degree status in Fashion & Retail Business (I am preparing to become CEO-Founder of one the largest children's brands in the US, so I have got to have my education in order).
So again, now...I have no money. I read about ebooks and thought that might be the perfect way to do this thing while waiting for an agent to attack this book. My husband put it in terms of the music industry with indie artists: You print and press your own CD's and sell, sell, sell until you get a deal. This way when the A&R's and label reps give you a deal - you pretty much can name your own terms because of what you have already sold and are continuing to sell. Makes you more desirable, marketable to an existing audience and profitable.
With an ebook I can sell the PDF download on the website (soon to come) for a great low price, say about $3, and sell it until I fundraise the money to get the book pressed and bound. Once I have reached the selling goal I re-direct the sales to the hardcover. The $3 deal is limited and makes folks get into it faster and more folks will want to pay the ebook price before they commit to the full price (somewhere between $10-$12 hardcover). So it's a great marketing tool. I'll even give a free hardcover to the first 1000th downloader!
Deadline to get this up: June 13th, 2010 on my brother's birthday.
I am on linkedin, momcafe.com and a great children's fashion source site with access to thousands of viral customers. So I hope that the intro price plan will erupt and explode - all while waiting to hear back from some agent. If I do not get picked up soon after the limited ebook price - I will self-publish and get some help to distribute. So far so good? Well, I know it will be time consuming. But sounds good to me!
I am grateful for my friends and they are all long-time relationships spanning back a cool 15 years and more! They are my go-to people for EVERYTHING. And the husband is the best because he's soooo accessible.
I just turn to any side and start talkin'. Because I am the master of multi-tasking. I am still in business plan mode and wrapping that up for the summer, home-school the big kids and take care of the future Tripple Crown winner, be creative, cook dinner, clean the home, watch the sunset in rainbow colors, etc., etc., etc...
