Today, I'm interviewing author, Peter Bowerman. Peter is the author of the 2000 award-winning Book-of-the-Month Club selection, The Well-Fed Writer, and its 2005 companion volume, The Well-Fed Writer: Back For Seconds, a triple award-finalist (both self-published; www.wellfedwriter.com).
His books have become how-to “standards” on starting a lucrative commercial freelancing business – writing for businesses, large and small, and for rates of $50-125+ an hour. He chronicled his self-publishing success (50,000 copies of his first two books in print and a full-time living for over five years) in his third book, the 2007 release, The Well-Fed Self-Publisher: How to Turn One Book into a Full-Time Living. The book earned an IPPY award (independentpublisher.com) along with Georgia Author of the Year honors. www.wellfedsp.com.
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Dale King: Peter, would you mind telling my readers what your background is as a writer?
Peter Bowerman: I actually had very little background as a writer – which is, I think, one of the things that makes my story a good one and inspirational one for a lot of people. Before I started my commercial writing business (writing for businesses, large and small and for hourly rates of $50-125+, and the subject of my Well-Fed Writer titles) in 1994, I had no writing background, no paid professional writing experience or training (one journalism course in high school and college) and had never been paid to write anything. Yet, I was paying all my bills within four month.
The upside to that history was that I never cut my teeth on “five-cents-a-word” writing, and as a result, when I discovered the commercial writing field, and learned that hourly rates started at around $50, that’s what I charged. I didn’t go through any freak-out period where I couldn’t imagine making that kind of money!
Dale King: What made you decide to write two books about copywriting and a third one about self-publishing?
Peter Bowerman: My original thought was to do seminars and so I started collecting information about my field with that goal in mind. But once I saw how much stuff I had, I thought, “Wow – I’ve got enough to write a book here.” And I liked the idea, because I realized that I had a really great life, one with tons of freedom, flexibility AND a good income with which to enjoy those things. I figured there were a lot of folks out there who’d love to know about this field and how they too could create such a life for themselves.
I never set out to create a popular book, but I guess I did a decent job on TWFW and it’s done well (www.wellfedwriter.com). With TWFW: Back For Seconds, I almost felt an obligation to write a follow-up to answer all those questions that I didn’t address in the first (and which I realized after getting thousands of questions from readers).
As for The Well-Fed Self-Publisher: How to Turn One Book into a Full-Time Living (www.wellfedsp.com), I had three motivations. First, because of the success of my self-publishing venture (50,000 copies of my two books in print, and a full-time living for five-plus years), I knew I had a successful formula (and one quite different from the standard book promotional model), and knew that many others in similar situations would benefit from it. And judging from the excellent feedback thus far, I think I’ve succeeded. Of course, the second motivation was financial. Because the first two books had been rewarding financially, another one done well couldn’t hurt! See #4 for the third motivation.. ;)
Dale King: Why do you think self-publishing gets such a bad rap in the publishing industry? And do you think that negative image is deserved?
Peter Bowerman: Overwhelmingly, the bad rap that self-publishing gets in the industry is well deserved. Most self-publishers don’t stop to realize that, for the most part, they’re competing with books that have been professionally edited, designed, indexed, and printed. And to save money, they skimp on all those things, put out all manner of dreck, and then wonder why their books fall flat. And the sad thing is that it’s simply not that difficult at all to create a book that is virtually indistinguishable in quality from one produced by a big publisher.
I’m not saying you’re going to be able to pull that off without investing some bucks into that final high-quality product, but IF your goal is commercial success with your book, then you’d better be willing to do that. On the other hand, if your goal is simply to create a book so you can call yourself an author and have it available for friends and family, then production value doesn’t matter and you can do it any way you want.
Dale King: How do you hope to change or improve that with your book? In what way does your book steer prospective self-publishers in a positive direction where they would beat the odds of the downsides of self-publishing?
Peter Bowerman: This, in fact, was my third motivation for writing TWFSP. I wanted to be a model for all those folks who were serious about doing self-publishing right, because I feel I DID do it right in many ways: hiring top quality resources to produce the book; not skimping on the cover; putting some thought into a powerful title; getting creative with your marketing instead of just following, lemming-like, the standard book promotional model; creating many spinoff businesses and providing the how-to details for all of it.
My goal was always to have someone look at my books and be amazed when they found out they were self-published. And in fact, I achieved that goal. I hear it all the time. I wrote it for all the people who indeed wanted their books to be commercially successful and wanted to avoid making a lot of the same mistakes that newbie SP’ers make. And frankly, it was ideally written for the people who had some money (and no, you don’t have to be rich!) and the time to put into their own SP venture. If you have neither, you’ve got a tougher row to hoe – with or without my book. There’s just no free lunch out there.
Dale King: Something really important I noticed about your book is that you offer readers tips on how to save money when self-publishing. There's nothing wrong with that, but there are a lot of the same options out there for free (for example, bar codes and cover design). How do they compare with the more affordable options?
Peter Bowerman: If you can get a free bar code (not aware of them, but I don’t doubt you) and it’s the same as one you’d pay $10 or $20 for, then why not. Just make sure it is the same, because it’s such a small amount of money even at regular price. As for the sites offering self-publishers “free cover designs,” again, if you have no aspirations to make any money off your book, why not go for a free cover (typically generic and template-driven)? If you do want your book to be a commercial success, don’t even consider it. As I say in TWFSP, it is categorically impossible to overstate the importance of a cover to the overall success of a book. It’s not the place to even skimp, much less pay nothing.
Dale King: How can a writing parent with little free time and faced with the sometimes impossible task of finding a babysitter still manage to be a successful self-publisher?
Peter Bowerman: Not being a woman or a parent, I obviously can’t give too much credible advice on this subject! But, I suppose it goes without saying that you need to become a pretty good time manager and work smart. And I suppose, if you want something badly enough, you’ll make the time. One strategy? I talk in TWFSP about how I used interns to do the heavy lifting of book promo – especially building my review copy list. I gave my interns a few standard cut-n-paste email pitches that I’d written and had them do two things: 1) contact all those on an existing list who’d reviewed my earlier books to see if they were interested in seeing my new one; and 2) explore other avenues for review copy candidates. I used interns for both the promo of TWFW: BFS and TWFSP, and it worked out well.
Speaking of working smarter, and not to be too self-serving here (smile), tools like The Well-Fed SP Biz-in-a-Box, the companion ebook to TWFSP can save an enormous amount of time, money and hassle. It’s basically every piece of marketing material I created in the course of the successful promotion of my first two books all in one place.
Not only can it be a great time- and money-saver, but it’s also a good example of how to expand the profit potential of a book. It poses the question: What could you bundle along with your hard copy book as a digital download that would have enough value that buyers would gladly pay an additional five, ten, or twenty dollars for it? (the Biz-in-a-Box sells for $20 when purchased along with the book and $30 by itself; roughly 2/3 of my online buyers buy it along with the book).
Because it’s an ebook, the only cost involved from my end is the time I originally invested to create the thing; after that, it’s pure profit. So, as a roundabout way to answer your question, for busy people with little time, self-publishing done right can be a really good business model: create something once, resell it many times.
Dale King: In what ways do you think just such a writing parent could benefit from self-publishing compared to finding and getting published with an agent or a traditional press?
Peter Bowerman: I’m not sure that’s the way to look at it. There are advantages and disadvantages to both conventional publishing and self-publishing. It all depends on one’s goals and aspirations, regardless of whether one’s a busy writing parent, a retiree, a single person, whomever. Certainly, self-publishing gives you far more control over the process, the timetable, the rights and most of the profits, but those are benefits that would accrue to anyone.
If you like running your own show, then you’ll like the SP process. There’s a pretty incredible feeling of accomplishment that you get when you take something from an idea into a finished written and produced product, and then by your own wits, talents and resources, turn it into a healthy business venture and accompanying income stream. That’s big stuff – and people in circumstances across the spectrum (yes, including many writing parents) are making it happen.
Dale King: Your book, The Well-Fed Self-Publisher, is a leading manual on self-publishing. Are there any other books and websites you would recommend?
Peter Bowerman: Yes, there are a bunch of other resources on the subject, and in fact, I provide an entire 14-page appendix in TWFSP of additional resources (and I’ve even turned it into an ebook bonus that buyers of my book can get for free for purchasing off my site; because it’s a digital document, all the links are live! Another marketing idea…). Certainly, Dan Poynter’s The Self-Publishing Manual, the original bible on the subject; and 1001 Ways to Market Your Book by John Kremer, are good places to start. Also, check out PMA, The Independent Book Publishers Association (www.pma-online.org). It’s definitely worth joining and tapping for a whole host of wonderful resources.
Dale King: Some people are under the impression that self-publishing is the so-called "lazy person's" way to get published because there is no editor, no typesetter, no fact-checker, etc. Plus, the author is paying to have their book published, instead of being paid for their book. What are your thoughts on this kind of attitude towards self-published authors?
Peter Bowerman: As I addressed in another question, you’d better have an editor, typesetter and fact-checker (if applicable) if you want your book to compete out there in the marketplace. Sure, you can do self-publishing the lazy way, but it’s the old “garbage-in-garbage-out,” and the results will reflect your effort. And maybe I’m just playing semantics here, but in fact, you’re not “paying to have your book published,” you’re paying to have it printed. You’re doing everything that a publisher would do. And with a publisher, you may or may not get paid. If you get an advance, it won’t be much and if you don’t sell a lot of books, the fate of most books published by publishers, that’s all you’re going to make.
More importantly, I truly couldn’t care less what they or the industry thinks about what I’m doing. The only people I need to impress are my wholesaler (by working hard to move books), the bookstores (ditto), reviewers (by writing and producing a good book) and my readers (ditto). Everyone else out there can think whatever they want. It’s a free country. And as I like to point out to people who ask questions like, “Should the stigma of self-publishing bother an author?” how would anyone even know you self-published unless you told them you had, or you did such a lousy job that it was obvious? (that said, shoddy production value isn’t the exclusive domain of the self-publisher; I’ve seen it coming out of established publishers as well).
Dale King: Peter, wrapping up this interview, what advice would you give someone considering self-publishing?
Peter Bowerman: If the genre of your book is “non-fiction how-to” (like my books), SP’ing is a particularly good fit because it’s easy to zero in on your target audience, which makes the promotion easier (not easy, easier). Fiction is a lot harder to self-publish, but it’s a lot harder to publish in any way. Bottom line, self-publishing is a lot of work, but it can be enormously rewarding on many levels.
But when comparing self-publishing and conventional publishing, keep this in mind: one of the biggest and more unpleasant surprises than many authors get when they go with a publisher is discovering how little marketing support they get from that publisher. You pretty much need to count on doing it all yourself. Anything on top of that is a bonus. That being the case, self-publishing looks more and more attractive, especially when you factor in the aforementioned SP bennies: keeping control of the process, timetable, rights and most of the profits. Most of all, have fun!
Dale King: Thank you very much, Peter!
Peter Bowerman: Thank you, Dale.
Peter's website: http://www.wellfedsp.com
Peter's Blog: http://www.wellfedwriter.com/blog/
This interview is the exclusive property of Peter Bowerman. It may not be republished in any format - period.
