Dig It! Gardening Tips for Dogs
The link just above will give some information about marketing a self-published book. It isn’t the only way to market our books, it’s just information about how I did it. It may be useful, I hope it is interesting.
That information is ten years old, and while some things have changed, certainly other things remain the same. I am still doing small print runs of the book talked about, “Dig It! Gardening Tips for Dogs”. I have a soft spot for that book which I still send copies of, every now and then, in fact I sold another copy just a week ago, at an event I participated in.
For me, having books available if I am out and about at things where at least some of the people present, are open to the idea of buying books, is always a good idea. I in fact sold, not only Dig It!, at that event last weekend, but I also sold the two books that come after Dig It! I put the price down low, but I didn’t mind that at all. The person I sold the books to is a friend, she is a dog owner too, and I have already sold enough copies of the books to cover my costs, so any further sales are profit …
So if you go and look at the link above, which is also here, you’ll see that I was pretty laid back in my attitude to producing books. I am still more or less like that. I have moments when I chastise myself about missing out on sales, opportunities and so one, but really, the most important thing is that I’m not sending myself broke with my bookish things, and that I am having fun with what I do.
And isn’t that a key to living a book life? Having fun, having enough money to do what you want to do. I’ve sold more copies of this simple little book with illustrations, than many big name authors, published by actual publishing companies, I think. I’m not sure on that, unlike those publishing companies, I don’t have any accounting types of people collecting the numbers for me.
The book mentioned in the article I link to, the one that I published through Lulu, has pretty well disappeared from my life. I no longer know my log in details for my Lulu account, and I barely even remember what that book I wrote said. I could look it up, if I really cared, I supposed, but my level of interest in it has just disappeared.
Oh well, such is life!
Carolyn Cordon - Creative 
my educational titles have sold well but I no longer do them; of books of my own poems, the best selling one was the self-published ‘Makeovers’ launched at a national English Teachers’ Conference. That was in early 2000. It was a huge captive audience. I’ve not got anywhere near that response since. Such is life 🙂
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Is that self-published book in school libraries, John? Educational Lending Rights are nice to receive … I still get them for the school reader that was published back quite a few years ago, around 2006 perhaps …
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they were published by mainstream publishers and paid well for quite a few years but royalties have dried up as the books are out of print
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My School Reader “My Dog” published by Eleanor Curtain Publishing is the best book I’ve done, with just a few words … If I could do lots of those and get them published by the same publisher again, I’d be rich!
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