Why I Chose to Self-publish (and How RJCommunications Probably Saved the Day)

I was this close to publishing with a “subsidy” publishing house, but by Divine Intervention, I was saved. I was noodling around on the Internet when I saw a site that said, “Warning: Your book will be registered in the name of the vanity publisher and the ISBN number is not transferable. It is not owned by you and is not registered in your name. If you do not own your own ISBN, you will not have the rights to your book.”  Oh my god. This stopped me dead in my tracks.

I had published previously with a large publishing house (large as in: Viking Penguin.) It was an experience I didn’t wish to repeat. I ended up feeling that I had lost all editorial control over the content of my first book. Well, actually, I had lost all control. The book was based on two decades worth of work I had done with women’s groups…but by the time they were done sanitizing and civilizing every experience I had written about, it was tepid pap. There wasn’t a naked woman running around in the woods anywhere in the final version.

And the [first] cover they did was horrific; it had nothing to do with the content. I say “first cover” because they finally changed it to one I designed myself after I had such a sh*#-fit, that I think they feared for their lives. Plus, the marketing of that book was dreadful. It sat on the book-shelves for six months, and then they pulled it. In the end, I didn’t own the rights to my own work that I had done for over twenty years. Not good.

I certainly didn’t want that to happen with my current book, my memoir, Lady’s Hands, Lion’s Heart, A Midwife’s Saga. This book was my life’s story, had all my blood, sweat and tears in the telling of a saga full of joy and pain as New Hampshire’s first [modern] midwife. I had to own my story. So, I returned to that site…and my relationship with RJCom was born.

The first thing I did was buy the ISBN for my title from RJCom for $99 for a single number. The man I spoke with about this was Bob Powers, a book “coach”. He said in order to purchase an ISBN, I had to form a Publishing House and what was the name of my publishing house? I wasn’t prepared for this question, so I blurted out the name of the farm I am building in Maine.

I said, “Bad Beaver”.

He said, “Excuse me, what?”

I said, “Bad Beaver…Bad Beaver Publishing.” I told him I was going for name recognition.

There was a very long, pregnant pause. He said, “Alrighty then, Bad Beaver it is.”

The next step was editing. RJCom offers several levels of editing; I opted for the simplest line-edit/copy-edit feature, as I was fairly smug in my writing ability and my grammatical prowess. How complicated could this be? I was astounded to receive back about 40 “balloons”, or editorial suggestions/changes PER PAGE! Holy Obsessive Compulsive! It took me about a month and a half to make all the changes that I agreed with.

The editing process made me deeply appreciative and aware of the “faceless” editor’s commitment to having me keep my own voice in the telling of my story. I could choose how I wanted the language to be. In the end, the writing is simply “brilliant” (and all the reviews agree with that too!)

Next came the cover…ahhh, that cover! I sent Jonathan Gullery my manuscript and a couple of things I liked, but I had absolutely no idea what he was going to do. As I said before, I had a bad experience with cover design, so I was a little trepidatious. (Is that a real word?) Jonathan was working on my cover while I was slogging through the line edits. When he finally sent it to me, I was speechless. I just stared at it. It wasn’t at all like anything I had imagined it would be. Then I started to cry. It was beautiful and powerful and, a little mysterious. I absolutely LOVE my cover. Really, I am crazy about it.

This next step is an important one that I almost blew off. I had the option of doing book formatting/text layout through RJCom’s designers. I thought, “Nah, it’s all just text, so why would I need this additional expense?” I could do it myself. But because of my positive experience with Jonathan—and the fact that he highly recommended it—I decided to go for it. I think it is one of the best decisions I made in regards to my book’s “professionalism”. It is amazing to me how many people who know books have exclaimed that they didn’t think it was Self-published because of the polished, professional interior.

When my book came back from the printers, I was ecstatic. It was like I had birthed my “baby”. HA! Little did I know the hard work was just beginning. I think one of the disadvantages of self-publishing is the marketing and public relations of self-promoting. It’s a full time job. One doesn’t have the big media “push” that’s available to large publishing companies. Many times I would whine and plague Coach Bob about how exhausted I was trying to get media attention for my book. He was very patient and never once told me to stop being such a wimp.

Early on, before I decided to self-publish, traditional publishers said they didn’t want my book because it was only geared toward a “niche” market; to midwives and health professionals interested in childbirth, therefore, the numbers were too small. While this is true, in the self-publishing business, “niche” books do best, especially as I have a targeted audience to appeal to.

An added bonus for me is that, lately, midwifery has become the new, hip Amazonian profession. Thousands of young women have become Doulas—or childbirth attendants—and are eagerly buying my book as fast as it can POD because it addresses this dream. This is a whole brand new market I didn’t even factor in originally! So, at the expense of jumping-the-gun, I’m getting ready to say to those nay-saying traditional publishers, “Na-na-na-na-na.”

Ms. Leonard has just self-published the soon-to-be bestseller, Lady’s Hands, Lion’s Heart, A Midwife’s Saga, Bad Beaver Publishing, 2008. For further information and 5 star reviews, go to: www.badbeaverpublishing.com