Spread the Peanut Butter on thick!!

by Carole Stevens Bibisi
(Bradenton, Florida)

Self published, printing by Peanut Butter Publishing, Seattle, WA

I have written & illustrated a series about a Black cat named Miss American Bronte.

After spending lots of energy & time writing & illustrating this series I spent lots more time looking for an Agent. I found one.... & after 2 years of them sending my manuscripts around traditional publishers & receiving numerous impersonal rejection letters I decided to kick start the series by self-publishing the introductory book, 'Tails' of American Bronte, a rescue cat's view of adoption.

I attend Writers conferences where I meet & network with other writers & Illustrators in the same situation. I can recommend this as a very positive thing to do.

PNWA: Pacific Northwest Writers Association
FWI: Florida Writers Association
SCBWI Society of Childrens Book Writers & Illustrators

These are the Writers conferences I have been involved with. Find one near you & become an active member.

It was through one of these conferences I met the man who operated the small publishing house I decided to go with.

I had been looking on line for some time looking at many self-publishing options.

When this person liked the book & said he would like to publish it we were ready to meet & discuss the options further & look at the quality & binding of other books he had published.

We had also checked out a local publishing company to see what they had to offer.

We decided to go with the first publisher & worked out a good price deal together. He then sent us a very simple contract.

I urge everyone to take the contract to a Literary Lawyer to check it over!

No matter what the price agreed on, you can count on it adding up to a lot more. There are all the associated costs to take into account! Remember this!

We sent the scans of the original art, (which included the hand printed lettering which was incorporated in the illustration) to the publishers Art director. He worked with me closely (phone & email from FL to Seattle) with the utmost patience to bring the color up to as near as possible to the original depth of color. He was a key person in the books development & final brilliance.

We did a small print of 2,700 books & when we received the first copies we were thrilled at their glossy hard cover & pages, excellent binding & the overall look of it.

With hindsight now I feel we would easily have been able to get as good a job from the local printer here that we almost went with, without the extra costs & time involved trying to do it all from Florida to Seattle & also from printing offshore, incurring the extra cost of customs & shipping. Go local if you can.

After first securing the services of a Distributor, (large book store chains only work through distributors) we are having good success with the book & I've enjoyed book signings & book tours.

We also signed on a fulfillment house for orders from my website etc. We have to pay both these organizations & ship them boxes of books.

We love working one on one with the Independent book stores & they mostly work a 60/40 deal whereas the large bookstores take 55%.

I couldn't have done all this & known what to do without my Author/friend Jill, who was already published with a traditional Publishing house. Many thanks Jill for your amazing help & for taking me to all those Writers conferences!!

Because I write & Illustrate, & traditional publishers like to use their OWN illustrators, I would self-publish again to be able to have complete creative control of my work, but as I said, I'd check out the local printers, & get any contracts viewed first by a Literary Lawyer before signing. It's well worth the extra cost.

I'm currently seeking a publishing house to publish the rest of the series consisting of a Bronte Alphabet, Calendar, & greeting cards.

You can have excellent results with self-publishing when you know what to expect & how to get the best results.

Carole Stevens Bibisi

Visit Carole's website, Art Harmony CSB.