I'm getting ready to self publish my 2nd poetry collection, covering topics like living with chronic illness, healing, mental health, and self love. This kickstarter will hopefully enable me to do the best I can to get my book into as many homes and hearts as possible!
This is a rough breakdown and estimation of costs to illustrate why I picked $975 for the initial funding goal.
Expenses:
A 25 copy first printing run of The Flowers Need Love to Grow Too -- I budgeted about $100 for this, which should cover 25 copies and shipping.
ISBN #s -- This is the real kicker. ISBN numbers can be purchased either individually or in blocks. 1 ISBN number through Bowker (the only service that legally sells them in the US) is $125. 10 is $250. Every version of a published book (paperback, hardcover, digital, audiobook, large print, to name a few) needs it's own ISBN number.
In the next year, I hope to publish at least three books: The Flowers Need Love to Grow Too in November 2019, a sequel to my first book (Midnight Comes) around July 2020, and a secret project when it's completed. Optimistically, all those projects combined will be in digital, paperback, and audiobook. I'd also love to put out a large print edition of Midnight Comes and its sequel.
At that point, 11 ISBN numbers would be needed. As a young, self published author just starting out, I can't afford to spend $250 every time I want to publish a couple of books. My own just don't sell enough to make up the difference.
That leads into the option I'm going with. For $575, Bowker lets you purchase 100 ISBN numbers. With that many, I'll be able to publish all the projects I have planned for the immediate future, with plenty left over to last until my work can start paying for itself.
"But wait," you might say. "I've looked into self publishing! Amazon KDP and other self publishing services will give you free ISBN numbers when you publish with them! Why is buying your own so important, especially when it's so expensive??"
Well, when purchased, the ISBN is connected to the person or company who purchased it. That person or company is then listed as the publisher. When a bookstore looks up a book by the ISBN, a free one from Amazon will come up with Amazon as the Publisher, since Amazon purchased that ISBN number.
If I published the book, however, I am now the publisher. My name or my "publishing company" name will be listed as the publisher when a bookstore looks the book up. Owning my own ISBNs allows me to list the books on Ingram Spark as well, which has a much more bookstore-friendly stocking system.
Note: The article is from 2016 and references CreateSpace, which has since been phased into Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), but is still owned by amazon and has the same setup.
My book, Midnight Comes, was published through CreateSpace right before the change. I have approached a few bookstores myself (in person, copies in hand) with the question of whether or not they would consider stocking Midnight Comes. They were polite, but as soon as I mentioned self publishing through CreateSpace, they stepped in quickly with the response that it was against policy and they were sorry, but they couldn't consider works with Amazon as the publisher. I was also informed that their problem wasn't with self published books, merely with ones that listed Amazon or CreateSpace as the publisher.
Once we hit $975, I'll start introducing stretch goals (!! I'm super excited and hope we'll be able to get to those! I'm planning on purchasing copies of all my books for little free libraries and take a book leave a book boxes in the Boston area, making CDs of the Midnight Comes audiobook, purchasing or commissioning music for a podcast of poetry readings, and other super cool merch themed around my poems! However, as I'm trying to start small I'll introduce those in more detail if and when we hit $975. :)
Anything left over after following through on all those will ultimately go to supporting a smol independent artist<3 <3
Yup. That dork is me, wearing a shirt I designed with my poetry on the front. :)
Ok cool. Cool, cool cool. So who are you??
Hi! I'm Sierra (SJ Blasko). I'm 20, and I live in the beautiful New England area of the US. I'm a spoonie living with anxiety, depression, and the aftereffects of Chronic Lyme Disease, and I have a passion for anything and everything creative! Some of my interests include writing (novels, script, and poetry), art, voice acting, photography, mixed media, and paper-making.
I believe the purpose of art and fiction is to put something beautiful out into a world that often feels hell-bent on crushing us. My goal with every creative project is to inspire, strengthen, educate, uplift or help someone find the words to express something they've maybe never been able to before.
I find myself in art and words, and I hope that others can find themselves in mine.
My Stuff:
Books!
I have two written works out in the wilds of the publishing world, and I'm getting ready to self-publish my third.
Space Kitties is an Anthology about two of the BEST things you can possibly imagine: Cats and Space. Organized and edited by the lovely E. Kasier Writes, it contains 12 short stories featuring phenomenal felines foraying through the deep reaches of Space.
Midnight Comes was the first book I self-published on my own! I did all the formatting, cover design, layout and legwork myself, and it was the project I dedicated myself to after graduating from high school. It's a thin book (50 pages) containing 6 narrative poems retelling classic fairytales. It also has two gorgeous illustrations by my friend Melissa Connors
The Flowers Need Love to Grow Too is my next book, a compilation of all the poetry I've written in the past 3 years (approximately) as I've grown and changed and learned to love myself. It's all finished, has gone through 3 rounds of edits, and is in the final round of editing and adding illustrations!
(Alright, I'll admit the last two aren't very likely. But now you know all the places you can find me, should you find yourself shockingly transported to an unfamiliar cybersphere again! I'm always happy to help.)
Rewards (ie the physical manifestations of my undying love and gratitude to you):
plus all lower level sticker rewards
plus all lower level sticker rewards
Risks and challenges
I have never done a kickstarter before. So, although I've backed some, and asked lots of people for advice, guidance, feedback, and suggestions... this is *my* first time doing anything like this. I'm super pumped!! But I want to be real and upfront with you all about the measures I have in place to make sure everything goes smoothly
1. I gave myself plenty of time to get the rewards out to you. If everything goes perfectly, I'd love to get your physical rewards to you a full month ahead of schedule. But, if life throws some monkey wrenches, I've hopefully allotted enough buffer time that I won't have to push any dates farther back.
2. I'm within walking distance of a post office both at school, and at home!!
Not something I did, but definitely something that'll come in handy ;)
3. As soon as we are fully funded and I start introducing stretch goals, I'll start getting things ready so there's less to do all at once when the whole project ends.
4. I am, when everything is said and done, a one girl show-- And a college girl who struggles with spoon levels at that. However, I'm not trying anything new or drastic with this project, and using mostly methods and services I've used before and am familiar with (Spreadshirt, Redbubble, and Amazon KDP). I also have a wonderful support system of friends and family who I can enlist if things get super rough or this campaign blows up.
The two biggest risks that I can see putting things behind schedule are:
- A mental or physical health crisis
and/or
-A delay with Amazon's print on demand service (hence the ordering in advance, and extra month padding)
They're both totally real and valid possibilities, but hopefully I've communicated that I've thought this through and am prepared to meet each obstacle and overcome it.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read and support this kickstarter!! It truly means the world to me <3
POETRY OF THE HOLOCAUST is a ground-breaking anthology of translated poetry written during, or about, the Holocaust. Featuring the work of over 90 poets writing in 20 languages, this multilingual anthology includes many poems translated into English for the very first time.
OUR MISSION
For over 50 years, Arc Publications has been introducing to the English-speaking world poetic voices in translation from around the globe, writers who are often highly-respected in their country of birth, but little known further afield. What readers expect from Arc is the unusual, the unexpected, the innovatory – books that other publishers aren’t publishing – and this anthology is one such book.
The idea for the anthology arose from a research project ‘Translating the Poetry of the Holocaust’ (funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council) carried out by Professor Jean Boase-Beier, with Dr Marian de Vooght, at the University of East Anglia. They wanted to find out who had written poetry during, or about, the Holocaust, why they had done so, what languages they had written in, and how much Holocaust poetry had been translated. They also wanted to know more about the importance of such poetry, for its writers and for its readers. And they wanted to consider specific problems of its translation.
To compile an anthology that draws together poems that accurately represent the findings of this research project is both an arduous and extremely detailed undertaking, which the Editors, Jean Boase-Beier and Marian de Vooght, have carried out with great sensitivity and dedication.
To publish such an anthology has financial implications that we, a small independent not-for-profit press, can’t take on ourselves. This is where you come in. With your support, we can face this challenge with confidence. We can produce a book that not only gives readers access to poetry of the Holocaust that has not previously been published in English, but that will also be a lasting testament to the memory of those who suffered so terribly as a result of the Holocaust, and to their descendants.
POETRY OF THE HOLOCAUST
Part I – At the Beginning
The poems in this section reveal fear and despair at the signs that something terrible was coming. Even before the Nazis came to power in 1933, there was concrete and visible discrimination against Jews and other groups of people. This anthology will be the only one so far to contain poems from well before the start of the Second World War.
Part II – Life in Ghettos, Camps and the Outside World
This section contains poems that show the horror of persecution in the form of forced labour, confinement in ghettos, imprisonment, deportation to camps, abuse, starvation and murder. Many poems tell of the extreme circumstances of being dreadfully weakened by hunger, disease and abuse in concentration camps, while others were literally written on the verge of collapse.
Part III – Life Afterwards
The poems in this section tell of the lasting trauma of the Holocaust, as recorded by survivors, family members and other poets. The time after the Holocaust is still ongoing, and Holocaust poetry continues, and will continue, to be written not only as long as there are survivors, but as long as there are poets who think about the victims with empathy. This is the longest section, and has poems from 1946 onwards, the most recent poems in the anthology being just a few years old.
GOALS
Our target – £3,000 – is the absolute minimum we need in order to produce and print this anthology. However, it leaves nothing for marketing and promotion or events. If we exceed our goal, we will be able to give this book the platform it deserves. We will not only be able to advertise it widely, but also to dedicate more time to marketing – sending the obligatory copies to reviewers, submitting copies of the book for prizes, organising events, especially in schools and colleges, at which the Editors, and also translators, can read from the anthology and discuss some of the issues that make translating Holocaust poetry different from translating other poetry. The work of the publisher continues long after publication, and any pledges we receive beyond our minimum goal are essential in allowing us to continue this important work.
Risks and challenges
We are a small, independent publisher, wholly reliant on Arts Council funding. Without your support, we could not contemplate taking on a project of this size and lasting importance.
If we secure the funds we need from this Kickstarter campaign, however, there will be nothing to stop us. We will have the privilege of publishing a unique anthology, co-edited by one of the most highly-regarded authorities on the translation of Holocaust poetry in the world, translated into English by a cohort of first-class translators. It is a volume of poems written from the heart, both by victims of the Holocaust and by those who take their part, poems that will make us think, reflect, perhaps understand what we didn’t understand before. It is possibly a volume that will change our lives.
