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
