"Finding Independents," is a new column that focuses on the issues affecting smaller and independent publishers. In the inaugural article, humorist Laurie Notaro discusses the success she found with iUniverse.com and its print-on-demand (POD) offerings.
Rebecca Churilla: How did the idea for the Idiot Girls Adventure Club come to you? Would you have been able to publish the book had it not been for the capabilities offered by POD?
Laurie Notaro: I wrote Idiot Girls seven years ago. It's a collection of first-person narratives, all true stories, that I wrote for my weekly humor column at Arizona State University's student newspaper, State Press. I initially tried to get it published by sending it to the slushpile of every single publisher I could think of or find out about. After about 75 rejections, I decided that I needed an agent, so I got a list of reputable literary agencies and started querying them. Nina Graybill from Graybill and English called, said she liked the book and I signed with her. We tried several times throughout the years to sell it to a publishing house, but we never had any luck. The last, and third time we sent it out was in spring of 2000, and although there was some interest, most editors insisted that a collection of short stories or columns, particularly first-person, would never sell. I was becoming frustrated, because from the response I had seen from the State Press columns, there was evidently a market and an audience for that type of material. But proving it to editors was another thing. Although I wasn't about to take "no" for an answer, I felt that my hands were tied until I came across an iUniverse banner ad on Barnesandnoble.com. I couldn't believe it, it seemed like the perfect opportunity for me to get Idiot Girls out there. Since no one was willing to take a chance on me, I had to take the chance myself.
RC: Explain the process of publishing a book through iUniverse.com.
LN: I began by choosing a program (I chose Writer's Guild for $99). Then, I submitted my manuscript electronically. I had a wonderful publishing associate, Natalie Bacon, who really made the process so easy. She let me know when the paginated "galleys" were ready, and I went in for one more copy editing sweep. Then, I uploaded my changes and sent them to her. I also had Coni Bourin, a very talented illustrator, design a cover. I sent iUniverse that, too, and they agreed to use it. That was in October/November of 2000. By January 2001 iUniverse sent me the printed copy of Idiot Girls and the book went live on Barnesandnoble.com and Amazon.com in February and March.
RC: Do you think the quality of books produced by POD can compete with the quality of books produced by traditional printing methods?
LN: Absolutely. Many people who bought the book weren't aware (some still aren't) that I "self-published" it and that it isn't through a traditional publishing house.
RC: Did you find that people were reluctant to buy or sell your book because it was produced using POD?
LN: I decided not to spend my time trying to get it into stores around Phoenix where I live. iUniverse has an incredible distribution deal online that was the prime tool I knew I had to take advantage of. I highly doubt you could get a deal that vast if you were to actually "self-publish" by printing it yourself. It would be quite difficult. I thought it was more efficient to promote the book on the Internet, where the book was already available. I thought, "why should I spend time trying to get my book into stores locally when I have the whole country available to me?" Plus, the fact that if I did get the book in stores in my city, it would have to be on a consignment basis, which meant that I would only get 50 percent of the retail price if a book sold, which also meant I would lose money on every sale. It just didn't make sense to me when there's Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com ready and willing to sell my book. My plan was to sell the pants off of it, then Nina and I could take that information and try to sell a second book off of the success of the first.
RC: As you were not backed by a publishing house, how did you promote the book?
LN: I promoted it by having a Web site professionally designed by Glacierdesign.com where I posted the book and created links to the predominant booksellers that sold it directly to the Idiot Girls product page. I also created a press kit with a sell sheet, excerpts, a bio and so on, but I only sent a few of those out locally to get radio and television spots. I posted my Web site and a small blurb about the book on Web sites that would draw the audience of young, progressive girls and women, and I used Sponsored Results through Amazon.com. Sadly, the program was discontinued last month despite my repeated letters to shamelessly beg Amazon to keep it. There, you could essentially buy an "advertisement" spot by selecting search terms (such as Sex and the City or J.K. Rowling) and every time someone ran a search on that term, your product would pop up in a sidebar with a cover image and a short blurb that also linked to your product page. It was a wonderful program. Through their tracking system, I was able to tell which search terms worked well for me and which ones didn't by the number of hits my product page got. It was a great way to reach readers who would already have an interest in the genre by choosing book titles and authors that were similar to myself and Idiot Girls. It was like a chess game, there was a lot of strategy and "trial by fire" involved. Monetarily, it was an investment, sometimes at $100 a week, but it really paid off for me. Through Sponsored Results, I was able to spread the word about my book, which eventually hit numbers 7 and 12 on the humor and short story bestseller lists, and an overall high sales ranking of 680 from my initial 1,500,000. As I was hoping, it wasn't only people in Phoenix who bought the book. I've recieved letters from almost every state in the country, including Puerto Rico.
RC: How did the relationship with Random House come about?
LN: Luck, luck and more luck. It's a shame I didn't buy a lottery ticket that day. Early in September, I recieved an e-mail through my Web site from an agent, Jenny Bent, in New York. Jenny said she spotted Idiot Girls on Amazon.com when she went to look up her client's book (God Save the Sweet Potato Queens by Jill Connor Browne) and saw my Sponsored Results "advertisement." I did call her to say thank you and explain that I already had an agent, Nina Graybill. Oddly enough, Jenny knew Nina quite well and had worked at Nina's firm a short while before. Jenny called Nina and they decided to co-agent. Jenny had just sold a book that was similar to Idiot Girls and was confident that she knew editors who would be interested. We began working on the book proposal for the second book, Autobiography of a Fat Bride. That took a month of diligent writing, re-writing and more writing. When Jenny was happy with it, she sent the book proposal—and the iUniverse copy of Idiot Girls—out to editors on a Monday. In three days, we had an offer from Random House for not only Fat Bride, but Idiot Girls, too.
RC: Now that you do have the backing of a major publisher, would you consider POD for future titles?
LN: I would certainly encourage new authors to seriously look at iUniverse as an option to get their product out there. iUniverse was an essential part of the Random House deal, I feel. Because of iUniverse, I proved that I could sell something that editors told me couldn't sell. I proved there was an audience for it. I proved to myself that I could do it, that I could reach a goal I had set for myself. It took a long time, but I finally got there. Because of POD, I didn't have to take "no" for an answer. I couldn't guess—and frankly don't want to imagine—where Idiot Girls would be without it.