Let’s begin with a brief Bio:
Damaria Senne is a writer and publisher based in South Africa. Her published works include How To Get Quoted In The Media, a guide to help small business owners and non-profit organisations get free media coverage; The Doll That Grew, a children’s book about a boy who takes revenge on his sister after she damaged his toy car for the second time; and, Waking Up Grandma, the story of old Mrs McKay, who falls asleep anywhere, anytime. Her grandchildren take advantage of it and pull a lot of pranks on her while she’s asleep. But is Grandma having as much fun as they are?
Get more personal information about Damaria.
Now, on with the interview :-)
Damaria, why did you decide to self-publish some of your books?
For the past couple of years, I have been reading about the changes that are taking place in the publishing industry. I was especially interested in the notion that writers are increasingly taking control of their works through self-publishing, and that this is no longer looked on as a last-resort for losers who can’t land a traditional publishing contract, but rather a viable alternative which allows writers to make more money.
Also, some of my clients are traditional publishers for whom I work as a freelance publisher, overseeing the publishing of some of their books. I just finished a project where I oversaw the writing, editing and publishing of six books and am about to embark on another assignment publishing six books. So eventually it dawned on me that as a professional publisher, I understand the process of creating publishable material, so why don’t I use the same knowledge and skill on my own works?
This does not mean that I no longer wish to look for traditional publishing contracts though, or that I will not submit some of my books to other digital publishers. My plan is to have as wide a variety of publishers as possible, so I don’t keep my eggs in one basket.
Why did you choose to publish in ebook format and to use Amazon Kindle as your publishing platform?
As an avid reader, I meet a lot of readers online and what I found out is that many of them read ebooks. Also, I don’t have the resources to make a splash publishing a decent print run of a book, and I have not set up a book distribution deal for my self-published works. So it made sense that I would choose to publish in the digital medium, as it allows me to reach a wide range of people worldwide without having to spend too much time or money on the project.
The first ebook, How To Get Quoted In The Media, was basically an experiment for me to test the self-publishing waters. The ebook was published in October 2011 as a PDF document available on sale on my blog. And while sales have not been fantastic, the ebook helped me land a client who offered me a retainer. The income from that client paid back my publishing costs (graphic design, typesetting, short print run for promotional copies and POD sales).
Meanwhile, I read about Amazon’s Kindle publishing platform and realised that it offered a more streamlined self-publishing process. Using it, I don’t have to worry about typesetting costs, because Kindle formats the book for me. And Amazon already attracts a big chunk of the reading public—all I’d have to do is make sure that those readers who like the kind of books I write can find my books.
Once I was feeling confident about using Amazon, I released a children’s book entitled The Doll That Grew on that platform. The Amazon edition of The Doll That Grew is a second edition of the book. The first edition was published by Macmillan South Africa years ago. It’s now out of print and the rights have reverted to me.
Please, tell us about your experience of the self-publishing process.
I found that publishing through Amazon was easier than selling a PDF book through my web site. It certainly cost me less money. Also, Amazon has credibility and people seem to take me more seriously when I say that my ebooks are available through Amazon than when I said that they were available through my blog.
That said, the self-publishing journey has not been easy, even though I did have experience as a publisher. First of all, I am by temperament more of a writing creative then a business professional, and I would rather spend all day creating characters and writing their stories, so focussing on the business aspects of the publishing process is not easy.
Secondly, I do need money to hire a professional editor and book cover designer for my book projects. So I’ve had to be very frugal with my earnings and designate as much money as I can on the self-publishing process. I also need money to place strategic advertisements on Google and Gumtree (a local online selling platform, much like Craigslist).
The hardest part of the process though, is the marketing and promotion of the book once it’s published. This is a job that requires me to spend hours online, looking for free marketing and promotional opportunities. I have to admit that this is my least favourite job, as it takes a lot of time and does not yield immediate results (you have to be consistent and patient in your promotion efforts).
To try to ramp up this process, I hired a freelance social media consultant to help me with this task. She spends an hour every day promoting my books and while I don’t believe that is enough time allocated to the task, it’s a good start. At least I’m guaranteed that some marketing and promotion happens every day.
What are the lessons you’ve learned from the venture?
Marketing and promotion are crucial to the success of a self-publishing project. If you don’t do it, and don’t do it consistently, people won’t know that you have a good book available and, therefore, they won’t buy it. And what’s the point of writing, editing and publishing a good book if no one knows about it except you and a couple of your friends?
I also learnt to appreciate the role of a good editor in developing a good book. To be honest, the ebooks that I ended up publishing were very different from the books I initially wrote and that was mostly due to the editors who re-read the manuscripts and made very important suggestions on how I could improve them.
Publishing a non-fiction book as an ebook makes sense. But why do you also publish children’s books as ebooks? I thought children preferred illustrated books that they can touch and feel?
There is no denying that hard copy books are ideal reading material for children. But I believe that ebooks also have a role in the reading life of children. Books can be very expensive and with ebooks, parents can more easily afford to create a collection of children’s books to read for their children at bedtime.
I also write my children’s stories with the storytelling aspect kept in mind: there is a lot of drama and sound effects in the stories, and I also expect that the parents can also take some leeway with my stories, adding their own brand of drama to make them interesting for their children.
You talk about a collection of children’s books for parents. Are you planning to publish more children’s books and if so, when and how frequently? Oh! Also tell us about your latest release!!
So far, I’m planning to publish at least one children’s book a month, though I would publish more if I could write and edit the stories fast enough. My latest children’s book, Waking Up Grandma, was released on the 26th of March. It will be followed by my retelling of the African folktale, Tselane And The Giant, in April. The next 3 children’s books are in various stages of preparedness.
I’m also planning to translate the children’s books to French, German, Chinese and several South African languages ( Afrikaans, Zulu, Setswana and Xhosa). The Afrikaans version of The Doll That Grew is already available on Amazon, and I have assigned translators to work on the other language versions of the book. These translated books will be published as and when the translations are completed.
Are these children’s books all that you’re planning to publish in 2012?
If I was smart, I would say no, because I definitely have a lot on my plate with my own books. But I would also like to publish other people’s books on Amazon and a friend of mine has written two romance novels that are undergoing the editorial process to get them ready for publication through my company. The release dates have not been set yet, but I hope that these romances will be the start of more good things to come. I would also like to publish more non-fiction ebooks. I’ve asked Christelle Du Toit, my co-author for How To Get Quoted In The Media to write a sequel. Hopefully, she will be able to finish it this year and, maybe, we can publish it later in the year.
Damaria, you are a busy and delightful person! I do hope you’ll come back to our blog for another interview about your writing process or advice about how to write children’s books or, well, whatever more you want to share :-)
Folks, do go over to Damaria’s blog, it’s delightful, too!!
And, feel free to ask Damaria a question in the Comments…
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