A Self-Publishing Story of Success
Editor's note: What does it take to get published these days? Whether you're looking for a publisher, or wanting to self-publish, the question remains the same: "How do I publish my book."
The odd thing is that we're asked this question when there is no book yet! Just look at the comments made to some of the articles on this site and you'll see that people haven't written more than a few paragraphs of their book, and already they're asking how to get the dang thing published.
This is simple the wrong way to think. What follows is directly from the author of a new self-published book. Note that she wrote the book FIRST. This is important, readers. If you want to publish a book, you've got to WRITE the book first! And the only way to write a book is to sit down and write the book, no matter how long it takes. Please read and prosper.
Publishing the Story of Me
The most common question I get besides, "How do you model at not even 5'2" in height?" is "How did you publish a book?"
Well girls next door from Syracuse, New York typically don't write books so it wasn't in my original life plan. I didn't think I would write or publish a book before I turned 25 but it was more of a feeling in my gut after five years of nude modeling and trying to become a professional model, maybe some vanity, but mostly I had some secrets I needed to let out. Except the details from computer screen to book shelf weren't on my mind at first.
I decided to write a book while I was living the most desperate moment of my life. My homelessness would just begin as I started to place my memoir into the pages of Microsoft word at the Apple Store. Without a computer it was the perfect free place to start writing the story of my modeling lifestyle, just as I was living it, out of my suitcase while ironically remembering back to 2001 when I had security, living in a college dorm and skipping classes to go on nude photo shoots with no-body photographers and just loving being naked, and even if I was freezing it was fun.
 That is chapter one. Saved onto my Yahoo account. That was in Early November 2005 and by April 2006 I had created 355 pages that summed up what I had been through as a petite model and I felt exhausted confronting myself of what really happened during the past five years. When I started writing I wasn't sure where it would end, but the details on last page of the book are actually where I was physically and emotionally during the exact moment in which I finished writing it a few days before April 1st.
Correct grammar and correct spelling weren't included, but that wasn't the point to my story, I just wanted to get it out and down and I would go back and fix the typos later, I told myself.
Then I realized what I had done. I had written a book at the Apple Store. My office would soon become a marketing tool for the next steps of my publishing process but first I had to tell the manager at the Apple Store what I had done and thank him for the opportunity to write in the store. What our meeting and emails lead too was a reading planned for May 15th 2006 in the store as a featured event.
It was a weird thought to do a reading in the Apple Store before I even had my book bonded and edited, but it was an opportunity to test out what telling my story first hand to strangers would be like. Some of my friends knew of my struggles and pursuits as a model but I had never read anything from my book out loud before so the reading would be proof to whether I could hold an audience and whether pursuing publishing would be my next step.
Looking for a Publisher for My Book
Six months before, when I was sleeping at a random videographers apartment, I had randomly done a Google search of agents and publishers and found a website called
http://www.everyonewhosanyone.com/, and I emailed a senior editor at Simon and Shuster, the emails and meeting we had didn't mean I had a book deal but it did teach me that I could get my foot into the door at least.
I focused on my reading at the store and considered myself not ready for a "book proposal,"a word I learned about by Googling publishing words like: Literary agents, book agents, publishing a book- and also by searching the websites of authors I liked which had a similar writing tone as my style of writing. From my first Google searches the literary agent seemed like a very big deal to get. Almost as similar as importance as the modeling agent. Although I had a few modeling agents now, I still argued myself that I was my best serving asset. It made sense though. To sell a book, you need an agent to pitch it to a publisher and then get the book in book stores or on Amazon.com. It sounded right. Still it was all too new and foreign to me.
On to a Successful Book Reading
I had just had a successful reading at the Apple Store in front of about 25- 30 strangers who had listened to me speak about myself and my book for a whole hour, it was proof that if I had the book, I would have sold at least 10 copies that night.
With this confidence, I put my self promotion to the test. It was early June now, and I had discovered another website called www.mediabistro.com and I randomly emailed an editor of the popular Fishbowl NY section. I sent a sample excerpt from my book and also shared some insight to my unconventional Apple Store writing experience. Unexpectedly the next day my photo and email ended up on Media Bistro blogs. It wasn't the feature that shocked me as much as the emails I would then receive asking about my unpublished book.
This exposure showed me the possibilities of getting press on your book and yourself before your book is even available and how much sending a simply email can mean when it comes to self promotion.
I will admit it was very weird, and heart racing at times to speak to writers and producers at William Morris, I had a life rights contract in front of me and a pre interview with David Letterman, lunch with a writer at 20/20, and a 40 minute interview with Tom Forman Productions within the next few weeks.
The contracts and meetings would be very inspirational towards thinking of the next steps, since I didn't even have an agent or publisher or editor yet. Then came features in the Metro morning newspaper, Yahoo news, Gawker, and Fashion Television doing a feature on my story and getting a two page feature in Bon Magazine in Sweden, and five pages in Luna Magazine in Milan. My name suddenly took up over 20 pages of Google. All from one email I sent and I still only had the Word document I had saved to my Yahoo account time and time again after each Apple Store session.
It was weird to have press before the book was even published. It was feel of pressure and excitement, all very sudden and tickling my stomach nerves and I wondered, do they just like my Apple Store experience, or do they like my book?
Web 2.0 was working for me regardless, and even my Myspace page was becoming a contact tool now and a small publisher in Brooklyn had contacted me but instead of publishing my book introduced me to an editor. So with limited funds I had the editor help me with some story telling and started to craft a book proposal together that I would send to agents.
I used another website called www.publishersmarketplace.com and I searched for agents who had worked on books with a sassy, upbeat tone that was similar to mine, and wrote them through emails, trying to save any amount of money on stamps. Even though it was impressive to say I had some interviews and press already on the unpublished book, all I had got was a lot of "No thank you's."
It was a weird feeling to know that Yahoo news and producers were interested in my story, my book, and how I wrote it, but I didn't have an agent interested.
My First Thoughts of Self-Publishing
After a while I thought of Self Publishing, and giving the press I had gained what they had asked for. My book. Still I wanted that recognition that I could get an agent. Internally knowing I was good enough. Although once I got a wonderful national recognized literary agent in November 2006, almost six months after my reading at the Apple Store, only the feeling of relieve faded and instead I experience three months of sleepless nights. It was an unfamiliar feeling to let someone else control my fate, and my book.
Even with an agent my self promotion didn't end. Now Mac Life Magazine was going to do a two page story on my book from a mailing I had sent their San Francisco office. It was then after the interview that I knew that getting what I wanted (an agent) proved I didn't need one. I ended the contract and decided to self publish.
My gut is a major force towards my publishing experience, I had always done things, my way, and sometimes it was the hard way but I was always content in my heart. I spent the next few weeks working with that first editor I had met, we hacked out the story telling and without much line editing I self published through Book Surge.
By early July 2006 I had my book in my hands. It had only cost me $500 dollars. Everything in side was made by me. It was all mine. My creation. Now I had to get people to care.
Unfortunately some of the press I had gained a year before wasn't as responsive to my published book, so I had to seek out new news sources. I decided to chase other venues for exposure. It was like starting a small business. I wore many hats.
Facing Down the Challenges of Self-Publishing
Without a publisher, I had no public relations besides my self and the exciting launch date was really a non- existent number to magazines and newspapers who would ask, "When it is your book coming out? "Who is the publisher?" when usually they want to know months before the book comes out. My choices were last minute and looking back I wish I contacted more media sources a few weeks before the book was available on Amazon.
Self publishing meant I had to break the wall of standards and get interest without being from a big shot publishing house.
My first plan for press was magazines, but then I remembered they only publish once a month and that the daily newspapers were the best bet for my little book.
I started reading newspapers, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, The Daily News, and writing again in third person about my book and pitching writers and editors who featured books about models or the entertainment business. I got in touch with a writer from the New York Post who had reviewed a modeling book by supermodel Paulina Porizkova, well I wasn't a supermodel but I got in touch with him from a Google search and wrote him about my own modeling book. When he said he would give it a chance I mailed him a copy of my book with some press clippings, photos and a press release.
Self publishing means my book is print on demand, so I pay the cost for each book I use to promote it, therefore I had to be careful about not wasting books and trying to conserve money and get the most out of my book mailings. Trust me I did waste some books, it is part of the marketing but I tried to first make sure the writer, editor, magazine, etc is interested in the book before I mailed copies.
After he received the book, I got a "no" at first from the New York Post writer, but I was busy pitching Page Six and other venues so I kept his email handy and when I did get a write up on Page Six, and Advertising Age, the New York Post Pulse article came and then even a couple lines in the Wall Street Journal Independent Street section.
I knew if I focused on the message in my book I would be exposed. The book involved the Internet, modeling, the Apple Store, and the American Dream and these are all topics for marketing my story.
Also around this time I started pitching publishers, instead of agents. I had press, I had the book and I was pitching to get the book picked up by a publisher who could mass distribute it. It had been a year since I first started promoting myself and my book, and all along I was still modeling too.
I had recently worked with Marshall's and Bon Appetit magazine, and would soon do a body part photo shoot for Time Magazine, and I was launching a pod cast for petite models called Model Talk and now blogging about being a petite model and giving advice daily as well.
 I approached The Friday Project from a search I did on www.publishersmarketplace.com and I really dug their edgy nature and the witty voices in the books they had published. The Internet had been my start as a model in 2001 from Googling the word model, and it would also lead me to my dream by first self publishing, having my book my way, and also help me to be able to market myself with limited funds, then it would lead to signing my world rights to The Friday Project for a 2009 distribution of my book called Almost 5'4".
A year and half ago I had no idea what it meant to publish a book but I have found through persistence, research and believing strongly in your story it is easy to have your book, bonded and in your hands. Today I am still hustling, promoting myself and my modeling book about the underdogs of modeling, and I still wake up just for the chance to do what I love, speak about it, write about it and inspire.
About the Author - Isobella Jade
In the January 2008 issue of Mac Directory Magazine, Isobella Jade and her Apple Store writing experience will be featured. Isobella's book Almost 5'4" will be available by The Friday Project in 2009 and she can be reached through her website at www.isobelladreams.com or her pod cast www.blogtalkradio.com/isobellajade
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