Publishing Ikons

When I started the Ikons series in 1990, my options for publishing were: the traditional agent route, unsolicited queries to publishers, or vanity press.  The latter was too expensive, so I choose the former two.  My pitch to both was that one hundred years of Eastern European immigration to the US had produced tens of millions of Slavic descendants all of whom I was convinced, would want to purchase my book.  I obtained a copy of the Writer's Digest Guide to Agents and Publishers, highlighted likely candidates, followed the query format guide and sent off a series of well-polished letters and waited.  And waited and waited.  The few replies I received were of the "Thanks, but no thanks."

There is no one in the world more optimistic than a novice writer, but even they can lose hope. Which I did. Then enter the digital age and Print-On-Demand (POD).  The idea of POD was presented at one of my writer's meeting and I saw its potential.  While not offering the big money of a well established publisher, POD did give you a way to turn your dreams into reality.  I studied the many companies springing up in the late 90's and vacillated between a few.  I choose iUniverse when Barns and Noble prodded me with a $300 signing stipend.  Spurred by their three week dead line, I sped through the final editing process leaving a few errors in my wake.  Somehow the singular word "woman" kept replacing the plural word "women."

I saved my completed digital manuscript to a floppy disc (remember them?) and took it to the library to transfer it to iUniverse.  Why the library?  Because 15 years ago I was using a dial-up home modem running at 50kps (Slow) and the library had a dedicated T-line running in the megabytes (Much faster).  Through numerous emails telephone calls and iUniverse associates, I was actually got my book ready for printing.

One features I neglected  was cover design.  It never occurred to me my book needed a cover. After some suggestions from iUniverse, I sent digital copies of Massey and Akulina's picture and requested a Russian motif.  After two iterations, this was the final design.

Ikons cover - Front Cover

Back Cover - I cheated a little with my picture. I'm not that good looking.

There is probably nothing as exciting to a writer as seeing their published work for the first time.  The thrill of slicing opening the FedEx box and being greeted by the aroma of fresh print and the sight of several dozen, carefully stacked volumes.  After twelve years of labor I cradled one of my newborns and beamed with pride.  There it  rested - my book, my title and my name.  Then reality set in.  How do I sell them?