Put Your Expertise in Print: Self-Publishing for Creative Entrepreneurs

In this episode of Quilting on the Side, Andi and Tori discuss the journey of self-publishing, particularly in the quilting community. They share their personal experiences, reflection questions for aspiring authors, and the realities of the publishing process, including financial aspects and marketing strategies. Tori introduces the Self-Publishing Incubator, a program designed to support individuals in their publishing journey with a team of experts.

Want to join the Self-Publishing Incubator? CLICK HERE!

Key Takeaways:

• Self-publishing can be a fulfilling dream for many.
• Reflection questions can help determine if writing a book is right for you.
• Identifying your expertise is crucial for writing a book.
• Passion and curiosity can drive your writing topics.
• People often seek advice from you based on your skills.
• Self-publishing allows for creative control over your content.
• Financial realities of publishing can be challenging but manageable.
• The publishing process requires careful planning and documentation.
• Low-content books can be a viable publishing option.
• Support systems like the Self-Publishing Incubator can facilitate the publishing journey.

Mentioned in the Episode: Published! The Proven Path From Blank Page To 10,000 Copies Sold

Chapters

00:00 The Journey of Self-Publishing
14:28 Deciding Between Fiction and Non-Fiction
25:00 The Self-Publishing Experience
28:42 The Journey of Self-Publishing
33:01 Understanding Book Pricing and Profitability
35:35 The Importance of Quality in Publishing
40:02 The Role of Editors in the Publishing Process
44:06 Exploring Low Content Publishing
48:56 Launching the Self-Publishing Incubator

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Podcast Details:

Co-Hosts:

Tori McElwain @heytori.tech

Andi Stanfield @truebluequilts

Transcript

Andi (01:05)
Welcome back to another episode of Quilting on the Side. We're so glad you have joined us today. And I know, Tori, we've talked about how much fun and what a good experience it was when you went to H &H this year with your book. So that was a self-published effort. I've self-published my pattern books and we thought that would be a great discussion to have here for our audience because

I'm sure if it's a dream for us, it's a dream for other people too.

Tori (01:40)
We wanted to have an episode where we dedicated, well an episode, to talking about how more people can do what we did, which was self-publish. So I wanted to lead our audience first before we get really into our advice and experiences and stuff into a few reflection questions to help them figure out if a book is something they want to pursue, whether it's now or in the future.

I've gotten really into self-publishing. Even after I self-published, I read three more books on self-publishing because I have this really great idea that I'll share later on. I read this book published. It's called Publish the Proven Path from Blink Page to a 10,000 Copy Sold by Chandler Bolt. And I can link that below our podcast and show notes so you guys can read it if you want. But he has some really great reflection questions that can kind of

get you thinking about if I could write a book about what I know and I really like these questions. So I'm to go ahead and pose them. I'm going to pause after each one and just give you guys a second to reflect. Now, if you are able to write down some answers, this could be even more powerful for you. If you're like, Hey, a book has always been a dream of mine or it's been ⁓ like me. It was kind of in the back of my mind. Like this could maybe happen someday. So go ahead and take a pen and paper and ⁓

Write down your answers to these. And you are listening.

Andi (03:09)
And I'm going to share

my answers after Tori asks the question.

Tori (03:16)
Excellent. Okay, so, and you can always pause too, because this is referring. But number one, the first question is what do you get paid for? What's your expertise? Like if I walked into your job or into your business even and tried to take over your responsibilities.

What could you write about in that? And I would even include like lessons learned within all that. So that's the first question, first reflection.

Andi (03:51)
gosh. So I have years, decades of experiences to draw on when I think about teaching someone else to do my job because I've got my day job and Tori and I have shared that where she has moved on. But I am still working for an industry outside of quilting and

But it's education based, it's adult training materials. so developing those trainings, I know I can explain things and teach things to people. So that's one aspect of my job. And then of course, with the quilting, I come up with my own patterns, I see quilts, I'm pointing to the one behind me and I...

know how to logically construct those so I can teach quilt making and then I have a long arm so I can teach long arming. ⁓ The whole adventure of building a business is another topic. So yeah, there's lots of stuff to talk about.

Tori (05:00)
was a great answer.

Did I answer too?

Andi (05:03)
Sure, yeah.

Tori (05:06)
Well, I did write a book on exactly this topic really, because I was a tech trainer at the time. felt like

Part of the reason I wrote the book was that my skills weren't being utilized. Like all the knowledge that I knew, all the practice I had, all the love of research that I loved to do, I didn't feel like I was being utilized in that role very well. It was mostly a copy and paste kind of role, which was very boring. ⁓ So I could teach on how to become, how to be a tech trainer, how to create, I could write a book on how to create tech, what do call them?

but not a job for a few months and I can't remember what they're all called. Yeah, like manuals, exactly. Our training guides, that's what we call them, our training guides. Like I could write a book about that and I did write a book about how to teach quilting, which is the thing that I really loved to do just a few years before I wrote the book and anything else I think might be just the love of...

Andi (05:46)
manuals or

Tori (06:08)
research and organizing and how to take what you learned and turn it into something that could be sold. Cause I feel like I've done that with my business over and over and over again with pattern design, workshops, quilting, even different aspects of quilting and, and now self publishing. Okay. So that's the first question. So our second reflection question is what are you passionate about? Now I'm always

a person that is like, I'm not really passionate. Like that's a word that kind of doesn't ⁓ really connect with me. So I would say, what are you most curious about? So either one of those, what are you most passionate about or curious about? And is there a topic you know a lot about?

Andi (06:59)
Well, as anyone who's followed True Blue Quilts for the past couple years knows, I am really curious about different things you can do with half rectangle triangles. And in fact, the quilt I'm sitting in front of is all made with those units. And so I'm deep into my HRT phase. So.

Tori (07:24)
Andy, I'm hearing an HRT book just saying. ⁓

Andi (07:26)
Yeah.

Well, I have another question about topics, but I'm going to save that for after the reflection period.

Tori (07:35)
All right. I feel like I already covered what I'm most curious about and passionate about at the moment because I've been devouring books on self-publishing. I've been really, really curious. That's where my interest and the closest thing I have to passion is. Okay. And then the third reflection question is what do people come to you for advice on?

Andi (07:50)
You

Tori (07:59)
So what are you known for amongst your family and friends? I don't even throw in there your network. So even if that is like your quilting guild and things like that, where you may not necessarily call all of them friends, but they come to you for advice. They send people to you for this or that. So what do people come to you for?

Andi (08:19)
Yeah, and I've got, I'm gonna focus this on the local quilt shop because, you know, we're quilting on the side and that's gonna be our focus. And I get a lot of referrals for my long arm quilting because apparently I am one of the few custom free motion quilters left. You know, a lot of people recently, you know, over the last.

three, four years, they've been buying their own long arms. mean, there's lots and lots of machines that are more affordable now, I think, for the home quilter. And they're computerized. And so people can just, you know.

set up a edge to edge design and quilt for people, but there's always those few quilts that people want something else. And if you've built your whole business around computerized digitized designs, you don't have that skill. So I'm very proud of the fact that I'm still offering custom quilting to people. So that's definitely one thing that people come to me for. And then I was at my

⁓ Open Sew Day and it's so funny because people are always like well just ask Andy so whenever they get stuck on a pattern or you know can't figure out the next step or they like they get a panel and they want to make it into a certain size quilt. ⁓ ask Andy she can figure it out. So some of those design and teaching skills are definitely what I'm known for.

Tori (10:06)
Thinking for myself, mine's actually fairly similar when I was in Arizona when I was long arming in the local shop and teaching there, I had a lot of people asking about free motion quilting. Whether that's on domestic or on the long arm, that could be really fun book. ⁓

And then I'm also thinking lately, I've been getting a lot of hey Tories, which is really exciting whenever someone sends me a message. They typically start with, Tori, which is awesome. And that's how I'm shifting my business name and it's all working out there. So that's really fun. But they ask about being stuck and really trying to get

from one point to the next. And I've developed this set of questions and prompts and tools and frameworks that I can use to answer those questions. And this is getting me really excited because I'm like, my gosh, I am. I'm actually like, this could be a book.

Andi (11:00)
Ha

gonna have outlines ready at the end of this episode. Watch out!

Tori (11:03)
⁓ right there.

I

might have done when kids are in bed, so might just sit down and start outlining a book. Anyway, okay, so that's, that's, what was that? That was three.

Okay, then the fourth one is the fourth reflection question is what are the broken record type conversations that you have with every new and I put in this I put this in in our audience's terms but like new quilters or new crafters or even new students like what are those repeat conversations?

Andi (11:44)
Now, I'd have to think on this more because I have my whole outline for teaching a new quilting beginner quilt class, ⁓ which is fresh in my mind because I have one scheduled in a couple of weeks. But yeah, I mean, I just I have my laundry list of, you know, basic reminders that we all

no one abide by as seasoned quilters, but those newbies.

you know, they don't know. Things like, you know, putting the fabric down with the selvedge at the top and, you know, trimming off that raw edge and then having to flip and how to read the ruler and quarter inch seam and, you know, where to look on your machine to see if you are at a quarter inch and, you know, what does that even mean?

So all those little basic things ⁓ definitely come bubbling up as you are teaching.

Tori (12:53)
And the fifth one, actually, I wrote this one down. I kind of took it from a different little section. There is no number five in the book published that I read. But I kind of took number five to kind of go along with that, because if we have these questions, these repeat conversations, we can also include in a book misconceptions, common questions, and first steps and projects.

Like especially if you wanted to start a beginner with half square rectangles, you could move someone through the basics into the specific basics for that. ⁓ what'd you call it? A unit. That's what you call that unit. And then.

Andi (13:30)
unit. Yeah, yeah. I mean,

and that's just kind of my own terminology because you use half rectangle triangles to make other things, blocks and etc. And so you need a unit before you can go to a whole quilt block.

Tori (13:48)
I think that's less confusing because when I was anyway and then move them into patterns to finish that off But when I was a new quilter, I was really confused that everything was called a But it's not a square

Andi (13:58)
Right?

Tori (14:02)
So yeah, I kind of like that, that unit to block. Like I feel like that will clear some things up. But those are the reflection questions I have for you guys. So if that sparked any ideas, I hope you hang on to that. Cause we want to give you a little more advice, talk about our own experiences. And then I have some next steps for you if you really want to dive into this. So Andy, you had a question. Is this a good time? ⁓

Andi (14:28)
Yeah,

I think so because as people start thinking about do I do I really want to write a book? ⁓

you know, a lot of people take their quilting hobby and the first way they make money from it is writing a pattern. so patterns, obviously, can be a book. A book is just a big collection of patterns and big. It could be three, it could be five, it could be 15. You you get to decide as the author. You can decide what how big your book is and what's included. And so

But we've also talked to some people, some quilters that have.

jumped right into this whole genre of quilt fiction. And they're writing quilt mysteries, they're writing quilt romance, there's the whole thing. So my basic question is, how do you decide fiction or nonfiction? And I mean, it probably is obvious if anybody has an idea. But I think it's important to understand that storytelling is gonna go through a nonfiction book just as much as it does

fiction book.

Tori (15:45)
Definitely, definitely. And I, that's an interesting question because it would be based off of who we're asking, right? First off, who we're asking. ⁓ pros and cons might be a good way to write down pros and cons of which direction you want to go. I feel like nonfiction would be the quicker route just because if, like you said, most of us start in business, we start pattern design with pattern design. And so we probably have our favorite patterns. We probably have patterns.

that aren't done that we would love to either like group by topic or put a story together with show a journey about ⁓ teach with inside a book in different ways. ⁓

And it reminds me of a cookbook. As you said, story elements would also go into a pattern book, but it me of a cookbook where you could tell a story where every pattern represents a different part of the story or even a different part of your life and share your life's work. Because all of us as quilters have been quilting for probably a while, especially of us in business. we probably have, and we've known, we know we have beautiful stories because of every single person we've interviewed shares how they got into quilting.

Andi (16:58)
you

Tori (16:59)
And I would love to see that in a book and I have actually seen that I have like at least two books that do that and they're beautiful quilt pattern books, but they follow a story and two of my favorite follow personal stories, which are just like they're moving and interesting and it's really cool.

Andi (17:14)
Yeah.

Yeah.

And you can, and I guess it's one of those things that.

My favorite thing to do is read. And I was the kid that brought nine books home from the library every two weeks when my mom would take us to the library. ⁓ You know, all the Nancy Drew, Little House on the Prairie, all these, I love a series. You know, if I can dig in and just get the story after story after story, I love it. So it's always been kind of in the back of my mind. Well, I like to read so much. Wouldn't it be fun to write my own novel?

And if anybody's ever heard of the, and now I'm going to blank on the name, the November, NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. It happens in November. It's kind of one of these. ⁓

Tori (18:03)
Yeah.

Andi (18:11)
subculture internet phenomenon things that just exploded. So you've got all the books about self publishing. I've got all the books about writing just in general creative writing. ⁓ And yeah, so I've got these half form books on the few occasions that I've dabbled in the NaNoWriMo month that ⁓ it could go either way. It could be fiction or nonfiction because I've got ideas for both.

Tori (18:39)
That is so interesting. I'm like, I want to

see your books.

we had one question that I wanted to pose to you, Andy, and see what you think. Just off the top of your head. when we were preparing for this episode, this was a question you threw out there that I was like, ah, this is great. So I want to ask, what do you think makes a book different than a pattern? What would make a book different than a pattern?

Andi (19:05)
my gosh. Well, there's so much extra in a book. ⁓ Like you were saying, you sense an HRT book coming. And I've published HRT patterns. So to turn that into a book, I would want to have a

running a theme throughout. Obviously, you know, it could be the basics of half rectangle triangles. It could be an ultimate guide. You would think that would be a lot longer.

and pull in a lot of different things. ⁓ I typically think a book is gonna have somewhere between eight to 12 individual quilt patterns. So you need to have enough ideas then to turn that one thing, that ⁓ half rectangle triangle into more things. So... ⁓

you know, but the other thing I think that makes a book different than a pattern ⁓

You know, let's say you took something, you know, my other favorite block is the friendship star. You wanted to do a book all about friendship stars. You need to start, like I said, with a story. You're going to tell maybe some of the history about what's known. Why is it called the friendship star? You don't necessarily include that in a standalone pattern. Your standalone pattern is pretty much the one project, the stuff you need to make it, how to make it, and that's it.

where you can pull in some of the rich community that surrounds all of our different quilting methods when you write a book.

Tori (21:02)
I agree, and I do want to throw out there that if you're thinking, ⁓ when Andy says nine to 12 quilt patterns, you can also do small quilt patterns, like pillows, table runners. Doesn't necessarily have to be like full quilt size. No, but I think I agree.

Andi (21:11)
How do we add?

Right, right. And like I said,

books can be as long as you want them to be. So if you only have three or four patterns, but you have a lot to say, maybe about the history and how to put it, it might be a complicated technique. You you could write a book that was all about one foundation paper pieced thing, you know, and that would be fine.

Tori (21:41)
I can imagine the quilt that won at QuiltCon this past year. ⁓

Andi (21:48)
Joan of Arc? Or, no, no, no, it was the Dignity statue, right?

Tori (21:53)
Dignity,

yeah. And I'm trying to remember her name, because of course I'm blinking too.

Andi (22:00)
I'm going to butcher it because it's not very common.

Verushka.

Tori (22:10)
Pride Enjoy Quilting is her Instagram.

Andi (22:11)
Yes,

we know that.

Tori (22:14)
I think it's burrusca? Is it ratte?

I probably put you that too, but her quilting at her Instagram is pride and joy quilting and she's her her pinned post first pin post is exactly the quote We're talking about right now I just looked her up on Instagram but like I could see that becoming a book because you could share so much about the history behind the statues based off of and she had this article came out where the the original artist of the statue saw the quilt and his reaction and like Like I could that would be a beautiful not only visual

beautiful but it could be a beautiful storytell book and I feel like that would that would sell well because not only would it have the pattern where you can make your own or it would have like I feel I get so I'm so excited my brain blanking out like I could just see the pages I would love to just determine pages have that just like on a coffee table

Andi (23:05)
Yeah.

Yep. Yeah. And while

you're talking about that kind of the way my brain works is that we're talking about pride, enjoy quilting. You talked about Instagram and all the stories that go behind it. And I remember back in the, you know, this is

20 years ago when I started quilting, blogging was a big thing. And there was a quilter who every year she published all her blog posts as a book. She had them bound like from the photo book people. And so think of that. You're already telling stories on Instagram or your other social media.

Get a, you know, think of what theme connects several of those stories and there's your start of your book.

Tori (24:04)
It's funny you say that because that's exactly how my book started. I pulled blog posts and I started putting them in order of first steps and that's how I started making this guide that eventually turned into like 40 pages and I was like, wait a minute, there's so much more I add. This could be a book.

Andi (24:20)
Yeah, yeah. So of course, anybody that's written anything down about their quilts, the process, you know, where you got the inspiration, who's it for, where it ended up, you know, ⁓ you can tell all those kind of stories in a book.

Tori (24:44)
I I'd like to move into your experience with your books. ⁓ I know that you self-published as well. So what made you go to the self-publishing route?

Andi (25:00)
Honestly, was the time frame of actually being able to get it done and out in the world. Because as an unknown, at the time, this is 10 years ago when my mom and I published our first book, Monochromatic Quilts.

We had no industry contacts. It wasn't like we were some big name quilter on YouTube that companies would be able to recognize. And so we knew it was going to be a an uphill battle perhaps to get knock on those doors and get a connection with a publisher or an agent or any, however that would work in the craft world. ⁓

So, you know, Kindle self-publishing was ⁓ a relatively new thing at the time and we figured it out and said, you know what, we know this isn't gonna make, you know, we might be big fish in a very small pond here in our local area and with our local group of quilters, but hey, we just, we'll throw it out there and see what happens. So.

Yeah, that was my initial experience. And what made you self-publish?

Tori (26:32)
I went back and forth up until like the last couple of weeks really like I had looked into self publishing to the point where I was ready to drop the manuscript or I could take the manuscript to a publisher and I was really going back and forth back and forth because Like I wanted this book to be available. So

I went self-publishing with self-publishing because I was, the more I heard about traditional publishing and how involved the publisher is and the editors are and how they have certain frameworks and now I've known, I know more after going to H &H. I really went all in on self-publishing with the classes and I went with one of my friends as she pitched to four, I believe we went to four different publishers.

So I got to hear their spiel, got to hear her pitch, and it was an amazing experience just to be a fly on the wall. I was holding her samples and like vandalizing, because she had quite a few that she wanted to show, so I was helping. ⁓ But what I was worried about was they would change the book. They wouldn't answer the questions that I was getting. They would change the content to the point where it wasn't my book anymore.

Andi (27:24)
Yeah.

Tori (27:45)
And that's what I kept hearing. They wanted to make it this and it didn't feel like my book anymore. That was the sentence I kept hearing was it didn't feel like my book anymore. So that's when I decided self-publishing and I figured if I only get 10 sales, I got to help 10 teachers. And now the book has been out for almost a year when this podcast comes out and it's over 150. So I've helped 150 teachers and it just like...

It makes my heart just glow. Like I am so excited just to hear that out loud. To say it out loud. It's just like, it's amazing. Cause if I put 150 people in a room together, it would just be like, wow. So I, that's why I did it. Cause I didn't want my content changed. I knew the questions that teachers were coming to ask me. I knew the process that really worked for myself and that worked for my clients at the time who were getting

Andi (28:27)
Yep.

Tori (28:42)
students into their workshops using what I was writing about and I didn't want that to change so I went with I went with self-publishing.

Andi (28:50)
Yeah, yeah. And I had heard lots of stories of people that had pitched a book, they were working on it, you know, and when I say I didn't want it to take that long, it...

With a traditional publisher, I had heard two to three years of work to get before you see your book. And it might have taken that long from the time my mom and I started writing and making our quilts to the time we actually got all the patterns and edits and everything done and have the book in our hand. But. ⁓

I've also heard the stories of those book contracts getting cut. And so people would be halfway into a book, they'd have all these samples done and then, yeah, no, nevermind, we're not gonna do that right now. So.

Tori (29:45)
Well it happened quite

a bit in 2020, right? With the paper shortage and like there were books at the bottom of ocean because one big airliner, not airliner, ocean liner went down with all of those books and like yeah, no, you're right.

Andi (29:58)
Yeah.

So and that's not to say that things can't happen when you self publish and then ⁓ have have shipments of actual books that can do you know, postal trucks go up in flames randomly here and there. ⁓

Tori (30:17)
It's always a risk, I guess. For sure.

Andi (30:19)
Yeah, yeah. But I guess

one of the other things with self-publishing that can be a benefit is that

with traditional publishers, they do a run of a set number of books and all those books are printed all at once. And so then you also hear stories about people that now have, you know, six pallets of books that they have to keep in their garage or find a storage facility. And they are, you know, they've now got this inventory that they have to worry about. And with services like Kindle that are print on demand, just like everybody

you know, printing t-shirts by the companies and having them shipped out to customers, you know, we get to do the same thing with Amazon and, you know, they order the book and one book gets shipped out. So it's really nice not to have to manage all that excess inventory.

Tori (31:16)
Yes, and

you can actually, if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see my inventory right behind me. It's right there. I keep about 10 books on hand.

Andi (31:24)
Well, of course, yeah.

Tori (31:25)
But I don't have

to. Like you said, I don't have to worry about having gigantic amount of books. I am a military spouse. We are active duty. We will be moving like every two to three or three to four years really. And the army won't pay to move your business up to a certain amount. And it's very small. I think the last time I looked into it was like a couple hundred dollars that they'll cover. Which is like insurance for my machine. So they're not gonna ship pallets of books.

Andi (31:48)
Right. Right.

Tori (31:53)
Yeah, so it's really nice to have that print-on-demand where you can order it yourself as a customer and get it printed for you, or you can order as an author and have a small amount on hand. And I have to worry about, like you said, pallets.

Andi (32:02)
Right. Yeah.

Yeah. And I mean, the same thing goes for ⁓ printing patterns. If you are vending at an in-person event, if you are a wholesale pattern designer and need to ship out patterns to stores, ⁓ you know, you do have to manage inventory.

And the nice thing about Kindle, as Tori pointed to her inventory, is you can order your author copies. And then if you have an event where, you know, you're going to want to talk about your book and promote your book, you know, those orders are going to start coming in. And rather than direct people to an Amazon site to order the book, then they can just order for from you. So head over to True Blue Quilts and find my pattern books and I'll send them right out.

you

Tori (32:57)
I love that.

One other thing I want to touch on was money. So how much you actually get paid for a book. I think there's a misconception that we make a lot of money when we have a book. You make even less if you go through a traditional publisher because you get what's left over after the publisher takes a cut, the printer takes a cut, and any other services that you have that are taking a little off the top. And then you get paid. And it's same for self-publishing.

have to pay for print, you have to pay for shipping, and then you get what's left. But it is typically more, much more, than a traditional publisher.

Andi (33:38)
Right. Because you could set your own price. And so you know those costs. if, and I'm just going to use round numbers. So this is not, it's maybe a little bit based in reality, but these are not exact numbers. So you do your research. If an author copy is $10 for me and I know the post office is going to charge me, I don't know, anywhere from three to six dollars, perhaps to mail a book out, then right there, I

have, you know, $15, $16 that I need to cover. So if I sell my book for $20, that's only $5 profit at the most. So you need to come up with some pricing formula and we've covered that discussion. So we may have to come back to that. But yeah, you definitely want to factor in a good profit for yourself.

Tori (34:34)
and the higher quality your book, the more it's going to So keep that in mind as well.

Andi (34:39)
Yeah.

There are, I do want to touch on some of the Kindle process though of submitting your manuscript typically as a PDF, right? You haven't run into any other formats. it's, yeah. So.

Tori (34:55)
Word is the only other one. And I don't

remember if that was Kindle or IngramSpark, because I published with both.

Andi (35:02)
⁓

But either way you can submit a PDF type document with everything laid out how you want it and then you get those drafts.

And you get one copy in it, but it's all in full cover color with whatever print quality that you requested. And I remember you actually compared. You did a reel when you had both versions and you were able to make a decision there on the print quality.

Tori (35:35)
I did,

so I put in for Ingrid Spark, like I just said, Ingrid Spark and KDP, which is the Kindle Direct Printing. And I had both of them in front of me and I knew I needed to do that. I knew I needed to have it in my hand to make the final decisions on what it was going to be. So I, and I got to see the paperweight, I got to see the color, because as a, my book, and I haven't actually mentioned the name of my book. My book is Workshops Unleashed, so if you haven't heard about my book.

My book yet is called Workshops Unleashed, How to Design Engaging and Successful Workshops for Quilters and Crafters. So inside there are still pictures and I wanted to make it colorful to make it engaging for our audience because I know that quilters and crafters are visual. So I needed to make sure that the color was coming through, that it was true, it was pleasant to look at, but it was also a book I wanted people to write in. I didn't want it to just be ⁓ the cheap yellow paper that you write on and then you...

it on the other side. I wanted you to be able to highlight, to write notes on, so I got a thicker paper. And when I originally got my Amazon ones, I went with cheapest on Amazon because there were not a lot of options on Amazon. You kind of have like two, three, it's not a lot. And I went the cheapest at first to see what the quality was like. It was see-through, the text was gray instead of black, the color was crappy, and I wasn't a fan of it.

Andi (36:35)
You

Tori (37:04)
and Ingram Spark, the color was better. The print was coming through black even on the cheapest, but the paper was so thin that you could see through. And I'm like, okay, okay, we've got to, we've got to adjust the paper weight. We've got to adjust the color. And then when I got the author proof the next time around, it went, I didn't actually know that I said that. I don't think I actually got an author proof the second time around. I think I just went full force. This is my book. And I figured.

I'd order a few and I felt I really didn't like it. I only had nine, was it nine? Nine pre-orders? And then I sent out more for my art readers. So I figured if it was bad, I'd just reorder them again and send them out again. So to me it was a good investment. It was a good leap of faith ⁓ at that point. But yeah, it was really great to be able to order the author proofs and the author proofs were cheaper even than ⁓ the author.

Andi (37:48)
Yeah.

Tori (38:01)
books that I can order now. So that was really nice. I didn't have to spend it on my leg just to get a copy to see what it looked like. But yeah, did you get to do author proofs when you did your book? Because I know you started quite a bit of a while

Andi (38:11)
I did.

Yeah, yeah, they gave you an author proof. So same thing. We were able to see the print quality and the colors and everything. And one thing that we did differently from the first to the second, actually two things, because the first one was truly a

self-publishing effort. And it was just me and my mom going back and forth, you know, making sure it was in the correct format. And I do have to give credit to Kindle Direct Publishing. They spell out the guidelines. So, you know, if your aunt wants to write a family history and have it printed, she can figure it out. You know, they take all levels of ⁓

KDP does a really good job of giving you frequently asked question guides and chat for help and stuff. So no matter your experience, can figure it out. They'll help you. But we did decide to go to an outside editor for, and it was someone in the quilt industry that was willing to do some ⁓ tech edits for us for some graphic design, help us lay out the book. And we also hired a professional photographer for our

second book so we were able to get really nice clean crisp square images for that second book and that helped a lot.

Tori (39:52)
⁓ That was actually one of my questions I want to ask you. So after figuring out the book you wanted to write, what was your next step? And I was curious if you had hired someone.

Andi (40:02)
yeah, we didn't, like I said, we we hired someone for the second book, but it was pretty late in the process. You know, we, we outlined, we made a list of all the quilts that we wanted to include. And I always, ⁓

you know, kind of griped that my mom had the fun part because she got to do all the sewing and I had to do all the technical stuff of, you know, making sure we had the piece count right in the charts that we included and double check all the math and write all the instructions and design all the graphics for the block layouts and stuff. yeah, it seemed. ⁓

a little uneven for workload distribution. yeah, you just you start for a pattern book, you know, a quilt book, you just start making the quilts and then, you know, document, document, document every single step along the way so you can figure it out. You know, when you have the sample and then double check the instructions are correct.

Tori (41:09)
All right.

I guess I could share what I did. So I sat down to write a guide, right? I wanted to write, I was honestly making a lead magnet and I wanted to write a guide of what first steps could a quilting teacher...

Andi (41:16)
Yeah.

Tori (41:33)
Need to get started teaching and that's when I wrote I pulled blog post. I just started writing I wrote for four hours straight and then I realized I had the Potential for a book and I knew right away I can't do this by myself So what what do I need to do and Rachel Rogers was like in the back of my head like you need to hire somebody So that's what I did. I went into my military spouse community and I was like, hey Does anybody do and I had to look up what role I was looking for so it's a content editor

is what I ended up ⁓ asking for and hiring and her name was Melissa, Melissa Strange and she was absolutely amazing. She was a great guide and then she went in and line edited. So it was accountability, it was going through the book and making sure everything that I was writing fit the theme, it fit in where we're gonna put things. Like she was very great at mapping the book out with me, going through...

know, the bits and pieces of what needed, what didn't, what needed to be added. she helped make my writing so much better. So by the end, when I was writing the marketing stuff, cause I kind of wrote my book in order, not everybody does that, but my book was kind of written in order. So by the time I got to the marketing part, my writing had improved by like a hundredfold.

Andi (42:47)
Yeah

Tori (42:48)
And she's making a lot less like editing requests and like at least big picture editing. And, so that was, that was really great to have her as my first hire. And then we edited it. She did line editing, like I said, and then I helped her with the formatting. We kind of teamworked it where we tried to figure out what format goes in KDP. What does IngramSpark need? Like what about the, the, the, they call margins. my God, the margins are such a headache, but once you figure it out, it's like, ⁓ God, I'm getting it close, but yeah.

Andi (43:16)
Well, and for

layouts, you you have to think about, OK, it's going to start on the right hand page. And what happens if you end on a left hand page? Do you want a graphic there to start the next one? Do you want something blank? And so, yeah, you really have to.

that whole editing phase of the final layout type edits of a book are very interesting and depend really on the platform and the guidelines and even the size of your book. Now, one thing I want to kind of take a little bit of a detour. Before workshops unleashed, you

had a notebook printed. So what was that experience and how did it compare to, you know, more text?

Tori (44:06)
Well, I was curious on how the whole system worked. was looking for, I was stuck between this. I don't really want to make any more patterns and I don't know what to do next. And I had this idea for a simple notebook and I couldn't find it. So I made it and it's just a dot graph notebook. had a cool, I went on to EQ eight and did a little block to represent some of my quilts. My favorite blocks. I put my quilts and I just had the, just a simple, they call it six by nine.

I don't have any I sold out at H &H or else I'd show. I don't have any. It's a dot graph on the inside So all I had to do is like copy the same page in Canva until it hit 120 pages and then it was at 80 or no 100 well anyway Probably 180 because then it's 60 pages plus the cover. So it's a cute little notebook So that was great to get my feet wet because then I understood how KDP worked I understood what information I needed up front

Andi (44:53)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Tori (45:03)
And I had this cute little simple notebook that I can then, you know, experiment on how to sell with. I love experimenting. I shared it before our podcast. I approached these new ventures, like a scientist where I'm like, what happens when I do this? So what happens when I do that? And what about this color and that color? And I did one based off the 2023 Kona color of the year. And that one did pretty good when I released it. ⁓ but that got my feet wet and that was really, it was an easy project. It was super simple to, to create and then get it up there a lot.

more than I thought and it gave me more confidence when it came time to actually self-publish what I would consider a real book. Actually, I had words in it.

Andi (45:39)
Yeah,

right, right, yeah. And that was a big...

passive income trend for a few years was the low content book publishing. those things like you said that was just blank sketch pages that but very useful for quilters to have that dot graph paper and you know, so for our audience out there your book doesn't have to be patterns. It doesn't have to be a fictional story book. It can be

checklists and guides that are fairly low content but give people lots of room to to sketch and to list and to plan and you can have a moneymaker.

Tori (46:29)
Yeah,

there's a, it reminds me of a guy on TikTok and I don't follow him. Well, I might follow him, but I don't see him often. He, I only see him when he's advertising his, uh, he calls it a zine, like short for magazine and it's 30 pages. I believe he said, like, it's really short, but he's self publishes it and he sold over a thousand copies and it's basic sewing one-on-one stuff. And like you and me, we know.

Andi (46:42)
Yeah.

Tori (46:56)
There are a ton of people out there you can learn something from and this guy sold like a lot of this very basic 30 page document So we know that it can be done

Andi (47:07)
And so now I've got so many ideas for, because I'm thinking of, know, especially as we go into the fall and holiday season, those little things are the add-ons. And so a quilt notebook, you know, plus a... ⁓

little bundle of fabric is a great gift to give some of your fellow quilters. so, like I said, it could turn into a moneymaker if you have any type of in-person booth or, you know, vending opportunity. Having those smaller ⁓ ticket items, those low dollar things, are right up by the register. And then those little tiny books you see at Barnes & Noble at Christmas time, you know, you could put

Tori (48:00)
Yeah.

Andi (48:03)
you know, a couple of your favorite cookie recipes with a picture of a quilt and all of, you know, put it on a small size. Like I said, my mind is racing.

Tori (48:12)
you

Well, this has been a wonderful conversation. did want to share the thing that I mentioned earlier. So we, me with all of my

Andi (48:22)
Yes.

Tori (48:27)
dive into self-publishing. What I love to do is to take people with me when I do something. we, I say we because I put together a team. So one thing that when I was doing my research and when I went to H &H, I spoke to a lot of people who self-publish, who were interested in publishing, who was interested in publishing. I followed my friend around, like I said, and watched her pitch and talked to publishers a little bit. the number, well, two top things that...

we run into as self publishers or publishing in general ⁓ when it comes to actually taking this book idea we might have and making a reality. The two big roadblocks are photography and marketing.

Andi (49:11)
would agree.

Tori (49:12)
And of course the cost.

Like a third one but the two biggest ones that really stop our brain are like how do I take the pictures for a book to make it look as good as I want it to be and how do I market it and actually get sales because even if you go through a traditional publisher they still expect you to market and you're really You're the marketer they can help a lot with like a little bit of PR They can help get like banners and things like that They might be able to get you in on some kind of events or with quilt shops a little bit but you can do your own footwork and get into quilt shops and do your own marketing

So what I've put together is what we're calling the self publishing incubator, where I have brought in my content editor, Melissa Strange and Caitlin Britz. And I hope I said her last name right, but she is a wonderful tech editor, a quilt pattern tech editor. And so you have a team of me as your accountability and marketing expert, a content editing expert and a quilt pattern expert.

all in one program to help you self publish. And we're also talking to a photographer to come in and run a class and a workshop to help you with that. And then if you need to, you can hire her as well, but she's highly recommended. And so you have an entire team that could help you self publish this book and it's called the self publishing incubator. And we are launching it up until no September 12th.

So you have about a week, I think, when this podcast comes out. So September 12th is when we close signups. And what we're doing is we're not doing a webinar. We're not doing, we're doing it. I'm doing a bit of an email series because I love doing email series, honestly. They're so much fun to plan for me as a marketer. But we are having you book a call. That way you can get your questions answered. We can talk to you about your book idea and see if this team is a good fit for you. So you can find all the information on my website. I'll link it below, but it's the self.

incubator and I brought all these experts together to help you get your book published within and we have a time frame 12 to 18 months. So it does sound like quite the project but a book is but we will get you from idea to launch. So we're gonna help you market that book and get it out there.

Andi (51:33)
That is so awesome.

you know, Tori, you are so inspirational. you know, that's why I came to you to do this podcast, because I was like, Tori gets things done. So if you have a book idea, you have to be in her incubator. She will get you across the finish line. That is going to be so awesome. I can't wait.

Tori (51:55)
Thank you, Andy, that's so sweet. ⁓