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Background
In January, 2001, my partner, Diana Burg, joined me
to form BurgYoung Publishing. We each had a book in print that needed to
be reprinted. Since Diana was a published author, and I had
self-published my book, establishing BurgYoung Publishing LLC was a
natural.
Diana’s book, entitled How to Get to Know God,
had been printed by another publisher. The book had sold, but we both
thought that we could do better, especially since it had a very powerful
message.
My book entitled, Understanding Water Rights
and Conflicts, was first printed in 1991. It also was selling,
but much had changed in the world of water rights and conflicts because
of the changing nature of the climate, drought and water use around the
world.
The Publishing Process
While Diana and I write with very different styles
and in different genres, we both have a strong sense of wanting to
impact lives through our writing. Writing is a form of communication
that comes easily and naturally to both of us.
Once we had reprinted Diana’s book How to Get
to Know God, I started updating and revising my book,
Understanding Water Rights and Conflicts. I thought the
revisions would take about a month, but it actually took 6 to 8 months.
I was writing while working on the marketing for both books.
Even though we both had books out on the market for
several years, we were, in retrospect, very naïve about the publishing
business. We both thought the hard part was writing and creating the
books. This turned out to be a very incorrect assumption.
After five years in business, both Diana and I
actually find the writing, editing and publishing process relatively
simple. Ideas and writing come easily, and even the technical part of
formatting, layout and printing is not too complicated. With five books
on the market today and a sixth in the final editing stage, almost ready
to go to the printer, we both find this process getting easier.
One Unbreakable Rule of Publishing
After we had set up BurgYoung Publishing, we
decided to hire a marketing firm that specialized in marketing books. We
both reasoned that if we could write and publish our books, a good
marketing firm could make them sell. We worked with this firm for about
a year but the marketing efforts did not have the desired results. In
essence, the marketing firm was not the answer to selling our books.
We started researching information about marketing
books. We purchased and read some of the top books about self-publishing
and marketing. We actually met and talked to three of the acknowledged
experts in self publishing and marketing self-published books, John
Kremer, Tom and Marylyn Ross and Dan Pointer. In fact, John Kremer,
author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Book, actually gave
Diana a very nice review and blurb for her book, How to Get to Know
God (reprinted under the title Getting to Know God).
The deeper we got into the publishing business, and
especially the marketing of books, the more evident the one unbreakable
rule in publishing became. This rule is emphasized over and over in the
myriad marketing books on self-publishing; however, it is also true even
if you are an author published by one of the major book publishers. The
unbreakable rule is that Authors Sell Books. There is no
substitute for this.
If you have the courage, persistence and tenacity
to write a book and get it published, then you have to take the
responsibility of putting it in front of potential readers. Even the
large publishers rely on their published authors to sell books by giving
talks and signing books at bookstores. After all, a book presents the
unique view point, experiences and ideas of the author. As with any
other form of communication, it is the creator’s responsibility to make
those points of view, ideas and experiences heard, or in this case read,
by the selected audience.
Books That Impact Lives
We both want to create books that impact lives in a
large way. However, this is impossible to do if those books are not read
by others. This is the main component of the publishing business –
marketing. While we can not dictate what others read, we can put our
thoughts and perceptions out in front of as many people as possible. We
both know from the comments of our readers, that our books are educating
and inspiring readers. Based on their comments, we know we are not
writing in vain. We are accomplishing our mission statement goal to
publish Books that Impact Lives. This is the reason that we
started a publishing company.
H. Court
Young
Partner,
BurgYoung Publishing
August 2006 |
