So Who's Picking Up the Tab?

There is a long answer to that question - so I'll give you the highlights.

Basically the sale of the anthologies is what generates the resources to publish more books and go on the tour. When I first published Growing Up Girl: An Anthology - a small grant and my personal financial investment got the project off the ground. About six months into the life of the anthology - the sale of the book is what paid for airfare, hotel stays (subsized by my sister who works at Marriott), and car rentals while the book was on tour.

That means that I have to really hustle before the anthology is actually released to make sure there is money to cover the production, shipping, and promotion of the book. Hence the current pre-sale (stop here and go order a book. I'll wait. www.girlchildpress.com/products.html) Your back:)


The second time at bat was somewhat easier than when I first decided to release the first book. Growing Up Girl has been a solid seller and so money has been coming in rather consistently (or at least when I really need it) to cover various publishing expenses. This time around I did run into the problem of having to go to the printer with both books at the same time and that made things tight. Thank goodness I have supportive family members that believed in me enough to pull out their checkbooks to help with some of the printing cost.

Just Like A Girl is having an amazing pre-sale period! The word is out on the anthology and the sales are strong enough that I'll be able to handle mailing the books and postcards (that assist in the advertisement of the books) with little trouble. So far I haven't had to go into my personal stash. That doesn't mean I won't at some point because @#$% happens. Shoot, even Hillary had to loan her campaign 5 million dollars. But I do believe I have a strong enough marketing and business plan to make Just Like A Girl a solid success and even outsell the original anthology.
Now that the press is juggling multiple books, I am interested to see how that affects the bottomline.

In 2009, I plan on releasing two books simultaneously. One will be a short story anthology and the other a parenting book for girls. Between now and then my goal is to make the press entirely self-sustaining and even hire a staff member. I'll let you know how that goes.

Michelle
www.girlchildpress.com