Landing a publisher has never been harder. So many want to get published, but few understand the enormous challenges, the fierce competition, and the merciless reality of bookstore shelf. But, what if you are one of the lucky ones to land a publisher? Well, here’s what you can count on: anemic royalty rates, 18 to 24 months to publication, and giving up the rights to your book. And guess what? You’ll still be expected to do most of the marketing yourself! There’s a better way. Thanks to the Internet, self-publishing has become easier, more viable, and more potentially lucrative than ever before. In 2000, veteran commercial freelancer Peter Bowerman self-published The Well-Fed Writer (an award winning Book-of-the-Month Club selection) and in 2005, he did the same with its companion, TWFW: Back For Seconds (triple-award-finalist). The books became “standards” in the lucrative field of commercial freelancing: writing for businesses, large and small, and for hourly rates of $60-125+ or more. As this is written, together, the two books – about 50,000 copies in print – had earned him a full-time living for over five years. The definition of a full-time living (straight from the horse’s mouth): Okay, we’re not talking “picking-out-chateaux-in-the-South-of-France” kind of money, but the book paid all my bills (including a couple of print runs each year), allowed me to stay the course in funding my retirement account, stay completely out of debt, and take a few nice vacations each year. Would that work for you? The Well-Fed Self-Publisher is a 300-page, detailed, step-by-step blueprint that explains exactly how the author did what he did. According to Bowerman, “This book is for those who really want to turn their passionate creative efforts into real ‘pay-the-mortgage’ money.” Acknowledging that “self-publishing” carries an enormous amount of negative baggage (and deservedly so), the author says the focus of the book is to dramatically raise the bar on quality, for starters: I’ll show you how to create a book indistinguishable in quality from one produced by a reputable publishing company; how to do a far better job of marketing and promoting that book than a publisher ever could; and how to make far more money than you ever would with that publisher. And by doing it all yourself, you control the timetable (potentially shaving 12 to 18 months off production). Plus, you retain all the rights, allowing you to leverage the brand you’ve created into a host of profitable “spinoff” businesses – each with its own income stream. Starting from perhaps not-so-obvious fundamentals (“Write a book people will want to read”), the book progresses through a discussion of the significant limitations of the conventional publishing model (despite the best intentions of most publishers). Then, in a nod to the outright panic and terror most “creatives” experience at the mere mention of the term “sales and marketing,” the book provides an entire early chapter to help demystify these often daunting concepts. As Bowerman is quick to point out, “Success as a self-publisher is far more a function of a process than an aptitude. It’s far less about some way you have to be than it is about a bunch of things you have to do.” At that point, the book kicks into gear, offering up discussing in-depth discussions of book production, distribution, marketing, promotion, publicity (through one’s own web site, the Internet, radio, article writing, bookstores and far beyond), Amazon, spinoff businesses, and an entire chapter on the controversial so-called “revolution” known as “POD publishing” (print-on-demand). The book finishes with five appendices offering up resources and a time line for the self-publisher, a primer on foreign rights, and more.
Since 1993, Peter Bowerman has made a lie out of the conventional wisdom that "starving" and "writing" are eternally joined at the hip. And, along the way, through four books, he has shared that message with thousands of other writers and authors longing for a way to pursue their love of writing, and actually have it pay all their bills - and a lot more.
It was in 1993 that Bowerman leveraged a 15-year sales/marketing career into a full-time living as a freelance commercial writer. With NO paid professional writing experience, NO writing training, and NO industry contacts, he was paying all his bills in under four months - using the techniques outlined in his books and seminars.
Over the years, his commercial client list has included The Coca-Cola Company, BellSouth, IBM, UPS, American Express, Mercedes-Benz, The Discovery Channel, Junior Achievement and many others. Check out what commercial writing entails and looks like at his portfolio at writeinc dot biz.
In 2000, building on his success (and not at all impressed with the sad and sorry calculus of conventional publishing), Bowerman wrote and self-published the award-winning triple book-club selection: The Well-Fed Writer: Financial Self-Sufficiency as a Freelance Writer in Six Months or Less.
The book was described as "a detailed how-to for helping writers - seasoned and aspiring - launch, build and grow a 'commercial' freelancing practice: writing for businesses, and for hourly rates of $50-125."
The book achieved the following milestones:
* A selection of Book-of-the-Month Club, Quality Paperback Book Club, and Writer's Digest Book Club (second best-selling Featured Alternate in more than two years)
* Second Place: ForeWord magazine Book of the Year Awards (Career category)
* Finalist: Publisher's Marketing Association Ben Franklin Awards (Best First Book)
* Honorable Mention: Writer's Digest National Self-Published Book Awards
* 53,000 copies in print of both books (as of 6/09)
In 2004, he released a companion volume: "The Well-Fed Writer: Back For Seconds" (triple-award finalist), also self-published.
Together, the two books have provided him with a full-time living for eight-plus years - all the step-by-step "how-to" details of which are chronicled in his award-winning 2007 release, The Well-Fed Self-Publisher: How to Turn One Book into a Full-Time Living (www.wellfedsp.com). The book, sold on Amazon, has garnered (at press time) roughly 100 reviews with an average rating of five stars.
In late 2009, he released the revised edition of "The Well-Fed Writer" - which combined and heavily updated the two original "Well-Fed Writer" titles. Through his wellfedwriter dot com site, he offers Well-Fed Writer readers a popular no-charge ezine (since 2002), blog and knowledgebase.
He also provides coaching services both for those starting a commercial freelancing business (or trying to boost an existing one), or those planning on self-publishing a book. In addition, in early 2010, he launched Title Tailor (dot com), offering book titling and back cover copywriting services to publishers and self-publishing authors of non-fiction books.
He has published over 250 columns and articles, leads seminars on writing, and is a popular speaker at writers conferences across the country.
