First Word

You know running a business can often be fraught with mayhem. I think, though, now things are a little more organized and running and smoothly -- especially since my new operations manager, Bo Bradley took over the 3L Publishing functions that I hate to do. Well, my last person who sat in the chair that Bo now occupies did not post the California Girl Chronicles title correctly in the distributor Bakers and Taylor catalog of titles, which equals disaster on sales. The bookstores didn't have the correct information. I was slightly distraught when no orders came in and I couldn't understand why until Bo informed me of the huge  and costly mistake (this among some other egregious and costly mistakes ... ah, the perils of business). Well, now that the problem has been rectified, we finally received our first official bookstore order. It was a higher than average number! Now it makes sense. California Girl Chronicles has always, in my opinion, been the type of book that if you pu...

You know those moments when you completely scratch your head and just don't get it. Life is loaded with absurdities. Rather than get angry (although I still do get irritated at some of it), I thought I would share the most absurd business relationship I ever got into and JUST extricated my company out of it. Our now former distributor Atlas/Bookmasters (thank goodness we're done with them) did all kinds of things that one could call absurd, ridiculous and incompetent. Let me start with the list for your enjoyment. Perils of Printing -- We initially worked with them on a print job. It went awry immediately. When we tried to remedy all of the mistakes and over-charges and hidden fees, the president (not the staff) told us we were incompetent. First, you never tell a client they are incompetent (horrible customer service) ... oh wait what's my second point again? Oh yeah, you NEVER tell a client they're incompetent. AND they had the nerve to try and win our business on ...

"There is no reason not to follow your heart. Stay hungry. Stay foolish." ~ Steve Jobs I love that quote, and it mirrors a conversation we had on First Word Radio yesterday about doing what you want to do with your life. I don't believe in asking permission. If I want to do something, I figure out how to do it. I've spent a lifetime actively pursuing my passions. 3L Publishing exists because I didn't want to turn my first book over to a publisher that I didn't feel could do a better job than I could. After that book Second Bloom came out and won awards including an honorable mention from Writer's Digest , other authors started asking me to publish their books. The question wasn't "no," it was: Why not? Almost overnight I had achieved a dream without even making it a goal in the first place. I was simply following my passion. When you follow your passion the rest will follow. Now I've gone after another goal: to write a novel and here ...

My new novel California Girl Chronicles arrived yesterday via UPS. A few comments about it. First, I love our printer, who I am not going to disclose for competitive purposes. Every single order they surprise me. What you can't see in that picture to the left is that beneath the jacket sleeve, they embossed the hard cover on front and back. It's done in gold emboss and looks really nice. The quality of the paper on all fronts is excellent. The book turned out BETTER than I anticipated. Big kudos. But that said, 3L Publishing strives for excellence on all fronts. We all work with the best of the best. Every vendor we work with we vet ahead of time to ensure what they produce on behalf of our clients will not just be satisfactory but impressive. With the edition of premiere distributor Bakers and Taylor , we are poised to move aggressively into a very successful distribution model into bookstores. Believe me when I say that it was an impressive feat for us to gain acceptance wit...

With the acceptance as a Bakers and Taylor publisher, there is only one difference between 3L Publishing and traditional publishing. In exchange for super high royalties, you pay for the services you consume -- and that's it. We had a weak distributor in the past that didn't really move books. We expect the new arrangement with Bakers to push books so much better through their reputable services and quality catalog. When we went to the New York Book Expo and our former distributor handed us a CD and mentioned ignore the typos, we knew we were in trouble. Not just any publisher gets accepted to Bakers and Taylor. In fact, most publishers without the quality catalog and sales track record can get into Bakers. Some publishers don't have any distribution model outside of Amazon . In fact, many small publishers in and around Sacramento don't have this capability. So, if you're looking to work with a local outfit, ask your representative how they distribute to the book...

Big news for 3L Publishing . We worked hard, followed the detailed instructions, wrote the marketing plan, and submitted a package to premiere book distributor Bakers and Taylor earlier this summer. All of the hard work paid off. We received notification that Bakers has agreed to distribute our books! Why is this so important and exciting? I will outline it below: Bakers works like Amazon and only keeps stock on hand that it has orders to fill. This means no storage and insurance fees that we have to pass to our clients. We can do smaller print runs for niche books, as Bakers doesn't have a 500 book minimum they require to fill orders, and thus, no storage and insurance fees. Bakers fills orders to all of the major bookstores and suppliers worldwide. Bakers royalties are real! Not a bunch of nonsense with handling fees and misc. accounting fees that all add up to reduce royalties down to nothing.  Bakers is also a major supplier for Barnes and Noble. Bakers doesn't tak...