This is the second part of an article detailing the successful story behind the publishing of 101 Drama Games and Activities.

Discovering Print on Demand (POD)

As soon as the paperback arrived through the door, I rushed to pick it up.  Self-publishing may be the final word in vanity, but I felt vindicated by the continuing demand for the e-book and the positive comments I was receiving on a regular basis.  Now that I had my first copy I could have a good look through it, checking the text and layout.  Self-publishing means you don't have to deal with an agent or a publisher, but it does mean doing all your own proof-reading (with a little help from your friends).  Being able to order a single copy meant that I could easily make alterations and updates, order another copy and check it again.  I began to sell the book through my website, giving a link to the Lulu sales page but also distributing copies from home.  This entailed ordering larger numbers from Lulu, with the advantage that the unit cost was lower and I was able to make a higher profit.

The first orders began to arrive and I had great fun posting them off to readers across the UK and abroad.  Sales of both the e-book and paperback steadily grew.  However, I didn’t want to be complacent.  Without the support of a publisher I had to make sure that I did a good job on marketing the book.  I put in long hours researching ways in which I could optimise my website ratings in Google and other search engines.  I made it easy for people to find the book when they came to the site and endlessly tinkered with the sales pitch.  Eventually I decided it was time for a complete revamp of my website and a re-launch under a new search engine-friendly name: www.dramaresource.com. I spent a lot of time at www.lynda.com watching video tutorials on cascading style sheets - I never knew computer code could be such fun!

Another little-known advantage of self-publishing is that while you are selling your book you can also continue to edit it.  You just have to upload your latest version and the next copies ordered are immediately updated with any changes. Great news for a control freak like me!  Six months further down the road, I had got to the stage where I was happy enough with the book and its layout to finally leave it be.  It was continuing to sell well, at around 30 copies a month.  At this point I decided that writing invoices and posting out copies from home was not quite as fun as it had been at first.  Through Lulu I ordered my very own ISBN (International Standard Book Number).  Although I had to pay a set-up fee of about £60, it meant that within a few weeks my book should be available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other major book sites. 

Once you have published the book under an ISBN, it means you have to pay the same fee again if you make any alterations, so I took a lot of care with the final version.  Although I was quite pleased with the cover design I had produced with Photoshop, I wanted the book to look as professional as possible.  For this reason, I commissioned my designer friend Andy Croft to come up with a new look. I chose to have the title in a large font as I wanted the book to stand out as a thumbnail image on Amazon.  This meant an added delay to my publishing plans, but when I considered how long it might take to publish a book going down the usual route, it seemed well worth waiting.

I was intrigued to see what difference (if any) the ISBN would make to sales.  I continued to make the book available on my website, along with the e-book.  I knew that I would receive a monthly royalty from Lulu for any sales made through Amazon and other sites.  Although the royalty per copy would be significantly lower than I had been making from home, I hoped that the higher profile of the book would result in increased sales.

• Part One: Moving from e-books to paperbacks
• Part Three: Promoting the published book