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This is the first part of an article detailing the successful story behind the publishing of 101 Drama Games and Activities.
Moving from e-books to paperbacks
Sad but true – as soon as I received the first copy of my self-published book, I popped down to my favourite book shop and sneaked it onto the shelf in the Drama section - just to see what it would look like next to all the other "real" books. Of course, I took it home again. Just one year later I am selling over 100 copies a month, mainly through Amazon. As I published the book myself my royalty is at least five times higher than I would have earned if I had gone down the traditional publishing route.
I originally posted fifty of my drama games onto one page of my website - www.david-farmer.com -
back in 1996, when the opportunity to publish ideas which would be
instantly available across the world seemed quite innovative. I
realised I was onto a good thing in 2005 when I discovered that my
website was top of the Google ratings for "drama games". It seemed my initial altruism had
paid off. However, I was about to go freelance and needed to start
generating my own income. Suddenly I had a bright idea. I would bundle even more of my ideas into an e-book and try selling it.
I went through all my notebooks and put together an electronic edition of 101 games and exercises, leaving a lot
fewer freely available on the website. Using the facilities of www.payloadz.com
and www.paypal.com, I enabled people to automatically download the PDF file. Immediately the e-book started
to fly off the virtual shelf. I
was soon earning royalties without lifting a finger – with the added
bonus that the only cost involved was the relatively small Paypal fee
on each transaction and my monthly payment of a few dollars to
Payloadz. The fact that there was still free content on the website
kept it high in the Google ratings and I spent a lot of time honing the
blurb on the sales page.
After the initial splurge, sales settled down to a fairly reasonable
level. Because they downloaded the book, a lot of
people sent me emails, including some very positive comments
that I was able to use on the website. E-books seemed quite popular
with people who were happy to browse through them on their computer or
even print them out. Added to this, there was virtually no delay
between paying for the book and getting hold of a copy – a boon for
teachers working late at night in any part of the world. However I began to wonder whether
there were more customers out there who might like to purchase a real
book to carry around and use on a day-to-day basis.
In 2006 I discovered a new technology – Print on Demand (POD). It had
suddenly become possible to simply upload a Word document to a website,
have it converted into an Acrobat file and printed out as a paperback
(or hardback). The real beauty of POD is that the book is immediately
available worldwide and you can order as few or as many copies as you
wish. I decided to try it out. There was a lot of work to be done in
formatting the book to the correct size, proofing the text, checking
the layout and producing a cover. Keen to learn new skills, I spent a great deal of time learning the techniques involved and designed
the cover myself using Photoshop. When everything was
finally ready, I uploaded my files to www.lulu.com (one of the first
automated POD websites), sat back, crossed my fingers and waited.
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