Friday Feature: Journeys Toward Publication and Beyond: Margaret Golla Publishes TO GNOME ME IS TO LOVE ME

Today is A day in the A to Z challenge. Since I couldn't really make my very serious Friday Feature bend around the whims of A words, I've decided to first share with you an A word from the urban dictionary. This interview today is brought to you by the letter A, for asdfasdfasdf. Which you can type for "help" in situations where you only have the use of one hand. Or as a filler when you don't want to answer an incriminating question. Now on to the interview!!

Everyone give a warm welcome to Margaret Golla!

I had the pleasure of reading Margaret's e-book, Book One of The Goblin's Apprentice: TO GNOME ME IS TO LOVE ME. Here's the blurb:

With summer break almost over, eleven-year-old Kyte Webber is bored to tears. Adventure is hard to find when you lived outside a town called Nowhere, Oklahoma, and the highlight of your summer is looking for a missing garden gnome statue. But when Kyte discovers a very real, very small and very much alive garden gnome by the name of Rory Leafhopper, she wonders what fairy tale she walked into by mistake.

Over the last month, mythical creatures have vanished from around Nowhere—not even a swarm of pixies is to be found—and Rory worries that he’s the last gnome standing. Kyte vows to help him find the others, but when a witch invades Kyte’s dreams, turning her dream into a real nightmare, she learns time is of the essence. During the full moon tomorrow night, the witch intends to brew her magical Mythical stew—and Rory is the missing ingredient!

As Kyte tries to keep Rory safe, she discovers a few facts about herself that her mother had been keeping a secret. Doubts about who she really is confuse her as the gnome is snatched. Now it's up to Kyte to save Rory and free the Mythicals before the witch slices, dices and tosses them into a stew —and get home in time for dinner!

I have to say, I loved spunky Kyte. I loved her quips. For instance:

A cheer would have been nice. Guess a gal couldn't have everything.

Okay. Psycho witch: one. Normal kid: zip.

Maybe if I prayed hard enough a knight in shining armor would show up. Uh, nope. Not even the guy from the Old Spice commercials made an appearance.

The story was in excellent hands with Kyte, and was a satisfying Middle Grade tale. I'm positive that Kyte will delight readers. In fact, check out a middle grade book reviewer's take on the book.

And Margaret is going to GIVE AWAY a free copy of the e-book to the person who leaves the best question or comment here, on this post, before Monday. So get cracking! Want to do some research before leaving your excellent comment? Please check out her blog, or previous Friday Feature.

Margaret, thanks for being here today. You'd been in the trenches for a long time--what made you take matters into your own hands, and self-pub TO GNOME ME IS TO LOVE ME?

It was all about the story.

I think deep down I knew the other stories weren’t good enough, but when I started writing about 11-year-old Kyte Webber, I knew she was special. I tried selling through the traditional methods, but after two years of ‘NO’ or nibbles with ultimate rejections I grew frustrated. NY wasn’t interested in a light fantasy with a female protagonist. They wanted ‘boy’ books, vampires or post-apocalyptic stories. 

 By Christmas of 2010, I had started querying book two in the Goblin’s Apprentice series, The Fast and the FAERIEous. I wasn’t unwilling to keep trying for a NY agent or publisher, but I started hearing from friends and family about their kids or grandkiddies getting e-readers, Ipads, Iphones, Nintendo DSi’s for Christmas. I think the teetering point for me was when I read an article that Nintendo DSi’s had their screens enlarged so kids can use them to download free books.

--personally, I don’t see kids reading on their DSi’s, but it showed that technology was moving in that direction for the younger reader. But do I think I’m ahead of the curve on this one?—YES.

Oh, and GNOMEO AND JULIET came out—I thought I might get some cross-over to my book, TO GNOME ME IS TO LOVE ME. It didn’t happen, but I tried.

What was the actual process of publication like--were there details that drove you crazy? What made you happy?

Verifying for proper formatting drove me bonkers. It wasn’t hard, it was tedious. The happiest part of the process was two-part: picking a cover and still smiling when I re-read the story for the 10th time.

Formatting sounds very tedious--I'm glad you stuck with it. I love the cover! Did you do everything alone, or did you hire any parts out?

I have zero artistic talent, so I paid for my covers. Every other part of the process I did alone with a huge support group of writer friends (some self-pubbed, some traditionally pubbed) and beta readers.

What advice do you have for others who are considering self publication?

Remember: this is YOUR career. Think about the big picture. Don’t waste your time publishing your first book. So many times the first book isn’t good enough. Don’t rely on family and friends to be honest with you—they won’t. They love you and don’t want to hurt your feelings. Find a group of like-minded writers and ask for HONESTY in their critiques. Yes, the truth does hurt, but how will you become a better writer if you don’t know what’s wrong and how to fix things?

I also think you need to have a ‘back list’ ready to publish. The way to get your name out there is to keep putting books up for sale. This is another reason not to publish your first story. It could take upwards of a year or more to have the second book available.

Even if you don’t self-pub, I think every writer needs to be aware of what is happening in the publishing industry. For example, writers who used to write for Dorchester but had their rights to their books returned are still losing money because Dorchester is still selling those books under their umbrella. Yeah, it will get even uglier when more small print presses go under and electronic presses pop up to take an author’s money.

I DID manage to get into the Tulsa World (our local paper). http://bit.ly/f30bDK

Scroll about half-way down the article. Though my name and titles were put out there, it didn’t result in any sales.

I love your suggestion for having a 'back list'. What great advice! Margaret, what have you done to get the word out about your book?

 

I have to admit that I’ve been a little lax on the marketing front. I’ve offered LOST LEPRECHAUN LOOT as a freebie. It’s a companion book to the series. In other words, it involves the same character, Kyte Webber, but in a short, usually themed, adventure instead of the main series. 

I’ve been blogging for years. I have an active presence on Facebook, but I don’t tweet. I’ve currently trying to find book bloggers and reviewers, but middle grade is a tough nut to crack. Many reviewers will only review a print copy, and many of them won’t touch self-publishing. 

In the past, this was perfectly understandable, but it’s a new world of publishing out there. So many NY Times best-selling authors (J. A. Konrath, Barry Eisler, Connie Brockway) are going rogue, and many self-published authors are going NY (Amanda Hocking). It’s an interesting and turbulent time for publishing. 

Hindsight being what it is, would you do anything differently?

To tell you the truth I wouldn’t trade anything for the knowledge that I’ve gained over the years of rejection. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? I wrote romance for six years before I finally admitted to myself that I can’t write romance. I found my writing voice and style when I started writing middle grade, but I had to be comfortable with my writing abilities, strengths AND weaknesses to do it. 

 I still judge numerous writing contests every year because it opens my eyes to my writing flaws. All the query letters that I’ve written, re-written, and wrote from scratch for the umpteenth time for every book I tried to sell (6 of them before GNOME) taught me to write a cover copy. I learned to condense my story into one 25-word logline. And I can write long and short synopses.  

If I didn’t try to play by the game for years, I wouldn’t know how to do this when I self-published—and yes, you do need these skills. The rejections taught me that not everyone will like my stories. It isn’t because they don’t ‘GET’ me, it’s because it isn’t their preference. {shrug} I don’t usually read NYT best-sellers, because they don’t interest me. Same thing.

Are you selling this book exclusively as an ebook? And if so, why?

Yes, I am. Money is a big motivator. I don’t have the kind of cash to fling around to print books, plus hand-selling is overrated. I don’t want to guilt anyone into buying my books, which is why I’m giving away the freebie. If you like my story and want more, you can buy it.

Margaret, I love the cover art--it's so appealing--how did you accomplish that?

I paid someone who is über-talented, Laura Morrigan. http://www.lauramorrigan.com/Laura_Morrigan/Cover_art.html

Whiskey Press just hired her to work with them on their covers . . . I just hope she can still help me out!

She did an amazing job!

Thanks Margaret, for giving us insight into self pubbing an e-book for Middle Graders--I think that you're at the leading edge of this trend. Everyone, please leave Margaret a comment or question. She'll be by to respond, and I'm sure that she won't use asdfasdfasdf more than once to duck a hardball question. :)

And, I for one, will be waiting to follow Kyte's further adventures in Margaret's book two of The Goblin's Apprentice: THE FAST AND THE FAERIEOUS!

Buy TO GNOME ME IS TO LOVE ME:

Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords.