Column: a DIY book, by way of some help from Twitter pals

My latest Publishers Weekly column, "With a Little Twitter Help," describes the invaluable aid I've gotten in my ongoing self-publishing project, With a Little Help, by asking my readers through Twitter for help. I've now got a functional SD card cloner, free packaging materials, and a website design, and as soon as a few technical/contractual details are ironed out with Lulu.com, I'll be ready to launch:

Soon after, another realization hit me: I still had no idea how to ship these things. I used to run the mailroom at Bakka Books, the SF store in Toronto, and I got very good at improvising cardboard book mailers out of scrap boxes. But I really wanted something less labor-intensive. I'd planned on using a 4mm cardboard book box, similar to the ones used by Amazon for single-book mailings. I'd then pad the book inside. I'm charging $275 apiece, so I figure I better make sure the books arrive intact! I was just about to order some bubble-wrap sleeves when my eyes lit on a small stack of burlap coffee sacks on one of my storeroom shelves.

I love coffee sacks. The burlap is soft but scratchy, tactile, and it smells great--coffee and sisal. I thought, if I got a book wrapped in this, I'd love it. So I cut up a sack and tried tying a book in a couple of configurations. I snapped some pix, put them on Flickr, and tweeted: would you be delighted to get a book wrapped like this, or put off? The chorus of "delighted" was unanimous. So much for less labor intensive--but as an "Internet guy" I must say I'm finding all this physical stuff almost indecently pleasurable. It's like being back in arts and crafts class.

My Twitter followers also pointed out that I'd need a layer of acid-free paper between the books and the burlap to prevent scratching, and several sent in the URLs for Web sites devoted to Japanese fabric wrapping. A few hours later, I got a tweet from the legendary Square Mile coffee roasters here in London. They have more coffee sacks than they know what to do with; could I come and take some, please? Another Twitter follower recommended a cheap cardboard mailer supplier called Zetland. I bought 30 boxes of mailers for £23.80.

With a Little Twitter Help

• [namnezia]

  Something like this is only possible if you are sufficiently well-connected to have a lot of the free services/advice you receive, and are sufficiently well known that someone would pay $275 for a book. It doesn’t really seem like a viable model for self-publishing for widespread use. I was also thinking that for that price, what you are creating is more akin to an artist creating a limited run of a lithography or woodblock print, thus the book/package becomes more of a unique object, more akin to art than to written media. Or similar to the artist’s books produced in the middle of the 20th century.

  Not that I think what you are creating is not cool or not worth the $275, just that calling this “self-publishing” is a bit misleading.

  Good luck with the launch!

  • [nicholaslovell]

    I don’t think that’s the right way to look at it.

    Think of it this way: you could give away your book for free, digitally.

    If people are into your stuff, they’ll buy the personalised, premium edition version.

    The free version is the marketing that self-publishers can’t afford; the premium version is the way to make money.

    Of course this can’t happen overnight, unlike many “overnight” successes, because it can take a long time to build that brand.

    But how many “overnight” successes actually toiled away for a decade or more before being discovered.

    And now we don’t have to wait for someone else to give us permission.

    • [turn_self_off]

      There are also the overnight successes that never repeats, usually because they are “constructed” successes. Tho i guess this is mostly a record industry thing, as there they ever so often drag together composers and pretty faces and tries to make a combination that sells.

• [merialc]

  Self publishing definitely seems to have a lot going for it. A friend recently self published her book (http://danceyourway.co.uk/) with help from twitter/blog friends for proof reading, cover design and illustrations. It might never sell lots of copies, but out of it comes something that the author can be genuinely proud of.

• [lionelbrits]

  Burlap sacks? Hope your pest control is working :)

• [EMJ]

  What does the post office say about the string & all those loose ends?

• [turn_self_off]

  In a way, this reminds me of Accelerando.

• [Darryl]

  I wanted to note that none of this Twitter Help would exist if Cory wasn’t already Internet-famous. You don’t get 80,000 people helping you out unless they’re already following you.

  Twitter is great if you’re already somewhat famous and need some info/ego-massaging, or you have a desire to talk to these famous people and give them free advice. (Ahem.)

  But what do the rest of us get out of it?

• [acrocker]

  Glad I could help, Cory!

• [arbitraryaardvark]

  have you considered shipping in a life box?
  http://www.lifeboxcompany.com/
  these are paul stamet’s plan to save the world, cardboard boxes
  that have mushroom spores and old growth forest seeds, and your customers just plant and water the box and soon, shrooms, and later forest. the boxes aren’t dirt cheap yet but might fit your budget.

• [eeyore]

  @Namnezia

  What do you think you deserve to get out of it?

  Do you imagine that Cory got to 80,000 followers on twitter just by smelling better than the you? He’s spent tens of thousands of hours not only writing good books, but finding the people that would enjoy those books, and letting them know they exist. Sharing and articulating thoughts and ideas, He writes multiple blog posts per day, does lectures and book tours for several months out of the year, and still manages to squeeze in articles and columns for major publications, and teach as well. For every question he asks, he’s answered hundreds.

  Cory didn’t just find his tribe, he’s one of the people that helped create it. When you’ve done 1/3 as much for whatever communities you are part of, you can expect a whole lot of people to sit up and take notice when you go looking for answers to questions too.

  What do you get out of it? You know that this model exists, and that it can work – because Cory spent hundreds of hours on the project learning from other people that have done it, to show you that it can. Just as importantly, other authors and artists learned from it too. People that you might like, or care enough about to buy from. People that might do things that appeal to you more.

  More, you get the answers to the questions Cory asked. You get the distilled benefit of everyone else that has tried this – how it can succeed, and how it can fail. You get more, and better music and books. You get more and better artists, and more and better authors. More ideas, more experiments, more minds at play.

  You get a counter argument to all the pro corporatist shills that believe that ideas must be owned and indexed and invoiced. You get a middle ground that uses IP to reward innovation and creation, instead of choking it in its cradle.

  What’s in it for you? A blind man has little use for a reading lamp, so perhaps nothing.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    Do you imagine that Cory got to 80,000 followers on twitter just by smelling better than the you?

    To be fair, Cory smells like baby unicorn and Belgian chocolate.

    • [AndrDrew]

      Cory – the latest scent from Boing Boing Fragrances.
      Each copy of this book comes with it’s own vial, I am sure.

• [namnezia]

  @eeyore: “What do you think you deserve to get out of it?”

  It’s irrelevant what I “get out of it”, that was not the point of my comment. When did I ask what’s in it for me? I just said that this is not a viable method of self-publishing for everyone, especially someone who is not well known. To say that “anyone can become a published author” through crowdsourcing alone is not quite accurate.