By Janette Turner

“Sleep? At (age) 62, it’s highly overrated,” said local micro-publisher and coach Emily Hill recently, while staying awake checking international book sales for her press, A.V. Harrison Publishing, and tweeting to her followers. Her round-the-clock efforts helped her sell “close to 4,000 books in the past 18 months.”

Those numbers put her well above the 200-book average sales for self-published works and led to her latest project, coaching two local authors, Gretchen Houser and Kizzie Jones, on the upcoming release of their self-published books. Throughout the year, My Edmonds News will follow the group’s progress. Here they are on the starting line.

Gretchen Houser: “Once Too Often”
Houser’s forthcoming book is titled, “Once Too Often,” and is about an 11-year-old boy with an absent father, and a colorful, but damaged, mother. Set in the 1980s, the boy visits his granddad and learns the truth about his family and himself. As a teaser, Houser provided a favorite line from her book: “I just kept thinking, so this was how lovers were with each other.”

“Gretchen is a much-published author,” said Hill. “She has national name recognition that will help her launch her social media profile. Eighty-percent of her sales will come from women, and women love to make friends.”

Houser and Hill became friends while fellow members of The Ladies Writing Club of Perrinville. As publishing coach, Hill will assist with Houser’s social media platform and book design. Hill believes the key to a good cover is to match the genre and, for Houser’s book, they imagine a boy sitting on a porch, to convey Houser’s “Southern voice.”

Kizzie Jones: “A Tall Tale About a Short Long Dog: How Dachshunds Came to Be”

According to Jones, her book is a tall tale that “conveys a deep sense of compassion and appreciation for community, collaboration, and diversity, while being informative about marine life” and explaining how dachshunds came to be. Her book will be released in October, after she selects a cover with Hill’s in-house designer. In September, Hill will work with Jones on the “actual electronic publishing (ePub) process.”

Hill believes Jones’ strength is her “commitment to publish a professional (grade) product that will stand the test of time.” Jones’ challenge will be “the same challenge that faces every single emerging author nowadays: building a community of interested readers.” Taking Hill’s advice, Jones already has advance orders from fans on the East Coast who know her from her dachshund interests. Jones’ background in spiritual care gives her an ease in forging associations between others, and in seeing all creatures as connected, including her beloved dogs and aquatic animals. Her favorite line from her soon-to-be-released book reads: “Soon the sea creatures realized no single one of them would be the right companion.”

Emily Hill: Publishing coach
“Let’s stop for a moment,” said Hill, about to outline the distinction between a writer and an author. “A writer is someone who writes, and an author is someone who is published and derives income from their writing.”

Nancy Naigle is one author who meets the standard, and hired Hill to assist with ePub efforts. “Nancy is a very successful author,” said Hill, explaining that Naigle had been with a traditional publisher before the economy sank, leaving her adrift with other mid-list authors.

From Virginia, Naigle had seen Hill’s Tweets, and determined she was a “friendly force.” Reading Hill’s helpful book on self-publishing, Naigle decided to ask her 20 questions for $40. “(Hill is) so thorough,” said Naigle in a recent phone interview. “She’s so easy to talk to. She taught me how to do page breaks and fonts. She figured everything out every time. She’s my call-a-friend-lifeline.”

Naigle started her ePub career by co-authoring a novel, tilted ‘inkBLOT,’ and went on to pen and publish, ‘Sweet Tea and Secrets,’ using a nearby town, Adams Grove, Virginia, as inspiration for her fictional series. Naigle offers Southern advice for self-publishing authors: “Don’t try too hard.” In her social media marketing, Naigle writes about living in a small town, juggling a bank job, and baking brownies for her husband’s club. Her mantra is to make one good connection a day, and let the rest fall in place.

Naigle’s efforts are paying off.  She attended Book Expo 2011 and was impressed with the folks from Amazon and the launch of their new lines. “They said they’d like to buy my Adams Grove series,” said Naigle, about her reissue set for November. In February 2013, ‘Wedding Cake and Big Mistakes,’ the second book in her series, will be released for bridal season. She is “tickled” with Amazon’s Montlake Romance marketing and reach, and keeps up with her share of publicity, hitting book clubs, like BookClubBabes of Salt Lake City, via Skype. Another Naigle recommendation is offering e-books for free one day on Amazon. “I picked January 23,” said Naigle, hoping to hit 2,500 downloads of ‘Sweet Tea and Secrets.’ “At 9:30 in the morning, Amazon had given away over 10,000 copies, and before 5 p.m., 20,000, and by the end of the night, 33,000. It was a huge thrill.” One caveat is that post-free day, she received her first snarky review. But as she sees it, one person’s favorite book is not everyone’s cup of tea.

Hill met another traditionally-published author, Kevin Myers, while trading Tweets when he needed a coach. “I wanted to work with someone who had been on the New York Times Bestseller List,” said Hill. She e-formatted and “buddy-marketed” Myers’ book, ‘Weight Loss for Wimps.’

Via an email interview, Myers laid out the difference between his traditional publishing past and his present life as an ePub author: “Nothing gets done unless YOU get it done….However, if you choose to go with Amazon (which I did), you have the largest, most successful book marketing company in the world marketing your book 24/7. The other major difference is royalty split. A new author will make 15% royalty from a traditional publisher, whereas the indie author will get anywhere from 100% down to 35%. Another major difference is speed to market. With indie/micro-publishing, you can have a book written, launched and selling on Amazon, for example, within a week start-to-finish. I did this with my third book, ‘How to Lose 20 Pounds in 30 Days,’ and it is also a best-selling title. Lastly, I get paid royalties twice a year with my traditional publisher, while I get paid monthly with Amazon and their subsidiary CreateSpace.”

Myers’ experience with Amazon in all phases of book publishing was so positive he “decided several months back to work exclusively with them on the Kindle eBook versions” of his work. He added, “I had some experience with a couple of other major players (Barnes & Noble), but the benefits of working with Amazon are overwhelming, in my opinion.”

And while Myers no longer has a PR person booking him on shows like “Good Morning Dallas” and “Good Morning Oregon,” he feels his time is well-spent marketing on Twitter and Facebook. He strongly recommends coming up with a “pithy/unusual book title – something that sets you apart from your boring competition!”

Hill has also coached fellow local authors as they “took” their books through the ePub process, including Judith Works’ Roman memoir, ‘Coins in the Fountain,’  Dee Diguere with ‘Old Maid Hazel,’ David Gross of ‘Animals Don’t Blush, and the upcoming Jim Blakeway e-book, ‘When the Leaves Fall Early.’

Hill’s advice on making the transition from writer to author is, in her words, “a 10,000-hour proposition that takes an understanding of the publishing industry, a talent for social media marketing, and impeccable grammar and writing skills.” She expects Jones, Houser, and every writer she takes on to make a 30-hour a week commitment to sell their books. “Nowadays,” said Hill, “a published book that is not marketed is a published book that is not selling.”

Hill also requires expert editing and a professional cover, in-house services she offers her clients. Houser even serves as in-house editor for Hill, and is fine-tuning Jones’ book. When ready to publish, Hill guides clients to upload “just like a uploading a photo” to Amazon’s umbrella of independent publishing services: KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) Amazon for the electronic version, and CreateSpace, which uses several print shops in the United States. Hill tells her clients to expect to pay $39 to upload, and $2 to $3 for a print book copy.

Some other Hill tips include: “Do not sell your book at 99 cents because that says ‘amateur without a coach.’ It is better to price your full-length novels at $3.99-4.99, and your ‘shorts’ at $2.99. Start tweeting six months before your title comes out. Know your market and love them because you are going to hang out in their online clubs.”

Hill follows her own recommendation by marketing 90 minutes daily in social media, and promoting her books through NovelPublicity, GoodReads, and BookBuzzer. In her spare time, she teaches classes on self-publishing on Udemy.

Emily Hill: A.V. Harrison Publishing
Although often acting as a coach, Hill also runs a micro-publishing house, A.V. Harrison Publishing. According to Hill, the reason to go through a publishing house, instead of self-publishing, is to use her connection to Ingram Imprints. That connection allows her house’s books to be placed in libraries and sold in bookstores.

When asked about her greatest challenge as a publisher, Hill said, it is “turning down writers who are not ready to be authors.” Another challenge is the dreaded “single star Amazon review,” which hit a book she purchased for re-release under her press. “‘Mexico on a Motorcycle: Riding out the Recession,’ is by a biker who had been to Mexico on a pretty amazing trek,” said Hill. Unfortunately a reviewer mistakenly said there were only 20 photos in the book, when there were actually 100. “There is no way for an author or publisher to fight that kind of sniper fire,” said Hill. “It could be someone who personally doesn’t like the author…It might have been smarter to (re-release the book under a different name), but I kind of like the title a lot!”

Emily Hill: Author
Hill’s debut book, ‘Jenkins: Confederate Blockade Runner,’ took over a decade to write. Her research of the real-life C.T. Jenkins and his 1800s pursuit of independence brought her an audience with other Confederate chat room and Facebook fans, but her “tipping point” did not hit until she realized she needed not one great book, but multiple titles.

“My tipping point was nine books,” said Hill, outlining how she went from making $400 her first year, $4000 the next, and getting on track to make $12-18,000 this year, including her coaching work with clients. Hitting the Kindle Top Ten for seven months in her genre with ‘Ghost Stories and The Unexplained: Book One,’ Hill follows her own marketing advice when she wears the “author” hat. She spends hours each day marketing her ghost stories around the world, and finds a short cycle from concept to print is the best route to success.

As part of her packaging, Hill’s covers are designed in-house by Kathy Humphries, with book trailers by Lynette Phillips, and U.K. translation by Anita Davies. Her favorite line from one of her books is: “Now that my mother is dead, her story can be told.” With her ghost stories being sold around the world while others sleep, Hill’s success as an author is materializing.

Coming Up: The launch
My Edmonds News will follow Hill and her clients, Houser and Jones, as they publish and promote their books through the end of the year. We’ll see if they heed Hill’s mantra: “Write locally – market globally!”