It takes a team to make a book
The world was looking grim back in the winter of 2019-2020, much like it is still grim today. Not only do I tend to be restless in the long cold Dutch winters, but during this particular winter, I needed a way to process all that was going on, specifically the onset of the pandemic and the fact that my country of birth, the USA, was becoming more polarized by the day. I felt a sudden sense of urgency, knowing it could be months, if not years until I could visit my hometown of Gettysburg, or see my family. I’ve lived in the Netherlands since 2004 and had become accustomed to enjoying the best of both worlds, spending summers in the US, and the rest of the year in the Netherlands.
I took a weekend-long memoir writing workshop with Amsterdam Writing Workshops. I loved it so much, I enrolled in a more regular writing group with them. At first we met in person, in the beautiful Beurs van Berlage building near Amsterdam Central Station. Hot tea and cookies were waiting, beautiful stories were shared by fellow writers, and constructive feedback was given by Lisa Friedman, the founder of Amsterdam Writing Workshops. Throughout this process, I became more comfortable with writing, getting words down on the page, and not being afraid to share them. Due to the pandemic, we had to move our meetings online. But the pandemic gave me the time and space to learn more about the actual craft of writing.
Around this time I had been toying with the idea of one day publishing a book. However, it soon became apparent that my chances of making it through the golden gates of traditional publishing were slim to none. Pretty much every single home page of indie and traditional publishers I visited had a statement like ‘please don’t send us your manuscript, we’re not taking on any new work’ or ‘not accepting manuscripts at this time’. I knew early on that I would have to roll up my sleeves and take matters into my own hands. That’s when I met with a woman, Natasja Bijl, whose webinar on Self-Publishing I attended in August 2021. The webinar was part of Vaker in de Media platform (a platform that encourages more female voices in the media world). We met for a coffee at Van der Valk hotel. I picked her brain for a friendly fee, on everything from printing to promotion and I bought her book Maak van je Boek een Succes! I tweaked her handy checklist in the back of the book, adapting it to my own book project.
I know myself well enough by now to know that without some form of accountability, my dream of writing a book was not going to happen. Around this time I was introduced to another American who happened to be in Amsterdam (from LA) during the pandemic. Coincidently we have the same last name, but no relation - Andie Huber. We had a nice click and when I learned she was a professional editor, I asked her if she could be my developmental editor and more importantly accountability partner. We made a deal that I would submit 1 chapter every 2 weeks. While she went through to edit that chapter, I would work on the next, then go through your feedback on the previous chapter, and so on. We would meet occasionally to discuss in person or hash things out over the phone if I was stuck on a scene or character. I had a ‘flexible’ outline to keep the structure and know roughly where the story was going. During this writing phase I listened to loads of podcasts on writing and read several books (all of which I’ll share in a separate blog in the near future;)
Fast forward 6 months and I had a solid draft. I then did a search on LinkedIn for editors and Rebecca Blunden, a British woman living in the Hague popped up. I compared her profile to a few others and reached out to see if she could do copy-line editing of my manuscript, with some light developmental editing.
While this second editing round was taking place to make the text even stronger, I came across an illustration on Instagram done by a Dutch artist, Eveline Wijdeveld, living in Pennsylvania. The type of illustration she made I felt was perfect for the book cover, so I reached out to her for a quote. Around the same time, I reached out to a woman I met through Spark, a platform for female entrepreneurs that I ran for five years leading up to the pandemic. I remembered this woman, Cigdem Guven, was a graphic designer. I asked Cigdem to help with the cover design. Lisa Hall, another woman I knew through Spark, does interior book design. In fact, she and Cigdem work on projects together more often. I commissioned Lisa do to the layout.
I then had a beta-reader round, asking 4 readers in my target audience, 2 were friends and 2 were strangers (posted about it on facebook). Then Rebecca did one final proofread before the book went off to layout with Lisa. I asked another friend Colleen Geske who wrote the bestseller Stuff Dutch People Like to write a review quote for the back cover, and got permission from former photographer Ami Elsius to use the headshot she had recently took of me as the author photo. I met with my neighbor, who used to run a book binding company, to pick his brain about paper weight and book size. I ended up using the same printer Natasja Bijl used, Tipoprint, because I was actually able to speak with a human being when I had a question. Their account manager Koos was available to answer my questions, and their pricing was reasonable.
In October 2021, I self-published my debut novel PLACE! This would not have been possible without the 16+ people involved! It takes a team to make a book. That’s way more players than a basketball team! Wanting to help others do exactly what I did, self-publish a book that looks like it’s the same quality as a traditionally published book, I gathered many of these stellar people with their professional skillsets and formed Storyhouse Works. Many platforms out there offer basic tools, but few provide hands-on, step-by-step guidance like we do at Storyhouse Works. Now it’s your turn.
