Monday, June 15th, 2015
Tech helps area residents publish books on their own
By Jared Mauch
Photo by Jared Mauch/The Daily Standard
Alexis Richter sits with a copy of "The Big Race." Richter created the book with her mother, Teresa Richter. The book tells younger children about the importance of bicycle helmet safety and concussions.
The drive to help people overcome grief and personal loss and to share inspirational works led one local author to self-publish a book.
Luan Louis, a former MRI technologist from New Knoxville, self-published "Now is Not Forever: A Grief Journal of Hope" in 2011 to help readers overcome tragic loss. In the book, she shares many of the inspirational writings that helped her overcome the loss of her first husband in 2004.
"This book is God's project. I have some poems that I wrote in here," she said.
The book includes Bible verses, poems, devotionals and excerpts that hold deep meaning for her.
The process started in 2004 when her first husband passed away. She remarried a few years later and began compiling excerpts for the journal.
She found inspirational writings in her devotionals and magazines and began to track them in her personal journal.
"I always thought that this stuff could help somebody else someday and so as I wrote things down, I would jot down where I got it from," Louis said.
She started lending her journal to people experiencing loss; soon she was making copies and giving them to people at her church.
Louis wanted to offer the book to more people but was told at a writers conference she would need marketing strategy and research before a publisher would consider accepting the book. The effort seemed overwhelming, and she decided to self-publish instead.
Louis was assisted by smaller publisher West Bow Publishing to help her create the journal, which has sold about 200 copies.
She thanked God for giving her the opportunity to help people.
"I've received letters from people who say that it has helped them so much. I've had phone calls from people as well," Louis said.
Other local aspiring authors have also joined the self-publishing trend.
Nancy Alber, a former art teacher from Celina, published her first book, "The Secret Box Canyon," this year.
"I knew what needed to be done but really wasn't sure how to accomplish that," she said.
Alber's cousin Molly O'Brian helped her access Amazon.com's CreateSpace and download the necessary programs to begin writing a book.
She contacted local artist Kristi Schwieterman to illustrate the book but created the cover artwork herself.
Her interest in storytelling came from sharing stories with her family and reading to her two children, Julie and Tom, who are the book's main characters.
"When they were young, every night when I would put them to bed I would either read to them or make up a story. This story was one of their favorites," Alber said. She now has plenty of free time, so she decided to publish the story so other children can enjoy it.
The book tells children how to overcome bullying in nonviolent ways.
"I think in today's society there's a lot of bullying and issues with that for children. I wanted children to see that they could be successful with their own thoughts and their own attributes without having to do something else," Alber said.
Conveying messages in books is important to Alber, who taught at Immaculate Conception and Celina High School.
"I really think it is important to empower and help children become the strongest they can be. I mean mentally strong and mentally alert and brave and adventuresome," she said.
After she wrote her story, CreateSpace editors proofread the text and helped her place the illustrations.
"I had a list saying I wanted this image on this page and this image on that page," she said.
She made most of the decisions about placing the text and pictures but font styles and colors were chosen by CreateSpace personnel. Alber had final approval over the published version. She did not say how many copies have sold so far.
Alexis Richter, of New Bremen, this spring also published a children's book. Her text about bicycle helmet safety was based on Head for a Cause-Concussion Awareness, her platform for Miss Ohio and the Miss America contests.
"With the Miss America organization we work a lot with kids with Children's Miracle Network. I wanted to find a way to reach out to children and I thought that would be a story book," Richter said.
She received a degree in neuropsychology from the University of Cincinnati this year, which also led to her choice of topics.
The process started in November with Richter writing and her mother, Teresa, illustrating.
The two worked on the format of the book themselves and had Globus Printing in Minster print it.
The story is about a boy, Charlie, who loves bike safety day at school and features a bicycle race. The book shows children proper safety tips and explains basic concussion information at their level, Richter said.
She has sold about 30 copies of the book so far.
Louis said self-publishing has benefits. Authors keep ownership or rights to their book, she said.
"Some people think they can make more money by selling their book on their own via book signings, book fairs, speaking engagements because with those sales, you keep all profits," she said.
Online sales net about the same as with royalty publishing, Louis said. If authors sell their book through a distributor or online, they get only about 10 percent of the profit, just as if they were working with a royalty publisher, she said.
Royalty publishers often want to invest only in publishing well-known authors, she said.
A variety of outlets exist for would-be authors. They can use CreateSpace, the BookWright program, the website Lulu or Adobe InDesign.
Publishing a book can be rewarding, the authors said.
"It was an enjoyable experience. It just took longer than I originally envisioned. I thought I would just send everything in and it would be all done. I'm more adept and more technically savvy and able to do it," Alber said.
"It was a fun experience," Richter said.
"I found it as a fun project. I found it rewarding and I learned a lot of things through the process. It was exciting," Louis added.
Louis learned about making and maintaining a website and public speaking to promote the journal and Alber learned how to make her vision a reality.
Alber and Louis both have second books in the works.
Alber's second book entitled "Camp Lego" is a collection of short stories set on the shores of Grand Lake St. Marys.
Louis' next book is still in the draft stages, she said. It is a more personal book chronicling events over the past few years.
Richter is considering a follow-up book depending on this one's success but did not see writing as a potential career.
Photo by Jared Mauch/The Daily Standard
Pictured is "Now is not Forever: A Grief Journal of Hope," the first published book by Luan Louis of New Knoxville.
Photo by Jared Mauch/The Daily Standard
Pictured is "The Secret Box Canyon," the first book by author Nancy Alber of Celina. The story is about her two children, Julie and Tom, who overcome a bully in a nonviolent way.
