The End of the War

End of the War, Beginning of Sainan Books

The Publishing Journey and Business of Books

Hello, Readers! E. Scott Clevenger here!

Sorry that it’s been a while. I was waiting for some feedback, then the holidays happened, then an unexpected illness, then some depression… and well… it just took me some time.

Now, that I’m back, I wanted to talk about how Sainan Books (Greyson and I) started on the path towards publication. (I’ll go into details about how we built the story later).

In late 2023/early 2024, Greyson and I began talking about what publication and our publishing journey meant to us. By this point, I’d put out about forty or fifty queries of “The Manticore’s Shadow,” and gotten a swath of rejections. This wasn’t to be unexpected. We had penned a debut novel (first in a series), classic fantasy (not morally gray or romantasy), and we were sharing a pen name at the time (Graham Clevenger). It was a tough sell. So, Greyson and I had to define our goals. What did publication mean to us?

For Greyson, the bar was pretty simple. He wanted to be able to see our book for sale. Where any stranger could pick up a copy. And that was easy. KDP and Barnes and Noble Press both offer REALLY simple ways to get you published and put out the book quickly. I felt that we could achieve that pretty easily.

My list… was a bit more challenging.

What I wanted was:

1. Our Book in the Library of Congress
2. Our Book being able to be on a shelf in a bookstore.
3. Our Book being at my local library.
4. And of course… people being able to buy it. (That Greyson and I agreed to)

We also had some… impediments.

1. Our first “shared” story had completed… but what about our solo projects? Graham Clevenger can’t write them all… can they?
2. If not… how do we self publish under multiple names?
3. What does marketing mean?

There were things that had to be decided. So, we got to work. Our work as writers had ended, we needed to become authors. We needed to traverse the dark woods that would be our “Publishing Journey.” Our “Hero’s Journey.”

To handle the “business” side of being a duo of independent artists, we decided to create a small partnership company. Sainan Books, LLC. (We had other names, but they were all taken 🙁 )

To handle the distribution, we turned to IngramSpark. Publishing through them would give us a presence in the retail market. Retail Stores, Libraries, and other vendors would have access to our book. While many have expressed difficulty in using their platform, I honestly didn’t have any issues. But to publish with them, we needed… ISBNs.

Turning to Bowker, we looked at ISBNs. A single ISBN was about $125. The ten pack was $300. We decided to bite the bullet and buy a 10 pack of ISBNs. (We had enough projects already in flight, it was an obvious investment.) Our next purchase will be the 100 pack.

Loaded with our ISBN’s we set to publication. $600 on cover art, $400 on web design, $150 on hosting costs… we were now $1500 into the building of our first book and the company to manage it.

Luckily, I’m privileged enough to have a stable day job that afforded me the ability to put this money down. It wasn’t easy, but it was worth chasing my dreams. So, was it worth it?

Well, in November when we launched, we had 140+ sales. $220 worth of “onsite” sales profit and $500 in Compensations due from Ingram. So, we’ve recovered about half of our investment in 3 months.

Is it challenging at times? …. Yes.

Do I want to give up? …. Sometimes.

Will I? …. No. I’m committed to seeing this through.

With my dreams come true (Book in the Library of Congress, on my library shelf, plenty of sales) I’m happy to say that the money will eventually be there. The marks we set were achieved. So what’s next? What’s the new dream?

Eventually, I’d like to build Sainan Books into a full publishing house. Giving opportunities to offer assistance on their publishing journey. To provide a path for voices that may not meet “industry” standards! To help lower the bar for their dreams, but give them the same abilities that Sainan Books afforded Greyson and I.  And also, to teach them the mistakes we made along the way!

Until next time,

Be Kind.

Clevenger

P.S. February is 90 days with “War of Night” being on the market, and our little baby is about to get a “glow up!” Stay tuned!