BookWise Publishing, with Karen Christoffersen

A special thanks to Karen Christoffersen!

www.bookwisepublishing.com

[email protected]

She does free 30 minute consultations!

 

Become a patron to Writing in the Tiny House today.

patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

 

The following is a transcript of this episode. The complete transcript can be found on the show’s website.

 

Devin Davis:  If you are looking to do a book on your own, then you need to get to know Karen Christoffersen owner of Book-wise Publishing. She assisted me in doing my first two books and she is actually our guest today on Writing in the Tiny House.  Hello. Hello. Hello, and welcome to the show. Welcome back to Writing in the Tiny House.

[00:00:49] I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy living in the tiny house who is here to show you ways to get that novel written. Even if you are the busiest person in the whole world. And today we have a special guest. And before I do a really big introduction, let's go ahead and meet her. This is Karen Christoffersen. She is a producer and the owner of Book-wise Publishing.  

[00:01:18] Karen Christoffersen: Hi Devin. I'm so excited to be able to do this with the Writing in the Tiny House. I thought that the title of your podcast was delightful. And so the fact that you've invited me to be on it is, is an honor. 

[00:01:35]Devin Davis: I have known Karen for, forever, it seems. Her son and I are very good friends. And back in my early twenties, when I wrote my first book As Magic Shifts, it was Karen who did all of the heavy lifting to get it published and to produce it and to clean it up and to move all of the moving parts to form this cohesive picture we call a book. And the first book I wrote As Magic Shifts was published under CMS publishing, which at the time was owned by Karen Christoffersen, and then later she moved to Book-wise Publishing. And my second book, The Witch's Pupil was published under Book-wise.

[00:02:25] Karen Christoffersen: Book-wise publishing was started back in 2006 when there was a company called Book-wise and Company owned by Richard Paul Evans, number one New York times bestselling author, and several partners who decided they wanted to create a publishing arm. And they called it Book-wise Publishing and came to me and asked me, because I'm a producer, if I would produce a hundred books for a hundred new authors. As a producer, all we do is start a project and finish it. I was doing television commercials, radio commercials, motion pictures. I was doing all kinds of production as a producer, but I'd done two non-fiction books for Richard.  It's a piece of cake, you know, you start, you finish. And so I said, sure, I can do that. And of course, my dad taught me never to say no. He said, just go out and find out how to do it. And so I ended up surrounding myself with a lot of really talented people: editors and illustrators and designers and all kinds of people actively involved in the publishing industry locally and nationally.

[00:03:39] And they made me look very good. And I coordinated everything. And so I've been doing that since 2007, 'cause we started that the second year and after a year and a half, Richard decided that, and by the way, Richard was only doing endorsements. He wasn't doing anything. I was operating the business alone. And after a year and a half, he decided he really didn't want the liability anymore. I'm pretty sure that's why. And besides he had his irons in so many fires at the time, he was just going gangbusters, doing all kinds of things. And he sold it to me for a dollar. The branding alone for Book-wise Publishing was worth $20,000. Plus, you know, there were other parts to the company that had value. And so I said, sure, I'll do that. It did take me because there were a hundred authors and then they added another 50 when they added a program called Write-Wise. So I had 150 authors that I was responsible for producing their books.

[00:04:43]And out of the $5,000 they paid, I only got 1300 to work on their books. So it took me a couple of years to get the company in the black, but obviously not all of those hundred and 50 authors came back and finished your books. So I eventually just continued doing more and more and more until today.

[00:05:07]Devin Davis: Karen has been doing this for more than 14 years, and she has produced more than 500 books, anything from paper back ,to hard back, to board books, to tub books, to eBooks and audio books.She ha s a team of talent that can do it all and can do all of the things. And so she has become a very valuable resource for anybody who wishes to self publish. 

[00:05:38] Karen Christoffersen: My goal is to make my authors as happy as I possibly can. So when I put that book in their hands, it's like putting that baby in her mother's arms. It's a moment of just pure joy, and that's what I look for. 

[00:05:53]

[00:05:53] Devin Davis: So Karen estimates that the expense of producing a book is about $3,000. My personal estimation is closer to $5,000. And many authors get a book finished, they write it, they edit it and they go through the entire huge process of getting a manuscript ready. And now it's printed, or it is available to order in the ebook form or whatever, they have this finished product, but many of them just don't know what to do next.

[00:06:26]Karen Christoffersen:  If we can just get authors atuned to the fact that this is a small business.  The startup business is tough and you have to build and you have to stick with it. Well, a book is like that as well. You have to be on there every day. You know, write a blog, do a newsletter. You must have a website. Websites are very inexpensive to do now. The hard part is selling it. 

[00:06:54] So if people start off from the beginning, I remember Richard Evans told me, he said if I had started collecting email addresses when The Christmas Box first came out, he said, I've had millions of names, but he didn't start collecting addresses for like 10 years. And so that's one thing that I can't convince enough authors to do is to go out there and start building that list.

[00:07:21] Tell your friends to share. Tell your friends to send this to their friends and ask your friends if you can have their email address. 

[00:07:29]Devin Davis: So where to get started. The process of writing a book has so many steps and so many different professionals to bring in on board to the project that it is so easy to lose track of what you need to do. It is easy to lose your steam and it is easy to lose focus. So, what Karen has put together is called the Book-wise Publishing Boiler  Plate and she passed this document onto me.

[00:07:59] It is updated regularly. The one that I have  was current as of July 7th, 2021. And it goes through and outlines step by step, the different things that you need to do in the writing process to produce a book, to get to that finish line of having a book. And then we move on a little bit to marketing after that.

[00:08:27] So if you are interested in the Book-wise Publishing Boiler Plate document, go ahead and email me. My email is [email protected]. And I will be able to send that to you so that you can see what Book-wise Publishing has put together. As far as that is concerned.  

[00:08:49] Karen Christoffersen: One thing I think is really important is that if you are a serious writer, if you're serious about completing a book, you need two books, you need your book, but you also need a journal. And write in your journal every day what you do, whether you write 10 pages, whether you call so-and-so who knows an editor or an agent or whatever is happening in your book life, keep a journal of it because you're going to want to refer back to that sometime. And you will have valuable information that you don't even know was valuable at the time you received it. So two books.

[00:09:29]Devin Davis: Sometimes as business owners and as people who are creative, we failed to see the importance of record keeping. So with different things like this  with having your manuscript that you are working on and then keeping track of the things that you did to progress that manuscript that can serve you in many different ways. It can show you, first of all, exactly how you did it so that you can do it again when you move on to your second manuscript. It can also serve as kind of a force to lift you up. If you are feeling down, if you are feeling unmotivated, you can look back to the specific days where you pushed through and did a lot and accomplished a lot, and had a really successful day, as far as production goes, and you can replicate what you did to get past that and to do it again. And so record keeping is very, very important in a small business, not only just the financial side, but also what you have done for production. 

[00:10:42] With me, I have my book, well, my two books. I now have two books, two manuscripts that I'm working on. I also have this podcast that I need to keep track of. With the podcast, I don't keep track of all of the notes that I have taken for each episode, but I definitely have a planner because this is a regular release schedule. And so I need to be organized and I need to think ahead.

[00:11:08] And if I ever want to have days off, it means that I need to get things done beforehand to earn those days off or to prepare for them. So with books, I have done the book writing before I know how to do that. And I know the people that I need to get ahold of for the next steps, because I've done that too. And I never did keep a second journal, but I also recommend doing that just as Karen pointed out.

[00:11:36]But also something, another thing that Karen does,  and this was surprising to me, Karen has an entire career built around producing and around marketing. And so Karen has spent her entire adult life writing the short stuff, saying impactful things in a very short amount of time, because in marketing, you don't have pages and pages to build or to develop.

[00:12:06] You get to hit them hard and you get to say the important things in a good, meaningful  way right away. And so Karen writes the short stuff. With my books, she wrote the blurbs on the back of the covers because she's good at that. And she knows how to do the small things well. And so when she moves on to share with me something else that you will hear here in a second, I was completely surprised and delighted by this little gift that she shares.

[00:12:44] Karen Christoffersen: I was going to read to you just a little thing. 'Cause I don't write books.

[00:12:48] I do a lot of writing, but I don't write books because I have too much work to do just editing. I decided to write as what I call a fictionalized narrative based on true events. And I bring other people in like, you know, the boy in my neighborhood who was my friend and his quote from his point of view, what he sees happening in my life.

[00:13:13] But I thought it might be fun just to read a tiny little excerpt.  So I would like your response to these four short paragraphs. You're ready for this? 

[00:13:25] Okay. Now I grew up in a trailer  in a tiny home and and I had a sister who played Elvis Presley all the time.

[00:13:34] And my big brother,  12 years older than me. He looked like Elvis Presley.  I thought Elvis was my brother.  And I liked big words. This is when I was five years old. But even when I was five years old, I liked big words. So this is four paragraphs for inspiration for you guys. 

[00:13:52]Butch was my friend. He was about 10 or 11, and I was five. Butch had a dog named Gunner. He was a big German shepherd, mostly black, but he had a lot of golden fur in his face and he was beautiful. He was bigger than me, probably twice my size, a happy dog, always looked like he was grinning, kind of like me. Dad called me a grinning idiot.

[00:14:15]Butch had to keep him on a long rope because we didn't have fences. So Gunner had to be leashed when we were at school. And I lived right on Route 66 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. So it was a nasty road. I remember riding the school bus home one day. And as we got to our stop right in front of our trailer park, there was a dark something in the middle of the road, a ways in front of the bus.

[00:14:37]I didn't think anything about it at the time, but when we walked to our trailers, I noticed Butch was looking around and couldn't find Gunner. He called him, and Gunner would always come when he heard Butch call  but not this time. And then I knew what that black thing in the middle of the road was.

[00:14:55] And I was sick at heart, sick to my stomach, and didn't know what to do. Butch and his dad dug a hole near the back of their trailer space I remember it was in the spring because the wild flowers were in bloom and I picked a bunch to put on his grave. Butch was pretty stoic. I liked that word.

[00:15:12] It meant strong and quiet-like I loved big words, even as a child. I knew he was hurting, but he didn't have to show it. I liked that. He could hurt inside, but he didn't have to show everybody and make a fuss. At my house, someone was always making a fuss. That kind of quiet strength really impressed me. I wanted to be like that, but I was a girl and girls, well, we're usually not the epitome of quiet strength.

[00:15:40] The role model I had at the time was just the opposite. I remember standing there as Butch's dad shoveled dirt into the hole, singing quietly to myself, "You ain't nothing but a hound dog crying all the time, nothing but a hound dog." It was my requiem for Gunner. He was a good dog, a loyal and loving one. Died on Route 66, just east of Albuquerque.

[00:16:06] And that is my tiny excerpt from my narrative. And I wanted to write it in such a way that my kids would actually read it. And so I bring this up because anybody out there who is thinking about writing the book and thinks they can't write a book. Well, I thought I couldn't write a book, but I I'm starting to think I might be able to, because I read a few of these pieces to my children and they liked them and ask for more.

[00:16:38]Devin Davis: So there you have it. Anyone can write a story. And a lot of us want to write some form of memoir, either for ourselves, for our lives or for a loved one. Like Caroline Nadine Helsing did in one of those previous episodes. And you should. And it is fun to bring focus to the idea of a fictional narrative based on real events and how that can be just fine and a beautiful way to do your own narrative or your own memoir or the memoir of a loved one.

[00:17:14] It can be fun. It can be entertaining. It can be more memorable that way. If you choose to incorporate those elements as well, just as Karen is choosing to do with her own personal memoirs. I know that I will, when I do my own stuff later on in life, I'm not interested in writing a memoir today. But if you are interested in reaching out to Book-wise Publishing, do their website at www.bookwisepublishing.com. And if you want to reach out to Karen Kristofferson herself,  her email is [email protected]. It has three Z's in a row. Uh, I will include that email address and a link to the website in the notes of the show.

[00:18:03] Also, again, referring back to the boiler plate document. If you want to get a hold of that, feel free to reach out to me. My email address is [email protected]. And I would be able to send that over to you. 

[00:18:18]That's it for today. A big shout out to my patrons who help make this show what it is. If you wish to become a patron, you will get early access to this content, you could get an additional episode every month and you could spend quality time with me over some private chat features in Discord.

[00:18:35] Just go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to sign up to become a patron today. Also, be sure to follow me on social media. On Instagram I am @authordevindavis, on Twitter I am @authordevind. And thank you so much for listening. Be sure to be on the lookout for next week's episode, where we will be hearing from author AJ Mac, who wrote The Gem State Siege during NaNoWriMo last year. So that is coming up next week. Thank you so much, guys. Have fun writing.