Hello

Looking back on 2023, I made several bold moves. First, I quit my job at Maple River High School after 27 years. As many of you know, my writing routine involved waking up at 5 AM each morning to get my 1K+ words of writing, which helped me produce at least 2-3 books a year. However, it got to be that I’d flop in despair when the clock reached 7, meaning I’d have to head out for school. Nothing against teaching, but I’d “been there, done that.” Quite frankly, I was bored. So along with quitting my day job, I also developed a plan for Lura Publications. 

Why Lura Publications?

A few years ago, I met my mentor, MJ Evans. She’d had her time in the sun with a traditional New York publisher, and with moxy and experience, she created her own company. As an artist and business woman, she could now control the product and also the marketing. For me, I’d spent 20 years as a yearbook editor at Maple River, so I understand desktop graphic design. After my days as an Amazon KDP author, and most recently, with Fox Pointe Publishing, I knew the basics of the publishing world. With a supportive wife, and time on my hands, I had a three month window of opportunity to get things up and running.

Which I wasted.

Honestly, teaching is emotionally exhausting. After finishing my last yearbook in June, I couldn’t add anything to my “to do” list for several weeks, but by August, I knew I had to take the bull by the horns.

What is Lura Publications?

It’s my own company. From the first draft to the first case of books, it’s all mine. Order from me at a book event—that goes into my pocket. Order from my website—that goes into my pocket. I purchase my books from a Minnesota printer, allowing me to even go pick up my book babies directly from the stork. Buying locally, and in bulk, also brings my cost down. I set up a three-tier shelving unit along the back wall of my garage, and having learned in 2021 and 2022 that I can sell several hundred books in a year, I created a stockpile of my titles so I don’t have to worry about the next shipment. Whether I’m shipping a book or selling out of my Durango, your financial support goes directly to me.

Back in 2018, I set-up an LLC (limited liability company). I had just stepped away from Amazon as a KDP author, and I spent a few years honing my craft. I’d just written THE FIRE HANDLER, so I created an LLC to separate my business money from my personal money. At the same time, I set up a separate bank account and tax numbers. Keep in mind, I was still a full-time teacher, so I didn’t have the stamina to do more than a handful of events. The stigma of being an Amazon/KDP author also closed the door to bookstores. After working with a smaller publishing company for two years, I learned more and more and also found myself wanting to be a full-time author more and more. 

So five years after I started, I finished setting up my own publishing company. 

 

Setting Things Up

Thanks to MJ’s tutelage, I learned the ropes on setting up ISBNs with a company named Bowker. In a nutshell, this is the company that controls and organizes the publishing world with those barcodes you see on the back of books. That was September. 

I also had to find editors and graphic designers. Unfortunately, I learned from my KDP days that it takes a village to raise a book so I arranged freelance artists to help me with the stages of book production. 

By the time October rolled around, I was onto the next mountain to climb…Ingram. Over the two decades of publishing (A.D. AMAZON), things dramatically changed for bookstores and libraries. A monolithic company called Ingram offers distribution and ordering systems, so all these independent bookstores got rid of their old Packard Bells running Windows 98 and switched over to Ingram. Unfortunately, I’ve met several authors who were burned BADLY by Ingram. With MJ’s sage help, I set-up five of my titles with Ingram, which allows a bookstore to order inventory from the Ingram printer, saves me from having to run to the post office, and still gives me a reasonable royalty for each book. Painful but I’m getting royalties from international orders now.