Small steps towards finished objects

Thanks to the baby who will not settle in the evenings, I've not been doing too much knitting and the focus was on getting that puppet theatre done. I'm really pleased with the puppet theatre, and so is Cubling, she went straight into playing out her favourite fairy tales (and is running about the house with snow white and the prince kissing each other).

Still, some tiny weeny objects did get done. I'd been wondering for a while what the best project for some lovely 100g skein of Shetland bulky wool (Jamieson's Marl - a grey/blue mix of lovely thick and warm wool). I'd unravelled the TV remote holder because it just looked wrong - this yarn was meant for something warm. So it became this (short) scarf for a very special Grampa to keep him warm on the golf course. I know it's the wrong season, but nevermind. I was rather pleased that I managed to make it as long as possible with the one skein I had. I didn't use a pattern, just made it up as I went along.

My friend J has come up with a great fundraising idea for Cosgrove Care - the idea is to knit 100 objects and auction them in aid of the local charity. There is a regular knitting evening in the Cosgrove Care charity shop on Skirving Street in Shawlands where knitters can also chat and those who would like to knit but don't know how can learn it from the more experienced knitters. I knew that any ambitious project would stand the chance of not being completed, so I went for some more bulky yarn. I found this super soft  and super pink yarn in a charity shop and initially thought this is ideal for my pink fairy princess, but hoping that maybe it would go to the fundraising initiative. I found a Rowan booklet with a quick hat pattern - meant for adult size but with even bigger yarn and bigger needles, so I chanced it and cast on with size 7.5 mm instead and my slightly thinner yarn and hurray, it all came together beautifully.

Just that Cubling was just about to be persuaded to try it on for me to take a photo (much persuasion needed) but did not want to keep it. Apparently she just wants the light pink and no two pinks in her hat. Fine then, it'll be auctioned then! So the hat fits a 3-4 year old head (the yarn is stretchy, so it may fit from 2-5), is super soft and pink and has cute earflaps. It's really quite lovely. Any offers? All to go to Cosgrove Care of course.

And the winner is...

Oh yes I'm late announcing the winner of the A Hat in Time competition. Apologies all around. If you follow me on twitter, you may have noticed that I did announce the winner about a week ago. Part of the delay was my fault, for life getting a bit too busy and simply forgetting when I had plan to draw the lucky winner. Then the winner was on holiday and lastly I tweeted about it and it took me a bit longer to post it here too. I tried this random generator thingy for the draw and despaired, my lovely colleague L thankfully volunteered to use the traditional way of drawing a name from a hat.
Which is rather fitting, don't you think?
Even if it wasn't a knitted hat. Darn, should have thought of that one!
 


So, the lucky winner is tamtata taaa!  Laura P. !!!!
If you're disappointed that your name wasn't drawn, you can of course still get your very own copy. A Hat in Time: 37 hats to knit and crochet is sold as a print copy (£7.50 plus postage), or an ebook (£5 on Lulu and $10 on Ravelry) and you can buy securely through the links on ahatintime.blogspot.com. Remember all profits (that is every single penny) go to Save the Children towards their work in the UK, so you're not just getting a nice book!

You can also support the project by tweeting about the book, liking the facebook page and generally telling you friends about it. Did I say the book makes a lovely present for any knitters and crocheters you know?

Laura, congratulations and I hope you like the book!

How to publish a charity book

I have to giggle at the title of this post. You see, a while back, I had this ingenious idea of publishing a hat knitting and crochet book for charity. I was sure to make millions with it all for a very good cause, which would be Save the Children. Honestly, I thought my idea was fabulous and I'd come out the expert on how to publish a charity book.

Actually, I still think it's a reasonably good idea. And, as a third sector employee who is constantly whipped to do monitoring and evaluation and come up with reports of learning (euphemism for stuff that went wrong and how to do it better next time), let's have a go at my "learning" over the last six months.

I learned that it is a lot of work pulling together a book. Fortunately there were some weeks where my workload was low and I had the flexibility to work on the book. I would never have managed it in my own time. Now that my workload is crushing, it's almost impossible to move anything on. If I look at current sales, there is no way that the money made from A Hat in Time will justify the amount of time I put into its creation.

Then there's Lulu. Yes, the idea of an ebook was kind of ok, no risk, no initial outlay cost etc. Just that people don't want ebooks. I've sold about 15 so far which is meagre. I mean, it's really not good enough. To be fair, there's nothing lost with this approach so I try not to get upset about it. What I do moan about though is the online tool for publishing a Lulu book. For one, it's complicated. I still haven't figured out tax implications, ISBN etc for the promotion package (with which you can distribute the book on Amazon) and while it's affordable, I'm shying away from it because I just don't get it. Secondly, the online editing tool separates out the cover from the rest, so you have to submit various pdf files, and it's not clear if the cover has 4 or 2 or 1 page(s) so it took me a full day's work just to transfer the print ready pdf file into the Lulu pdf. I cursed a lot. And I think it's still not perfect but I can't be bothered anymore. Above all, the cover only allows use of Lulu templates. This is rather annoying because I have a beautiful cover, nicely branded with Save the Children, and I can't transfer it into this template. Above all, the title now appears on top of a photo so is hardly legible. This is not how I had wanted it, but the best that Lulu templates allow me to do.

Much easier was the process for publishing on Ravelry. I just published my lovely pdf file and done. Disadvantage: I have to deal in US$, which is subject to exchange rate fluctuation. However, Ravelry takes almost no commission and it was such an easy process that I've got nothing but praise for them. Sales figure: 2 so far. Not good.

After all my attempts of promoting the ebook, I had 17 sales. And lots of people asking me for a physical copy. It became clear that in spite of technology, internet and global warming, people still very much prefer a physical book to a pdf file, even if it's for charity, even if the ebook makes a higher profit.

So I then looked into a physical print run. I got about 20 quotes from local printers and the story is simple: If you print 1250 or 2500, cost per copy is less than one pound, if you print under 500, cost per copy is about 7-10 pound. Considering that I can't expect to sell a copy for more than 7.50, and that I can't expect to sell that many, this is not a good situation. I don't have the 3K or more needed for a large print run, plus the risk is too high (I may not sell enough to break even). The lower quantity print run doesn't make a profit. I tried to offer pre-ordering to finance a large print run, but again, not enough copies sold (lost count, but I don't think it was more than 25).

Well, I did finally find one printer who made me a decent offer - one where I can print on demand for a cost per copy which allows about 50 % of profit. Believe it or not, this was the only offer I got at all where I would make a profit for a print run below 500 copies. Hurray. And they're even a carbon neutral company, how good is that! Just that we've had a few glitches with the artwork, proofs, and generally missing each other due to workload, so I still don't hold the book in my hands. However, the main thing is, in about 2 week's time at the latest, there will be a physical book. It'll be lovely. It'll make profit. And I can have more printed if I run out. What more can I ask for? Well, sales. And more sales. The physical book will be available through the website, and also through Amazon, thanks to the support of my friend Natalie who is an Amazon Marketplace seller and found a way of selling A Hat in Time without a book distribution package (Note: If you follow the Amazon link, the price will come down soon as we're still experimenting with the listing).

I embarked on this adventure partially because I was keen to find out about online publishing. I have a few book ideas in my head and wanted to see the business case for them. What I can see now is that a) full colour books published on Lulu cost more to the buyer than they are likely to dish out and are not generally a good idea. b) Some traditional avenues work better than online promotion. For example, k1 Yarns have kindly offered to sell the book in their shops and already they've had a massive interest in it. I'm sure the book would have sold well at the Save the Children volunteer days over the last two weeks - had I had a physical copy. Books are still a traditional medium and ebooks, well, don't work. Or at least it didn't work for me. I also find the whole ISBN and distribution package for Amazon so mindbogglingly complicated (mainly because Lulu is a US company) that I really don't fancy going down this way - a way which may lead to decent sale numbers.

Now, with the Christmas season about to descend upon us, I hope that sales will pick up. What better Christmas stocking filler can there be for a knitter than this wonderful collection of 37 hats to knit and crochet, aka A Hat in Time? Ah go on, why don't you get one?