Chapter 13 : Pulling The Pump

One of the things I want to do with this blog is to write some of the 'back story' behind the book's chapters. Without question, my favorite chapter to write - not necessarily my favorite story - was Chapter 13 - Pulling The Pump. And, I've had more than a handful of men who have said they enjoyed that story the most, and that they too knew what it was like to pull a pump out out of a well.

If  you've not read the story, we were on well water. Once every few years - not incredibly often - the pump's foot valve became clogged, and water could not be pumped out of the well and to our house. We had no water. Not a drip. So, our daddy - with three small boys helping him - had to pull the pump's foot valve up and out of the ground and repair it . . . within a small pump house. This was not a fun job. It was probably the worst chore that we ever had to do on the farm.

I hope you have visited the website (www.brookwoodroad.com) to see the photo gallery. If not, here is a photograph of the pump house pictured in 1981 - about eight years after our move. So, it really did exist. When I was little, and we pulled the pump, there was an old criss-cross board fence between the pump house and these big oak trees. By 1981, the fence had been replaced with a metal fence that you can't quite see here. Today, everything in this photograph is gone - replaced by a monstrous subdivision.

Some of the book's chapters are certainly embellished a little (or a lot) and I'll get to some of those in future posts, but the Pulling The Pump story is very, very true. And, while character conversations within the book are certainly fabricated, there was absolutely no fabrication of my daddy's use of colorful language when he got hot, tired, and frustrated. All three of those applied to pulling the pump so that our family could have running water in the house. When my daddy got frustrated, he could scorch the Earth. I kid you not. But, later, after he cooled down, we could poke fun at him and he would laugh at himself. When Tim and I (Jack and Frank) are lying in the bed, wondering what some of the colorful expressions meant, well, daddy would have thought that hilarious.

When I first wrote the story, I tried to dance around the language. My son, William, was reading behind me and he called me on it. 

"Are you writing about our grandfather?" William asked. "Because I don't recognize this character. You need to either tell it correctly or don't tell it at all." William would know. When he visited "grandfather" during the summers we often had to quarantine William when he got home. We called it a language detox.

So, I rewrote it, and quoted my daddy's colorful language amid frustration just as I remembered it. In fact, I wrote / typed this story with my eyes closed, visualizing the entire story and hearing my daddy's painful frustration over pulling that foot valve out of the ground and struggling to fix it. He was also frustrated with us because we were just little boys trying to step and do what one grown man could have done much more easily.

Once finished, I could not wait to read this story to my daddy, who by this time was blind and couldn't read off paper. (He could still read with the back-light of a Kindle). I read the story to him, and it was one of our precious times together. I was laughing so hard that I had to stop a lot, and he was laughing so hard that he was crying. Why? Because the story was true, and we both knew it. My daddy could

easily laugh at himself, which is one of the things I most admired about him. Pictured here is my favorite picture of my daddy, and how I loved to see him when I wrote or said something that made him laugh. I loved to hear and watch him laugh. Loved it.

When I finally finished reading the story to him, he said, "Oh my soul, Scott, you are crazy." And, that was his blessing of it. He went on to help me understand, simply and maybe over-simplified, how the pump worked so I could easily share those mechanics with readers. There are several places like that where his collaboration made the book better, and that makes the project even more special to me.

More on Independent Publishing

I've heard from a lot of people interested in writing and self-publishing a book.

Do it. Write it.

And, as I've said before in this blog: Write it for an audience of One - yourself.

Send it to FedEx Kinko's and have them print it with a spiral bound.

Voila! Your book is published.
I did this. It was a fantastic feeling to hold that first, unedited draft in a printed format. Back in April 2014, I sat in the FedEx parking lot and thumbed through that big old draft and thought, 'Okay, wow, I wrote this. And, I'm holding a copy of it.' Life is about the simple things. I celebrated with a Hershey bar.

Then you think, 'I wonder if anyone else will want to read it?' Actually, my Vicki was all over that question.
Now, you choose to publish it. As I've written, without a literary agent or a relative or former roommate working a publishing company's acquisitions, your best option might be independent publishing. That's how I went.

There are lots of options. Without boring you, I chose CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, which is owned by Amazon. I interviewed a lot of other companies and settled on CreateSpace. I liked the customer service. I also liked that I had price options when it came to putting together my publishing package. I had choices among graphic design services, interior layout services, line-by-line editing services, and marketing services. There was a carte blanch feel to it, and I liked it.

Many independent publishers, I think, want to print a book as cheaply as possible. And, quite honestly, it's easy to spot a cheaply published book. Readers really do judge a book by its cover. Skimming on good editing aggravates a reader. Sloppy interior layout isn't good. Just as no writer wisely edits his own copy, a good promoter should find promotion help for his own stuff.

Because Brookwood Road was a dedication to my daddy, and fulfillment of a 40-year promise, I wanted to go as first class as I could possibly go. So, I bought a premium package within CreateSpace. I remember telling my sales rep, Sara, "I know my book won't be in Books A Million, but I want it to imagine it being there, and I want to imagine it looking like it belongs there." I could hear her doing the happy dance . . . what fish jumps in the boat like that?

While I spent a lot on the publishing package, I didn't have to borrow money to do it. I didn't have to forego a summer vacation. It was expensive, yes, but it was not a financial burden. And, I was pleased with the outcome of the book. CreateSpace fulfilled its obligation to me, the customer service was great, and I am content with the book. (If it's ever reprinted, I may tweak one or two typing miscues that slipped past a horde of editors and proof-readers. Rarely is a book perfect.)

Did I worry about recovering my investment? No.
Have I recovered my investment? Yes.
Have I made a lot of money on the book? No, and I don't expect to make a lot of money. Vicki and I have had two nice dinners out that we attributed to the book.
I had a story to tell, I told it, and it didn't cost me anything in the long run. Break even never felt so good.

One of the most laborious things I had to do was price the book. The paperbacks and hardbacks are printed on demand, meaning I don't have a warehouse full of books. When someone orders it, the book is printed and shipped to them. I had to come up with prices for the paperback, hardback and Kindle editions that weren't far off the scale for books of this word count, but also provided a small royalty that I could apply back to the initial investment.

For the sake of business, I calculated my break-even at 500 sales. That was lofty. My own research shows that 600,000 to 1 million books are published each year. The average book sells about 150 copies. Think about how many 20-sellers are compared to 1-million sellers in order to get an average of 150 sales. That's a bunch of 20-sellers.

But, again, it was never about the money.
It was about telling the story, and fulfilling the promise to my dad.

And, as a writer, that's where your head has got to be. Write your story; tell your story.

In a future post, I'll write some about the marketing / promotion strategy behind the book.

About the Faith Chapters

There was never a question that Brookwood Road would recall my coming to faith in Jesus as my Savior from God's eternal punishment of my inherent sinfulness. It is the primary crossroads of my life, and a significant part of my childhood occurring on Brookwood Road.

I suspect the reader reaction has been interesting. As one reader wrote me, "I was caught off guard by the sharp turn into the seriousness of faith.

"Up until that chapter I was reading and laughing (and crying) at the adventures, life lessons and interaction between you and your brothers. The boyhood humor and the colorful language had me rolling in the floor. In a surprising way, you gave me whiplash and afterwards I was glad you did."

In Chapter 17, "The Pink Store," I fully introduce my Papa Paul: Paul Edward Yarbrough Sr. He died when I was almost 8, but he left a big impression on me. And, my mama's stories of him since his death further detailed a man that I would have loved to know in my adulthood.

A few chapters later, in Chapter 23, "Death and Life," Frank experiences the death of a family member - Papa Paul - for the first time. It's a poignant look at a young boy's first experience with death and its ritual in the Deep South. Many have written and said it is their favorite chapter because it touched their own similar experience so deeply.

When Papa Paul died, my eyes were opened wide to death, which often leads us to ask two big questions: Will this happen to me? What happens to a person when they die? Papa Paul's death, combined with our family's deep involvement in church life, opened up a very real conversation about faith with my mama. And, my mama, who was only 27 at the time, did her very best to lead me through a presentation of the gospel. I don't know if it was my mama's first time to explain the gospel, but I have to believe it was a somewhat new experience for her to share and certainly for me to hear.

The great theologians will read Chapter 23, and its follow up in Chapter 30, "Just as I Am" and perhaps shrug at the clunkiness of the gospel presentation. I wrote that way on purpose. As a gospel minister, full-time vocational minister, and 30-year Bible study teacher, I could have waxed eloquent the gospel presentation, but it would not have been authentic to a conversation between a 20something mama, grieving the sudden death of her daddy, and her 8-year-old son. What comes out in these two chapters, I believe, is a very real and honest and authentic and, yes, clunky explanation of the gospel as it really happened - and probably really happens - within many evangelical families. The gospel is supernatural; it's explanation can be anything but clinical.

Without apologizing for it, I tried to be clear that this is how evangelicals, specifically Southern Baptists, approach the gospel presentation and a person's acceptance and public profession of it. I know it made some people feel uncomfortable because the reader goes into these serious waters for a few chapters before re-emerging into the overall fun of the book. But, friends, the gospel is uncomfortable. The magnitude of themes like sin, salvation, eternal punishment, and grace are serious - and gravely serious. They are eternally serious. And, they are worthy of uncomfortable conversations and uncomfortable personal wrestling.

In these chapters, which are true to the coming-of-age theme of the book, I was not trying to preach so much as tell another big part of my childhood, hoping that readers might reflect on the gospel within their own lives and perhaps make a life-changing decision of their own.

With rich blessings to you and yours,
Scott

HOW TO ORDER BROOKWOOD ROAD: MEMORIES OF A HOME
BY SCOTT DOUGLAS VAUGHAN

Personalized, autographed hardbacks and paperbacks: www.shopsvministry.com.
Paperbacks and Kindle versions (unautographed): www.amazon.com
Limited Retail (autographed): Humpus Bumpus Books, Cumming, GA, and Rainy Day Pal Books, Lexington, SC.
Questions? E-Mail Scott at sharketing411@gmail.com.

Independent Publishing

I was moved in March 2014 to put my book on paper.

I did that. I took the first draft to my daddy, and explained the project to him. I explained it to my two brothers and to my mom. Because I held a spiral bound draft of the finished book - printed at Fedex Kinko's - everyone knew this was serious. It was done. No one pushed back and so I felt confident about moving forward with publishing it somehow.

Always write before you think about the publishing.

There are two general courses for book publishing:

1. A writer markets himself to a literary agent, who then markets the client's book projects to a major publisher. The publisher buys the projects through the agent, paying the writer for the book less a commission to the agent or whatever the contracts all stipulate. The writer may give up a little or a lot of the editorial control, design of the cover, and everything related to his book. You sell out, essentially, but the more popular you become the more leverage you have over your products. I don't imagine Stephen King gets messed with every much.

I wrote two literary agents, and they immediately rejected me. No big deal - I expected it. Even though I have a 40-year resume as I writer, I'm unknown in literary circles and have never published a book. I've rarely been published in magazines - most of my work is published in newspapers and ministry publications. I would imagine there are first-time writers who - through relationships and contacts - get noticed and picked up by an agent. Through relationships or just providence, I'm sure there's an unknown author somewhere that bypassed all this and was picked up by a major book publisher.

The odds would be against it. The odds against it would be similar to winning the Power Ball.

2. So, most writers - like me and perhaps you - get tired and bored with finding literary agents, and go the independent publishing route. I figured, all along, I would go the independent publishing route. Independent publishing is where the author becomes the publisher, creating a small business through which he pays to publish his own book. My decision was based on a lack of patience to find an agent and wanting to maintain all of my creative control. 

Independent publishing no longer has the "vanity" stigma it did say 10 years ago. It's possible to pay enough to churn out an independent book of the same general quality as a professionally published book. As I learned, major book publishers have even created independent publishing arms, which allows publishers to "spy" on prospective authors. If they see an independent's work having success or see potential, these book publishers can follow an author's journey from a distance, letting the author pay-to-play, and perhaps swoop in with an author to republish a book or pick up future work.

I actually made a decision not to use one of the self-publishing arms of a major book publisher. I did lots of research and ultimately chose CreateSpace - the independent publishing platform owned by Amazon. I was impressed with its overall approach to graphic design services, editing services, and marketing services. It was expensive, yes, but a good fit for me. By the way - you will always get what you pay for in book publishing. Go cheap and that's what you'll have. Invest money in it and you'll have a worthy looking, readable product. 

Blessings,

Scott