If you’ve been on the internet for the last few weeks, you’ve surely heard of Shannon Okey. If you’ve been blogging as long as *I* have (since 1999) you know Shannon quite well.
Shannon, aka “the Donald Trump of Knitting” is a close friend of mine and the author of what is destined to be one of the hottest craft books of all time, The Knitgrrl Guide to Professional Knitwear Design
There a lot of knitters right now who are making the leap from knitter to designer. It’s a natural progression of the craft…one starts out following patterns, figuring out how they’re structured, and then adapting them and finally making up their own. This book is written at the perfect time to help those people get themselves all set up and established in a professional way. But…it’s not just for the newbies! This book is for anyone who’s trying to navigate through the craft publishing world, and is written by a woman who really knows her stuff.
Shannon has been a long-time friend and mentor to me. She has literally worked in every aspect of our field and knows her way around. She’s worked with every major publisher, has been a magazine editor, brick and mortar shop owner, and really pays attention to what’s going on.
When I’m in a situation with one of the above, and wondering, “Is this normal?” I call Shannon. If she doesn’t know the person I’m dealing with, when knows OF them and always has a story about something happening to some anonymous friend…(which tells me that I can confide in her and it doesn’t go anywhere!)
In reading The Knitgrrl Guide to Professional Knitwear Design, I felt as though it was an extension of our conversations. In it, she’s not only giving me advice, but advice WITH LINKS. I read this book with pen, Post-Its, and a highlighter in hand, and used them all. I found links to ways to pay less when I use Fed Ex, links to legal advice, copyright explanations, Ravelry groups that I hadn’t explored.
I mean, I knew that if Shannon wrote a book, it’d be great. She’s the kind of person that you speak to and know that they’re already 100 miles ahead of you on the plan. Her mind works so quickly and in such an ordered way, it’s hard to keep up with all of her ideas…but here in the book, I can read them at my own pace!
I’m not blowing smoke here, Shannon is one person that I believe is truly gifted. She’s a brilliant conversationalist, she really understands people and their motivations, and she really GETS our industry.
If you’re considering craft publishing in any format from downloadable PDFs to magazine patterns to writing (and publishing?) your own book…you really will find things here of value.
And I haven’t even mentioned the interviews. In the back of the book are interviews with some of today’s big (and upcoming) names. They describe how they got started, where they think the industry is headed, and really get candid with Shannon. I found that even people whose blogs I’d been reading shared more of their real thoughts with Shannon than they do on their blogs, which can become very customer-driven.
So, on that note…even if you think you have it all figured out in terms of your business model, publishing route, social media marketing, etc…you get a peek into the BUSINESS minds of your favorite designers, magazine editors, and other industry insiders.
All that being said, I’d like to welcome Shannon to my blog!!
She’s on tour, and we’re today’s stop! 
Here’s our interview:
Hi Shannon!
Because I’m currently teaching a “how to design” class, and I KNOW that my students are ready to take the next step and publish their work, I’d like to ask you some questions that come from a self-publishing-a-book angle, if that’s ok with you:
Now that you’ve proven that one can publish independently and have such amazing success (as publicly shown by your high ranking #3 on Amazon.com in knitting) I’m positive that you will be handling inquiries from hordes of people wanting you to publish their books.
It’s gone as high as #3, yes, which was incredibly exciting. I do want to note, though, that I winced at a review that said it was “full” of grammar and punctuation errors recently and have hired additional 3rd parties to re-review the book once more. I know some InDesign slips (line breaks, for example) made it through on the print copy due to last minute editing in the file, but the preliminary re-review found 2 instances of a word spelled in the British style, a few missing spaces between words and several stylistic questions (i.e. it could go one way or another depending on which guides you use). I’m perfectly happy to admit when I am wrong or when a mistake has been made, but I think that the small errors are not exactly earthshattering when compared to some of the ones I’ve seen come out of other publishers! My all-time favorite is Stephenie Meyer writing “dust moat” instead of “dust mote” in the Twilight books. Does a dust moat contain dust bunnies? Is there a drawbridge? Or, there is a recently-released pattern book that eliminated every other line in the pattern charts (lines that were actually required!) to make things “prettier.” You’ve had those things happen to your own books, Stefanie, so you know what I mean! No one is perfect. I want to be held to a high standard, but I also want it to be a realistic standard. Mistakes happen.
Whew. Climbing up on a soapbox is tiring. Let me get down now.
What advice would you offer to a designer who is considering this avenue of publishing?
Be aware of the workload. It isn’t just writing. You are now the author AND the designer. You are also the contract negotiator, the mailroom clerk, the PR person and the tech support. You need to be prepared to spend much more time than you might think on even the littlest things — just packing up the print copies that sell and getting them to the post office every week takes an hour or two! Are you ready to commit to doing the unfun stuff, too?
Are you currently accepting submissions from designers for book publications?
Yes. My company Cooperative Press is accepting submissions. If you’ve read The Knitgrrl Guide to Professional Knitwear Design already, you’ll know that one of the appendices is a book proposal template — that’s a good way to get the information to me. It’s essentially an expanded table of contents. If you’re totally new to the concept of book proposals, you could also take my Get Published! class at knitgrrl.ning.com, too.
What does the designer need to bring to the table in terms of finished work? (How many patterns should they have? Do they need to supply index, appendix, back matter?)
I don’t think there’s a minimum in terms of pattern count, etc, though of course it’s easier to see your style if some things are already knit — you could always refer back to your Ravelry page, for example, and say “this pattern will look like my other pattern here, except with X, Y and Z instead…” I also hesitate to publish pattern books that are JUST pattern books… it seems to me that we’ve been swamped by those in recent years. I like books that are also educational, that teach new techniques or put the history of a particular pattern type in focus. I also think we need to see more advanced topics out there…complex is good! niche topics are good!
What kind of financial outlay can one expect to make in the beginning stages of the process?
Well, it depends on the type of project — some of the authors currently working on books for us have managed to get some amazing photography, for example, and some have worked with us to negotiate image reproduction rights from museums, etc. It really is project-dependent. Yarn support is not generally a problem once a project is underway, and even finding test knitters is a lot easier than it used to be thanks to Ravelry (I am currently in awe of one author’s test knitters. I want to box them up and take them home with me). Depending on the print run, how you set up pre-orders, etc, the outlay up front can be very minimal or it can be a few thousand dollars. It’s hard to say without spec’ing out a specific project!
Does every project / book idea lend itself to self-publishing, or are there certain ideas that you think would best be handled by a big company?
I think more specialized, niche-type books do best with independent publishers because you run the risk of having the concept watered down if a big company takes it on. And often, the watered down version just isn’t as interesting, in my opinion. You can see why they do it — making it appeal to the broadest possible audience makes it slightly more likely that a lot of people will buy it. But in the craft arena, who needs one more How To Knit These Easy Things book? I don’t! So it’s a double-edged sword.
Thanks, Shannon!
If you guys have any more questions for Shannon, you can find her on twitter, and on her website. I’m sure that she’d love to hear from you!
