Self Publishing Books without Amazon w/ Animator John Celestri

About this video

Dale interviews animator John Celestri, whose credits include He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, the Care Bears movie, and Dragon’s Lair, and who worked on over 50 feature-length films, TV specials, and videos. In the late 1990s John and his wife Kathy wrote five novels together under the pen name Kathy Jon, starting with the Kate Cavanaugh culinary cozy mysteries set in Cincinnati. They describe themselves as plotters who laid out structure, backstory, and character lines first, leaving room for characters to redirect scenes, with John building the construct and Kathy acting as wordsmith. After no agent was interested, they self-published regionally; a small regional distributor was bought by Ingram within months, grandfathering their book into Ingram’s system, but they still had to do their own signings, reviews, and promotion. John stresses publishers mainly provide distribution, promote only big-contract authors, and give books a shelf life of only about four to six weeks. Today ebooks and print-on-demand let anyone publish at little financial cost, but promotion and standing out remain hard work, and overnight success is like winning the lottery.

Key takeaways

• John and Kathy Celestri self-published after no agent was interested, relying on regional bookstores, signings, and their own promotion
• A small regional distributor’s acquisition by Ingram grandfathered their book into Ingram’s system, but distribution alone did not sell it
• Publishers mainly provide a conduit to distribution, promote only a few big-contract authors, and a book’s shelf life may be only four to six weeks
• Their writing method was plotting: structure, backstory, and character arcs laid out first, with room for characters to change direction within that structure
• Ebooks and print-on-demand now let anyone publish their vision at low cost, but authors still must do the promotion and work hard to stand out and maintain success

Episode details: published November 14, 2017 · 30:18 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dale L. Roberts’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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