Publishing Your Passion: How to Share the Art That’s Inside You

Joe Luther  0:01  
Welcome to another episode of Friends in wonder, a place where we invite you to explore meaningful topics without judgment or limits,

Joe Luther  0:10  
brought to you by two lifelong friends sharing their insights. I'm Joe Luther. 

Vince Kern  0:16  
And I'm Vince Kern,

Joe Luther  0:17  
and we've got great topics lined up for you each week. So be sure to subscribe, like and even share with your friends

Donna Z  0:25  
that poetry just burst out of me and couldn't be stopped,

Vince Kern  0:30  
is the art inside of you dying to get out, but you think you don't have enough time to juggle everything and publish it to you have art inside of you that needs to be shared with the world, our guest, Donna Zetterlund will tell you how she balanced work her artists career and learned about self publishing so you can do the same.

Donna Z  0:51  
So I poured all that out onto the pages and then thought, well, you know what, I've been comforted by a lot of books in my past, and maybe this will help somebody else someday or help them, you know, get through something or just resonate with them. And so I thought I'm gonna look into this.

Joe Luther  1:10  
And what she looked into was what it takes from start to finish to self publish her books. And today on friends in wonder, you'll learn about Donna's experience, and how she captured it in a helpful and easy to understand how to outline. She'll also share her experience of balancing work and the artistic desire to bring her projects to life and share with others.

Vince Kern  1:35  
You'll find Donna's story inspiring and her take on success. Whether your creative voice is ultimately heard by one or a million people illustrates there's plenty of room in the ocean where the ripples of our art can turn into waves of gifts for all no matter how big or small. And if you'd like your own copy of Donna's guide that we're going to mention in our show, please email us at talk at friends in wonder.com. And we'll be happy to send one to you show you've got some examples I never knew about of self published books that have gone on to become best sellers.

Joe Luther  2:08  
I do well, there's actually a long list of them. But some of the more popular ones that I think people would find interesting are the Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter, The Joy of Cooking by Irma rombauer Even 50 Shades of Grey by EL James, and Legally Blonde Vince. So, you know it doesn't matter if your book sells a few or a few million. What we love about today's interview is just how easy it is to Self Publish. So let's jump right into the interview now.

Vince Kern  2:43  
We're honored to have with us today, Donna's Zetterlund, a lifelong Michigan resident who's left the rat race after spending a 30 year career in the newspaper publishing industry. She created her first newspaper at age 10 and sold it to her friends and classmates. She's had ink in her blood ever since devoting the personal side of life to her faith and creative pursuits. She's chosen the freedom of being single, she enjoys peace, solitude and time for reflection, which are just as important to the creative process as the act of painting itself. She shares her space with two furry roommates, lots of books, and too many art supplies to use in one lifetime. She'd love to live on the water again one day and her happiest times are spent with friends enjoying great waterside conversation. Her dream would be able to support herself with her paintings and books and hopes to one day create a new humor magazine. Donna, it's great to have you here. Welcome to friends in wonder. And thanks for joining us.

Donna Z  3:50  
Thank you so much. I'm honored to be here with you guys today. And looking forward to our chat.

Joe Luther  3:56  
Yeah, Donna, and I'd like to kind of maybe put a little more details to what Vince just read. How about the fact that you were in the newspaper industry for 30 years? I know that's how you invents initially met and became friends. Tell us a little bit more about what your career was like in the newspaper industry?

Donna Z  4:16  
Yeah, it's been it's been great. Like I've had my blood my whole life. I think, you know, like I said, mage 10. It's just been something that I wanted to communicate to people and writing things and drawing things and sharing that it's just been a part of my DNA. But I right out of college, I got a job at a weekly newspaper on the Macomb daily, started part time and then worked my way up to become a manager and then jumped over to the news and free press and was there for about 17 years though hiatus at that company and then I'm back to newspapers again at the Grosse Pointe news. So I'm saying I'm out of the rat race because this job is just like fun. It's just one under full, and so I'm able to be very creative. And the pace is much, much easier being a weekly product versus a daily, like the use of free press. But I'm really enjoying myself. And the goal was to have some time after work to pursue my personal creative projects, and writing and painting and cartooning, and just all the things that I've been bottling up all these years.

Joe Luther  5:27  
Yeah, that really resonates with me, because I have a son who went to College for Creative Studies. And I watched him as a young kid growing up with, you know, the soul of an artist, right, the creative inspiration inside and all the different things that he created when he was a kid and didn't have to pay bills, and it just came out of him gushed out of him. And then as he went to college, and, and that was when I think he started to learn the difference between art as an expression and art as how to make a living.

Donna Z  5:57  
It's so true. I know, you know, after graduating there, there certainly weren't any classified ads for fine artists or oil painters. So I get that, I'm going to have to find a way to either monetize the gift or get into something else for a day job. There were other branches of it, I got into management, and that's an art in itself. Learning how to work with people and personalities, and just encouraging people to do their best work, I really do think that that's a creative angle to to management is how do you get people to feel confident in themselves and bring out the best in them. And so you're juggling all these things and trying to be creative at the same time. But there's that side of you, as an artist, that's just like, I want to do something that is really coming from me from my soul from my well, and I, you almost have to do it, you know, it's just inside you. So I tried to keep that part of it separate and not really promoted too much, or try to sell things just do do art for the joy of it. And I thought, you know, if I do that, and somebody loves it, then they might buy it. But I wasn't really painting for that with that, you know, goal in mind, it was really something that I was sacred to me that I protected to be an expression of my own voice. And so I want to have a little fun, you know, time's a Wastin. And I just look at life a lot differently than I was when I was in my 20s.

Vince Kern  7:31  
Well done, I can say that, as an objective observer, and somebody that worked with you, in that managing people, you did turn that into an art and brought the best out of people. And as I like to say, I like to quote Mark Twain's famous quote, because it's very relevant to me. He said, all journalists have a great book inside of them. And that's exactly where it should stay. So mine still inside of me, but But yours is yours a bit coming out? Can you tell us a little bit about the book, the books that you've written, and I think we want to start talking about the self publishing, because one of the things that you mentioned is that people have asked you how you do it quite a bit. And so I think there's interest both in your books. And frankly, I'd like to, if I might just take a minute, I want to read one of your poems if I could do that, because, frankly, when we took a look at some of your poetry and art and cartoons, and I'm probably missing a few other genres, because I like to see. But let me read this poem that definitely hit home with me and this is called meeting by accident. We hide our bruises, they shock us both, like sudden headlights appearing on a dark Rural Road, enjoying the stillness, soft beauty of the night, the scent of wild field grass, and rhythmic chirp of crickets. When the high beams overtake us, the hard vibration of metal bearing down gravel spewing everywhere, of course, we run we want to live, we check our wounds, and look down the road for one another, to see if we survived. To me, that's just beautiful. And by the way, it's in one of Diana's books. And yeah, I'm gonna plug them occasionally. But can we back up from my verbosity? And just talk about your book publishing and how it started and what you did and how many books you've been involved in, describe as many of them as you like,

Joe Luther  9:29  
start at the beginning. When was the first when did you first Self Publish?

Donna Z  9:34  
was around 2019 And I was going through some changes in my personal life and work life and really doing some self assessment and just thought, you know, if not, now, when am I going to start really knuckling down and publishing or, or at least putting these things together in a form that they could be shared? And so I just really started to take it seriously. And

Joe Luther  10:00  
what was the first one that you wanted to tackle, you've got poetry, you've got children's books?

Donna Z  10:05  
Well, the poetry came first, because I was going through a relationship, let's just say that was not meant to be enough, there was a lot of, you know, my emotions boiling up, and that poetry just just burst out of me and just couldn't be stopped. So I poured all that out onto the pages, and then thought, well, you know, what, I've been comforted by a lot of books in my past, and maybe this will help somebody else someday, or help them get through something, or just resonate with them. And so I thought, I'm gonna look into this and see, I didn't even consider going down a formal publishing route, because with the big, you know, HarperCollins, and Penguin and you, you really have to be established, they don't accept unsolicited manuscripts at all. So unless you have an agent, or whatever, it's just wasn't in my, my picture. So

Joe Luther  11:00  
that's, can I stop you on that, because I think that's a really interesting part of what we're trying to shed a light on today. And that is that so many people, you know, Vince made the Mark Twain, Joe. But so many people do have books inside of them. And I think they can be overwhelmed by the concept of what it's like to get published. in it. I think too many people believe that you have to be some sort of commercial, megaliths success to get interest in a publishing. And what we're talking about today, and where you have thrived in this process is the self publishing. And there's multiple ways to do that, as well.

Donna Z  11:39  
Yes, I really don't, don't like to ever say that something can't be done. So I looked into it. And there were actually companies that would do the whole thing for you. So that's one way that people can go. But obviously, there are some considerable fees with that. They'll handle everything from the printing and formatting and even the marketing and distribution of the book. So and that may fit for some people. But for me, I really did a lot of research. And I, I looked into doing it myself, as a designer, I could format the book on my own and provide any illustrations that were needed. So that checked off two of the boxes, but I looked into it, and there are printers that actually cater to Self Publishers as well. So all you have to do is upload your signle manuscript in its format, and then they'll they'll print it for you and walk you through it, they'll even do a cover for you, if you don't have somebody to do the artwork for your cover. So I chose to go that route, and ended up doing my own cover and worked with a company, there's some great photograph companies online that allow you to use their artwork, you know, royalty free, and there's some beautiful artwork. So I use some of that to compliment the poems. And my first book was the water poems, and was very, very happy with the process. And, you know, how, how easy it actually was to do. And then I set up my own website to distribute it so that, you know, I could get it into people's hands as well. And again, there's a lot of ways you can go with that end of things.

Joe Luther  13:19  
I wanted to ask you, what was it like? So you finally get your first book out there? What was that feeling? Just, you know, your, your feeling to finally get it out and see it in printed form?

Donna Z  13:32  
Well, oddly enough, it was like, okay, when can I do the next one?

Vince Kern  13:37  
Well, that was easy, you had quite a few books inside you that had to get out.

Donna Z  13:41  
Yeah, there's, there's probably more than I'll ever be able to get out. But, you know, it's obviously a feeling of satisfaction, something that you've dreamed about for a lifetime, to actually hold it in your hands. And it looks pretty decent. And, and now you can share it. And there's there's some credibility attached to having something published in a volume that you can share with people. And I think there's a responsibility that goes with that to where you, you want to make sure that it's the best possible product that you can put out so that when people read it, that commitment of you know, they're spending their time or their money to pick up your book, I want to make sure that I deliver the best possible thing that I can, in addition to whatever the you know, the emotional aspect of it was that I want to share. But ultimately, it's a form of communication. And it's, it's just a delight to be able to do it yourself and not have to rely on somebody else to say yes or no, for whatever their reasons are. And it may not be even a quality issue. It might be, you know, these, this type of book isn't popular right now. And that's why a publisher wouldn't do it. So there's lots of stories about about that. You know, we're books were self published, and then became blockbusters too so it can happen

Joe Luther  14:59  
Yeah, Well, that's actually that's a good point, because that was one of the follow up questions I wanted to have. And, and Vince and I love to talk about these kinds of things. And that's like, what, how do you define success? Like, what is the success of a book being published. And, you know, I think, unfortunately, in today's society, too much is defined by, by numbers and numbers of likes, numbers of followers, numbers of views, and that kind of thing. But we always like to believe that the ripple effects that touch a few can be just as impactful as those that touch a million.

Donna Z  15:37  
Oh, I agree. 100%. And as I encourage other friends and relatives, even that are in a creative field, you know, maybe it didn't manifest the way that you wanted it to. But that doesn't mean that you need to stop sharing your gift. Because if it touches one person, two people 1020 It's important, it's valuable. And so we're born to share what we have inside of us. And so whether it's through a book or music, or, you know, acting art, I think that we need to be encouraging one another to do that, and share that unique, you know, thumbprint that we all leave on this planet. It's like, why were Why were we born. And I know, it wasn't just to clock in and out and cash your paycheck, that's part of it, it's necessary. But I love to, you know, help people make their dreams come true. There's enough for everybody, you know, we can all have a piece of the pie and, and there's more pie. So don't worry, when you run out, we were born for a reason. And I think each of us, it's a very personal thing to find what that is. And then the discipline sometimes to share that. And to, you know, manifest it in a way that is meaningful to you and others is the challenge. And

Vince Kern  16:58  
you know, you're doing all this on your own. So it's a real true expression of your personal self in a very direct way. But I just want to go through some of the headlines. And maybe you can talk about these either as I jump through them or at the end. But this is kind of the process that Donna has outlined. And the steps are right it editing arts, photos and illustrations cover art, print, quote, and other costs. That's the thing I think people really probably don't understand. And there's some samples in here. So it is just a sample quote for printing an eight by 10 softcover book with 16 pages plus the cover from Andhra books, all black and white, and a color cover for about $300. So, you know, the costs are prohibitive, as many people might think so proofreading printing, we just talked about that distribution. That's that's an interesting one. Do you self distribute your books?

Donna Z  17:52  
Yeah, I mean, I explored several options. And, you know, everything comes fees. So the goal is sometimes you know, leads to break even with your book. So I just thought I don't want to be beholden to all these fees, or sometimes fees for even storing your books. And so I need a website anyway, for other reasons. So why don't I just distribute them through that website, and then I'll marketing myself, which is easier than you think to with Facebook, and, you know, Instagram and all the social media platforms that are available now.

Joe Luther  18:27  
Hey, Dan, I want to ask you, your first book, you did your own illustrating, obviously on the on the front cover, but it's got a beautiful color cover? Like, can you tell us roughly like, how much did it cost to produce that one book, your first book, roughly, if you remember,

Donna Z  18:45  
it was probably in total about $600 it That's

Joe Luther  18:49  
amazing. This is a beautiful book, a book to be proud of. It really for under $1,000 You were able to publish it.

Vince Kern  18:57  
And how many books was that for? Is that for 100? Or

Donna Z  19:00  
400? Books? Yeah. Okay. A couple. Yeah.

Vince Kern  19:04  
So Donna, if you're telling somebody who had your outline in front of them, what would you say is the for you the or maybe even for others? What do you think is the most difficult part of the process? And what did you think was the most fun other than writing it and creating it?

Donna Z  19:24  
Well, honestly, I think the hardest part is getting started so if you can get over that hump and your research enough to understand what the process will be, it really is not hard at all, you know, I don't want to say it minimize it too much. But once your mind is set to doing it, there's just a process that you follow. So the hardest part is getting your your book out of you know, getting it out on paper and in a form that you're you're happy with because there's this moment of cold sweat wood when you finally realizes oh my goodness, people are going to read this See?

Vince Kern  20:00  
How many of these poems did you have in your back pocket when you decided to pull them together into a book? And what was the timeline of from start to finish for you? Because I want to get into some of these finer points of things like how do you find a printer? And who knows the formatting and things like that, too?

Donna Z  20:19  
Okay? Well, you know, for putting the poems together, I'm always writing something or scraps of paper everywhere. But, you know, it's finally just putting them all together. And then I probably had three times more than I actually published in the book, so I weeded out a lot. Again, I think you really need to be happy with what you're going to publish, because you'll be kicking yourself otherwise, if you don't just take the best of the best, and use that. So that process was about a year to just get all the poems together and re edited and, you know, get over my, my fear of just putting it out there. But once it was together, you know, and I formatted in a couple of weeks, and it was delivered in a couple of weeks. And it's sort of like this shock, like, oh, my gosh, you know, this seemed like it was going to take forever, or that it might never happen. And then here it is, this box of books is delivered to your front door, and you open it up and your names on it. And and there it is, it really isn't hard, once you set your mind to it.

Vince Kern  21:21  
So being a multitalented artist, I guess I'm going to make an assumption here you were working on like the cover art and the other things at the same time, you're assembling the content. Exactly. Yeah. So for somebody else, though, you know, how would they I mean, there's a lot of site websites that you can find illustrators and talents. But what about printers? You know, where can you find printers? And who does the formatting and the editing? And, you know, how can you find an editor on your own and that type of thing?

Donna Z  21:51  
Yeah, there's a, there's lots of options with the internet, I mean, the world is open to you. So finding a grater, like you said, I would encourage people who are interested to join meetups or groups, there's lots of organizations, even through social media of other writers in the genre that you're interested in. So if you're a horror writer, or you're a science fiction writer, there's groups for all of that, and you can learn from other people who have done it, or in the process of doing it. So I think that's a great way to not only learn the business, but to stay encouraged and inspired because you're around other people that are, are taking action and that are excited. And, you know, you've got to keep that level of excitement up through the whole process as well. So So that's one way that you can, you know, sort of make connections and network with other people, because somebody else might say, I use this editor, or I use this illustrator. And then a lot of times, writers will pair up with a, an artist that does all of their books, like I've got a friend, that's a writer as well, and I'm doing a lot of his illustrations and much you work together well and you understand each other, it's kind of hard to break up that pairing. So if you can find somebody that you know, we really jive with, that's a great, a great way to keep it going. But there are services out there for all this stuff. If you don't know somebody that that does it. As far as the printers go, places like Lulu and BookBaby, they specialize in, in self publishing. So if you go through those channels, I use Digi pad, I wanted to support a Michigan company there and to come see Michigan. So I've been really happy with the quality of what they produce. And they're very easy to work with as well. So I think once you find those, that little network of people you're comfortable with, you kind of stick with them. But they're the resources

Joe Luther  23:44  
start to come together as what it sounds like, once you once you really take that step forward. It's not that hard to find the resources is what I think I hear you're saying, you know, Donna, I gotta confess that I've always thought that I could write a chai, a children's book, especially when my kids were growing up, I would read some of these books. And I would think, I'm not sure I agree with the message that they're trying to portray there. I would like to write a book with this message or, you know, this theme to it or whatever. And, and I see that you've, you've published a couple of just great looking children's books is that what is that what happened next, after your poetry book?

Donna Z  24:20  
Yes, I wanted to challenge myself. Honestly, the first one was a cat like that. I am a cat owner. And so I was inspired by by cats eventually. They're fascinating and beautiful from an aesthetic sense. But I thought it would be fun to to put something together with the different kinds of cats and I just wanted to see if I could do it, you know, and so it was really kind of an experiment.

Joe Luther  24:43  
And then you didn't you didn't want to leave the puppies out either. I see

Donna Z  24:48  
that in the next time around with Dorian, the Queen and the Royal puppy, which is based on a family experience with our first dog and my little sister. So it's quote, sort of an homage to My little sister. So

Vince Kern  25:01  
that's wonderful. How did she feel? Did she know you were doing it? And how did that impact her?

Donna Z  25:06  
She did. She loved it. She She was was thrilled. I think she felt very, very honored. And she actually bought like 300 or not 350 of the 100 books for 3 million books.

Joe Luther  25:24  
Well, it's amazing. It's that's it doesn't take long when you start handing them out to people as gifts and that kind of thing. Who doesn't love a good new children's book? And I, I don't know, one of these days, I think you've inspired me one of these days, I'm actually going to do it. And maybe I'll utilize my son, he and I have talked about doing some, you know, illustrating and working together and there's no reason not to, maybe in my mind, I thought it was too big a task as well.

Donna Z  25:49  
Oh, I'm glad to hear that, Joe, that that that would be wonderful. And what a wonderful project for you to work on with your son to and firing for him as well.

Joe Luther  25:57  
Maybe you could coach us because you've done a lot of illustrating for others as well, haven't you for people who've written their own books?

Donna Z  26:03  
Yes, I have. And that's been fun. It's lucky to work with somebody who's just very, very easy to please, you know, and he's just a delight to work with. And so he writes a lot of stories about his growing up in the country and his relatives and they're just charming stories.

Joe Luther  26:22  
That's the handy dandy Randy McCray Andy.

Donna Z  26:25  
Yeah, that says by Jeff Shaner, he had had that one bubbling in his mind for a while. And yeah, different people get inspired when they see these creative efforts. So

Vince Kern  26:36  
that's a ripple effects. of ripples. Hey, where can people find out more information about your website? First of all, what's what is your website that people can go do?

Donna Z  26:50  
All right, it's dzetterlund.com. So pretty simple. Just my name dz, e, t, t, e r l und.com?

Vince Kern  26:58  
What can they find there?

Donna Z  26:59  
They'll find the books for sure. And then I've got other little odds and ends. And you know, it's just sort of a little catch all for all my creative efforts, and hope to put up my paintings there someday, as well and just have a one stop shop for everything that I'm working on.

Vince Kern  27:17  
I have one more question for you, Donna, being a cat lover as well. And a lovely wife who is sort of a cat whisperer, and they just seem to come to our house and stay whether they've been invited or not. One of the marketing things on your website is about how many cats are enough. So what's the answer to that?

Donna Z  27:41  
Well, I'm gonna challenge people to read the book to find out.

Vince Kern  27:45  
All right, well, there you go. Another look like that you

Joe Luther  27:48  
can find that answer and a cat like that.

Vince Kern  27:51  
Do you have any final thoughts or advice to give all of us people with a book inside of them? You mentioned a few things. But if you were to sum it up in in a couple of sentences, what would you tell those of us with a book inside of us,

Donna Z  28:07  
I would just give them a big hug and tell them you can do this. Just choose to be your own champion, you know, get excited about it. It is so much fun. And you really have to commit to it, which I think is the biggest challenge for people. You know, you might have to miss Yellowstone for a few months or what? Gotta dedicate yourself and do it. It's the best gift you'll ever give yourself.

Joe Luther  28:31  
Well down at your your story and your description of how you did it. Sure. Yeah, obviously, it always sounds a little easier when someone else is doing it. But also the steps that you've given us is very empowering for those who have that book inside of them. So I'm really grateful. I know. I'm one of them. So it's been fun for me today. Yeah,

Vince Kern  28:51  
this has been a real blessing. Donna, and thank you from the bottom of my heart for being with us today. And you said you combed out several 100 poems, and hopefully there'll be more volumes and they'll turn into a shelf full of Donna Zetterlund's offerings.

Donna Z  29:08  
That would be great. I'm working on another one right now.

Joe Luther  29:11  
Awesome. Well, thanks again, Dianne. It was great chatting with you today.

Donna Z  29:14  
Oh, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much, Joe, and Vince, I appreciate you having me. Love your show you.

Vince Kern  29:20  
Thanks, Donna.

Donna Z  29:21  
Thanks so much.

Vince Kern  29:24  
And special thanks to all our friends in wonder who joined us this week to learn more about self publishing. We hope this inspires you to get the art that's inside of you out into the universe and create your own positive ripples. And again, if you'd like a copy of Donna's how to self publish guide, just email us at talk at friends in wonder.com. Also, feel free to leave feedback or topics you'd like us to cover on future shows. Thanks again for listening. And until next week. Thanks for being a friend in wonder.