Sue Dockstader
Sue Dockstader, editor, publisher, and daughter of a celebrated author.
Growing up in rural England and living across the globe, Sue has a unique perspective on storytelling.
After a successful career as a lawyer and writer in London, Hong Kong and across the United States, she now resides in Camas, Washington, where she channeled her passion for her mother’s stories into beautiful, published books.
Teaming up with talented artist and graphic designer Barbara Richards, Sue has brought her mother’s imaginative wildlife tales to life, transforming years of procrastination into a heartfelt literary journey.
With her mother’s voice resonating through every line, Sue is excited to share these cherished stories with her children and future generations.
Join us as we explore the challenges of modern publishing and the joys of preserving family legacies through the written word.
Connect with Sue
After our radio talk Sue shared answers to more questions. Enjoy!
Question 1:
It is probably much easier with a book that is all text, but as the Henry series has illustrations on every page, it has made the layout process much more complicated. We had to have the layouts completely “rebuilt” to switch to print on demand as our original printed dimensions were not available from Ingram or KDP.
My original illustrator did all the layout for the printed books. But she was not able to convert those files to the required print on demand format, so I had to find a new designer. Also, my original illustrator had some tech challenges and so sent me, through the post, an external hard drive with all the original files. I then just uploaded the entire drive to the backup gadget we have for all our household computers and crossed my fingers.
I was unbelievably lucky to find a sympathetic designer who was prepared to sift through the muddled files and extract what she needed to rebuild the books. As she is based in England, she had to access the files remotely, which was another time-consuming process !
Inevitably, the revised layouts required hours more editing, as some of the text was messed up in the transition. It’s been quite a process!
Question 2:
The great thing about working on the Henry series is the massive learning curve I’ve been climbing for the past 7 years!
Having joined the incredible Happily Ever Author Club, run by Portland based company Pages and Platforms, I learned the importance of building an author platform and followed all their advice for website needs.
I had a vague idea about how to build a website and just plugged away until I had something reasonable for Henry and pals.
When I came to build my own website, I knew I just needed the basics as I didn’t have a book yet, I just needed somewhere for people to find me and hopefully for me to gather a group of people who might be interested to follow along with my writing journey.
With the Henry books, and with my writing, I’m trying to do as much of the marketing as I can myself, to keep costs down. I know I can’t draw wildlife animals or layout a book, but basic web design is just about doable. Of course, it’s not perfect and it takes me forever, but it gets done eventually!
Question 3:
I am on Instagram and Facebook. I set up separate accounts for Henry and myself and somehow they got mixed up. So when I post on Henry Insta it goes to my personal FB and vice versa. Not crucial but really annoying and I hope to fix it eventually. When I tried to correct it a while back it shut down one of the accounts, so now I’m wary to mess with it.
I’ve found more book connections on Instagram, Facebook is more friends of mine, so I definitely use Instagram more for marketing so I don’t get too annoying on FB. I know that social media is fun but not really reliable for marketing, you need to build an email list for that. I’m working on it.
Question 4:
In the first print run of books the wrong file was sent to the printer, and so the books had a couple of errors. I thought I’d done such a good job editing it was heartbreaking, but I am super-careful with ‘version control’ now, making sure to carefully label each update to avoid confusion.
With the second book, Mum reviewed the proof from the publisher and didn’t like one of the illustrations- it was meant to be a church bell and looked more like a fancy doobell! So, at the last minute we had to ask the illustrator to create a new illustration. That caused a bit of a stir!
Question 5:
The main thing is going straight to print on demand and avoiding the cost and storage space needed when you print a large quantity of books up front.
It is fun to hand sell books if you have the time and opportunity to tour all the bookstores, craft fairs and library events.
But it is easy enough to get author copies from Amazon or Ingram to help with your marketing without having an intimidating pile of book boxes in your garage for years.
I am also much more aware of commercial genres and the need to conform to industry standards if you want to sell your book commercially.
The bookshop needs to know where to shelve your book – is it a picture book, or is it an early reader, or middle grade? With children’s books there are clear categories of word count, page count expectations, reading levels etc.
The Henry series is what my mother wrote for her grandchildren, we’ve since discovered they fit nicely in the category of “five-minute stories.” But it would be better to decide what you are writing upfront, rather than trying to reverse engineer your masterpiece into an existing category.
Question 6:
Without a doubt, handing the first printed book to my Mum as a complete surprise, when she was in her 80s.
She had no idea I had kept her typed pages for over 20 years and was quite overwhelmed. “I finally feel like I have achieved something in my life” were her first words to me. After that I really didn’t care if I ever sold any books or not!
Showing her the draft of the activity book (also a surprise) with her 5 new stories on her 90th birthday was also pretty special.
Question 7:
I had a germ of an idea before NaNoWriMo a couple of years back.
(National Novel Writing Month) So I set myself a month to get down a basic outline, and just sat down every morning and typed.
After that I just let it sit for a month or two and then started again from the beginning.
The writing part was easy, the editing is slow and laborious, but I try to do something every day, even if it’s just one sentence.
I have a notebook and make a note each time I stop writing/editing so I know my next step, or at least what was in my mind when I stopped writing.
Question 8:
My current plan is to tackle one element of revising at a time.
I’ve made a scene list and a timeline which is helping me find the plot gaps, once those are filled, I’ll move on to the next thing -adding more description, sharpening up the dialogue etc.
Once I feel it’s as good as I can get it, I’ll look for beta readers and an editor.
The Happily Ever Author Club has great editing calls which lets me talk through small issues and have short scenes reviewed by experts which is really helpful.
Although I’ve been writing for years, I’m new to fiction, so need all the help I can get!!
Question 9:
Preferably, before I’m 90!
I’ve been very focused on getting the activity book finished and so my writing has taken a back seat for the past 6 months.
Now I need to start marketing it, so I’m realistic about the time I have for my own projects.
I’d like to finish my own revisions sometime next year.
Publication is still a long way off!
Question 10:
I love it!
It is the perfect place to publish all the random thoughts spinning in my head without needing to pitch a magazine or organize all those thoughts into a book.
It feels good knowing that people who are complete strangers have bothered to read something I’ve written and maybe even left a comment.
And if you build up a big enough following you get paid!
Most of my articles earn a few dollars, but I’ve had one success that earned over $200, which means over 1000 people read it.
That thought keeps me going.
I consider it a warmup exercise for my novel writing.
A convenient way to practice the craft of writing.
Who knows, one day I might compile a bunch of my Medium.com articles into a book about getting the most out of life despite the creaky knees and failing memory.
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