Not Actually About Motorcycles
Meredith Hassall

I met Doug Grosjean, the author of Wheels, at the BMWBMW club's Square Route Rally, where he gave a reading from his then-forthcoming book about motorcycling with his son, Jean-Luc. He hadn't set out to write a book as he wrote the pieces that ultimately went into it, but was merely looking to think about things and preserve some memories.

The book probably wouldn't exist if it weren't for the motorcycle and motorcycling experiences that provide a unifying thread through the segments, but it doesn't depend on the motorcycle, or on riding, or on technical information, or on certain roads, or on knowledge of motorcycles. Readers looking for nothing but motorcycles might be better off with other titles. As the author states on the back cover, "[t]he book begins with Jean-Luc's first motorcycle ride at age 5, chronicles various two-wheel adventures and experiences we shared, and ends with Jean-Luc learning to ride a motorcycle…" So why would anyone want to read about someone else's kid and his various outings and time spent with his dad, even if they did use a motorcycle most of the time? I can't answer that question. Perhaps some don't. I didn't know whether I would.

But I started reading and found myself quite interested in the topic. No, Grosjean and his son are not such fascinating people, and what they do and talk about is mostly mundane. But this may be why the book is so easy to read. Grosjean does not profess to have developed a deep philosophy on the true meaning of life, as discovered while spending time with his son on a motorcycle, but instead describes the feelings along the way, including regrets and proud moments. It is written in a very accessible style and is a lot like conversation heard around the campfire, which can melt from the mundane to the meaningful very easily. At the reading at the rally, Grosjean mentioned having often read parts of the book to his son at bedtime. Because of the organization of the book into relatively short segments, it would be great as a bedside book or as a rally book.

There certainly are sections in which motorcycles (several owned at one time or another by the author and his acquaintances), rides, and other "gearhead"-pleasing topics come to the forefront (including Model Ts, trains, oil pumps, antique cars, and other things). And for people who are interested in things encountered along the way, Grosjean fills us in on the background of some of the people and places they encounter in their journeys. If I had to complain about something, I would cite a few more food stop details than might have been needed, but they occur in the flow of stories and don't disturb too much.

The book is not a literary classic, not a travel guide, not the work of a comedian, not a how-to on childrearing, and does not contain finely-honed prose. Instead, it's an engaging story that shows people going through the world, learning about life and other people, with a motorcycle involved. Anyone who has ever traveled by motorcycle and experienced the stares of the "normal" people will relate to this book. Those who tend to stare might never pick up this book but should, because they would see just how "normal" those motorcycle people can be.

Wheels
A Story About Growing Up
By Doug Grosjean

ISBN 1-4259-1388-1
AuthorHouse
Order at AuthorHouse, Amazon, Books-A-Million, Borders, and others. This is a print on demand (POD) publication, meaning that copies of the book are printed as orders are placed. This is a relatively new phenomenon in the world of publishing, and provides a nice alternative to traditional publishing houses and self-publishing. The author has provided this brief explanation of how this works, along with its advantages and disadvantages:

Conventional publishing houses purchase an author's manuscript, massage it into readiness for publication, and then must print upwards of 6,000 copies before a project is worth their while.  Since the publisher has to put money into the project, they're quite concerned about funding a project that they aren't sure will recoup their tooling and set-up investment.

There's also been self-publishing, where incidentally many huge classic authors have gotten their start.  In self-publishing, the author pays a publisher to print the book in smaller quaintities - anywhere from hundreds to thousands of copies.  The author then does all the rest - editing, layout, marketing, storing the books while waiting for orders, etc.  The author pays these fees up front, sometimes going deep into debt to pay for many copies, because the more copies ordered at each printing, the cheaper the price per copy.

POD stands for Print On Demand.  It's a relatively recent form of publishing that's between conventional publishing and complete self- publishing.  In POD, the author contracts with a POD company (a Google search will find a bunch of them).  Typically, the POD companies offer various services to the writer, each for a fee: editing, copyright filing, photo editing, scanning photos, etc.  The author chooses what he / she feels is needed.

The author submits the book in Word document format to the POD company. The POD people perform the work agreed upon, and return a "galley" to the author.  A galley is a proof of the finished book.  The author checks the galley for errors, makes corrections as needed and records them on a spreadsheet, and then either approves the book the galley or dis-approves it and requests changes.

After the author approves the book, it's made available by the publisher to the author and to the public.  Copies of the book are printed as needed, as orders are placed.  There's no waste, no surplus books.  No stock of books filling the author's living room until sold, and for sales made by the publisher via the Internet, the author doesn't have to lift a finger.

Downside is that the per-unit, rock-bottom cost of a POD book is quite a bit higher than with conventional printing methods.  If a book sells less than 5,000-6,000 copies, POD printing is cheaper.  Above that, conventional printing is the better method.  Another downside is that there's a lot more bad authors than good ones out there, and it's not the POD company's place to tell you whether or not your book is salable. Another downside is that the POD will do little to no marketing of your book themselves, unless you pay them to do so.  I figured that I could reach my customers via the Internet, motorcycle rallies, and speaking at dealers' events - avenues the POD people wouldn't be familiar with anyway.

Upside of POD is that an author can print anything, as few or as many copies as desired.  If you're a bit of a Prima Donna, no POD editor will be changing what you wrote - it goes into print as the author intended, for better or worse.

My own reasons for using the POD method were simple.  I felt my book was very much a niche product, perhaps appealing only to motorcyclists.  I didn't think a conventional publisher would be interested, so I offered the manuscript to a large motorcycle press.  They declined to put it into print, but added that if I published it myself they might be interested in carrying it.  They cited concerns about sales numbers for "soft" titles, and those low numbers not paying off their investment in time and printing costs, and their reasoning was sound.  No harm, no foul.

But I didn't want to self-publish, and then be married to 1,000 books stored in boxes in my livingroom.  I'd never published a book before, and it seemed a daunting proposition with copyrights and cover design and such.  I didn't want to give up my short 30-minute work-day lunch to mail books from the Clyde, Ohio Post Office every day...

Whether self-published or published by a conventional publisher, I had no way to gauge demand.  Some articles I've written on the Internet have had huge numbers of reads.  Those readers had asked me for years to write a book, but how many of those people would actually make a purchase?  10%, 5%, or 1%?  So would a book written by me sell hundreds or thousands? Answer: unknown.

Print-on-Demand seemed the perfect solution - print only as many books as would sell.  And the more I looked into it, the better it looked.  I made a spreadsheet to analyze if a book could turn a profit based on 1% of the people who'd read my Internet writings actually making a purchase.  It looked viable, so that was the decision that brought "Wheels" to market.

Another important word on book publishing: royalties.  With a conventional publisher, the author might get 5% of retail as a royalty.  So, a $20 book would gain the author $1 per copy, before taxes take a bite.  So a book that sells 10,000 copies, a modest success, wouldn't net the author much income - he / she would be better off at McDonalds.

But Print-on-Demand, the royalty structure is much, much better.  It varies from company to company, but royalties can be 5-10 times better with Print-on-Demand than with a conventional publisher.  That entered into my spreadsheet, too.  An author could do even better with self- publishing, but that's more work.  There's no free lunch.

POD can also be frustrating - long waits between galleys, new errors introduced into the book by the people "correcting" it, missed deadlines, and uncertainty over whether bringing the book to market is the right thing.  It helps if you have your own cheerleaders, lots of self- confindence, or both.  I expect that's the same for any book project, though.

For what it's worth, I was simultaneously putting the "Wheels" manuscript in order while developing the business plan and studying the viability of it all - they were concurrent, parallel paths.  I already have recognition for my writing, so I wasn't bringing "Wheels" to market for my ego - I intend the book to turn a profit.  Writing a book is work, hard work, and I'd rather go surfing than work for free.

If  "Wheels" does turn a profit, I'll publish more books as the mood and subject strike me.  If it doesn't, "Wheels" is a very neat multi-media slice of childhood, fatherhood, my son's life, and motorcycling.  And I learned a good bit about books and publishing along the way.

As I write this, the rest of the story on "Wheels" is waiting to be told. It looks like I'll more than recover my set-up fee (about $1,000)  in the first month of sales, and I'm having fun with it, autographing books and speaking in public and telling stories.  Whether "Wheels" is a big success or not depends on good reviews and whether the subject and stories strike a chord with buyers, especially buyers outside the motorcycle world.  I expect the stories will succeed, based on feedback from early buyers (riders and non-riders), but time will tell.