About Us

For twenty- five years I fought the rigors of beginning a small business in my garage. My wife to this day laughs at me for only wanting to make fifteen thousand dollars a year and be my own boss. Today with the help of many key people I own to my knowledge the largest privately held plastic company in the United States. Four plants in as many states. I finally decided I now had time to write the novel that had been bouncing around in my head. Ten months later and it was done. It was given rave reviews by all of the people who read it. Little did I realize that I had just finished the easy part?

Being a resourceful individual I did what every one would do. I walked down to the local book -store and bought fifteen paper back- books with similar guidelines as mine. It was a fictional mystery novel. I would simply send a copy of my novel to all of them and when- ever one of them published it I would sit back and wait on the royalty check. In a few short months I received a letter saying that they did not accept unsolicited manuscripts. I went to a larger town still in my resourceful frame of mind and bought some books on how to get your book published. Seems some what contradictory doesn’t it. It was apparent that finding a reputable literary agent was the best way to go. There are many avenues available in finding a literary agent. The problem is that the top literary agents already have more clients than they can support at the present time. Taking on a new author is not the highest thing on their list. I also found out that most publishers have a two-year plus back- log of contracts already in place. I was not discouraged. Smarter, but not discouraged.

Looking in the yellow pages I found a printing company in a town nearby. I grabbed my three and one half- inch floppy and away I went. I explained I wanted it to be pre-pared in paper -back form so I could share something that looked like a book with my friends. Eight and one half by eleven printed paper is not a book. It is just a big pile of paper. One week later I picked up one copy of my manuscript. It was just loose leaf and had no cover and was not bound together in any way. It only cost me three hundred and sixty five dollars and I thought it was a good deal. So I bought some heavy paper and some craft glue and headed home. After several minutes of groveling my wife agreed to help. She is handy on things like this and I was excited to have a real book finally. Two hours later after the glue dried I was the proud owner of a paper back version of my novel. Figuring in the gas and the aspirin I only had four hundred dollars involved. My problem was I had more than one friend and I wasn’t going to give up my copy.
I did the only thing a resourceful person would do. I ordered a twenty- five hundred-dollar duplex laser printer for my computer. I can not explain in words how elated I was when I began printing in large quantities (ten) my novel. It only took eight-teen hours. Two printer cartridges at one hundred and five dollars each and more aspirin.

I now had eleven paper back versions for the low price of three thousand dollars and change. That’s only two hundred and seventy dollars each. I still did not have any type of cover that even remotely resembled anything in the stores or at a yard sale. My neighbor knew of a woman who did graphic arts and I contacted her and she did a great job in creating a cover design. She only charged me four hundred and twenty five dollars. Accepting the odds that my very good novel ever being published was a million to one. Even being read was thousands to one so I ordered a five hundred covers. Another three hundred dollars invested. I was lucky to have a local print shop that would cut my manuscript to size so I could now score the covers oops !!! My wife could score the covers and then glue everything all together. I then would take them back to my cutter guy and he would cut them to the proper size and ala.. I had a nice looking book. Being somewhat of a control freak I needed to be self- contained. He told me I could buy a used cutter for around twenty-five hundred dollars. One week later I was now a self- publisher and only had four thousand dollars and change in a book I planned to give to people so I could share my work. I never wrote it to make money. Just to share with friends.

Doing the math on my efforts I decided if I printed the five hundred books I would only have fourteen dollars invested in each book not counting several hundred hours of time invested. Possibly a divorce that would drive up the per book cost out of sight. The other thing that I realized that there were thousands of people like me out there in the writing world. Most of them were not resourceful and totally as committed as myself. I guess it became a challenge against the insurmountable odds of being published. To make a long story short, four hundred thousand dollars later I created Step By Step Publications. A Company that specialized in short runs for the writers like me who wanted only to share their work or even sell them for a few dollars. Writers who choose not to fight the battle that only a precious few ever win.