Publishing a Book: A Bucket List Project

2015 has been a busy year both personally and professionally. I’ve done the usual juggling of long term and short term video projects for great clients like Domtar, American Family Insurance and People’s State Bank. I completed a documentary that will hopefully make a difference for Wisconsin tribes and Native children. I’ve been providing marketing assistance on a $23.1 grant project received by Northcentral Technical College and the Wisconsin Technical College System. But of all the projects I completed this year, the one that I found the most exhilarating – and terrifying – was publishing a book.

For the past 10 years a photographer friend, Irene MacFarland, and I have been exchanging prompts on a monthly basis. At the beginning of the month she sends me a photo and I send her a short story or poem. By the end of the month, we are responsible for creating a response to the other’s prompt. As you can imagine, we’ve accumulated quite a collection of material, and decided, what the heck, we’ll put a book together in our spare time. And so it began.

Our first step was to review our accumulated efforts. There were some pieces that either she or I felt didn’t measure up, so they were set aside. (We went through a few rounds of this process.) When we had winnowed the items to a manageable pile, we began searching for a theme. We finally settled on four elements, and the title, Elemental.

After we arranged our work into four chapters (Earth, Fire, Water and Air) and created a flow within the chapters, we turned our attention to revisions. We both went through my writing hunting for typos (and I smoothed out lumpy phrasing here and there), reviewed photo and writing titles, examined photo quality and chose a cover image. We wrestled with page size and format, font choices and a myriad of other tiny details that mostly go unnoticed while reading a book but that contribute to the overall impression in the end.

Layout took a while because we were working on two different versions of the same program, so what looked perfect on one computer was completely messed up on the other. We uploaded PDFs to Box for review purposes, but tried converting the PDF back to a Word doc and were met with chaos. We planned a mini book layout retreat at a north woods cabin, and spent the weekend reformatting the book from scratch. Needless to say the result was a better looking book, but also an exhausted and ever so slightly crabby writer and photographer.

When layout was complete and we had combed through the manuscript several times, we secured our library of congress number, ISBN number (from another writer I know who has established his own publishing company), bar code and copyright registration. We had already solicited printing quotes and selected a printer.

Once the project was in the printer’s hands, self-doubt kicked in. I was sure that the writing wasn’t good enough. We should have gone with a different layout. It should have been organized differently. This was all so personal, and now we were putting it all out into the world. My family and friends – and gasp, maybe even strangers – would know what a warped individual I am after reading all these scenarios that arose from my oddball imagination.

But, too late now. The gate is open and the book lives. Now, what’s next on my bucket list?

Susan Reetz, of Rucinski & Reetz Communication, is a writer/director/producer for film, video and web. Her scriptwriting and producing work has earned numerous local, national, and international awards. She also writes feature articles, brochure copy, news releases, web copy and other promotional materials. She can be reached at 715-212-6239 or Reetz@RucinskiReetz.com.

www.RucinskiReetz.com

Wisconsin Indian Child Welfare Act Documentary Now Available

Our newly completed one hour long film from producer Susan Reetz, Missing Threads: The Story of the Wisconsin Indian Child Welfare Act, explores the connection between family, tribal culture and children, and the consequences of severing those ties.

The project began in 2012 with initial funding from the Midwest Child Welfare Implementation Center (Lincoln, Nebraska) which made it possible to capture interviews with two tribal social workers, two tribal attorneys, two former Wisconsin Department of Children and Families staff and sponsoring senator Robert Jauch (now retired). This portion of the story outlines why all 11 Wisconsin tribes and representatives of Wisconsin state government made the unprecedented decision to work together to codify the federal Indian Child Welfare Act into Wisconsin law, and how the bill was drafted, enacted and implemented.

Additional funding from the Ho-Chunk Nation, Forest County Potawatomi Foundation and the Oneida Nation made it possible to film in-depth interviews with a Forest County Potawatomi man and a Ho-Chunk woman who were removed from their families as children and placed in non-Native foster homes. These personal stories illustrate the long term impact of a Native child’s removal from their culture and subsequent efforts to reunite with family and tribe, and find their personal identity.

The goal of the film is to inform viewers about the importance of maintaining connection between Native children and their tribes and culture, and the state’s legal responsibility to make sure proper channels and procedures are followed. It will be used to educate social workers, attorneys, judges and the general public. It can also be used as a road map by other states seeking to undertake their own codification of the federal Indian Child Welfare Act.

Three hundred DVDs will be given away to tribal and state judges, attorneys, social workers, foster care staff and others who may have contact with a case impacted by the Wisconsin Indian Child Welfare Act. The film will be shown at the Green Bay Film Festival (http://www.gbfilmfestival.org/filmgreenbay/) on March 5, and by late fall it will also be available on YouTube for free viewing. More information can be found at http://missingthreadswicwa.blogspot.com/.

How to Fund Your Film or Video Project, reprise

Written by Susan Reetz, Rucinski & Reetz Communication, LLC

You may have a fantastic idea for a documentary, but unless you’re willing to donate all your time – and the time of your crew – you will need to do some fundraising to make that idea a reality. I have successfully funded a few doc projects on topics near and dear to my heart. Two years ago I wrote a blog post about funding a film project, but felt that some of the information was still relevant and useful. So, here is a lightly updated version of my original post. I hope you find it helpful as you plan how to fund your project.

Plan and Prepare

Before you start your quest for funding, you need to make sure you’ve given enough thought to what you want to do, who you want to reach with your project in the end, how you’re going to market it once it’s done, where it will be seen, and what amount of money you need to raise. Once you’re gotten those details worked out, you’re ready to look at possible funding sources.

Crowd Funding

www.Kickstarter.com and www.IndieGoGo.com are probably the most well known crowd funding opportunities for creative projects, including videos and films. Both sites allow you to set up your campaign, list your total project funding goal, set a structure for levels of funding and associated recognition or perks for funders, and fully explain your project concept. Some projects have 15 or more funding categories ranging from $1 to $500, while others might opt for a simpler structure of, say, four or six funding categories. I suggest you check out at least the two sites linked above to get a feel for how different people have used this method.

You need to understand that roughly 8% of your total budget goes to Kickstarter and Amazon, and that you need to plan incentives for multiple levels of donations, and then fulfill the incentives if you project is successful.

                                                                                                        

Grants

I have written and received grants for video projects. There are a ton of foundations and individuals out there who are interested in either supporting the arts or in improving communities (or both). Some states have an arts board which offers various grant opportunities to artists for a specific project or as a fellowship (for example, Wisconsin Arts Board http://artsboard.wisconsin.gov). Many foundations are looking to positively impact communities or improve the lives of specific populations. I have produced a series of videos over the years dealing with social issue topics and, by partnering with a nonprofit organization for each project (to act as fiscal agent) was awarded funding for production, duplication and distribution.

Be sure to read each grant application carefully and provide the specific information in the requested format. Also pay attention to funding cycle deadlines and how long it will take to hear back from the funder once you’ve submitted your grant. Ask up front of there are any restrictions on selling your film (if that’s your plan) when using grant dollars. When the project is done, you’ll typically need to file a report with the funder, and of course acknowledge them in the credits and any collateral material.

Corporate sponsorships

Corporate sponsorship is another way to approach funding for your project. As with grants, corporate sponsors will normally be looking for visibility on packaging and collateral materials, the film/video website, and of course the credits. You will need to look for an organization whose mission or audience is in line with or overlapping your project, or that will benefit somehow from being associated with the project. For example, I was raising money for a documentary about children of drug addicts. One of the places I approached for funding was a medical organization with sites throughout our state, and neighboring states. My topic was a good fit for their mission, and the area in which I planned to film and focus primary distribution overlapped their service area. It worked out beautifully. I offered them limited creative input, but they were most interested in securing copies that they could give out within their service area. In short, they provided a sizable chunk of funding, I got the project done, and they benefitted from positive PR and community goodwill in addition to increasing awareness of a serious subject.

Whatever your idea, be sure to develop a realistic budget, think carefully about which funding approach (or combination of approaches) would work best for you and your project, and then get to work. If you’ve got a great idea that you’re passionate about, it’s worth the effort to raise the funds to make it a reality.

Susan Reetz, of Rucinski & Reetz Communication, is a writer/director/producer for film, video and multimedia. Her scriptwriting and producing work has earned numerous local, national, and international awards. She also writes feature articles, brochure copy, news releases, and other promotional materials. She can be reached at 715-355-9159 or Reetz@RucinskiReetz.com.

www.RucinskiReetz.com