School secretary becomes published author by printing her novel

Lisa Simmons has wanted to be a writer since she was 10, when she began making up stories about a heroine named Kip. As an adult she kept writing stories and began sending them to publishers. They only sent back rejection letters.

Two years ago, she found salvation for people who have always wanted to become authors but can't interest a publisher and blanch at the upfront costs of self-publishing. It's called Print on Demand publishing. Now Simmons, the secretary at St. Mary Cathedral School, is a published author with four books under her name.

The process began when Simmons uploaded her manuscript for her first book, "Kip MacAllister: Close Cover," to a company called iUniverse. She received her author's copy of the paperback three months later. The cost was $99.

The author's copy is the only one the company prints unless the writer or someone else orders more. The book also becomes available through the iUniverse Web site and at Amazon.com. Simmons receives 20 percent of the profit from each of those books sold. If she orders more copies and sells them herself, she keeps all the profits. Marketing the books is the responsibility of the POD writer.

All four of her books are for sale at Hastings Books & Videos and Barnes & Noble. The first book also has just been picked up by Ingram Book Distributors, which is placing it in other Hastings stores.

All set in Cape Girardeau

Simmons has written three books in the Kip MacAllister series, all of which are set in Cape Girardeau. MacAllister is a bodyguard and martial arts expert in her 20s who has dangerous adventures, many of them involving a villain named Clarence Smith.

The stories come "from all my experiences," she said. She wanted to create a good role model for girls. "The idea of a Secret Service bodyguard intrigued me. I couldn't find any books on it," she said.

Simmons and her husband, Michael, are both martial arts instructors, so at least that much of Kip MacAllister is her. She thought she plucked Kip's last name from the air but recently found out that her great-great-grandmother was a MacAllister.

Simmons' goal was just to have a book of her own her school-age children -- Ryan, Lauren and Caitlin -- could read, one that wasn't a romance or science fiction. Now Caitlin has started writing her own stories about Kip at Caitlin's age. "That's exactly what I wanted to happen," Simmons said.

She also wants others who have always wanted to write or be published to know it can be done. "There are so many people saying, I always wanted to write a book -- if for nothing else to give to my kids," she said.

One Kim MacAllister and Lisa Simmons fan is St. Mary fourth-grader Lessley Dennington.

"I'm really excited that our secretary is a writer and that our secretary is a famous writer," Lessley said. "It's a neat thing to know somebody who has really had a book published."

Her mother gave Lessley the first book in the Kip MacAllister series. "I though it was awesome," she said. Now she has read all three.

She likes the books' underlying message.

"Kip is a lady that is taking martial arts in an all men's world," she said. "It really stands up for women's rights.

Lessley, the daughter of Dr. Don and Marilee Dennington, is a student in Simmons' martial arts class. She also loves writing stories and horses.

"I just wrote a story about me getting a horse for Christmas," she said. It's not a true story yet, but "I'm hoping," Lessley said.

Part of reading program

Carol Strattman, principal at St. Mary Cathedral School, has added Simmons' books to the school's accelerated reading program. "They're very clean, wholesome and exciting reading for the children," she said.

In the accelerated reading program, students take a computer test on the books they've read. Strattman wrote the questions for the Simmons books.

"We promote reading so much. What better way to promote reading than to use a book whose author is right here in school?" Strattman said.

Boys like the books as well. St. Mary eighth-grader Asa Gray says it doesn't matter to him that the protagonist in the Kip MacAllister books is a woman. He has read all three.

"They had a lot of action in them," he said. "They're really cool, and it's cool how the story unfolded."

Asa, the son of Jane and Paul Abbott, is fondest of the third book in the series, "Protection Specialist," "because they finally catch the bad guy."

In fact, murderer Clarence Smith gets killed off. Now Simmons has to create a new villain.

The Kip MacAllister series has a moral underpinning, particularly in the relationship between Kip and Allan Clark, her handsome partner in the security firm. "It's that you can be friends with a guy and not jump in bed with him," Simmons said.

Kip and Allan, "a tall, brown-haired, muscular man with intense dark eyes," share their first kiss at the very end of the third book in the series.

Simmons estimates about 100 copies of the first two books have been sold. The third and fourth books just came out. The books start at $10.95 if ordered at iUniverse. Her newest book, the first "Castillo Adventure Series: Escape from Danger! and Bounty Hunter's Prey," sells for $14.95. She says the books are cheaper at Hastings than ordering them on the Internet.

More costly now

The cost of POD publishing has gone up since she started out. Getting a book published now costs $159 for the basic package: One paperback book and a custom designed cover. A $349 package provides editorial and marketing direction, a review of the manuscript and a marketing tool kit. For $949, the company also will edit the writer's text.

Simmons has her husband and children read the manuscripts for typos and errors before she submits them. She admits the first book wasn't proofed well. "There are horrible mistakes," she said.

A friend, Silvia Kinder, has designed the covers for her last three books.

Simmons is among the writers who hope POD leads to a deal with a "real" publisher. It has happened to more than one. Laurie Notaro published her first iUniverse book in December 2000. In October 2001 she signed a two-book deal with Random House for six figures. Her "The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club" reached No. 12 on the New York Times paperback best-seller list last summer.

Simmons is not giving up her day job, though. She is taking notes about all the strange and wonderful and embarrassing things that happen at an elementary school. Someday they may end up in a book.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182