Celebrate Green Blog

Yesterday we did a review of Alisa’s book Project Happily Ever After. Today, Alisa contributed this post that will interest all of you aspiring green-hearted authors.

Remember to comment below or on yesterday’s post to be entered in a drawing for an autographed copy of Project Happily Ever After.

The giveaway is now closed and we have a winner, Karen of Beyond Us Marketing.

Guest post by Alisa Bowman

I’ve spent my career writing books for other people—people who are much more famous, affluent, and influential than I am. I watched as seven of these co-written and ghost written titles made the bestseller list and as a few of them cracked the million copy sales mark.

So when I eventually had a story of my own to write, I, of course, yearned for such results for myself. Could I—the lowly ghostwriter—become a media darling? Could my book sell thousands of copies in just one week? Would I ever see my name on the NY Times bestseller list?

I set out to find out. I knew the venture would take time, money, smarts and creativity. I had all of those things except one: money. I would need it to pay for things like:

• Travel to various locations to promote the book: $2,000+
• Promotional materials like business cards, pens and so on: $500-$1000
• Technical assistance for my blog that kept crashing: $2000+
• A publicist to pitch me to TV: $10,000+
• A publicist to pitch me to radio: $7500
• Advertising: $2000
• Social media campaigns: $2000
• Outfits to wear on TV + makeup: Unknown

Most authors pay for such things out of their book advance. My advance for Project Happily Ever After, was $12,500 and most of it was used to pay off a credit card almost as soon as my publishing company cut the check. How on Earth would I pay for all of this?

I did it by putting my family on the tightest budget imaginable. As we cut costs, I was able to find extra income to slowly cover the costs of my book campaign.

And I cut a lot of costs. We stopped using our cleaning lady. I stopped getting pedicures, facials, bikini waxes, massages, highlighting and more. We stopped eating gourmet foods. We stopped eating all foods that had brand names.

I went from drinking wine somewhat regularly to not at all. We went from eating out whenever we felt like it to eating at home most of the time.

I started begging people to give us their hand-me-downs.

We decided to find a way to parent our daughter after school rather than pay for after school care, even though we both work.

We put off all new purchases.

We stopped buying everything our only child wanted. Instead we gave her a list of chores with a corresponding payment scale. She could earn income by doing the chores, and if she saved enough of it she could buy her own toys.

I turned down the heat.

I made sure every light in the house was in the off position if no one was in the room.

I began wearing the same outfit multiple times in a row in order to create less laundry to wash. (I work at home and no one sees me from day to day so this really wasn’t as drastic as it might at first sound).

Going into our frugal years, I expected it to be a long, dismal sad slog. I thought there would be a lot of complaining. I figured my family would hate me when all was said and done. And because I was attempting to save money primarily at the grocery store, I thought the venture might be bad for our health and the environment, too (as organic food generally costs more than regular food).

Now my husband and I did sort of have a battle over the AC in the summer. I said it didn’t need to go on until it was warmed than 90. He wanted it on when it was only in the 80s. I often came home to it on. He often came home to it off. We were both amused by our antics, so it was okay.

I will say this. Of everything we cut back on, I hardly miss any of it. I don’t miss $200 hair highlights. And I don’t mind de-callusing my own feet. In fact, it’s kind of fun, especially when my daughter watches. It’s lovely when we all snuggle together on the couch just to stay warm. And I thoroughly enjoy working as a family to clean the house. My daughter loves when I mix vinegar and baking soda together to create a “volcano” that cleans pretty much everything around.

And we were able to eat healthfully and possibly do some good for the environment, too. You want to know why? I started buying food from the perimeter of the store and hardly anything from the middle. It’s the boxed and bagged and shrink wrapped stuff that costs the most. I haul a lot less trash to the curb than I have in years past.

I also hardly ever fill up my car’s gas tank, because we walk or ride our bikes nearly everywhere. That makes me feel good.

The book is out now and my expenses are now dropping. Eventually I’ll have paid off the bills and we’ll have a normal family budget again. When that happens, I might buy a hunk of gourmet cheese. My husband says he’d like to eat out somewhere nice, and our daughter wants what she always wants: more toys. That never changes.

But I won’t go back to having it all. We started this to cut costs. Now we’re doing it because it makes us happy.

Comment below if you’d like a chance to win an
autographed copy of Project Happily Ever After.

Lynn Colwell and Corey Colwell-Lipson are mother and daughter and authors of Celebrate Green! Creating Eco-Savvy Holidays, Celebrations and Traditions for the Whole Family, and founders of Green Halloween®.