Publish Please

I am writing on my flight from Germany back to the States, my head full of fresh impressions from six weeks of travel. And I am also due on my monthly blog post. What better time to share some book-tourish thoughts!

The most recent book in my Sayyida Salme series – the fifth in five years – features the German original of her posthumously-discovered manuscript, Briefe nach der Heimat.[1] I uploaded the new version that my mother and I painstakingly prepared over many months to Amazon (for individual sales outside of Germany) and Ingram Spark (for distributors and bookstores) at the end of August and then separately to BoD, the German Books on Demand (for both) at the start of September. Mid-September I flew over to do the loop from Berlin, through Dresden, Jena, and Rudolstadt, to Hamburg – all places Sayyida Salme lived.

The book market has, of course, changed a lot since Sayyida Salme had her Memoiren einer arabischen Prinzessin published in 1886. Here are some impressions, as I trace the thread:

• After visiting about fifty bookstores in a dozen towns along the way, I can say that reactions covered the gamut. Some were super interested; others would not touch a self-published book with a nine-foot pole. What I cannot say is what difference my trip will make. There is no predicting which contacts will produce sparks that lead to further awareness, interest, or sales, although I hope for at least some ripple effect.

• Germany still has a remarkable number of brick-and-mortar bookstores, especially in the big cities. Germans not only like their print in hand, but they also like their local shops, where they can scan the tables and shelves. Where Americans are quick to pop their books into an Amazon cart, Germans will walk the extra distance to greet familiar staff and get the book they ordered a day or two before. But German bookstores also prefer books from publishing companies - ordering from a Verlag is easy, efficient, and trusted.

• My visit to the huge annual Frankfurter Buchmesse (trade fair) was another Sammelsurium of reactions, from enthused to friendly to polite to dismissive. I went to see if a hybrid model – my finished German book plus their catalogued support – was even an option. After choosing some likely candidates, I stopped by about two dozen independent publishers, but the answer was basically no. Even where there was interest, it always boiled down to whether I would fit into their established series – the one with its distinctly, excruciatingly pre-defined format.

• Here is an actual conversation I had, paraphrased to show the attitude: 

  Publisher representative: The problem is that your book is already done.

  Me: Oh – but instead of a problem, isn't that an opportunity? I have basically done all the work for you. You can see the finished product and assess from there. We are miles ahead of where you would normally start with an author ….

  Publisher representative: It is a problem. We would need to redo all of that, to undo what you have done and do it according to our processes.

  Me: Okay, I get it. A pity that you see it as a problem, rather than an opportunity.

  
  

• Where I face a trade-off – going it alone with full legal rights and creative control or giving my books a publisher’s imprimatur – I am at least grateful that I have the choice. In seeking to amplify Sayyida Salme’s voice, my books are investments, not profit-makers. The goal is accuracy and attractive availability (including my own creative expression), not revenue. That difference, I fear, will always be an impediment to my giving it up to business-minded book sellers.

  
  

• Sayyida Salme probably had both objectives. She was perilously strapped for funds and surely hoped book sales would support the family, although I am not aware of any records of her publishing arrangement, nor what she got from the four editions that were sold the first year. But, as she explained in closing words that were added to the 1888 English translation of the Memoirs, she also wanted to affect public opinion – an intent I believe she achieved magnificently, as her writings continue to circulate and reverberate today:

Having been born and bred in the East, I am in a position to set down the unvarnished reflection of my Oriental experiences—of its high life and its low life—to speak of many peculiarities, and lift the veil from things that are always hidden from profane eyes. This, I hope, will constitute the main value of my book, and my object will have been fully gained if I have been able to contribute my share, and above all, if I have succeeded in removing many misconceptions and distortions current about the East. (Memoirs, p. 229)

• Even so, her reach was constrained. The family failed at least twice to convince a publishing house to publish: first, when they sought to re-publish the Memoirs after the second trip to Zanzibar in 1888, for which they prepared edits[2] and an addendum;[3] and second, when the shocked children ultimately decided to publish her Letters to the Homeland manuscript, but then found no takers.[4] Add to that what was apparently a New York bootlegged copy of the official 1888 English translation and Lionel Strachey’s subsequent usurpation into his own mangled edition of 1907. It was a make-or-break arena dominated by the for-better-or-worse discretion of publishing houses.

• Today we still have gatekeepers, but at least some of the gates are more open than closed. Amazon publishes about a million and a half self-published books annually through its KDP platform (including mine), a fraction of its 33 million titles, but still remarkable in scale and growing. The volume of self-published books has more than doubled in the past decade; this is no longer niche. It is my good fortune that I started to write books right when self-publishing had become readily available, credible, and viable.

  
  

• To reiterate the point, here is my paraphrased conversation with Oxford University Press regarding my very first book (a guide for structuring international partnerships):[5]

  OUP representative: Yes, we’re very interested. What are your current plans?

  Me: That’s great – thank you! I have an open format, with pull-quotes and lots of color-coded diagrams to entice and ease the reader experience. I also use a somewhat chatty tone, so it takes less effort to absorb the information. And I add lots of cat cartoons from my son that are surprisingly reflective of the content and keep it light.[6]

  OUP representative: Ahhh, hmmm …. Well, this would be part of a series that does not use color, only gray scale. And it is an academic series, so no chatty tone. And cat cartoons - no, no, definitely not.

  Me: Okay, I get it. I’ll self-publish then. Thank you for helping me make that decision!

The point I am making is that writing a book is not the same as publishing a book is not the same as finding an audience and securing sales. What it took in the 1880s can make us appreciate Sayyida Salme’s achievement as the first Arab woman to publish a book all the more. By contrast, what it takes today poses a whole new set of hurdles, but also opportunities.

Do you have a book inside of you? Something to share in your quest to self-express, whether to preserve your heritage, speak your own voice, or both? Don’t hesitate, it is within reach, more doable than ever – it might even spark your own self-publishing passion!

Let history surprise you, let her story inspire you – let her authentic voice speak to you!

Andrea Emily Stumpf

October 28, 2026

Photo Credit: Printed flyer by publisher Friedrich Luckhardt in Berlin announcing the upcoming publication of Sayyida Salme’s Memoiren einer arabischen Prinzessin in 1886. Leiden University Libraries at Or. 27.135 A7.

[1] With my translated Letters to the Homeland (2023) available virtually anytime, anywhere, I became increasingly uncomfortable that her original – first published by Ambassador Heinz Scheppen in 1999 – was out-of-print, hard-to-get, and cost-prohibitive. As much as we appreciated Schneppen’s publication at the time, my new edition is, I believe, even more true to the original and enriched by many family photographs and other images.

[2] These edits appear in a marked copy provided by her son, Rudolph Said-Ruete, to the Oriental Institute in Leiden in 1937. It is now part of a special collection at the Leiden University Libraries under SR 613 a-b, including direct online availability in digital form.

[3] This refers to the Nachtrag zu meinen Memoiren (Addendum to My Memoirs), of which drafts and a typed final version are preserved in the Leiden University Libraries at Or. 27.135 A1, Or. 27.135 A2, and Or. 6281. My translation and commentary of this text are part of The Centennial Collection: More of Emily Ruete, born Sayyida Salme, Princess of Oman and Zanzibar (2024).

[4] Shocked by what the manuscript revealed of those traumatic first years. The publisher rejections are described in Letters, footnote 8, p. xxii. For more, see the whole essay “About the Manuscript” in Letters, pp. xx-xxv - or now in the BOD German, "Über das Manuskript," pp. xx-xxvii.

[5] Developing International Partnership Programs – A Primer for Partners: How to Structure for Sustainability, Efficiency, and Development Impact (2019). You can see my self-designed layout, plus a few cats, in the "Read sample" link. Many thanks to my graphic designer, Joe Bernier, who has done the graphics for every single one of my books and is extremely good at following my instructions!

[6] These cat cartoons are a much beloved, much commented-upon feature of this book, proving that even a serious topic and complex content can be fun.