When Does It Make Sense to Self-Publish?

I was commenting in a professional publishers Linked-In group and decided to republish here.

Think of self-publishing as just another entrepreneurial endeavor. Some businesses can (and must) start out with mounds of start-up cash. But many, many businesses start out in garages or dorm rooms. Think: Dell, Amazon, FaceBook, and thousands of other businesses that started off baking cookies in their kitchens or making yogurt on their farms. They didn't have live audiences to entertain or a huge industry to start them off - just a visionary product that could start local and build.

So let's think of a self-published book as an entrepreneurial effort to create and sell a product.

What made this entrepreneurial effort difficult in the past was the amount of money required for an individual to publish her own book. Although authors still have to pay for good editing, etc., two revolutions have made it easier to "entrepreneur" with a book:

1) Radically less up-front risk because of print-on-demand. (I just received an e-mail that Lightning Source is offering to print your first POD book, if you submit it in digital format, for $199. Imagine telling someone 20 years ago that you'd get their book on the market in a month for $199. You'd have been indited for fraud!)

2) New ways to market books outside of traditional bookstores. (Amazon, social networking, etc.)

So, when does it make sense to self-publish?

(One publisher suggested the first four reasons; I chimed in with the rest.)

#1 - You're a great salesperson.

#2 - You can work with a good team of sales people.

#3 - You teach and use the book as a text.

#4 - You don't plan to sell many copies. Print-on-demand makes sense for those publishing a family history that only relatives and family friends are likely to buy. Also, some publish highly technical books that a few hundred people might pay large sums to purchase.

#5 - No traditional publishers accept your book, but you still believe in it. (We could build a large list of self-published books that ended up becoming best-sellers.)

#6 - A non-fiction book fits in a niche category that would likely come up to the top in an Amazon search. (I've not marketed my book on Christian music in 15 years, but it continues to sell steadily on Amazon. A search for "Contemporary Christian Music" brings it close to the top of a search.)

#7 - The author thinks the book will be a steady, slow seller, but never sell a lot in any given year. I know of a successful author who writes books for other writers, such as "Late-18th-Century American Terminology and Culture" (I made the name up, having forgotten the actual title) to be used by people writing historical fiction. It wouldn't make sense to print 5,000 copies and store most of them for 10 years. But the author might sell 500 copies per year forever on Amazon. If you write 20 books like this, you're making some decent money.

Other ideas of when it's best to self-publish? Please comment!

J. Steve Miller
Author of Enjoy Your Money! How to Make It, Save It, Invest It and Give It
www.enjoyyourmoney.org

The State of Traditional Publishing

Simon & Schuster president and CEO Carolyn Reidy addressed the Evangelical Christian Publisher's Association's CEO Symposium and Publishing University the first week in November. Some of her comments are enlightening and thought provoking. I'm pulling from an article at Publishers Weekly by Cindy Crosby: Reidy: Worse Publishing Environment May Be On the Way.

For several reasons (e.g., a terrible economy and new publishing options), traditional publishers are struggling.

Here's one significant snippet:

"brand name authors continuing to sell but 'everything else is far off normal levels.'"

That tells me that, at this point in history, traditional publishing is for top-selling authors. It may become more and more difficult to be a small fry author in traditional publishing. They're gonna stick with those authors (and bias their marketing dollars) to those who have already established themselves as brands. They'll likely take new authors who already have huge platforms.

Another thoughty statement:

"Reidy also wondered out loud that with self-publishing so easy, 'is it only a matter
of time before one of (the major authors) actually strikes out on his or her own?'"

Hmmm...sounds like they fear that when big-time authors realize how easy it is to bypass the big publishers, they will cut out the middle man and start getting 35% royalties on Amazon sales like those publishing through BookSurge.

Traditional publishers still have a lot to offer, but there are certainly lots of great alternatives out there to consider.

Book Review: Self-Publishing Manual, by Dan Poynter

Dan Poynter's Self-Publishing Manual: How to Write, Print and Sell Your Own Book, 465 pages (Para Publishing, Santa Barbara, CA, Sixteenth Edition, 2007). Includes helpful glossary and index.

Since I'm moving toward self-publishing another book, I needed an education on the publishing process. Poynter fit the bill.

He writes with excellent qualifications: started publishing in 1969, has written over 120 books.

If you're interested in self-publishing, or just want to know more about the publishing process, get your own copy of this book and mark it up well. It has so much relevant content (think: hundreds of specifics you'll want to implement) that you'll want to refer back to it over and over as you work your way through the publication process.

Even if someone else is publishing your book, I'd highly advise studying this book and mapping out the process, since I hear horror stories of publishers who think their responsibility begins and ends with printing the book. Read this book, and you'll know what needs to be done, and when.

Example: many review organizations, which can be critical to the success of a book, won't look at published books. Understandably, they want to review galley proofs before the book is published, so that their reviews can alert bookstores, distributors, libraries, etc., of the latest books that people will be wanting. Since the greatest publicity for a book tends to come when it's initially published, review organizations don't want to put out a review three months after the main publicity has gone out. Plus, they need time to read and review the book.

If you miss these deadlines, you miss out on some valuable publicity. Poynter ends with a valuable timeline, which you can revise to account for all the specifics of your own book.

Content includes publishing options, writing and creating your manuscript, starting a publishing company, designing/layout/printing, announcing your book, pricing, promoting, understanding distribution channels, advertising, storage/packing/shipping, coping with being published.

In one sense, its overwhelming to see the hundreds of things I need to do to publish my book. I think, "Crap. Can't I just spend my time researching and writing and just ship it off to the printer? Now I've got to think about all this stuff."

On the other hand, it's freeing. Now I understand why so many good books don't get into people's hands. The publishing world works with rules that those outside the industry don't understand. Understanding the industry empowers us to get our books out to those who want them.

In order to deal with the feeling of bewilderment that comes with having hundreds of items on a to-do list, I'll start with Poynter's helpful "Calendar" of events in his appendix, personalizing it for the things I need to do for my book. After putting the to-do items in chronological order, I'll be responsible for only the items that I need to accomplish today, or at least this week.

Why not just delegate all this stuff? Poynter advises,

"Learn the entire business by doing everything yourself before you begin to farm out some
of the work, because doing it all yourself will provide you with a better understanding of publishing."

Another thought: After reading several books on publishing and marketing, I've discovered that these books aren't just parading out the same materials in different forms. Each book teaches me many new things about the process. Some concentrate on the process of getting your book well-positioned and marketed through Amazon.com. Then there's the business of e-books. Concerning book marketing in general, the ideas are practically endless.

So keep reading about book publishing and marketing. Learn the process. We don't have to do everything they say. Even taking one great idea and running with it could revolutionize the impact of our next book.