SELF-PUBLISHING SOLUTIONS:

Self-Publishing Guide

If you are lucky enough to sell your book to a publisher, it's a long process. First you write a synopsis, then send it to your agent. By the time the agent has read your proposal and sent it around to publishers, many months have passed before you get a contract.

A year could pass before the book hits the bookstore shelves and, depending on the size of your advance (which is always against royalties), many more months may elapse before you get royalties.

So, traditional publishing can take a long, long time from when you submit your manuscript, to the day the book is on the bookstore shelves.

Compare that with self-publishing …

What is Self-Publishing?

Self-publishing is the publishing of books and other media by the authors of those works, rather than by established, third-party publishers. Although it represents a small percentage of the publishing industry in terms of sales, it has been present in one form or another since the beginning of publishing and has seen an increase in activity with the advancement of publishing technology, desktop publishing systems and the Internet.

The key distinguishing characteristic of self-publishing is the absence of a traditional publisher. Instead, the creator or creators fulfil this role, taking editorial control of the content, arranging for printing, marketing the material, and often distributing it, either directly to consumers or to retailers. Less often, the author prints the material at home.

True self-publishing means authors undertake the entire cost of publication themselves, and handle all marketing, distribution, storage, etc. All rights remain with the author, the completed books are the writer's property, and the writer gets all the proceeds of sales. Self-publishing can be more cost-effective than vanity or subsidy publishing and can result in a much higher-quality product, because authors can put every aspect of the process out to bid rather than accepting a preset package of services.

Promotion and marketing of self-published books are critical. Authors must undertake book publicity which means developing lists of editors and book reviewers within various media, as well as looking for ways to get coverage ‘off the book page’.

There are several other difficulties faced by self-publishers. Bookstores cannot afford to deal with tens of thousands of small publishing companies. They tend to buy from the larger publishers, distributors, and wholesalers. But even these companies cannot deal with the recent flood of new publishers. The competition to get into bookstores is extreme, and the terms of trade (discounts and return privileges especially) can be financially onerous.

Authors may choose to self-publish because they want control, because they want access to their customer list, or because they love the business of publishing. When working with a commercial publisher, an author gives up a degree of editorial control, and sometimes has little input into the design of the book, its distribution, and its marketing.

Authors in a specialist area may be confident of a certain number of sales but also realise that the total number of sales is limited, and wish to maximise their earnings. In this situation, authors may risk a significant amount of their own capital to self-publish. This avoids a publisher taking any part of the proceeds and, if also self-distributed, avoids distribution fees as well. The payoff is a much larger percentage of the sale price being returned as profit.

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Should You Self-Publish?

George Bernard Shaw did … and if it was good enough for him, why not you? The term ‘self-publish’ used to spell the death knell for an aspiring author but now – with most mainstream publishers only taking on work from agents, and agents reluctant to represent unknown authors – it has become an accepted and viable method to get your work into print.

You’ve written your manuscript and you’ve decided to self-publish. What do you do now? Well, there are a few recognised avenues open to you.

Firstly, you have book producers, like Dragonwick Publishing, who work with self-publishing authors and most provide professional-quality books at reasonable prices. And, these days with digital printing, can usually organise to print your book in small runs – from twenty or so copies – with reprints available at any time.

Book producers design and setup the complete book, working closely with the client. Scanning of photographs, cover design, ISBN and CiP, copy-editing, proofing and printing of the finished product are normally included in their costs. Of course, you must handle the marketing and distribution of your books yourself but, in exchange for taking on this responsibility, you will get to press sooner and have complete control of your book.

Some small commercial printers can also offer this service, or recommend a reliable and experienced book producer.

Secondly, there’s vanity or subsidy publishing. The uninitiated sometimes think that this is akin to self-publishing, but they are worlds apart. In most cases the author pays hefty upfront costs, with the publisher organising minimal editing, production, printing and some marketing – often just on their website, and who knows where to find that?

Please, be wary as they seem to be more expensive than other alternatives available. If you decide to follow this path, make sure you talk to other authors who have used the particular publisher you have chosen. There are quite a few horror stories out there!

Then, of course, there’s electronic publishing. Some authors have found this method to be successful, but all that can really be said on the subject is: Can you read the book in the comfort of an armchair, waiting in the doctor’s surgery or in a warm bed on a cold winter’s night?

The cheapest alternative is to do-it-yourself on your trusty home computer. Books abound that promise to turn you into a book designer overnight or you can just take a punt and hope you get it right. However, most word processing programs are unsuitable for book production and there are many other elements to consider: the page and cover design; scanning and placing any illustrations and photographs in the correct size and mode; copy-editing; type control; legal provisions and, finally, liaising with the printing company and understanding their requirements. Unless you’re au fait with this side of things, it can be rather frightening.

But don’t be put off; it can be very fulfilling to produce your book yourself. However, in most cases, you will be unable to replicate professional quality and the finished product will probably look amateurish.

Whichever method you choose, there are few things you should remember:

• Have your manuscript completed (edited and proofread by several competent people) before you attempt to get it published. Changes after the production process has commenced are costly and can make all parties very edgy. There was an author who supplied their book chapter by chapter (not in order) over a lengthy period, and then proceeded to rewrite them all again (and again … and again). Needless to say, the production took a lot longer and cost a lot more than it should (and the designer acquired quite a few grey hairs).

• Where possible (unless you are experienced at scanning) supply original photographs and remember that poor photocopies of old newspaper photos do not make for good print quality! Bear in mind if you place low-resolution scans into your manuscript exactly where you want them to appear, you will have to be flexible when the pages are designed and setup, and probably the scans will need to be redone (at an extra cost) to the appropriate quality required for reproduction.

• It is false economy to order too many books. You can get 10,000 copies of your grandmother’s love letters (or collection of pickled ox tongue recipes) printed by some obscure print house in India for only $2.00 each but, if you are an orphan (or all your friends are vegans), do you really need to have 9,997 copies gathering dust under your bed?

• Designing, producing and printing your book will take time, especially if you make lots of changes, so don’t organise your book launch, or make promises you may not be able to keep, until you get a definite completion date (and then add a week or two to be sure).

• Self-publishing can provide a viable alternative to mainstream publishing, especially for books with a limited readership – family and local histories, personal memoirs and targeted collections of poetry and short stories. The revolution in desktop publishing over that past decade has made this an economic proposition. Dragonwick Publishing, other book producers, and small publishing and printing companies, cater for a niche market and their good reputation is essential for their continued existence in the industry.

• Finally, like any other consumer purchase, authors should shop around and compare quality, expertise and prices before committing themselves.

Self-publishing used to be synonymous with self defeat. Fortunately, that is no longer the case. There are many outstanding authors who self-published, along with George Bernard Shaw, there’s also Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling, Ernest Hemingway, Edgar Allen Poe, Leo Tolstoy and Stephen King.

And you’ve all heard of our own Matthew Reilly, whose first novel Contest was rejected by every major publisher in Sydney in 1994. Undaunted, he borrowed money from his family and self-published. He placed some copies in a bookstore in Sydney, where a copy was bought by an editor from one of the major publishing houses. The rest is history! He now has over seven bestsellers to his credit, and has sold more than three million books worldwide.

Another Australian author, Sandra Cabot, self-published The Liver Cleansing Diet in 1996, which was picked up by a commercial publisher and has sold over two million copies.

There are hundreds of success stories of people who have self-published – and maybe you could be one of them!

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Contact Jeannette Gilligan and find out how

Dragonwick’s Book Production & Printing Service for Self-Publishers

can turn your writing dreams into reality

<publish@dragonwick.com>

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