Self-publishing, traditional publishing or somewhere in between

No doubt about it, publishing a book is a pain no matter which way you go. If you go with a traditional publisher, you get a pittance of the sale price. (I don’t say profits, because I’m not so sure publishing houses are seeing much of that these days.) If you self-publish, your sales may be minuscule and your costs high. Still, the relative boom in the self-publishing industry of late says there are a lot of us out there that at least consider the possibility.

Last night Jim Kepler of Adams Press spoke at the Independent Writers of Chicago meeting (great organization—check it out if you’re in the Chicago area.) Jim’s an old friend, and his operation is the old-fashioned kind: honest, full-disclosure and service oriented. He had a few warnings and war stories about what kind of contracts the new self publishing industry can put out, and more than ever it’s clear you better read the fine print and know what you’re signing.

Can self publishing ever work, or is it the last refuge of authors who have been rejected by 75 editors, or think someone will actually be interested in their poems, autobiography or Vietnam War stories? Well, if you’ve made a serious effort at peddling your manuscript (not 2 or 3 lame letters, but a well researched campaign), and everyone’s rejected it, maybe you do need to take a second look or hire a rewrite person. But what it really comes down to is platform. Do you have a way to move a lot of product on your own? Unless your book is a blockbuster (but then, your agent would have already auctioned it) you’re going to get the plain vanilla marketing plan, and most of the marketing will really be done by you, or not at all. At that point, most of us will start thinking about the spread between our 10% royalty on a $19.95 book, the $5.00 in printing costs, and how we could better spend the remaining $12.95. If you’re a speaker who can sell your book in the back of the room, have a company that will use the book as a promo, or can find a way to peddle it yourself (how big is your car trunk?), you might break even or be better off publishing it yourself. Do the math—if you sell 500 copies, and make, say, $10 a copy for a $19.95 book, a publisher is going to need to sell more than 2500 copies for you to make the same amount in royalties. Many, many conventionally published books sell 5,000 or less. Not much for 6 months or a year’s worth of work.

But it’s going to cost you in other ways, mostly in huge amounts of time. I’m not talking about promo here, because you’re probably going to have to do that anyway. I’m talking about shipping, printing, design, editing, order processing, etc. You’ll either do it yourself or find services that you can contract to do it for you, but it’s work, and hours and hours away from actually writing. The whole self publishing industry has thrived on doing all that for you, but that’s going to cost you, too. So, self publishing really comes down to how bad you want to see your book in covers (they don’t call it “vanity press” for nothing) or how good you are at peddling your wares.

Don’t do it without reading up on it first. Dan Poynter is the granddaddy of self-publishing, and it’s worth memorizing his book before you take the plunge. He’s very pro self-publishing, but very honest about how much work it takes. My friend Jim’s operation puts out some good looking books, in case you don’t want to do it all yourself. Elizabeth Lyon’s and Michael Larson’s books are great on the real mechanics of pitching a book. For a dose of reality, check out Elaura Niles’ book. If you read that and still think you can publish a book, my best wishes to you. I’m still thinking it over, myself.