Self-Publishing versus Traditional Publishing

How many of you have self-published? If so, how long did you submit to traditionals before going the self route, if at all? What have been your experiences?

For those who haven't published, what is your take on self versus traditional? and have you bought any books from a nontraditional publisher? e.g. Lulu, etc.

Cheers,
BHO

I self-published my YA novel The Shadow Within. I didn't go through a POD company but instead did from scratch, so to speak.

It's been interesting. I had full control over everything. Found and hired a cover artist, found a printer (learned the hard way that self-binding books is a HUGE pain and basically found it to be impossible), found a couple people I trusted to edit my story, researched where to sell it and, of course, marketing.

I'd say marketing is the really hard part, especially since I'm pretty much a reticent personality type.

Very early on, actually before I tried submitting to the very few publishing companies I did submit to, I decided to self-publish. Primarily because I was impatient. Long story short I was very, very sick throughout my second pregnancy. My own mortality and what I could leave behind for my children became a huge factor for me. Since dreaming up stories is something I do to amuse myself I thought creating a book my sons could have, hold and read would be the best thing I could do.

It has been an interesting experience so far and is still ongoing. I don't regret it although I will say the whole endeavor has put a pretty big dent in my credit card.

Self-publishing is tough! As a writer/editor I have helped several people who decided to self-publish. Only one of them ever intended to publish a popular work for the general public. He gave up on getting his manuscript read by agents and publishers and published on his own. Other than erecting a website, he has not attempted to sell his book. He gives it away as part of a workshop he gives for middle school children on civics and public responsibility.

I'm currently helping someone write his memoirs, and I believe the book to have commercial potential, but he has asked me if he should self-publish. My answer to him is, No. I do not recommend self-publishing unless you can really afford to lose every penny you put into it. When his book is complete, we plan on submitting it through traditional channels. But he also is going to spend about $500 getting copies printed and bound for his family, the way anyone would do for a family history.

All that doom-and-gloom aside, we now have a marketing tool in Amazon.com that was not available just a few years ago. Anyone can sell through Amazon. When I had Bell's palsy, the only book I could find about it (on Amazon) was a self-published book.

A few years ago I met a man who wrote very short how-to books on various topics. He would self-publish, market and then submit to major publishers. He usually succeeded. His most successful title was about self-publishing.

Self-published fiction almost never works. The most notable exceptions are Marlo Morgan's Mutant Message Downunder and James Redfield's Celestine Prophecy.

My favorite self-published author is Ashleigh Brilliant (his real name, he says). He has about seven books. A couple of his titles are Appreciate Me Now and Avoid the Rush and All I Want is a Warm Bed, a Kind Word and Unlimited Power.

If you decide to do it, tell us how it turns out.

I've been selling some books through Amazon. This morning I received an order for the most books at once they've ordered from me yet. I'm hoping it is a good sign :-)

I've also sold a few through the local bookstore and for a fundraiser for my son's football team. This weekend I'll be attending the first of three craft fairs where I will be selling my book and book related gift baskets. I know it sounds strange, but I've had many people say that they think my book would make a good gift, so I figured I might as well go where people will be looking for gifts to give. We'll see how it goes.

I went through a POD company, Author House, for my historical fiction novel, Haggerty's Curse, mostly because I didn't think it would be picked up by a publisher. However, what books I have marketed and sold have been very well received. Since it has an Irish theme, I have done well selling at Irish festivals, also marketed to high schools, public libraries, and have several successful signings at retirement homes hosted by local public library system. I have been pretty happy with Author House, the cost was low enough I was able to get hardback and tradepaper. If nothing else, the whole publishing experience has been a good tax writeoff.
See my website at
www.auldcountrybooks.com

I've heard that self-published books look like kind of a black mark on your record to agents -- something that just screams "amateur". I'm unagented, but it doesn't seemt o have made the process any harder than anything else.

I've done two self-published books. One was a novel spun off from a roleplaying game, and I figured from the word go it would have a limited audience -- BUT, that I was already in contact with much of that audience. I've turned a profit on that book (GODWALKER) and sort of archived it at Cafepress. So far, it has earned me enough money there to produce 4-5 Cafepress Christmas presents each year. So not bad, considering that I put it there after what "initial rush" there was.

"Scary Face," an anthology of short stories that I was (at the time) both too busy and too lazy to shop around, has sold very poorly. I pretty much attribute that to my lousy marketing. (F'rex, I haven't got the thing on Amazon anywhere.) That one's through Lulu.com.

I'm preparing another RPG for release through Lulu, and I have high hopes. Again, it's a situation where I think I'm in contact with a large number of people who'd be interested already. But we'll see.

Just in terms of print quality, I've been happy with both Cafepress and Lulu, but I'm more enthusiastic about the latter simply because it's focussed on books ONLY, not books and CDs and mugs and t-shirts and thongs. (You think I'm kidding about the thongs, but I'm not.)

-G.

P.S. Feel free to contact me if you want links to those books.

I host an international support group for authors who are trying to get published and I have only met two authors who have ever done the right thing by self-publishing. I know several others who say it was the right thing, but in the years since they have self-published (or gone through Publish America) not a single one has sold a single book to a traditional publisher or been able to get an agent.

Self-publishing is for non-fiction books with a text book audience base that will be forced to buy the book for extraordinary amounts. Look at Amazon - all the SP books and the PA books are at least $19.99 paperback and most mass market paperbacks are between $5.99 and $7.99.

Here are the two cases where I saw it work:

1. A brilliant author in my group from the UK wrote a series of children's fantasy books and was a marketing genius. He sold so many that a traditional publishing house bought his contract. After that, he made so much money he bought his own publishing house and published the rest of his series on his own.

2. A young author wrote a true story that his grandmother had told him as a child from her childhood. She loved it so much that she asked him to promise that he would have it published before she died. He did, but was not able to pick up a contract before she got very ill. He self-published so that he could put a book in her hands before she passed on.

Most of the time, traditional publishing houses see self-publishing, POD, and Publish America as for authors who cannot cut it. If you want to edit, design, lay out, market, and do everything for your book - and pay for it all and never get any royalties while killing your own career, go ahead. My advice is *said in her best Monty Python voice* RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!

Everybody has their own opinion. It certainly didn't hurt Christopher Paolini to self-publish Eragon considering it not only became a best seller, but the movie is coming out next month (which I am looking forward to).

Of course, that is one example of probably thousands of self-published works. But, I would never dump on anyone's dreams by saying not to try it if they want to.

But, I would never dump on anyone's dreams by saying not to try it if they want to.

I know that if you are a marketing and writing genius, it can work - but I've been doing this too long to not have a good, educated opinion. I would rather tell people the truth about what I think than tell them sunshine and roses and have them blow their careers over a vanity press. It's not worth it.

Americans have this egocentric, buy-it-now, kind of attitude that makes them think they don't have to work for years at a craft before getting published. That's why the self-publishing market has exploded. That's also why so many Americans are tens of thousands of dollars into credit card debt. Look at the back of your favorite author's book - the picture is probably of someone in their late forties at the earliest. Writing is like art - it takes practice and patience. Publishing is the same way - we get rejected a lot before we score the big one. We have to learn about query letters and the publishing process and how to avoid scams...

I would encourage anyone to give ten years of their life to trying to publish through a traditional publisher and perfecting their craft rather than take the easy way out and self-publish.

I've had the self-publishing vs. traditional publishing argument too many times to count and don't want to argue it here. I'm not a debate oriented sort of person. I'll just agree to disagree with you :-)

One thing though, I do agree that the vanity presses do not seem the way to go. They seem to overcharge people for very little service. I've heard this from many people including those who have experienced a lot of disappointment through them.

Interesting opinions.

I just published a couple of books with Lulu.com and have been fairly happy with the results...as far as printing the actual books go. Obviously it would be ideal if POD publishers could publicize my work, as a regular publisher might, but one can't have everything.

One thing I do like about POD, it allows me to at least get my work into a form that I can hand to someone or stick on a shelf and point to...

The comment above about taking the time to perfect one's craft is well taken, but...we all know publishers and editors pick and choose based as much on marketing angles and personal preferences as genuine ability. Just because one's work (okay okay...MY work..!) has been rejected a few times doesn't mean someone out there might not want to read it. Whether a manuscript sits in the files unread or sits electronically on the internet unread...does it really matter? If I'm happy with the quality, why shouldn't I at least make the attempt to get it out there?

I wonder, has anyone ever done an informal survey of both POD catalogs and the average selection of books in your typical chain bookstore. Apart from about 20% of the good fiction and non-fiction, I suspect there is just as much crap in a regular bookstore as there is in a POD catalog. Endless self-help and "dummies" manuals. The covers might look nicer, but what's inside probably isn't much better.

Sorry to ramble.

--grecodan

I have to say that my experience with buying self-published work has been...er...bad. I've bought two things from "publishers" that are both, for all intents and purposes, vanity presses. Both I bought because the plots sounded interesting. I didn't get more than 10 pages into either of them because the writing was SO INCREDIBLY BAD.

Probably the most interesting things that have been written on both the theory and practice of POD (the technology) and self-publication have been on various blogs. There's a wonderful one call POD-dy Mouth ( http://girlondemand.blogspot.com/ ) where the author reads hundreds of POD books and posts reviews of the good ones. She also links to interesting industry stuff on POD.

As to whether there's a qualitative difference between a POD catalog and a bookstore...well...I would suspect there is, yes. I may not LIKE what I see in a bookstore, but chances are (unless it's an advanced programming textbook), I will be able to read and understand it. That has not been the case with several self-published and those two vanity-published works I checked out.

One of the arguments for POD as the "wave of the future" is that when there is no "filter" between the author and the consumer, consumers have greater choice and popular work will rise to the top without being "filtered" through agents and editors who keep out some great authors.

I've looked at slushpiles. I read agent blogs. I read editor blogs. And as frustrating as it is for me as an author, I have to say I like the filters. Sure, I've been rejected twice already and expect to be rejected several more times, but I have *no* desire to read 99.99% of those works rejected by agents and editors. So yeah, I am going to miss the occasional work I might be exposed to without agents and editors acting as gatekeepers, but I also don't have to read 9,999 incomprensible pages to find one I enjoy.

But POD as a technology, not as a vehicle for self-publication...I expect that's all anyone will be doing within the next 5-10 years. So when you buy a book from, say, Amazon, it will ship direct from the publishers where they will print it only when you order it. Or Amazon will be a licensed POD creator, with their own machines and software licensed to them to create books and kicking back x% to the publisher every time they do.

Realistically, that's the only way publishers will survive. We cannot keep printing books that then get returned to publishers, warehousing books that will then be thrown away...it doesn't make any economic or ecological sense.

I received my first vanity press book called The Dragon's Heart from Publish America (through Amazon) for Christmas from my mom. I've really be interested in checking them out but they are so expensive it makes purchasing prohibitive. I'm curious to see how it is.

I haven't received too many complaints about my self-published novel The Shadow Within (other than the same kind of comments/complaints I've seen about traditionally published books) and have gotten some nice reviews. If anyone has thought my writing is crappy they've been nice enough not to tell me :-)

Like demonlover, I've had the self-published/vanity press vs. "traditional" publisher debate a number of times. (And I put traditional in quotes because none of the big publishers actually use that term.) But unlike demonlover, I'm generally unable to keep my big mouth shut ;-)

Self-publishing seems to work best for niche non-fiction. A family memoir, a manual on customizing your TR-6 convertible (if you're an expert), and so on. Most successful self-publishers also seem to have a platform for pushing their book. I did a signing with one author who was a motivational speaker, and had self-published a book which she could sell at her speaking engagements.

With fiction, it's generally not a good way to go if you're interested in getting the book out there to a lot of readers. If all you want is to hold a copy of your book and show it to your friends and family, then self-publishing is certainly faster than submitting to the big publishers.

I would specifically avoid Publish America. I've seen a few examples of their work. Some was blatantly illegal (cover art using a plagiarized and Photoshopped image of Orlando Bloom). Others were simply bad beyond belief...

A few of the things my own publisher did for me as a part of the deal:

-Paid me a nice advance
-Hired a professional artist to design my covers
-Had an editor talk to me about strengthening the story and fixing any goofs I had missed
-Hired a proofreader and a copyeditor to review the text
-Sent review copies to reviewers and authors and anyone else who might be able to help promote the book
-Distributed the book into bookstores across the country
-Put me in touch with their in-house publicist, who continues to send out copies at my request, helps coordinate my booksignings, and passes along suggestions and advice

These are all things you'll be doing on your own as a self-published author. I'm not trying to say nobody should ever do it, but I think it's important to know what you're getting into. Particularly the distribution piece. The fact that my book is physically on the shelves at bookstores is huge.

Very nice post jchines. I've seen boatloads jumping on the bandwagon for self-publishing (all fiction) and nearly did it myself. I think I'll keep sending out my manuscripts and take the normal route.

As I list on my website, Jack London was rejected 600 times before he was published. May seem depressing, but it gives a certain amount of encouragement! I'm only on 2 and I sent to the wrong markets for both. A little more education (school of hard knocks) is all it takes to target the right publisher.

Instant gratification isn't the best long-term road - especially for fiction.

Cheers,

Michael

I've heard it said that it takes 10 years (on average) for writers to break in. I know some authors who have done it faster, and others who have yet to crack the market after well over a decade. But for me, it was right around 10 years after I started writing. I've also got 500+ rejection letters sitting in a box from various stories and books....

It's slow and frustrating and painful, no question about it. But if it helps, nearly every successful author has gone through the same thing.

And like Michael said, market research can help a lot.

I'm on a forum where we have discussed this very topic. The majority said that they don't normally buy books through places like Lulu.com. Some were vehemently against self publishing.

My opinion is that self publishing through such places as Lulu.com can work if you are willing to do the legwork on advertising your book. People don't go to those places to buy books usually because there is simply no advertising. As we discussed on the forum, I would go there to buy a book if someone on the forum said they had one coming out, and I liked what they wrote in their other works. But I have never gone to Lulu.com just to shop. Like I said, nothing wrong with it that I can tell, but you will only sell the books that you are willing to promote, and you will only sell as well as you promote it.

I figure I will try and get a book published first. It that doesn't work out, and I think I have something that is worth reading, then I will go the self publishing route. One thing about Lulu.com is that you can self publish at little or no cost to yourself.

OK, so here goes my 0.02 in your local currency...

I was published (yay!) last year, but by a very small publisher.

(Jakten på det försvunna skrattet is my book, by the way. I don't expect anyone here to have read it, since it would mean that you actually understand Swedish, but it is Christian non-fiction, about (the lack of) humor in the Church).

Even though I have not self-published, I can see some advantages and some disadvantages going down that route...

Others have already made this point in this group - POD is mostly for exactly that kind of book. The Christian market in Sweden is very small. The typical christian book (fiction or non-fiction) are printed in 1.000 to 2.000 copies. (!!!).

Having a publisher that actually knows the market, know the bookstores, churches and Internet sites that even sells this kind of stuff has certainly helped and my book was one of the few that have actually made any money, last year, for my publisher. Yay! Everyone is happy! (And my book will probably be due for a reprint later this year.)

Lesson one learned - Distribution is really, really important.

When the book came out we made a fairly great effort with a website. It contained a sample chapter from the book, the initial reviews and news clippings, a schedule for upcoming events, a discussion forum with the same topics as the chapters in the book, etc. Here, one could also order a copy of the book.

We sold 4(!) copies.

Lesson 2 learned - Distribution and sales is way harder than making a kick-ass website.

Now pricing and publishing is an art and a science in itself. I felt strongly (and had to make that point VERY clear to my publisher - we actually argued at length about it) that my book should be released as a paperback, pocket sized book, and that the price should be equivalent to "two beers". My publisher wanted to sell it binded with dustcovers and everything and to a price of two McDonalds-meals.

But I was proved right (the only time, during the whole process, by the way. Publishers know the market better than you (or at least I) do) - my target audience was somewhat different from their usual customer group of priests and pastors. Actually, my book was one that could be given as a present to anyone the least interested in the humor topic, religious or not, with the benefit of ALSO being able to be sold to priests and pastors that whished to become funnier. But having that higher price, and higher profile on the book, we would not have sold the amounts we have, and my publisher have given me cred for that decision afterwards.

Lesson three learned - form does matter. Check this out in advance and be sure that a POD company, should you go that route, actually can deliver what you want.

When I finally had the book i my hands the feeling was of shock, awe and magic. Nothing compares to it. Well - actually - I became a father three months later, and it was pretty much the same. It is totally comparable to holding a newborn baby in your hands.

But holding it is just the beginning. We wanted to celebrate it (much like you do when you welcome a child) so we had a release party. I invited a load of friends and family and we held it in a local bookstore that were nice enough to lend it out for a share of the earnings of that event.

And in about 60 guests (half of them non-christian, I might add) we shifted about 170 books. Remember that that is like a fifth of the usual print for a christian book here (even if mine was actually printed in some 2000 copies).

Now - I work as a standup comedian. And since I already had some 80 gigs per year, it was pretty easy for me to write some comedy about my book, publishing and such, and to hold up a copy of my book at the end of every show. I have sold as many books that way as the publisher has, all his channels combined.

Lesson four learned - it helps to have a platform, if you have to distribute the book yourself.

My largest (and last) lesson learned though, is this - and this is also the largest advantage to me about getting published:

Publishers have editors.

I am eternally greatful to Johan, my editor, without whom my book would be not half as good. You see, THEY have no trouble killing YOUR darlings. They have also no prior knowledge, at times, about your topic, which gives that they simply don't get your bad logic, and demand an explanation. Much like your normal reader would. Or rather, your normal reader would put down the book.

My particular editor also helped out a great deal with my written language. You see, I am a standup comedian and I am used to talk. So my writing is rather "talkish".

Lesson 5 learned - Publishers have editors that actually make your book so much better.

Take this FWIW. It's one guy's experience of one book at one very, very small market. But I guess that POD books have similar market ponds here.

All the best and good luck, writers! (And thank you, everyone contributing here).

Now I should get back to that novel ;)

Ah "To SP or not to SP, that is the puzzler." So many excellent points (both sides) so little time.

Here's what I know. First the disclaimer (unabashed self-publisher--a novel no less).

Whenever the artists get hold of the means of production--be it musicians and CDs, filmmakers and digital videocams or authors and POD--the middleman industrial/distribution complex (everybody between the artist and the consumer of the art) gets a little tight-bottomed. The gods forbid that readers and writers could, perchance, connect with each other directly without (forgive the heresy) the gatekeepers' attention getting eye popper of 10,000 advance review copies. (Could this be what is meant by focus group fiction?)

Meanwhile, I find the attendant chaos of the rabble at the wheel more than a mildly charming alternative. But then I've been accused of siding with the characters that spring forth on my pages--we have a mutual abiding reverence for the entertainment value of anarchy.

For, it is there on this fringe, where discovery plays peek-a-boo with the muse, where drama does its tap dance and where adventure, tired of sitting on the bench, leaps into the game at a full court press. And, as a fiction writer, it seems to me that there could be no better place for me to be.

Credentials:
1.Ten years plus of writing and rejecting.
2. Pitches to agents, editors, carefully constructed queries etc., numbering in the three digits
3. See profile for further creds

Bruce -

A few questions if you don't mind--

1) What service did you use?
2) Aside from actual publication, what did they provide for you?
3) What have you done for yourself in the way of publicity?
4) Do you find that people tend to come to you (ie: do people buy your books without hearing about it specifically, or do you find they mostly buy from specific publicity you've provided?)
5) Is there a way you can recommend for the average user to weed out the...pardon the frankess...unredeemable and unreadable crap from the stuff they actually want to read?

As it is, the only self-published stuff I am willing to read is the stuff reviewed and recommended by PODdy Mouth. My experiences with things she (he?) hasn't reviewed have been atrocious.

Myself, I am going the traditional route. I have gotten rejections so far, but they have all been directed to me (not form letters), so I still have some hope.

That said, when self-publishing first took off, I looked at it quite seriously. Once it became popular, however, I gave up on the idea because of the level of works I kept running into. I may *never* be published, but POD or traditional, I'll never make a living as a genre fiction author, so being published for me isn't as important as writing the tales themselves. It serves more as affirmation--which I wouldn't get from POD.

#s 4 and 5 above, therefore, are the ones that most interest me. I don't mind doing things like publicizing myself, but I want other people to read the work, too. And I desperately want to know how I can patronize self-published authors without subjecting myself to the garbage I have seen thus far.

Lets do #s 4 and 5 first. I'll probably ramble

4. "Do you find people tend to come to you?" My wildly speculative guess is it's probably 50-50. Though there is some feedback from book signings and word-of-mouth grapevine, I have no way of knowing whose buying the novel on Amazon. And lets put the numbers on this--200 +or- copies sold to date. A pittance by NY Times bestseller list standards but, hey, this coupled with the fact that the books are usually checked out of the Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Los Alamos public libraries, tells me some folks are having the reading experience. My bottom line? That when the reader finishes the novel, she will put it down and smile and say, "Yes, I'm glad I spent time with this." And, be it ever so humble, that seems to be happening, so...

5. "Is there a way you can recommend for the average user to weed out... the unreadable zoo doo (my edit)..." Well I wonder if it isn't pretty much the same way we go about experimenting with unfamiliar traditionally published works. Some ways that come to mind: a.) read reviews (mine are online at Midwest Book Review, Blogcritics.org and ReaderViews.com), b.) word-of-mouth (granted more limited for SP) but some may be on Amazon reader reviews, c.) read the blurb, or better yet, use Amazon's "search inside" if possible. I guess my thought is there are reader risks either way SP or traditional when venturing into chooing lesser known works. Therefore, it is encumbent upon both the traditional publisher and the SP author to help the reader by offering at least 1 through 3 of the above. In my case that is what I've done.

Now most important. My answer to 1 and 2.

I did not use a "subsidy publisher" (iUniverse, AuthorHouse etc.) We (my SO and I) decided create our own imprint, Back-To-One Books. We did all the work of the middleman subsidy publisher ourselves. I'm a life long avid DIY so this worked for me. We felt there were some advantages in spite of the extra work. This may not be for everyone and in no way is it meant as a slight to responsible subsidy publishers.

3. Publicity. We've done pretty much a traditional pub package. 1. Send out review copies and/or letters pitching for a review, 2. Write and circulate press releases (I'm a former newspaper reporter), 3. Maintain a website, http://www.backtoonebooks.com 4. promote and schedule author events (readings, book signings etc.) 5. Hustle independent bookstores (work the local author angle)

A final unsolicited thought. It may be worth no more than what it costs the reader to peruse it.

I've wondered why we seem to view the two, SP and traditional publishing, as mutually exclusive? Like Robert Johnson making his deal with the devil at the crossroads. If the goal is to connect readers and writers in the most engaging ways, then why not embrace all possible strategies and tactics to get there? I keep both avenues humming all the time i.e., continue to submit via the traditional route while entertaining SP possibilities if I'm convinced I've got something that readers would want to have. At some point I have to relax and have fun with it, because, if it's not fun for me...

Thanks, Bruce!

I guess I consider them mutually exclusive because if I SP something, then I cannot submit it to agents, publishers, etc. They don't want to look at a book where the people who might buy the book if they decide to publish it have *already* bought it in SP form.

Also, as I mentioned, I consider them differently because my experience has been that a) I don't see many of them in bookstores around here, so I can't browse them that way and b) Amazon doesn't seem to have a "look inside the book" option for the SP stuff. That's why when I buy a SP book from Amazon I always quote a chunk if I review it--so people can "look inside" at least by virtue of the review!

Like you, I would like to reach as many people as possible and make them happy by reading my work. That's one reason I want to do the traditional route. The other is that I have been incredibly lucky in that the agents who have rejected me have done so in letters that gave specific reasons I can use to make it better. So far, all the comments have been useful--I really do think the work is better for the suggestions--so it's sort of like having a critique for the price of postage.

Naturally, all this applies strictly to genre fiction. There are other types of writing that I think are definitely more marketable and, quite possibly, more successful if they go the SP route just because it's virtually impossible to get them sold to a traditional publisher, especially if the work is academic.

Anyway, thanks again for your thoughts...the difference between SELF SP and Subsidy SP is an important one.

"They don't want to look at a book where the people who might buy the book if they decide to publish it have *already* bought it in SP form."

Keep in mind the opposite has actually happened. That is agents and/or publishers have taken on SP books and resold them to publishers who have reissued them as new editions. One reason is, if the SP version has a proven sales track record, then part of the marketing unknowns have been eliminated for the publisher. Some examples: John Grisham "A Time To Kill", Paul Evans, "The Christmas Box", James Redfield, "The Celestine Prophacy". And who can forget Elizabeth McGowan's "The Expected One" (the Da Vinci Code Derivative) sold 2,500 copies as SP, now under contract with Simon and Schuster, a 250,000 copy first print run and a $275,000 marketing budget, according to USA Today.

Granted, this route is commonly thought to be the exception to gain a traditional publishing contract. So, why then would those traditional industry ( agents, publishers) folks discourage would be authors from SP? One word: marketshare. Every SP book bought by the consumer means that much less in her pocket to buy traditionally published books. And, though the average SP book is thought to sell less than 100 copies, multiply this buy the thousands of SP books being released and it amounts to a considerable dent in traditional market sales. The traditional publishing folks have a stake in preserving the pre-SP revolution marketshare, which is natural.

"Amazon doesn't seem to have a "look inside the book" option for the SP stuff." Actually the "search inside" is available to anyone SP or not who wants to take the time to work with Amazon to initiate the option. That is where I think the author's obligation comes in to show a commitment to readers.

Oh, and lest I forget again, all the best with your writing,and submissions. You know what they say, you can only get better if you keep tryin'

"So, why then would those traditional industry (agents, publishers) folks discourage would be authors from SP? One word: marketshare. Every SP book bought by the consumer means that much less in her pocket to buy traditionally published books."

That's one possible answer. Of course, many people in publishing believe that the more people read, the more they'll seek out other books to read. The last thing anyone in the industry wants to do is discourage readers from reading good books.

Another possible reason is that agents, publishers, and authors are trying to give would-be authors a realistic understanding of what they're getting into. A lot of vanity publishers, self-publishing services, and scams all push the do-it-yourself idea, claming that they're the next generation in publishing, and attacking the traditional publishers who are supposedly quaking in their boots at the thought of Publish America and the rest. (I'm using PA here because it's one of the most egregious.)

And while many of these groups push the idea of Grisham as a self-publishing success story, that's not exactly true. He published "A Time to Kill" through Wynwood, a smaller publisher. He did buy up about 1000 copies to sell himself, and he worked his behind off to sell it.

There are a few self-publishing success stories, but they're the exception, not the rule. Yet there are an awful lot of places out there pushing the successes (both real and not-so-real), encouraging new authors to avoid the slush pile and become an author right now! (For a modest fee, of course.)

I have yet to talk to someone in "traditional publishing" who's the slightest bit worried that self-publishing is going to impact their bottom line. But I know a lot of writers and editors who try very hard to keep new writers from getting scammed or having their dreams crushed.

I wouldn't necessarily advise someone not to self-publish. I know a few people who've done it, and they seem happy. But I hope those who choose to go this route do so with their eyes open, knowing what they're getting into. I would also hope they find a legitimate way to do it (such as founding their own publisher, like Bruce did, or going with one of the legit self-publishers), as opposed to falling in with one of the many scams out there.

One last thought. Publishers will sometimes pick up a previously published book. They did with me. But they prefer an original work, and your advance will probably be significantly smaller if the book has already been published.

Points all well taken. Nice insights from what is clearly a rich, experience-based perspective. Which just goes to show, how many ways there are to tap a toner cartridge huh?

I continue to be happy that I self-published and have basically accomplished what I set out to do when I self-published. But I don't recommend it to everyone either.

For instance, I've been in contact with a young girl from the local high school who has written a book. She asked me about what she should do and although we discussed the fact that I self-published I strongly recommended to her to submit her stories to the various YA contests, publishers and agents and not to self-publish. I didn't advise her against self-publishing because of any competitive reason, but more because I think she would be better served by trying to get it out to agents and publishers by the more traditional methods. There are so many opportunities offered to teen writers in the way of contests and such I really believe that it would be better for her.

Oh, and she really loved my book :-) Her mother bought it for her for Christmas which is why she contacted me. It's the feedback like that makes me so happy I took the route I did!

I started out in the self-published end of things. I didn't want to give control over to someone else. I went with Authorhouse because I didn't want to do EVERYTHING on my own and they offered me the best service of any.

Every now and then I toy with the idea of going to a traditional publisher, but then someone who is with one says something like

'I dont' get to choose my cover'
or
'my publisher might decide to drop me and there goes the series'

and I recover my common sense. Granted it's nice to get a large check from someone who's going to take a chance on printing your books, but i LIKE having the say-so over my cover, i LIKE knowing that the books stay in print as long as I decide they do.

Just wish I was better at marketing ;)

I just self-published a couple of things, one a chapbook that I did up a few years ago and have almost run out of hand-bound copies, and the other a novel that was co-written by a friend and I.

Why did I go with self-publishing for the novel? Easy. It's almost 200k words. Cutting 100k words from it would have made it a completely different book, and not one that I was particularly interested in reading. Also, I'm not expecting to make any money off of it. I mostly put it together for my co-writer, as a Christmas present. (He loved it!)

Eventially, I will have a book that's a publishable length, and I'll shop it around the traditional way. I don't count the self-published works as publishing credits.

What is a chapbook? I've seen that word before and haven't been able to figure out what it means.

A chapbook is basically a single-author magazine. The production values usually aren't that great (mostly hand-bound, stapled and on non-glossy paper), but they're cheap to produce and I've seen some that had some success.

I'm learning more about the process lately, because Rainfall Books is putting together a couple of chaps featuring my work for imminent publication; they're taking care of the distribution (I'll be available through Shocklines and other Internet merchants) and I get to choose the cover and interior artists.

We're not expecting to make much money (if any at all), but it'll be a nice way to reach some readers while waiting for the book to come out, and it gives me a chance to group my series stories in one place - plus, let's face it...it's JUST ME, baby! I won't be sharing space with other writers, which is kind of an ego-boost.

Others in this group have made this same observation in different words, but my two cents: Self publishing isn't publishing, it's printing. Publishing is a value-adding activity, a collaborative effort between authors, editors, artists, marketers, sellers, and bookstores. Self publishing is just digital printing, with an ISBN.

Drat it! I know I said I wasn't going to say anything else but sometimes I just can't help myself.

In the course of writing, publishing and distributing my book I've worked with myself being the author, editors, artists, marketers, sellers and bookstores. I can't speak for anyone else who has self-published but I believe generalizing that something is unworthy because you think they haven't put the time and effort into it is nothing more than literary bigotry. That's just my two cents.

Couldn't agree more with demonlover! To say that self-publishing is just digital printing is outright snobbery! Basically, I believe that if you think you're good enough, and you sell yourself that way, and put it in the work, and market yourself innovatively, there's no telling what you might do. There are already several cases of recording artists - Arctic Monkeys, Sandi Thom and others- here in the uk who are proving you can do it on your own in the world of music, and I don't see any great difference between that and the book publishing world. Anybody, got any thoughts on that?

I went with Lulu.com after trying to get my first novel published by a "proper" publisher for about a year.

My second novel went straight to Lulu.

What I realised was that I'm more interested in writing than being read. Of course, I'd _like_ to be able to write full-time and selling a lot of books is a way to achieve that. But the chances of that happening are tiny.

Also, I'm not a salesman, never have been and probably never will be. I agonised over every letter I sent out and mostly never even got a rejection card or letter in return.

So, in some respects, it might be fair to say I "gave up" and went with Lulu. But, in other ways, trying to get "published" was a horrible experience and it's liberating to not worry about it any more.

I _am_ selling books via Lulu, but more importantly I'm enjoying writing again.

R

Literary bigotry. That's rich. I simply point out that publishers add value to the work through a collaborative activity. Self publishing doesn't. If you're going to argue with my position, at least throw Walt Whitman in my face, not Lulu or iUniverse, or xlibris or whatever.

richardtaylor, I am glad you are enjoying writing again. That, my friend, is what it's all about.

Or Christopher Paolini or Mark Twain. I didn't say anything about lulu or iuniverse. How do you know that any particular self-published novel isn't a collaborative work? You don't and that was my point. You have no idea the kind of effort and collaboration that has gone into a book, you just assume. Collaboration doesn't always have to come through a corporation.

So, is it OK to talk actual numbers here?

Those of you who self-published, how many copies have you sold? Profit margains? Did you get your collaborators to join in for free?

I know that we all do this for the love of the art and the craft, regardless of publishing method, but I, for one, would be interested in the economics involved here.

(My own non-fictional work got me a whopping 800 $US last year. In order to do so, my publisher sold some 750 copies, but that is 750 copies in the hands of customers, mind you. My feeling, although I might be totally wrong here, is that most self-publishers would come up with similar numbers? And if you don't, can one draw any conclusion from that?)

I don't debate the statistics. Clearly publishing companies with thousands of dollars at their disposal for marketing and distribution are going to have the ability to get more books sold. I made approximately $800.00 last year on my book as well and sold just over 100 copies (not that it really matters). Because I was in the position of actually owning my book I was able to do book sales as fundraisers and was able to donate book to libraries and other organizations. In doing this I've distributed another 150 copies of my book. All I wanted to do was to get my book out to people so that they could enjoy it, not to get rich.

As an aside I have not recommended to others that they self-publish, I have always stressed that they should submit to publishers first. I don't push the self-publishing and more so defend the biases against those who have done it.

My debate is that it is a bias to proclaim that every self-published author is just out pushing junk on the unsuspecting reading community. People do the same thing with other people for instance the idea that "insert nationality" are all "insert insulting analogy here" is the same kind of mentality. I worked hard on my book, worked with editors, worked with my cover artist, worked with book distributors and bookstores (keeping in mind time constraints due to also having a family and full time job) and in short worked my butt off to do accomplish what I have so far. It may not seem like much to most but I am proud of what I've done so far.

That's why despite my very strong dislike of confrontation I just can't seem to keep my mouth shut on the subject.

"Self-publishing isn't publishing it's printing." Ah, is that what I've done. Well
stomp my Stetson, henceforth, I shall keep hat in hand, eyes to the ground and walk three steps behind.

See here's the thing. Collaboration, hmm... an interesting concept. Reminds me of the joke about the camel being a horse that was put together by a committee. But then... perhaps, maybe if one wished to get serious about this collaboration business instead of listing editors, marketers, bookstores yada, yada in the same breath with authors, one would put, at the head of that list, the one category that was, interestingly, left out...readers.

The old ways die hard.

But hey, we read a lot of the same books. So, this is no big deal. And my bet is that nobody is going to convince anybody of anything here. But the exercise is helpful. Keeps those rapier quills quivering.

Wow! I got an interesting string started here. I think I've gotten more than I asked for, so I say: Keep it coming!

This is a great discussion. Passion is what makes it great. An argument (I'm oldschool on that - an argument being a rational discussion) is meaningful when a debater is passionate - what one could truly call a master debater.

Tongue in cheek aside (Oh, god, is that another one?), this is a great discussion. Keep is coming!

#39 - All I wanted to do was to get my book out to people so that they could enjoy it, not to get rich., my ode to readers and I wouldn't be so pompus as to forget their importance.

My original intention was to refrute the implication that all self-published authors don't put time and effort into their work. All that comes before the book gets into the hands of the readers.

Demonlover: I wouldn't call it ironic, exactly, but it is kind of funny that you make the same money as I do, selling fewer books, and then again make a point of that readers matter the most :)

You see, I'm not "for" or "against" self-publishing, but am looking for options for my next book. Having sold about half of my copies sold, myself, I would have made half-a-bundle of money self publishing, it turns out :)

And I don't think you are in it for the money any more than I am. I am just drawing some conclusions here.

IF one finds a publisher that have the marketing tools and money you don't have - go the "traditional" route. If you think that they can't provide anything of value, you seem to earn more per book by self-publishing.

(I had the greatest publishing experience, though. I got to choose the cover art for my book, one that my friend did for me. I had all the "say" I wanted during the whole process. I had an editor rewrite my manuscript (and *I* got to make the final decision on what changes would be implemented) But still - my publisher knew how to put my book in the hands of 800 people. Or at least the 400 that I didn't sell myself. And public libraries, and the such. )

FWIW.

Any more thoughts on numbers?

(I mean - if no-one here is in it for the money, no-one would self-publish *grin*. Publishers put your work in the hands of more people, and take a bigger part of the cake for doing so. *wink. smirk*)

I said I made $800.00 but I didn't say I made a profit, although I would have come close to breaking even if I had done a few things differently. Big, big self-publishing drawback (unless you go through lulu or another company like that) is that you have to make a hefty upfront investiment. Hence one of the reasons when people ask me, "should I try self-publishing or submit to publishers" I always tell them to try submitting to publishers first.

You're lucky you got to pick your own cover art, most authors with publishing companies don't get to do that. It's actually been a complaint I've heard from a number of authors. A huge self-publishing attraction for me is actually getting to work with my cover artist.

At this point if I was writing with the plan of getting rich off of it I wouldn't be thinking of doing another self-published book. If I do it again (finances allowing) it will be because I like the feeling of people telling me that they enjoyed the book. There may not be thousands of people that say it, but the ones that do warm my heart.

I will say that the genre of my book makes it even more difficult to get my book noticed. You said that you write non-fiction. There are a great deal more successful self-publishers who publish niche specific non-fiction books.

Just to be clear - my first published book was non-fiction, yes. :) But I am a writer, and dabble in fiction as well (with a deal for my first novel (yay!)). I am thinking about self-publishing a compilation of short stories, though.

They would qualify as "genre fiction", btw, not something that my publisher would touch even with a sharp stick.

Thanks for all feedback, so far, though. I have learnt a lot in this thread. :)

To answer the second part of the original question; yes I have bought books from non-traditional publishers.

Not as many as from traditional publishers: mainly because of the price. Which is why I actually buy most of my books from charity shops.

I also read the previews of POD books very carefully, whereas I might just impulse buy a book in a shop based on a quick glance. There really is a lot of crap in a POD catalogue!

I've just discovered Andrew James Stevenson on Lulu and like his brand of Welsh contemporary fiction... not something you see a lot of from traditional publishers.

I think over time POD publishing will lose the stigma and it will become the norm for authors to "showcase" their early work on POD until they either get noticed by the mainstream or accept their lot at the thin end of the long tail.

I think it's impossible to answer the question of whether to self-publish or go with a traditional publisher without knowing what type of book is involved, what the author's goal is, and what type of marketing skills the author has.

Some nonfiction books with a very limited market will be greatly appreciated by the small audience they do attract - for example, a family history that consists largely of genealogical records. When that's the case, it makes perfect sense to self-publish and, for example, distribute copies via the family network and genealogical associations. Professionals who lecture regularly have an ideal opportunity to sell books to their audiences and may prefer to self-publish for purely economic reasons - why share the profits with a publisher if most or all of the books will be hand-sold by the author?

Fiction is a different animal from nonfiction. I have never considered self-publishing my fiction. Writing fiction (whether literary or genre) that is truly exciting to read is very difficult, and it is incredibly hard to judge one's own work with the dispassion of a reader who comes to the book with no preconceptions.

I've worked with several critique groups that have given me the extraordinary benefit of detailed, honest criticism (and some honest praise), and I've sweated too much blood over my novels to send them into the world without the backing of a respected publishing house. I want the satisfaction of knowing that professionals have judged my book worthy. This is one of the most important advantages of a traditional publisher: an experienced editor has decided this book is solid enough to put the publishing house's name on it and back it with the publishing house's money. For that reason, the book also has a chance of being taken seriously by reviewers, bookstore buyers, etc.

I have self-published three books on science and medicine, with one also published in Chinese translation. The hardest part has been getting someone to review the dear books. My best one has been out for four years now and has yet to receive a review, even on Amazon.com. I'd appreciate any suggestions.

# 47 kjdillon - There are various reading and review groups online - you could always try contacting them and offering your book for review.

TCM Reviews take books from many different genres, both fiction and non-fiction, and offer them up to their reviewers. http://tcm-ca.com/

#47 If you have a friend or acquaintance who has read your book and voluntarily told you they liked and/or admired it, you can gently ask if they would be willing to post a brief "customer review" on Amazon. It's easy to do. Some people will be flattered you asked. The others will soon forget ...

First, I have to say that I don't have any experience with self-publishing. Two or three years ago I sent out seven query letters to agents and got seven lovely rejection letters. I stopped sending not because I was discourage (quite the opposite, actually), but because my novel had died to me. I'm now a Creative Writing major in college, and most of what I've heard about self-publishing comes from my professors. I respect them as published authors, and really do believe that what they say is right. If you want to make it as an author, don't self-publish. It screams amateur. Vanity presses aren't what they used to be. It is now looked down on to self-publish, because it is so easy to do it.

I don't plan on ever self-publishing. I can understand why people would do it, if they're just interested in having a pretty copy of their book. But I want to be a successful author, and I want to pay an agent to do the selling for me. Plus, I don't want to ever have to face my Lit professor and listen to the wrath that is sure to come if I ever self-publish.

"How many of you have self-published? If so, how long did you submit to traditionals before going the self route, if at all? What have been your experiences?"

I tried three traditional publishers in 2000 after my unpublished novel was shortlisted for a $10,000 prize (which included publication by Random House - it was their competition)

I got impatient after waiting roughly 6-12 months for two of the publishers to respond, and that's when I went ahead and self-published. I did it properly, with proofing and so on, and I'd also sold a number of short stories to print magazines at the time. One of them scored a major genre award here in Australia (the Aurealis for Horror, in 2001)

My self-published book did reasonably well, but more importantly it allowed me to set that one aside and concentrate on my second novel. 18 months later I published that one too, and then I wrote and published the third in the next 12 months.

That was early 2004. One month after my third book appeared in a handful of stores I was offered a publishing contract, out of the blue, for all three books in the series. It was a legit publisher, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, not a POD or vanity outfit hunting for business, and they've done a great job bringing all three books to the market. I used the opportunity to rewrite all three, and am now working on the fourth book in the series. I've also signed with a decent lit agent in the hope of selling the series to England and/or North America.

Hope that helps. If I had my time again I'd probably have spent much more time pursuing agents at the beginning, but then I'd maybe not have written the second two books.

Thank you Simon! It's so nice to hear a positive story.

I've been self-publishing since the 1970's, I kind of got this "anti-publishing house" thing...uhm, call it greed... I don't want them getting any of "my money". LOL!

I don't currently have anything in print, and my old stuff was done very short run and only locally so it's doughtful you'd have heard of anything I've written unless you know me. Several of my books were actually hand made (pages sewn by hand, hand bound covers.... it was the 1970's POD was not yet invented, and if you self-published, you made the book from scratch. I miss the '70s)

I am currently in the process of getting my books "re-edited" cause I plan to re-release them, this time on a national level, via LuLu.com and Amazon

for me I like self-publishing, because I like haveing full control, I like designing the cover, I like creating page mock-ups, I like like choosing fonts, I like marketing, I like self-promoting... for me, it's not how many sales the book gets that drives me on, but how much I actually did in the creation process

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I very rarely submit to a publisher

the only time I submit to a publisher is when I write a story for a copy-righted character/series, in that case I have to submit to the publisher that handles the series, actually Egmont is the ONLY publisher I've ever submitted anything to; what that basicly amounts to is that I write "fan-fiction" for my fave series and than instead of posting it illegally on some fan-fic site, I send it in to Egmont because they own the copyright to the series

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I love small press fiction magazines, that are basicly self-publishers, I buy those, but otherwise I'm not swayed by how the book was published when I buy books. If I have way to find it and buy it, and I think I'll like reading it, than I'll buy it.

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My uncle self-published useing a differant method than I did... it was a nightmare. he paid a printer to print of 20,000 copies of his book (lost 2 rooms of his house once they arrived) and than it hit him: he would have to go out and market the book himself. Today, 10 years later he has sold less than 100 copies because he says "I'm a writer!" which means, writers write not market their book. Since than he had had 3 more books printed up, and has lost the entire first floor of his house, which now looks like a warehouse stacked floor to ceiling with some 80,000 unsold books.

Last time I heard from him, he was knee deep in dept and in threat of loseing his house because he put all his money into printing up books, maxed out several credit cards to pay the printers, editors, etc, and took out a motage on his house to pay the printers. It had cost him over $200,000 just for the printing costs.

Learn from his mistake:

1.) if you are gonna print up books, only print up one or two thousand at a time

2.) if you are gonna self publish: YOU MUST MARKET YOUR BOOK! No one can buy a book if they don't know the book is for sale!

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well, to sum it up, I enjoy self-publishing and that's why I do it, because for me it's fun

however, for people who want to focus just on writing and not on the other stuff I don't recommend it, cause it's a lot of hard work and it is is not easy; self publishing is not for everyone so only choose that road if you think you are up to it

~~EK

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*EDIT*

now that I have gone back and read the comments, I feel that I must edit this post by adding the following:

P.$.

an added note: by profession (meaning my day job), I am a sales(wo)man... 7 years of door-to-door sales. I am able to do my own book marketing, because selling products to people is what I do when I'm not writing.

I'm also an artist (watercolor/acrylic) and a photographer and studied design and merchandising via a trade school.

all in all self-publishing works for me because I write, design, & merchandise even when I'm not being a writer. It's what I do anyways, so why not do it for myself and my books as well? In other words, I'm up to the challange of self-publishing because of my job experiance in other areas of my life.

I actually do not recommend self-publishing for the faint of heart, because it's not easy.

the end result is that today I now own my own publishing house, small, only publishs my own work and that of friends and family, but the fact is, when I self publish I throw my whole heart and soul into it and a year or two of grueling work goes into the production of a single book: it's not just a digital print with an ISBN as the "literary snob" called us self publishers.

My advice to him/her is Judge not lest ye be judged; and before you condem a man, first walk a mile in his shoes. My question is, why is this person so filled with anger, bitterness, and hatred? Is it REALLY self-publishers that cause this bigotry? I think not. Just because someone is differant than you does not give you cause the hate them? Look in your heart and find out what is really bothering you, than fix the problems you have in your daily life, instead of flaming others for things that do not affect you.

After plowing through all the last 6 months's responses, I thought I'd throw in my two cents on this issue. I think only 2 out 54 responses got it right about the distinction between self-publishing and traditional. First thing right--

1. Print on demand technology is definitely a threat to traditional publishing, not Lulu, iUniverse or any of the other vanity businesses masquerading as legitimate avenues for exposure. Print on demand technology now allows for writers to get published legitimately by legitimate publishers who simply use the technology as they would any printer. The need to print thousands of copies of your book now is insane, to put frankly. A legitimate publisher who uses print on demand technology does not charge their authors a penny. They do everything a traditional publisher does, but one better, that is, they can keep their titles in print indefinitely for years so the author can gain exposure to the public over time. With a traditional publisher, you're generally out of print in 6 months. You won't find their books yet regularly stocked at Barnes & Nobles and Borders, but you certainly can walk right in and order the book. It's in your hands in under a week. By the way, university presses are known to team up with publishers who utilize print on demand technology in distribution deals. The only real problem is that there are still too few legitimate publishers using print on demand technology. Ara Pacis Publishers is one pioneering ahead, but there should be more like them.

2. As for the quality of books self-published--I don't see a radical difference in the quality of books published by traditional publishers as opposed to self-publishers except in the muscle of exposure. Go to Barnes & Nobles and Borders and look at the endless garbage pouring our of traditional publishers every month. Can you honestly say that self-publishing is any less lower on the totem? Walt Whitman did, indeed, publish Leaves of Grass and wrote his own first review--anonymously, of course. He went through 7 editions before dying--but he had real talent. Who could Whitman go to with his radical verse? A traditional publisher? I think not. Most of the country thought his work was obscene, including Emily Dickinson--who was never published in her lifetime. Most of the people writing to this question above really are entranced by the money aspect of traditional publishing. Pay me so I can write more nonsense. Everytime this question of publish or perish comes up, you'd think there were remarkable manuscripts around every corner. No writer will ever admit their talent is simply mediocre at best, even after slaving away for years. Most writers I've met lack such self-criticism. The real question is--what do you want your writing to do?I think one should address the concept of mediocrity before one even puts a stamp on the envelope. A few above gave themselves 10 years to break through--this is incredibly self-delusional. A real writer is an artist, an intellectual, a visionary, not some cry baby aching to get an advance to write more pablum. Show me the manuscript and I'll tell you what I see.

3. Lastly, traditional publishing is so connected to huge corporations where the bottom line is the main goal. All the writers above should consider not the means of publication, but the shut out from the major review outlets in the country i.e. Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Review, etc. These venues are the problem, my friends, not the printing and binding of books. The Internet may eventually provide the means to find exposure with intelligent reviews, but it looks like a closed universe to me. You need intelligent, literate reviewers first of all--but you also need some criteria, which most of them lack, including the literary magazines. I don't mean to sound puglistic about this, but I thought it was necessary to say one more thing about this topic.

It was necessary.

Thank you.

"they can keep their titles in print indefinitely for years so the author can gain exposure to the public over time."

You won't gain exposure to the public in any meaningful way unless your books are sitting on bookstore shelves in quantity. That only happens for an all-too-brief month or so after release, after which most of the unsold books are shipped back to the publisher again.

And in that month, your novel will either sink or swim.

So SimonHaynes--what are you saying? Sounds to me like you'tre contradicting yourself or simply don't see the underlying illogic of your reasoning. Except for your contention that books need to be in quantities on the shelves in the book in order to have market exposure of your work, it seems you're essentially on the same page I am after far as seeing your book come and go after 6 month on those sacro sanct shelves you find so holy and necessary.

There are underlying I think several things wrong with this assumption.

First, I think you really need to find out more about print on demand technology and its implications on book production and book marketing. There are many traditionalists like yourself who still think that visibility on bookstore shelves is the key to literary immortality. I beg to differ. The book market now has become so segmented by age, special interests, subdivided and subdivided to such miniscule slices that the Internet is probably the only way any literary work will find any meaningful exposure to the reading public now or in the future, particularly all those segmented readers of special interest and age.

On the side,television is the ideal venue for exposure--but they've never gone the way of high-brow culture since the invention itself. Perhaps BookNews on C-Span and weekends only, but I'm certain they draw only a small segment of the serious reading public anyway.

However, there is a broader issue to this that many writers I think simply don't want to face, that is, the diminishing interest in writing and literature as a social force on the general population. On a recent visit to a Borders books in my area, for example, I was shocked but not surprised how much downright in-your-face marketing of outright non-literary consumer product greets you from the moment you walk in to about halfway into the store. A recent rearrangment of the really important sections like literature, philosophy, art etc. were compressed and shrunk on to half their original shelves, the ones on which you'd like to be seen. (As a side note to this, you won't find one book from say New York Review Books, Green Interger, or City Lights to name a few publishers that should in my opinion actually be there).

Nevertheless, rather than drag this out ad infinitum, let me simply repeat what I said in an earlier missive. The issue is not marketing so much as reviews and the difficulty and rarity of serious reviews. Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, even the literary magazines are as a group a closed, half-amorphic community of either syncophants to the big corporate book arms i.e. Random House, St. Martin's press et .al or, as in the case of serious literary magazines, so in-bred and without editorial vision on top of simply personality issue related to many of the editors of these magazines, that you might as well be talking to someone on their way to therapy.

Again, forgive me the long-windedness, but my hope is that this issue can been seen through with reason and perspective. I think in the end all the cutesy talk about what are you writing, what are you reading has its limits and is, in fact, in light of these serious issues related to serious writing, injurious to a really serious discussion of writing as a critical cornerstone to enlightenment in its broadest cultural sense.

Okay, let me explain my background...

I used POD for my first three novels. They sold around 250 copies in the first 3 years, and of those 3 were online sales and 247 were through local bookstores who I convinced to carry stocks on consignment.

Then those same three novels were picked up by a publisher, edited, and printed in quantity. The first title hit every bookstore across Australia and New Zealand and was a national SF bestseller for three weeks. They sold many more copies in the first week than all three managed as POD books in the entire three years. The second and third titles followed, with similar distribution, and both made bestseller lists of one kind or another.

Now I'm writing the fourth, and when that hits the shops they'll order more of the first three in to keep it company.

So yes, books have a brief shelf life during which they're available in quantity. After that you might see one or two copies here and there, but by then it's either done well or it hasn't.

If you want to use POD methods, why not pursue a wider release first and then use a POD publisher when the rights revert to you, after the book stops selling through shops? Surely that's the best of both worlds?

Simon:

That last sentence made a lot of sense to me. I'm scouring used book stores for books that are out of print. It'd make a helluva lot of sense to go POD and keep them in print years after book stores stop carrying them.

That's one for the marketing plan.

Cheers!

These POD and self-publishing conversations are always so interesting.

One of the implications of POD, and digital content for that matter, is that now books won't go out of print. That means rights will not ever revert to authors. Get it into the contract.

POD is more expensive than offset printing, and that is why some POD books are so expensive, relative to other books produced for the same audience and the same subject but published in another fashion. Almost all printers use digital components now -- PDFs for example rather then photographic plates -- but POD takes the digital technology all the way to printing and and binding. It's really just a manufacturing process, not a publishing process.

I'm a writer and an editor. The small press I edit for uses offset and POD. It depends on what we want to accomplish. But I can't see POD ever replacing offset printing -- offset gets cheaper the more you print. POD printing costs remain the same whether you print 1 or 1000 (you can probably get a break on the paper).

Some of my friends think books will eventually disappear, to be replaced with digital readers. Maybe. For sure, content and ideas don't have to be inside the covers of a book. That's just a convenient container. But aren't they beautiful just the same?

The thing with offset is that a publisher can print 20,000 copies, get them in the shops, have half returned unsold (or stripped for credit) and still make a profit. POD will never be able to match that, which means selling copies sight-unseen: your potential customers have to believe they want the book before they can actually hold, touch, smell and inspect it. That might work for non-fic, but it just won't work for fiction. In most cases it's an impulse buy, and people are browsing a store for something to read now, not when the mail arrives next week.

Okay, they could easily sell Harry Potter 7 over the net without any physical copies in-store, but that won't work for an unknown author. Passing trade is where it's at, until the ball starts rolling and word of mouth starts to spread.

Ok, SimonHaynes--this is Salvino with a few important questions to ask.

1. How did people learn about your first POD titles--via reviews or word of mouth?

2. How did your first novel get picked up by that main line publisher--via reviews or word of mouth?

3. How did your book become a nationwide bestseller--via reviews or word of mouth?

4. How does the book buying public come "to believe they want the book"--via reviews or word of mouth?

scriveners_lot--

Would like to address your added dimensions, but will wait until SimonHaynes weighs in.

1. How did people learn about your first POD titles--via reviews or word of mouth?

There weren't any reviews, but there wasn't any word of mouth either. Most copies were hand-sold by a single person in a single shop, after the guy read a copy I gave him and liked it enough to stock it. He was the SF buyer for that particular store, and he was the go-to for a large number of clients looking for the latest thing.

2. How did your first novel get picked up by that main line publisher--via reviews or word of mouth?

Their sales rep visited the store mentioned above, and when she said they were thinking of branching out into SF and Fantasy, the same person gave her a copy of my novel to look at. Then the publisher called me.

3. How did your book become a nationwide bestseller--via reviews or word of mouth?

It was listed in the Dymocks September catalogue (Dymocks is a national chainstore, of which the store above is just one branch.) Each book has also appeared on regional and localised bestseller lists, and the second was recently shortlisted for a WAYRBA here in my home state, which means schools and libraries are likely to buy it in (and the other two along with it.)

Mostly, I'd say it was down to the catalogue entry and the fact people couldn't walk through the SF section without seeing the covers of my books. The quote from Tom Holt didn't hurt at all (he described the first book as 'Better than Red Dwarf')

4. How does the book buying public come "to believe they want the book"--via reviews or word of mouth?

My book or a book? Word of mouth. But that's the second level, as discussed on JA Konrath's blog here. Before you can rely on word of mouth you need to reach the early adopters.

I still don't believe word of mouth has had any impact on my sales, else the net would have a lot more blog posts and mentions of the Spacejock books., and forums would have topics dedicated to the characters and so on. I believe it's still early adopters and random browsers buying my books, even though the first book has already undergone a second printing.

Appreciate the answers to my questions, SimonHaynes. I understand better your perspective now--but I need to clarify a few things about POD, traditional book publishing and book distribution as it works here in the US.

First, let's dismiss the vanity presses masquerading as legitimate publishers, such as IUniverse, Trafford, Lulu et. al. using POD technology. These companies are simply in the business of making money off the naive writer crying to see their words on the printed page. Scrivener_lot is correct when he points out that many US companies arrange to publish certain titles as POD on demand titles--but here's the catch few people probably know. Ingram, one of the major distributors of book here and in Europe, has a POD printing arm to their company. If you're a legitimate publisher and have a contract with them, your books are distributed directly through their network, that is, to every bookstore large and small. They send out a digital list of all their titles--POD included--to every major bookstore outlet i.e. Barnes & Nobles, Borders. etc. Even the small independents can order any book through Ingram. In fact, all the other distributors can and do order from each other i.e. Baker & Taylor, Amazon etc. They can all acquire a book through Ingram's system if ordered on-line or in a bookstore.

*But to show you the inequity of the business, Ingram's POD manufacturer charges $12 a year to keep each title in the system ready to print. However, if I printed 20,000 copies of a book from an offset printer and went to Ingram to sign up with them for distribution, they will turn you down flat, no questions asked. They'd say, "Well, where's the track record for this book you want us to handle? Where are the reviews? We want books that move, baby, not 20,000 copies of "Cooking Without a Head."

Now what does this mean?

Well, it means--at least here in the US--that print on demand technology can and will I think eventually challenge the distribution model of books. This idea that printing 20,000 copies of a book from an offset printer, then converting to print on demand title is non-sensical for a place like US from a financial as well as marketing perspective. A small run of a POD publisher initially to get the book noticed in the media makes perfect sense here to bring attention to the book without laying out a huge outlay of capital--but this has been my contention from the beginning. Even if you leave distribution out of the picture, a writer is effectively dead for the most part without any critical notice of their work. Whether a legitimate publisher uses print on demand technology to produce their books or not, the primary question still is--can they get their books legitimately reviewed in the major outlets like Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, etc.?

Personally, I think book publishing should have remained a cottage industry. Serious writing might again be a reality if more publishers converted to POD technology--but the major companies are long entrenched with their own power and distribution network. These returns you talk about, SimonHaynes, are really part and parcel of that old distribution model. I think through serendipity and luck, you did quite good--but print on demand is leaner, can be more efficient, and will eventually be a cheaper alternative to offset. That includes paper, binding, and design--it must eventually offer a lower price per unit.

Scriveners-lot--they thought e-books would do away with the printed book, but that idea went the way of the dinosaur, did it not? What we need are more savvy, gutsy young entrepreneurs with taste and intelligence interested in bringing publishing forward into a new, less constricted age of narrow vision. What we get instead is the endless parade of neurotic compulsives simply writing and writing away with pie-in-sky notions of publishing.

I hope my diatribe hasn't been too mind-numbing--but my kudos to you SimonHaynes for pioneering book consignment--no really, quite good.

Hi Salvino:

Mention POD and I automatically thought of Lulu. You mentioned one that you felt was a 'true' POD. Could you give examples of others? Links too, if possible.

Cheers,

Scary

Books on consignment is hardly my idea - I'll assume that was tongue-in-cheek. (The shop which sold the most copies asked for a regular 40% trade discount and paid up each month. I mostly used consignment for new stores, and I didn't care whether they ever paid or not.)

I know about LS and Ingram because I've been participating in the PA thread on AbsoluteWrite for a couple of years now, on and off. The thing is, they have a quantity code (99, I think) which indicates to the bookseller that it's a POD title which they order when sold. Ingram doesn't have to carry any stocks, and they don't take returns on those books so there's never any chance of getting stuck with copies. A POD book is just an entry in a digital catalogue until someone orders and pays for a copy.

On the other hand, if you print 20,000 copies of your own book and expect them to distribute the title, they have to put them all in their warehouse. If they took on 500, 1000, 5000 authors with that many books each they'd need to build new warehouses all over the US, right now, without a cent of income up front.

Distributors only get paid when copies sell (and don't come back again) ... and that's why they're not going to stock 20,000 books from an unknown author without a publisher's marketing department firmly behind it. If they put 20k books in store, they want them moving out quickly and they don't want them all back again.

I'm not saying POD isn't going to work, or that it's not a good choice for some types of book. I'm just pointing out that you can't take a printing method designed to produce very small quantities at a high cost, and then expect to sell that book effectively via a distribution system which was designed to push out thousands of copies at a tiny cost per book.

Newspapers are sold on a similar basis, and the day the last printed newspaper goes digital-only is the day I'd expect the book trade to consider changing its methods.

This is Salvino, SimonHaynes--

I think we're on the same page on this issue--but I'd still like to know how much weight you give to reviews i.e. generating market awareness of the book etc. You have yet to answer this question in relation to nurturing a writing career outside of mainstream publishing.

In all reality, I think the nature of a book's production is irrelevant to its visibility on the market and promotion. It so happens, though, that's currently the way the system is set up--so with that said, the critical question still is how to attract critical attention for a book on a wider scale, particularly a legitimately published book that was born vis-a-vis POD by a legitimate publisher.

At your leisure.

I don't deny that press and review buzz can kickstart awareness of a book. Otherwise publishers would dispense with their publicity departments and just post books to bloggers, or leave piles of them on street corners.

But this is how I see it: A major review appears, is seen by x thousand people, of whom x hundred buy a copy. Multiply the reviews, multiply the copies sold. However, that's just direct selling, and it's what happens next that determines the book's lifespan.

If everyone who reads the book is blown away and raves about it, tells all their friends and buys copies as gifts, the book will explode out of the blocks. They'll list it as a favourite on Myspace, seek out LT discussion groups to talk about it (and the author's next work) and blog about how great it was. On the other hand, if they think it was okay, not bad, more-or-less worth the money, they most likely won't say a word. In that case the book might sell off the reviews, but it has no legs.

That's why publishers don't take out full page ads for unknown authors: the public has to discover and champion them first. It's why reviews can move books, but they cannot ensure a book will become a bestseller. (At the extreme you have Oprah, who can generate an instant bestseller simply because she has so many viewers. I'm curious about how well those books are doing 6-12 months afterwards, though.)

So, it comes down to the book. Write something you think people will really enjoy. Depending on your genre you should thrill them, shock them, amuse them, surprise them or move them greatly, and then they'll be happy to share your work.

Salvino here, SimonHaynes--

Your points are well-stated and I agree for the most part with some minor differences not worth mentioning. However, I differ on one major point concerning book visibility now and this goes back to print-on-demand technology. I'm convinced you cannot possibly get the long-term attention and sales of a book you visualize unless the book has actual long-term availability. Print-on-demand titles in digital storage now answer that question i.e. available ad infinitum theoretically. We both know most traditional publishers remainder many titles in a relatively short time after publication.

So reviews aside and the sales they generate, word of mouth vis-a-via the Internet aside and the sales they generate, print-on-demand ensures a book's availability which I think ensures its visibility which in turn provides the time, momentum, energy and care needed to saturate the market with awareness of the book in question. Given my scenario, a exceptional book in my opinion should theoretically not die out as long as it has availability. All the pr marketing, reviews, readings, bookstore hustling etc. thus has more impact in the long-term.

And the genre issue--we've actually yet to discuss that in the context we've been batting around, a major factor I think when considering this issue.

"print-on-demand ensures a book's availability which I think ensures its visibility"

I agree about the availability but disagree on visibility. The denizens of the forums I read are sick of authors joining up just to spam them with links to the amazon page for their books, and it's hard to market a POD title online without being seen as part of this crowd.

In fact, I wrote an article on how to promote your book online.

I'm not saying you can't effectively market a POD book online - it's just that fifty thousand other people trying to do the exact same thing, badly, are going to make your job very, very difficult.

Here's some basic information I've learned from self-publishing my novel about the women of the Lost Colony (1587), The Rising Shore - Roanoke in the US.
Contact Bowker's for ISBNs. To register your copyright, see http://www.copyright.gov.
An author should probably have a website. 1and1 offers good prices for posting sites and for purchase of domain names. GoDaddy is another possibility. It's rare that anybody sells lots of copies of a book through an independent website. (Welcome to my site: www.risingshoreroanoke.com).
If you are not going to use Lulu or iUniverse, try to find a POD company that's reliable (produces high-quality books) and relatively inexpensive. LightningSource gets good reviews.
There are companies that will distribute small-press books if they decide the title has potential. My novel is being distributed by Biblio Distribution, so the Biblio sales force will promote it to bookstores. I expect to make little money from this arrangement, but it was clear from the start that this wouldn't be a money-making venture. It would be a reader-seeking venture.
If you would like to have your books available in Barnes & Noble outlets, you must submit a copy to the Barnes & Noble Small Press Department. They will only order your book from a distributor or wholesaler, and will send you a list of the approved companies. Distributors recommended by Barnes & Noble are Biblio (MD); Independent Publishers Group (IL); Bookworld Services (FL), Consortium (MN), Ingram Publisher Services (TN), Midpoint Trade Books (NY), Publishers Group West (CA).)
Two US journals that review small press titles are the Midwest Book Review and ForeWord. Could try also New Pages, Curled up w/a Good Book, bookpleasures.com.
Everybody advises to send out lots of review copies. Review copies of the book should be accompanied by a descriptive press release noting: contact information, name of your press, price, size and format of book, pub date.
Pub dates are tricky! For small-press books, they're mainly invented. Set your pub date a few months ahead, especially if you want to submit review copies to the Library Journal, which will consider small-press works, and Publishers' Weekly. These are both long-shots, but worth a try.
I'd recommend setting up the book on Amazon.com. It will not earn much money, but Amazon is an important listing service. If you have acquaintances who've read the book and seemed genuinely to like it, ask if they'd be willing to post "customer reviews" on Amazon.
PMA, the Independent Book Publishers' Association, is helpful. It can arrange to have your book displayed at important conventions (ALA, Book Expo) in their booth for a fee. There is also a small fee to join the PMA. The Jenkins Group, too, works with small-press authors. It tends to be a little more expensive than the PMA.
Consider checking out "Dan Poynter's Self-Publishing Manual" for information, as well as John Kremer's 1001 Ways to Market Your Book (confess I haven't read the second ... it was recommended to me).
Consider setting up a Google Adwords campaign.
Network when and where possible. Even MySpace can be useful.
Gird yourself against embarrassment and/or apology. If your novel is readable, it IS a book, not some other misbegotten animal. Let the readers decide what's what.
Books are more convenient (and wonderful) than manuscripts because they can be passed hand to hand.
Last advice - don't include a dash in your title. It causes trouble.
D.

Gird yourself against embarrassment and/or apology. If your novel is readable, it IS a book, not some other misbegotten animal. Let the readers decide what's what.

That's a very good point.

I just spent the past half hour or more paging through this debate as I ate breakfast. A very diverse spread of opinions and I found myself waffling back and forth. Y'see, I have self-publishing experience and while that enterprise was rewarding in some respects (my books wouldn't have been published at all otherwise) there are many drawbacks, especially the enormous amount of money it costs and the tremendous expenditure of energy that is necessary to promote and publicize your work. Self-publishing or POD places (like iUniverse) should only be attempted once you have exhausted every other alternative, including sending query letters to the smallest of the small presses. That said, I'm looking at iUniverse seriously because the manuscript of my last novel, a 475-page occult thriller (check out the excerpt on my blog), is going absolutely nowhere. 50 publishers contacted and less than five asked to take a closer look. One large U.S. imprint has kept me waiting for more than a year. It's a terrific book but because of the state of the marketplace, no one is really looking to take on much fiction (particularly unagented fiction--I've had no better luck with them). And let me stress, I've been a writer for more than 20 years, have all sort of credentials, endorsements and reviews, anthology appearances and that has gotten me precisely NOWHERE. If I don't go with iUniverse or another POD, the three years I spent slugging it out with my manuscript will amount to a small hill of moldering beans. And I simply can't accept that. Any thoughts? Experiences? Are some POD places better than others? Etc.

If you have talent and drive then self-pub can work.

I think I mentioned this somewhere else in the debate: one thing self-pub is good at is allowing you to move on from a completed manuscript so you can write your next book.

Simon,

You know I have a lot of respect for you and the work you've done, and that I consider you a bit of a self-pub expert.

With that disclaimer out of the way, I'm confused by your second sentence. It takes some work to write query letters and get your manuscript out there to commercial publishers, but there's nothing stopping you from working on the next book while you shop the first around.

When I was agent-hunting, I spent maybe a week developing my query letter, printing out 10 or 15 copies, and sending them out. Then it was time to start on the next book. When some of those queries came back, I just sent out more. When I got requests for partials or fulls, it was just a matter of printing out the manuscript and dropping by the post office after work. None of this had any significant impact in my ability to write another book.

I need infomations on how to pulish a campus magazine .

Hi Jim,

I don't advocate self-publishing instead of submitting to publishers and agents.

What I meant was, if you've explored all avenues and are considering self-publishing, look at it as a way to put your first (or second, or third) book to bed, not as a way to achieve worldwide fame and fortune.

A question, Simon:

Does the death of indie booksellers have an effect on self-publishers or POD? Dunno if it's different downunder but up here the little guys are dying off and the Chapters and Borders stores are proliferating. These guys have a centralized purchasing system so even if I take my self-pub, POD book in and show it to them, they may say, "Sorry, head office does all the ordering" and I'm stuck with a trunkful--or garage full--of books. I last self-published in 1997 and few of the indies who carried my book back then have survived the crunch.
Your thoughts?

Yes, it would have an impact. I did manage to get my books into a number of chain store branches but they were all franchised outlets and not owned by head-office.

And online bookselling isn't the answer, because of the sheer weight of competition.

Hi CliffBurns...do check your blog responses.

Richard Derus

Simon:

Very much appreciate your candour. This posting has definitely given me a lot to think about. The new bookselling environment I alluded to above may mean I'm pissing my money away self-publishing or going the POD route. Maybe it's better to just put the entire book on the blog, let people know it's there for free and see if I can work up some kind of word-of-mouth buzz, attract an amenable agent or (dream on) an editor with an ounce of common sense. I've just read that Scott Sigler's latest book, INFESTED, has landed a movie deal plus he's signed up a three book deal with Crown. I've chatted with Scott on-line but can't remember...did he go POD or do the blog thing? I'll have to check. Still, at least it's a sign that (like the lottery) miracles can happen. If you have any further thoughts on this or other points re: publishing/bookselling, do post them.

On the writing side of things I'm currently working my way through Write great fiction : plot & structure : techniques and exercises for crafting a plot that grips readers from start by James Scott Bell at the moment, and it's a very good how-to book. Highly recommended.

That's really the whole point: if you write something people want to read you can give it away, self-publish or approach publishers and agents with it. It really is about the book.

Simon:

Please mention this book (James Scott Bell) on the posting "Books on Writing that Inspired You". They've accumulated quite a roster of tomes but I don't think that one's on it.

I'm with you, get your book to readers in whatever form you can. The book is the thing...but I want SERIOUS readers, more importantly SMART readers and as many of them as possible. Money isn't important (or else I'd be writing bloody STAR WARS novelizations) but I do want to get my work into the hands of as many readers as possible. That's why I started my blog, so I could print an excerpt from my novel and stories that had either been out ofcirculation for awhile or had never seen print (due to the vicissitudes of the marketplace). Hope to re-invigorate interest in a once-promising career that had stalled in the middle of a busy superhighway...

In my 20+ years as a professional writer I have always been shocked by the dearth of discerning and intelligent editors out there. Where is the equivalent of Maxwell Perkins? Authors aren't being developed any more, it's more a case of who you know, going to the right workshop, being acquainted with someone who's acquainted with someone...that ol' six degrees of separation. The shelf life of books is shortening and so buzz and word of mouth is also being removed from the equation. What will be the end result? A dumbing down of literature, quirky talents overlooked in favour of ghostwritten efforts by flash-in-the-pan personalities.

Tell me I'm wrong, Simon, that I'm over-stating the dangers. I'd love to hear
some encouraging word right now...

I just wanted to chime in and say that I think self-publishing is all right for poetry. No one is ever going to make money from poetry books anyway, so in this realm, I don't think there is as much of a stigma. I have a small press that has published 33 books. What bothers me about POD and some self-pubished books is that they are amateurish because they badly needed editing, honest feedback, and rigorous copy editing. Otherwise, you are just putting trash out there, in my opinion. QUALITY and meticulous attention to detail is crucial.

I agree...if self-publishing and POD is the last refuge of the amateur/wannabe writer, lacking the discipline to edit and proofread then those venues deserve to languish.

In my case, I've published over 100 stories and a number of well-received, limited edition books but because of my remote locale and aversion to writing clubs, workshops and shmoozing, I'm at a disadvantage. In this biz it's who you KNOW that matters. After approaching over 50 publishers and striking out, I feel I have to explore all possibilities. I edit meticulously and I'm not worried about my work being guilty of the sins I alluded to above. The problem, as I indicated in message #84, is finding an editor who recognizes my abilities and is willing to give a break to a guy who has paid his dues and is ready to take that next, crucial step. I'm convinced SO DARK THE NIGHT is destined to be a breakthrough novel but I need to find the right person in the right place. Does such a person exist? After over a year of searching, I have my sincere doubts.

Cliff, working with a small press can be a great experience. (I'm talking about a company set up to make money selling books through stores, not one designed to make money only off writers.)

There's usually a small staff, but they tend to be more hands-on and very dedicated. Having said that, distribution is the key. Look for a small press which has a distribution agreement with a big publisher, and then you have the best of both worlds.

The publisher I'm with classes themselves as 'small press', although they put out 30-40 titles a year and have been around since 1975. (I'd recommend them, but they're based in Western Australia and only publish books by WA writers.)

I'm sure there must be similar publishers in the US, and if you can find one and they really get behind your work, you have a team of people dedicated to seeing your books succeed, rather than just you. Makes a big difference. And, of course, there's always the chance of a break-out novel.

By the way, I read something on Agent Kristin's blog recently where a guest speaker said something along these lines: Even if you're published with the biggest firm on the planet, you should still approach the marketing and publicity for your book as if you were self-published.

Simon:

I agree small presses have a lot going for them. What they lack in promo budgets and distribution, they make up for in their sheer love of books. And I agree, the author must be an important part of the sales team--when I published with Peter Crowther's imprint, I sold scores of copies myself, through friends and acquaintances, approaching any indie bookstore I had access to. And Pete managed to sell out his print run, which made me feel better. I NEVER want to have people lose money on one of my books. I worry about the demise of the indies, the corporate-ization of publishers and I worry that these POD places are taking advantage of desperate writers like me who spend years working on a novel, only to have the doors of conventional publishing slammed in our faces.

I emphasize, I have a track record, critical praise, many, many publication credits but that seems to impress none of the editors I've sent query letters and copies of my synopsis to. It's absolutely maddening...

Absolutely true about the writer who SHOULD be willing to help market the book. As a small press publisher, I can tell you that it amazes (and frustrates) me how many writers expect a struggling small press to market their books. I work full time, teach on the side, have my press, and try to write something once in a while myself. I personally subsidize the press, since it loses money. I do this because I believe in the work and I love it. I don't have the time or expertise to market my books very much. So I rely on the poets to help out by telling their friends, relatives, mentors, co-workers, alma maters, etc. and getting the word out. I don't think it's too much to expect them to take some books to independent bookstores, or sell their books at readings. I have to ask writers to help with printing costs, but they can easily recoup that by not giving all their copies away. One of my goals is to keep my books low cost and affordable, which helps to get them out there in the world.

Message #89:

Are you worried about the demise of indie bookstores? Seems like the small press publishers would be hit harder than the big boys if everyone starts buying books from "big box" stores. Does this spell doom for the small press...or are you exploring alternatives like selling through the internet? Is a place like Amazon going to be geared toward the needs of small presses (especially someone who specializes in poetry like you do)? I wonder...

Hello, Cliff - yes, of course, the demise of independent bookstores is a terrible thing for small presses. It's one of the reasons why so many small presses go under - we can't sell enough books to cover enough of the costs. I do sell from our website, and more of my sales come from there. The fact that 12 poets' poems have been read on The Writer's Almanac on NPR has been a tremendous boost to my sales on the Net. Amazon is NOT geared to small presses. I think they are a big ripoff - they take too big a cut, and insist on only carrying perfect bound books with an ISBN and bar code. Plus they charge a yearly fee, and the publisher has to pay to ship books to Amazon. I have our 2 anthologies on amazon, but have not had many sales from there.

You have just stated my deepest, darkest fears re: the fate of small publishers under the new retail regime. What do you do? Publish more commercial efforts to subsidize the books you love? Become a version of a POD publisher where authors subsidize part of the publishing costs? It's a slippery slope.

I know that in 1990 my first, self-published short story collection cost me $3,000...and in 1997 my second collection, THE REALITY MACHINE, cost me $6000. What would a 2007 collection or novel cost? It's almost too scary to think about. Each of my previous collections was well-reviewed but barely broke even for me. A POD book through iUniverse would cost me $600 (minimum) but $1100 if I wanted their "premium" service, where I'd have a small chance of getting stuck on a table in a few Barnes and Nobles outlets.
Is it worth it for me? Those three years of busting my ass, producing a terrific manuscript are wasted otherwise. There lies my dilemna...

I share your fears, folks, but I'm not sure that things are as dire as they seem. We've seen a shift in how people read over the last ten years or so, and I don't know how it's all going to turn out. One possibility is that people simply won't read anymore - all those horrible predictions about a culture of illiteracy may be true. Another is that those who do read will all read the same authors, and that stores will be endless aisles of Harry Potter, Stephen King, Star Wars stories and the latest 'Chicken Soup' book. A third possibility is that the literary world will experience a paradigm shift like the music world did - major stations (publishers) producing safe, palatable product while the vital, important work gets done in garages and independent pirate stations (the small press, the Internet). And you've seen what happens when great work gets done and passionate fans get involved - talent spreads like a virus and Nirvana sells a billion records. I think - I hope - that something like this will occur in the world of literature. There's never been a platform like the Internet for dissemination of ideas, and once all the rough edges and child pornography issues get resolved, I think we'll see books moving in fascinating directions.

I hope.

Thanks for the words of hope, John, and I sincerely wish that what you're saying will come to pass. Time will tell. I like the analogy with the music industry, the dinosaurs putting out safe, saccharine product while the small indies produce the Nirvanas, Pixies, et all. But...will there be physical venues for these small press efforts or do you see this as entirely internet/mail order driven? Nirvana made it into indie record stores but would they have made it in a universe where these stores didn't exist, where there was no opportunity for the "buzz" to develop? I'm from the generation where I have to physically hold a book in my hand, read the jacket copy, the first few pages, ogle the front cover before buying. Maybe I'm just a old fogie (I'm certainly a Luddite). I like the thought that the internet and the various forums and chat rooms can present an opportunity for "word of mouth" to develop...but then where do interested parties buy the book in question? Amazon? (See Message#91). With the increasing costs of publishing and fewer retail outlets who carry small/special interest books, is the future bleaker than ever before for small presses? I know you have a lot of dealings with these folks so I guess you'd know better than me their state of mind. I defer to your opinion and hope that your optimism comes to fruition...

Most of these posts appear to be about versus instead of outcome so I'm going to do a different take on things. I will give you the actual numbers about what I have spent and sold in my short writing career. I hope this helps.

My name - Alex Hutchinson

Rejection letters - 44

Finally decided to self-publish POD in 2003 with my first book Virgin Gloves. It was for a niche market (Professional Boxing) and all the boxing magazines picked it up. I sold 100 copies in the first year.

One year later I pushed forward with my second book, Backyard Empire, also POD. This was also a niche market (Wrestling) and a bunch of websites picked it up. Sold 70 copies the first year.

Then I jumped into a series of books - Before they were HAWKS, Sevlow and Almost Columbine. One year later they have sold a total of 100 books.

My newest book is a collection of anti-war poetry called Anarchy Bell. I didn't have any money to market it, not yet anyway, so I've only sold about 30 copies.

Has it been rewarding? Yes, I have talked to thousands of people in the last three years and managed to gather a few hundred fans. I've done television, radio, been in magazines and newspaper stories. I'm now the most famous person from the small town I grew up in and I have a popular website Suburban Fiction.com

I used to want to be Stephen King and have international recognition but I have learned that fame can suck. I no longer want to be on top of the world. I enjoy writing my books for a limited audience and I love my fans. Some of them love me back (Wink).

So here are the details:

6 POD Books, 1 website
Total cost $4,000.
Total sold 400 (119 Internet)

Would I do it all again? Well, I would have changed my marketing strategies but those are the lessons you learn along the way. I do like to have my independence and I like to rely on my own ambition. I'm doing what I love and enjoying every minute of it.

Thanks for your candor, Alex.

I'm weighing a lot of things right now, doing mucho thinking about POD books, pros and cons. My novel is currently under consideration at a couple of places and who knows if it will go anywhere.

It was good to hear of your experiences. More food for thought...

I think it depends on what your goals are.

If you are looking to be a literary author, I don't recommend self-publishing. Self-published books aren't eligible for book awards (unless recently generated awards for self-published books), they aren't carried by most bookstores, agents and publishers frown on self-published books, most authors go in a hole.

Most authors don't realize it, but their books really aren't ready for publication most of the time. It usually takes many years to construct a book and then working with an interested agent to continue to shape it and edit it. It's a long process, and not an easy one--even if you are gifted.

A few people have had the kind of success that makes them happy; but I recommend the more traditional route. Work hard, read lots of fiction, keep editing, keep sending out.

I totally agree that most people's books aren't ready for publication when they start trying to sell them. My first novel certainly wasn't! I've worked with a lot of critique groups and seen many people stop revising and start looking for agents or publishers before the book is really finished. In some cases, I felt very bad about it because I was convinced the book had great promise if only it were brought from the first or second draft stage to the stage of a truly completed manuscript. But that requires a lot of rather tedious work, not nearly as much fun as the more imaginative work that goes into the early drafts, and a lot of people just don't have the stomach for it.

I use a traditional publisher for my non-fiction but self-publish my fiction. The reason for going the SP route was time - there was a publishing target I wanted to hit and after trying a few agents and publishers I realised that I would miss it by miles, even if eventually successful. So I turned to Authors Online to publish my first novel, The Foresight War. This has worked very well - I have more than got my money back and it is providing a small but steady income - so I went straight to them for my second novel, (Scales). This has made a slower start, I think because it is a mainsteam SF/thriller and gets lost in the ocean of such publications, whereas my first was aimed at more of a niche - and easily reached - readership.

I am not particularly an advocate of self-publishing - it's a question of where your priorities lie - but I've attempted to summarise the pros and cons of the different publishing methods in this article on my website: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/OnPublishingFiction.htm

I am self-published, started my own company after doing lots of research on publishing options. I had to publish my book quickly for various reasons and learned so much that I did a second edition, hot off the Lightning Source press at the moment. Lightning is the way to digitally print at low cost plus they are very reputable and have a distribution system - but, you have to be a company. Going that route and using Lightning is a good way to hide the fact that you are self-published. Traditional booksellers stick their noses in the air at indies (independents)...most require an agent to submit a manuscript, take a long time to get the book out, and you don't make much money. For POD, there are lots of happy LuLu authors, but LuLu is still frowned upon by the lit world. Don't even think of vanity presses. As with ALL types of publishing, YOU must promote and market. Don't think those big publishers care about you; if your book doesn't sell well in 3 months it is yanked off the shelves and that is the end of your book. They don't do much promoting either unless you're already famous. Chances are very high you will not get in the door of a big publisher, but the small publishers may give you a shot.

As an indie publisher I have a lifetime to sell my book and I get all the profits. It all cost me about as much as a decent vacation-just fine on my credit card. I sold 200+ copies of the first edition in one year, so I knew I had something good. For the 2nd ed I made sure the book was as professional as possible and aimed it at a more specific audience. I have to put my marketing hat on now, but do that work mostly online. We'll see how the 2nd edition goes. I do presentations and sell the book afterwards, which is the best way to make money (had to get over my shyness). Sometimes you can even get paid for your presentation. It has been a rewarding, almost life-changing experience for me. Oh, don't expect to get rich no matter how you publish. You publish for love of your story, for love of writing well.

The main question you have to ask yourself is what you want as an author. Do you want to see your books on the shelves of the book stores? Do you want reviews in magazines and -- especially for the science fiction and fantasy people -- do you want to take part in conventions as professionals? Do you want to reach a wide audience and do you want to be paid for your work?

If the answer is yes, then you have to be professional, and that means not going the self-publishing route.

Most people jump into it because self-publishing is easy. Easy isn't usually the best answer. If you aren't interested in being considered a professional, then self-publishing is a fine way to go. You can share the books with your friends (because you are rarely going to sell to anyone beyond those you can personally contact), and it can be a lot of fun. There's nothing wrong with it, as long as you know what it is you want and don't expect it to do more.

If self-publishing is what you want, then I suggest you go to Lulu.com. It won't cost you anything, and they do a great job. Some small press companies even use Lulu.com for their own printing.

Stay away from PublishAmerica, which is one of the worst companies to get involved with. They're a scam, and they're preying on people who are desperate to get their work published and don't know enough to make a study of a place before they go to them.

Unfortunately, I have yet to find a self-published book that didn't need considerable editing, and that makes it nearly impossible for even a good self-published book to make any kind of headway. People have been burned too many times by very very VERY bad self-published work and they stop considering self-publishing as anything more than a dumping ground for bad work. It's a difficult up hill battle for anyone who takes this route, and so few have made it that it doesn't really count. I think someone mentioned Eragon, but remember that Paolini had the help of his parents, who paid for him to tour the country to promote his work, and that brought it a lot more attention than anyone with a website will do. Are you going to have that kind of help?

Being a professional writer is far harder work, and often very frustrating. Many people don't want to go through that kind of trouble. Even those of us who are hovering around the small presses have a hard time of it, but it is rewarding. And while my books and stories may not be perfect, I know that someone who didn't know me thought them good enough to publish and I know that they were given the attention of good copyeditors. (And yes, of course there are still mistakes in professionally published works. They're still far better than most of the self-published works.)

Whatever you decide, make certain that what you present, either as self-published or to be sent to publishers, is the very best you can do. Remember that there will be real people looking at it and judging your ability to write by those words. As a self-published author, you want to sell more books to them in the future, so make certain they have a reason to come back.

In other words, don't get lazy. Work hard on grammar and punctuation, learn the differences between the various types of POV, and learn to write well. It's easy to write a book. It's hard to make it a good book. Too many people jump from the 'I wrote a book!' to the 'I published a book!' stage without ever really editing. They're wasting their talent and their stories, and it isn't even because they're going the self-publishing route; it's because they are cheating their readers by not giving them the best story they could.

Here, really, is the bottom line: You can always self-publish as a last resort. There's no reason why you can't give traditional publishing a try first. And by traditional, I don't mean just the big print houses in New York. Traditional, in the way I mean it, is any publisher that has a true submission/rejection process and who hires copyeditors to go over the work. This means it could be the big publishers, small press companies, and even many good electronic publishers.

So make the decision on what you want to achieve and go for it. Enjoy it.

You are right, zette. I've seen a lot of terrible self-published books and those give every indie publisher a bad name. I advise people who ask me to at least try for the traditional route, especially with the smaller presses, because it can't hurt, and if accepted the publisher will do all the work to create a professional book that is accepted in all the right channels. The trick is to get accepted as a huge percentage of manuscripts are rejected.

It is NOT easy to self-publish if you are doing it as a serious business venture. You must know how to write the book to satisfy your specific audience needs, hire good editors and good book designers, use publishing software to create the book, and be an excellent business manager and promoter, something many "artists" cannot handle well. You must learn a lot and constantly be working to learn more. Most authors, esp first-timers, are not up for that. Just remember that big publishing houses are big businesses and make their decisions based on how much money they think you can make for THEM. It is not about what they can do for YOU. (Try them first anyway because that is really the easiest route for a writer.)

POD, self-publishing and quality or lack thereof are separate problems.

Cambridge UP (i wrote oxford, before, sorry) and Lightning Source, the top POD printer just celebrated their 10,000th volume. POD printing is more wide-spread and accepted than even Salvino, whose posts I agree with, described.

Self-publishing, like Asia is not singular. POD published books tend to be skinny and expensive because, as noted, POD costs more than offset and the publishers need their cut, but books by an author-publisher who chooses to go POD because it is close to free (the opposite of vanity publishing which costs much money or languishing around waiting for that agent or publisher to appear, which costs time) may be fatter and cheaper than all but the largest edition books published by majors.

Quality does not depend upon the type of publishing. True, my author-published books could use more proofing. But, it is not because I am my editor. It is because I cannot afford to hire assistance. From the number of errors in the last two university press books I have seen, and from what the most critical scholar I know has told me, very little if any editing is going on at these presses.

I think I will start a new forum or larger group for author-publishers. It is ridiculous that musicians should be lauded for producing their own music while authors are insulted and ignored. Salvino pegged the problem. The Reviews. If readers only knew what books are not being reviewed they would cancel their subscriptions. If only we can find a way to bring good books to the attention of the readers who would appreciate them . . .

Perhaps, I should add that I was published by some of Japan's top houses. It was indeed a mixed bag, but I will not open it now.

Rise, Ye Sea Slugs!

I self-publish my fiction (although not my non-fiction) and summarised my reasons and experiences here: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/OnPublishingFiction.htm

I agree about the review problem: I have discussed this with others before now. A website devoted to book reviews might be an answer: authors could be charged a small fee (plus supplying a copy of their book) to list their work, plus a link to free chapters etc, and a panel of independent reviewers would review the works as and when. The problem is that I have neither the expertise nor the time to do it...

Poddy Mouth ran reviews of self-pubbed books for a couple of years:
http://girlondemand.blogspot.com/

From her stats I believe she reviewed around 3400 books and found just 65 worth recommending. Now, had those 3400 manuscripts been submitted to publisher after publisher, I'm guessing the same 65 (maybe more, maybe less) would have found a home. That still leaves 3300+ which she simply couldn't recommend.

Do you know how much time and space it would take a newspaper to run reviews on 3400 books? And if only 65 were worth recommending, what's the point of embarassing the other 3335 authors with negative reviews? Who'd want to read 3335 negative reviews, anyway? I like reviews to suggest books I might like to read... life is too short to spend hours reading hear about thousands I don't want to.

That's the issue: most self-published works just aren't ready for broader consumption. If yours IS ready, then you should persist in trying for a proper publishing deal. (And publishers ARE looking for new authors all the time. That isn't an excuse.)

Paying for a review isn't the answer. If you want to pay for something, pay for honest editorial input BEFORE you self-publish, and pay for a copy-editor too. Make that book as good as you possibly can, and then submit. If you must print it yourself, to have a book to hold in your hands, then go ahead and use Lulu ... then let that book alone and move on to writing your next one.

Most published authors are on their third or fourth novel by the time they're picked up by a publisher, since it takes that long to hit their stride and develop their talents for character, dialogue, plotting, pacing, subplots and so on.

I didn't explain myself very well, Simon (trying to condense what I'd previously posted on this subject). The fee would be to list the book: a review could not be guaranteed, it would be down to individual reviewers to decide what they wanted to look at. Possibly, reviews would only be posted if the book reached a certain minimum standard (I doubt that most reviewers would be willing to slog all the way through a bad one anyway).

Simon Haynes, i worked as a scout for 20 years for a japanese publsher (kousaku-sha, later papyrus) and went through thousands of books selecting scores. If you are a fast reader and know enough about the subjects you review -- which includes knowing the alternatives out there -- it takes only five minutes to throw out the bad ones. I have seen blogs excusing elitism by citing numbers and all I can say is that all that sobbing about so many books so little time only proves they can type faster than they can read or think. And, those 65 Poddy Mouth found would only have found a home if the author were lucky enough to have gotten them to the right person at the right publisher. To assume that something good will automatically be picked up is like assuming that good people all become millionaires and don't have accidents.

Publishers looking for new authors? Do you know of any good ones with the guts to publish a 500 or 740-page book with Japanese mixed in if it has the substance to become a classic? What I saw (when I looked: now, they had better find me) are sites requiring one to go through an agent and the only agents one can count on getting through to them, themselves not accepting new authors. I was published by top publishers in Japan, have two books reprinted 4 or 5 times, one 20,000-printing paperback and have helped scores of books get translated and correct those translations - even wrote a book about the mistranslation (one of the two reprinted many times) . . . There is a reason why conventional publishing in the US has a much smaller market share than it did ten years ago: they and their book reviews (for they go hand-in-hand) care more for money than books, and going that way get what they deserved, losing both.

Yet, Simon, you are right that books and their writing improve with time. I would spend as much time on mine as Darwin did on his if I had a wealthy wife and could afford to wait. Today, being an author-publisher is the way to go for a poor person who cannot afford the publishing game played by the elite.

And, Anthony, you are right, we need reviews. I would love for the Readers Catalog to have stayed alive become online and expanded, for, at least in the fields I knew the most about, they were damn good at selecting the wheat fronm the chafff, or the gems from the rocks, as Japanese put it. I think I know what we need, but am still working at it.

"Rise, Ye Sea Slugs!"

(ps i changed oxford to cambridge in 104 and am embarrassed for the mistake which happened because oxford classics were on my mind at the time i wrote)

Re: Message 103

In terms of finding a good editor or proofreader for a self-published book, I think there must be writer's guilds or organizations in your city/state/ province you can join that quite often have manuscript reading services available for a nominal fee. Proofing manuscripts is actually a fairly good way for a writer to make a few bucks on the side--I know here in Saskatchewan the Writer's Guild used to offer that service to its members. There are also ads in the back of POETS AND WRITERS and WRITERS DIGEST where "professional" authors advertise their editing service--I can't recommend them personally since I've never used them but they're out there.

I don't think there's ANY excuse for a scribe to foist a badly written or technically inept self-published effort (or e-book or POD book) on readers. Freelance editors will offer you another point of view, help pare down exposition or, at the very least, clean up your grammar and punctuation so you don't embarrass yourself...

Nominal fees are too much, when you do not even feel up to printing out copies of your book until you publish and must make do with a 13" screen to work on and make your covers with MS-WORD alone, etc., but i realize mine is an extreme case. Besides, even an editor may do a poor job (in one case, it took me three editions before I could unfix what a bad editor did). Finding the right assistance for work that is just erudite enough to make most laymen feel unqualified yet not scholarly enough to the taste of many academics are uncomfortable with might not be as easy as you think. Also, in my case, with enormous books +Japanese and multiple columns, few people can even accept the files by the method I can afford: e-mail. I do, however, have some brilliant and learned friends who would love to do it if I could pay -- while not as poor as me, they need money (indeed, i have proofed some things for money even as i had no time for improving my own work).

I think you and I, Cliff Burns, may have a slightly different feeling for what counts most. I do not mind finding that I have bought an imperfectly finished work so long as I get my money's worth in terms of information, ideas and entertainment. My biggest peeve is not the book with mistakes, but the book with a chapter's worth of content puffed up into 300 pages, or the book that combines an ounce of fresh material with a pound of dead horse. These are a dime a dozen. And reviews, which generally fail to mention other books in the same field often fail to spot that (to my mind, a book should be reviewed like a patent application). Like a person with real character, a good book is appreciated by others with character though it be unshaved and slovenly dressed. While there are well-groomed people who are not idiots and well done books that are worth reading, we have too many slickos of little substance in the world of people and books.

As far as foisting bad books on readers goes, as see/search-inside-book becomes common, WYSIWYG will be the rule, so that is one thing we need not concern ourselves about. (At present, one can not always tell: many words in the size 9 font of the ample footnotes to my Topsy-turvy 1585 at Amazon changed in the scanning process -- some day i must send them the pdf now that they accept them)

I am sad but I am not embarrassed to publish imperfectly finished books because i know i have done everything possible (down to one shower a week, cooking one meal a day, no dating, you name it, anything to save time) given my circumstances, and because I know I will disappoint more people by NOT finishing my next book. Details may always be touched up by others in my absence, but the dozens of books I have well along will die with me unless I can complete them well enough -- I repeat WELL ENOUGH -- for them to survive without me. My situation may be rare. I cannot imagine many people foolish enough to have started as much as I have . . .

I'm impressed with your dedication, but one shower a week is a bit...

Never mind.

The point about editing not always being helpful reminded me of the story of the successful "literary" novelist who, in order to achieve a certain effect, included an entire page of narrative with no punctuation. When the book was published he leafed through it and discovered that a helpful editor had inserted punctuation all the way through...

I've got a literary book on my shelf with no quotes. I know the author and asked her why and she said it was for style. My problem was that I didn't know when the protag was speaking or thinking -- and come to think of it whether another character was real or not.

The added punctuation mentioned above reminded me of something. The following comes from a very enthusiastic review of my Fly-ku! (robin d gill) in the online magazine Lynx by Jane Reichhold (its editor) a few years ago.
The aberrations in typesetting above, and in Fly-ku, are pure Gill and a poke in the eye of the serious voice that lives by the Chicago Book of Style. He has his fun, but he also takes his readers・comfort in mind, and here in Fly-ku, the notes and side bars are arranged on the same pages with an attractive border made of repeats of the Japanese kanji for, you guessed it ・fly. Also, sprinkled throughout the book, often alone on a blank page or even among the haiku, are spots. They are either white, page colored, or black. Sometimes there is one, other times there are two of these spots or seemingly misplaced periods. It is either a secret message system of Gill for transmitting nuclear secrets ・or flyspecks!

A free copy for the first person to guess correctly why those dots are there.

I was told to expect about 3 - 4,000 as an advance then 1 -2% for royalties if I get accepted by traditional publishing for a children's picture book. If I self publish I can expect to spend about 3,000 for an initial print run plus marketing expenses and get 25% per book. Is this accurate?

When I self-published I was supplying books to stores at retail less 40% (in other words, I got 60% of the cover price.)

Had a distributor been involved, I would have got less - maybe 45-48% of retail. Couldn't find a distributor to take self-pubbed books, so that wasn't an issue.

Bear in mind my self-publishing effort was true self-pub ... I set up my own company & imprint to do it, then organised printing of the book blocks, cover flats, binding, etc, from different firms.

If you're giving your manuscript to a company who does everything for you, you'll earn correspondingly less on each book.

Simon:

Yes, and self-publishing is soooo labour intensive--starting with preparing the camera ready copy and finding a cover and searching out the best printing deal you can get without having to resort to some shitty copy shop. Brrr...I shudder to think about the sheer amount of effort it took me to go that route, the energy and time and, yes, money. Everybody else gets paid and it takes months, if not a couple of years, to recoup your losses and MAYBE break even.

No wonder it's been 10 years since I last did it.

Nope, next time I'm just dumping the whole goddamn thing on my blog for nuttin'. It may not be pretty but I find people do read the stories in pdf form when I make them available.

Self-publishing is a form of flagellation--and I still bear the scars.

Cliff and Simon,

What you describe is self-publishing using off-set printers. None of it applies if you use a POD printer-distributor. Then, your only problem is properly pdf'ing your word.doc (or whatever). And that, is much easier now than when i did my first in 2003 because one may choose one setting in a pdf (and maybe uncheck a box in the printer options preventing export of font and be sure your b&w illus are re-jpaged greyscale -- the freeware Irfanview does that perfectly when you save as) and you have your book. If it is huge like most of mine, you might need to combine the pdf'd chapters, but that, too, is very fast and easy now). The main expense is acrobat itself -- unless you are an academic or student or have a friend who can buy you an education copy, which is a fifth of the cost! -- and the book of isbn #'s. Upload the pdf to the printer-distributor and in a week you have your proof -- of six books done that way so far I only had a problem with one: the outline letters used to make the "Epiphany" reflect its etymology disappeared -- talk about phantoms! -- though they looked fine on my pdf'd cover! MSWORD outline letters suck, for they do not grow proportionately with the font. The book set-up itself costs only about a hundred bucks give or take fifty depending on the book's size and it may even be free in the off-season so long as you short-order 50 copies which you want for pr anyway. I, too, have suffered because of stupid software problems = when japanese is mixed in, trying to adjust columns can be so hard, i end up cussing so loud the dogs flee = but the only way you stand to suffer losses to recoup is if you allow the book to be returnable and get a review that interests the wrong bookstores . . .

When you use a POD printer the books are generally too expensive to supply at trade prices to shops. E.g. 40% off the retail price of a POD book will be far below the price you're paying for each one. Therefore, you have to put the retail price up, and then you have a paperback book which is double the price of a book printed offset.

E.g. $10 retail less $4 markup is $6. How many POD books cost under $6 delivered to your door? So, you have to set the retail at around $25, and then bookstores won't touch it.

Not only that, if you use a recognised POD outlet (e.g. Lulu), bookstore owners generally won't touch the books because they know it's self-published. Sure, they can special order, and if you're a local they might put them on the shelf on consignment, but they're not going to be stocked from coast to coast.

The rare self-pubbed fiction success stories I've heard of (two, including me) both involved people using offset, setting up an imprint and basically making sure their books looked exactly like every other book on the shelf, from the ISBN to the EAN barcode to the snazzy little publishing house logo on the spine.

So yes, uploading a PDF is easier, but that just means everyone else is doing it too.

Both of my self-published books were "successes". The first was released in 1990--I printed 500 copies and sold them out in about 5 months. Collected some nice reviews and helpful blurbs. Basically broke even.

The second book, alluded to above, was printed in 1997. This time we went with 1,000 copies and snagged cover art by a renowned artist. We put a higher price on it (in retrospect, an error in judgment on my part) and, thus, it didn't sell as well. But it still got my name out there, grabbed good reviews and, after about two years, we managed to break even on that one.

The work involved deprived me of writing time--not merely the production but also taking and filling orders, visiting bookstores, coming up with fliers and advertising, sending out review copies, sample copies (more costs) etc. etc. etc.

Simon's right, from what I've seen with POD, it's hard to keep the cover price down--trade paperback for twenty bucks minimum--and unless the book looks absolutely spectacular (cover art and design, layout, blurbs from "names") and the writer is willing to devote long hours to plugging it aggressively and articulately, it's a tough row to hoe. The bias against self-published and POD is still out there and while there ARE some good books published by these methods, for the most part the bias is a fair one. People often go their self pub/POD route because no regular publisher would touch their novel or memoir or poetry collection with a ten foot barge pole.

Perhaps in a few years the technology will be such that production costs can be reduced and POD books will seem more attractive...but I'm not sure that's necessarily a good thing. In the old days, people would have to pay through the nose to vanity presses to satisfy their, well, vanity. Flooding the market with cheaper POD books by amateur or just plain rotten writers serves little benefit to anyone but the "authors" in question.

For every Simon Haynes there are 100 (or perhaps even 1000) George and Suzie Blands, with their crappy poems on the family dog or sloppily written family memoirs. And that's a source of concern...

Today i just ordered two boxes of my newest, actually one book under two isbn #s and separate covers as an experiment. It/They is/are 504 pp and a bit more than $9 each. The paper size is 7.44 x 9.69 and they are sturdy and well printed and i will retail them for $30 at a discount of %35 which means i'll be getting about $10/bk. Yes, they won't be in many bk stores, because they even don't like 40%, but i don't want many bkstores anyway. The profit per copy is tremendous for the little work i will have to do.

I repeat what i have written elsewhere: unless a major publisher gambles on a large run, books such as mine, long with complex font and formatting, are expensive even if they are offset and, because they generally fail to incorporate the Japanese smoothly into the book usually look less professional than mine yet sell for at least twice as much while paying the authors less than half as much per copy.

If, however, I had short books for the mass-market and want to be in many bookstores, what Simon and Cliff write may indeed still be the case. But things are moving so fast that I'll bet it won't be within a year or two or three! And the advantage of POD printing is (or should be) that less copies of worthless books are printed rather than more. True, more different titles will be available, but there is no run to speak of. Isn't that something to celebrate? In my scouting days, I recall being horrified at the mountain of books printed by academic publishers -- usually, i got to see them for free via the large agencies in japan that farm out books to publishers but blackwell, in particular, irked me because they dressed them up so damn well (both titles and covers) that I bought a few that turned out to be little more than doctoral theses -- I have no fear of being fooled like that by George and Suzie Bland! And finally, in my not so humble opinion, the issue comes down to money. If you are poor, you need POD printing. Following your logic is to accept rich George and Suzie while denying poor George and Suzie a chance.

A very interesting discussion. I appreciate the nitty-gritty details about prices and percentages.

Cliff, how did you get reviews for your self-published books? What I've been hearing is that it's almost impossible to get reviewed unless you go with a traditional and not-too-small publishing house.

Margad:

In both cases, I took great pains to ensure the books looked absolutely indistinguishable from titles published by any mainstream literary press. Both had glowing introductions from other authors and featured blurbs from the likes of Timothy Findley. I sent out copies along with a cover letter to various Book Review Editors and managed to snag some newspaper and magazine reviews. I think the general attractiveness of the books was what sold them.

On the other hand, Peter Crowther (PS Publishing; Britain) was kind enough to send me ten review copies of my last book, RIGHTEOUS BLOOD, and I dutifully sent them out to Canadian newspapers and publications and received not ONE notice or mention. I won't forgive the Canadian press for that snub, especially since it was obvious the book was certainly not the product of a vanity/self-published venue. I think the fact that it was perceived as a "genre" offering worked against it--"What's this? Looks like horror--doesn't feature Canadian place names or a multi-generational family of immigrants struggling and making it good in the New World so...toss it."

So I guess the lesson here is you just can never be sure how a particular title will be treated...

#122 "So I guess the lesson here is you just can never be sure how a particular title will be treated..."

Indeed.

I have self-published two novels so far. I must admit that I barely gave the traditional publishing route a chance for the first one - I had a reason to want it out there quickly. This went very well, so I took the same route with the second one.

I used a British self-publishing firm (Author OnLine - very good, btw) which offer a menu approach; how much you pay depends on how much help you want. For my first book I took the deluxe approach (they provided editing, cover design, layout) - the book needed to sell 1,000 copies to break even. So far it's over 1,500 and still selling steadily. It's pulled in 20 reviews on the British and US amazon sites, averaging 4 stars (and amazingly, all by paying customers unknown to me!).

For the second novel I did a lot more work myself plus with the help of a graphic artist friend, dropping the break-even point to about 500 copies. It's too soon to tell how long that will take but it's a much slower starter. I've puzzled over this and decided it's because the first book, The Foresight War, appeals to a niche market whereas the second (Scales) is a general SF book.

My conclusion is that self-publishing is particularly suited to books aimed at niche markets which can more easily be targeted.

A good insight about niche markets, Anthony. That's one to keep well in mind.

So, Cliff, it sounds like you were actually more successful in getting your self-published books reviewed than the one where you went through a publishing house? Writing is a lot like gambling, I guess.

What sort of advance and % royalties should a first time author expect?

mpramanik,

It depends. Tobias Buckell, an author with Tor, did a survey a while back. It's not 100% perfect, but it's got the best data I've seen on first novel advances, drawing on information from 108 SF/F novelists from commercial publishing houses. Median advance in fantasy and science fiction was $5000 for a first novel.

That matches my own experience pretty closely.

As for royalty percentages, that also depends. Hardcover royalties from a commercial house tend to be a little higher. In my case, mass market royalties are 6% of cover price, which can potentially climb to 7% or 8% if we sell a huge number of copies.

6% of a $6.99 cover price doesn't sound like enough until you realize that even a small print run could be 10,000 books. (I.e., $4200).

Smaller publishers are likely to offer smaller (or no) advances. If you sell a book to Five Star, for example, the advance is $1000. But they're a niche publisher aimed specifically at the library market.

That first novel advance survey is still online at http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/2005/10/05/author-advance-survey-version-20/

jchines:

Those are helpful figures you have generously supplied. Important stats for writers and I thank you for sharing them (and your own experiences). Most helpful...

Thanks for posting the link to the advance survey, jchines. It's extremely helpful information, even to those of us writing in other genres.

Thank you jchines! That is exactly the information I needed to make my decision. I am trying to decide btwn self publishing and getting a publisher. All of the posts have been quite helpful, but the information that you supplied has been quite elusive. I still haven't decided, but now I have enough information to do so. Thanks again!!!

Just my two cents...

Always try to get a traditional publisher first. You might get rejected for years, but the self-publishing route will always be open to you at the end of the journey.

I don't hate self-publishing as rabidly as some do, but I think it's important that you at least make the effort to succeed in the competitive arena before you take your football and go home.