Posts Tagged ‘Book Production’

By Bill Ruesch

No Sales = No Royalties

Spending too much or even too little on your book production can harm you as a self-publisher in ways your may not ever know. You may have the greatest story or the best information on the planet, but if the book buyer isn’t attracted enough to your book to at least pick it up and review the cover and some of the pages, you won’t get a sale.

And why should you as the author be as crass as to dirty your hands with such a mundane thing as book sales? There is a sales to royalty equation that goes like this no sales = no royalties. It would be nice if we could earn money on our writing without having to convince a reader to give it to us, but we can’t. Book sales and book marketing isn’t just a silly inconvenience, it is the truly the engine of publishing.

Critical Questions for the Self-Publishing Author

• What form should your book take to maximize marketability and sales?
  • Do my prospective readers want a hardcover book?
  • Will a soft-cover book appeal more to the readers?
  • Are the readers looking for a bargain or a keepsake?

Presentation Makes All of the Difference

Example of Celestial Seasoning's art

I learned this lesson myself some twenty years ago. At the time, I was working for a natural health magazine in the advertising sales department. One of my favorite advertisers was Celestial Seasonings herbal teas. Their marketing was second to none. Every time they introduced a new product, they hired top-notch illustrators to create the image used on the boxes and ads. They were beautiful. It wasn’t uncommon to have two to three Celestial Seasonings full-page ads in every issue and I can tell you they really dressed up the magazine.

Then as a foil to Celestial Seasonings, was a 1/6 page, black and white, ad for a book which I won’t name for obvious reasons. Their advertisement was ugly to the point of hideousness. It was poorly designed and the photo looked like someone kicked around before inserting it. We tried to bury the ad in places where it wouldn’t wreck our precious image.

We had in place a system to help track advertising results. Celestial Seasonings, of course, always pulled a good response, but at the end of the day, the ugly little black and white book ad would pull equally well, and often more, than Celestial Seasonings. Why? We came up with a lot of theories, but the one that sticks with me after all these years is that book advertisers were consistent with their target buyers. Celestial Seasonings appealed more to the artistic, upscale, yuppie audience. The ugly book ad looked cheap, and offered their product at a discount. It was consistent. The look of the ad matched the purpose. How many books would be sold if they went in with beautiful, full-page ads? I think that their cost would be much greater and their sales would have been less because the message wouldn’t match the purpose.

Make Sure the Message is Consistent with the Marketing

Authors, think about the main purpose of your book, and how you intend to market it. If you can get a clear picture in your mind, many of the questions will answer themselves.

by Bill Ruesch

There are lures aplenty to snag the unwise and unaware.

• AMAZING SECRET REVEALED…

• Will NEVER Again Be Repeated

• Newly Discovered Method…

• Only available to a select few…

• FREE!!!

• Cannot Fail [or] Fail Proof

Courtesy of PhotoBucket

The above are just some of the teasers cast out to hook an Internet fish. To the unscrupulous we are all fish. Self-Publishers, unfortunately, can be easily baited because many discover themselves in strange and unfamiliar waters. It is one thing to write a book and quite another to publish, print, and sell it.

No one wants to make a mistake or be a failure, so we are attracted by the many shiny lures dangled in front of our eyes. They promise that with their help all of our doubts and fears will just float away. They, and they alone, have the power to do this because of some magic formula, or secret knowledge they possess. For a reasonable fee ranging from a few dollars, (to get you on their list, so they can up-sell you later), to thousands of dollars, the way to the peaceful feeding grounds will be revealed.

Gold or Fools Gold?

Just like “tells” that poker players talk about, there are tells a self-publisher need to respect to avoid being skewered. You see, self-publishing is a huge and growing market. Some estimate that self-published titles are already three times greater than traditionally published works. It is a modern gold-rush. Like the California Gold Rush of the last century, all kinds of people, with all kinds of backgrounds are attracted to the glitter. You are the gold, and the greedy, slimy, and inexperienced are there waiting to take your money. They are well-equipped to make fool’s gold appear to be real, and they can be so convincing that even people who have been taken, often don’t figure it out until much later.

This isn’t to say that there isn’t real help available. The educated, legitimate, and experienced people are there too, but it is difficult for a new self-publisher to know the difference. What are some of the indicators?

1. Find out how long they have been in business and determine their level of experience. For example you might be dealing with a company that advertises longevity, i.e. 50 years in business, but how long in book production, and is your rep still wet behind the ears? A fifty year old company that was built on a platform other than books with a sales rep barely out of school won’t be very helpful to you.
2. Who have they served? Get references, and check them out. Book production often costs thousands of dollars, many self-publishers have sunk life savings into the venture, and yet they don’t take the time to find out who they are giving their money to? It is beyond me.
3. How successful have their clients been? Look at the numbers. Are they just trying to grab every dime that comes their way, or are they selective and only invest time and energy into books that have potential? There are plenty of companies, and many of them very large, who do not care about the merits of your book. As long as you pay them they are satisfied.
4. Are their fees reasonable? The Internet is a valuable resource to learn about what services cost. Do not take someone’s word that their prices are fair. Check it out. That doesn’t mean, however, that all pros charge the same. Many very experienced people can and do charge more, because their services are in higher demand.
5. Paying too much isn’t wise, but also is paying too little. You can bet that the cheapest price will be offered by the least valuable service. One way to make sure your book is second-rate is to work with bottom of the barrel suppliers. If they aren’t competent it will negatively impact your book.
6. How much upfront money is required? It the book production drains away all of your capital and you don’t have anything left for marketing, you are in trouble. Calculate all the costs as closely as you can and be sure to leave room for contingencies. Nothing ever goes exactly as planned.
7. Are their promises too good to be true? I refer you back to the list at the beginning of this post. Anyone of the phrases used above and many others should serve as a red flag to you. BIG promises are usually filled with hot air. Real professionals won’t make big, empty promises hucksters, on the other hand, will.

The bottom line for a self-publisher is that the onus is on you. Like the Little Red Hen you have to do all of the work. You can hire people to help, but you have to decide if they are giving you what you want and be willing to make changes if they aren’t. In the end, it is your baby and whether it succeeds or fails is in your court. All of it.

You’ve written a book. CONGRATULATIONS. 80% of adults dream of doing what you’ve done. A very small percentage actually do, so you are in an elite group. Hold your head high. You are now an author.

What, you don’t believe it? According to my Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary the act of writing is all it takes to become an author. If you wrote something, you are an author.

To become a published author is another thing altogether. For most of us the ultimate goal is to see our books in print and distributed to readers everywhere.  After all, what is a writer without a reader? It’s Yin and Yang. Two halves of the whole. As far as I’m concerned a manuscript in a desk drawer defines you as an author, but something definitely is missing.

There are only two approaches you can take to get published. You can do it yourself (self-publish) or find someone else to publish it for you (traditional publish). How do the two choices compare?

At first blush it appears that the easiest path is to sell your rights and let someone else publish your book. Let’s face it this is what most of us think of when we talk about being published. The biggest hurdle with the traditional publishing model is that  4% or less of manuscripts will ever become a book. And for that 4% there are probably thousands that never even make it to a publisher’s desk. It’s pretty obvious that if your manuscript doesn’t get read, it will not be published. I’ve said it before, if you are unknown, getting a book published through traditional channels is like winning the lottery. The odds are that bad.

Let’s compare the two methods and help you decide which way is best for you:

weigh your decisions carefully

1.  Who accepts the financial risk? If self-publishing you pay for all the costs involved in producing the book including the editors, artists, and printers. In traditional publishing the publisher takes on that burden.

2.   Who has creative control over the look and presentation of the book? If you do it yourself, you retain the rights. If you sell those rights to the publisher they can do whatever they think is best. That doesn’t seem important to you? It will if the publisher changes the meaning of the text through their editing, or comes up with a cover design that would lead readers to a totally opposite idea from what you meant. It happens.  Your only remedy you have is whining.  Selling your rights will give you money, but it may not give you peace of mind. Which is more important to you?

3.  Who arranges for distribution? If self-published, the burden is all yours. No matter how good the book is, please keep in-mind that some channels, like national bookstore chains, may not be available to you. Many booksellers have a policy against accepting self-published books, but If  your book is traditionally published, and your publisher pays for distribution, many of those guarded gates will be opened. It doesn’t seem fair, but that’s the game.

4.  What about marketing? Marketing is doing all of the things needed to promote the book, making fliers, public relations, appearing on TV talk shows, and radio programs. Issuing press releases, teaching seminars, speaking at schools, clubs, and wherever you can find an audience. You’d think that if traditionally published your publisher would handle all of this. Wrong. Most book contracts today require the author’s active involvement in promoting the book. That involvement is much more than showing up for the occasional book signing.  So, whether self-published or traditionally published, you dear author, must by contract, be hawking your book, mostly at your own expense.  If you don’t drum up sales your book won’t move, except from the shelves inside the store into the discount bins outside. If that happens, your chances of ever being traditionally published again are astronomical.

5.  Profits, ah profits, who gets the money? The one who takes the risk takes the money. If you are lucky you’ll earn between $.50 -$1.00 per book in royalties. Sell ten thousand books and you get $5 to $10 thousand dollars. That same book, if self-published, could generate $150 thousand dollars.

The self-publishing model is heaven made for those authors who believe in their product and are sure that they can find a market. It is costly and difficult to self-publish, but if you are right and you can successfully reach your readers, the amount of money you could make is much greater. You can have financial freedom and personal freedom as well.

Which way is best? It all depends on you. Either way, it will take energy, money, and lots of effort. After putting everything you have into it, it may not be enough. If the traditional route is the one you choose, the odds are that you will never be published. If you self-publish and can’t find your audience, your garage full of books will hang like albatross around your neck. But remember, that even though the odds are notoriously poor, someone always hits the lottery eventually. Who knows, maybe this time it might be you.