Posts Tagged ‘Distribution’

by Bill Ruesch

In the details, that’s where.

We all have to start somewhere. All over the Internet, you can find advice for self-publishers. Why? Because self-publishing has become big business, really big business.

The problem is that they, the advisers that is, don’t want you to be too self-sufficient. Most of them have something to sell. The strategy is to give up a little bit of information, just enough to whet your appetite, but not enough to go it alone. You see, the big secret of self-publishing is that it is simultaneously much easier and more difficult than you can imagine.

“The devil is in the details,” is truer for self-publishers than for just about anybody.

Are you surprised? Did you think it would be easy? Maybe you believed that printing a book would be like going to the quick printer for lost dog fliers.

Actually it can be just about that simple if your audience is family and friends, but if you want to sell your book there are other considerations that go way beyond ink on paper. For example do you know about ISBN’s?

ISBN is like a social security number for books.

The ISBN

1. What is it? It stands for International Standard Book Number.
2. Why does my book need one? Over 750,000 books were published in the US last year alone. This numbering system provides a method to track, account, and organize them. Libraries, bookstores, and even the Library of Congress require the numbers.
3. What does an ISBN cost? It depends on how many you buy. A block of 10 from Bowker will run $275.00 plus $25.00 for each bar code you order. A single ISBN can  be purchased from other retailers for $125.00 each plus the $25.00 each for bar codes. Here’s a note of caution, if someone is attempting to sell you a number for more than $125.00, run the other way. There are sad stories out there of gullible people paying up to $1,000.00 for one.
4. Who is Bowker? Bowker has the exclusive US rights to assign ISBN’s.
   
5. Why would I need more than one ISBN? The code does more than identify the title of the book it also tells the library, bookstore, or others what the format is. For example, is the book hardcover? Is it a paperback, audio-book, eBook, or some other media? Can you imagine the returns coming back because they thought they were getting a hardcover book and received audio-books instead?
6. Can I publish my book without an ISBN? Of course you can. You probably won’t get any bookstore distribution, or be picked up by libraries, but it is your choice. Remember publishing is not just a synonym for printing. Publishing includes distribution and sales.
   

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.