Posts Tagged ‘Traditionally Published’

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.

15 stacks of books higher than this

by Bill Ruesch

Latest figures based on ISBN’s reveal that the US published nearly 190,000 books last year.  If you assume an average thickness of 1″ per book, and stacked them one on top of the other you’d have fifteen stacks of books each stack taller than the Empire State Building in New York. Last year–15 stacks of books taller than the Empire State Building. This wasn’t over a ten or twenty year stretch, but just last year. Try to visualize these fifteen stacks standing beside the Empire State Building and then imagine what would happen to the streets of New York City if two, five, or ten year’s worth of published books were stacked among the buildings.

All of this is from US publishing alone!  Another 130,000 books were published in the UK. If you added these books to the stacks it would create another ten more Empire State sized stacks. It boggles the mind.

The Questions to Ask

• Does my book stand a chance?
  • The odds are, please excuse the pun, stacked against you.  Every hour of every day over 21 books are published in the US. The competition is unbelievably tough, but as difficult as it is, if you don’t enter the fray you are guaranteed to fail. Remember as difficult as it is to win a lottery, lotteries are won every day. Like Han Solo said in the movie Star Wars, “Never tell me the odds kid.” That is the attitude you must adopt.
• What is the best path for me to pursue in getting my book sold and read?
  
  • First dispel the notion that all you have to do is write well and you’ll become rich and famous. That’s a fairy tale. There is no happily ever after for 99% or more of all authors. Even Mark Twain in his heyday knew the value of marketing. It has been recorded that he had 10,000 people selling his books for him. If Mark Twain had to arrange for his own book sales, it isn’t too far of a stretch to think that you would have to too. Even traditionally published authors have to participate in selling.  The Red Hen Association has downloaded an interview with a contemporary published author, Casey Sherman. Mr. Sherman has some very enlightening things to say about book selling today. Check it out at Casey Sherman interview.
  • Consider the genre of your book. Small independent publishers produce four times as many nonfiction titles as fiction. There is a reason for this disparity. A nonfiction book usually has an identifiable market.  A book of fiction has a more difficult time locating its audience; however, a novel has the potential for much greater sales in the long run. According to  http://BookStatistics.com popular fiction comprises 55% of book sales, followed by 10% religious nonfiction, and 9% cooking and crafts.
• How many books do I have to sell to make money?
  • Large publishers say they have to sell 10,000 books to break even, but for self-publishers without huge overheads break even can come much sooner. It is difficult to name a figure for profitability because costs of printing, editing, art, illustration, and cover design can, and do differ for each book. Simple math is all it takes to determine earnings. Add all the sales and then subtract all of the costs. Be sure to keep records of all costs including transportation to and from events, mail and shipping expenses, professional services like accountants and attorneys, meals if you are out of town, etc. Not only will you want to report expenses to the IRS to decrease your taxes, but you can’t get an accurate break even number without it. Self-publishing is a business. It’s best if you treat it as a business and not a hobby.
• How have other authors done it ?
  • In today’s world it is easier and more difficult at the same time to be heard among the babble. The Internet makes it possible to reach out to the entire world. You can setup and start a blog for free in minutes. Just think, you can launch a soap box and speak to the whole world right now. The problem is that 175,000 other blogs are started each day according to Cnet. Nonetheless, a blog has become a necessity. A stagnant blog, will not serve you. Just because you build a blog site doesn’t mean that you will attract visitors. You have to market the site, in order to market yourself and your book.
  • Arrange speaking engagements where you can sell and sign copies of books.
  • Go to where the potential readership goes. If your book is about race car drivers, see if you can get the book into NASCAR events. Maybe your book is about fairies, go to FaerieCon or other fairy festivals. Got a cookbook? Go to places where cooking is the topic. Be creative and think in terms of places people might be who would relate to your book even if it is a stretch. I have a friend who writes books about Dutch oven cooking. He has an arrangement with a Dutch oven manufacturer to put a sales piece about his books in the box of every oven they sell.
  • Be fearless. Call on buyers for stores and ask them to stock your book.
  • Get your book on library shelves. Contact the American Library Association for places and times of librarian conferences.

  Will these tips really work? They aren’t guaranteed, but they will help. The biggest tip is make your own fame. If you find a way to become a household name, you will sell books. There’s your guarantee.

I’ve been following the tirade over Harlequin’s effort to create a self-publishing division. I don’t understand the fuss and bother. By insisting Harlequin use the term Vanity instead of Self, isn’t the publishing industry really bullying authors into wearing a Scarlet V of shame? Haven’t we matured since the mid-1600′s when John Milton self-published? I can almost hear the grade school chants of “Cry baby titty mouse, laid an egg in Grandma’s house” when the phrase vanity publishing is tossed about.

First of all, let’s set the record straight. Self-publishing is not vanity publishing. Both self-publishers and vanity publishers share one trait, they pay for all of the expenses of publishing a book out-of-pocket. The difference between the two is in the distinction made by intention. Self-publishing is a business–the business is distributing and selling books. Self-publishers should be respected if not for their works, for their courage. How many traditionally published authors can honestly say they have the moxie to do the same?

Vanity press is reserved for those who want to have a book in print, but have no intention of sales and distribution beyond their immediate group of family and friends. What is wrong with that? A book from the heart speaks more to love than vanity.

Better remember who runs things here.

Do you really think that is right to deride an author whose dreams are fulfilled once the printed and bound book is in their hands? I don’t. I don’t know what dictionary the publishing world is looking at when they call these people vain. It’s the equivalent of using a racial slur. It’s ugly and should stop right here and now. Vanity publishing may be an accepted term, but it is time to scour it from the lexicon.

Maybe it is because the publishing competition is so fierce, but with the possible exception of professional wrestling, there seems to me more criticism, chiding, and mean-spirited bickering among writers than in any other industry. Psychologists will tell you that this childish name calling behavior comes from insecurity and fear. Are the mighty publishing houses and best selling authors really afraid of Aunt Martha in Iowa making an attempt at the brass ring without hamstringing her with the scarlet V? She will have plenty of other rivers to cross like distribution, marketing, etc.

Trust the public. The people will decide with their money what they want to read, and who they want to read. If we continue insisting on antiquated terms to protect the high and mighty, maybe we ought to take another look at who’s really vain.

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.