So your book is published and that first burst of excitement and adrenalin has coursed through your veins like the hit of a great drug. You wrote up a press release and emailed it to everyone you could think of inflicting it upon; banner ads now adorn all the pages of your website advertising the fact the book is on sale, and links to a point of purchase are splattered like grape shot throughout your whole electronic presence.
A PDF version of your manuscript has been sent to Google so your work will be available for the whole world to search for online, and you've obtained an ISBN so anybody can walk into any bookstore in the land and find your book in the great big computerized database of bookland. Short of taking out paid advertising you've done everything possible to let the world know they can now own a piece of your mind and heart.
It has now been a month since your publishing debut and you've sold exactly one copy of your work, and if you're being honest with yourself you know you're lucky to have done even that well. The fact that it was a friend who purchased it, and according to his initial reactions even liked it to date, doesn't diminish the brief glow of pride at your accomplishment, but even that doesn't prevent your heart from sinking slightly each time you check your sales figures and see it stuck resolutely at one.
The worst of it all is it all seems so anti-climatic after everything that's come before. Putting aside the initial writing of the pieces, which was spread out over the space of about six months, the work began with having to reformat the original material into shape for publication. There was a certain fun to the frustration of trying to get Microsoft Word to do what you wanted it do to when it came to juggling boxes of text into position.
You may have noticed the standard book format is to have all chapters begin on an odd page. It's not often your writing will conveniently work out that way, and in order to compensate you have to insert the occasional blank page. Of course there was also the delight of trying to figure out how to work the chapter and page number insertion in Word.
I'm sure there is someone who has figured out how to work the headings, but that wasn't me. I settled on having the book title in one header and the chapter number written out on the facing page. There was also the fun of coming up with a title page, acknowledgments, and, perhaps most fun of all, the copyright page. (I believe my copyright page alone is worth the purchase price.)
Article comments
1 - Marti
My goodness, what kismet! This very day, I began doing almost all of thie things you mentioned, to promote my book at Lulu! LOL
I'm having better luck, have sold 4 so far, (about one an hour) and have gotten a few mentions, like John from Syntagma Media, wrote it up for Money Blog.
I am very excited about my project. I live in a rural area and have no experience with agents or publishers, so I thought this was a good way for me to see my work in print.
I think the world of publishing is changing, and publish on demand will become an accepted route for more and more authors. I certainly learned a lot from the experience, and I'm having fun promoting it!
Best wishes to you with your work!
2 - Shaun Fawcett
Richard,
I think you make some very good points.
Nevertheless, I have written and self-published more than 10 non-fiction "how-to" books over the past 5 years, and have found it to be very satisfying as well as financially rewarding. Especially when I get cheques (Montreal spelling) every month from a number of sources for my self-publishing efforts through various channels.
(No government grants needed here).
In fact, it was my personal experiences using the conventional publishing model for my first two books in the late 1990s that drove me to find a better way. In my humble opinion, the traditional or conventional book publishing industry is one of the most dysfunctional business models that I have ever come across. I really do feel sorry for anyone who hopes to make a decent living as a book author using that approach. As a matter of fact, it was the sorry state of that publishing model that drove me to develop the Online Publishing Model (OPM) that I now use. More info at the following link: instantbookwritingkit.com
For your info Richard, the "vanity press" is alive and well and thriving, sucking in new and aspiring authors each and every day. They just call themselves "POD Publishers" these days since they are now using that technology for practical reasons.
It's too bad they use that "POD" name actually; since they are giving print-on-demand (POD) technology a bad name. POD is a wonderful technology that is empowering a lot of small-time authors and publishers these days.
Fact is that not all users of POD are rip-off artists from the vanity press (but one has to check them very carefully). For example, most of my books are available in paperback via POD, and my POD distributor is a large reputable international company with a worldwide distribution network to which I autonmatically have access. The total cost to me for each POD book that I distribute through them is a one-time up-front set-up cost of $50 per title plus an annual listing fee of $12. When I sell my books through their extensive multi-channel network I get 55% to 65%+ of the cover price for each sale (try matching that!).
Of course, when I sell my books in downloadable digital form through my various Websites I get 90% of the cover price; and I can charge more than conventional booksellers charge.
Oh, and with my approach there are NO RETURNS. Which, as you no doubt know, is a painful hallmark of how the conventional industry operates; and the ultimate testament as to how that industry victimizes small-time authors and publishers.
So, this is just to say that I have found through my own experiences in recent years that self-publishing using POD and other complementary channels outside of the conventional industry can be very satisfying as well as financially rewarding.
As for quality? I have personally taken care to ensure that all of my books and ebooks will hold their own against any similar type of "how-to" publications produced by the traditional publishing houses. In fact, my paperback how-to books (POD produced) are of superior content and quality than many that I see at conventional bookstores every day.
No, I certainly don't believe in waiting 18 to 24 months, or more, to be validated by some conventional publishing house just so that I can get maybe 6% to 10% of the cover price in royalties and then have them take 100% refunds for "returns" out of that.
Richard, I'm just saying here that there is another way to look at this whole issue if one is really interested in perhaps eking out a small living with the fruits of one's writing labours.
Shaun Fawcett, M.B.A.
Montreal, QC, Canada
writinghelptools.com
3 - Morris Rosenthal
Richard,
I gave up working as a trade author for self publishing with print-on-demand, and you happen to have an advertisement for the book I wrote about the subject right on this page!
The bottom line issue in non-fiction book publishing is marketing. Non-fiction trade publishers do very little to market books for authors, in fact, their main focus is on finding authors with a "platform" who will be able to promote the books for them.
As the previous poster mentioned, self publishing authors using print-on-demand and short discounts can net over 50% of the cover price, which is more than major trade publishers net per book following the standard "push and return" offset model.
While working as an author for McGraw-Hill, I sold over 150,000 books and was translated into a half dozen languages. Today I earn more from self publishing that I ever did as an author, and I only have to sell a small fraction of the number of books to get there. If I'd stuck with McGraw-Hill just to have my books on the shelves at Barnes&Noble and Borders, that would have been vanity:-)
Morris
4 - Margaret Eubanks
I have just self-published my first book, WHISPERS. I used Authorhouse and am waiting to see results. I am learning as I go. I am thankful , for the chance to see my work in print.
Thank You,
Margaret Eubanks