Most people will say that they have a great idea for a book and that someday they will get around to writing it. Most don't. But for the few who do manage to find the time and get all their words down on paper (or .doc file format) there comes the daunting tasking of finding an agent who will then work out a deal with a publisher to get the book on the market and to the hands of the readers.
But what if no publisher wants to publish the book that the author worked so hard on? Or worse, what if they can't even get an agent? Was their toiling over a computer screen all for naught? It can be a depressing idea for a writer to think that their work may never see the light of day. However, with modern advances in technology, it is becoming easier for writers to side-step the publishing business and get their work in to the hands of readers without the approval of a big publisher.
Welcome to the world of self-publishing.
Why Self Publish?
Self Publishing is often seen as a last resort after an author has been rejected by numerous publishing houses for whatever reasons. If the author is so consumed with passion for the work and believe that it can succeed if given the chance, then they might consider publishing the book themselves. There are two options when it comes to self publishing: Physical and Digital.
With the rise in popularity in e-readers, publishing a book digitally has become a sensible alternative with less financial risk. Naturally, there are some drawbacks, such as not having a physical presence inside Borders or Barnes and Noble which is important because physical books are still the most popular way to buy books. The end results may of publishing digitally, however, be more profitable in the long run.
If the author longs for a finished product that they can hold in their hands, then they must go the print on demand (POD) route. POD is a greater risk because there is a necessity of investment capital. The costs of printing the book will need to be paid out of pocket which not everyone, especially recent college graduates with student loans, can afford.
Since both options cut out the middle man (i.e. the publishing house), authors tend to make more per book.
POD Companies
As with all markets, there are numerous options when it comes to getting a POD book printed. The most well known companies are Lulu Enterprises, Author Solutions, and Xlibris. What these companies do is print the book. The author can opt to buy a “premium packages” where the company will also help design the cover, assign an ISBN, register the book with online booksellers, and/or give input from an editor. (Saal) All these extra services can quickly add up and since the cost of producing the book is coming out of the author's pocket, with each service selected, their revenue from each book decreases. If the book is unable to get sold to readers then this investment can quickly turn disastrous.
As with all markets, there are numerous options when it comes to getting a POD book printed. The most well known companies are Lulu Enterprises, Author Solutions, and Xlibris. What these companies do is print the book. The author can opt to buy a “premium packages” where the company will also help design the cover, assign an ISBN, register the book with online booksellers, and/or give input from an editor. (Saal) All these extra services can quickly add up and since the cost of producing the book is coming out of the author's pocket, with each service selected, their revenue from each book decreases. If the book is unable to get sold to readers then this investment can quickly turn disastrous.
The Physical Book
The first step in becoming a POD author is to have something to print. Once that is achieved, the time has come to select how to print the book. There are many companies that specialize in POD books. Lulu, an internet based self publishing company, published over 400,000 titles in 2008. But not all of these books are ready for the mainstream. Robert Young, chief executive of Lulu Enterprises said that “we have easily published the largest collection of bad poetry in the history of mankind.” Indeed, books that get printed on demand often exist solely to fill a very small niche market. Kevin Weiss of Author Solutions, parent company of POD publishing iUniverse, says that the average number of copies that one of their POD books sells is only 150.
Distribution
Once the book is printed and finally tangible, the problem becomes what does the author do with X copies of their book? An author will need to team up with companies like Publishers Group West or Perseus Books Group if they want to get their books in bookstores. These companies can provide sales, marketing, and distribution of the book to a market that would be unattainable to a independent author.
The author could also sell the books directly to local bookstores. Stores would either pay for the books up front or take the books and if they sell give the profit to the author. If they do not sell, the store returns the product.
Similarly, the author could sell books directly to the customer through a web site and accept payment through companies like Paypal or Square. This method offers the greatest return on each sale, however, if the author is not well known, then their customer base will be incredibly limited.
The Digital Book (E-Book)
You can read books on the Apple's iPhone or iPad, Amazon's Kindle, the Barnes & Noble's Nook, and Sony's Reader. There are many more e-readers out there but those are the dominant devices. While Amazon will not cough up the number of how many Kindles it has sold, the company reports that somewhere around three million Kindle devices have been sold. Recently Amazon has released a Kindle App for every electronic device imaginable (PC, Mac, BlackBerry, iPhone and even the iPad) and the number of potential customers has increased and may be impossible to count. Every person who downloads the Kindle App will be able to access their books on any of the other platforms. After being on the market for 28 days, Apple managed to pass the one million mark with their iPad device which, among other things, can function as an e-reader. It is reported the iPad, through Apple's iBookstore, has sold over 1.5 million books in under a month. However, it is too soon to know if early adapters of the iPad will continue buying books at this rate.
To sum up, practically anyone has access to a device that can read an e-book.
The Process
Let's assuming that there is a book already written with no publisher lined up to publisher it and the author wants to publish it digitally for themselves. The simplest way, and most mainstream way, to do this currently is through the Amazon Kindle.
The first thing you need is an Amazon account set up to allow use of their Digital Text Platform portal. Basically it is an Amazon account with a little extra information required for payment and tax purposes. While the author is allowed to upload their novel in various formats including Hyper Text Markup Language (.html), Microsoft Word (.doc), Adobe PDF (.pdf), and basic text (.txt), the Kindle in the end will convert all text formatting to HTML. This can lead to problems if the novel gets converted from Word to HTML. The conversion process is done automatically and can lead to potential formatting problems in respect to margins, paragraph spacing, line breaks, etc. It is highly recommended that the author formats their novel in HTML to allow for the smoothest transition to a Kindle file. Amazon does provide a FAQ on the basic HTML tags allowed if an author is unfamiliar with them.
After the the file is uploaded, the author then sets the price of the book which must be greater than $0.99 but less than $200. Although, depending on the size of the file there may be a minimum price. E-books whose file size is greater than 3MB can cost no less than $1.99 and e-books greater than 10MB can cost no less than $2.99. Additionally, the e-book must not cost more than the list price of the physical book (if applicable).
After all the information is entered, the book formatted and submitted, the only thing left to do it sit back and wait for the profits to roll in. Speaking of profits, from each sale of an Author's Kindle book, they will receive 35% of the list price. If they sell $100 worth of books they get $35.
The process for publishing in Apple's iBookstore is more complex. Since this service is new, one can expect Apple to streamline the process in the future, but as of now, an author will need to go through a self-publishing service such as Smashwords to reach the potential iBookstore customers. Smashwords will take an e-book, format it to fit the iBookstore guidelines, and submit it to the store. Of course, this will cost the author extra.
What Should An Author Charge?
Truly this is a hot topic right now. Amazon thinks that authors from publishing houses should be listed as $9.99 while publishers think $12.99 to $14.99 sounds like the sweet spot. The question is though, should a no name author charge that much for their book? Author J. A. Konrath charges $1.99 for the novels he self-publishes on the Kindle. J. A. Konrath's books where a publish owns the digital distribution rights are priced from $4.60 to $9.99. In a six month period, his self-published e-books (of which there are four) sold 9,800 copies and earned him $6,860 while the more expensive books (five total) sold 1,237 copies in the same period of time and brought in $2,008. For his numbers it would seem the more expensive a book is the less it sells.
Truly this is a hot topic right now. Amazon thinks that authors from publishing houses should be listed as $9.99 while publishers think $12.99 to $14.99 sounds like the sweet spot. The question is though, should a no name author charge that much for their book? Author J. A. Konrath charges $1.99 for the novels he self-publishes on the Kindle. J. A. Konrath's books where a publish owns the digital distribution rights are priced from $4.60 to $9.99. In a six month period, his self-published e-books (of which there are four) sold 9,800 copies and earned him $6,860 while the more expensive books (five total) sold 1,237 copies in the same period of time and brought in $2,008. For his numbers it would seem the more expensive a book is the less it sells.
One theory Konrath has about the difference between the two price points is that “The $1.99 price makes it an impulse purchase, like candy in the check-out line at the grocery store. If you just bought a $350 device to read books, naturally you want to fill the device up. But filling it up with $10 books will cost a fortune – very much like filling up an iPod using iTunes”.
Self-Marketing
It can pretty much be assumed that if an author decides to self-publish their own book, then their marketing budget will be limited to how much they can afford to spend. Luckily with the rise of social media it has become incredibly easy for an author to market their books by marketing themselves. Twitter and Facebook are currently the leaders in social networking but can create an impersonal relationship between author and reader. Authors who develop a following by maintaining a regularly updated blog (and to a lesser extent, vlogs) and interact with their readers will have an easier time trying to sell their book to them as opposed to a reader that is unfamiliar with them.
It can pretty much be assumed that if an author decides to self-publish their own book, then their marketing budget will be limited to how much they can afford to spend. Luckily with the rise of social media it has become incredibly easy for an author to market their books by marketing themselves. Twitter and Facebook are currently the leaders in social networking but can create an impersonal relationship between author and reader. Authors who develop a following by maintaining a regularly updated blog (and to a lesser extent, vlogs) and interact with their readers will have an easier time trying to sell their book to them as opposed to a reader that is unfamiliar with them.
The Dangers of Self-Publishing
One of the arguments against self-publishing is that if the author wants to use their self-published book as a foot in the door to getting a book deal they face a great risk. When deciding to take on new authors, publishers look to see if the writer already has an established fan base (i.e. guaranteed sales). What this means is, if the e-book does not sell well, a publisher may see that they are unable to gain a following as a writer and may not want to take a risk in investing in them.
One of the arguments against self-publishing is that if the author wants to use their self-published book as a foot in the door to getting a book deal they face a great risk. When deciding to take on new authors, publishers look to see if the writer already has an established fan base (i.e. guaranteed sales). What this means is, if the e-book does not sell well, a publisher may see that they are unable to gain a following as a writer and may not want to take a risk in investing in them.
Conclusion
In the end there is no real answer to whether or not a person should self-publish their own books. As with most things in life, there are perks (no middleman) and drawbacks (self marketing, limited audience). What one must consider is who the book is trying to reach and is it possible, or even likely, that self-publishing the book, either through a POD company or as an e-book, will reach an audience that will buy the book.
In the end there is no real answer to whether or not a person should self-publish their own books. As with most things in life, there are perks (no middleman) and drawbacks (self marketing, limited audience). What one must consider is who the book is trying to reach and is it possible, or even likely, that self-publishing the book, either through a POD company or as an e-book, will reach an audience that will buy the book.
Before taking the leap in to self-publishing, you should ask yourself the following questions:
- Is there a big enough audience for the book?
- If the book on a specialized topic or a general topic?
- How does the audience prefer to read the book?
- How much time and money are you willing to invest in your book?
Anyone who goes the self-publishing route is taking a risk and if it were to fail there could be great financial risk as well as the possibility of ruining future chances to get published by a publishing house. However, it is not unheard of for writers to be able to make money through their self-published books. Chances are slim that they will lead a fabulous lifestyle, but let's be honest, those chances aren't that great even with a publisher.
Additional Resources
http://www.lulu.com
http://www.authorsolutions.com
http://www2.xlibris.com
http://pgw.com/home/
http://www.smashwords.com/
http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com/perseus/home.jsp
https://dtp.amazon.com
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/
http://booksandtales.com/pod/index.php
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