I liken the creation of a book to
the building of a house (except it takes less time to build a
house.) You start with a dream - an idea percolating in the back
of your mind. Then you plan, sketching rough ideas on paper. Next
comes setting the details down - adding substance and depth to
the dream. Finally, the day arrives that you hire the builder
to come in and make your dreams, ideas, and hard work a tangible
reality.
That's where self-publishing companies
come in - we all bring life to your dreams, creating substance
from your ideas, creativity, and hard won words.
Lots of terms for "hiring a company
to produce your book" float around the publishing world - and
the most common often have negative connotations - vanity press,
subsidy press, and self-publishing company.
Is there a difference in what any
of these companies do for authors? Not really, but the words "vanity
press" really insults what authors are trying to do when they
choose to self-publish their books. Obviously, I believe strongly
in the value that self-publishing companies bring to authors,
and I also understand that many authors often choose to take another
route and go into business for themselves. For the typical self-published
author, however, a significant amount of frustration, time, and
money can be saved by using self-publishing companies.
Also known as "subsidy" presses, self-publishing
companies help those authors who prefer to hire publishing professionals
to perform the "book building" tasks for their books.
Most every author dreams of seeing
their book stacked high and deep in the big bookstores, with a
shiny logo from one of the worlds largest publishers - and we
encourage every author with this dream to try the traditional
route. You can't leave your dreams behind without giving them
a fair shot. But, we stand ready to help you bring your manuscript
to life - and remember that many self-published books eventually
became bestsellers themselves! The majority of books sell because
of the author's skill, persistence, and faith in their story.
Let's take a look at some typical
self-publishing companies, and ask the question "Are all self-publishing
companies the same?"
Self-publishing companies are only
the same in the fact that we all use almost the exact same technologies
to print books. Each company has a unique approach to the market,
and a distinct personality.
Here is what I believe is important
in choosing a company to self-publish your book.
My first is CONTRACT
- do you keep all your rights and can you terminate your agreement
at any time without penalty? The author contract should be short
and easy to understand. It should never have a "duration"
that locks you into keeping your book with the publishing house.
You should be able to leave without penalty at any time. Beware
the publisher that pays you a single dollar to have the rights
to your book for years. Our contract is right here.
The second item - RETAIL PRICE.
Can you set your own retail? Does the publisher force you into
ridiculously high retail prices? (see our page on setting your
Retail Pricing
here.) Remember, to sell in retail outlets you need to set
your book's retail price at about 2.5 X your cost... chains, big
retail outlets, and wholesalers want at least a 50% discount,
and many times you pay freight. So - if your book costs $4 to
print, you need to be able to sell it at $9.95 to pretty much
break even... which brings us to...
The third item - your BOOK
PRINTING COSTS. Your Retail is almost always a function
of your cost to print the book. If your book costs more to print,
you need to push your retail price higher just to break even.
Tied directly into this - can this publisher offer OFFSET
PRINTING (also called "traditional printing")
services? Going to a "traditional press" is the only
way to actually get a great price on a large volume of books.
None of the big self-publishers offer this advantage.
The fourth item - your AUTHOR
PROFIT. Some call it ROYALTY, we call it a NET SALES
PAYMENT. Whatever it's called - it's the amount you receive from
each book sale. Be careful of any company that gives a huge royalty
but forces unreasonable retail prices on your book. It makes no
sense to get a "50%" royalty on a book that will never sell. Also
watch for royalties that are increased by REDUCING your WHOLESALE
DISCOUNT - again, if no store will buy it, what's the point of
a royalty? Final note - on what is the royalty paid? Most often
it's paid on the NET SALE, NOT the Retail Price.
Fifth - can you actually speak with
someone who actually knows something about the book industry?
Do you have access to "decision makers" that can make things happen
for your book? How long has the person you are speaking to worked
at the company (let alone how long they've been in the publishing
industry).
Sixth - what is their business model?
Everyone is in business to make money - and that's an honorable
thing... but watch WHERE they make their money - look for hidden
charges, or charges that show up to actually create an effective
and salable book for you.
Last, but not least - CREATIVE
CONTROL - can you set your design? can you pick your
own retail price? can you set your own profit margin? do you control
the discount offered to retailers and wholesale accounts?
Let's compare the services of the
largest of the self-publishing companies: Authorhouse, iUniverse™
and Xlibris.
All of these companies are very different
in "personality" - but for the most part, they share the same
business model: Bring authors in with an aggressive price and
heavy direct marketing campaigns - then upsell each author to
achieve a sales target.
Most of the large self-publishing
companies employ telemarketing professionals to answer the phone
- so a quick test of their knowledge may be in order: ask them
how long they've worked at the company (if it's over about 8 months
you've found an unusual CSR) and if they've ever spent any time
in the traditional publishing industry.
Now, with that said, these three
have nearly 40,000 titles in print... someone is buying their
services at a furious rate! The most important thing they have
in common? Their entire business is based on moving authors through
the system as quickly as possible, and with as little human interaction
and as few real options as possible. It's all about "cookie cutter"
services and book building. Imagine if McDonalds produced books.
Now we'll get more in-depth with
each company.
AuthorHouse:
QuickNotes: 2004 data (estimates)
- TIP: 28,000 AVGSLS: 86 500+:
00.63%
RTL: Pub Set Min ROY: 5-50%
of Retail Price* CLR: YES HDCV:
YES
AMZN DATA - TOT: 32,432 2005:
6,789 2004: 7,161 2003: 6,756
The "heavyweight" in the subsidy publishing
/ self-publishing industry. They have more than 20,000 titles
in print. As you can see on our comparison
chart their typical package starts at $698. Authorhouse claims
to provide flexibility in designing your book. However, you will
want to explore this fully before signing up if you have specific
design ideas. Ask specifically what level of control you have
within the package you've chosen. See my note below regarding
the contract.
A small contract concern - though
their contract is very strong in reinforcing the fact that you,
the author, retain ALL rights to your book, so there is absolutely
no concern of them holding your content...
A clause in the contract does state
that: "AuthorHouse will retain final discretion over style
and formatting of Work and its cover with Author acknowledging
that Author may not utilize the formatted Work and cover with
any other publisher." What does this mean? First - they control
your book cover design... but more importantly - if a "traditional"
publisher wants to come along and buy your work from you, they
have to start over... you don't own the rights to the designed
and formatter version of your book - so, if it looks just like
you always dreamed, guess what? You can't have it. More importantly
it means that if you want to re-publish your book elsewhere, you
don't have any book production files to work from - AuthorHouse
owns them.
Royalties are paid on Retail Price
- you have a choice of Retail Prices that correspond to a specific
page count and Royalty percentage. AuthorHouse breaks the Royalty
and Retail into two formats: true "retail" pricing for
books sold in really bookstores, and pricing for books sold through
the AuthorHouse web site.
For example - to sell to a real bookstore
(or Amazon, Barnes&Noble.com, etc) a 6X9, 125 page paperback
has a minimum Retail of $9.95 which nets you a 5% (of Retail)
Royalty. Two more Pricing / Royalty levels are offered - $11.95
/ 10% and $13.95 / 15%. The only way to receive the 50% Royalty
is to sell your book through the Authorhouse web site for a retail
of $15.75. This can work well if you can drive traffic to the
AuthorHouse site.
Additional monies required: $150
to file a copyright, $1199 additional for "custom" cover design,
and marketing gets hugely expensive: AuthorHouse offers a New
York Times Book Review ad at $2650 - our opinion is that this
is a good deal for the publisher (their name gets great exposure
to potential clients), but in our experience very few sales ever
develop from this sort of ad.
Other optional fees: $699 for a returns
program, $250 for 1000 business cards, and many others marketing
programs covering a full spectrum of services.
iUniverse™: (more
in-depth analysis can be found here)
QuickNotes: 2004 data (PW, May 2005)
- TIP: 18,108 AVGSLS: 41 500+:
00.46%
RTL: Pub Set ROY: 10-20% of
NET SALE CLR: NO HDCV: YES
AMZN DATA - TOT: 14,607 2006: 3,587
2005: 3,488 2004: 6,648 2003:
2,928
Next in line, at 18,108 titles (2004:
though many of those are "multi-format listings" - hardcover,
etc counted as additional "titles"). The budget package is $299,
but it doesn't allow you to sell your book in retail outlets -
it has no distribution, and your book is created using one of
5 standard templates.
To get your title available for stores
and sold through the online retailers starts at $499. Custom interior
design isn't available with any of the packages. The web site
says they offer custom cover design.
Book design, format, and retail price
is controlled by iUniverse™ - from their contract:
"PUBLISHER shall have full discretion as to price, production,
appearance and formats of the WORK."
iUniverse™ also has their Star
Program - for $249 you pay for an "Editorial Review", if the reviewer
finds your book favorable, it is said to increase your chances
of being eligible for the Star Program. The Star Program gets
you on a special Barnes & Noble shelf in the store. According
to Publisher's Weekly numbers, less than 1% of their books get
in. Here's breaking news / interesting data courtesy of Publisher's
Weekly (May 2005): only 14 titles actually were sold on B&N
shelves in 2004. The "average" iUniverse™ books
sales is 41 units. Less than 1/2 of 1% (.46%) actually sold more
than 500 copies (83 books out of 18,108)...
A strategy for growing retail sales
from iUniverse™ is trading your royalty to increase the
discount offered to booksellers. For example, you can reduce your
"royalty" to 10% (vs a standard 20% of net) and you can then increase
the discount offered to booksellers - possibly increasing the
chance of the book landing on a bookstore shelf. For direct sales,
or online retailers, the discount is fairly set anyway (you'll
also get charged a $99 fee to change your mind and adjust your
royalty back). iUniverse™ offers some NY Times and USA Today
spots for $2,500.
Xlibris:
QuickNotes: 2004 data (estimates)
- TIP: 4,800 AVGSLS: 35 500+:
00.24%
RTL: Pub Set ROY: 10-20% CLR:
YES HDCV: YES
AMZN DATA - TOT: 15,852 2005:
2,116 2004: 2,754 2003: 2,668
The "little" one of the big three...
cheapest package is $498.Authors working with Xlibris retain all
rights to their book, contract is non-exclusive - which means
you can publish your book elsewhere at any time. Again, their
low-end package requires you to choose your interior and cover
design from a few basic choices. The "high-end" package is $899,
but while it includes a range of "templates" - they are still
templates! They do accommodate tables and will layout an index.
A "Custom" package is available for
$1600 - but it's really the same - but you get to provide the
designer with "your input. Royalties are a flat 10% of net. The
Xlibris marketing service offers ads at $399. There is a wide
range of materials like bookmarks, postcards, and business cards.
Bookmarks are actually a nice tool to leave with store managers
or on coffee shop counters - but be careful not to assume folks
will buy books just because they got a free bookmark.
Xlibris also offers a "book review
campaign" at $99. Watch this - they only have a generic list of
reviewers, so the chance of getting your book in one of the "big"
trade rags is nearly miniscule. You are far better served targeting
journals, papers, and other outlets for reviews. The biggest way
to throw money away at xLibris is the newswire release service
that starts at $999 then climbs to $1999 for a press release to
every email address in America.
Other Items to Watch For from Self-Publishing
Companies
Corrections Charges
You've got to watch corrections...
Remember that it costs money each time your publisher has to go
back into your file and change something - that's standard for
every self-publishing outfit around. But - you should be able
to resubmit your manuscript to them just before it goes into "layout".
Also make sure that you don't get charged for making corrections
that were THE PUBLISHER'S FAULT in the first place (called Production
Errors). This is unfortunately a common practice amongst less
trustworthy self-publishing outfits.
Advertising Gimmicks or "Don't
New York Times Ads Work?"
Only targeted marketing sells books...
Expensive ads work for Grisham and Clancy - but the rest of us
have to think "Targeted".
REVIEWS to sell books, not ads -
unless your last name happens to be Grisham or Clancy... Bookstores
buy based upon marketing dollars thrown at them. Keep targeted!
Work book-signings and readings!
Targeted Search Marketing sells books.
Book signings sell books.
What sells better for the self-published
author - Fiction or Non-Fiction?
When you compare the sales rates
of fiction books and non fiction books from self-published authors,
I've found non fiction typically outsells fiction on a per book
basis. However, that may merely be due to the fact that the vast
majority of books produces by the big self publishers - AuthorHouse,
Xlibris and iUniverse™ - are fiction, so the sales they
do get is spread over a far greater range of books. Did you know
you can use Amazon to research much of this information? Look
at all the titles published by AuthorHouse, xLibris, and iUniverse™,
and you'll find that the majority are fiction. Now, look at them
by pub date - then, if you do a "bestseller" sort, nearly 80%
of the books actually producing sales are non-fiction. The purchaser
who needs information can tell more about a non-fiction book from
a brief description than someone looking for a mystery - hence,
they are more inclined to purchase the nonfiction book without
knowing the author, while fiction readers are more inclined to
want books from well-known authors.
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