Self Publishing - Writers Forum

Amedeus · 06-07-2007, 03:39 PM

Anyone have any experience on self publishing? Can you get your book on amazon and in book stores? Anybody know good publlishers that let you retain your copyright?

mammamaia · 06-07-2007, 05:54 PM

see lin's 'famous author' thread and ask him... he seems to know quite a bit about it and is a fairly 'vocal' proponent of self-publishing...

lin · 06-08-2007, 02:10 AM

No, what he should do is ask in the open forum.

Actually I just oppose people who are "vocal" (if that's the word one would choose for written words) about people who put it down and carelessly apply terms like "vanity" to it out of ignorance.

You really want to google this, and especially with POD as a term, meaning Print On Demand...it's a new wrinkle in publishing using recent printer and computer technology to deliver books without the need of paying for long print runs. I don't have any personal experience with this sort of printing, but it's an exciting development. One major player is lulu.com, so check them out.

All you really have to do to self-publish is have books printed, then figure out a way to sell them.
It tends to work best for niche markets...even if you invent that niche yourself. Fiction is the least likely genre to successfully lend itself to self publishing.

Magazines like "Writer's Digest" have listings for big job printers that give good prices on book runs...but you end up spending thousands of dollars to get the price of one copy down.

I have done books on xerox machines, then saddle-stitched them with a printed cover and sold thousands of them, others have, too. This means you can do short runs. Do the stapling and collating yourself. It works if the nature of your book permits that. Some books are just information and don't need frills. City Lights Press, of Beat fame did small, pocket0sized books on cheap paper with no fancy look (just seminal work by Ginsberg, Snider, Kerouac, etc.)

A book from a POD outfit will run high, but you don't have to capitalize a big run. You can get a ISBN number for it, which is necessary to sell on amazon.com or most major bookstores. Not all, but definitely the chains...not that you'll probably be there.

If your book can be marketed on the internet, using website, paypal, ebay store, etc, you can reach a worldwide market...but within a narrow niche.

There are probably books on self-publishing, but I've never seen one. (Why would a publisher put out something telling people how to get around using publishers

My guess is your best bet is to google around. Look at wikipedia.

If you have the right book for the right market and are a clever person who isn't afraid to break ground in marketing, you might do well self-publishing. Look at some of my other posts on this forum.

Or not. You probably aren't going to have much luck with your medieval novel or new way to learn French grammar. Short stories, etc. don't do well...but if they are about Medeival role playing and you are a Society For Creative Anachronism follower, maybe you can sell some there. Star Trek fan fiction outside convention sites might work... and no more illegal than selling lids or fake acid.

Your ideal book for this, I'd say, is a subject that people are very interested in, with one or two magazines that all of them read. Or a lot of people who follow certain websites: gamers, kayakers, etc. Or something that will appeal to people secondarily: they are visiting Mexico or the Olympic games and here's this inexpensive book that tells them what they need to know or maybe uses the setting for something fun. Expert how to books in fields the biggies don't get into: arcane cheats for games, Texas poker legends and tips, etc. I've always wanted to write "How To Murder Your Parents And Take All Their Stuff"...a humor book for kids. Trouble is, the parents are the ones who buy the books for the kids. I'm working on it.

lin · 06-08-2007, 02:16 AM

Word google searches carefully. Most of the top hits will be from people trying to sell you on their services: everybody from POD producers to vanity presses.

My search "how to self publish" produced this:
http://win-edge.com/SelfPublish.shtml

Solution to THEIR self-publishing goals, anyway. How you search this and what avenue you take depends so much on what you're trying to do and what sort of book you have in mind. If you're a guide on a tour bus and think you could write a pretty cool book about the place you're touring, then you've got your concentrated niche market and your marketing plan handed to you. (A guy did this for the Underground Seattle tour, the resulting book "Sons Of The Profits" has sold a jillion copies or so.)

If you just think you should be a writer and figure this is a fast way to get there, be very careful. Think before you spend any money.

Nickie · 06-08-2007, 07:59 AM

Lin, you are very right. I have some experience with POD, since I used this technique when I still had my own company.
POD is cheap - and anyone can have his/her book printed. You don't have to be a publisher. The printer will accept every pdf-file + cover file and print the quantity you need. An average book would cost about 5-6 $ per copy. In Europe, you get copyright automatically when you write something. No need to apply for it. And ISBN's can be obtained as well, for about 25 $ per number (you can even order 10 or more numbers at the same time).
The other thing is, you can only self-publish succesfully when you have people wanting to buy that book. I wrote a historical romance, but I belong to a large group of Belgian and Dutch fans of this genre. Most of them ordered a copy!

Nickie

lin · 06-08-2007, 10:44 AM

Actually, it works the same way here with copyright: it's your property as soon as you create it. The rub lies in proving it, so you end up registering it somewhere. One quirk of American law though, you can't bring infringement suit to court is your work isn't registered with Library of Congress...not even WGA registration will work for that. Lawyers are evil.

Wow, if you successfully self-published a historical romance you're a member of real elite, Nickie. Good work.

And...excellent example of writing for a niche group with a means of access.

lin · 06-08-2007, 10:45 AM

Amadeus

amazon.com is another place to search

I've never read a book on how to do this stuff. The ones I saw on amazon don't seem too up to date on current state of opportunities. Judging from their table of contents, they are padded...a lot of "how to write a book" stuff. Generalities.

They are starting with what they are trying to sell to: the general idea of publishing a book. Your very individual goals and project point you in certain directions. You can find out a lot about them by poking around, asking questions. Like at bookstores. Or trade presses. Before you go into a press for a bid, you want to really know exactly what you want. So you research that. Learn what a dummy is (I don't think there's a book on "Dummies for Dummies") a signature, etc. You have to know if you can get away with a one collor print job for your cover or if you need something flashy. If you can get by with saddle-stitching or bindery jobs. (Lots of self books have binder type binding...the books sold at seminars, for instance--and by the way, the reason people teach those seminars and three day classes you see in the little throw-away pamphlets in the big cities isn't to get you pay to hear them talk: it's to sell self-published books.) Do you need an ISBN number? If you want into bookstore chains, yeah... but if you're selling a climber's guide to the Statue of Liberty, that's not your route to market.

Are you sorry you asked yet?

SeattleCPA · 06-08-2007, 06:03 PM

BTW, semi-related to this...

I used to have a little book publishing company, too. I wrote the first couple of books myself and then published another 30 or so written by other authors...

It is not that tough to set up a book publishing company. The tricky things are getting a distributor to sell your books to B&N etc... and then making the economics work.

In my publishing venture, the first few books (the ones I wrote ironically) made money. The ones I used other authors for were pretty much disasters. (The dot-com bomb was slowly unfolding at this point, which was reason for much of the trouble I had.)

With a publishing business (or self-publishing) I think you need a way to sell significant numbers of books outside of the usual trade channel. I.e., you can't rely on amazon. B&N, Borders, etc. You need to have some other way to do this. Like a website. Or through publishing partnerships with schools, businesses, etc.

mammamaia · 06-08-2007, 07:26 PM

Quote:

"vocal" (if that's the word one would choose for written words)

...which is why i put it in quotes!...

lin · 06-09-2007, 12:04 AM

Interesting Steve. I did some publishing in Seattle, too. And wrote for every damn publication in town...the worst town for local writers I've ever seen...so many crooked editors and such. Ah well.,

Your comment on "outside regular trade channels" is right to the money, so to speak. A great example of this is a book I helped a guy write...a book on Spanish for restaurants. I convinced him to do it with two "front" covers, one in SPanish, one in English, so it was really sort of two books back to back...one for the busboys and cooks, the other for the waitresses and owners (in broad terms). The smart idea he had was distibuting it through restaurant supply channels instead of bookstore channels. It sold a mint in California alone.

It's amazing how many niches like this there are for books, actually. You can almost identify a market network or jobber chain and figure out a book that would work for them.

WHen you say "Seattle" do you really mean more like "Redmond"? Just curious.

lin · 06-09-2007, 12:09 AM

Quote:

...which is why i put it in quotes!...

No, it's not why you put it in quotes, is it. I have a flash for you. A guy asks for advice, you have none to give him... but you think the thread is all about you. Actually, it's not. I know that won't keep you from nagging on it again, but you might think about it. What am I saying?

mammamaia · 06-09-2007, 06:45 PM

i'm putting you on ignore, lin... it's the first time i've ever needed to do that in years of posting on this site and i wish i didn't feel it was necessary, but you keep highjacking others' threads with your incomprehsible need to needle me rudely on almost every post i make in a thread where you're also posting... just as you did on another site, whenever i couldn't agree with what you said and offered my own opinion...

so, to avoid needing to counter your insults, it's best to just not even see them... i hope that will stop you from addressing/attacking me in others' threads...

my apologies to all my other fellow members here... i was complimenting this person above and got nothing but sarcastic barbs for it... i didn't mean to take up thread space with a personal wrangle... it won't happen again, as far as i'm concerned...

love and hugs, maia

Shawn · 06-09-2007, 07:05 PM

I concur, my dear lady.

lin · 06-09-2007, 11:43 PM

Quote:

it won't happen again,

Hallelujah

mammamaia · 06-10-2007, 05:53 PM

Quote:

I concur, my dear lady.

i hope you know how much i respect you for being one of the most consistently courteous posters here, shawn...

love and extra hugs, maia

[note: i didn't think this would be a breach of my promise to not 'wrangle' since it's a common-courtesy-called-for 'thank you']