Self-Publishing I become publisher and take all the risk - advice please

[David Newrick]

Dear All,

Having lurked around Litopia for many years my MS is going through a final edit (this time I mean it) and will be ready for publishing soon.

Having gone the rounds of submitting and being rejected by agents I have decided to 'publish or be damned' and take all the risk myself. I wondered if anyone has any experience of doing just that and can offer information or advice. I reluctantly accept that even going by the traditional route, in common with many writers I am really unlikely to make any substantial money from my novel. So I am happy to get it out there and take all the risk myself. My main concerns are -

How do I keep the rights to my work so that I have control that I feel is acceptable
How do I avoid using any platform such as Amazon where I give all the profits to them (or is a particular platform reasonable and fair)
I am happy to pay some monies up front as I am effectively becoming the publisher, but what is cost-effective or just a waste of money
Any other matter you think is important that isn't in the list above.

Your help, knowledge and/or information will be greatly appreciated.

 

[RK Wallis]

I can only offer my own experience and what I've learnt.

My book was picked up by an agent but then died on submission (my market was too niche and wouldn't have publishers enough money). My agent recommended self-publishing and that's what I did.

I thought I had my book edited, but in hindsight, I feel it was just a more experienced writer charging me (I was naive)

I had the same fellow writer help me with the cover. While I was happy with it at the time, in hindsight I regret not paying for a professional. I don't know if the cover suited my genre.

In hindsight, I don't regret publishing with Amazon exclusively. That suited me and gave me 70% of profits. I always owned the rights, Amazon never did (this was 2017. I don't know how different it is today).

In hindsight, I regret not having it critiqued fully by writers like with Litopia.

In hindsight, I regret not finding beta readers (which you can do on Litopia).

In hindsight, I wish I concentrated on marketing BEFORE its release, and created a build up of interest.

On another book, just so I had the experience of dealing with an editor, I used Reedsy and found them awesome. I never had any intention of self-publishing that book. It was a practice book.

I do think paying for a developmental editor, copywriter etc (I feel there are more) is worth it. If you're going to put a book out into the world you're doing it for a reader, not for yourself, so you'd want a reader to have the best experience possible. Believe me, if you don't do that readers will leave you bad reviews. I never received bad reviews, but I've seen them for other books. The comments must crush writers.

PS the nuts and bolts of formatting a book for print can be challenging if you don't understand tech stuff

This is an old craft chat thread discussion you might find useful: Craft Chat - Traditional -v- Independent/Self Publishing

Good luck!

 

[Nikky Lee]

Hello fellow self publisher! Yep, self publishing can be a daunting prospect, but the good news is there are LOADS of people and resources available to help you.

In addition to Litopia, two other communities I have found particularly useful with treasure troves of information are:

• 20BooksTo50K
• Wide for the win

Both of these are on Facebook, but you can search the comments for various keywords to find advice on just about anything (or ask members directly if your question hasn't been asked before).

How do I keep the rights to my work so that I have control that I feel is acceptable

You keep your rights when you self publish. But if you want to be absolutely sure, you can submit your manuscript to the US copyright office (I do this so I have a recognised legal document/record as proof that I own the IP of my work, even though I'm technically covered under copyright law the moment I put words to page).

How do I avoid using any platform such as Amazon where I give all the profits to them (or is a particular platform reasonable and fair)

Unfortunately, Amazon owns 90% of the market. If you want to make money, you'll need to have your books on there, generally speaking. They also give you the larger return for your books - between 35-70% depending on whether you go exclusive to them or not.

There are a couple of distributors that you can load your book up onto and they will distribute it to all the online bookselling places (e.g. Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Amazon, Smashwords, etc). The one I usually recommend is Draft2Digital as I've found their system most user friendly. You can also order print copies to sell yourself from them and they will make your book available for libraries and some bookstores to purchase (on special order). Convincing bookshops to stock your book is a whole other ballgame.

Otherwise, if you don't want to go through any of the major corporations, your best bet is to sell them in person yourself at markets, conventions, and via your own online store.

I am happy to pay some monies up front as I am effectively becoming the publisher, but what is cost-effective or just a waste of money

Self publishing can be as cheap or expensive as you want it to be.

For me, my non-negotiables are:
- Professional cover design (You can get a cheap cover for $100 all the way up to $5k+)
- Editing (Probably the most expensive thing you'll have to pay for, but a good editor is worth their weight in gold).
- Proofing (I'm lucky that I have a friend who is a massive fan and a stickler for typos, errors, punctuation etc, and does this for me on the cheap. But if they didn't do it, I'd also fork out for this or agree to do a proof swap with another author if funds were tight - either way, it's a stage I know I can't afford to miss).
- Formating (I've done this myself in a word document, but it can be very tedious. I ended up forking out for some software (Vellum on Mac or Atticus for PC) to make it much quicker, easier and pretty on the page – it's been well worth it).

Any other matter you think is important that isn't in the list above.

The other thing I would mention is to think about a marketing/promotion plan for your release. These days you can't just throw a book up online and expect people to find it. It doesn't have to involve professional PR or dancing on TikTok, but it's worth investigating the spaces where your readers are and building a presence there. If nothing else, start building a newsletter to stay connected with your readers (and start as soon as you can as they can take time to build). Most newsletter/mailing providers are free up until a few hundred subscribers (if not thousands). MailerLite is the most popular among authors (though I use Email Octopus because it is cheaper and better value for me).