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).

 

[E G Logan]

I'm not thinking of self-publishing myself, but thank you, from all of us probably, for that. It is wonderfully clear and balanced, very realistic.

 

[David Newrick]

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!

Thanks - that really is useful. One point sticks in my mind though: in all the decades of book buying I have never bought a novel because of its cover, however I have NOT bought a book because of its cover. Interesting eh. It makes me wonder if I should break the mould and not have a pictorial cover, just a textual one.

 

[David Newrick]

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).


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).


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.


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).


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).

Many thanks Nicky. It really is good of you to respond.

I can write websites or, in fact, nowadays use Wordpress and just worry about the back end stuff. I have also used Mailchimp for many years (their FREE plan is 500 contact emails and upto 1,000 per month messages/newsletters etc.), which others could investigate for themselves for mailing list management and newsletters, but I will have a look at Mailerlite and Octopus. But marketing is a HUGE area and I have dealt with marketeers in the past in my day job who quite frankly had very little impact. I think the overwhelming market disruption of Amazon, Facebook, email, Tiktok et al has so dramatically changed the marketing landscape that marketeers can no longer manipulate markets the way they used too (just look at the music industry for example). So I will look at paid marketing but but not in a naïve way.

 

[Robinne Weiss]

I second all of what Nikky said. I have self-published 14 books, and for me the key components are paying an editor and a cover designer. I do my interior formatting in Affinity Publisher (which is very like Adobe Creative Suite, but much cheaper and, I think, more intuitive to use). If you want bookstores to be able to buy your books through their normal channels, I recommend Ingram Spark. It costs to upload a book to Ingram Spark (and it costs to make changes, so make sure you get it right the first time), but then your book gets into their catalog, which is one of the standard catalogs bookstores order from. I don't have all my books on Ingram, but I've found it useful, particularly for my children's books, which are more likely to be sold as physical books than ebooks.

A good resource for self-publishing is the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi). They have tons of resources, and do lots of workshops and such.

 

[sotdab]

I suggest joining the Alliance of Independent authors and checking out their podcasts and blogs and resources - it's very helpful. But as has already been mentioned writing and publishing is the easy bit - you also have to find an audience, and they provide lots of advice on that. If your book is very distinctive or creative or has a clear niche audience you can check out kickstarter. I'm launching my book there as it's quite unique in its style and audience

 

[JohnBertel]

in all the decades of book buying I have never bought a novel because of its cover, however I have NOT bought a book because of its cover. Interesting eh. It makes me wonder if I should break the mould and not have a pictorial cover, just a textual one.

People may not, or seldom, buy a book because they want to own the cover, but that does not at all mean that the cover plays no role in the buying process.

The cover - the imagery, the colours, the font - is what signals what kind of experience this book promises, and makes us pick up a book in the store or click on a listing online.