Lessons on Publishing...

[judoka]

Lessons l Learned the Hard Way

Just a few notes; I'll try to elaborate later if anyone is interested.

For my second book I went the 'on-demand' publishing route. It sounded great: "we're not a vanity press...you don't have to buy boxes of books...we get you listed with major bookstores...royalties are much higher than with a traditional publisher..."


So, you pay a big fee from 600 to 1600 dollars depending on your options...people can order your book from amazon, barnes and noble, dayspring...

And you have no boxes of books to deal with; just print them as they are ordered.

THE PROBLEM: NO one knows about your book to order it on any of the known bookstores. IF you are going to sell books, the MAIN way is STILL going to be to order BOXES of books (the more the better discount). BUT NOW you have already spent 600 to 1600 dollars AND YOU HAVE NO BOOKS.

For the same money from a traditional 'vanity press' you would at least have those boxes of books, and the per book price would be much lower.

And once you have paid the big fee at the 'ondemand' printer, they keep trying to sell you more stuff, stuff you kinda thought was included. They do no publicity, but they will sell you a publicity kit for 100 dollars, sell you more advertising in their catalogue that probably does not work well anyhow...they publish about 1000 books a year...big money for them...practically none for most authors.

The Lesson...DO THE MATH BEFORE you bite. There are lots of local printing houses that have very good rates for boxes of books.

(AND If you go with an ondemand publisher, check out all the publishers, and don't 'bite' on the higher priced options....they will be trying to sell you these features again later anyhow...you can buy the advertising later if you really think it will help.)

 

[Westvleteren]

judoka, I'm sorry to hear of your travails, but the wise voice of experience is truly valuable to the rest of us.

Thanks for turning your trials into our enlightenment--best of luck.

 

[Confuscious]

do you have any recommended publishers because i have a work in progress which should be finished in 2-3 months.

 

[SShanique]

It sucks that you had to go through that. I was thinking that a good way to publish a book would be to have several copies bound and shop them around to local bookstores, or maybe my thinking's flawed. Either way, good luck on getting your book out, God bless.

 

[Leathel]

Hi everybody,

I am coming in late. I just ran across this site.

I just recently sent an e-mail to another writer looking to get published covering the same topic. I will modify the e-mail to hopefully help out here as well.

I haven't been through every scenario, but I'll try and relay some of the knowledge I've aquired in the last few years. It really depends on what your final goal is on which option you choose on how to get published. The publishing business is quite an art in itself and to try and save somebody time in the research works for me.

First of all, almost everybody will agree, if you are looking at just the writing part, the best thing(if possible) is to have one of the big boys publish you. In fantasy, which I am more familiar with, that is TOR, BAEN, Bantum, DAW. These publishers have the money and contacts already lined up. But big house publishers will not take on authors unless they have a literary agent. You can get a list of literary agents from the "Writers Market" book. This book also has a listing of publishers, agents, and much much more. A library usually has a copy. Unfortunately literary agents do not take on unknowns unless they have a publisher interested in them already. Hmmm… see the catch22 there? It does help to catch the literary agents' attention if you have been published in magazines, or other style of work.

Another way of publishing is to have a small press publisher to it. There are many small press publishers that if the story is good, it can take off. They usually just don't have the huge marketing budget like the big companies.

One thing to have caution with is publishers called Vanity Publishers. You pay them to publish the work, but only get a small royalties.

That takes us to the new online print companies doing Print On Demand (POD). This is what was being referred to in the original post. These companies are Authorhouse, iUniverse, etc. Some would call these Vanity Publishers because you do pay them to publish your work. I just haven't heard the horror stories though as I have with the regular Vanity Publishers. POD is pretty popular right now because pretty much anybody can get published. You send in a PDF file and you get a book. Then they only print out books as an order comes in. For a small scale, this is alright. But if you are looking to get into stores and almost make any money out of your project, you usually won't get very far with POD books. POD costs maybe $15 + for you to print the book. The average percentage that a book wholesaler/distributor/book store wants off the list price is 40%-55%. That means a $24.95 book, a publisher will see $11.22 from it. The publisher then has this to pay for all their marketing, author royalties, printing costs, etc… The store gets a book at 40-55% off, so that is how they are able to do the 20%-40% off, because they are still making a profit. So lets go back to a $15 POD book. That is just to cover the printing cost. For you to cover your printing costs in a bookstore, add in a 55%. This means you would have to have a list price of $33.50 just to cover your printing costs. At $33.50 compared to other books running $15, you can see why bookstores won't take them on. The books would never sell. Plus add in bad editing on many, and you get the PODs pretty much not even looked at. And so far, no publicity has been done on your book. Reviewers don't want to review a book that won't be nationally.

This leads many into creating their own publishing company. This is one of the harder choices, but can be worth it. Usually it is said that only non-fiction books, those that have a unique how to, will really have a chance at self-publishing. You not only put up your own money, time, but getting a book in print is the easiest part. Marketing the book is were life gets hard. Even if you have a good marketing plan and the money to back it up, many reviewers and bookstores will not be interested because of a self-publishing stigma out there. Usually self-published books are so badly edited, it gives all others a bad name. Plus add in that the book is coming from an unknown author and unknown publishing company, not from Tyndale or Zondervan, and life gets even harder. The best method of publicity is reviews. A booktore wants to see what a reviewer has said about your book. But a reviewer won't usually look at your book unless it will be sold nationally. Once again, another catch22. But in some cases, self-publishing can be done. You just have to very creative in marketing or have the money to back your books up.

Two great books just to learn the publishing industry besides the Self-Publishing part are:

Tom & Marilyn Ross's "The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing"
Dan Poynter's "The Self-Publishing Manual"

Other links(I can't post the html link, not enough posts, sorry):
PMA, The Independent Book Publishers Association


PMA is a grouping of small presses out to share knowledge and combine forces if need be. Check out the link to their articles. Tons of good information on the publishing business.


SF and Fantasy Writers Writers of America, Inc
Has good info on writing in general and a great 'Writers Beware' area. One note, never pay for a literary agent. They'll cover that in detail at this website.


Again, A lot of it depends on what your final goal is on which choice you want to use.

Hope some of this is beneficial,

Leathel Grody
Author of "Faith of the Unforgotten"
Book One of The Foundations of Hope Trilogy

 

[VickiY]

Does anyone out there know where it is possible to obtain a list of Christian publishing houses?

 

[heron]

http://www.ecpa.org/ Evangelical Christian Publishers

You should also look at Sally Stuart's annual reference, "Christian Writer's Market Guide" (Shaw, 600 pp., $25). In it, you will find many references to The Writer's Edge Service, which I had run across the month before I bought the book; it's a group of almost-volunteer editors who screen your work for a fee, and send the list of monthly writers to Christian publishing houses.

I've used Writer's Edge, and they do what they promise: http://www.writersedgeservice.com/

I've also used a POD company that seems cheaper than the others, but yes, marketing is a black hole. Lulu.com only takes 1/4 of what you decide your royalty will be, and their printer has a flat per book fee. I was able to keep mine in the $10 range, but that keeps any pounding-pavement sales from being profitable.

I love the creative control, and plan to continue printing future books while I have that precious freedom, but would gladly grab a contract with someone who would market for me. Does anyone out there feel the call to start a marketing and distribution business? (I hear an echo.)

The other thing to consider--it's tempting to push your book out there unedited, but the day you know it's in print, you feel a sudden panic that you've made some gross errors. You know how ciritcal the public can be. Even with spellcheck, you can run into autocorrect errors, spacing and grammar problems, tense changes, and good old fashioned poor writing. I have to read the whole book to someone before I sense that a passage is boring, wordy, or confusing.

 

[Tamara77777]

good input! Thanks! Tamara77777 praisingonpiano

 

[shakingthedustoffmyfeet]

http://www.ecpa.org/ Evangelical Christian Publishers

You should also look at Sally Stuart's annual reference, "Christian Writer's Market Guide" (Shaw, 600 pp., $25). In it, you will find many references to The Writer's Edge Service, which I had run across the month before I bought the book; it's a group of almost-volunteer editors who screen your work for a fee, and send the list of monthly writers to Christian publishing houses.

I've used Writer's Edge, and they do what they promise: http://www.writersedgeservice.com/

I've also used a POD company that seems cheaper than the others, but yes, marketing is a black hole. Lulu.com only takes 1/4 of what you decide your royalty will be, and their printer has a flat per book fee. I was able to keep mine in the $10 range, but that keeps any pounding-pavement sales from being profitable.

I love the creative control, and plan to continue printing future books while I have that precious freedom, but would gladly grab a contract with someone who would market for me. Does anyone out there feel the call to start a marketing and distribution business? (I hear an echo.)

The other thing to consider--it's tempting to push your book out there unedited, but the day you know it's in print, you feel a sudden panic that you've made some gross errors. You know how ciritcal the public can be. Even with spellcheck, you can run into autocorrect errors, spacing and grammar problems, tense changes, and good old fashioned poor writing. I have to read the whole book to someone before I sense that a passage is boring, wordy, or confusing.

Just want to add a note to this. At least one of the publishers in this book (and I did not find out about the publisher through Sally's book) is very unscrupulous. This is one of their slogans: "We don't want your money, just your book. I thought I smelled a rat when they offered to publish them, so I discovered http://www.writers.net/ Thank God I found them before I signed the contract they sent.

Also I cannot agree more strongly about editing. I worked as an English and journalism teacher and an editor, but I was absolutely terrible at editing and proofing my own book.

I am about a month away from having my first book published. So far, so good. God bless the writers!

 

[heron]

Ha ha, I made a spelling mistake in my statement about editing! Not intentional.

Withgreatmercy, what is your book about?

Some things I've seen in others' books that they assumed were ready:

• Repeated catch phrases that get annoying after the first or second time.

• Slandering others in order to make a point.

• Sounding too cute in the opening paragraph.

• Assuming that everyone agrees with them--failing to give reference for their statements of truth.

• Too many quotation marks where they "shouldn't" be.

• Underlines.

I found in mine:

• A temptation to race through a intense passage, mentioning crucial things only briefly, so readers might miss an important fact or event.

• Too many sentence fragments, that I had ordained worthy of not completing.

• Spelling mistakes, of course

• Autocorrect mistakes--I should have turned that off, because it's too much work to dig for those.

• Font size and margin changes, section breaks instead of page breaks.

• Spots where I had changed a character's name using find/replace, and forgot to check for variations of the name (Harold's, Haroldesque).

You will also find that when a friend edits, they will try to be nice and leave a lot of mistakes intact, not wanting to appear too critical of your work. If you use friends, find three with these strengths: spelling and grammar, ethical, legal and theological issues, and one to see if you communicated your heart for the subject well. They should feel free to overlap their objectives. This is not law, but my opinionated suggestion.

 

[shakingthedustoffmyfeet]

Ha ha, I made a spelling mistake in my statement about editing! Not intentional.

Withgreatmercy, what is your book about?

Some things I've seen in others' books that they assumed were ready:

• Repeated catch phrases that get annoying after the first or second time.

• Slandering others in order to make a point.

• Sounding too cute in the opening paragraph.

• Assuming that everyone agrees with them--failing to give reference for their statements of truth.

• Too many quotation marks where they "shouldn't" be.

• Underlines.

I found in mine:

• A temptation to race through a intense passage, mentioning crucial things only briefly, so readers might miss an important fact or event.

• Too many sentence fragments, that I had ordained worthy of not completing.

• Spelling mistakes, of course

• Autocorrect mistakes--I should have turned that off, because it's too much work to dig for those.

• Font size and margin changes, section breaks instead of page breaks.

• Spots where I had changed a character's name using find/replace, and forgot to check for variations of the name (Harold's, Haroldesque).

You will also find that when a friend edits, they will try to be nice and leave a lot of mistakes intact, not wanting to appear too critical of your work. If you use friends, find three with these strengths: spelling and grammar, ethical, legal and theological issues, and one to see if you communicated your heart for the subject well. They should feel free to overlap their objectives. This is not law, but my opinionated suggestion.

It is a devotional that is designed to help people who are in pain, struggling with an illness, or experiencing tremendous stress. It is brief, only about 150 pages, 70 entries. I has a very simple style because people who are ill are often taking medication, and concentration is affected.

What is yours about? (are: didn't you say two?) I am not too concerned about grammar and spelling on CF, anyone's or mine. Then it would seem like work...

 

[heron]

What a great idea. People are grasping for answers, logic and compassion during times like that. It would also make a useful visiting gift for friends who are going through hard times.

Thanks for the mercy on CF spelling!

My books are middle reader Judeo-Christian adventure fiction (9-13). I almost have the third out. They hit Amazon about a month ago--what an odd feeling that was! Amazon put them on all their sites at once: Germany, Japan, Canada...I can't even read the some of the sites they're listed on. (I can read Canadian if I put my mind to it.)

I pray that your words go out to many people, and bring widespread healing to lift up the tired souls. May He bring all the resources and connections that you need, and shoulder your burdens for you. May He bless all your endeavors and provide for your needs.​

 

[NIMBYatheist42!!!]

Wow!
Good information lies within this thread!

 

[shakingthedustoffmyfeet]

What a great idea. People are grasping for answers, logic and compassion during times like that. It would also make a useful visiting gift for friends who are going through hard times.

Thanks for the mercy on CF spelling!

My books are middle reader Judeo-Christian adventure fiction (9-13). I almost have the third out. They hit Amazon about a month ago--what an odd feeling that was! Amazon put them on all their sites at once: Germany, Japan, Canada...I can't even read the some of the sites they're listed on. (I can read Canadian if I put my mind to it.)

I pray that your words go out to many people, and bring widespread healing to lift up the tired souls. May He bring all the resources and connections that you need, and shoulder your burdens for you. May He bless all your endeavors and provide for your needs.​

Thank you Heron, for your wonderful prayer. Why don't you PM me to let me know what the title of your books are. I don't think we are allowed to mention them on the thread. Just learned today that mine is on its way to press. Yes, that is a nerve-wrencher! That God, though, for the message He gave me in my time of need. If anyone is helped, it will be all for God's glory!

 

[heron]

withgreatmercy, I think you're right...I wondered if we'd gone too far promoting already. To press!! Yay.

Boppy Atheist (taking liberty with your name), thanks from all of us. Stick around. What types of things do you write?

 

[memoryroad]

Thanks for the advice

 

[heron]

Memoryroad, what types of things do you write? (Besides necessary papers.)

 

[lsholes]

You might also want to check our Editors and Predators on the net. I also suggest that you do some homework before sending anything out. Get a copy of Writer's Market and see what agents take on new authors, what they like, etc. Narrow it down to those who would be interested in your work. Send a query letter introducing yourself, what your book is about, why are your special qualifications for writing this book. Be sure to name the genre of your book--not it's a little sci-fi with some romance and mytery. Nail it down, they want to know if it has an audience.
They will write back (some take a verrrrrrrry loooooong time) and let you know if they are interested and will ask for sample chapters, or synopsis and outline, or the whole manuscript. Good luck!
Lynn Sholes also writing as Lynn Armistead McKee
www.lynnsholes.com
www.grailconspiracy.com

 

[razzelflabben]

What great advice. Bottom line, without money for advertising and or a big company, you are not likely to sell many books.

We had a children's ebook company for a while. Even discovered a connection between reading and ebooks. Saw children who were not reading, deside reading was fun when they looked at ebooks (Involved a simple, fun, trick). We put out a free books for people to try, talked to schools, teachers and offered them a free program if they would let us know if they got the same results we did. We had a press release on a local tv station, were talking at one point to Hooked on Phonics. You know what, not a single school or teacher took us up on the deal. In fact, I had many teachers say, of course it will work but.....In the end, we ran out of money to keep the site open. We sold less books than it cost to keep the site and accept credit cards. Most months I didn't even sell enough to cover the cost of the site. Anyway, I guess the lesson here is, even a great idea isn't enough when you want to sell books.

 

[heron]

Lynn, beautiful site! Thanks for sharing it with us.

razzelflabben,
You might want to keep it tucked away...sometimes the ducks aren't lined up yet. In our district, elementary teachers had one old computer to a classroom, and they couldn't transport files back and forth from home. More recently, each was given a laptop for submitting grades.

Most schools have a computer lab, though, where your ebooks would have made a great lab assignment. Teachers would be legally required to purchase one ebook per computer (25?). Most teachers I know already spend their own money for extras.

You might have paved the way for others. (At your expense.)