TURN YOUR MANUSCRIPT INTO A NY TIMES BESTSELLER
Agents and publishers are paying millions to get their hands on hot, independently produced books. And now, for the first time ever, the best-selling secrets of the biggest books of the decade are revealed…
Did you know that bestsellers like The Bridges of Madison County, The Christmas Box, Term Limits, The Celestine Prophecy, Chicken Soup For The Soul, Prince of Tides and countless other successful books were all originally published by their author—and then were later sold to major publishing houses (and even Hollywood!) for millions of dollars?
THE NEW YORK TIMES reports: “Every single publisher and literary agent is on the lookout for independent publishers.”
Now, the directors of America’s top book packaging firm reveal their secrets for getting your book into print. You’ll learn:
How transforming your manuscript into a book-like “bound galley” can make it leap out of the slush pile and into the hands of agents.
Top reviews, and the interest of book clubs and major book chains!
What one crucial item in your query package will get agents and publishers to make a grab for your book.
Why selling only 1,000 books on your own is like selling 40,000 copies for your publisher!
Who can turn your manuscript into a book that will all but guarantee the attention of publishers, agents, distributors, and the media.
When are the best times to send your book out.
PRAISE FOR ARBOR BOOKS AND SELF-PUBLISHING
“Thanks to your class and book, I turned my manuscript into a real book. The information in your book is invaluable.”
Joselyn Smith-Greene
Author, Sew Find It, Sew Craft It
“ENLIGHTENING AND REWARDING! If I’d known it was going to be this easy, I would have done this years ago.”
Abbie Sunshine Kessler
Author, Dear Monica
“I loved the class you gave at Hofstra! I came home overwhelmed, but excited about doing my own book about bereaved families…I gobbled up your book and learned so much. It made the writing seem easy…and that was a good feeling!
Elaine E. Stillwell
Author
“Because of your book and cover design, I’m outselling the competition!” John Pellicano Author, Conquer or Die
“Your lecture at Queen College was very interesting and informative…With your expertise and energy you’ll be able to make anyone’s book a success.”
Lucy Shifrin
“The quality of children’s book you created for me was beyond my greatest expectations. The book is beautiful and I’m getting steady reorders from bookstores.”
Betsy Hallet-Holden
Author, Nantucket’s Night Magic
“Simply perfect! I can’t wait to work for you again. The first run of my poetry book sold out immediately.”
Julia Zieman
Author, Moonglow
“You want to become the next superstar in your business field? Becoming a published expert is a lot easier than you might think… Self-publish. That’s right. Go ahead and do it on your own.”
Creative Real Estate Magazine
“Many of the biggest names in business have been published by mainstream publishers after first going the self-publishing route.”
O’Dwyer’s PR Services Report
“On the movie front, the film rights to indie and selfpubbed books are getting acquired even before the big houses can get them onto bookstore shelves with their own imprints on the jackets.”
Variety
“It’s been a banner year for originally self-published books…Shake the tree of recent and forthcoming publisher’s lists, and titles that have already appeared in self-published editions tumble down…[And] sales may be as high as 30,000 or even 300,000 for an author who hawks a book on the lecture circuit.”
Publishers Weekly
“It happened in the movie business and now it’s happening in books: The Indies are coming into their own…The change you’re seeing in publishing in the 1990s is what you saw happen in film…It’s the self-publishers who increasingly are coming up with the surprise winners and sleepers…the established publishing houses are increasingly courting the indies in the hope of finding the next [bestseller]…”
“Many companies are finding that [self-published] books, deliver phenomenal market penetration and dramatic sales. They’re used primarily as premiums, incentives and giveaways.”
Selling To Seniors
SELF-PUBLISHING
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO
PRODUCING A BESTSELLER
BY
JOEL HOCHMAN
&
LARRY LEICHMAN
SELF-PUBLISHING
The Ultimate Guide to Producing a Bestseller
Copyright © 2007 by Joel Hochman & Larry Leichman
All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, computer bulletin board (BBS), Internet or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author or publisher.
Book and cover design by Arbor Books
244 Madison Ave. #254 New York, NY 10016
tel.: 877-822-2500 E-mail: FloatinGal@aol.com
Website:
http://www.arborbooks.com
Printed in the United States
SELF-PUBLISHING
The Ultimate Guide to Producing a Bestseller
Joel Hochman & Larry Leichman
1. Writing 2. Self-publishing 3. Desktop Publishing
4. Publishing 5. Book Marketing
LCCN: 2007921074
ISBN 10: 0-9790469-3-9
ISBN 13: 978-0-9790469-3-3
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We’d like to thank the deans and the directors at the following schools for inviting us to bring our publishing and design course to their students over the past years: Hofstra University, Pratt Institute, Medgar Evers College, Queens College, Queensborough Community College, Laguardia Community College, The College of Mt. St. Vincent, St. John’s University, The Port Washington School System, The Great Neck School System, Westchester Community College, The Murray Bergtraum Center, and The 92nd St. “Y.”
Articles appearing in this book have been freely abstracted from the following publications: Investor’s Business Daily, Jack O’Dwyer’s PR Services Report, Newsday, The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Selling To Seniors, Variety, and Writers Digest Magazine.
Special thanks to the support staff at TFG, Wendy Bonadio, John Longmire Esq., The Writers Club of America Online, The Madison Avenue Writers Group, the Hochman family and the Leichman family.
IMPORTANT!
The authors have endeavored to be as comprehensive, current and accurate as is possible. Every effort has been and will continue to be made to keep this information updated now and in the future. New editions of this book will appear regularly.
This book does not purport to offer legal, investment, accounting, or other professional advice. If and when such expert counsel is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. The authors and publisher are not liable for loss or damage alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by information contained in this book.
As always, the best advice when embarking on any new money-making journey is: caveat emptor; BUYER BEWARE!
DEDICATION
To Hoang Nguyen, for his unwavering faith and support.
Thanks for being there.
—Joel
To my great-aunt, Gertrude Salomon, world traveler, radio personality,
philanthropist, springer of surprises, this one’s for you.
—Larry
THE SELF-PUBLISHING CHOICE
“Experts believe more than 100,000 new books are self-published every year, generating millions of dollars.” —Newsday
Your turn has finally arrived.
There are now strategies that writers can take that can just about guarantee a shot at the bestseller list. From self-published books to the revolutionary bound galley, writers are finding ways to get themselves and their books into the market that were all but unheard of just ten years ago.
What’s more: you don’t have to do it alone. There’s an army of specialists ready to help. And the prices have never been lower.
You’re about to take part in the self-publishing revolution and break away from the rejection, the runaround and the uncertainty of traditional publishing. No longer will you have to be tied to the whims of indifferent agents and uninterested publishers. Finally, you’ll be able to take control and see your book in stores and libraries.
Independently published writers are gaining the artistic and marketing clout that independent filmmakers currently have in Hollywood. And self-publishing is for everyone, especially those who have been rejected by agents and publishers. Whatever type of book you have—novel, business advice, memoir, how-to, family history, picture book, textbook, poetry collection—there is no better time than right now to realize your dream.
In fact, there’s no better time to self-publish. Book producers are eager to assist you in getting your book out into the market place and the market place is more receptive than ever to this new breed of independently produced books. What’s more, as you’ll see, publishers and agents are looking to independents for their next titles.
New technology has made typesetting easier and quicker, and sent printing prices to an all-time low. New authors can even print small quantities on demand at very affordable prices.
As for the distribution system, many distributors that were once closed to self-publishers have now embraced them with open arms. The same is true for the major book chains and local bookstores. Even libraries are supportive of self-published books, and make a concerted effort to keep the small presses from getting swept away in the wake of the large mainstream publishers. And perhaps the most exciting new development is the explosion of the Internet and online bookstores.
With the right marketing and design, it’s very possible that you can make money at self-publishing. In fact, two out of three self-published books turn a profit.
This book will tell you everything you need to know about writing books; computer layout and typesetting; proven book and cover design; selling to distributors and bookstores; creating marketing campaigns; getting free publicity; negotiating with consultants, rights agents, illustrators, and printers; obtaining a copyright, LCCB, ISBN and bar code; and much, much more.
Mainstream Publishers—a Dead End for First-Time Authors?
In today’s world of mega-mergers and celebrity-written books, the chances of a new or unknown writer signing a book contract with a mainstream publishing house are bleak. In fact, they’re getting worse. With over 40,000 books published each year, fewer than 5 percent are by first-time authors. These days, publishers refuse to roll the dice on new talent. If an author has no following and no reputation, in most cases, he or she is seen as a poor financial risk.
Many publishers (and agents, for that matter) have adopted the policy of refusing to look at unsolicited manuscripts and simply return them unopened. Others go through a cursory perusal of the thousands of unsolicited manuscripts they receive each year, the so-called “slush pile.” If they do consent to look at a book, they may hold on to it for a year or more and still take a pass. You’ll also be rejected if the publisher is already doing a book on your subject or if the publisher feels your material will be out of date by the time the book is produced. And most importantly, if a publisher doesn’t think a book appeals to a large enough audience it won’t get published.
True, unknowns do get published by mainstream houses, and some are successful. But for every bestseller by an unknown writer, thousands don’t ever make it into print.
What are the Options?
A manuscript represents time, money, work and hope. If a writer wants to get that book into print, there are two choices: either publish on your own—self-publish—or go to a vanity (also called a subsidy or co-op) publishing company.
A vanity is a company that masquerades as a legitimate publishing house but actually is little more than a glorified, super-expensive printing company. After spending a lot of money, you’ll have virtually nothing to show for it.
Self-publishing, on the other hand, is the process where a writer acts as his or her own publisher. You can either do the job completely on your own—which may entail hiring typists, typesetters, artists, etc.—or you can hire a book producer to do all or part of the job for you. There are even specialized companies that can do your book packing, shipping, promotion, record keeping, billing, etc. And, of course, there are numerous book printers who can do a superb job manufacturing your book.
A book packager usually can offer a complete service: they can copy edit the manuscript, design the text, design the cover, and manufacture a high quality, attractive book, keeping the author fully informed all down the line. They can also design a promotional campaign tailored to your book. This may include sending out review copies, contacting booksellers and book buyers, preparing a circular to go to your personal mailing list, and including the book in their annual catalog. Local newspapers, radio and TV stations can be notified, and if the author wishes, book-signing parties can be arranged.
Deciding to Self-Publish
First off, you must envision yourself as both a writer and a businessperson. You’ll have to see your book through from initial concept all the way through to distribution, and be willing to work toward its success. You must prioritize your time, set realistic goals, prepare a business plan, and decide on a budget sufficient to meet your goals. You can’t be afraid to plunge time and money into your work in order to succeed. Examine your intended market carefully. Find out who your readers are and how many books already exist on your subject. This may require visiting bookstores and libraries.
While you don’t need to be licensed as a publisher, it’s good to be familiar with your state, county or city business and tax license and sales requirements. You may want to involve yourself in writing and self-publishing organizations and attend workshops and conferences to keep aware of the newest trends and technology available.
Believe it or not, whether or not you decide to self-publish, the most important question you’ll face is this: Am I willing to push this book on my own or hire the key people to do it for me? You must believe in your book and its subject so thoroughly that you can sell it to others without hesitation. Your book must fill a need and inform or entertain, and you must tout its benefits to the public through book signings, television and radio appearances, and PR and marketing endeavors unique to your subject (for example: furnishing a home for under $1,000 to help sell a bargain-hunters guide).
Even selling only 1,000 books can mean very big money. Imagine getting your book or newsletter out there with as few as a couple of hundred hours of part-time work and a start-up of under $10,000, possibly under $5,000. How would you like to come out of the deal with a $10,000 profit in your pocket each and every time you publish! That’s $50 or more per hour. Just think: for every $1 you spend, you could see $4, $5 or $6. Don’t you owe it to yourself to give it a try?
And if you want to make a solid impression with agents and publishers, The New York Times has reported that there is no better way to pitch your manuscript than with a self-published book—a dull manuscript isn’t enough in today’s competitive marketplace. Professionals prefer to see a real book. Even more exciting, agents and publishers are actively looking for self-published books that show potential. You don’t have to come to them—they may come to you.
So you really have no excuse, especially if you only want the completed work for your bookshelf or to give to friends and family. Why not satisfy that need to see your book in print?
A book can serve as a sales tool, a free giveaway, a part-time job, a hobby, even as a means to make you an instant, qualified expert!
Companies can collect their corporate artwork and put it into book form; housewives can share recipes and make cookbooks; church leaders can put together sermons; and businesses can put together manuals, catalogs, annual reports, and promotional material.
What Makes a Self-Published Bestseller?
Creating a marketable book with mass appeal—no matter the content or message—requires a determined author, aggressive promotion, and incisive advertising to guarantee sales. The specific elements that sell a book, whether mainstream or self-published, are eye-catching front and back cover design, key endorsements, superbly edited content, and well-coordinated marketing. None of this is beyond today’s do-it-yourselfer.
In fact, even if your book were put out by a mainstream publisher, you’d still have to get out there and sell your book. According to a recent article in New York Magazine, publishers do little, if anything, in the way of publicizing and promoting books. Only when you’re an author with a track record do they really get behind it.
Self-Published Success Stories
Self-published successes are nothing new. Many best-selling books were originally self-published: What Color Is Your Parachute? (Crown, 1973), The One Minute Manager (Morrow, 1982) and How To Keep Your Volkswagen Alive (John Muir, 1970).
A new phenomenon known as “cross-overs” refers to those self-published books that have been bought and then reissued by mainstream publishers. Shake the tree of recent and forthcoming publisher’s lists and titles that have already appeared in self-published editions tumble down. For instance, there’s The Girls with the Grandmother Faces and Think Yourself Thin from Hyperion; Surfing the Himalayas: A Spiritual Adventure from Warner; Shakespeare’s Insults and several spin-offs including Shakespeare’s Insults for Doctors… Lawyers… Teachers, etc., from ClarksonPotter;
Love the Body You Were Born With from Putnam; Could You Love Me Like My Dog? and Could You Love Me Like My Cat? from Simon & Schuster; and Golf: Body, Mind, and Spirit from Villard.
Add to this group Healthy Exchanges Cookbook from Perigee; Flirting for Success: The Art of Building Rapport from Warner; Youth in Revolt from Doubleday: and Double Your Profits and The Five Rituals of Wealth from HarperCollins. Smoldering away on backlists are Villard’s Tightwad Gazette; Warner’s Butter Busters and Knights of the TeleRound Table; Fawcett’s Zapp: The Lightning of Empowerment; Ballantine’s Doc Susie: The True Story of a Country Physician and Positive Discipline; Morrow’s Future Edge; Doubleday’s Just As I Am; HarperCollins’ Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun and Let Us Prey; Hyperion’s Passion For Barbecue and Delacorte’s Managing from the Heart.
Other titles originating from small publishers and self-publishers include: Warner Books’ Writes of Passage: Every Woman Has a Story, by Daryl Oft Underhill; Bantam’s valentine to golf at St. Andrews (Scotland, birthplace of the sport), A Wee Nip at the 19th Hole, by Richard MacKenzie; Penguin’s I Don’t Have to Make Everything All Better by Gary Lundberg and wife Joy Saunders Lundberg; and Little, Brown’s recent low seven-figure acquisition Just Plain Folks, a collection of short stories by Lorraine Johnson-Coleman.
What’s Fueled the Self-Publishing Revolution?
Thirty years ago there were about 3,000 publishers in the
U.S. Today there are approximately 55,000: that’s the top 22 big corporate publishing houses (15 of which are in New York), 300 to 400 medium-sized houses, and more than 52,000 small presses around the country, many of which could be called self-publishers.
There are four basic reasons that self-publishing finally came into its own:
The advent of the personal computer.
The development of software that enable manuscripts to be typeset, indexes to be generated, covers to be lavishly designed and books to be electronically laid out.
Short-run printers with state-of-the-art printing presses that can bypass the more costly printing processes of the past. In today’s printing plants, an author is no longer limited to having to run-off 5,000 copies or even 1,000 copies of a book. Now you can run off one book at a time if you need to.
A marketplace that is completely accepting of the independent book publisher. This factor alone means that self-publishers can break into stores, book chains and library markets that were all but closed a few years ago.
Why You Should Consider Self-Publishing
Here are just a few benefits to wet your appetite.
Getting Into Print. If you want to see your book in stores, or simply to give out to friends and family, then you’d better start taking matters into your own hands— the chances of Random House publishing your book may be the same as getting struck by lightning.
Your Career. Most major business figures have already written a book, are in the process of writing one, or are considering the idea. If you’re serious about sharing your ideas with others and want to be a player, there is no alternative to writing a book. It’s an absolute must if you’re to be taken seriously. Without writing a book, you have no future as a guru in your field.
Shaping Opinions. In the course of your career, you probably have had some wonderful experiences that you’ve shared with colleagues and friends. You’ve probably also developed quite a few insights along the way, maybe even some unique or special ways of handling professional situations. Well, a book is a great tool to share that wisdom and reach a wide audience.
Reputation. Prestige. Status. Celebrity. Whatever you want to call it, once you publish a book, you’re considered an expert. And with that consideration, other perquisites are conferred upon you, especially in your business community.
Speaking Engagements. With your career well underway and your reputation secured and growing as a published author, you’ll now have the chance to share your book with others. There’s an entire network of business clubs, boot camps, groups, cruises, and associations that will offer you an opportunity to sell your wonderful book. You’ll also find book signing and additional speaking opportunities at bookstores, churches, synagogues, and even at your own home when the book makes its debut.
Money. It’s at these speaking engagements that you’ll also have the best opportunity to sell your book. But you’ll also be able to market your book to libraries, stores, book chains, book clubs, and even advertise it in all sorts of publications: newspapers, newsletters, and magazines with their knowledgeable readers, each of whom is a potential customer!
Get Customers. One word is all that’s needed here: Impact. The power that a book exerts on people is awesome. And that power is conferred on the author, too. Books are magnets for customers and clients. People begin to write for information or send thank-you’s almost as soon as the book hits the shelves. Even as a “calling-card” to prospective customers, a book can’t be beat.
As a Thank You. There are many ways to say thank-you and your book will make the perfect statement or gift: as a premium; incentive; “thank-you” at trade shows, conventions, or after business transactions; a present for birthdays, anniversaries, the holidays—absolutely nothing can beat giving out your own book.
Teaching Assignments. It’s amazing how doors swing open in the academic community to anyone who is a published author. This is a world where the phrase “publish or perish” was invented. Consider it a measure of the level of high esteem in which published authors are held. What’s more, as soon as you wind up teaching at one college or university, you’ll wind up teaching at others. If you have a Master’s degree it could lead to a permanent appointment. And all because your book opened the door for you.
Reaching the Media. Whether for personal acclaim or else for your business, a book will give you access to reporters, editors and publishers. It will also automatically put you on their list of “experts,” those people in authoritative positions that they turn to when they need a quote for their articles. Imagine being quoted in newspapers or appearing on cable TV. Other people will begin to quote you. Other authors will seek you out for endorsements for their books. All that publicity will lead to people buying more books, attending your lectures, signing up for your classes, hiring you as a consultant, etc.
To Become a Magazine/Newspaper Contributor. On the other side of the publicity machine, you yourself could wind up becoming a contributor to local newspapers and magazines or perhaps even a regular columnist. As the author of a book, you now have an aura of authority.
For Self-Satisfaction. There is nothing more rewarding than publishing your own book. Nothing in life could possibly give you a greater sense of personal accomplishment. And the truth is that it’s a whole lot easier than you might think.
Control. For some authors, self-publishing may be easier than dealing with a publisher. Some writers want, and seem to enjoy, doing it all: writing, producing, printing, selling, and promoting the book. Self-publishing is often the only way to produce a book or periodical that will live up to your personal standards. Those who self-publish, however, will be spared one burden: they won’t have to start by putting their ideas across to an agent or a publisher. And remember: you can publish pamphlets, greeting cards, poetry, novellas or nonfiction that’s longer than a normal magazine article but shorter than a normal book. Self-publishers can put out magazines that resemble books or books that resemble magazines or works of poetry or pictures. You are not limited to length, color of the paper, price or anything.
Speed. You can start right away and avoid months of agonizing rejections. You could even get your work out in less than 30 days!
Friendship. You can work with many collaborators. Members of the country’s vast small-publisher network are generous with advice and assistance, and joining related associations means making new friends and acquaintances.
Longevity. Publishing houses and bookstores can’t afford to keep slow selling books in circulation for more than 90 days. On the other hand, a self-published work has time to become profitable. You can create a mailing list of names of your book buyers and interested acquaintances. This will give you a ready-made market not only for further sales of material you’ve already produced, but for all your future projects as well.
Personal Development. You will be personally challenged in ways that you have never dreamed of before. You’ll learn skills that involve art, design, writing, software, computer hardware, lecturing, teaching, communicating and, above all, self-discipline.
To Get a Publishing Contract. Incredible as it may seem, according to front-page articles in Publishers Weekly, Newsday, Variety, The New York Times, and Writer’s Digest Magazine, the chances of you landing a publishing deal are increased immeasurably if you first self-publish your own book. In today’s competitive market, it’s simply not enough to send out a query letter or send out a roughly-typed manuscript. Publishers won’t spend money on editing, proofreading and costly cover design if they can avoid it. Both agents and publishers need to see something concrete. They need to know that you can deliver the goods and understand the intricacies of the business. In fact, the best time to get picked up by a publisher is after you’ve established yourself as a player—then you negotiate with them from a position of strength and insist they give you the red-carpet treatments they give to their big-name authors.
Publications like Publishers Weekly, Writer’s Digest and Variety are all reporting how common it has become for self-publishers to land mega-dollar advances and publishing deals: self-publishers. These savvy do-it-yourselfers are being snapped up by the mainstream publishing houses in unprecedented numbers. That alone makes this the time to self-publish.
Don’t let this trend pass you by. Every week another independent author is being awarded a five-, six- or seven-figure advance. Every day another self-published book breaks out into the public spotlight and is then bought by a mainstream publishing house.
It makes perfectly good sense. By picking up a self-published book, a publisher picks up a marketable, polished, store-quality book with an existing track record. That’s the real attraction of self-published books: the publisher doesn’t have to do any work and takes little financial risk. For an added bonus, they’re getting an author who knows the publishing business and is willing to do what it takes to promote his or her book.
Sales representatives for the largest publishing companies including Bantam, Crown, Delacorte, HarperCollins, Morrow, Penguin, Pocket Books, Putnam, Random House, Simon & Schuster, Warner and many others, are scouring bookstores, libraries, seminars and lecture circuits, local papers and offbeat publications for leads to promising self-published books.
Publishers are willing to pay huge advances to self-publishers primarily because they figure that the author is making a lot of money (whether true or not) selling the book on his or her own and would be unwilling to give up that income for a paltry offer. The assumption on the part of these publishing execs is that as an independent, the author is retaining anywhere from 40% to 100% of the sales price of the book. With a book priced at $20 and a unit cost of $5, an author can make $15 per book or $75,000 on a small print run of 5,000 copies. With numbers like that, mainstream publishers are forced to come up with the money.
What captivated Reverand about The Woman Who Lives in the Earth was the quality of the volume itself. “It doesn’t take very long to look at something and see whether it’s just amateurish or something that’s really in earnest,” she says.
Simon & Schuster associate editor Laurie Chittenden observes that a self-published book that has already found its own regional niche is often a low-risk investment for a mainstream house. “Publishing is never entirely risk free, but if its had a successful test run, there’s a little more security there.”
As the editor who discovered The Christmas Box, Chittenden knows that prospecting for self-published books is an invaluable way to scout product other editors might not have seen. “It’s a way to find projects,” she says. “As a young editor you don’t get that many submissions from agents.”
Chittenden recently signed self-published writer Franklin White to a two-book deal after meeting the author in a monthly “Ask the Editor” discussion group she hosts on America Online. White had already sold several thousand copies of his first novel, “Fed Up With the Fanny,” in the Atlanta area. But Chittenden says such sales figures, which often can’t be verified, matter less to an editor than “the quality of the book and the market that propels it.”
Carole DeSanti, editor at large at Penguin Putnam, who counts among her authors such frontlist novelists as Terry McMillan and Dorothy Allison, is quick to point out that the emergence of self-published authors is beneficial to trade publishers, not simply because they may nurture the bottom-line, but because they democratize the publishing process. “Historically it has been an elitist and somewhat closed process. These books are doing that. They’re finding a way around the New York publishing cabal.”
Success Can Be Yours
It may not happen your first time out of the chute, but it’s possible. In fact, it’s being done every day. And with the know-how you’ll get from this book, what might ordinarily take you 18 months could now take only 90 days. Even if it takes you 500 hours and you wind up making only $10 per hour, wouldn’t that be great for doing something that you love? In fact, the skills learned by many self-publishers (particularly becoming fluent in the various publishing software packages and computer software) can lead to new and better-paying jobs.
The world of self-publishing is expanding every day. Today it’s a $5 billion industry. There are about 45,000 author-publisher firms (150,000 new titles), over 15,000 newsletters, 12,000 advertising newspapers, plus greeting card outfits—you name it. Advantages include: no commissions, no rejection, near-total control, bigger cuts— publishing houses only give authors a royalty percentage—self-publishers get to keep the lion’s share of the profits. The down side is that you’re risking your own money and there are no advances.
Nobody can predict what a book will earn until after it’s self-published. Your first goal might be just to break even, but experience can lead to highly successful follow-up books, editions or issues. You might be able to produce two or even three books or 12 issues of a newsletter each and every year.
It may not be any single title of your books that does really well, but the combined total of all of your books. That grand total could bring you terrific income year after year.
The key thing is that everything is in place—the distribution network, the willingness of stores to try independent titles, and a host of professionals who are at your disposal to make your self-publishing venture as successful as possible.
Helpful Hints
Before deciding to self-publish:
Make sure you’ve had people you trust look over your book. It’s very easy for a writer to suffer from tunnel vision.
Even the best authors have their work checked by others.
Make sure you’re hell-bent on seeing your work published and have the will and the finances to publish and promote it.
Before you make a final decision on your topic, take a look at the types of books being written today.
GETTING PUBLISHED THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY
“Major publishers are taking a keen interest in authors outside the hub of the New York book world…There have been so many hits that have come from self-published books… I really see this as a major trend in publishing.”
—Writer’s Digest Magazine
Since you’re considering self-publishing, it might be helpful to know the rudiments of traditional publishing. You’ll probably find you have numerous misconceptions about how the process works, and even more misconceptions about the benefits of traditional publishing.
The Realities of the Business
You should realize that success is not assured just because someone is picked up by a publisher. Millions of dollars will not automatically flow into the author’s bank account, and fame is probably not around the corner. In fact, most authors find that publishers don’t get behind their books and promote them. Even best-selling, money-making authors have found themselves completely abandoned by their houses.
Why is that?
Let’s start with the basics. The publisher is the one who puts up the money, takes the financial risk, has the book printed and then distributes it to bookstores and libraries.
The publisher operates on only 45% of the retail price of the book—sometimes less. The store gets a 40% discount and if it’s a book chain, the discount increases to 50%. The distributor gets another 15%. In fact, some publishers will offer books to distributors at a 55% or 65% discount if the publisher requires the money faster than the customary 90+ days waiting time.
The nearly 10,000 bookstores have a finite amount of shelf space and can’t display all of the 40,000 (original and reprint) titles published each year by the more than 3,000 publishers, both large, small, and independent. For this reason, publishers concentrate on the books that move the best. Out of every ten books that they produce, only three books sell well, four break even, and three lose money.
Most initial print runs are for 5,000 to 7,000 books. Unfortunately, most books sell a fraction of that. After 90 days they are pulled from bookstore shelves. Then the title remains “in print” (available for sale) for about a year. Rarely, even if the book sells out quickly, will it be reprinted and promoted with additional money from the publisher. Ultimately, the book is pulled off the market and “remaindered” (sold off very cheaply to specialized wholesalers) to make room for new titles.
Most publishers cannot concern themselves solely with whether or not a book is “good;” they are under financial pressure to publish only books that will sell. Therefore, they concentrate on authors with track records, or Hollywood and political personalities who can move books with their names. Only occasionally will they accept a manuscript by an unknown, and then it must be on a topic with a ready and massive audience. A published writer has a much better chance of selling than an unpublished one, regardless of the quality of the work.
Large publishers usually must sell close to 5,000 copies in hardcover to break even. They hope to make additional money on subsidiary rights for the paperback edition, book clubs, or movie rights. They spend next to nothing on promoting most titles, but $30,000 or more on what they are hoping will be a potential blockbuster.
With paperback books, the mainstream publisher looks to sell anywhere from 5,000 to 7,000 copies to break even.
The author receives a 3% to 10% royalty computed on the wholesale price—the discounted price given to bookstores and distributors. Based on a sliding scale, the economics is not encouraging. For example, a print run of 20,000 books (this is an extremely high number, usually given only to authors with proven track records or prompted by pre-publishing advanced sales orders) priced at $9.95 each that sells every copy will net for the publisher around $70,000 (a figure that takes into the various discount arrangements for different distribution and sales outlets: stores, chains, distributors, catalogs, etc.); and the author’s sliding scale royalty on this will add up to only about $7,000 (if we use a generous 10% of the wholesale price). But of course the author won’t see any of that until the royalties exceed the advance. So the profit from royalties is zero.
Imagine this now: the book generates a total gross sale of nearly $200,000 and the author, whose idea, sweat, money invested, and time—perhaps several years—has made this entire enterprise possible, comes away with a paltry $7,000. It doesn’t take a math wiz to calculate that when all is said and done, most authors will work for publishers for two dollars an hour—less than half the minimum wage! (You could be flipping burgers in McDonald’s and make more money.)
That’s why so many writers are turning to self-publishing—they can do a better, more effective job publishing and promoting their own books and get to keep the lion’s share of the profits.
More Myths of Traditional Publishing
Self-publishing came into its own for two main reasons:
1) agents and publishers have long been notorious for rejecting great book ideas; and 2) many writers had misconceptions and illusions associated with traditional publishing.
As most unpublished authors soon realize, the attitude of most publishers is not what you know or whom you know but rather how many people you know and how much press attention you can command. That’s why the plethora of celebrity books.
Still, many authors see the mainstream publishing houses as a way to realize their dreams. Or as a way to get rich quick. And who can blame them with all those enticingly big dollars bandied about in the media. However, if you don’t have any track record—something self-publishing can do for you—the reality for most first-timers is bleak.
Here are a few more misconceptions and the realities:
Guaranteed success? Actually, only 1 out of 600 proposed books even makes it to print. The number of published books that soar to the lofty heights of the best-seller lists are so few that it’s heartbreaking. A quick tour of The New York Times bestseller lists for fiction and non-fiction may count as few as 400 books in any given year. Remember: that’s 300 out of a total 40,000 published. Need we say more?
Big advances? Keep dreaming. The average advance nowadays is zero. And even if you’re lucky enough to wangle an advance out of these tightwads, it’s not usually more than $2,500.
High royalties? Nope, try 3% of the retail price; authors usually get a percentage of the wholesale price— not retail—after the advance is recouped.
The publisher handles all the arrangements? Publishers basically only pay for printing and the smallest effort required to promote and distribute the least number of books it takes to make what they think the book can ultimately sell—it could actually cost you thousands for editing, proofreading, buying rights to photos, etc.
National publicity and celebrity? According to a recent article in New York Magazine, publishers do little, if anything in the way of publicizing and promoting books— it’s up to each individual author to really do the hard selling, and that alone could cost you thousands of dollars for all publicity, advertising, etc. For some people, that is reason enough to self-publish.
You’re in charge? Have you ever heard of somebody paying an employee to boss them around? Of course not. You’re actually no more than an employee of the publisher—in fact less than that. The publisher’s the boss. Most publishers are infamous for not returning phone calls, ignoring any editorial changes and proofreading corrections that the author makes, and not paying publicity outlays made by the author. Even when it comes to cover selection, the publisher is the one in charge. That’s absolutely true. If the publisher picks a rotten cover that you don’t like and know won’t sell, well, that’s just too bad.
Fast production time? Even if you can find an agent and publisher interested in your work (and factoring in the time it takes to find one), you could be looking at two to three years until your book is in the stores.
Big print runs? They will print the minimum number of books it takes to recoup their profit. Average is only 3,000 books.
Major sales? Most books sell 1,000 copies—even hot topics and celebrity books don’t do much better than 10,000 copies.
Long shelf life? Sorry—only 90 days for most books put out by mainstream publishers. Why? They have to make room for their next crop of books. After 90 days, you and your book are history.
Greg Gattuso, the author of The Seinfeld Universe, speaks for many writers who were originally published by a mainstream outfit only to be dissillusioned. In fact, speak to many first-time authors with publishers and the majority seem to be filled with dissappointment.
The biggest gripes that first-time authors have with publishers boil down to the following complaints:
Lack of courtesy including never returning phone calls.
Total confusion or complete indifference to their book
No marketing
Incompetent proofreading
Horrible cover design
Slow payment
Discrepancies in royalty payments
Poor sales
Ridiculously little money
Small Presses
As a self-publisher, you are, in fact, a small press.
The term, however, refers to houses that usually specialize in certain areas such as technical books, regional books, poetry, how-tos and so on. The royalty rates of small publishers are the same as those offered by big publishers. However, small presses are often new at the trade and have yet to expand beyond one or two lines of books (most publish fewer than 25 titles per year and have gross revenues under $400,000). What this often means is that they don’t have the finances to create sustained national marketing campaigns—and so once again the marketing of the books is up to the authors.
Most authors will agree that small publishers are usually nice to deal with and provide personal attention, but they are faced with many of the same economic problems as larger publishers. To find a small press, consult Dustbook’s International Directory of Little Magazines and Small Presses. Look for a publisher who specializes in your type of book.
Literary Agents
They may make manuscript suggestions, negotiate the contract and try to sell the book to one of their many contacts. About half of all literary agents will not read manuscripts by unpublished authors and four out of five will not even answer query letters from them.
Sadly, a growing number of once “reputable” agents are charging a reading fee. They now make their money on these fees, not from placing the manuscripts. Some will prey upon your desperation and claim that they specialize in assisting first-time authors. Stay away! To reach a legitimate agent, send a query letter and a one-page synopsis. The letter should describe the book, its intended market (as well as a marketing plan) and your background plus experience. Always ask permission to send the entire manuscript. To find literary agents, look into Agents of North America, Author Aid/Research Associates International, Box 6503, Grand central Post Office, New York, NY 101636022, and The Society of Authors’ Representatives, P.O. Box 650, New York, NY 10113.
Vanity and Subsidy Publishers
These guys are really nothing more than very slick printing plants with viciously clever advertising campaigns. They prey on your hopes, desperation, naivete, and, yes, even your vanity. Many of these businesses deceptively advertise in the Yellow Pages under “Publishers.” Real publishers never advertise for manuscripts.
Turning to vanity, subsidy or “cooperative” presses— notorious for high prices and poor quality—can lead to disastrous results. Vanities retain all rights, share in the profits, and will usually only print a minimum of 1,000 books or more. You’ll almost never be able to do a smaller print run.
In addition to charging high prices for poor-quality work, vanities typically ship only half the books you pay for, claiming, untruthfully, that the rest will be distributed as review and promotional copies. Promises of national publicity and marketing almost NEVER happen—it’s only a gimmick!
Vanities will often snag the unsuspecting first-time author with well-placed classified ads reading “To the author…” or “Manuscripts wanted by…” The ads easily catch the eye of the author with a book-length manuscript. Other times they’ll buy your name from list brokers that have gotten your name from the copyright office in Washington, DC. But they won’t admit that, usually. Instead, they’ll intimate that they came across your manuscript, heard about it, or else it was referred to them. The fact is that they never, ever saw it.
The promotional package that you’ll receive will often be impressive looking, with newspaper articles, wildly enthusiastic endorsements and even some book covers and catalogs.
They’ll offer a free (no obligation) manuscript evaluation. Usually vanity and subsidy houses wait until you’ve begun corresponding with them to mention their fee. They’ll give you a song and dance about the rough economics of the industry and then regrettably, perhaps even apologetically, they will ask for your financial help in bringing your book to market.
Vanity presses and subsidy publishers always accept a manuscript for publication. They’ll send you back a letter praising the quality of your writing in such glowing terms you’ll think you’re the next William Faulkner. They’ll tell you to begin thinking about your nationwide TV and radio publicity tour and to start creating all your PR and advertising copy. Some go so far as to actually send you the contract in the mail. It won’t be until the middle of the contract that you’ll come upon this infamous clause: “The author agrees to purchase 500 copies of the book at full retail cost.”
Vanity publishers offer the most basic of publishing services, but the author invests the money. Under this arrangement, the author pays the full publishing costs (more than just the printing bill) and receives 40% of the retail price of the books sold. The cost starts at $10,000 and hidden fees can cause costs to skyrocket to $25,000 or more—some estimate $50 per printed page.
And remember, this is just for printing and a very feeble, minuscule attempt at promotion. The vanity publisher may claim they’ll furnish all the regular publishing services including promotion and distribution, but they rarely deliver the promotions they promise and the books rarely return any money on the dollar invested. In fact, nearly all of vanity books lose money. They may include your title in their catalog or from time to time run a “tombstone” ad, a laundry list of titles that get only a few lines of description and usually no picture of the cover. This type of advertising does little to sell books. It’s really a game vanity and subsidy publishers play so authors will think they’re legitimate.
Vanities may mention other authors they’ve published who’ve had tremendous financial success. What they don’t mention is that these authors had to promote their books largely on their own. The truth is, on the rare occasion when a book produced by a vanity press makes it into the hands of a reviewer, it usually ends up straight in the trash bin. Kirkus or Publishers Weekly will never review a vanity title.
Since the vanity press takes its money up front by getting you to pay all the costs of editing, typesetting, proofreading and printing, it has no stake in your success. If your book actually earns anything, they’ll take a cut of the revenue from sales and they’ll charge you half the retail price of the book for any copies you buy over and above the allotment mentioned in your contract.
Vanity publishers can get your book into print, but they do little else, and there are far less expensive ways to go. It would make more sense to contract with a book packager to handle the whole job or a book printer or even a regular local printer who has the equipment to print books. Publishing yourself should save 75% over vanity publishing.
How to Submit Your Manuscript
If you’re still determined to get somebody else to publish your book, then do things the right way and save yourself a lot of time, effort, and money on copying and postage costs. Never send chapters to a publisher without sending a query first.
A query is simply a letter that asks editors whether they’d be interested in the work you’re planning or have already produced. Remember to be enthusiastic! State your specific idea. Using a title that conveys the essence of your story will be helpful. Explain your approach (how-to, first-person narrative, etc.) and style (informal and chatty or scholarly and critical). Indicate how what you have to say is fresh and different from other things already in print. Cite your sources. Will you conduct interviews, use case studies, or work from historical documents? Mention your connections and qualifications. Don’t forget to include the word count.
If the publisher is interested they’ll ask you to enclose a sample of your text (usually 20 to 30 pages) along with a chapter-by-chapter breakdown or synopsis. Always double-space your manuscript and don’t use fancy fonts— agents and editors are used to seeing the Courier font, so it’s best not to deviate from the norm. Send whatever chapter or excerpts will reflect your book’s content and style most accurately and most favorably. Describe your book well enough so that editors can say to their colleagues, “Here’s a great book proposal!” This same pithy description will be useful in acquainting salespeople with the book. Your title, if it’s catchy or compelling, can be a strong selling point. Give an anecdote or example that illustrates your theme and its significance.
Identify the audience to whom the book is addressed. Identify your markets and suggest ways of reaching them.
For instance, if you’re planning to write about St. Louis architecture, you might mention that you’re willing to approach architects about your book at their upcoming convention and that you’re planning to write some articles for publication in their professional journals around the time the book comes out.
Try a Bound Galley
Appearance counts. As described earlier, a new “old” way to spark the interest of publishers and agents is with a completed, finished book. It’s called a “bound galley” and as time goes on and printing costs drop thanks to “print on demand” it may well replace the traditional manuscript. It’s certainly a lot more pleasing to the eye and as a sales tool it has no peer.
While it’s not a guaranteed way to land a publishing contract, it is a way to stand out from the crowd and it will grab the attention of publishing insiders faster than a sheaf of typed pages.
The Sale
With mainstream publishers, don’t expect much (for most fiction writers and poets, don’t expect anything). Your book is not going to sell 100,000 copies under the umbrella of a royalty house. You’ll be lucky if it sells 2,000. Don’t look for a display ad in The New York Times, because there isn’t going to be one. And no, you won’t get on Today or Oprah. In fact, unless a major book club chooses it or some publisher makes a whopping bid for reprint rights, your book will vanish without a trace three months after publication.
In your wildest dreams, here’s a scenario for how a bestseller might happen:
Editors at a publishing house get hold of a book with bestseller potential—whatever that special something is.
The book gets a double-page spread in their new upcoming catalog. Editors and marketing people begin to
promote it with the major book chains, book clubs, libraries, and other publishing outlets. Blurbs are collected from celebrities the publishers work with, ads are scheduled for PW (Publishers Weekly) and major metropolitan newspapers; and a cross-country tour, complete with radio, TV and national and local print coverage is planned for the author.
In order not to miss the boat (and all the potential money to be made!), booksellers, librarians, reviewers and reprint editors seeing the catalog, the ads, the press releases and hearing the trade gossip, get the word and hurry to leap aboard.
Reviewers review, bookstores and libraries order, and the public buys.
The author appears on radio, television, and gives out hundreds of print interviews that further drive the sales of the book, then kicks back and tries to figure out how to hide all that newfound money from the IRS.
Sounds great, but the chances of that happening are extremely slim.
What’s more likely to happen? Popular lore holds that publishers pay the author 10% of the list (cover) price for each hardcover book sold through regular channels such as book wholesalers, bookstores and libraries. But as we indicated earlier, actual royalties are far less, perhaps as little as half that. In addition, publishers actually pay graduated royalties; that would mean, as an example, for the hardcover edition 10% of the list price on the first 5,000 books sold, 12 % on the next 5,000 and 15% on sales over 10,000. The royalties on textbooks are generally 15% of net (the cover price, less 40%). But since royalties are more often based on net price—not retail price—of the book, the figures we’ve used could actually be cut in half!
The truth is that most publishers would rather not publish hardcovers, because they’re significantly more expensive. Usually only 5,000 to 7,000 books will be printed anyway and most likely only a portion of those will sell.
The reality with softcover books is even more grim. Softcover authors often receive only half of what the hardcover version of the book would command: only 7% of the wholesale price for the first 12,000 sold and just 9% above that number.
The problem here, as with hardcover books, is that if only 2,500 books are sold (which is typical), and the book sells for $7.95 retail, you might realize a grand total of less than $700 for all your hard work. Even in a best case scenario, where an author gets a straight 10% commission on the books sold, the figure wouldn’t amount to more than $2,000. Compare that with $10,000 for a self-published book where the author gets to keep the entire net earnings of the book.
The bet here is that you couldn’t do any worse than that if you were on your own.
You may already be thinking that it just might be wiser to self-publish. And you’re right.
ADVENTURE
When one of the world’s first female commercial airline pilots looked for a publishing company with “the right stuff,” she chose ABI. Captain Meryl Getline and her book have appeared across the nation in newspapers including The Denver Post and USA Today (where she’s now a columnist), on TV shows like The View and at speaking engagements that earn her $7,500 and up—apiece! She then landed a top literary agent and now has a two-book deal with St. Martin’s Press.