Self-publishing gets a lot of bad press because it's seen to be an open expression of vanity with the barely suppressed assumption that you'd only publish something yourself if you couldn't get someone else to do it for you. But there are other very good reasons for considering self-publication.
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The commercial publication route into print requires a publishing house to consider your completed manuscript not just in terms of its writing quality but also in terms of their product fit. If you write something that doesn't fit perfectly with their imprint, they may want major changes, or reject it rather than take a chance. Unless they accept simultaneous submissions, you could be tied up for months waiting for a rejection before being able to submit to another house.
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From submission to appearance could take anything from six months to a couple of years. Anything topical or addressed at a transient market will suffer from such delay.
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The publishing contract for a first time author is most unlikely to earn you very much money. Any advance, which will be small, will be offset by the book's earning and if the book is stocked in bookshops, you'll have to account for the returns as well.
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The royalties you get will be much lower than if you publish it yourself. Publishers keep earning from your book long after they've done any work on it. You could be getting that yourself.
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The design and layout, cover and blurb, may well be largely out of your hands and it's possible you won't agree with it. In addition, the publisher's editors may want to make extensive changes to your text. You'll have to compromise if you want them to publish it.
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Since very many books are now bought online, it is possible to sell books without putting them inside bookshops. The distribution chain doesn't necessarily need to have physical stockpiles. Books can be printed on demand.
Of course, there are advantages to using a commercial publisher because they handle all the production details as well.
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You don't get involved with printers, costings, marketing, advertising, and all that bureaucratic stuff.
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They manage the distribution chain, getting your work into bookshops.
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They provide editorial support, checking your manuscript, proof-reading, style advice, and encouragement.
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For successful books, they will also seek out translation rights and foreign markets.
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They ensure the book is widely listed in catalogues.
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You might get a small advance.
But you have to weigh up these services based on the likely sales. If you think most of your books will be bought online, then putting them in bookshops is less important. And given the competition for shelf-space, you have to decide how likely it will be that your book will sell well in that environment. There could be returns which will eat into your earnings.
How do you go about publishing a book for yourself? Well, that starts really from the point when the book is nearly finished. You are taking on the role of editorial and production staff in a publishers so you'll need to take responsibility for designing and laying out the book, finding a printer and choosing one or more distribution channels. You'll want to get it listed in books databases, and you'll need to comply with the law in your country – publishing a book requires it to have an ISBN number and at least one copy will need to be given free to some depository. Getting allocated the ISBN numbers is a story in itself and, depending on the country you are in, can be easy or more difficult. You'll also have to take responsibility for checking anything you write for libel and defamation so you'll end up reading documents about it.
Fortunately, there are companies around (Lulu.com and Lightning Source for example) that will help with self-publishing. Companies such as Lulu.com will even provide the ISBN (which makes them the publisher not you). They generally work by offering a print on demand service (POD) so that if someone orders your book on Amazon, they print just that copy and dispatch it. You get the wholesale price less the production cost. Generally you make a lot more per copy than going through a commercial publisher, but the sales may well be lower. It's a trade off.
But for a first-time author, it's well worth investigating. The increased control can mean less hassle providing you are organised. You will have to buy the ISBN numbers, and there will be some set up costs, but it's a simple financial model. You can eliminate returns and there won't be stocks of remainders floating around. It's more work, and the only support is what you can garner personally but it's also more control and a very much faster editorial and production cycle. Because of the better margin, it's a viable model with low volume sales.
But at the same time, editorial skills are exactly that – skills. You need to be adept at using a word processor to produce a publishable document, including running heads, perhaps contents and indexes, and pagination. You'll need to understand document formats and be able to convert them. You'll have to produce the cover so graphic design comes in, and you'll need to understand the technology associated with colour images. You'll need to understand something about the physical sizing of pages and be able to keep everything consistent. For fiction books that's less of a problem but if your book contains diagrams or pictures, the flow of text also needs to be controlled.
Production skills are largely, but not entirely transferred to the POD company but you take the risk. Once you have delivered the document, you get what you submitted, or pay for the changes. POD companies have very strict criteria for the source files so you need to be on the ball. It's important to be meticulous, sometimes quite difficult after the long sustained effort of writing a book.
I'm having a crack at it myself, and I'll report my experiences as we go along.
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Hi William,
The cover is probably the most difficult bit to get right with LS but I think the best think is to bite the bullet, register with LS. If you know the paper weight you want to use (LS gives you tables to choose from) and the number of pages, you can enter this into an online tool at LS and download a template.
I opened it in GIMP (at 300dpi) and then added the graphics in layers. The trick is that once you've positioned all your stuff, to remove the layer that LS provided which contains the guides. Then flatten the layers into a single one and save it. I then used a Linux utility to convert the graphics file to pdf with no problems.
Your article on lightning source got me inspired to try this. I wrote a mystery novel that, after converting it from MS Word to a pdf via Open office, came out to around 300 pages.
I was wondering if you know of a website where I can practice making the cover? I'm loath to actually contact LS before I'm certain that I can prepare the print ready files. I've heard somewhere that it might be a good idea to publish first on LULU, take the "only for me" option, and then when the proofs are satisfactory retire the book and head to LS. I'm just afraid there may be some other claim that LULu might have on the book, if I did that tho.
Anyway any references to where I could practice the cover design would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
William