You rush to the mailbox and, finally, there it is. The letter from ABC Publishing House you’ve been waiting three months for. You tear it open.
We regret to inform you that your submission does not meet our current needs.
No reason specified.
No problem. There’s DEF Publishing and Agents X, Y, and Z still to try. Unfortunately, all respond with similar enthusiasm and over a year has been wasted. Someone tells you Hemingway received 45 rejections of his first book. It doesn’t help, and finally it dawns that Simon and Schuster will not knock on your door, that you are not going to find a publisher.
It’s a bitter blow. After all that work! So what’s a person to do if he thinks what he’s written is good, or if he’s so narcissistic he has to see his name in print? The answer finally emerges as it has for thousands of others who have produced excellent work: SELF-PUBLICATION!
A minimum search of the internet uncovers dozens of companies, perhaps hundreds, that guarantee to nurse your baby through all the steps required to create a version people can actually buy.
Their pitches indicate how self-publication is the wave of the future, the way to get your book known. Sure, you may be undiscovered now they say, but that’s because the established firms are missing out on a sure thing and self-publication is the road to riches. Hogwash! Oh, a very few are successful, but the sites don’t mention that, of the thousands of books they publish, only a handful make money.
Of course, all charge a fee, with prices, depending on services provided, ranging from a couple of hundred dollars to several thousand. You soon discover that “right at this moment” there is a half-priced sale that will last only until the end of the month. I think that’s when the next sale begins. If you check several sites, you can sometimes play them against each other to get a fairly low price.
How low?
Typically you can get a package that includes cover design (you can supply your own cover if desired), a small number of free books, copyright registration, Library of Congress control number, paperback and ebook versions, and ISBN assignment with listings on online bookstores and major distribution companies for $600 to $800.
Or you can pay considerably less and do more work yourself, such as formatting for the various ebook formats, not an easy task.
Or you can run off copies at your favorite duplicating service.
So you take the plunge, make the sacrifices in order to pay for whatever package you’ve chosen. You take advantage of the publisher’s (not so) good author discount price to buy 50 copies of your newly minted pride. They arrive in two heavy boxes and you feel like it’s your future.
You remove one lovingly, gazing with delight on the cover you had approved. Then on the back is that excellent photo of you, some comments about you, and a hint of the story. It all looks great. Most of the companies do a good job.
And you have 49 other copies waiting for lucky readers.
Who are those readers? Sure, a few friends will buy because they truly are friends. Some may even be happy they did once they read it. But if you’re going to “make money,” you need something more.
What you purchased to produce the book includes no marketing strategy of the type available from a standard publisher. Which means the bulk of the marketing falls on you, and I’ll discuss that next time.
Is it worth it? Depends. For me it is. I have loved producing novels and I would feel all the work was wasted if I didn’t have something tangible at the end.
Besides, the books look great on our coffee table.
We regret to inform you that your submission does not meet our current needs.
No reason specified.
No problem. There’s DEF Publishing and Agents X, Y, and Z still to try. Unfortunately, all respond with similar enthusiasm and over a year has been wasted. Someone tells you Hemingway received 45 rejections of his first book. It doesn’t help, and finally it dawns that Simon and Schuster will not knock on your door, that you are not going to find a publisher.
It’s a bitter blow. After all that work! So what’s a person to do if he thinks what he’s written is good, or if he’s so narcissistic he has to see his name in print? The answer finally emerges as it has for thousands of others who have produced excellent work: SELF-PUBLICATION!
A minimum search of the internet uncovers dozens of companies, perhaps hundreds, that guarantee to nurse your baby through all the steps required to create a version people can actually buy.
Their pitches indicate how self-publication is the wave of the future, the way to get your book known. Sure, you may be undiscovered now they say, but that’s because the established firms are missing out on a sure thing and self-publication is the road to riches. Hogwash! Oh, a very few are successful, but the sites don’t mention that, of the thousands of books they publish, only a handful make money.
Of course, all charge a fee, with prices, depending on services provided, ranging from a couple of hundred dollars to several thousand. You soon discover that “right at this moment” there is a half-priced sale that will last only until the end of the month. I think that’s when the next sale begins. If you check several sites, you can sometimes play them against each other to get a fairly low price.
How low?
Typically you can get a package that includes cover design (you can supply your own cover if desired), a small number of free books, copyright registration, Library of Congress control number, paperback and ebook versions, and ISBN assignment with listings on online bookstores and major distribution companies for $600 to $800.
Or you can pay considerably less and do more work yourself, such as formatting for the various ebook formats, not an easy task.
Or you can run off copies at your favorite duplicating service.
So you take the plunge, make the sacrifices in order to pay for whatever package you’ve chosen. You take advantage of the publisher’s (not so) good author discount price to buy 50 copies of your newly minted pride. They arrive in two heavy boxes and you feel like it’s your future.
You remove one lovingly, gazing with delight on the cover you had approved. Then on the back is that excellent photo of you, some comments about you, and a hint of the story. It all looks great. Most of the companies do a good job.
And you have 49 other copies waiting for lucky readers.
Who are those readers? Sure, a few friends will buy because they truly are friends. Some may even be happy they did once they read it. But if you’re going to “make money,” you need something more.
What you purchased to produce the book includes no marketing strategy of the type available from a standard publisher. Which means the bulk of the marketing falls on you, and I’ll discuss that next time.
Is it worth it? Depends. For me it is. I have loved producing novels and I would feel all the work was wasted if I didn’t have something tangible at the end.
Besides, the books look great on our coffee table.
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