The Cruel Paradox of Self-Publishing - Atlantic's Take on Changes in the Industry

Ouch. What a title. It certainly got my attention as I was searching for something else. After reading the article, I had to agree with some of the author's points, but not all.

The story is worth reading but I believe is written from the viewpoint of traditional publishing that is only beginning to realize self-publishing could potentially become a major competitor to the traditional publishing houses.

The story, I believe, was probably written due to the fact Penguin Group has purchased Author Solutions Inc, for $100 million dollars. Somebody at the Atlantic took notice. When that amount of money changes hands, it does generate some attention.

Yes, most self-publishing authors sell fewer than 150 copies of their books. I have several that certainly fall into that category. I also have several that have sold thousands of copies and for a niche non-fiction market, I think that speaks well for those books.

Digital publishing has changed the game. Print-on-demand, Amazon's Kindle, the Nook, Google Books and ebooks in general have leveled the playing field a bit for authors.

No longer is the question "how do you get published?" Now the question is "how do your self-publish?" The advantages can be considerable.

The challenges are also considerable and perhaps that is the value in reading the Atlantic's article if you are considering self-publishing.

For those of you who are up to the challenge, the real question to ask is not "how do you self-publish" but rather, I believe, "how do you market a book?!" 

Just as important a question to consider is print-on-demand versus ebooks and Kindle versus Nook. Which digital format to use?

Self-publishing is a business. Books need to be sold in order for them to be read.

Professional eBook Conversion versus DIY - Self-Publishers Beware

Self-publishers by necessity are willing to take on nearly every task required in the process of publishing their book. Sometimes the results of those efforts are books that are less than professional in appearance.

As ebook reading devices and apps improve with each generation so does the need for well produced ebooks. As the users of ebook reading devices such as the Kindle and the Nook become more familiar with consuming books using the technology, they are also becoming more discerning when it comes to the quality of the interior design of ebooks.

Readers are able to spot poorly done book designs by self-publishing authors and are starting to do the same with Kindle and other ebooks. Spend some time reading one-star reviews of a range of Kindle books and you will find many of the reviews are not about the quality of the story or information but rather a condemnation of the formatting of the book.

The number of books available, in Kindle format no less, describing "easy" conversion methods to produce Kindle books are quite numerous. Having purchased quite a few of them myself, I can say I am no closer to being able to produce a Kindle edition that looks, or works, like I want it to.

There are certainly authors who self-publish who are perfectly capable of not only designing a nice interior for an ebook, but doing the conversion work. From what I have been able to learn, most of the authors who possess this skill are either knowledgeable in HTML or are well versed in computers.

While money is certainly an issue for self-publishing authors, this is one of those instances where "doing it yourself" in order to not spend money may cost money in the long run.

Just as paying for editing and professional design for a print edition is a wise investment, so it having your ebook professionally formatted as well. Of the 14 books I have available, all but one have earned back the cost of conversion and that lone title is close to earning out its production cost as I write.

As J.A. Konrath, one of the foremost advocates of self-publishing using Kindle, likes to say "ebooks are forever!" Investing money in having your book(s) professionally converted is a wise decision.

I use eBook Architects and have used the Kindle conversion service of CreateSpace. I prefer eBook Architects for my books with graphics and photographs and use their services for all my books now. CreateSpace has done a good job with my books that were text only and the pricing is reasonable.

eBook Architects also warranties their work with the QED quality seal of approval, the only conversion service I have found that does so.

Trends, Reviews, Information and Some Self-Publishing History in the Making

I regularly read several blogs by individuals who are authorities on self-publishing, book marketing or book design in hopes of learning as much as possible. All of the individuals whose posts are referenced here and linked to are not only experts in the field, but are successful and experienced self-publishers themselves.

From Joel Friedlander's The Book Designer: The Biggest Secret of Book Marketing Success

http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2012/09/biggest-secret/#more-23674

An interesting post about book marketing. Joel reveals the method of book marketing that will produce the absolute best results.

From Aaron Shepard's Publishing Blog: Stumbling on Hyphenation

http://www.newselfpublishing.com/blog/#Wordhyphenation

A review of Microsoft's Word 2011 by Aaron, who among other things, is the author of Perfect Pages, and extremely proficient in the use of Word to lay-out book interiors for use in POD publishing. In this review, Aaron focuses primarily on the problems with the hyphenation feature of the 2011 version of Word.

From Aaron Shepard's Publishing Blog: Counting on Amazon

http://www.newselfpublishing.com/AmazonCounting.html

For you coding fans and anyone who sells their book on Amazon, this blog is worth reading. Aaaron examines the inner workings of many of the marketing tools for authors on Amazon. A blog post well worth reading from one of the experts in book marketing using Amazon.

Morris Rosenthal's Self-Publishing 2.0:  The Decade of POD Publishing Gives Way to eBooks

http://www.fonerbooks.com/selfpublishing/?p=2101

I wrote about this post a bit earlier this week and linked to it. Thought provoking look at the changing nature of the industry of self-publishing as it relates to the technology of print-on-demand and ebooks.

From Dana Lynn Smith's The Savvy Book Marketer: Free Images for Your Blog or Website


http://bookmarketingmaven.typepad.com/book_marketing_maven/2012/09/where-to-find-free-images-for-your-blog-and-website.html

Free is good! Ms. Smith provides information about locating images for use to improve blogs and websites that cost nothing for the user.

Has POD Run It Course? Are eBooks the New POD for Self-Publishers?

Morris Rosenthal, one of the leaders in the print-on-demand business model for self-publishers, has written a very thought provoking post on his self-publishing blog about the POD business model he helped foster and promote. Rosenthal's piece, The Decade of POD Publishing Gives Way to eBooks, is a summary of his latest thinking about the world of self-publishing. 

In February of this year I wrote a less insightful post, Does POD Still Have a Place in Self-Publishing, that poses the same question Mr. Rosenthal is attempting to answer.

Technology has certainly changed how we consume our reading material and readers seem to be embracing the new ereader devices. This past Christmas season Amazon's Kindle was the most gifted item from retailers.

While the Kindle (and Nook) boom is great for authors who self-publish due to the increased access to readers and ability to experiment with pricing for best results, what place does paper edition books occupy in a business plan for a self-publishing author?

Just 18 months ago if I had been asked should an author bring out an ebook edition I would have responded with an unequivocal yes, but after the print version. Now I would advise either a simultaneous release or the release of the ebook version first. Some experts, which I am not, are starting to advocate releasing the ebook version and waiting to see if there is demand for the POD version.

For now, the type of non-fiction books I write are best served, for the most part, with paperback editions due to the graphics and photographs. Ebooks simply are not quite as good yet as traditional paper books in this area, though the technology is improving in leaps and bounds. Once the technology catches up, I am fairly certain I will follow the trend of ebook first and POD later, if ever.

For now, every author probably has a different experience, based on genre and type of interior the book has or must have. Do what fits your business model the best and will generate the most sales or the highest level of revenue.

At any rate, read what Morris has to say about the subject. It will make you think about the future of your self-publishing business.

Google Books and Self-Publishing - Why Not?

You don't read a lot about Google Books, or at least I haven't in the blogs and message boards about self-publishing that I frequent. Like many things in the self-publishing world, selling your books on Google Books means you, the author and publisher, will have to do all the work to get things set up so your books are available for sale.

Some quick research yielded the fact that Google Books uses the ePUB format. Since I have a number of books in the ePUB format (I use eBook Architects to convert my print POD titles to Kindle editions. eBook Architects also includes an ePUB version as part of the conversion. You pay the same price regardless of which version you want.) it won't cost me a dime to experiment with having a few titles available for sale through Google Books.

I don't want to pull sales away from Amazon so for the moment I don't plan on promoting the fact the books are available from Google. I am curious to see how well Google will promote the books without any effort on my part.

Some advantages I see in partnering with Google to sell ebook versions of several of my titles:

1. Hands off sales, publishing and payment.
2. I already have ePub versions of several titles ready so there will be NO COST to list my titles.
3. Google is the dominant search engine at the moment.

There is always "legal stuff" and I have learned you need to pay attention to this stuff. The legal page is pretty long and the wife is going through all of the fine print.

Here is the direct link to the page with the electronic agreement to partner with Google Books:

https://books.google.com/partner/google-edition 

Take the time to read this.

Entering your titles is easy enough. Here is a screen shot of the page you will list your books.

 

Actually loading the book files has been problematic as I get an error message. I know for a fact there is nothing wrong with the files as they all work fine. My youngest daughter has a Barnes and Noble Nook and I use it to test all my Nook editions when they become available from Barnes and Noble.

If I cannot resolve this issue I will send Google physical copies of the books and my guess is Google will scan the books in.

 

I am not going to spend a lot of time trying to figure out what the issue is. I have perfectly good proof copies laying around so I may just send those to Google. Google provides instructions on how to do this as well as a shipping label that can be printed for ease of shipping.

In order to do all of this you will need to have a Google Account. Since I use Google Analytics for my website and other blogs, I already have an account. If you have a blog and have Google Ads you already have an account as well. 

Google will pay by check via snail mail or electronic deposit. If you choose the later you have to provide Google with your banking information so the electronic deposit can be made.

Once I have these five books loaded up and available for sale I will track how things go for three for four months and then evaluate if I should add more books to the program.

I will be sure to comment on what I learn.  As always, if any readers of this blog have any experience using this venue to sell books, please post a comment elaborating what you feel is valuable information to any other author who might want to sell books this way.

Aiming at Something Other Than Amazon?

Aiming at Amazon, POD for Profit by Aaron Shepard and Print-on-Demand Book Publishing by Morris Rosenthal should be required reading for authors considering self-publishing. While things have changed in the industry significantly since these two books have been published, these three books are still excellent primers on the business of self-publishing and developing a market strategy.

Successful self-publishers have found numerous ways to market and sell their books. Aaron Shepard's strategy outlined in Aiming at Amazon focuses on "aiming" sales at Amazon, allowing Amazon's sales and marketing machine do much of the "heavy lifting" of promoting the book. This approach has the added benefit if POD or Kindle ebooks are the format your books are published with of Amazon doing all the collection funds, shipping of books, etc, leaving you the author free to write and engage in marketing efforts rather than fulfillment of orders and bookkeeping.

Mr. Shepard's basic premise in Aiming at Amazon is by directing all sales to Amazon and using POD for publishing, the author does not have to deal with fulfillment, collection of payment, maintaining inventory or many of the other potential drawbacks of self-publishing. Once the book has been set up for POD the author can focus on marketing and have the money deposited in the bank once a month.

Why direct sales to Amazon? In addition to the aforementioned services there is the advantage of the Amazon long tail, the effect of Amazon's search engine and software helping potential buyers of your book find your book (If you are considering self-publishing and can only buy one book to research the industry, Aiming at Amazon is the one to buy).

Does this mean authors should avoid selling their books via other avenues. Not at all. I sell books on Barnes and Noble, Amazon Europe and a specialty retailer. But I direct all of my sales to Amazon and Mr. Shepard's approach has worked extremely well for me, particularly with the Kindle editions of my books. If I were to direct sales to Barnes and Noble and the specialty retailer though, I would lose much of the impact of the concept of pushing sales to Amazon to encourage the Amazon machine to push and promote my book(s). The more a title sells, the more Amazon promotes it.

Still, there are lucrative markets out there that I, as a niche market author, would like to tap into. Libraries are one such market. Selling one or two copies of a book at a time to a library does not sound like it would be very profitable concerning the amount of effort and time it would take. I would earn more money over the long haul by spending that time writing more books.

Thus the question of how to sell my book to libraries? Book distributors who deal with libraries! While I have not had a lot of time to spend researching this, I have managed to find a couple of distributors who serve the library market. Here is my list so far:

http://www.brodart.com/
http://www.quality-books.com/
http://www.midwestls.com/

As I investigate and pursue this possible avenue for sales, I will share what I learn here at The Self-Publisher's Notebook.

I would love for anyone who had had success selling books to libraries through a distributor or through direct sales efforts, please post a comment and share your experiences with the readers here so we can all benefit.

Not Spending Money is Not the Same as Saving Money When It Comes to Self-Publishing

Very few self-publishers have a lot of extra cash just laying around when starting their fledgling publishing empire. Keeping costs at an absolute minimum is essential for the business (always remember self-publishing is a business) to succeed.

There are so many ways to waste money in self-publishing it is not possible to list all of the money wasters on this blog. 

But not spending money to "save money" can be just as big a trap for some self-publishers. Since I only seem to learn lessons the hard way, I probably should not kick myself too hard. Still, those lessons came at the price of lost sales, time and effort wasted and the very money I was trying to save being spent anyhow.

You don't have to be lavish and spend "top dollar" to get quality results as a self-publisher. You do need to do your homework, have a plan and shop for the best deal.

Four tasks you should pay to have a professional do for you:

1. Editing your manuscript - it is the best investment in your book you will make
2. Have a professional cover created by an experienced cover designer - people do judge books by the cover
3. Hire a professional to do your ebook conversion. You won't be sorry. I recommend eBook Architects. 
4. Consider having a book designer do your interior. Of the four things listed here, this is the one you might be able to get away with but the learning curve for this is really steep. Buy Aaron Shepard's Perfect Pages if you want to go this route.

If you can only afford one of the above four, pay for the editing.

Hiring a book consultant can be money well spent as well but be careful to discuss terms up front and be very specific in what you need and want help with.

Joel Freidlander who writes the The Book Designer blog not only will design your book but also has online classes covering nearly every topic a self-publishing author needs to learn about.

There is plenty of work you have to do yourself as a self-publishing author. A great deal of that work is of such a nature that mistakes won't kill your enterprise. But a less than ideally edited and produced book can make all of the rest of your efforts a waste of time.

Spend wisely and on things that matter. Learn to do the rest yourself until you can afford to pay someone to do the other work. Why pay someone else? So you have time to write your next masterpiece!