A couple decades ago, there were only two suitable avenues available for an aspiring author: traditional publishing and subsidy (a.k.a. "vanity") publishing. Traditional publishing remains the preferred route, as the large publishing houses have established marketing channels and the power to give your book a better shot at the best-seller list. In addition, the publisher assumes all of the financial risk by paying for editing, typesetting and page composition, warehousing, order fulfillment, accounting, advertising, review copies, and so on. But this means that a traditional publisher, especially in present market conditions, will be hesitant to make that kind of commitment unless you have something exceptional to offer, not only in literary terms but in marketability. It is no coincidence that most new books are written by people who are already successful authors or at least famous for something else. Publishing in general has never been a hugely profitable enterprise, and an unsuccessful book is a serious financial liability.
Subsidy publishing offers an alternative for people who can afford it. It is relatively easy to find a subsidy publisher for whatever you are offering, because you are responsible for all or most of the up-front costs. That's fine if you're already reasonably wealthy and are willing to take the risk, but it's obviously not for everyone. And because subsidy publishers aren't risking much, they have less incentive to promote your book. Most of them come out just fine even if your book doesn't sell at all.
Either way, a huge part of the risk has been the cost of printing. Because the per-unit price for printing and binding a book drops precipitously with larger orders, publishers have found it most economical to order first runs of at least 5,000 units. At, let's say, $6 per unit, that requires an investment of $30,000 plus setup costs, shipping, and storage--perhaps $45,000. Add the pre-press costs and other expenses, and you can easily exceed $50,000 before the first copy is sold.
But a relatively new technology called "print on demand" (POD) has changed things. Because books now can be printed economically in small quantities, even as low as a single copy, it is no longer necessary to lay out huge sums of money to publish a book. This development continues to change the publishing industry in profound ways, not all of which are highly desirable. POD has created a third path to publishing your book: self-publishing. But you need to ask yourself a few questions before choosing that route. Have you ever worked as professional editor? Do you have the knowledge, experience, and required software to create a professional-looking book design? Can you produce print-quality graphics as required for interior and cover art? Are you familiar with copyright laws and other related topics? If not, you will almost certainly end up with a book that reads and looks amateurish and gets murdered by reviewers.
In all likelihood, you will need some guidance and assistance. Unfortunately, virtually anyone with a computer and some rudimentary page layout software can claim to be a "publisher" these days. Hundreds of entities have sprung up, but most have little or no practical experience in the business and are not capable of generating a professional-level product. Just knowing a little more about it than you do might be enough to convince you to sign a contract, but that isn't really good enough. It is therefore highly advisable to understand the basics before deciding how to proceed.
There are three critical steps involved in publishing your book:
Let's take a brief look at each one.
In the publishing industry, editing is not merely a matter of grammar, syntax, and punctuation. For a variety of good reasons, certain conventions have developed over the years and need to be observed. For journals, the AP Stylebook is commonly used. For book publishing, the Chicago Manual of Style has been the "bible" for over 100 years. Spanning 900+ pages, it covers not only such topics as grammar and punctuation, but also the parts and arrangement of a book, rights and permissions, use of numbers, names and terminology, abbreviations, quoted material, illustrations and captions, use of tables, and many other topics. Even if you were an English major, you will not be familiar with most of the styles and conventions observed in book publishing. Before you choose an editor, ask, "How experienced are you with the CMT?" If the answer is, "what's CMT?" find someone else.
This is another step that absolutely should be done by professionals. Before the production process even begins, someone must make a decision about the best layout size for a particular book. Common sizes include (in inches) 5 x 8, 5.5 x 8.5, 6 x 9, 7 x 10, and several others. Other decisions include typefaces used, content of running heads, use of drop folios, headline styles, and so on. Printers have many requirements that must be observed, including minimum margin space, minimum resolution for any included graphics, file formats, and so on. Plus, if your book includes color, you get into issues of color space, saturation, spot versus process color, bleed space, and more. You also must consider that printing a color book costs as much as ten times as much as a B&W one, and your price will need to reflect that. For anything other than very short books, the cost of color can be prohibitive and price your book out of the market. Consider also that software such as MS Word is designed for office automation (hence the Microsoft Office suite's name) but does not provide the sophisticated tools required for books and magazines. Unless you want to buy and learn an application such as Quark, InDesign, or FrameMaker, a professional should do the book layout for you.
And here's the rub. If you are not all that concerned about racking up huge sales figures, that's great--because you probably won't unless you invest some serious time and effort in promoting your book. The new breed of POD publishers proudly proclaim that they will get your book listed in Books in Print and offered by major booksellers. That's nice, but that happens automatically when you obtain an ISBN and send your project off to the printer. Most POD publishers will also provide a web page displaying your book and handling online sales. But if no one visits your page, nothing will happen. The truth is that marketing your book is the most difficult step, and you have to think of ways to break through the background noise. If your book appeals to a certain group of people, you should think of ways to reach them through social networking, professional organizations, and so on. For example, we worked with an author who had written a book on how Chinese culture relates of that of the U.S.A. He worked out a mutually beneficial agreement with a prominent Chinese-American association to offer the book to its members for a cut of the proceeds. It worked well. You can also send copies to reviewers, recruit folks to write favorable reviews on Amazon, participate in book signings, do radio interviews, and so on. In fact, there are several books on the subject of how to sell your self-published book, and they offer some good suggestions. It is entirely possible to generate favorable sales figures and make some money on your work. Just be advised that if you sit back and wait for it to happen automatically, you may be waiting a long time.
So you have decided to move forward. The question is, how do you avoid unscrupulous, pretend publishers who charge outrageous prices for work that is mediocre or worse? How do you avoid sharing your royalties with a company that contributes little or nothing to generating the sales revenues? The answer is to skip over them.
For decades, a little-known segment of the publishing industry, known as "book packagers," has flourished. Dozens of independent packagers provide full-service production to the big publishing houses. For publishers that are based in New York and other large cities where labor and overhead costs are at a premium, packagers offer a less-expensive alternative to in-house operations, with no compromises in quality.
E&C is such a company, and we have been working with many major publishing houses since 1988. The best answer for you may be what we might call "assisted self-publishing." In this approach, you hire a packager to generate the files needed by a POD operation (such as Lightning Source or Lulu), create an account with the printer, and take over from there. There is no markup, no services that you don't need, no contracts, and no royalty sharing.
At E&C, we believe that if you accept all of the risk, you deserve to receive all of the proceeds from your work. We therefore offer royalty-free, straightforward prepress services to authors, including:
You can publish a book under your own personal or company imprint, or use ours. Either way, your book will be listed in the U.S.A. (and the U.K. if you desire) with major vendors and distributors including Amazon, Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble. All royalties are paid directly to you by the printer/distributor. It doesn't get any better than 100%.
To download documents that will assist you in preparing your manuscript and associated artwork for submission, click here.
When you're ready to submit your manuscript, just drop us a line by clicking here: inqu...@jkeckert.com. We'll review the project and provide a personal, no-obligation assessment of the procedures and costs involved.
