Is Self Publishing Worth the Price? 69
vonFinkelstien asks: "I have written an adolescent novel and am having trouble getting it published. I have recently started looking at self-publishing, print-on-demand firms like Trafford or the many listed at pdfcreator. Trafford looks legitimate and offers a discount for those who do the layout themselves (I would use LaTeX). But the 'Bestseller Package' (which offers some promotional support) still costs $1399 when you create the layout yourself. Are such services worth the high initial cost ($500-$2000)? If any of you could give your experiences with or advice about these companies, I and other aspiring authors would be grateful."
iUniverse (Score:4, Informative)
One question (Score:3, Insightful)
Major publishers wine and dine the distributors, pushing hard to get their titles pushed out to the bookstores. The distributors won't listen to some nobody press without a large promotional package or a hot and controversial title.
Without distributors' backing, do you honestly plan to sit down and call all the stores yourself? Are you okay with just selling a couple dozen copies on the web and in Amazon marketplace outside the main book searches and such?
Re:One question (Score:3, Informative)
On the other hand, if you're talking about national distribution, you're not going to get into the biggest channels unless you're working with a major publishing house.
LaTeX? (Score:5, Funny)
I have written an adolescent novel and am having trouble getting it published.
Trafford looks legitimate and offers a discount for those who do the layout themselves (I would use LaTeX).
How many equations are you planning on putting in this 'adolescent novel' anyhow? And you're wondering why you're 'having trouble getting it published'?
"I'm not so sure we should be doing this. We'd better turn back!" Molly exclaimed.
Sarah curled her lip in her characteristic unconscious show of displeasure. "I can't believe our one weekend away from our parents and you want to stop now! If you want to chicken out then go right ahead! But I'm going to \partial \rho \over \partial t + \nabla \dot u = 0 and that's all there is to it!"GMD
Re:LaTeX? (Score:3, Informative)
Oddly, the linked Trafford page uses Javascript to disable right-clicking. I can't
Re:LaTeX? (Score:2)
Re:LaTeX? (Score:2)
Latex is actually an excellent way to get high quality PDFs with proper typesetting (spacing, hyphenation, ligatures) and fancy stuff like drop caps, even if you never enter math mode once. I used it for the novel I wrote [tom7.org] for this year's Nanowrimo, and I'd definitely recommend it!
Golden Pillar? (Score:2)
But you're going to have to push your book. Best model is, self-publish, sell 1k copies, use that to shop the book (or similar books) to publishers as a way to differentiate you from the usual slush pile-- you're proven slush!
For game publishers, mind you, GRG started a se
Don't know if it's what you're looking for.... (Score:2)
Ask localroger (Score:1)
Posting other material you've written makes good advertising.
You might not wish to, but I'm sure some of his sales came from the fact you can read the whole thing at http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/
SFWA (Score:4, Informative)
Don't Self Publish (Score:2)
As a result you are basically out your money.
If you can't sell it to a publisher... (Score:2, Insightful)
Self-publishing will mean a garage full of books. Sure, there are rare exceptions - the Celestine Prophecy dude - but they're exceptions. Are you really planning on driving around to book stores, spending time with the manager, giving him b
Re:If you can't sell it to a publisher... (Score:1)
The only successful vanity press I ever see is stuff that is infomercial material. Weight loss... Make money, here's how... etc..
Anything else is a severe uphill battle.
The poetry anthologies are more akin to naming a star, or other vanity things. It's more for your own gratification, than any serious literary meaning. The winners of the contest
Re:If you can't sell it to a publisher... (Score:2)
(c)
1. Move to Manhattan.
2. Get any job you can at a publisher.
3. Have plenty of cash ($50k/year should do it), so you can go to the right bars/parties after work, with the right editors, reviewers, and authors.
4. Be witty, irreverent, clever, but not too full of yourself that you annoy the shit out of everyone. Make friends with all of the people that will one be in a position to edit, recommend, or review yo
Re:If you can't sell it to a publisher... (Score:1)
There may be three reason no publisher wants it. (Score:4, Informative)
Should you self publish? Only if you consider writing your hobby and then see it as a one time splurge never to be recooped.
If you want your story out there just put it on the net. If you wanta make money with writing then you need a publisher. A real one. Not just a printer who cuts out the middle man.
Re:There may be three reason no publisher wants it (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you realize that Stephen King couldn't get published for YEARS? You'll find the same with Piers Anthony and a number of chronic bestseller authors.
There is nothing uncanny or special about publishers. They merely have a market lockin much like the music industry, the publishers after all, are NOT the readers.
P.S. Controversial books usually sell well simply because their
Re:There may be three reason no publisher wants it (Score:4, Insightful)
No matter what industry you are in, you should expect to start out at the bottom and work your way up. Though we all hear about the computer programmer who made a million dollars at his first job, or a first time author who wrote a book about child-magicians that was turned into a movie, those are rare cases. Most people work years at their craft to perfect it.
The companies that publish books for authors who can't get someone else to publish the book are collectively known as the "vanity press". They appeal to the vanity of the author, who at the end of the process has spent a lot of time writing the book, and then spent a lot of money publishing the book. In the end, he's out a lot of time, money, and all he has is a pile of books.
If you really think your book is wonderful, then you should self-publish, without a doubt. But, don't expect to make any money. Put the thing up on a website with a tip jar.
Then get to work, writing your next book. Polish your craft, because you're probably one of those people who just has to start at the bottom and work hard to get to the top. Nothing dishonorable about that.
Re:There may be three reason no publisher wants it (Score:2)
Re:There may be three reason no publisher wants it (Score:2)
A little of both. I haven't picked up a King book in over 10 years, but I tore through a bunch the 10 years prior to that. Reading his collections (Skeleton Crew, Night Shift, etc.), there's often interesting and funny tidbits about how the stories were published. I think he even had some published in porn mags (hey, you gotta feed you wife and kids, right?).
I don't re
Re:There may be three reason no publisher wants it (Score:2)
If you take every science fiction story this year that somebody is willing to show people other than their closest writing buddy, put it in one massive bookshelf, and pick a single story at random, that story may be a bestseller. Or it may be a really bad star wars slashfic written by somebody who's really repressed. Remember, 90% of everything is crap.
The goal of a publisher is to filter this out. A publisher is doing their job if you can pick a
good writing is hard (and rare) (Score:2)
While it's not necessarily true, the fact is that publishers (yes, all of them) have huge piles of unsolicited manuscripts, and yes, most of them DO suck! An occasional good work may get lost in this pile. But they (or at least most) do actually have people to read these "slush piles" (the most feared job in the industry), and they occasionally find good things in there. Bu
Re:good writing is hard (and rare) (Score:2)
Why? Because there will be another 50 tomorrow and maybe 3 can be read by then. Out of the first 50 you've narrowed down to about 12, most of those will be tossed out without more than a chapter read. Maybe due to a slow start, or the formatting, or perhaps some other annoyance. When this stage is completed you'll be down to about 2-3. Those will be
Re:good writing is hard (and rare) (Score:2)
The cover page can reveal a lot. Like, whether you have the faintest clue about the publisher's guidelines, whether you can compose anything resembling a coherent sentence, whether you've had the common sense to talk to an agent, etc. A lot of publishers don't even accept unsolicited manuscripts. So, if you send your "precious first novel" to one of
Re:good writing is hard (and rare) (Score:2)
Here is the biggest flaw in your argument (aside from your made up numbers), If 90% of whats out there is crap, that's means that 10% of it is not. I think that's a reasonable number. Now only 10% of what's out there is published. Here's the problem, 95% of what is published, is polished crap. That means that the other 9.95% of wh
Re:There may be three reason no publisher wants it (Score:2)
Point being that, the book publishing industry is every bit as bankrupt of integrity as the
Re:There may be three reason no publisher wants it (Score:1)
Having read half a dozen of his books, I'd agree with the publishers that turned him down.
Yes, he's popular, but so are Windows 98 and Brittany Spears, and soap operas.
Re:There may be three reason no publisher wants it (Score:2)
Re:There may be three reason no publisher wants it (Score:2)
If I had just written a book, I'd print out a copy and pay a English grad student to read it and give me her honest opinion.
Re:There may be three reason no publisher wants it (Score:2)
I have an BA in English, but I am male, I am not wussy, etc.
There was treatise quite some time ago, probably written tongue in cheek, about the inordinate amount of BA's who gravitate towards the Unix environment; English students in particular. It was naturally well thought-out and well written. It was as if the author knew me!
Anyway, I'll read for money.
Re:There may be three reason no publisher wants it (Score:2)
I don't like to write "his or her" all the time so I choose one at random.
How much is your time worth? (Score:1, Interesting)
or do you just want a book with your name? (Score:2)
I've never heard anything good... (Score:3, Informative)
http://hollylisle.com/fm/Articles/faqs3.html will give you a good start.
Kevin Kelly's Self Publication Experiences (Score:5, Informative)
There is a good article by Kevin Kelly on "Printing small quantities of books cheaply." [kk.org]
In addition to heavy-duty self-production he also talks about his experience of
There is also a longer descrition of Kelly's Latest Publishings in Wired - Kell's Catalaog of Cool. [wired.com]
Try.. (Score:1)
Lulu.com (Score:4, Informative)
It's a great service and I've used it already to publish a small book to give to family members.
Lulu Enterprises is the latest venture of Red Hat, co-founder and open source enthusiast Bob Young. Lulu.com allows anyone to publish and sell digital files--including books, artwork, and photographs--over the Internet.
Publishing work on Lulu.com is free, and content creators are asked to establish a royalty fee for each item they upload.
Lulu's revenue model is based on receiving a small percentage of each content purchase, as well as on fees for a line of planned additional services, such as editing and formatting.
Re:Lulu.com (Score:2)
For example - check out the database administration 'books'. There aren't any books there- just a bunch of $105.00 cd rom tutorials on running SQL Server and Oracle. There are a couple $30.00 cd roms on Access and all of them were 'written' by some company- there is no author listed. There was 4 or 5 pages of it. No biggie. But what about when there are 100 pages
More info (Score:4, Informative)
Since then I have found that same SFWA warnings that someone has posted and this article [proudlyserving.com], which highlights a lot of the problems facing POD and self publishers:
1. Bookstores won't order books that they cannot return. POD's mantra is NO INVENTORY, so they will not take the books back.
2. Reviewers will not review POD or self published works, because they want a pre-release copy to review before the book comes onto the market.
3. Some distributors do strange things (like making the stores have the books on backorder) with POD books, which make the titles even more unattractive to book stores.
One POD publisher that the article mentions is Superior Books. For several years they have tried to merge the old way of publishing with the way of the future (POD). Offering free publishing, selective acceptance, delayed releases to make reviewers happy, and more. However, they have all but given up. Now they will only refer a good author to a literary agent or publish niche non-fiction (perhaps my ESL book would work here).
I will look at small presses which specialize in fantasy and adolescent literature and try to get an agent (which are all but unheard of here in Sweden for authors).
Re:More info (Score:2)
So Superior Books was pretty much doomed from the beginning. I've felt that book editors do a valuable service ever since I read my first
Re:More info (Score:2)
Had responded to the article before I saw your comment. There, I wrote:
For whatever it's worth, John Derbyshire self-published his second novel (his first novel, and his subsequent pop-math book about Prime Number theory were published traditionally, and have been modest successes) using a Print-on-Demand shop. His account of the whole self-publishing experience (he's generally happy about it) can be read here [olimu.com].
Well, in a worse case scenario... (Score:1, Funny)
But wouldn't -1: Offtopic (Score:1, Funny)
Self - Publishing only works.... (Score:2)
Publishers don't just print books, they get them in the stores where consumers can buy them.
If you have a desire to make money writing books, write something that a publisher wants. Once you are published, you'll have a better shot of successfully pitching your current book.
Monolith (Score:1)
Nope (Score:2)
Are you currently accepting unsolicited submissions?
Not at this time.
As long as I have been aware of Monolith this has been the case. I have always assumed that Wil Wheaton created Monolith purely as a vehicle for publishing his own work (maybe allowing for it to become something bigger down the road if that worked out) - and I am curious to see what he does with it now that O'Reilly has picked him up.
On a side note- I've been meaning to email him for some time and ask how he
A tale of two writers (Score:1)
The other writer wrote three chapters, showed it to a friend, who showed it to his boss, who is an editor at a major publisher. She just signed a contract, got a $50k
Re:A tale of two writers (Score:2)
Actually, I read your anecdote as the very accurate "if you know someone in the business, or a friend-of-a-friend, you can get published. Otherwise, you'd better be both good and topical."
Not a bad lesson, but a far cry from a meritocracy.
Re:A tale of two writers (Score:1)
However, if I wanted to get published, of course I would use my network of friends to try to get the book read by someone who matters. If my book were horrible, I'd lose the chance of using that path in the future.
Re:A tale of two writers (Score:2)
True, but my point is, you don't even have access to a major publisher unless you have an 'in'.
It used to be, for SF, the magazines were a good way to get the attention of book publishers. SF mags aren't a good gateway anymore, though. Friend-of-a-friend is still the best way to get attention. (Then, as I mentioned, good work actually gets a fair chance at being considered).
So yeah, the work has to be good, but friendship gets it looked a
Re:A tale of two writers (Score:1)
Consider yourself one degree of separation closer.
However, *you* can work for Border's or B&N and get even closer. Anywhere in the industry is a good start, actually.
heehee:
Now, that no one is reading this, I shall flame Wally Lamb, who said in my hearing, "Windows, where would we be without
Lulu has a low entry price (Score:2, Informative)
Self-Publishing: Bad Idea (Score:2, Informative)
With very few exceptions it ends badly for the author, with a garage full of books, an empty bank account, and no chance of a career as a professional author. Pointers upstream to SFWA and Writer Beware are excellent places to start; I would also recommend looking around the Speculations [speculations.com] site, paying particular attention t
Re:Self-Publishing: Bad Idea (Score:2)
I brought up the question of what effect it would have on a book's popularity or chances of being picked up should a stack of your books "mysteriously" appear on the shelves of Barne's & Noble? Really, what would happen if you loaded a backpack full of your self-published book (that is done very neatly and would stand up to the other books in the store in appearance, at least), then found a spot where it would attrac
Re:Self-Publishing: Bad Idea (Score:2)
When a publisher decides to publish a book, that doesn't mean the book automatically gets to bookstores. The publisher has to sell the book to the middleman (most authors have to fill out a s
Self Publishing (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.gorhamprinting.com
Self-Publishing (Score:2, Informative)
Not unless it's a cookbook... (Score:2)
They work better for non-fiction pieces; for example, if the Ladies' Guild at the First Self-Righteous Church decides to collect and publish their recipes, self-publishing is the way to go. In the non-Slashdot part of my real life, I refer to self-published books on dealing with esoteric "How to do
Self-Publishing -- not for the meek (Score:4, Informative)
There have been alot of interesting comments on self-publishing in this thread. Some are pretty good, some are bitter, and more than a few seem to be coming from people who haven't really followed the publishing industry since the early to mid 90's. I've been studying the publishing industry for about 5 years now, started my own publishing company, produced 1 of my own books, 1 almost finished, and 2 other author manuscripts in the chamber for production. I've got alot to share about the publishing thing - good, bad, and ugly. Mostly through word of mouth, I've sold several hundred copies of my first book, a collection of poetry and short stories. It's been my guinnea pig to build from.
For starters, if you're going to self-publish your book, you'll want to do so with the knowledge that, at worst, the endeavor serves as a huge time and money sinkhole. At best, you'll set out on what will become a great success story. And if you're smart early on, you'll be able to break even. I've got alot to share and I've been writing on this post off and on for several hours now in and around last minute work stuff, so if it seems a bit jumpy in parts, forgive me.
The publishing industry as a whole has been undergoing a slow, steady shift as a result of current technologies and changing trends in information distribution. According to a study done by the Publisher's Marketing Association, while large publishing companies have barely held their own over the past five years, the 80,000-plus independent publishers in the U.S.A. have grown at a rate of 22 percent per year. Their combined revenue now amounts to approximately $30 billion per year. The numbers aren't earthshattering, but they're enough to have the majors already nervous about what the future holds.
When it comes to self-publishing your book, before you embark on this endeavor, do alot of homework.
Go download this PDF; it contains what many startup independents would consider the quinessential reading list for how to crack into publishing, whether just for your 1 title or as a small press: http://www.wexfordpress.com/tex/pub.pdf [wexfordpress.com]
Investing in all or even at least half those titles can save you literally tens of thousands of dollars in the long run.
Although, by default, when you pay for the production of a book, even though you are the publisher, it does NOT make you *A* publisher. There's a huge difference. I'm going to hit on some key points and do so in real broad strokes, so forgive me for any details I may gloss over.
FORM A CORPORATION - cheapest alternative would be to set up an LLC in your state... roughly $50 for your local biz license, $100 or so for the State Corp Commission registration. Get your EIN number from the IRS as well. Set up as a company and you'll have a legitimate means of using all of your invested monies as a tax writeoff against what you're earning with your day job. The profits and losses within an LLC flow back to the owner(s) in the form of K1-statements from when you file the company's taxes. These K1s are then used when filing one's own taxes. In the early days, you're almost always going to take significant losses, thus significant gains on income tax refunds.
CONTENT EDITING - I don't care if you've spent half your life as an editor for your local newspaper, it's a bad idea to act as the editor of your own work. Do as much editing as you can on your end then contract an outside editor to go through the whole manuscript. Be sure it's someone that is accustomed to real content editing and not just proofing/spell checking. The editor will ultimately help turn your book into a streamlined readable work. Not working with an editor foreshadows failure.
ISBN Numbers - can be purchased in blocks from RR Bowkers.. sorta like IP addresses. Anyway, if you're going to self-publish, you're going to want your own ISBN numbers. Some of these all encompassing services will offer to put an ISBN number on your work; avoi
Here's one person who's happy with self-publishing (Score:2)
For whatever it's worth, John Derbyshire self-published his second novel (his first novel, and his subsequent pop-math book about Prime Number theory were published traditionally, and have been modest successes) using a Print-on-Demand shop. His account of the whole self-publishing experience (he's generally happy about it) can be read here [olimu.com].
lulu (Score:2)
Wary, but with a suggestion nonetheless (Score:2)
The YA novel Eragon was published by Lightning Source, and was subsequently purchased by Knopf. Eragon was written by Christopher Paolini, who was 15 when he started the novel, and 18 when it was published. It has recently been optioned as a feature film, and is actually remarkably well-written, especially for a novel in the fantasy genre (irrespective of the author's age).
Anyway, google Christopher Paolini. He see
my experience (Score:3, Informative)
OK, let's assume it's #2, and you really think your book has something special to say, and your main goal is to get it to some readers without losing an arm and a leg. Then I'd suggest simply putting the PDF online and bypassing the whole print publishing thing. If you do a good job promoting your web site, you may reach 100-1000 readers a year, and you'll do it without losing your shirt.
The reason self-publishing has worked for me is that I am able to reach physics professors through the web and inexpensive print advertising in trade journals. Basically I try to get them to come to my site and download the PDFs to see if they like them. All it takes is one professor who likes them, and then I get a wholesale order for 20 or 200 books. I hired a printer, paid him a bunch of money, and filled my closets with books. I'd recommend against the vanity publishers; they take a really hefty chunk of your money. Although my method has worked for me, it's been capital-intensive --- right now I have about $10,000 worth of inventory in my house. (For tax purposes, you're supposed to account for inventory at the price you paid for it.)
Ask Dave Thomas (Score:1)