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Before
You Do Anything...
Be Sure You Understand the Definitions of Royalty Publishing, Subsidy Publishing, Self-Publishing and
Print-On-Demand/E-Books
So you've written a book. Now what? Maybe you have already sent your
manuscript to several publishers only to be rejected. Or perhaps you have
answered one of those advertisements from the subsidy publishers seeking
manuscripts. In order to understand your publishing options you need to
define and understand the four types of publishing.
Royalty Publishing
Subsidy Publishing
Self-Publishing
Print-on-Demand
(POD)/E-Books
Although they all have the same end result, (getting a book into print
and then into the hands of the public), there are many differences, especially
in the cost and your potential for success.
Maverick Publications is a book manufacturing company that prints books
for self-publishing authors, publishers, and small presses.
Publishing
Publishing as it applies to the book industry simply means to prepare
and offer or "release" a book for sale or distribution. The publisher is,
by definition, the person, company or organization that puts up the money
for the production and marketing of the book. The publisher takes the risk
of investing in the book, and in return keeps the largest percentage of
the profit from the sale of the book.
Royalty publishing is an arrangement where the publisher buys the rights
to publish a book by paying the author a royalty for each book
sold. The royalty payment is usually about 5% to 15% of the publisher's
selling price (wholesale price).
The publisher pays all the cost to edit, design, typeset, print,
bind, advertise and market the book. The author pays nothing.
If you think your manuscript is destined to be a million-copy best
seller you should try get it published by a royalty publisher .
An excellent resource for anyone trying to get published is the book, Writer's
Market. It is an annual listing of the large publishers, magazines,
and small presses who are seeking manuscripts. It also details how to approach
publishers with query letters, sample chapters and manuscripts.
Maverick Publications publishes a few new titles each
year in addition
to the hundreds of books we produce for self-publishers. Our titles mostly
are of Pacific Northwest interest, non-fiction with a focus on history.
We have also published several successful Pacific Northwest cookbooks. See
our bookstore.
Subsidy publishing, or vanity publishing as it is also known, involves
paying a publishing house to "publish" your book. The subsidy publisher's
use of the word "publish" has been challenged in court many times by
class-action law suits. As we
said above, by definition the publisher is the person who pays for the
production of the book, most people in the legitimate publishing world
believe the vanity publishers use of the word "publish" is misleading.
The subsidy publisher receives manuscripts from authors who are seeking
publication. A glowing review is always returned to the author whose manuscript
is immediately accepted for publication. A contract is also included, the
exact details of the transaction are muddled in a sea of small print. The
one clear item is the price that they are going to charge you to "publish"
your book.
The cost for subsidy publishing can be as much as 5 times the cost
to have your book printed, even then you might only end up with a few copies of your book printed and bound.
The subsidy publishers claim that they will market your book, and
pay you a royalty for each book sold. The truth is they usually sell less
than 100 copies. There is not a lot of incentive on their part to spend
time and money promoting a book since they have already been paid a fee
by the author. In fact, the authors fee is where they make their money,
not on book sales. On average the subsidy published author will rarely
see a return of even 25% of his initial investment.
Please be careful. Don't sign any contract without reading it first
and fully understanding it. Since these contracts are typically lengthy
and full of legalese it would be in your best interest to consult with
an attorney. But honestly, we don't think there is any reason for any author
to ever consider subsidy publishing.
Self-Publishing
Self-publishing is a do-it-yourself approach to getting your book printed,
bound, in the stores and sold. The advantages as a self- publisher are
many. You have complete editorial, design, production and marketing control
as well as retaining all rights to your material. You have to take the
risk of investing money and time in your book but you also get to keep
all the profit.
The self-publisher must wear many hats, but by doing all the work
you cut out the middle men. You will be all or some of these: author, editor,
publisher, art director, typesetter, graphic designer, production coordinator,
marketing and promotion coordinator. You will handle the distribution,
mail-order shipments, order-entry and fulfillment, sales and delivery to
bookstores and more. In return you will receive some or all of the author's
royalty, the publisher's profit, and the distributor and bookstore mark
ups.
As a self-publisher you will be most successful with a non-fiction
title. Poetry and novels are harder to sell, but not impossible. The type
of book, the area where you live and your personality are a few of the
many factors in determining how you will sell your book. You can sell your
books mail-order, direct to customers at conventions and speaking engagements,
or to bookstores and book distributors. You can also sell books at Amazon or
Barnes and Noble's online bookstores.
Other Types of Publishing
There are other types of publishing arrangements.
Co-publishing is a creative way to disguise Subsidy
Publishing as Royalty Publishing. The author pays all the costs to produce the
book up front. The publisher pays the marketing and promotion costs and pays the
author a royalty on books sold. Usually the upfront fees with co-publishing are
not as high as subsidy publishing so there is a remote chance that the publisher
might sell enough books to pay the author a royalty that will cover the up-front
fee. But, just like subsidy publishing, once you have paid a fee to be
"published" there is no pressure on the publisher to try to
sell your books. He has already made a profit on your fee.
Print
on Demand
Other new types of publishing such as Print-On-Demand (POD)
and E-Book publishing are being developed and are beginning to make a place in
the book manufacturing and publishing market. Print-On-Demand is really just a method
for printing books with high speed digital printers at small to medium quantities.
The books are bound either in-line or off-line as with traditional offset
production. This can be as good a method to manufacture books as traditional
offset printing methods. As with all printing projects the most economical
printing method is determined by the specifications of materials used; number of
colors or ink, page size, number of pages and quantity. Today's new high speed
digital printers are quickly advancing to the point of replacing traditional
offset printing in certain markets. Once the quality and price becomes the same
or better for a given market, digital printers will replace offset printing
presses.
Publish-On-Demand/E-Books
There
are companies on the internet that will "publish" your book for a
fee based on printing them one at a time (POD) as they sell. This is known as
Publish-On-Demand and can be confused with Print-On-Demand as easily as
self-publishing and subsidy publishing are sometimes confused for each other.
In the case of
E-Books, no books are printed but just made available for download on the
internet.
There are many drawbacks to these arrangement. First and most
importantly, you can lose your rights and ownership of your book while the
publishing contract is in force. If later you are not satisfied and want to try
other options such as self-publishing or royalty publishing you will have to
fight to get back your book rights.
Publish-On-Demand and E-Book publishing can seem very attractive to
the novice or first-time authors because of the lower costs to the author than subsidy,
co-publishing or even self-publishing. The author is usually charged a modest initial fee
to cover design and printing set-up costs. Then as books are sold the author is paid
a royalty. The publisher says they will pay for all the costs to print and
market your book. The publisher makes a profit by selling the book for more than his
costs for
printing, marketing and royalties, just like with royalty publishing. Sounds pretty good so far.
However, therein lies the problem with Publish-On-Demand and E-book publishing;
the only reason the publisher can take what appears to be a risk on your book is
because it will be printed only when an order for it is received--the publisher has no
risk to his investment, since you paid for his printing set-up costs, which
in-turn provides little incentive for him to sell your book. In short, he
doesn't risk keeping an inventory on a book they may or may not sell. It is
often a half-hearted way to publish a book that takes advantage of eager
writers.
In addition, books that are printed one-at-a-time (POD) cost
considerably more to produce than books that are printed by the thousands, so in
the end the book buyer must pay a higher than normal
bookstore price and then wait for the book to be printed. Not many books are
sold when you make your buyer wait and then pay a higher than normal price.
As with subsidy and co-publishing as well as
E-book publishing and Publish-on Demand publishing, there is little or no risk to the
publisher. Where there is no risk, there is little or no incentive for the
publisher to try to sell your book, he has already made his money on your upfront
fee.
Steven King
self-published one of his titles by releasing it only on his website in
electronic format, he sold thousands of copies. Of course, because of his
popularity his book was an exception. Besides some of the same pitfalls that are
associated with POD publishing, E-Book publishing has one problem that
will never change. There is no paper, no book smell, no tactile satisfaction of
holding a book in your hands. People want to have a book printed on paper.
They want to be able to take it with them to the park or the beach to read it. They want
to flip through the pages at a bookstore while drinking lattes. They certainly
don't want to have to stare at a computer screen in order to read a book. So
unless you're Steven King, have your book printed.
CHECK OUT OUR LINKS PAGE FOR MORE
CAUTIONS AND ADVICE
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