I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
--Robert Frost
You know what they say about advice … everyone has some to give and it is generally as useful as snow shoes for a Chihuahua. Or is that opinions? Hmm, it may very well be. Nevertheless, advice is often the worst when it a) is unsolicited b). doesn’t jive with what you’ve already decided to do or c). is contradictory to other advice you received.
Which brings me to my current dilemma.
I was chatting with one of my author friends the other day about book stuff. She mentioned something about deadlines and I responded that one of the best things about self-publishing is that all of my deadlines are self-imposed. Plus, as soon as I am ready to publish, I am about three weeks from holding a hard copy of my book in my hot little hands. My friend was somewhat astonished to discover that I was planning to self-publish my second book and strongly encouraged me to pursue a royalty publisher. Her reasoning was that books are a tough business and it is difficult to find ways to get your book noticed and sold without the benefit of a publisher behind you.
She is correct about this. Self-publishing is a tough road to travel. But here is where the contradictory advice comes in.
I have several other author friends who have a made a pretty decent career out of self-publishing. They have a strong Internet presence and that’s how they make most of their sales.
Here is the comparison between the two as I understand it:
- Self-published (SP) authors retain all rights to their work. Not so with royalty publishers.
- SP means no deadlines to meet or contractual obligations to fulfill.
- SP gives you complete creative control. Royalty publishers won’t print poor quality work (that can be a pro or a con, depending on how you look at it)
- SP (at least with my publisher) authors make 25% of the sale price per book. With royalty publishers, it is around 7%.
- SP are responsible for all of their own marketing and promotion. However, small royalty publishers may not have the budget to market your book, so you may be on your own with them as well.
- SP requires an outlay of capital to get started. You have to spend your own money. You can get your work published for a reasonable sum (between $500-$1000) but there are a lot of shady characters out there who just want to take your money. There are even self-publishers who pretend to be royalty publishers. Choose carefully. A royalty publisher won’t ask you for money. However, many small publishers may or may not offer advances.
- If you sign a contract with a small publisher, it may improve your chances of being picked up by a larger one.
If there is one thing I’ve learned from talking with authors at different rungs on the career ladder, it is this: There is more than one way to get there, it seems that everyone takes a road less traveled. I have never spoken to two people who have done things the same way. This is a difficult business, but I firmly believe that if you have the talent and believe in yourself, you’ll get there, despite all of the potholes and forks in the road.
5 comments:
(This is from my mySpace blog. I am unable to resond there so I moved it here)
Sean, timely topic. I sent this question in as the first for Shaun Farell's new segment on Adventures in SciFi Publishing.. Shaun has author Tobias Buckell field questions, and I asked him to contrast traditional publishing (Toby is published through Tor) vs. self-publishing and POD. The podcast is worth a listen.
My summary of his comments mentions one other point that you don't above: going through a traditional publisher does give you a team of people (editors, publicists, bookstore channel reps, etc.) that perform roles that the individual self-publisher must take time away from writing to perform on his own.
We still need to meet for the cup of coffee, but I haven't finished completing my ark to be able to travel through all of this rain!
Larry
Larry,
I think a lot of things are much easier with a royalty publisher, but even things like editors, publicists and even distributors are available for self-published folks. I am currently looking into finding a distributor. I'll let you know how that goes.
Sean
Sean, by distributor are you referring to Ingram and/or Baker & Taylor? My publisher got me setup to be distributed through both; but there seems to be a different relationship between some bookstores and the distributors. Bookstores want the books to be returnable, so that they do not have to worries about old inventory; and my published has set that up, but it appears that in the beauracracy it gets lost in translation, as some of the booksellers say that even though the book is available through one of the major distributors, the terms for returns don't allow for free or one-year returns, which turns them off from a book.
I have a friend in town who self-published an excellent non-fiction history book and went through all of these traps himself; if you are interested, I can hook you up with him and you can compare notes.
Larry
I think it depends on what goals you have for your writing career. What is top priority for you as a writer? How important is the money? How important is it to see you book in print?
I don't think there is a right or wrong answer. I think it depends more on what the individual wants.
Self-Publishing can be a good thing for certain types of nonfiction if you have a ninche market in place. But for fiction the best way to go is to a small press or if your lucky one of the big houses.
Larry,
Yes, my friend said that Ingram was the company that you wanted to use for distribution. I'm just starting to look into this option myself, so I don't really have much more information than that right now.
Rene,
I agree though I think it may have more to do with just being impatient. It was in my case. But there is something to be said for taking your sales numbers to a publisher.
Jimmy,
I have to disagree. It works for fiction, too. As I said, I know several people who have done very well in the self-publishing world. One such person is Robert Fanney, author of Luthiel's Song. (his Amazon link and his mySpace) Robert has sold more copies of his book as a self-published author than most authors even get with a small run from a small publisher.
And, not to be argumentative, but here are some more numbers for you:
25 million people in the United States consider themselves writers and only 5% have been published anywhere. At any one time 5 to 6 million manuscripts are looking for a publishing home.
Most literary agents receive around 5000 queries for representation per year. On the average these agents accept only 11 new clients, that’s about 1 out of every 500 submissions.
If anything, self-publishing has opened up the book world and made it more accessible to more people. However, any way you go about it, writing and publishing are a difficult business. It takes a lot of work to sign with a publisher and it takes a lot of work to self-publish successfully. There are no easy paths, merely different routes.
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