Would you choose to self-pub over trad pub?

That is gorgeous, Lew. Looks very professional.

 

That cover is wonderful!

 

And my big oops! That is Fiona Jayde of FionaJaydeMedia.com!

 

Lew, that's wonderful. Very professional-looking. That will get you sales, no doubt at all.

 

Nice work she's got, and reasonably priced. Still too spendy for me, however, even with the new customer discount.

 

You can thank @jannert for motivating me to change the old one! Thqanks, j, for that and so many other things

Lew

 

Now if the paper proff would just arrive, so I launch this. "The Eagle and the Dragon" is holding at T- 1 hr.

 

proof!

 

Borne at last! After 20 years. My wife found two more typos so it is in another review cycle, available tomorrow.

 

Quite a conundrum for several reasons. Book publishing and selling has changed a LOT since Amazon.com entered the fray. E-Readers have changed the landscape even more. And it continues to evolve. So, repeating a myth does not make it true, and stating it is untrue does not make it so.

Having an agent represent me might not be the perfect solution, so I'd have to see what those agent offers and how well they follow through on their promises. However, I think I'd go with the agent scenario if I felt comfortable with her/him. At least for a while. But having an agent would be one heck of an ego boost! Just think - someone who understands the value of a manuscript actually telling me mine is good enough to make us both money! WHOOT!

The basic function of an agent is to sell my manuscript to a publisher in a timely manner at a fair price. Using an agent increases the likelihood of a publisher giving it serious consideration. Being published by a traditional house decreases the amount of selling the title to book buyers I would have to do. Because the publisher takes on a goodly portion of all that scut work, they would be less likely to offer a huge amount of cash in their offer to me, an author without a track record, and what they did offer would be taken from future royalties. And whatever I made would have to be shared with the agent for the work he/she did for me.

On the other hand, DIY publishing can get the title in front of millions of people through multiple channels overnight and give me complete control over the title. But "overnight" takes a lot of preparation and hard work unassociated with the art/craft of writing. But, no paying back that initial payment from future royalties - the royalties begin with the first sale.

Each path has it's twists and turns, and anyone who thinks one size fits all - well, I'd be happy to help you saddle your unicorn.

 

That is indeed a wonderful cover!

Perhaps if all SP authors followed suit the market wouldn't have such an undesirable stigma attached to it.

 

On the other hand, you don't get that initial payment.

Trad pub.

Let's say £10k advance, then 1% of each £10 book sold. Sell 20k books, and you receive £20k in total - split £10k on day one, and £10k spread at £833 p.m. for a year.

Self-pub.

Let's say you sell 20k books at £1. You again receive £20k in total - split £20k spread at £1,667 p.m. for a year.

Now let's look at a less optimistic scenario...

Trad pub.

Let's say £10k advance, then 1% of each £10 book sold. Sell 10k books, and you receive £10k in total on day one.

Self-pub.

Let's say you sell 10k books at £1. You again receive £10k in total - spread at £833 p.m. for a year.

Now let's look at an even less optimistic scenario...

Trad pub.

Let's say £10k advance, then 1% of each £10 book sold. Sell 5k books, and you receive £10k in total on day one.

Self-pub.

Let's say you sell 5k books at £1. You again receive £5k in total - spread at £417 p.m. for a year.

None of those scenarios are better for SP.

And that's assuming you can match the sales, and that your marketing costs don't eat into that £1 per book. OK, it also assumes that people will be willing to pay 10 times as much for a TP than an SP.

 

I love what-if's. It's like remembering a dream before it happened.

Another scenario I like is on the DIY side - the author tells a good story and people like it enough to buy it. The title moves slowly up on the charts and in six months it hits several best seller lists with 10,000 copies sold with little or no out-pocket marketing expense.

I don't scoff at anybody's dream or their method of reaching for it. I think when we look at reality we see very few financial successes in the world of book writing when comparing that number with the number of authors who don't quite make it.

 

My response wasn't dissing anybody's dream, it was merely pointing out the facts of "no paying back that initial payment".

I'd also suggest that any best seller list where 10,000 sales makes it isn't a very good list.

 

Just an angle to consider. If your book is traditionally published and it doesn't sell well (I've heard they look at sales within the first 6 months after publication, but I'm not sure of that) it will be pretty much left to its own devices. A publisher won't promote a book for very long, apparently, if it doesn't sell well. Unsold copies are remaindered and discounted, it goes out of print, and that's basically it.

If you're self-published, however, you can promote your book as long as YOU feel there is life in it. Look for new markets, etc, continue to raise its profile through various means. You can promote it whenever and however you like, for as long as you want. So there is that angle to think about as well. It might favour self-publishing of a non-mainstream book, in the long run.

A self-published author needs to contact people in some manner and convince them to read the book. This isn't easy, as has already been established, and requires a LOT of work on the part of the author. However, a traditionally published author needs to convince an agent, who then needs to convince a publisher who will contact people in some manner and convince them to read the book.

One step versus three steps between author and reader? Worth thinking about?

 

Well, if your book goes out of print, the rights should return to you, in which case you can self-publish the second edition and do all the promo/marketing you want.

More damaging, I'd say, is if the book doesn't go out of print, so the publisher retains the rights to it but doesn't do much to sell it. Of course, there's nothing to stop the author from still promoting it, just as the author would if it were self-pubbed. And in terms of finding new markets or whatever, the publishers especially the big ones) tend to have access to way more markets than a self-publisher could ever manage. Most contracts have terms for the author to buy copies of their own books at a significant discount so the author can hand-sell at conferences or whatever.

Price discounts are about the only kind of marketing that I can think of that wouldn't be open to the author of a book still with its publisher. And some publishers are open to discounts, as well.

 

Yes, I thought perhaps the author would also promote a book that has been traditionally published—in fact they often do. Appearances of the author at book signings, festivals, etc are often arranged by the publishers.

I wasn't aware that the rights always return to the author if the book goes out of print, though. If that's the case, then fair enough. If your book can be traditionally published, it does remove some of the promotional hassle, that's for sure.

 

I don't want to say always... there are some crappy contracts out there. But I've never signed one, or been asked to sign one, that didn't specify return of rights in that situation.

 

Agents are pretty good at fixing those up, if you've got one.

 

With my first novel, I rushed. I self-published, because I had sent it off about thirty times and received about twenty-seven rejections (the three that gave me offers asked for about £3000 from me)

Being sixteen and stupid about everything, I published through amazon. I didn’t care about the money, I just wanted people to read my work.

So far it’s sold about thirty copies - it’s been up for six months. I did a free-for-the-weekend promotion and over a hundred people got a free copy, but of course nobody even left any reviews. I wonder if they even read it.

To anyone considering self-publishing: think very carefully. I regret this decision and have done ever since. Because the book was rushed, I’ve since found spelling errors (that’s what you get for typing most chapters on a phone) and can now not edit them out. The book is trapped, and seven or eight months of writing it now mean nothing.

Perhaps other people have been far more successful with self-publishing, but I think generally it’s not a good option.