Yeah, that's why I was hoping @BayView would chime in - I know she's been pubbed by one of the Big 5 in the past.
If this is important to you, then self-pubbing is definitely the way to go. Have you looked at the file size limitations on e-books? The allowable thresholds for digital market places? I can't speak on them, but I know they are there. And I might be wrong, but I think there are also pricing guidelines related to the downloadable file too. And if you want to print your own books with artwork, that will cost a small fortune. I'm not trying to convince you one way or the other. It all depends on your goals. If you want to have fun and have books available to show people, then great. But if you want to make a profit--and we're talking beer money here, maybe enough for a vacation--you'll probably have to slot yourself somewhere into the established business. That's just the way business works: if you want to make money you have to go to where the money is already. And you have to spend a shitload of money up front. It sound like you know what you want, so that's a good thing. Just make sure you approach your expectations with the same kind of confidence.
you could probably do it as PoD though i don't think create space offers the option - I know photographers who've gone that route
The problem is that if you demand that it be all or nothing, it's likely to be nothing. I'd suggest that you consider which of your many goals are more important to you. If it's complete creative control, you may need to accept that you're creating an object for yourself and for very few other people. If it's readers, you may need to accept that you will have to make some selected compromises.
I agree with the idea that you have to chose, at least to some degree, between pleasing yourself and pleasing the reading public. Art vs. commerce, really. I had very little choice about my covers with a Big Five publisher - they were fitting my books into their established marketing system, product line, etc. I think the covers are hideous. I'm working with another larger (not Big 5, but larger independent) publisher now and they've changed my book's title to something ridiculous (they wanted it to be clear to their readers what tropes they will find in the book). They also insisted that I cut about 5K from the book in order to fit into the length limits of their line. Nothing to do with making it a better, tighter story (although some of the cuts probably did that), just fitting it into the mould. It sucks, but I want to work with these publishers because they have a proven record of knowing how to sell lots of books. So it wouldn't make sense for me to sign on with them and then try to tell them how to sell books - they know how. I don't. (Well, some of my self-published stuff does okay, but it does okay because I'm using the name I established by working with publishers, and then selling the books at a much lower price than publishers can afford). If you're looking for total creative control, self-publishing is the way to go. I don't think there's any argument about that. There's some argument about what choice to make if you're looking for maximum income. I've solved the argument to my own satisfaction and continue to work with publishers most of the time, but I don't have any fresh information that will help me present my findings to others who might have come to a different conclusion.
Dew knot trussed yore spill chequer! There are two types of editing: Spelling and grammar checking is not something I would pay for, nor would I recommend anyone pay for that unless they know in advance they are challenged that way, and can't find someone to do it for them for free. The other is structural editing, dealing with technical aspects of story-telling, character arcs, pacing, building tension, etc. My wife @K McIntyre had an interesting observation from one of her beta readers, noting that some developments seem to spring full-born with out any background. Karen learned that she had all this background for these scenes in her head, but they had never made it to paper. This is the type of editing that is very hard for the author to do, because the story is literally in your head. @jannert recommends putting your WIP on the shelf for a few months, then coming back to read it fresh, as one way around it. While a traditional publisher will edit your work as part of the contract, they are not going to take a second look at bad first draft with glaring errors and problems in flow... agents get 400 queries a month, they don't have time to wade through something that the author did not have the pride or ability to finish. And don't count on small publishing houses to do a very good job: I have a friend whose book through a small house actually introduced, or didn't catch, glaring SPaG, like missing spaces ahead of a quote mark that caused it be reversed, on nearly every line of dialogue embedded in a sentence. Another small house, probably just an individual calling themselves one, had glaring spelling errors on the cover and the blurb on the back, including non-printable characters, and many errors on every page. How many reasons do you need to give someone a reason to not buy your book? If you are self-publishing, BY ALL MEANS get good editors for your book, either free or paid. I can't tell you how many self-published books I have set aside, tired of the constant same spelling errors, or one in which the story just rambled on and on for chapters without going anywhere.
I recently helped serve on a peer launch team for an author using a small publisher, and she shared what they put together for her book's back cover blurb. It was AWFUL; completely stale and clinical-sounding (for a YA Fantasy). our little oddball team ended up fully rewriting it until she had what she ultimately printed. i've caught several typos in the finished copy too, and they botched the book release badly. Their strategy resulted in her getting her flagged by Amazon and all of her reviews were removed. she was so embarrassed and upset by the whole thing. what kind of company takes someone's money to do a job and then fails to do it well? i can't imagine trusting a publisher to handle something i've worked so hard on and then realize that they made me look like an amateur.
i worded that poorly. i am a complete noob on the back-end of this industry, but they get money somehow right? royalties or something? that's more my point; they're benefiting from a relationship that is to the detriment of the author, whether through crappy sales or a poor final product.
The publisher collects all money from book sales, then pays the author royalties of a certain percentage outlined in their contract. If the book has crappy sales, they're not going to be making much money off of it. 60% of zero is zero.
huh. well that pokes all kinds of holes in my argument. i need to conduct more google searches before dropping assumptions.
Vanity presses are always scammers. "Assisted self-publishing" may or may not be a scam, but a vanity press, by definition, is appealing to the vanity of the author, not the business sense. Scam.
Yeah, that's what I've read online. I'm more interested in making money so I can stuff it away for my kid. Not lose it. I'm done a lot of reading on publishing lately. But I'm still confused on the legal ends of publishing. If I do choose to sacrifice creativity for a TP does having my work copyrighted and registered prior to that hurt the publishing process? I've read mixed messages on that front. Some articles say its redundant and unnecessary to protect your work prior to submissions and others say to protect your work before. The same article says it's redundant to spend your money unnecessarily on CR and Reg since TP's do it for you. But the other I read says protecting your work is worth every cent, especially if you're writing multiple books before submitting to publishers. A lot of people say writing multiple books and having them ready is the better way to go.
Since being published I've met a lot of other authors (online, at least), and I don't know of a single one who registered, copyrighted or went through any government shenanigans before submitting to publishers. I would never spent the money or time on it, personally. As far as multiple books go, I've never written a series so I can't really say much except if you don't have them in the can, or at least partway through, you need to make sure you can keep up with expectations. My friend recently got a 5-book series deal through Riptide and has had to crank out 5 books in 12 months. I would die from that kind of schedule, and she hasn't been much to happy lately either.
You have copyright as soon as you write something down. Registering copyright, in some jurisdictions (most notable the US, where you are) has advantages if you take someone to court. But it will cost tens of thousands of dollars to take someone to court, and it's pretty unlikely you'll recover your costs. If you publish with a larger publisher, they'll probably register copyright on your behalf. I wouldn't bother registering beforehand.
That's why I'm working on the majority of my stuff and editing before I even think of looking at a publisher. I'd rather have everything on hand at least to a point and have things put out little by little. I know I've seen marketing tactics like this before where the author comes out later and says they had up to book # written and it gave them time to finish without having a tight leashed deadline. Books # through # were slowly being released 1 a year to give them time and produced kind of a steady trickle of sales. I think this tends to be the safer bet? Perhaps?
I'm speaking from personal experience here - either fork out the heap of cash and pay through the nose for an actually good editor, or forget about getting an editor altogether. Because getting a bad editor or perhaps even a con, a self-proclaimed editor who actually doesn't have the skills at all to edit your book, is worse than not having one at all. And paying even one penny for trash is a waste of money, because you're still just getting trash. Don't think paying little is always a good thing. Pay up, or don't bother. Seriously. Because when someone's good, they aren't gonna be cheap. And if the editor isn't good, why would you pay them anything to begin with? A bit of background: I got myself a self-proclaimed semi-con of an editor many years ago. It's not worth it. Get a good one or don't get one at all.
