KATHY IDE’S TIPS FOR BETTER WRITING
~ Self-Publishing Options ~
© Kathy Ide, 2012
There are many options when it comes to self-publishing a book.
Which one you choose depends on your goals, needs, and available funds.
Vanity Press (a.k.a.
book producer or book manufacturer). Prints and binds a book at the author’s
sole expense. Costs include the publisher’s profit and overhead, so vanity
publishing is usually quite expensive. Vanity publishers don’t screen for
quality. They provide no editing, marketing, warehousing, or promotional
services.
Subsidy Publisher. The
publisher takes payment from the author to cover part or all of the costs of
printing and binding a book, often offering additional services such as
editing, cover design, distribution, warehousing, and some marketing at added
cost. The completed books are the property of the publisher and remain in the
publisher’s possession until sold. Income to the writer comes in the form of a royalty.
Print-on-demand
(POD). Books are printed when they’re ordered, so the publisher doesn’t
keep copies anywhere. POD publishers don’t usually screen submissions (except
perhaps to exclude pornography or hate literature), so anyone who’s willing to
pay will be published. Some POD publishers offer editing, proofreading, or book
marketing as add-ons to the basic publishing package—at an additional cost.
Income to the author comes in the
form of a royalty on sales. The publisher may have an exclusive claim on the
book for a set period of time. (Check
the contract carefully.)
Self-publishing. The
author undertakes the entire cost of publication and all marketing,
distribution, storage, etc. Since the author can put every aspect of the
process out for bid to different companies, rather than accepting a preset
package of services, self-publishing can be more cost effective than vanity or
subsidy publishing and can result in a higher-quality product. The completed
books are the writer’s sole property, and the writer keeps 100 percent of sales
proceeds.
Do-it-Yourself
printing. Most copy shops—like Kinko’s—and many office supply stores—like
Staples—offer book-binding services. Alternately, the author could purchase
binders or report covers at an office supply store and fill them with
three-hole-punched sheets of paper. If clear-front covers are used, the author
can design an attractive cover page using either a color printer or specialty
paper.
Electronic publishing. An e-book
publisher (like Smashwords.com) can take a Word or WordPerfect file, design an
electronic cover for it, format it to look like a book on screen, and convert
it to Amazon’s ebook format (for Kindle), and/or EPUB (which can be read on any
e-reader other than the Kindle). Some subsidy publishers offer both print and
e-book options; others do only one or the other.
DIY electronic publishing. You can
convert your Word or WordPerfect file to a PDF document (which can be read
using Adobe Acrobat, so anyone with a computer could read it) and sell it on
your website, blog, e-newsletter, etc.
Co-op publishing. The publisher and the
author split the publishing costs. This often means that the publisher pays all
the costs but the author is required to purchase a few thousand copies of the
book.
If a
publisher “congratulates” you on the acceptance of your manuscript but then
asks you to pay part or all of the cost of getting it published, or requires
that you purchase a minimum number of books, this is a subsidy publisher trying
to look like a commercial publisher. If a subsidy publisher is a division of a
commercial publishing house and claims that your book will be reviewed by the
parent company, don’t take that statement at face value—ask for a list of
titles that have gone that route and verify it with the authors. (Check out The Fine Print of Self-Publishing by
Mark Levine for more things to look out for.)
Here are the subsidy and POD publishers I can personally
recommend:
Abbott Press, a division of
Writer’s Digest (www.abbotpress.com)
Ampelos Press (www.writehisanswer.com/ampelos_press.htm)
Believers Press
(www.believerspress.com)
Bethany Press
(www.bethanypress.com)
BookLocker (http://publishing.booklocker.com)
CrossBooks, division of LifeWay
(www.crossbooks.com)
Hit The Mark Publishing (www.hitthemarkpublishing.com)
The Honor Network (www.honornet.net)
InspiringVoices, a service of
Guideposts (www.InspiringVoices.com/Purpose)
Lulu (www.lulu.com)
Strong Tower
(www.strongtowerpublishing.com)
Vision Publishing
(www.booksbyvision.com)
Xulon Press (www.xulonpress.com)
In your search for a subsidy publisher, consider the
following:
1. In
general, you get what you pay for. You can save a lot of money if you skip
having your manuscript professionally edited and proofread, or if you typeset
the manuscript and design the cover yourself. But the final result won’t be
near as good as if you pay a professional to do those things.
2. When
checking out a subsidy publisher, find out all
the costs. Does the quote include editing, proofreading, cover design,
typesetting, marketing, distribution … or are those services “extra”?
3. Make
sure you retain the rights to your work. If your book becomes the exclusive
property of the subsidy publisher, you won’t be able to contract with a
commercial publisher if one’s interested … or switch subsidy publishers if you
aren’t happy with the first one.
4. What
sales avenues will be available for your book? I used to recommend CreateSpace
(Amazon’s self-publishing division) until I realized that books (both print and
electronic) that an author creates there can only be purchased from Amazon. And competitors won’t buy books from
them.
5. If you
want to pay the subsidy publisher for a marketing package, find out what you’re
really getting. Will they do anything that you can’t do as well or better on
your own?
6. Does the
publisher require that you purchase a minimum number of copies? If so, do you
realistically believe you can sell that many at a high enough price to recover
your costs?
7. Before
you sign with a publisher, check Preditors & Editors (http://pred-ed.com/peba.htm)
to see if the company you’re considering has earned a positive or negative
reputation.
For more details on self-publishing options, check out Kathy's website,
www.KathyIde.com, under Helping Writers/Getting
Published. For assistance in editing and/or proofreading your manuscript for a
subsidy publisher, or for assistance with self-publishing (including
typesetting, file conversion, cover design, and printing), e-mail Kathy at Kathy@KathyIde.com or go to www.ChristianEditor.com.
*Article used by permission.
*Article used by permission.
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