Publishing Options

Congratulations! You've finished your book and want to have it published. Now what?

The first thing you need to do is determine what sort of author you want to be:

someone who anticipates selling their family memoir or cookbook to a relatively small group of people?

someone who wishes to sell books commercially on the internet?

someone who wants to be a blockbuster author with a 20-city tour, an appearance on Oprah, and a movie deal? Well, we all can dream, can't we?

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OK, if you're in the first group, you're almost certainly going to be taking the initiative to publish your baby, because a traditional press such as Random House won't be interested. Unless you are a desktop publisher (not an unreasonable solution), your best option is probably to go to a vanity/subsidy press that will walk you through the publishing maze, give you a certain number of books, and maybe even get your book available on the internet so your friends can purchase it easily.

There are a few types of companies:

Lulu.com -- if you're handy with the computer, you can set up your book for no cost; charges are taken from the sales price only when and if you sell a book. You keep ownership of your own files. This is a great deal! The books you produce will be somewhat higher in price than the typical market prices, but this won't matter because you're only selling to specified people anyway.

A comprehensive company -- I have no personal experience with these, so while I'd like to recommend some I don't feel I can. These companies will help you with a variety of tasks that may include: some editing, typesetting, cover design, ISBN purchase, online availability, etc. I would simply advise that you check out several before you sign with one. Mark Levine HERE has compared a number of companies and ranked them; I highly recommend you read this book to get a feel for what these companies can and cannot do, and what you need to look out for.

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If you are in the second category, you need to be more careful about how you will publish. This is NOT an easy decision: there are significant positives and negatives to each option. Broadly, your options are:

1. Traditional Publishing

2. Vanity/Subsidy Publishing

3. Self-Publishing

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Let's look at some advantages and disadvantages today.

Traditional publishing is a difficult field to break into, but if you can make it, it offers significant advantages over other types of publishing. Some positives I can think of are that your manuscript will have been edited multiple times, and therefore your published book will be something to be very proud of. You will have a beautiful cover, and the backing of a company that will help to launch your book. Furthermore, your book will automatically be considered *worthwhile* because you have a name behind you. Your book will be available in brick and mortar stores, and you may even be able to wrangle a book tour or other publicity opportunities out of your publisher. You will have been paid advance money, and will not have to pay for anything else for the book.

The biggest drawback to traditional publishing that I can think of is that you no longer own your book. If the publisher wants to change text, or discontinue the run, or do anything else, you can't prevent them. I've heard a few horror stories: one friend was upset because she'd been told her editor was changing the ending of her book about 24 hours before it went to press. "I don't want my name on it," she said. Fortunately this snafu was resolved to everyone's satisfaction before the book was printed. The nephew of another friend sold a manuscript to a publisher that then decided not to publish it. He had planned a series but was unable to do so without the first book, and couldn't get the rights back. I have two friends who wrote a wonderful Christmas book. They sold out their first printing quickly and were on a roll with appearances when the publisher informed them another printing would not be done. These are perhaps not typical stories, but they do happen.

Vanity/Subsidy publishing varies quite a bit in quality and cost. Some advantages are that final books can be produced within a matter of weeks, and they usually look pretty decent (although covers often leave much to be desired). Often the book is available for sale on amazon and/or other online venues. However, if I wanted to sell books beyond a small group I personally would not consider this type of publishing. There is a stigma, the books are expensive, the author usually pays more than he should to get the book produced, the author often gives up some rights to the book that he may want later, and on and on. Publishing this way will not allow you to be commercially competitive.

A special subset under this group is Publish America. I've already written a blog entry about this company HERE. PA tries to look like a traditional publisher because they pay $1 advance and don't charge the author anything, but the company also buys ALL rights to the book for seven years. There are so many complaints about PA that I would personally never consider going here. You've been warned.

Your final option is self-publishing, where you form your own company. The major advantage of self-publishing is that you have complete control to produce an excellent product and keep all rights to it. The downside is that you've got to coordinate everything yourself, and believe me there are a lot of details. It can be expensive; although it doesn't have to be, you WILL spend at least some money. Furthermore, you are dependent solely on your platform and marketing contacts in order to get the book sold, because there is no one else.

I'll be looking at how to go about traditional publishing tomorrow.

Ownership: The ISBN, Digital Rights, and Self-Publishing

Today I want to talk about the vanity/subsidy publisher versus the self-publisher in regards to the registration of the book.

When you are thinking of publishing your own book, there are several options. Many people read the advertisements in a writing magazine, and without researching options simply go to one of these: a company that they pay in order to publish their book. Quality of services ranges from excellent to steal-you-blind; Mark Levine has written a helpful book comparing 45 companies HERE, but there are so many that he only scratches the surface. Strictly speaking, publishing with one of these companies is NOT self-publishing: it is vanity/subsidy publishing. You are a self-publisher only if YOU are the publisher.

The publisher becomes important when considering the ISBN. The ISBN, also known as the International Standard Book Number, is like a book's social security number: it is a unique identifier that is forever linked to your book. The ISBN is necessary to engage in generalized commerce in bookstores, online, and other venues -- in other words, you can sell a book by hand without an ISBN, say cookbooks at a community function, but that's it.

Pick up any book on your shelf. On the back cover you should see a white box with two bar codes, and also several strings of numbers. The larger barcode on the left encodes the book's ISBN, a 13-digit number beginning with *978* if it's published in the USA. Since the system recently switched to 13 digits, each book also has a 10-digit ISBN although it may not be printed on the book. The smaller barcode on the right encodes the book's price in a five digit number. The number is *90000* indicates no price specified.

Since the ISBN identifies the publisher, unless you have bought the ISBN from RR Bowker (if you publish in the USA), the book is not considered *yours.* I want to quote this section from the United States ISBN Agency, the official source for ISBNs in the USA:

Who can assign ISBNs to a publisher?

There are over 160 ISBN Agencies worldwide, and each ISBN Agency is appointed as the exclusive agent responsible for assigning ISBNs to publishers residing in their country or geographic territory. The United States ISBN Agency is the only source authorized to assign ISBNs to publishers supplying an address in the United States, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and Puerto Rico and its database establishes the publisher of record associated with each prefix.

Once an ISBN publisher prefix and associated block of numbers has been assigned to a publisher by the ISBN Agency, the publisher can assign ISBNs to publications it holds publishing rights to. However, after the ISBN Agency assigns ISBNs to a publisher, that publisher cannot resell, re-assign, transfer, or split its list of ISBNs among other publishers. These guidelines have long been established to ensure the veracity, accuracy and continued utility of the international ISBN standard.

As defined by the ISO Standard, the ISBN publisher prefix (or "root" of the ISBN) identifies a single publisher. If a second publisher subsequently obtains an ISBN from the assigned publisher's block of ISBNs, there will be no change in the publisher of record for any ISBN in the block as originally assigned. Therefore, searches of industry databases for that re-assigned ISBN will identify the original owner of that assigned prefix as the publisher rather than the second publisher. Discovering this consequence too late can lead to extensive costs in applying for a new prefix, re-assigning a new ISBN, and potentially leading to the application of stickers to books already printed and in circulation.

If you are a new publisher, you should apply for your own ISBN publisher prefix and plan to identify and circulate your books properly in the industry supply chain. You may encounter offers from other sources to purchase single ISBNs at special offer prices; you should be wary of purchasing from these sources for the reasons noted above. There are unauthorized re-sellers of ISBNs and this activity is a violation of the ISBN standard and of industry practice. A publisher with one of these re-assigned ISBNs will not be correctly identified as the publisher of record in Books In Print or any of the industry databases such as Barnes and Noble or Amazon or those of wholesalers such as Ingram. If you have questions, contact the US ISBN Agency for further advice.

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For me, this ownership of the ISBN was the deal-breaker that made me decide to form my own publishing company. Did you catch what this statement above says? Basically, the company that publishes your book, forever will be the official publisher on record. YOU CANNOT TRANSFER THE ISBN, and YOU CANNOT BUY THE ISBN FROM THE COMPANY, no matter what they say. The book is linked to THEM, not to you. If you want to break your contract with the publisher for whatever reasons to go to a different company, the book will still be registered to the first company. To unlink the book you'll need to get a brand new ISBN and start from scratch: your marketing efforts done earlier will be for naught.

Another common problem with vanity/subsidy publishing is that usually the author doesn't own the cover, the typesetting, the illustrations -- none of the physical files. If you want to leave this company for whatever reasons, you will walk away with nothing. The book will need to be re-typeset and a new book cover designed, as well as obtaining a new ISBN.

Ron Pramschufer, a self-publisher, writes an article about this HERE.

Deciding to go outside of a traditional publisher is a serious decision that must be carefully evaluated. You need to realize from the start that the odds are severely against you, especially for marketing fiction. These two landmines I discuss today are a few among many as you start to look into producing your own book.

Critiquing Again

I found my old manuscript! Since there was some interest in how I shaved Lever, for what it’s worth let me compare a few paragraphs from a random passage in the story. I’ll face it off paragraph by paragraph, and then give a brief explanation. The old passage was 347 words, the final is 286. This gives a percent cut of 18%.

***

OLD (50 words):
Seidel had been planting only the first of the four bombs then. Gideon had given him a very detailed outline of procedure once he was in the time machine. Benjamin must have come in before Seidel had been in the target area five minutes, and Gideon clenched his fists angrily.

NEW (26 words):
Seidel had been planting only the first of the four bombs then. Benjamin must have entered before Seidel had been in the target area five minutes.

NOTE:
the reader already knows that Gideon delivered a detailed outline

*

OLD (16 words):
He followed Benjamin’s glance to his hands and forced himself to relax. Don’t give yourself away.

NEW (20 words):
Gideon clenched his fists, then followed Benjamin’s glance to his hands and forced himself to relax. Don’t give yourself away.

NOTE: I moved clenched fists to the next paragraph to tighten the reference. I also italicized the thought.

*

OLD (23 words):
He suddenly had no energy for this, now that he’d learned what he needed. He stood up, signaling the end of the conference.

NEW (23 words):
Now that he’d learned what he needed, he had no more energy for this. He stood up, signaling the end of the conference.

NOTE:
I transposed the first sentence so that the actions take place in chronological order. First Gideon learned the information, then he was enervated. Subtle but important, as anyone who reads about Randy Ingermanson’s motivation-reaction units knows :-)

*

OLD (69 words):
Benjamin cleared his throat. “Sir, do you know if they’ve found the missing trigger yet?”

Gideon started. “The trigger,” he said.

Benjamin nodded. “Yes Sir. Colonel Aaron did mention to me that the man had been carrying four bombs and two trigger mechanisms, plus another trigger on the wire cable that he’d been setting. There’s – well, he seemed to think that suggested that a trigger mechanism might be missing.”

NEW (57 words)
Benjamin cleared his throat. “Sir, do you know if they’ve found the missing trigger yet?”

“The trigger?”

“Yes, sir. Colonel Aaron mentioned that the man had been carrying four bombs and two trigger mechanisms, plus another trigger for the wire cable that he’d been setting. There’s—well, he seemed to think a trigger mechanism might be missing.”

NOTE:
I removed speaker attributions, plus cut some wordiness.

*

OLD (72 words):
Gideon pressed his hands together. “Ah – no, they haven’t found it yet.”

“What did it look like?”

“Excuse me?”

“The trigger,” Benjamin said. “I don’t remember seeing one last night, but maybe I could recognize something I saw if you could describe it for me.”

“The trigger,” Gideon said, and he took a breath. “Ah – I believe they were unusual, like the one used in that car bomb that killed your wife.”

NEW (51 words):
Gideon pressed his hands together. “Ah—no, they haven’t found it yet. I believe it was like the one used in that car bomb that killed your wife.”

“Like the one in the car bomb—” Benjamin grimaced as he covered his eyes with his hand again. He held himself immobile.

NOTE: The old passage was wordy. The multiple exchanges were distracting.

*

OLD (74 words):
That was a slip. Careful. “They’re white, cigar shaped, can fit easily in your palm.”

Benjamin suddenly grimaced as he covered his eyes with his hand again. He held immobile for a few moments before he relaxed.

“I’m sorry Sir,” he said. “My eyes have some stabbing pain still, but the doctor says that will stop in a few hours.”

“Hmm.”

Benjamin looked up. “Sir, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to get some rest.”

NEW (62 words):

Blast it. Distract him from that slip. Gideon jumped forward. “Feinan, do you need to see the doctor?”

Benjamin lowered his hand, shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir. My eyes have some stabbing pain still, but the doctor says that will stop in a few hours."

“You’d better rest them. The mission’s just two and a half days off now.”

“Yes, sir.”

NOTE: old paragraph didn’t convey a strong sense of urgency, and frankly wasn’t realistic. In the new passage Gideon takes control.

*

OLD (44 words):
Gideon waved him on. “Go. Go."

After he had left Gideon sank into the chair behind his desk. He pulled out the top drawer to his cigarettes.

His hands were shaking as he lit the match, and then he breathed in the burning smoke.

NEW (47 words):
Gideon pushed him to the door. “Go. Go. Now.”

After he had left, Gideon sank into the chair behind his desk. He pulled out the top drawer to his cigarettes.

His hands were shaking as he lit the match, and then he breathed in the burning smoke.

NOTE: Gideon again is slightly more aggressive in the second passage.

Publish America

If you're interested in becoming the author of a respectable book, be very careful to evaluate all of the evidence before signing with Publish America. Personally, after learning what I know now, I would never consider it. If you haven't heard of this company in your research for publishers yet, you will.

PA sounds like a good deal: they sign a high proportion of first-time authors to edit and publish books, all without a penny charged to the author. They insist that they are a *traditional* type publisher, albeit with more openness to new authors. There ARE happy authors here, as demonstrated by repeat customers. However, before you sign, do some google searches on this company. There are many websites warning authors away. I found newspaper articles written from The Washington Post and The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about this company, but these are only the tip of the iceberg.

I do not have personal experience with PA, although I did experience a near miss: PA had accepted my ms for publication and sent me a contract. Gosh, I was so excited! About two hours later (honest!), I received a telephone call from my ill-fated agent though, and of course signed with him instead of PA. I don't know anyone personally who has published with them, so therefore want to keep my comments muted and neutral. Anyone can say anything on the web. However, just the fact that SO MANY people post vehement negative comments about this company should give anyone pause who is considering PA.

Complaints about Publish America that I have found on websites include but are not limited to:

1. Minimal or Absent Editing; introduction of additional errors into the manuscript; poor formatting.

2. Limited or no discrimination for acceptable manuscripts. Basically statements say that PA will accept virtually anything, as long as the author promises to *actively promote* the book. There have been several well-publicized tests of PA's acceptance policies, including a truly horribly-written story HERE.

3. Price of the book is higher than the industry standard; for example, a slim 150 page paperback might retail for $18.95. I verified high prices on the PA's bookstore.

4. A low rate of sales, based on their own numbers. PA claims to have published about 30,000 titles and sold about 2,000,000 units. This divides to about 67 units per title rate --> 67 books sold of each title.

5. No library cataloguing information (Library of Congress control number and Cataloguing in Publication data). Right there you've lost a big potential market for your book. Many libraries are not even allowed to order books without this information because its absence suggests a vanity press, and/or a book that was not professionally edited or typeset.

6. Numerous royalty complaints: basically, authors state they've sold X number of books, but these numbers aren't reflected in the PA payments or accounting invoices. One disgruntled author's account (with some mildly colorful verbiage; you've been warned) is HERE.

7. It's apparently really difficult to get out of a PA contract, and gag orders are enforced. Furthermore, the contract has an unusually long term to own all rights: seven years or more.

Just a word to the wise.

Publishing 4: Goals for Your Writing

I have a few odds and ends to mention before I forget, and then I'd like to talk about goals.

1. I plan another few comparisons of before and after over the next few entries -- Jessica, a great idea. I feel like Jamie Lee Curtis here, showing what the manuscript *really* looks like without makeup or airbrushing :-)

2. I've heard writers say that they worry about someone stealing their ideas. My reaction to this: be prudent, but don't worry. Believe me, it's hard enough to develop an idea, or get the manuscript published, for someone to be tempted to lift it.

3. Speaking of the idea belonging to you, you should know that the moment you put an idea in a fixed form, ie you write it down, it is legally copyrighted to you. You can type a notice on it if you want. An easy way to prove that you are the developer as of this date is to mail the manuscript to yourself, and don't open the envelope. Voila -- legal documentation.

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OK, goals. I've gotten the sense at a few conferences that I've attended that many non-published writers look at holding a book with their words inside as the ultimate goal. This is certainly an exciting moment -- I was fortunate to experience this myself last summer -- but it is simply the start of a new journey.

Very few people I imagine are content to write and then stuff manuscripts in their desk drawer, to be found by their heirs 50 years hence. If you want other people to read your words, what audience are you thinking of? I like to divide the audience into two broad, general groups:

1. a personal group. This could be family and friends, a community project, or some other limited readership that you would feel good if you could hand them a book. For instance, I have a friend whose great-grandparents died at the hands of the Nazis soon after Krystallnacht in Germany. She painstakingly researched their last days, and wrote a beautiful book that she published with First Books, a well-known self-publisher. She sold probably 100 copies, and was completely satisfied because she had given the various branches of her family a valuable record of their shared roots.

For this group, self publishing is the best, perhaps the only, option. You can develop a beautiful book at a relatively modest price, or even free, by using one of a number of book packagers.

2. a commercial group. If you want to sell A LOT of books commercially, to strangers who don't necessarily know who you are, because they hear that *this is a good book,* then you have more options that you'll need to carefully consider.

If you are part of this second group, your options divide generally into traditional publishing, or self-publishing. Self-publishing can be further broken down into a quasi-traditional house, a book packager, or developing your own publishing company.

There are definite pluses and minuses to each of these options. It is A HARD ROAD no matter which way you go, and you need to carefully consider the BEST choice for you.

I want to add a thought at my own risk, because it will automatically pull my own book in for consideration. OK, here's my fools-rush-in moment:

The bar for publishable, truly good, writing, is very very high. In my own experience critiquing many writers, I find very few writers who have yet hit this level. There are maybe two manuscripts out of fifty or so that I've read that I would consider publishing under my own imprint -- and these, believe me, I would edit the heck out of first.

I found when I was ready to publish my book, that MY manuscript was not ready. Not by a long shot. I did an enormous amount of work on it, and hopefully have brought it up to this publishable level -- many people have told me how much they enjoyed my book, so I'm hopeful.

I'm convinced that almost anyone can write a competent or better story. But... it takes a lot more work than you think. Just be ready, and don't jump until you've prepared the manuscript as well as you can.

Publishing 3: A Sample Edit

Thanks Jessica for a great suggestion! OK everyone, I looked for my old files of Lever. I switched computers 15 months ago and suspect the very oldest complete draft of this book may have been lost, but I'll keep searching.

In the meantime, I found a file that had gone through only my first edit, after I transferred the critiques from my hired editor and Jane but had done nothing else. This older sample has 130 words; the final version has 122 words, but what a difference! This is the entire chapter 21, found on page 73 of the book. Warning: it contains a spoiler for the plot, so if you haven't yet read Lever, well, you've been warned.

Ready now?

OK, for everyone still here, here are the two versions:

***

Old Version (130 words)

Benjamin threw off the seat restraints and knelt beside Sara, pulled her from the chair and laid her flat on the narrow floor, supine, cradling her in his arms.

She sank boneless against him, and he held her tighter.

Sara.

She seemed barely conscious, so still, and he reached down and took her hand. His Sara.

No, she would be all right. She had to be.

Her lips were moving, and he could barely hear her as she whispered a name.

He leaned further over her, his ear to her lips. The name, she said it again. He drew back in horror.

She had called to Yeshua Ha’Maschiach.

No. It couldn’t be.

Again.

He hadn’t misheard her. His thoughts were paralyzed.

A spy, a believer, Sara, had infiltrated the mission.

***

Final Version (122 words)

BENJAMIN THREW off the seat restraints and knelt beside Sara. She was unconscious, and he pulled her from the chair and laid her flat on the narrow floor.

She sank boneless against him. He held her tighter.

Sara.

She seemed barely conscious, so still. He reached down and took her hand. His Sara.

Her lips were moving, and he could barely hear her as she whispered a name. He leaned further over her, his ear to her lips. The name, she said it again.

And then he drew back in horror.

She had called to Yeshua Ha’Maschiach. No. It couldn’t be.

But he hadn’t misheard her. His thoughts were paralyzed.

A spy, a follower of the Way, Sara, had infiltrated the mission.

***

Subtle changes but a big difference, don't you think?

BTW I just spotted two things in this section that I'd change if I could. Did you catch these?

First is a repetition of an *ly* word, *barely*. Once is OK, but...

The second is an error: in the first paragraph Sara is UNconscious, and in the 4th paragraph she's BARELY conscious.

This, despite multiple read-throughs on my part (and believe me, I'm picky), and a go-around with an excellent copyeditor. It just goes to show that your book is never going to be perfect.

Publishing 1: Is Your Writing Ready?

Since there's been some interest in my own experiences with Lever, instead of keeping jumping in the middle of publishing questions, I'd like to do a few blog entries, from the beginning, of what *I* have learned about the writing biz (waving again to Billy Coffey's excellent blog and title). I am not an expert, although I tend to research compulsively and have some strong opinions that I will not poison you with as far as I'm able :-)

My own story: I finished my manuscript and was excited to sign with my first choice agent. For a number of reasons things didn't work out, and then I wasn't able to write for awhile (not related to the agent-writer breakup). When I got back in the game, I learned that no agent wanted to touch my manuscript because many publishing houses had already considered it; I didn't even have a complete list of who had seen it. I had three choices: 1) rename the manuscript and try again -- since I'd just done the agent rounds for a second time, I was dubious; 2) write my complex second book for which I only had a half-finished first draft, and anticipated much work (especially since I hadn't yet solidified my story template studies); 3) go outside the traditional publishing venues to publish my manuscript. I really believed in Lever. I figured I'd rather go for it and fail, so decided to go with door #3, and write on the side. The jury is still out on whether this enterprise will be a success, but I have to say that I'm very pleased at least with how the book turned out.

The first thing I saw when I put on my publisher hat was that I had to make really sure the manuscript was ready. It takes a lot of effort and at least some money to produce a book, and if the book is bad your effort is for naught. So, I took a good hard look. I hired an editor that in retrospect wasn't a good decision because I didn't feel she was helpful for what I needed; I also asked a few friends to critique the manuscript.

My friend Jane gave me a fabulous critique, and really taught me how to edit myself. This blog is getting too long so I'll go over some editing hints tomorrow. Let me just say that my manuscript to start was good. It had been represented by an agent with an excellent reputation, and sparked interest in more than one publishing house. However, it was not yet publishable quality. Normally a traditional house will buy the manuscript and bring it up to snuff, but since I was it, I had to do this. Getting my manuscript ready was the most labor-intensive part of this whole process, and also the most important.

Tomorrow: Some hints for editing

CreateSpace.com

Brandie asked me about this one. I hadn't heard about CreateSpace.com before, and had fun searching around their website. I only looked at books, since this is the area that I have a marginal degree of familiarity with which to evaluate.

The site is owned by amazon, which means it has the advantage of allowing your book to be listed here. The production costs looked reasonable, especially for the pro plan. It works like lulu.com in that you upload the files without upfront costs. On the website, it looks good. Since the company is part of amazon, though, I'm wondering how accessible they might be if there's a problem -- based on my own experiences getting errors in my own amazon listing cleared up. Let me just say amazon is a fortress, insulating itself from a tactic of repeated calling and emailing that I've normally found effective. I found a forum that discussed CreateSpace.com HERE -- it seemed like people were either very happy or very unhappy with it. Books seemed to have a few more problems than DVDs, although since this is an extremely small and unrepresentative sample, it's hard to draw conclusions. Take it as interesting information.

Brandie, I'm sorry I'm not able to give a more detailed evaluation.

OK, let me move for a moment to a few general thoughts I have on self-publishing. Remember, please, that I am NOT an expert in this field, although I have done a lot of research and have produced my own book through this process. For a good starting resource to learn about self-publishing, check out Dan Poynter's site HERE. He has many free resources available on his website. I'm also planning to compile a list of helpful books, hopefully soon...

Your publishing venue should be determined by your goals for your book. No more, no less. If you want to be taken seriously as an author, you are going to have to have a serious press. Traditionally published authors immediately have credibility. Self-published authors, especially of fiction, rightly or wrongly are not generally respected in the literary field. In other words, if you self-publish you are going to have to jump additional hurdles.

Publishing entities like lulu.com, createspace.com, and other book packaging companies are well-known self-publishing venues. If you publish with one of them you'll be marking your book with a stigma that will be almost impossible to erase. This is a complicated issue based also on marketing etc., but in general is true, and this is also why I almost always discourage people from using book-packaging companies if they want to commercially sell their book. Yes, there are some exceptions with a few, really excellent, book packagers. Alternatively, if you want a limited print run, say for your community group, or have a built-in platform such as being an in-demand speaker, this self-published label won't matter as much. Again, what are your goals?

I promise, I'm going to start a series on this that starts at the beginning, since I feel like I'm jumping into the middle of a complicated field. It's great that you're all so interested in this! Gee, I actually know something useful :-)

Have a great weekend.

Lulu.com

There are different publishing options that you should understand before you decide how you will produce your book. The first big division is traditional publishing versus self-publishing. Self-publishing can be further subdivided into quasi-traditional houses, book packagers, or creating your own publishing company. I'll go through all of these, but since I received a question yesterday from Jessica about Lulu.com, let me review this one today.

Lulu.com sounds like a great self-publishing option, and depending on your goals for your book, it might be!

It works like this: Using online tools and helps, you simply format and upload your cover and interior files to Lulu. The cost is completely free; you don't pay a penny. For each book ordered, Lulu collects the money, subtracts the production costs and 20% of your profit margin, then sends you the remaining money. Lulu also has a number of services to help with, say, cover design or marketing.

My opinion on lulu is this: if you want to publish an extremely limited run, such as 30 copies of family memoirs for a reunion, by all means use this company! I have a friend who has done so, and she's been happy with the product quality. You probably wouldn't want an ISBN for this sort of run. You keep the rights to this book, so if you don't like how lulu does it, you've lost nothing.

However, if you're thinking of publishing, say, a novel or nonfiction book that you want to sell commercially, my strong advice is to find a different way to do this. Here's why:

1. ISBNs: The ISBN is like the social security number of each book. That number will ALWAYS be identified with this book, and its history is easy to research. If you sell on Lulu, even if you buy your own ISBN from them, it will always show a link to lulu, not to you.

2. The biggie: the production costs of this company are way high. If you want to make any kind of profit, you're going to have to set a very high price. They give the example of a 200 page book. If you want to have a $10 retail/$4 wholesale profit, you'll need to retail your book for $21, and wholesale it for $10.50.
**

I just looked through the lulu store, and it looks like they're charging retail prices for their books. Think about this. If you're a buyer, do you really want to pay $21 for a 200 page book? Furthermore, I randomly selected a few top-selling titles from the lulu store and searched for them on amazon: no dice. It's possible you can get your book listed on amazon also, but it didn't look common. Do most people automatically go to lulu to purchase a book?

I have my own publishing company. For my company to produce a 200 page, trade (6x9), perfect bound book, I would be easily able to retail this for $12 to make a comparable profit. By my offering the standard discount to amazon (the wholesale price that they pay me the publisher), amazon would in turn discount the book for sale for (I'm guessing since I don't control amazon) to about $8 or $9. All things being equal, who do you think is going to sell more books?

Hmmm

Self-Publishing a Novel: Some Thoughts

Let's face it: getting a novel signed to a publishing house can seem insurmountable, especially if what you're writing is a little out of the mainstream. Waiting for months is par for the course, even when you've signed with a good agent who is working his or her tail off. Once signed, you may be unpleasantly surprised at how little the publishing company seems to value your book: So-and-so Big Name Author is getting a ten city tour, and you're lucky if you can finagle a few extra books to send to local review sites. It doesn't help when you hear amazing success stories like Stephanie Meyer's (Twilight et al): she said she wrote this for fun, sent it to her sister to read, and six months later it was on its way to becoming a blockbuster.

In this amazing age of the internet and publishing options, it's tempting to think of doing it yourself, especially if you've gone through the traditional channels and can't seem to get traction. We've all heard the success stories of self-published books: The Christmas Box was written by Richard Evans as a sweet Christmas story he wanted to share with family and friends. Eragon was written by a 15 year old homeschooled kid for a project, and aggressively shopped around by his family. The Shack was another *inspiring* story written by William Young for friends and family. (BTW I have my own theological views on The Shack that diverge from many friends, but what can I say? I don't want to get into a debate now about this book).

So, to paraphrase Billy Coffey (waving), what have I learned about this process?

There are many nuts-and-bolts steps you can take to produce a self-published book, and I'll go over what I did on my own journey in future blogs. However, the most important thing I learned, that NO ONE seems to talk about, is before you start putting money down ask yourself:

Is My Novel Ready To Be Published???

You would be surprised. I happily support self-published authors, but have to admit that the quality of writing usually leaves much to be desired. These aren't fatal problems, but the author might need to cut about a fifth of the manuscript, put in better transitions, and write a satisfying ending. Even the biggies; have you read them? I saw the television movie The Christmas Box before I read the book; I found that the book meandered without the same satisfying and sharply cut story. Eragon seemed to be a take-off on Lord of the Rings, and gosh, it had a lot of excess verbiage. The Shack seemed to be better written, but even this wasn't so much of a story as a philosophical conversation.

In other words, I'd argue that just maybe they weren't quite up to a publisher's standard? In my opinion, these books took off because they all had a great premise, even though the writing left much to be desired.

Oh, it's hard to say this, and I know I'm just asking for sharp criticism of Lever by the same token. Actually, please do let me know -- it helps with my writing. But getting back to an objective evaluation, my experience with the self-published authors I know is that they are often anxious to put the book in print now, now, now. You can't really blame them, but still, I gently try to dissuade them when I feel this is the case.

For Lever, I hired a professional editor who did a so-so job. Then, my friend Jane got the manuscript. She was very sarcastic -- "Oh, I know HE'S going to die" -- but by golly, showed me how to do a good edit. After these readers, I went through the manuscript six times over 8 months, and cut more words than I want to think. I only cut three scenes; the remainder was things like passive voice, any words ending in -ly, anything that wasn't related to the story, etc. etc. BTW I've been told a number of times about a few info dumps in Lever, and have to plead guilty here -- I refused to take them out because it had been so doggone difficult to get some of the information and I thought it was cool. I broke my cardinal rule: if two or more people say it, then do it. Mea culpa. See? It's hard to be objective about your work, but you must be! (Hopefully those few passages don't torpedo the whole story).

My agent, who was supposed to be very good, never said word one about spiffing the manuscript first. Oh well.

So, before you try to self-publish, ask yourself: is my novel REALLY ready? It costs a penny a page to print; these costs add up quickly. Be objective, and hold out the standard that your book will be as good as anything traditionally published -- because it must be.