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How self-publishing really works
01.01.70 | Jane Smith
This is the second in a series of blogs by Jane Smith about the phenomenal growth in self-publishing. The first, Should you write on?, was published last week.
When my car needs servicing, I pay someone else to do the work. I could learn to do it myself, but the results are quicker and better if I pay a mechanic. Similarly, there are several reputable self-publishing companies which offer in-house editing, typesetting, design and marketing services to writers who choose to self-publish but don't have the inclination, knowledge or expertise to drive their own books through the editing and production process alone. Self-publishing is a growing area and as more books make the leap from self-publication to mainstream publication (consider G P Taylor's Shadowmancer), its reputation is improving.
Vanity publishing, however, is still notorious for exploiting writers and costing them money they have little real hope of ever earning back. Jonathan Clifford, who invented the "vanity" term, defines a vanity press as "any company that charges clients to publish a book": these charges can consist of upfront fees or can be made by selling books back to their writers, rather than on to new readers—often at inflated prices.
When Osprey Publishing's new joint venture with AuthorHouse was reported on this site last week, Osprey's managing director Rebecca Smart "brushed off any comparison with vanity publishers"; similarly, YouWriteOn has insisted that its publishing schemes don't constitute vanity publishing. But as these schemes offer paid-for publication packages how can we be sure that they really are offering self-publication?
The answer depends on who retains the most knowledge and control of the publishing process of the books concerned.
While some self-published writers pay others to edit and design their books, they retain control of all those services and usually understand precisely how self-publication differs from mainstream publication: they've made an informed choice about the future of their books and the likelihood of recouping or losing the money they've invested in publishing them. But writers who sign with vanity presses often think it's the norm for writers to pay for publication, and that new writers just can't get published unless they're celebrities or have mysterious contacts within the publishing world. While I've heard from several well-informed self-published writers, I've yet to meet a single vanity-published writer who fully understands how profoundly vanity publishing differs from the mainstream route.
A self-published writer will have his imprint named on the copyright page of his book; the ISBN will be registered to that imprint with the ISBN Agency; and he'll have full control over all aspects of his own publication, from approving cover design to buying print. He'll know exactly how many copies have been printed and sold; and how much money he's made or lost as a result. But if the imprint named on his book's copyright page belongs to someone else's publishing service, then logic follows that he can't be self-published: and if the author doesn't quite know how many copies have been printed, or how well those copies are selling, how can he consider himself to have any control at all?
So, do the publishing opportunities offered by Osprey and AuthorHouse, and YouWriteOn, constitute vanity publishing or self-publishing? They involve up-front fees; their writers appear to have little or no control over their books' design, printing, or sales; and most of the books published by these two schemes are likely to have the publishing companies' imprints on the copyright page. I'll leave it up to you to make a judgement.
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Do self publishers realise that if they are in paid work they are able to make tax claims on losses? For every 200 self published books about 199 will make a loss, but it should not be just about money. I was able to claim 40% tax rebate on losses on my first two publications in 1999 and 2001. I don't know much about YouWriteOn etc but would doubt they have much knowledge of typography or design. I had a head start as I was an advertising art director at the time of the first few books. Most self publishers will be lambs to the slaughter.
I think you've pretty much nailed it.
Ownership of the ISBN is a good test.
Ownership of the InDesign files is another one.
I bought 10 ISBN's in a block....still have a few left. Got the books into Gardners / Bertrams / THE etc....then set about making around 2,000 phone calls to Waterstone's ( every branch ) Ottakars, Borders, Books etc, Hammicks, Blackwell's and loads of indies. Ran ads in The Guardian, Independent, Times etc and some trade press ( The Bookseller no less ). Visited 250 bookshops in England, Scotland and Wales...was featured on TV / radio and local press. Despite all this I made a loss for 9 years on the books but without them I could not have set up a film production company which has wiped out 9 years losses in 18 months. If you are going to do it you might as well give it everything, although having said that I don't think it would be the same in this market. At least all the retailers I mentioned were prepared to stock the books back then.
You learn something new everyday. Jane, I honestly didn't know there were reputable self publishing companies out there who cover a lot of the details for an author. I think there's a lot of heat out there about publishing but not too much light. Everyone seems to be warning about the scammers and no one mentions the good guys: a bit like the news, always bad never good. But I think you'll find the ultimate problem behind everything is people - more often than not a man :) - and it's the desire by authors to get published quick that makes it more convenient for them to fork out
Companies like AuthorHouse are NOT "self-publishing companies," and writers who use them are NOT self-publishers.
Only when a writer forms her/his own publishing company and either does all of the work or hires others when needed, is the author REALLY self-publishing.
While there are some legitimate reasons to use author service companies, the writers who use them will often wait longer for books to be sold, have less control over the appearance and quality of the books, spend more money, make less money, and have a lower quality book than if they became real self-publishers.
It
JP: I agree that if writers were less impatient to be published then sure, more could avoid the scams than do at present: but we both know that
Derek, I didn't discuss who owns the digital files, did I? Thanks for adding that. It's important.
Ray, it sounds like you've really worked hard to sell your books on: but how much has it cost you to phone all those bookshops? Have you managed to break even out of your publishing venture? And while you've been busy making all those phone calls, have you got any writing done? Selling eats up so much available time that self-published writers often become sales people instead of writers--and while that might be what some of them want, I bet it's at odds with most writers' ambitions.
I forgot to mention WHSmith...would phone the buyers at Swindon about 4 times a year between 2000 and 2006. I never spoke to the same person twice and failed to get a single copy of my titles into any of their stores. Some of the buyers ended up working for the likes of Poundland and Pizza Hut...and some of them don't have jobs anymore. WHSmith never seemed like a bookshop anyway so I was never too disappointed. Self publishing has been a huge learning curve and I had the misfortune to meet many celeb types - their misfortune too to meet me. The book world is made of a mixture of some very decent people and some not so.
Michael, I share your view: I don
Hello Jane....the cost of the phone calls...not as much as I feared....I was able to get through to people and rattle off the bullet point text / title / ISBN etc in fast time. And it did work, well when it could. I doubt it would work now though. As for the writing time...I write so fast it would not make any difference as I was only interested in 'automatic writing' anyway. I used the Booksellers Association handbook to rattle through the contacts. Ottakars were the easiest to speak to, then Waterstone's, Books etc. I'm glad I went through all that stuff but it won't be happening anymore as I have no desire to write anything that will appear in book form. Film and tv is a different matter and it actually pays whereas I always knew self publishing would make a big loss. I spent over
Ray: I'm WINCING at those figures. I certainly couldn't afford to lose that much money and I'm not sure many people could. Good luck with the TV and film side of things--where, in my experience, it's possible for people to lose even more!
Films....yeah, they are expensive too...
If we are to make our own judgements about self-publishing, please can we have the facts right, Jane? I don't know about Osprey and AuthorHouse as I have not done business with them, but I can speak for YouWriteOn. As an author with long-term experience of being publlished b y mainstream publishers, and more recently self-publishing under my own imprint, I have for some time been interested in the claims made by POD publishers, as a way of keeping my costs down. So when I saw the publishing offer of YouWriteOn/Legend Press I took it up as a way of testing the system, using a MS I was not ready to publish myself. I can verify that I was not charged anything (other than the ISBN fee of
Tim, thank you for taking the time to respond here.
Tell me, does AuthorHouse have a sales team employed to sell the books which it publishes into bookshops? Because if not, it doesn
Sylvia, if you have found any errors in my piece then I
GBP 40 and your book avaialble on Amazon - and no hassle .... So why this endless knocking from self appointed "experts" and a lot of nasty little snide digs about the YWO scheme. WHY ? Is it possible that the blog called How Publishing Really Works is just a historical document about a bygone age when everyone lay in thrall to a certain elite who thought they knew it all. Ray Leigh, publisher, TheFuPress, www.thefupress.wordpress.com - now available globally, the FU Press's first title -C L E A R -
C L E A R
Let me reassure Jane and all her readers that all authors who utilise AuthorHouse's services and/or participate in our programme with Osprey, will enjoy all those elements of control that Jane describes in her penultimate paragraph. Our authors retain their rights, total editorial control of their content and they set their book's retail price. They liaise with our designers throughout the production process on their cover and internal design. They approve and sign off their galleys and of course, their book gets an isbn and full distribution through terrestrial and online retailers on a POD basis. They receive quarterly accounts for those sales and they receive royalties accordingly, at the rate they have selected. The growth of self publishing in the UK has, indeed, been phenomenal, particularly, in the last two years. Authorhouse UK worked with 50% more authors in 2008 than we did in 2007 and we anticipate a similar scenario this year, including, of course, those authors who will join us through our partnership with Osprey.
I have read your blog many times and it seems that each time you knock YWO but for some of us all we want is to see our work in print and have no need to actually 'sell it' so for some of us YWO has been a wonderful experience and cost only the price of the copy - a wonderful legacy to leave to family and grandchildren and a great confidence boost to see all your hard work in print.
It's horses for courses so not necessarily either a wrong way or right way to go about things. Depends what you want.
Hello Jane - I noticed you said in your latest slightly rude comments "This is how publishing should work" and of course I was really impressed that you were asked to contribute to the Bookseller and even more so that you have got some money for some stuff you have written and incredilbly flattered that you have torn yourself away from your blog to advise idiots like me how to conduct ourselves. Thank you. Perhaps when you have read C L E A R you will understand why I find you so ridiculous. Ray Leigh, publisher the FU Press, www.thefupress.wordpress.com.
Do self publishers realise that if they are in paid work they are able to make tax claims on losses? For every 200 self published books about 199 will make a loss, but it should not be just about money. I was able to claim 40% tax rebate on losses on my first two publications in 1999 and 2001. I don't know much about YouWriteOn etc but would doubt they have much knowledge of typography or design. I had a head start as I was an advertising art director at the time of the first few books. Most self publishers will be lambs to the slaughter.
I think you've pretty much nailed it.
Ownership of the ISBN is a good test.
Ownership of the InDesign files is another one.
I bought 10 ISBN's in a block....still have a few left. Got the books into Gardners / Bertrams / THE etc....then set about making around 2,000 phone calls to Waterstone's ( every branch ) Ottakars, Borders, Books etc, Hammicks, Blackwell's and loads of indies. Ran ads in The Guardian, Independent, Times etc and some trade press ( The Bookseller no less ). Visited 250 bookshops in England, Scotland and Wales...was featured on TV / radio and local press. Despite all this I made a loss for 9 years on the books but without them I could not have set up a film production company which has wiped out 9 years losses in 18 months. If you are going to do it you might as well give it everything, although having said that I don't think it would be the same in this market. At least all the retailers I mentioned were prepared to stock the books back then.
You learn something new everyday. Jane, I honestly didn't know there were reputable self publishing companies out there who cover a lot of the details for an author. I think there's a lot of heat out there about publishing but not too much light. Everyone seems to be warning about the scammers and no one mentions the good guys: a bit like the news, always bad never good. But I think you'll find the ultimate problem behind everything is people - more often than not a man :) - and it's the desire by authors to get published quick that makes it more convenient for them to fork out
Companies like AuthorHouse are NOT "self-publishing companies," and writers who use them are NOT self-publishers.
Only when a writer forms her/his own publishing company and either does all of the work or hires others when needed, is the author REALLY self-publishing.
While there are some legitimate reasons to use author service companies, the writers who use them will often wait longer for books to be sold, have less control over the appearance and quality of the books, spend more money, make less money, and have a lower quality book than if they became real self-publishers.
It
I forgot to mention WHSmith...would phone the buyers at Swindon about 4 times a year between 2000 and 2006. I never spoke to the same person twice and failed to get a single copy of my titles into any of their stores. Some of the buyers ended up working for the likes of Poundland and Pizza Hut...and some of them don't have jobs anymore. WHSmith never seemed like a bookshop anyway so I was never too disappointed. Self publishing has been a huge learning curve and I had the misfortune to meet many celeb types - their misfortune too to meet me. The book world is made of a mixture of some very decent people and some not so.
Ray, it sounds like you've really worked hard to sell your books on: but how much has it cost you to phone all those bookshops? Have you managed to break even out of your publishing venture? And while you've been busy making all those phone calls, have you got any writing done? Selling eats up so much available time that self-published writers often become sales people instead of writers--and while that might be what some of them want, I bet it's at odds with most writers' ambitions.
Derek, I didn't discuss who owns the digital files, did I? Thanks for adding that. It's important.
JP: I agree that if writers were less impatient to be published then sure, more could avoid the scams than do at present: but we both know that
Michael, I share your view: I don
Hello Jane....the cost of the phone calls...not as much as I feared....I was able to get through to people and rattle off the bullet point text / title / ISBN etc in fast time. And it did work, well when it could. I doubt it would work now though. As for the writing time...I write so fast it would not make any difference as I was only interested in 'automatic writing' anyway. I used the Booksellers Association handbook to rattle through the contacts. Ottakars were the easiest to speak to, then Waterstone's, Books etc. I'm glad I went through all that stuff but it won't be happening anymore as I have no desire to write anything that will appear in book form. Film and tv is a different matter and it actually pays whereas I always knew self publishing would make a big loss. I spent over
Ray: I'm WINCING at those figures. I certainly couldn't afford to lose that much money and I'm not sure many people could. Good luck with the TV and film side of things--where, in my experience, it's possible for people to lose even more!
Films....yeah, they are expensive too...
If we are to make our own judgements about self-publishing, please can we have the facts right, Jane? I don't know about Osprey and AuthorHouse as I have not done business with them, but I can speak for YouWriteOn. As an author with long-term experience of being publlished b y mainstream publishers, and more recently self-publishing under my own imprint, I have for some time been interested in the claims made by POD publishers, as a way of keeping my costs down. So when I saw the publishing offer of YouWriteOn/Legend Press I took it up as a way of testing the system, using a MS I was not ready to publish myself. I can verify that I was not charged anything (other than the ISBN fee of
Let me reassure Jane and all her readers that all authors who utilise AuthorHouse's services and/or participate in our programme with Osprey, will enjoy all those elements of control that Jane describes in her penultimate paragraph. Our authors retain their rights, total editorial control of their content and they set their book's retail price. They liaise with our designers throughout the production process on their cover and internal design. They approve and sign off their galleys and of course, their book gets an isbn and full distribution through terrestrial and online retailers on a POD basis. They receive quarterly accounts for those sales and they receive royalties accordingly, at the rate they have selected. The growth of self publishing in the UK has, indeed, been phenomenal, particularly, in the last two years. Authorhouse UK worked with 50% more authors in 2008 than we did in 2007 and we anticipate a similar scenario this year, including, of course, those authors who will join us through our partnership with Osprey.
GBP 40 and your book avaialble on Amazon - and no hassle .... So why this endless knocking from self appointed "experts" and a lot of nasty little snide digs about the YWO scheme. WHY ? Is it possible that the blog called How Publishing Really Works is just a historical document about a bygone age when everyone lay in thrall to a certain elite who thought they knew it all. Ray Leigh, publisher, TheFuPress, www.thefupress.wordpress.com - now available globally, the FU Press's first title -C L E A R -
C L E A R
Sylvia, if you have found any errors in my piece then I
Tim, thank you for taking the time to respond here.
Tell me, does AuthorHouse have a sales team employed to sell the books which it publishes into bookshops? Because if not, it doesn
I've found some more interesting information about AuthorHouse on the Absolute Write forum's "Bewares and Background Checks" section (link below). If you have a look through it you'll find references to charges made by AuthorHouse including $750 to make books returnable (post 389); and a charge of $499 for just ten copies of a book (post 390).
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=694
"That certainly sounds more like vanity publication than self-publication to me. In researching this piece I referred to definitions agreed by mainstream and self-publishing houses, which the vanity publishers obviously dispute: " blah blah blah - well done this person for denigrating the whole YWO scheme - again and again .....fine fair enough BUT at least the people taking part were creating books rather than trying to make a career out of a second rate blog - please spare me anymore of this pitiful arrogance.
Ah, bless you, Ray. Another ad hominem attack on me from a YouWriteOn supporter. I find that properly-informed and well-reasoned debate is SO much more effective.
As for
Hello Jane - I noticed you said in your latest slightly rude comments "This is how publishing should work" and of course I was really impressed that you were asked to contribute to the Bookseller and even more so that you have got some money for some stuff you have written and incredilbly flattered that you have torn yourself away from your blog to advise idiots like me how to conduct ourselves. Thank you. Perhaps when you have read C L E A R you will understand why I find you so ridiculous. Ray Leigh, publisher the FU Press, www.thefupress.wordpress.com.
I have read your blog many times and it seems that each time you knock YWO but for some of us all we want is to see our work in print and have no need to actually 'sell it' so for some of us YWO has been a wonderful experience and cost only the price of the copy - a wonderful legacy to leave to family and grandchildren and a great confidence boost to see all your hard work in print.
It's horses for courses so not necessarily either a wrong way or right way to go about things. Depends what you want.
Nice one Tessa, "Ray Leigh" is a complete pain in the posterior, pathetically trying to improve himself by using free advertisement of his wonderful (ha ha ) publising endeavour. God help us. He thinks very highly of himself - trouble is, everyone else thinks he's a complete nutter.
Jane - you are 100% on target: "Vanity publishing, however, is still notorious for exploiting writers and costing them money they have little real hope of ever earning back."
I am writing this note to help save other people from having the kind of very, very bad experience that I had in attempting to work with Morgan James Publishing.
In December of 2007 I entered into an agreement to have Morgan James Publishing, David Hancock and Rick Frishman assist me in publishing a book I had written on business excellence. The experience working with them was so incredibly poor and disappointing that in July of 2008
Hello Jane,
Reading all the comments on your blog about vanity presses,YWO and AuthorHouse, really makes me shudder to think that I could have gone down the same road as so many other self published authors who have been royally fleeced.
I have authored and self published a book entitled, 'Three Pearl Buttons' ( ISBN 978-0615297170 ). I spent a great deal of time researching POD companies and found one (LSI which is the printing arm of Ingram) that worked well for me. I bought my own ISBN and have complete control over the content and cover of the book. They just print copies for me and have inserted my title into their distribution channels. The book is available in The States, Canada and the UK through Amazon , Baker and Taylor, and other online stores.
While writing the book was a wonderful process and setting up an account with my POD company was a long drawn out process, I really believe that everything up until now was the easy part. For me marketing the book seems to be Herculean in magnitude!
Every avenue I explore seems to wither away, major retailers wont carry the book unless there is interest. So even though I did my homework on the company I am working with, it seems to have got me not very far with the marketing/promotion angle. Everything is ready to go, but what is the use if no one knows about the existence of the book? It really is frustrating. So far, just friends and family have read/purchased the book...
So yes, I agree with you about the necessity of having the backing of a major publishing house.
Even though my book is in print, I am still thinking about trying to get an agent interested in it?!!!??
It would be so much easier...
I like the idea of self-publishing as you as the author are promised the full rights to your work. This is the main reason why I chose to publish with Authorhouse. I did not want some editor not familiar with six years of research to make unauthorised edits to my manuscripts.
However, beware of Authorhouse, I've been burned. Here is my experience.
To my utter misfortune, I became acquainted and started to use the services offered by 1stBooks publishers now known as Authorhouse, and published my first two books in 2003. At the time, I detected no problem with their services and accepted that being my work was academic, would not sell many copies. I decided to publish my third book with them, a large 2 volume edition in 2008, and due to the reviews and publicity received, and the professors that contacted me personally, I became fully aware of the university libraries and public libraries who processed my work into their establishments, or were interested in my work.
However, I noticed the first major discrepancy in their promises was that if I turned my manuscript in within a certain time frame, I would receive fourteen free copies of my work when it was printed.
I e-mailed my text, and mailed my contract via snail-mail two weeks before the deadline, I know it arrived on time
E.A. Bucchianeri - I hold no brief for Authorhouse and they may well be as bad as you suggest - however your trust in amazon numbers is as touching as it is baseless. I am sorry to say that you cannot infer a sale from a change in the availability status of a book from Amazon. There are lots of reasons why the availability status changes which have nothing to do with sales. This is partiuclarly the case for PoD titles - wehich amazon often lists as available or even in stock when they aren't but when amazon knows they can get them promptly. I fear you may have made your decision to withdraw your titles from Authorhouse based on completely spurious data and assumptions about amazon and their practices.