Self-publishing

Self-publishing is becoming a very popular option for writers of all styles. It can provide you with the opportunity to control the process in which you make your work public; it also necessitates that you manage each part of the publishing process, which is no small task.

The most successful self-publishers are those who planned their project carefully and set themselves realistic goals.

A great research tool to help decide if you want to self-publish your book, which also helps guide you through the publication process is Euan Mitchell’s Self-publishing Made Simple 2nd edition.

Further reading

Hints for Self-Publishing Writers – a pdf guide by Australian Society of Authors (ASA) copyright 2007.

There are five stages to planning a publication:

• Readership
• Distribution
• Budgets and Finance
• Editing, Design and Printing
• Promotion and Marketing
• Budget & Finance

A very wise teacher once taught a self-publishing class, saying first, “How much can you afford to lose?” This is not meant to scare writers from self-publishing, but to remind them of the reality of the situation. With this in mind, it is very important to plan finances in advance, and to adjust them as the project proceeds.

The first thing to do is work out a budget. This should take into account:

Expenditure

Expenditure must include any money that the author will spend directly on the project: * Cost of printing * Cost of editing * Design and layout * Postage * Telephone and fax * Office stationery * Cost of ISBN and barcode * Advertising * Book launch * Publicity It might also include money that will be spent indirectly: * Author’s time * Fuel and mileage for vehicle * Office rental Add up the final costs.

Income

Divide the final cost by the number of copies of the book to get the cost of each book, for example: $5000 ÷ 500 copies = $10 per book. (Remember that you must charge your customers GST on the books you sell, and that this cost must be passed on to the government. For more information on this, please see the Australian Tax Office site: http://www.ato.gov.au

If the author sells all the books, and makes $10 off each book, then they will make their money back.

But the bookshop and other people selling the book will also want to make money. The percentage a bookshop takes from the recommended retail price of a book can vary from shop to shop, but it is normally 30 – 40%. If a bookseller takes 33% of the retail price and the author decides to sell the book for $18, then they get:

Bookseller: $6 Author: $12

This is slightly more than $10, so the author would only need to sell 417 books to break even. $5000 ÷ $12 = 417 copies. Of course, any copies that the author sells without the aid of the bookshop returns all of the sale price to the author. This can be calculated as:

Income

Author copies 50 at $18 = $900 Bookseller copies 342 at $12 = $4104

Total $5004

If the author sells 50 copies, then it only takes 392 copies to break even. The fewer number of books that need to be sold to cover the cost of publication, the easier it is to break even. Be aware, though, of what the market can take. The more specialised your book the smaller the market.

Distribution

Plan your distribution before publication. Many small publishers fall into the trap of thinking the publishing process is finished when the book returns from the printers. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

The success of your project will depend to a large extent on how and where you distribute. If people don’t see the book, or read about it, they can’t buy it.

Book catalogues

Two or three months before your book is published it is imperative that you pass on details of your publication to one of the catalogues which booksellers use to find books. These, such as Bookdata and Books in Print, provide bookshops with the information they need to order a requested book. If you don’t do this and a customer requests your book by name, how will the bookseller know where to get it?

Bar Codes and International Standard Book Numbers

Publishers are required to obtain an International Standard Book Number (ISBN), and to lodge copies of their publication with both the National Library of Australia, and in Victoria, with the State Library of Victoria. You can find out about ISBNs by emailing Thorpe at: isbn.agency@thorpe.com.au. Many bookshops will only sell an item if it has a barcode printed on the cover. Registering and supplying bar codes is a business. A full list of suppliers can be found in the Yellow Pages.

Think laterally to reach your readership

In a bookshop, a self published book will be competing directly with hundreds of commercially published books, and thousands of dollars of promotional material.

Good distribution should do two things: it should reach the intended readership and it should sell a lot of copies fast. So think about ways of distributing your books other than through bookshops.

Good Reading:

Self Publishing Made Simple by Euan Mitchell