As part of an ongoing series on the acquisitions process, I am going to talk a little bit about self publishing.
A lot of people are attracted to this, but self-publishing is a lot of work and very (very) few do this well with either patterns or with booklets. Lots of errors, long hours of fulfillment, and a lot of money up front. Much better to have a team to help you along the way, that have a reputation for quality work…it’s kind of like the Verizon network. You give up some money for that, but I’ll touch on this a bit later about diversifying your business.
I see that self-publishing is a big risk, and even if it is done well—it’s a tremendous outlay with almost none being able to get into the bookstores and into the craft chains and specialty shops which are C&T’s main areas of sales. Anyone can self-publish. It doesn’t add a lot of prestige in the same way as saying that a publishing company has signed you up because that means that a lot of people got in a room together, discussed your work and decided that it was worthwhile spending their money to create something with you.
Another point that has come up a lot (and always surprises me) is that potential authors I’ve approached always ask how much it will cost them to publish a book. It’s a fair enough question but is always the ‘ah-ha’ moment when I tell potential authors that there is no money of theirs involved. It’s the publishing company who is taking all of the risk in creating a book with their team of designers. They put together a marketing plan and promote the book in their catalogue with nothing but a leap of faith—it’s actually a pretty exciting concept, and you can see why C&T considers it a really collaborative process. There are some publishers who take your work and don’t offer the same level of consultation with the author with regard to the design and the packaging, but we are really interested in working with our authors for years to come so we want you to promote your book because you love it and it’s a piece of you. It’s great to have so many people on your team to turn to for advice. So free up your time and your money to concentrate on other areas of your business and work with a publisher who know what they are doing.
Next week, I’ll talk about what you can start doing today if you aren’t ready to start working on a book.
Related Posts:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Related posts:
4 Comments
Thanks so much for these posts. It takes a lot of guessing & confusion out of the process. I’ve seen sites, blogs, etc. that claim that they are giving this information to you…only either for a fee, or to be bombarded with alot of emails, and most of it does not explain anything.
Again, I am very grateful and will probably be contacting you once I finish reading all of your posts. :-)
Hello,
This is such a great post and I will be checking the other references.
I am very interested in publishing and working with an editor as I have ideas for a few books.
~ Gabriela ~
I have left several comments and probably sound like a broken record.Your blog has been invaluable because of your expertise and experience. Thanks so much for taking the time to explain this process. Others I know,who self published wanted control over the process, but in the end got less than they bargained for. Yes they had a book. Yes they could say they were an author. Did it sell in the market they hoped for? Not really and they found that self promotion is really tough. Looking forward to the next installment!
Thank you so much for providing all this wonderful information.
I would like to do a book in the future so I am saving all your posts to re-read when I am ready! Thanks again.