Self-publishing is the process of turning something you have written into a printed book, which you in turn market, sell and distribute. You are in complete control of all stages of the publishing process. You make all the decisions, you reap all the rewards – and you take all the risks.

Self-publishing contrasts with the ‘traditional’ process of getting a book published, whereby authors send their written work, in manuscript form, to an established publisher. If a publisher agrees to publish the book, the publisher will organise the printing, marketing, sales and distribution of the book, and pay the author a royalty in return.

Self-publishing should not be confused with vanity publishing. Vanity publishers will arrange the publication of your book and pass on the full cost of publication directly to you, the author. You are often asked to pay upfront. You will be promised royalties, but be aware that once the vanity publisher has received your payment for their production costs, they have little financial incentive to bother selling your book.

Vanity publishers have been the subject of various investigations, reports of the BBC’s Watchdog programme, and even the subject of a House of Lords’ debate during which it was suggested that the law should be changed to stop rogue operators in the publishing industry. Proceed with caution!

Technically, a self-published book should have the author’s chosen publishing name on the book’s copyright page. The book’s ISBN number should be registered to you, the author, under that same publishing name. On the copyright page of your book you will also incorporate a standard statement about rights:

All rights are reserved. No part of this book can be stored on a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by whatever means without the prior permission in writing from the publisher.

All rights are reserved by the publisher. When the publisher is you, operating under your chosen publishing name, you have retained all rights to your book. If the publisher is not you, you have not retained all rights to your book, and your book is not self-published (even though you may have paid a third party up front for the production and publishing costs).

There has been much debate within the publishing industry about the growth of self-publishing in recent years:

• Some people view self-publishing as the new vanity publishing.
• Others view self-publishing as the new ‘slush-pile’ of the publishing industry, by which they mean authors who previously remained in the slush-pile whilst waiting to be noticed by the commissioning editors of the large publishing houses, are now self-publishing their books whilst waiting to be noticed by the commissioning editors of large publishing houses. Different opinions abound as to whether this is a good or bad thing.
• Some think it’s refreshing that self-publishing brings a fresh supply of choice to the book consumer. Some think the large publishing houses are so driven by marketing and shareholders and the need to produce blockbusters, they leave brilliant manuscripts languishing in their slush piles. So isn’t it great that self-publishing offers a way of getting such talent exposed?
• Some key figures from the large publishing houses have gone on record to say they prefer to search for talent amongst self-published books rather than a slush-pile, because self-published books are already tested on the market.
• Other people, in contrast, think self-publishing is generating a dearth of substandard, poorly written and produced books.

Fortunately, like anything creative, writing is subjective. Therefore what makes a good book is subjective. Established publishing companies frequently misjudge their interpretation of what the market wants and what readers want. (Recently a book that received a £600,000 advance languished in the bargain bins, for example.) There are also plentiful examples of bestsellers that were rejected by numerous publishers as being ‘not good enough’ or ‘not right for the market’ before being published and consumed eagerly by the reading punters. Equally, there have been several high profile examples of self-published books that have been taken on by large publishing houses and gone on to become bestsellers.

Despite the debate surrounding it, self-publishing is growing in strength and activity. It offers a viable, alternative means of getting your book into print, and, if undertaken with sufficient business planning, can bring considerable personal and even financial rewards.

This book will help you to decide if self-publishing is right for you, and guide you through the processes of design, production, marketing, sales and distribution.

Self-publishing isn’t a new phenomenon! Some authors who have self-published: Beatrix Potter, William Blake, Mark Twain, James Joyce, Rudyard Kipling.

A modern success story

G.P. Taylor self-published his novel Shadowmancer in 2002. When book retailers refused to stock his books he approached a book wholesaler. Within weeks word-of-mouth recommendation was generating keen interest in his book, and sales began to increase. He was quickly signed to Faber & Faber on a multi-book deal. The US rights were sold. The film rights were sold. The book has been translated into 42 languages. His second book Wormwood has also been an international best seller.

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE FROM SELF-PUBLISHING?

There are already over 100,000 books published in the UK each year by mainstream publishing companies. These publishers have an army of marketing staff and sales representatives and sophisticated sales and distribution networks. So if you want to self-publish a book and see it for sale in every high-street bookshop, please take a serious look at your competition. Publishing is a crowded and highly competitive industry.

But perhaps you’re not striving to get your book in collective high-street bookshops up and down the nation? Perhaps you want to sell a specific niche market book to a specific audience? Perhaps you haven’t given much thought yet as to why you want to self-publish, aside from the obvious joy of holding a book with your name on your cover? Perhaps you’re not even expecting to make a profit?

People publish their own books for many different reasons. Consider the following examples:

Person A wants to share their work with a specific, limited audience. They have written a book for a niche market (for example, the history of a local village, or a particular species of animal, model train, rare plant, or perhaps feng shut for cats). Because they are a talented enthusiast in their particular field of interest, such authors normally have a good idea of who their target audience is, and how they might reach them.

Person B wants the satisfaction of seeing their creative labours turned into a ‘nice looking book’ and publishes in small print runs to achieve this aim. They give and/or sell copies to friends and family, and might sell a few copies through a supportive local club or bookshop.

Person C has knowledge of the publishing industry and has sent their manuscript to several established publishers, who have turned it down for various reasons. The author believes their work is commercially viable and sees self-publication as a valid means of making their book available to potential readers, whether it is sold via bookshop, internet or direct sales methods. They are aware that the publishing industry is fiercely competitive, and plan their print run according to their available marketing budget.

Person D has written a novel, because ‘anyone can write a blockbuster!’ They want to publish their work and become one of those lucky, lucky authors who sell thousands of books and get six-figure advances for subsequent works, and maybe a movie deal. They pursue this dream with blinkered enthusiasm, undeterred by people (like me!) who tell them that fame and fortune is an extremely rare outcome for any author, let alone those who self-publish fiction.

No one of the above approaches to self-publishing is ‘better’ than the other. (Even if you’re approaching self-publishing from the angle of Person D, and are willing to risk £5,000 of your own money, who am I to say you shouldn’t chase your dream?)

What matters is that you choose the approach that is right for you and your expectations:

You must decide what you want to achieve from self-publishing before you begin.

Only once you know what you want to achieve can you make informed decisions about how much time, effort, money and risk you are willing to invest.

The resources you invest in self-publishing must be both relative and realistic to your desired outcome.

Are your expectations of self-publishing realistic? Use the following checklist to clarify what you want to achieve. You might have other reasons for self-publishing. Write down what you want to achieve from self-publishing and stick it on the wall by your office desk, or somewhere equally visible. You will need to remind yourself of expectations and goals as you work through this book.

WHAT ARE YOU WILLING AND ABLE TO INVEST?

Before you start, you will need to assess what you can commit to your self-publishing project. As a starting point, estimate now how much time, effort, money and risk you think you are able to invest. Each of these four things has a bearing on the other.

For example, by effort I refer to your ability and willingness to undertake the various stages of self-publishing (typesetting, cover design, dealing with press and publicity, and so on).

You might need to learn more skills. This will take effort, and will also take more time. If you don’t want to invest the effort and time required to learn more skills you might enlist the help of paid professionals. This will cost more money. The more money you commit to your self-publishing project, the more risk you are taking.

As you read through this book keep a copy of the time/effort/ money/risk matrix to hand. Jot down ideas and concerns in the relevant box. By the end of the book some of you may notice that your time/effort/money/risk balance has changed considerably from the estimates you make now.

By the end of the book, and before you set off down the self-publishing road, you will need to assess whether the commitments and investments you can make are realistic in relation to what you want to achieve. Conversely you will need to check that the investments you are making can be recouped. (In Chapter 4 we will look at pricing. This will help you estimate how much you can expect to earn from the sales of your book.)

Finally, whilst talking about recouping your investments, it is pertinent to include a brief paragraph about the Harry Potter myth. The unprecedented success and earnings of J.K. Rowling (all credit to her) have generated a surge of interest in ‘becoming an author’. It’s the ‘if one person can go from unknown struggling writer to international superstar, then why can’t I?’ effect.

Writing and selling books can be a very lucrative business, but as a reality check I want to quote the finders of The Society of Authors’ most recent survey (2000) of authors’ earnings. In the previous year:

• 3 per cent of respondents earned over £100,000
• 5 per cent earned over £75,000
• 75 per cent earned under £20,000
• 61 per cent earned under £10,000.

As a final ‘health warning’ against unrealistic expectations of self-publishing, let me quote some of the industry rules of thumbs at my disposal to frighten you with:

• Each year only 3 per cent of titles can account for up to 50 per cent of total book sales.
• The large publishing houses – apparently – make a profit on only 30 per cent of books they publish; 40 per cent break even and 30 per cent lose money. Large publishing houses can cope with their loses because they have the law of averages on their side. As a small self-publisher you won’t have the law of averages on your side: you will have one shot.

Finally, take a second look at the time commitment you believe you’ll need to invest in your self-publishing project. Remember that self-publishing is a small business enterprise. Like all small businesses headed up by one person, there is a limit to what one person can achieve in a day, a week, a month. If you are planning to self-publish as an aside to your normal day job, pay particular attention to your predicted time commitments.

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO TO SELF-PUBLISH A BOOK

Writing is a creative process but publishing a book is a business process. To self-publish a book you need not only the ability and ambition required to write the book, but the business skills and organisation necessary to print, market, sell and distribute your book.

Consider the following summary that provides a brief overview of the self-publishing process. To successfully self-publish you need to follow through this process until the end (i.e. you can’t get on the self-publishing road only to jump off halfway along it!).

THE ADVANTAGES OF SELF-PUBLISHING

It’s a way forward

The large publishing houses receive hundreds of unsolicited manuscripts every week. Many of them now refuse to accept unsolicited manuscripts: authors need first to find a literary agent who is willing to take them on and submit their work to publishing houses on their behalf. The take-up of unsolicited manuscripts – the amount that actually get published – is between 2 and 5 per cent depending on whom you talk to. The point being, not many.

Your work might be very readable, original, funny, and sellable, but still it ‘isn’t right’ for a publisher’s list. It isn’t the right genre for the current book market, or the publisher already has something similar in their current publishing list, or they don’t think it will sell in enough quantities to be a commercial success, and so on. If you get consistently positive feedback about your work, followed by a ‘but it’s not right for us’ refusal, don’t be disheartened. It doesn’t mean your manuscript should never become a book.

This said, before you commit to self-publishing your book, you do need to consider the feedback of others who have read your book in draft form. If your manuscript is returned from several publishing houses with little or positive feedback, you might need to ask yourself why this is so. Let friends and family read it (but be aware that they are usually unwilling to offend you), join a writing group and ask for feedback, ask a colleague at work to have a look at it.

Timing

Most publishers work to an 18-month production cycle. If you can’t wait that long to get your book into print, self-publishing provides an alternative. Self-publishing still requires a degree of forward planning – so rule out overnight success – but you can still turn your book around considerably quicker than 18 months.

Control

Many authors discover – to their horror – that signing up with a publishing house means signing away control of almost every step of the publishing process. Many authors are given no say on the cover design of their books. They often don’t have the final say on the title and the copy-editing. Marketing decisions – if any marketing happens at all – are often taken without the author’s input. By self-publishing you retain control over all decisions and all budgets relating to your book.

Passion

Publishers have a huge stable of books to promote and sell, and therefore cannot dedicate the time and energy to your book that you, naturally, think it deserves. Publishers generally have three seasons a year and there are always new books to focus on. No one will have the ongoing passion for your book that you have. And – believe me – to continually market your book you need to have an undying passion for it.

You will make some money

This is not automatically the case. Sometimes you will make no money. But if you minimise your financial risks and market your book effectively you do have the opportunity to make a profit from your self-publishing enterprise. Consider:

• You shouldn’t assume that self-publishing will make you rich.
• You shouldn’t assume that self-publishing will automatically earn you more money than your book might earn in royalties if it was taken on by an established publisher.
• But like all businesses, if you undertake some detailed business planning before you start, self-publishing can bring substantial financial rewards.