Posted by Canadian Dream on December 1, 2010
Well if you have been following me on Twitter, you already know I’ve finally finished writing the manuscript for my book. As of Monday I had it in my editor’s hand (yes, even if you self publish use an editor). So you might think I would finally get a chance to relax, right? No, I’m now starting the paperwork pile.
Despite any ideas to the contrary the publishing business is just a bureaucratic as any other. In one particular case I have to fill out a form to get access to an electronic database to fill out more forms. Funny, eh? On the business end of things all this paper work also means that I’m going to be seeing a lot of money leaving the bank account over the next few weeks as there seems to be fees for just about anything. For example, do you have any idea how expensive it can be to get the reprint rights for just one data table? Yikes! Yet for a change of pace it is nice to be filling out paper work instead of just banging my head again my manuscript.
I recall reading once a piece of advice on writing that said “Books aren’t completed, they are set free.” Which nicely summarizes my difficulties with the book. I keep worrying about what to include and what to exclude as at one point earlier in the process I had about 30 draft chapters which was excessive so I cut back to 20 and merge some of the contents and dropped the rest. I could have easy kept refining the book for another week or two, but decided it was time to set it free and get the editing done.
Yet despite all of these things I still like this little business of mine. It’s a pain in the ass some days, but I still manage to find parts of it that I like even on the bad days.
So if you have ever had a small business what did you like best about it and what did you hate the most? For me I’ve noticed I like the writing, but hate doing the accounting stuff.
Posted by Canadian Dream on November 25, 2010
As blog writers we tend to be guilty of fixating on the cost cutting side of the equation for the majority of our posts. We talk of ways to pay off debt, live better on less and frugal tips instead of looking at the other side of the coin: earning more. Why is that?
I will speculate that writing on living better on less is easier. There is a large body of tips, tricks, books and theory developed on living frugally. Meanwhile many people just don’t have any experience of their own to speak of on earning more money. After all the concept of working even more strikes people as silly since when you are looking at early retirement you typically have some dislike of your current job.
Yet for a good lot of people earning more offers three potential benefits that are often overlooked:
1. You can expand your skill set and learn something new and interesting to you while earning money.
2. You expand your income base so you will be at less of a risk from a job loss.
3. You might actually do so well at earning more you can be ‘free’ of the job you dislike earlier than you predicted.
So earning more can be a good ground to test out income producing hobbies or even earn extra money to take some extra trips, dinners out or buy some electronics (what ever turns your crank). The point of the matter is earning more can offer you several different benefits that could out weigh you initial reluctance to ‘working’ more.
Now this is where earning more divides itself into two main camps of thought: 1) you can just pick up a second job with flexible hours or 2) you can start a small business. The first method is by far the more common when you speak of earning more. Most people don’t go looking to start a small business since they fear the amount of work involved and putting their own money at risk. Yet what is over looked in that fear is the potential to earn significantly more after all the tax system is designed for business and investors. After all where else can you take money you have earn, pay no tax on it and turn it around and expand your business and the government is ok with that.
Yet small business is really a very flexible thing that can encompass most activities that you can do to earn money and many of them can be done with minimal investment of your own money. Often people just fall into a small business idea because it is something they like to do and they happen to be good at it. Also I run into a misconception that people have to expand a business, which strictly speaking isn’t true. You can choose to say no to new customers and clients and keep your business small if you want.
I know in my own experience so far with this blog is I’ve fell into some things I was never really planning on doing when I started writing it. I never really planned to self publish a book. That idea developed when I realized that I was never really going to find the book I wanted on early retirement. I was going to have to write it myself and I came to realize that it would likely have limited appeal to a traditional publishing company. I certainly didn’t plan to get into freelance writing at this point in my life, but when the opportunity came up I decided to take it. Yet both in the end I hope will result in earning more in the long run.
So what is your reason for not trying to earn more? Or if you do earn more could you please share what you do?
Posted by Canadian Dream on September 2, 2010
There is a new frontier coming along to the world of publishing: the new self publishing model. It used to be self publishing was a fringe event that only the desperate did to get a book out, but more and more it’s becoming a place where even the smallest niche market can have a book aimed at them. I’ve personally been working on my book for a while now, so as I’ve researched options I thought I might share a little of what I’ve found out.
Self publishing comes in basically two major forms: hire a company to be your publisher or become your own publishing company. Neither way is wrong, it’s basically a matter of how much control do you want and how much profit are you willing to give up.
The first method of hiring a company to be your publisher is the most simple. You can create an account at a company like Lulu.com which will then outright just print your book if it is just for you. Or depending on what you are willing to pay they will contract out editing work, cover design and even assign it an ISBN from their inventory to make it a ‘real book’. If you want to sell the book at a physical store you are going to need an ISBN. Lulu can even do order fulfillment and shipping for you for your customers. It all depends on what you are willing to pay for the service upfront and how much of your profit margin you are willing to give up. Also it is important to note they will be the publisher, not you.
The second method of creating your own publishing company is much more involved but gives you complete control of the end product and costs, but its a lot more work. You will need to get a company name, register to get your own ISBN number, submit the data to get your CIP information, hire your own editor and contract out cover design. Then get printer quotes and still decide on your distribution model. Which can be either let the printer handle it for a fee or have them ship a few hundred books to your house and you can ship out each order. The advantage in the second model is you are the publisher so you get to keep more of the money from each sale which makes your break even point a lot easier to achieve. It’s also useful if you plan to publish more than one title since you can fix your mistakes from the first time.
Now complicating the mix is you can also have your book in an ebook edition. Which basically consists of getting the file in the correct format and selling it electronically. That isn’t even an easy process since you need to decide how much security your want on the file and who you want to distribute it through.
Yet regardless of which method you choose or even if you use a regular publisher, the majority of the marketing work is going to be done by you the author. You have a product and you are expected to sell it. This is where I think most authors get uncomfortable. We write things, we often don’t consider that some marketing is going to be required to sell it. Since unless your a top tier author at a major publishing firm you are going to have to do the majority of the work.
So my advice more than anything else when you are considering self publishing is: can I sell my book? If you can’t, don’t bother you will just lose money at it. If you can, get writing and start pulling books from the library to learn more about publishing to choose the right model for you.
