Posted by Tim Stobbs 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.
Posted by Tim Stobbs on August 18, 2010
I typically don’t bother with a book review for career/small business books but I had to make an except for The Anti 9 to 5 Guide: Practical Career Advice for Women Who Think Outside the Cube by Michelle Goodman. First off, yes the book is directed at women, but 95% of the advice can apply to anyone who ever thought “There has to be more to life than just this job.” Also Michelle makes the book funny, but still manages to pack the book full practical advise about dropping down to part time, starting a sideline business or planning a full blown career change. Beyond that she also give some good advice on working in the non-profit sector and how to swing travel and work.
Michelle’s story is a good example of what not to do. She started freelance writing with no plan, no contacts and no savings. With a lot of mistakes she has eventually made it work, yet to spare us the same pain she offers lots of practical advice on what do do when you want a life outside of the standard cubical job. Given that I’m running a side business now and just got a more flexible work arrangement I’ve found lots of useful tips to help make things run smoother like batch your admin tasks (filing and inputting expenses) weekly to avoid having them build up. Or updating your resume frequently if you do a lot of writing work.
Yet perhaps the most useful section I found in the book was: how do you figure out what you love to do? Here she offers some advise on feeling out new career options without leaving your job. Her suggestions include doing information interviews with people in the field, take classes on the field, do some research with books or even volunteer in it. Explore you options to find out what going to actually make you excited about work.
Michelle also provides some solid advice to anyone on writing or any self employment: there will be crappy days. Like it or not it happens in all jobs, so suck it up and keep moving forward. Just because you are the boss doesn’t mean you get to slack off all the time, so set up some regular working time and get it done.
So if you find this one at your library and you are thinking about shifting jobs, going part-time or even looking at a side business you will want to give this book a read. You will very likely laugh out loud a few times and learn a thing or two while reading it.
Posted by Tim Stobbs on August 11, 2010
I was reading this post the other day about how blogs really don’t treat themselves as publishers, despite that is exactly what they are. We produce content ourselves or use guest bloggers to generate content and then publish it. A number of bloggers that would like to go “pro” and be able to live off their blog income but a lot of us don’t treat our blogs as a micro-business, despite the fact that is exactly what they are.
As such we tend to not think with in terms of all the hats we have to wear when you run a blog including:
- Editor: Guess what folks, editors at major newspapers don’t spend their time fixing a lot of other peoples crappy writing. They fix the obvious, cut the any word that isn’t required and send it back for a re-write if certain parts don’t make sense or it wasn’t what you were looking for. The writer is SUPPOSE to fix it and then send it back. Unfortunately, I suspect many bloggers are way too nice about rejecting crappy guest posts and end up doing too much re-writing themselves. That isn’t your job as an editor so stop doing it and hit the reply button instead.
- Marketer: You can have the greatest blog in the world and no traffic. You have to get out there and strike up some interest in your blog. Submit to carnivals, comment on other blogs, do guest posts for other blogs and be helpful to others in forums. All of those can help to drive traffic to your blog without paying a cent in ads.
- Sales: Want some income on your blog? Then don’t just stop with Adsense you need to consider affiliate programs, paid link ads and perhaps launching your own product like an ebook/book, software or something else that people will buy. Income from a blog to be useful has to come from many sources.
- IT: I recently had my hosting company’s tech support try to tell me that they weren’t hosting my blog and that some other company was doing it. Needless to say I freaked out and then dug into it. Guess what? They were wrong and I had to figure that out what the hell was up. Like it or not you need to know a few basic items on how websites work and then have a phone number or two of friends you can call in when you get in over your head. You are the Help Desk like it or not.
- Accountant: Do you need a GST/PST/HST vendor account? Can you write off your hosting costs if you don’t keep a separate account for your blog income? When did you get your last Adsense cheque? If you don’t know the answers to those questions, then you need to find out.
- Writer: Then last, but not least, all bloggers are writers. We often start off doing just that role and forget we need to expand out into the other ones. Great blogs at their heart have good writers, but what makes a blog really great is how well you wear those other hats.
Now if you aren’t good at a particular role it’s ok to get help. Pick other people’s brains or even hire out sections of work. I know my weak points are IT and marketer. I’ve have to beg for help once and while from others with IT and I know I don’t do enough marketing work. I’m just starting to get better at the editor role with Robert and Dave doing regular guest posts.
So if you blog, what hats do you need to get better at wearing? If you don’t blog, which of these hats do you wear in your job? Any tips for the novices out there?
