Is Your Book Worth Your Car?

Many, many years ago I had an idea for a non-fiction book. I thought it was a good one and approached a publisher who expressed some interest but asked a few questions about my background that I hadn't thought to supply - oh, how little did I know at the time - and that put me off. A couple of years passed...

And I found myself broke, unemployed and pregnant. I thought back to my idea, decided it was still good, and decided to print and sell it myself. I very carefully typed it out (I told you it was many, many years ago) and did the layout on the living room floor. I found a local printer who quoted for a short print run. Only problem was, I had no money to fund this project. So I sold my clapped out old car (a terracotta Ford Fiesta) and put all the money into the first print run and small ads in The Stage, Time Out and Private Eye.

Luckily I was right. It was a good idea and the orders flowed in. Due date for both baby and print run was the same but, equally luckily, my baby was 3 weeks late so I was able to send all the books out and cash the cheques and postal orders before going into labour. Happy days!

I was of course having to print using traditional methods - litho presses and plates. Now I'd have been able to produce my book electronically without needing to sell my car to fund the process.

But perhaps that's the question would-be self publishers should still ask themselves: do I believe in my book so much that I'd sell my car to fund it?

Some Thoughts about Self Publishing

I started my writing career as a self-publisher 20+ years ago. I did well, expanded the business until it employed 6 part timers. It was a good business for a stay-at-home mum as most of the work could be fitted around nursery school and Tumble-Tots. My babies grew up knowing how to stuff mailshot envelopes, to stick stamps on parcels and were on first name terms with the parcel collection man. Then I got bored, gave it up and became a fiction writer.

The trouble with self publishing is that the inexperienced person thinks producing the book is the issue. It's not. Producing a book is easy, it just takes time and money. It takes less time and costs far less than when I first started. Distribution is also less of an issue now there's print on demand and ebooks.

The big huge mega problem is SELLING the wretched thing. That means letting people know it's out there, and then persuading them to buy it. Then, when you've sold a copy, you've got to have a paper trail of some sort - receipts, invoices, orders, accounts. Publishers have whole departments devoted to these aspects: you have just you.

You will find it easier if you are writing non-fiction. If your book is about, for example, woodworking, the chances are you know there's a gap in the market for your book, that's why you wrote it. You will know all about which magazines, newspapers, TV or radio programmes are devoted to woodworking, you will know about woodworking societies, clubs, tool manufacturers. In other words, you know exactly who is going to buy your book, and how you can tell them it's out there.

Fiction is not so easy. It's a huge market potentially, but that makes it harder to reach. The newspapers and magazines which can reach this market are nigh-on impossible to get coverage - even traditional publishers struggle. Bookshops don't like self published works - you might get into your local bookshop assuming a) you have one and b) you're a regular customer and don't buy all your books from Amazon or the supermarket. Don't be deceived into believing all your friends and family will buy a copy. Some will, but surprising numbers won't, and you'd have to have an awful lot of friends to make it viable.

But my biggest reservation about self publishing is why I left it. I wanted to be a writer, not run a business. It was fun at first - ooh, the thrill of putting in fistfuls of cheques - but I didn't want to set up systems for processing payments and chasing unpaid invoices: I am not an administrator and have never wished to be one.

Self publishing is basically the same as setting up a widget-selling business, one where you also make the widgets. If you're thinking about going into self publishing you need to ask yourself: Do you really want to be a widget salesperson? Or do you want to be a writer?

Self Publishing and Me

There's been a lot of comment recently about self publishing, what with the Harlequin decision to promote a 'self-publishing' wing of their business. For about ten years I made a haphazard living as a self publisher of careers books, first as a one woman band operating from the kitchen table, then as a small publisher employing six part-timers. What I learned was...

1. Publishing a book ie producing something you can hold in your hands is the easy part. You just pay a printer, typesetter, cover designer etc and they do the work for you. Companies such as Lulu.com effectively do the same, but get their money from a slice of the cover price.

2. Distribution is the problem. It's very hard to get into bookshops that either buy centrally or buy from wholesalers ie most of them. That's not to say it can't be done, but it requires hard work.

3. The paperwork can be tricky. Ebooks are easier, but you'll still need to keep receipts, send out invoices etc. Self publishing is running a business, even if it's only got one product - your book.

4. It is much much easier to make a success from non-fiction than fiction. Non-fiction means you can target a defined market. I published careers books; I sold them to careers officers at secondary schools. Fiction sells to...people who like reading stories?

5. Not all your friends will buy a copy, and neither will all their friends. Despite reading about success stories the chances are you will lose money on self publishing. At best you will break even. Sad but true. At least if you epublish you won't have 2,457 books stored under your bed.

6. Books are heavy. 2,457 books under the bed will strain your joists. I worked out that 500 of my books were the same weight as a baby elephant. No wonder the car died after carting a small herd around.

7. Self published books usually look amateurish (cartoon covers or illustrations by your partner/neighbour/child are a giveaway). It is worth getting them professionally designed. Ditto professionally edited.

8. Book marketing and publicity is a full time job and buying in expertise is expensive. That's why niche books for small markets work.

9. Discounts are high in the book business. 65% is not unusual for the chains plus you'll have to pay the p&p. And then wait for 30+ days to get your money. If you sell directly to customers then you keep more of the cash, but single copy orders eat time and energy.

10. Define what you want to get out of it. Make lots of money? Hold your book in your hands? See it on the shelves at Waterstones? Win the Booker? Work out what YOU really really want to get from this, and make that your target.

I loved self publishing and as a mum with a baby and a toddler, living in the middle of nowhere, it was the only way I could make some money. I averaged about £10,000 per annum from it and my children grew up knowing how to stuff envelopes with mail-shots and stick stamps on parcels (fun for all the family). I stopped when I realised I was spending most of my time managing others and hardly any of it writing. So I wound the business up and gave myself two years to get a novel published. But that's another story.