Publishing Your Own Book

Publishing your own book is more a conversation about whether or not an author should use self-publishing companies or take on the tasks of publishing their book by themselves. It is my opinion (though I own a self publishing company) that the easiest and most profitable way of publishing your own book is to utilize the services of a high-quality, price competitive self publishing company. Not a surprise, I'm sure.

Throughout this site you'll find me using the example of building your own house - and I tie it back to publishing your own book. Many people looking to build a home do all the work themselves - most, however, do not. Most people building a home hire contractors that know the process and are experts in what they do. Self publishing companies, for the most part, play the same role in helping you publish your own book. I really feel that accumulating all the available data will help authors make better publishing decisions regarding publishing your own book.

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This page is designed to offer some thoughts on publishing your own book . I heartily recommend that you follow up with your own research. As you move through the industry, many publishers talk about their up front publishing package costs and how inexpensive they are in relation to everyone else in the market. The author who has written a book using their sweat and tears now brings it to light in the market for a very reasonable fee. However, they've also condemned the book the sit stagnant on the bookshelf. Why? Because to reduce the up front publishing costs, the book publisher had to significantly raise the costs they charge for book printing. The number one factor impacting if you sell books - even beyond the quality of your writing - is the price you have to charge your readers! The more book printing costs from your publisher, the higher your retail price - often beyond what someone will be willing to pay (except of course for Mom and Aunt Martha... )

publishing your own book - that someone will buy...

We try to discuss target markets and on whom the book publisher should focus for each of our authors when we are talking about how to publish a book. Quite often an author will tell us their book is for everyone - every reader needs this book, but all for a different reason. One of your core tasks as an author, when learning publishing your own book, is that you must target a specific audience and pursue them relentlessly. "But what about the sales I'll lose from the other segments?" is the next question we get. Successful book sales are a long pursuit that requires consistent and persistent effort - and has quite a bit to do with the pursuit of targeted audiences and very little to do with reaching out to 'everyone'

publishing your own book - chasing best-sellers...

We all dream of conquering the world of publishing. We cannot do it without bothering to learn about publishing your own book. Authors often fall within two camps - some start off very conservative, with realistic expectations and desires, while the other camp dashes in with the wild pursuit of book sales in the tens of thousands of units. These authors head into the market chasing the bestseller lists, with the thought that 'my book can sell just like X.' Chasing a best-seller list is an exercise in futility - in only the rarest of cases do books make the best-seller lists without spending tens of thousands of dollars in marketing and placement fees (often more like hundreds of thousands...) Don't put yourself in this position - it's frustrating and unlikely to create any meaningful success.

publishing your own book - it's about the marketing...

Last, but not least, in our segment on publishing your own book is the statistic that often authors are not as willing as they need to be to spend time marketing their own book. All too often they want to throw money at the problem rather than time and effort. We've addressed this is our articles before, self publishers who are willing to spend more money than time on marketing techniques. This just doesn't make sense, since self publishers are almost always short on cash and more than likely to be publishing a first book to make some money. You can hire someone like Dog Ear to perform 'technical marketing' programs, but you ultimately are the number one advocate and marketer for your book. Miles and I spend a lot of time speaking with authors about book marketing and their book marketing plan ideas. And, all too often, the marketing plan is unfocused and aimed at 'everyone' so that they can sell a million books in a hurry. I'm sorry, but you need to focus and target - if you can't identify a specific reader and why they might buy your book, don't do it...

publishing your own book - traditional or self publish...

So lets go back to the original question about publishing your own book - using a self publisher or starting your own publishing imprint or publishing company. I've an interesting statistic that shows that you are slightly more likely to be successful when self publishing a book than you are when deciding to pursue the traditional book publisher market. Now, honestly, both avenues present slim chances for overwhelming success - but only in self publishing do you have the chance to control your own destiny. How many of the books published each year actually are promoted as a premier or best-seller? Did you know that nearly 70% of the books published by traditional publishers were returned in 2004?

The difference between being a self publisher and using a self publisher to publish a book is who performs each of the publishing tasks. I use the example of building a house - most of us hire a contractor to build our houses. There are the occasional few (like my father) who build their houses themselves or act as the general contractor. But it's not the norm. A self publishing company should merely act as your general contractor for the building of your book. For most authors, who may publish one, two or even three books, it is much more advantageous to use a self publishing company than to go through the processes themselves.