> I’m interested in hearing any response to this question. I’m looking
> into publishing for myself…going through the research phase for the
> best solution. My question to you: have you looked at multiple
> quotes to compare prices? The price quote below seems really
> expensive for 120 pages (especially since their only using 60 pages
> since it is double-sided). For those of you who have went through
> this process, please give feedback. My head is spinning right now
> because I’m looking into self-publishing…getting everything all
> twisted up since their is so much information out their. Are POD
> services the right way to go? You’re not really self-publishing
> since the POD owns the ISBN and not you!

FYI, there’s a common misconception between POD printers (Print On Demand, the technology) and a POD publishers. Self-publishing through a POD publisher you are essentially publishing using their resources and ISBN number but you’re paying for it. It’s essentially a cousin of subsidy or vanity publishing.

POD printers refer to print houses that utilize POD technology to produce books and offer other services to customers ranging from self-publishers to larger independent publishing houses. Many don’t offer any support as far as ISBN numbers, editorial, or graphic design support — all they want is your finished layout in electronic format, how many you want printed, and your payment for those copies. Once you’ve gotten your book set up with a POD printer, basically you’re always just a phone call away from getting another batch printed and shipped, whether it’s sent directly to you, distributor/wholesaler or a bookseller, usually ranging from between 1 and 1000 copies at a pop. If you’re looking at self-publishing and really want control over your destiny, this is the way to go. Set up your own company, get your own block of 10 ISBN numbers from Bowkers (I think they only sell them in minimums of 10-blocks now), and read up on all the do’s and don’ts of the endeavor. A book you definitely want to read before embarking on this trip is “The Self-Publishing Manual: How to Write, Print, and Sell Your Own Book, 14th Edition” (by Dan Poynter, Para Publishing, ISBN #1568600887). If you’re serious about self-publishing, don’t bother checking it out of a library; the book itself is a must-have. You’ll end up reading and rereading it till the pages begin to curl.

Even though some might disagree with this, but when it comes to looking at self-publishing as a means to get your book in print, approach the entire project as a labor of love versus a strictly money-making venture. Unless you’re someone who is actively touring and can sell your books in the back of the room (e.g. – poet, self-help/motivational speaker, subject expert, etc), you’ll find that the toughest part of the equation is distribution. Although larger distributors like Ingram have special programs set up for small publishers, they still shy away from the one-shot self-publishers because, well, most self-publishers only have one book to sell and many haven’t put their book through the rigorous editorial and quality controls that established publishers tend to. With that in mind, that might contribute to the collection of horror stories that are circulating around. Producing a marketable book (cover design, layout, proofreading/substantive editing, printing) can easily cost a few thousand dollars minimum, not including miscellaneous fees, marketing, promo and shipping expenses. Most people that make the self-publishing trek eventually run into the Distribution Problem; effectively it’s the main Barrier to Entry into the Publishing Game that keeps larger publishing houses and POD publishers (e.g. – Xlibris, etc) in business. Once encountered, the self-publisher will find him/herself at an interesting crossroads where they end up doing one of a few things:

1. Selling copies while doing speaking engagements or readings with varying degrees of success (depends on the subject, the author, newsworthiness, quality of content, etc),
2. Occasionally selling copies online or by word of mouth, sometimes giving them away to friends and family as gifts,
3. Decide to grow a small publishing company (starting out as a side business) by building up enough of a catalog of works by other authors (including themselves), and using this as a means of leveraging their way into some good distribution deals,
4. Luck into a deal to sell the book to a larger publisher after having made the proof of concept work,

- or -

5. They get impatient or completely turned off by the whole publishing idea and walk away from it pissed, never looking back.

I started as #2 and ended up steadfast in slot #3. Again, as a labor of love, the expense just to reach those crossroads isn’t that bad. You love what you do, what you’ve written about, and by taking that self-publishing journey you’ve probably learned alot of things along the way about yourself, the craft, and God knows what else. Now, embarking on self-publishing as a task to serve a strictly as a money-making business venture, it’s a different story.

The Publishing industry isn’t exactly barnstorming CNBC with stories of high yield profits, especially these days with all the shifts between old and new technologies and business practices. Larger publishing houses are running on shoestring budgets to get maximum profits, wholesalers are still getting their books at a fraction of the cost from the publishers, and once technologies such as digital ink and e-paper become stable enough for widespread use in the marketplace, the publishing industry is going to undergo other sweeping transformations as rapid as those that hit the music industry after the invention of MP3s and the iPOD. Hope that helps. Whatever is going to happen over the next 10-20 years, it’s going to be interesting. Enjoy the ride.

Good luck with it.

– Max

When it comes to self-publishing, there are proverbially 1,001 rookie mistakes that can make it all the way to the final print run. Once in print, the problem is that they’re all expensive to fix and any of them are enough to get your book declined for review by major book reviewers, declined by the major chain bookstores, declined by distributors, and then some. Why? Because the various strata of the book publishing industry are FULL of elitists. Most of these people are in positions to review your book or cut a deal to sell/distribute it. When they spot one of those 1,001 amateur mistakes (usually visible between the cover and the first 10 pages) they often toss the book aside, not even bothering to read it.

How does a self-publisher reduce their chances of making those mistakes? Research. Expect to spend at least between $75 and $250 dollars on books to learn the basics. Buy these books and keep them in your library because you’re going to need to review them over and over again from manuscript preparation all the way to the marketplace. If you’re not willing to invest this money into preliminary research, do yourself a favor and forget about self-publishing altogether. Professional quality books just don’t happen by themselves — they come about through production experience, whether your own experience or someone else’s. Buying the following books are the cheapest way to get that experience:

• The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition (this is a MUST have for anyone that’s serious about writing, editing and/or publishing). Costs about $60 dollars. The CMoS contains almost everything you could conceivably need to know about editing, the manuscript preparation process, and how to format every inch of a standard book.
• The Self-Publishing Manual: How to Write, Print, and Sell Your Own Book by Dan Poynter (or some other book on the basics of self-publishing; there are several on the market and there’s no harm in reading more than one).

There are other books you’ll need but these will get you started. After reading the self-publishing stuff you’ll get a better fix on the process and know whether or not it’s truly for you. If after reading those you decide that you still want to pursue publishing your own book, here’s a real rough ballpark of how much you can expect to spend on production:

• Editing: up to $4.00 per page (there are different types of editors and some kinds of books will require more than one editor). Many freelance editors will charge you a flat rate that works out to be roughly $1 or $2 dollars a page. Typically I budget for at least $500 or $600 dollars (including manuscript printing and shipping).
• Cover Design: usually no less than $500 and no more than $3000 for a professional design with custom graphics and photographs and the rights to all of the above.
• Interior Design: around $2.00 per page (more for graphic-heavy pages), can be packaged with the cover design depending on the deal you work out with the graphic designer.
• ISBN numbers: Around $270 dollars. These come in a minimum block of 10. Buying them will also get you into the Bowker’s “Books in Print” database. No ISBN number means your book is not officially published, so don’t even think about skipping this step. Check with R.R. Bowker, the exclusive U.S. ISBN and SAN Agency for current prices.
• Bar code: Around $10 dollars, sometimes free depending on who you know. The bar code will contain the ISBN number and often the price, too. Most bookstores won’t even consider stocking your product without a bar code.
• BISAC Subject Heading: This category designation is usually on the top left of the back of the book or near the price. The official source is the Book Industry Study Group’s “BISAC Subject Heading Package”, sold for $25 dollars from their website. I’ve seen the complete listing online for free so the price is debatable, but you want to have your book’s category noted on the back cover so bookstore clerks know how to stock your title. I’ve had independent bookstore owners tell me if they receive book submission packages that don’t have a BISAC code on the back cover they won’t even open the book.

NOTE: These solely relate to production costs and does NOT cover the costs associated with printing or shipping.

So, all in all, to self-publish a professional-quality 224-page novel if you budget for $6000 you’ll probably cover your initial production costs. If you cut a deal with an experienced graphic designer you can easily cut that cost in half, meaning that the $6000 will also cover printing the first few hundred or so. The beauty is, once it’s paid off, it is paid off, and for every print run after that your major overhead is the cost of printing.

And before all the Author Mill and Lulu champions chime in to recommend those services, by self-publishing this way you have a much greater chance of having your title noticed by a major literary agency and possibly picked up by a major publisher. I know this from personal experience since one of the titles I recently published and packaged, NEXT STOP by Ivan Sanchez, was picked up by Levine Greenberg Literary Agency and recently sold to Touchstone, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Bohemian Griot Publishing LLC and Ivan Sanchez also made the deal happen WITHOUT selling Touchstone the film/TV rights or the audio book rights, both of which they have joint ownership with in two other production companies. So, yeah, trust me when I say if you’re going to self-publish, this is the way to go.

Hope that helps put things into perspective.

As always, best of luck on your path.

– Max

On some other websites I’ve encountered a great deal of static about my comments on POD Publishing Services like Lulu, PublishAmerica and so forth. Simply put, the debate is whether or not it is possible to profitably grow a title through their services instead of the regular self-publishing method.

The short answer is “No”. The math doesn’t add up.

Here’s some math to uphold the regular self-publishing side. To backup the profitability claims of an author’s title produced by Lulu, Xlibris, PublisherAmerica, or any similar Author Mill or modified Vanity press I welcome and encourage anyone else with spreadsheets to post their numbers.

To start, let’s say we’ve got a basic Title P&L for a 5.5″x8.5″ 144-page, 4-color on 10pt C1S (color cover w/ bleeds), 50# paper (b&w, no bleeds), perfect bound trade paperback that will retail for $12.95. Going through a POD printer like Lightning Source or Bookmobile, we’re going to say that for a print run of 500 units they’ll cost $3.00 per unit (which is high for a book of this type). With $2900 invested ($1300 in book production (which is low), $1500 in printing, and $100 for freight), selling all 500 copies would bring in $6,475 dollars — $3,575 after the COGS is taken out.

Granted, after some provisions and G&A is taken out, there’s only $1,198 left (about 19% to contribute to profit). This means you’ve already got the money to flip for the next print run of 500. The $1,198 you can either pocket or turn around and flip right back into some aspect of the next print run. Since we’re going to assume that there’s no need to recreate anything for the next 500 unit print run I didn’t bother to make up another chart. If you subtract the cost of production and do the rest of the math you’ll see that at the end of selling the next 500 copies you’ll net a 39% profit of $2,498.

Short of any major changes to the book materials, the printer, and other expenses (marketing/advertising, G&A, etc), this is a rough approximate of what a self-publisher could expect to earn on the title with each 500 unit print run.

NOTE: It is in the COGS (production) expenses that can be amortized over time to allow for growth without affecting how much can be invested in the next print run. For the sake of this example, I’m figuring that the production cost will be completely covered with this print run.

*** Both charts focus solely on direct to consumer sales and do not include other sources of income from Trade and Commercial Accounts. For the self-publisher, there are also line items that could have easily been removed but I left them in, mostly to show how these numbers can handle all sorts of expenses and still come out profitable.

Now, the following numbers are on the premise that things have grown to a point where it’s time to jump from POD to offset printing press. Same book, higher print run (10,000 units), lower cost per unit. I’m using $1.50 as a rough average; the only way I could include a set price would be to get quotes from several offset book printers.

Admittedly for this illustration I didn’t bother to recalculate some things like marketing expenses, freight, warehousing and one-time offset setup costs, but there’s still enough data here to more than present the case for self-publishing versus using one of the vanities.

About $16,400 invested into production to roughly yield a 74% profit of $95,960.

NOTE: It is in the COGS (production) expenses that can be amortized over time to allow for growth without affecting how much can be invested in the next print run. For the sake of this example, I left in the production cost (figuring that the layout would have to undergo some modifications for offset printing). I also left it in so the production cost will be completely covered with this print run and unnecessary in following print runs…

Figuring in freight and/or warehousing costs (which weren’t accurately reflected in the spreadsheet), we’re still looking at somewhere between 60-75% profit for a self-publisher / small-publisher, huh?

Like I said from jump regarding my comments about Lulu and the Vanities — it wasn’t my opinion. The Math speaks for itself.

Any questions?

Thank you.

Class is dismissed.