My answer: Money, distribution, time and quality.

Money: You’re not risking your own money, and a publisher will invest a lot more than you want to risk. A trade book will usually cost more than $20,000 to launch. Yes, self-publishers can substitute time for money, and there are other ways to economize, but any commercial publishing venture takes a big old wad of cash.

Distribution: Even a modest-sized house will have better distribution than you’ll be able to secure on your own. Yes, anyone can sell online, even through the biggest sites, like Amazon. But that leaves a lot of potential sales and readers that you’re not reaching. You can trade volume for margin, but it’s a move that needs to be carefully examined.

Time: Publishing well is a lot more complicated than it seems. You can certainly learn to do it. There are even books on most parts of the process, and if you read three or four overviews, one or two on design, a couple on editing, three to five books on publicity and book marketing, and a couple on the general business aspects of running a publishing company, you’ll learn a lot of the basics, but that’s eleven to fifteen books, plus time to try the techniques and practice. By the time you’ve learned to publish at all well, you could have written another couple of manuscripts.

Quality: Most “civilians” don’t consciously see the difference between a pedestrian cover design and a good one, let alone the difference between a pro’s text layout and an amateurish job. But these “trivial” differences do matter in the end. They can make someone decide to buy or not to buy your book, on an unconscious level.

All the people who decide what gets onto the bookshelves can tell the difference at a glance. These standards are the way they are because they work.

So, yes, Virginia, you can self-publish successfully. There are even a few people who use one of the so-called “self-publishing companies” successfully. But your chances of getting a larger readership, or of getting a decent living, from the effort are much better if you sign up with an experienced publishing team.

So, that’s a very short answer to a very complicated question. Which points did I gloss over, or even get completely backwards? If you’re still with me after that last hiatus, you must have an opinion. Let’s hear it!

Have they been pirated? Mine was, even before I started any sort of marketing push.

From my reading, there appear to be 3 types of pirates:
–Those looking for profit
–The terminally naive or astonishingly ignorant, who don’t realize that they’re doing harm, much less breaking the law
–The misguided idealists who believe that they’re striking a blow for artistic liberty, freedom, against corporate villains, or some similar concept.

The profit motivated ones tend to have many of the same issues that legitimate publishers have — they have to find customers, and bring them to purchase their books. And they have to do so cost-effectively. That’s just one reason that they tend to focus on “big” books. Because they need volume, they’re also not all that hard to find and shut down. This is one place where significant enforcement assets will have an effect.

I believe that the terminally clueless tend to be large in numbers, but to download relatively few books. This is one way in which our industry is different from the music business. There are a lot more people interested in downloading music, and they’re likely to download many more songs. A song can be listened to in a few minutes, where a book, even a short one will absorb hours. And most Americans read no more than one or two books per year.

Those one or two downloads per person might amount to a very large number indeed, but it seems likely that most of those downloads are not cannibalizing sales, whether or e- or print books, that would have occurred without the easy availability of illegal copies.

Even if these people constitute a costly problem, finding and prosecuting them is problematic at best. This group is also likely to be willing to buy if the legitimate ebook is both easy to buy and inexpensive. And as time goes by, it may be that the relentless efforts of IP rights-holders will finally make a dent in the assumption that this is a harmless infraction, and not a real evil at all.

The misguided idealists, though, can provide a problem that is both hard to find and has a significant impact. These are people who may work as hard as any publisher, as a volunteer. (Just about the only way to drop personnel costs below those paid by publishing is to use volunteers, as we all know to our sorrow!) They crack DRM, they scan books, and they generally upload masses of material without thought of compensation. They’re hard to identify, because they’re not looking for compensation, and may well have rafts of pseudonyms. It can be hard to tell that all of these different identities resolve into a single entity worth catching.

These people can be stopped only by persuasion or by denying them access to distribution channels upon which they rely. Many of them reason from a radically different set of assumptions or values than those that motivate the book publisher, or the author. Of course, some people hold their minds open to persuasion even by those with whom they disagree most. But most people simply discount and reject arguments that threaten cherished beliefs. This guarantees that persuasion will be less effective than we would like.

Unfortunately, the impact of the sincere zealot can be significant. Even when the cost of tracking down illicity uploads and issuing takedown notices is non-trivial, we may need to engage in it.

Each of you may want to crunch some numbers and come up with an estimate of the number of uploads/downloads required to make an impact on your bottom line, and the size of the customer base for each pirate haven that makes that number of downloads likely, in order to judge where you should search for these copies, and how much effort you should expend on getting them removed.

Personally, I use something like my marketing campaign-based sales estimation technique to make these decisions.

How do each of you handle this?

Do you see another breed of pirate out there?

How do you assess the severity of the issue?

And do you have any other topics you’d like to see me respond to?

We’ve heard the question many times, “Should I layout the interior of my book myself?” Seems like a no-brainer. You have word processing software. You know how to set margins and choose a typeface. You even know about books that describe the process (written by folks who are not trained in typography by the way). So why shouldn’t you layout your own book?

Of course you can and should use your word processing software to write your text, but interior design and formatting are best left to people who do this for a living. Why? Because there are a lot more details involved in page composition than you’d think.

For starters, word-processing software does not have the sophisticated hyphenation and justification controls that professional page layout software does. This results in tight and loose lines that are unsightly and that distract the reader. And even if you were to buy page layout software, there is a very steep learning curve. It’s a mistake to assume that no knowledge of typography or design is required to use it effectively. As the saying goes, “Owning a hammer does not make one a carpenter.”

There are several dozen conventions to be followed in book design that may not be perceptible to the reader, but when followed, they give your book a polished appearance. But it’s not only about knowing the rules, it’s knowing how and when to bend or break them on a case-by-case basis that makes the difference between an amateur layout and a professional one. These decisions must be made quite often when the words in the text don’t cooperate with the page geometry.

Quality typesetting has never been about the tools. Experienced typesetters rarely use software at the default settings. We adjust the settings for better results, sometimes paragraph by paragraph, line by line, and even word by word. Why? We were trained to see the difference between “so-so” type and great type.

For what it’s worth, only beginning self-publishers consider using a word processor for page layout. Established publishers wouldn’t think of producing the text in this way. They know that experienced book designers bring real value to the table, offering creativity and aesthetic judgment that only comes with training and experience.
When we show customers the difference between their attempt at book layout and our own, they are usually blown away. They’ll say something like, “Wow! I thought my layout was just fine. Now I see how bad it really is!”
Here’s a current before-and-after example. IC_Book_Orig.pdf is the client’s attempt at book layout, and IC_Book_Designed.pdf is our design. (You may want to open or print both PDFs to compare the pages side by side.) See the difference? In addition to a much better look and the elimination of giant spaces between words in the original, professional typesetting saved 5 pages from the original’s 19 (more than 25%), thus reducing the client’s printing costs significantly.

It’s been clinically proven that quality typography improves reading comprehension. More importantly, an amateur job won’t satisfy the distributors, reviewers, and book retailers, the “gatekeepers” of the book industry, who will immediately spot a beginner’s efforts and reject your book as “self-published.”

Many people think that converting a word-processed file to a PDF is all the printer needs. That’s true. But it’s not all that YOU need. Printers won’t turn away a PDF that was made from a word-processed document. They’ll print your book because that’s what they’re in business to do. Their success is measured in how many books they print. Your success, on the other hand, is measured in the number of books you sell.

Your book design, inside and out, establishes your credibility in the eyes of the buyer. Buyers may not be able to pinpoint exactly what is wrong, but without a professional interior design, your book will not measure up to those that are professionally prepared. For the success of your new publishing endeavor, we hope you’ll give this issue some serious thought, and choose an experienced book designer to give your book the professional look it deserves.

I have finally (!!) released the first ebook in my new series. Yes, the series name is The Profitable Publisher. This first entry is subtitled: Making the Right Decisions. It’s short (maybe 40 pages, if you printed it out), so it shouldn’t give your brain indigestion.

I’d like to think that it should help any publisher make more money from all of your books. If you are moved to purchase it (from Amazon, or elsewhere as it comes out in other markets), do please let me know what you think?

I’ve found that this is about the length at which the eyes roll back in the head and the brain shuts down, so why go longer??

I hope that any of you who grab a copy will like it. I’d love to hear what you think. (And if you email me with an error or confusion, I’ll send you a free copy of the next work in the series!)

With ebooks, we gain convenience and the ability to change font sizes. We gain on price and on environmental impact. We gain a number of obvious things. But we lose, as well, and some of the losses are less obvious.

We’re losing privacy, and we’re losing control of our books. We’re losing readability (both in terms of text design and in image resolution). And we’re losing barriers to entry, which is a two-edged sword.

Privacy: Some ebook readers already “phone home” and report what you’ve read and how far you’ve gotten in it. It’s not hard to imagine that this information could be used in many ways. Even if you’re reading on a device or an app that doesn’t seem to do this, it’s not hard to imagine hackers or security agencies that could install backdoors in your software that would allow them to monitor your activity. Paper books never do that. And it’s almost impossible to track your purchases at random stores, especially if you use cash.

Control: With a print-on-paper book, it’s very hard to take or damage your copy. With ebooks, someone else can take your copy without any physical contact with it. Amazon has already proven that they can pull your books back off the Kindle. Other ebook providers may or may not have the same capability.

Digital Rights Management techniques (DRM) also cuts into your control. It’s quite difficult to craft DRM that doesn’t prevent you from doing things that are within your rights, as well as those that aren’t. Certain types of copying are allowed, even by the most draconian interpretations of copyright.

Readability: Text design is an art that’s generally under-appreciated. But it doesn’t take long with a badly designed book before you realize that something feels wrong. It’s just harder to read, and often harder to understand. It’s not comfortable on the eyes. Something feels “off.”

But being able to change font sizes within a fixed screen size means that you text design and composition go out the window. Of course, the e-readers could come with a hyphenation and justification program, such as the modules that underpin TeX or InDesign, which would help enormously, but they don’t now, and they probably won’t in any near future. Who wants to wait for the text to be re-flowed when you change the font size? Who wants to pay more for the program or for the cpu size needed to run it?

Screen resolution on the Kindle is roughly twice what the resolution is on a computer screen, but it’s still only 1/2 to 1/4 what a printed book offers. And it’s black on gray only. The color screens of iPhones and laptops offer the lower dots per inch to offset their colors. It’s not as easy on the eyes.

Lower Barriers to Entry: The last loss I listed is the lowering of barriers to entry. This means that we gain ease of publishing. But as readers it means that we have a harder time finding the books we’ll enjoy. And as publishers it means we have a far harder time rising above the roar of the crowd to draw our readers’ attention. And that means that more new readers will experience fewer wonderful books in the short time during which they decide whether they “like books” or not. And that’s the worst loss to our literary community.

As usual, I invite you to tell me what I missed or messed up. The comments section doesn’t require registration, although it is moderated to reduce the flood of spammers.

Using the CreateSpace Publishing Plan Calculator that you can download from the CreateSpace web site (this is an Excel spreadsheet with macros). These prices are all based on a color cover and a black interior book.

A softcover book of 212 pages, 6 x 9 with a list price of $16.00:
CS standard plan, sold via estore you receive a net $7.06
CS standard plan, sold via Amazon you receive a net $3.86
CS ProPlan, sold via estore, you receive a net $9.41
CS ProPlan, sold via Amazon, you receive a net $6.21
Purchased direct from CS in small quantities for delivery to the publisher,
standard plan, you pay $5.74 per copy (plus shipping)
ProPlan, you pay $3.39 per copy (plus shipping)
Larger quantities may have a discount, but I did not see one show up
in the calculator up to 250 copies.

The CS ProPlan has a $39 start up charge per title. A $5 per year per
title fee is charged to maintain the listing.

———————————————
Using Lightning Source figures as comparison:
the same book with $16.00 list price:
With a 20% wholesale discount, you receive $9.14 per copy sold via LSI/
Ingram
With a 40% wholesale discount, you receive $5.94 per copy
With a 55% wholesale discount, you receive $3.54 per copy
The print cost per copy (in all cases) is $3.66 per copy
There is a start up cost of $75. A $12 per year per title fee is
charged to maintain the listing.

If you purchase copies direct from LSI for shipment to the publisher
this book would cost $4.08 per copy plus shipping.
This charge also applies to shipments made direct to customer at order
of publisher. (This charge is based on .015 per page instead of .013
per page for the interior. Cover charge is unchanged.)

orders of
50-99 units receive a discount of 5% (reduces unit cost to $3.88)
100-249 units receive a discount of 10% (reduces unit cost to $3.67)
250 – 499 units receive a discount of 20% (reduces unit cost to $3.26)
Over 500 units receive a discount of 25% (reduces unit cost to $3.06)
(plus shipping).

======
Analysis:

So, the CreateSpace ProPlan offers a slightly lower unit cost for
books shipped directly to the publisher — but does not seem to offer
any discounts for quantity purchases. (Per page rate is .012 for the
CS pro plan and .013 at LSI — the ‘cover’ charge is .85 for CS Pro
plan vs .90 at LSI — and this is the price difference.)

LSI gives greater flexibility in setting wholesale discount rates and
terms. Using LSI/Ingram distribution, the book is available to all
booksellers where CS is only available to Amazon. Using the CS
‘estore’ would allow a slightly better return on direct to buyer
orders from your web site.

In the end, the deciding factor is if the 20% discount through LSI is
more appropriate for your business plan or if limiting sales to Amazon
(and the CS ‘estore’) is suitable.

===============================================
Pete Masterson, Author of
Book Design and Production: A Guide for Authors and Publishers
Aeonix1@Mac.com
Aeonix Publishing Group http://www.aeonix.com
===============================================

This can, of course, be true. You have to offer significant discounts not only to the store, but also to the wholesalers, and a distributor, too.

It seems so obvious, especially given changes to the music industry, that we should try to reach our readers directly, and also try to sell them something over and above our words. (“What?” is a question for another post.)

Direct sales are the right idea for many small presses. They’re the wrong one for many others. Whether it turns out to be right or wrong, there are a number of problems, though, when you try to execute a strategy like this.

Readers don’t trust sites they don’t know. And why should they? You’ll have much better luck getting them to buy from known sites, like Amazon, or from a bricks and mortar store.

Fish where the fish aren’t. In other words, your book needs to be where people are looking for books, or at least for information about your topic, or for entertainment, or whatever. It’s much, much harder to bring people to you to buy a book than it is to put your book where people interested in your topic are already congregating and purchasing things.

Overhead and transaction costs are real, and significant, even if they’re hard to see. And they can kill your business even if you never understand how.

You may think you have no overhead or transaction costs because you’re operating out of an unused bedroom, and doing everything yourself. But even if you’re not writing someone else a check to do the necessary work, you’re still paying for it. How? Well, surely there’s something you could do with that time that would enrich your life more than packing your 597th box? That’s not going to market your books. It’s not helping you find more manuscripts (or write them yourself, whichever). And it’s certainly not a life experience you really need. (Well, not unless you have a whole lot of guilt to assuage.)

Do NOT neglect opportunity costs. Like most of the rest of the “real” world, they can hurt you whether you believe in them or not.

That’ll do for a start on a list of “gotchas” that must be dealt with. What others have bothered you? And what do you like about reaching out directly to your readers?

I do, however, hope that some version does come to fruition. I think it has the potential to make enormous sums for most small and micro-presses, and to keep authors’ work alive for a far longer time.

It might even help reverse the steady decline in book reading that has afflicted this country.

What would I like to see in that agreement?

1. Compensation for the infringements to date going not to rightsholders, but to the formation of the rights registry. The proposed compensation in the old agreement was so small per title as to be utterly useless, but in the aggregate, it could move many mountains. That registry could benefit all of us in much larger ways, and forcing Google to pay for it will ensure that no other corporate behemoth gets the idea that they can infringe with impunity.

Part of the cost of establishing this registry would include widespread advertising in the US and elsewhere covering how the works can be claimed, or registered if not yet scanned, and where. It should also be possible to try to port the LOC rightsholder database over to the new registry.

2. All non-search uses on an opt-in basis ONLY during the life of copyright. This is critical, because anything less eviscerates all of copyright. It’s a precedent we cannot allow.

3. Search results displaying a reasonable amount (half a page? A whole page?) on an opt-out basis for all book length works. This is an exact parallel to web search (which has already been tested and found to be fair use), and is critical to growing our knowledge base. To do this, Google will get the right to scan anything not excluded by the rights holder. Google can monetize this with ad display, as is currently done for web sites.

4. Opt-in only licensing to libraries. A reasonable split would pro rate the licensing fees by the length of the file covering each work, payable to all rights holders as long as the work is in copyright.

5. Opt-in only licensing of the right to sell ebook, POD and other versions of the works in the database. I liked the 65/35 split between Google and the rights-holders. It seems reasonable.

So where do those enormous sums come in?

6. Every time someone clicks on a book search link, the page should include a free ad for the book. And if the book is available through their site or a major on-line source, it should include links to those sellers. Affiliate links, perhaps, so that Google gets a commission, but links nonetheless. I suspect that this will greatly increase book sales, especially for small presses and self-published authors.

I’m sure I missed some important points. What would you like to add?

1. You may get what you pay for, but you rarely get much more.
Great, cheap alternatives usually have a catch.

2. Crunch your numbers.
If you’re making a decision that can have a major impact on your results, always test the alternatives, and compare the changes in your bottom line. (If you don’t know how, read the rest of my blog, take a seminar I offer at one of the publishing conferences near you or ask a question in the comments!)

3. It depends.
You’ll hear a lot of general rules pronounced (including this list). Most of them are true for at least some circumstances. But all of them have exceptions. Look at the situation in front of you, and think it through, rather than relying upon a rule.

4. There are NO shortcuts in this business.
There are, however, a large number of very attractive routes leading to heartbreak.

4A. Those dinosaurs, the “big NYC publishers,” are run by some very smart people.
If they’re not doing something that seems simple and obvious to you, the chances are pretty good that you’re missing something.

5. Success at self-publishing is harder than getting published by a mainstream house.
(IF you define success in terms of exposure, fame or profit.)

6. I repeat: crunch your numbers!