Self-Publishing - Since You Asked...

I've had a number of folks contact me via email suggesting that I self-publish my book. Some have correctly pointed out that there are companies that do on-demand printing, which significantly reduces up-front costs. Nevertheless, I see self-publishing as an absolute last resort. Here's why.

1. Getting on a bookshelf in Barnes and Noble or Borders with a self-published book is REALLY difficult. Buyers for these companies use a database to determine what they'll buy. It serves as a filter of sorts, alerting them to the things that are most likely to sell. This, as far as they're concerned, is invaluable. Tens of thousands of books are published every year. Contrary to what many people think, most of them never even get considered to occupy space in the chain book stores. If the books haven't sold a prerequisite amount of books in independent stores across the country, the buyers never even know they exist. And, if that weren't enough, the method for assessing book sales isn't exactly rigorous. Some bookstores are a part of a network known as the Book Sense Network. Stores in the network keep track of sales and report them to the network, where they are aggregated across geographies and posted as the national sales database. This is what Borders' buyers are using as their catalog, so to speak, but they only see the high end of the list. The hordes of books that aren't selling are left off. So, if you self-publish, you have to figure out a way to go cross-country to Book Sense stores and convince them to stock and, if you're lucky, market your book. That's logistically tough, at the very least, not to mention the cost, even if you assume that your book will sell. If it doesn't, you'll be buying back your books and putting them in your garage or closet. I've been told jokingly that you know you've made it when you have a garage full of your own books. I'll pass. Thanks.

2. Good publishers have good editors, which is to say that they have people who know the buying market (and their tastes) very well. Though I believe my manuscript is solid as it is, some readers have chastized me for beating a dead horse, while others have said they didn't get it. An editor at a reputable publishing house will know how to tailor my message to my target audience, without watering down my voice or deflating my arguments. And I can't just hire a freelance editor. There's something to be said for having your ass on the line (i.e. being held accountable by the senior management of the publishing company). The stick is a better motivator than the carrot, always has been.

3. Getting published by a reputable publisher helps you get better book deals in the future, assuming your book is not a total disaster. The book industry seems to me to be a very group-think kind of industry. This is an unfortunate consequence of corporate involvement, I suspect. All that money is a vacuum that attracts book proposals. This means acquiring editors are victims of information overload. Their solution is to filter the submissions by the criteria that are most likely to minimize risks. Content, therefore, matters less than having a name that everyone recognizes on the cover. And given the budget for only so many books per year, it isn't long before the roster is filled according to who has "platform," not talent. But...if you manage to get one reputable publisher to take a chance on you, you automatically move to the front of the pile with your next book. When the president of the company wants to know why you're publishing a particular book, it's always good to be able to say, "It's the author's second. His first was put out by Copernicus."

4. Self-Publishing Costs A Lot. The only reason you'd ever want to self-publish would be to attract the attention of real publishers (unless you're just one of those folks looking to memorialize your work, where sales isn't important). Self-published bestsellers are rare, indeed. That means you have to get the book edited professionally by a freelancer (not cheap or good enough), then you have to pay for the printing and binding costs. And this whole "on demand" thing is very cost prohibitive when the numbers start piling up. Basically, the convenience doesn't justify the cost yet - prices still have to come down before this really makes sense - again, if volume is your ultimate goal. So, you'll end up paying $10 a book (with a color cover jacket) from a printer who will take orders of 500 or 1000 at a time. Then, after you have the books, you'll have to pay for the marketing. This is where the costs start to skyrocket fast. You're hard pressed to really succeed self-marketing a self-published book without having a good online presence, with direct links to Amazon.com (where positive reviews hopefully abound). So you have to pay to have that done (unless you are tight with mega-genius code freaks like my buddy Dave.) Then you get to pay for either advertising or PR or both. This isn't cheap, believe me, and it's tough to know where to place your bets - exposure to the wrong crowd is a painful waste of capital. You can also pay about $5000-$6000 to get interviewed for 10-minutes on 18-20 different morning radio shows. You provide the questions, the show hosts ask them. The bottom line is that all of this will work - it's the same stuff that the big guys do - but it takes a lot of cash to get it to pay off.

With all that said, you can see how I'm keen to get a publishing deal with a good company. I'm just not ready to throw the hail Mary and self-publish. I know no one is going to invest much in my book, but the use of their editorial staff, their printing assets, and their name and reputation is all I want. I can do the rest, especially if I add the book's advance to my own funds. So, we'll see. The next telling event will come in February when I hit a writer's conference in California.

But, as always, I'm willing to admit I'm wrong if someone has some insights that I've missed...