Pros and Cons of Self Publishing
Hi Everyone,
I was thinking of putting all of my poetry, (so far), into one book and maybe self publishing it. I thought that might be easier than trying to find a publisher for a book of poetry. Do any of you have experience self publishing? What are the advantages? What are the disadvantages? How do you market your book when you self publish? Any tips or pointers that would be helpful will be appreciated. I wonder if it would be worth the money that I would spend to have the book self published. I sure don't want to spend the money and end up with a bunch of books piled up in my office that I have no way to sell. The first time out can be kind of scary. I have an illustrator/agent for my children's books, so finding a publisher for them will be up to her. My poetry, I illustrate myself, so self publishing might be a real option. I just don't know enough about it. Angel1
I was thinking of putting all of my poetry, (so far), into one book and maybe self publishing it. I thought that might be easier than trying to find a publisher for a book of poetry. Do any of you have experience self publishing? What are the advantages? What are the disadvantages? How do you market your book when you self publish? Any tips or pointers that would be helpful will be appreciated. I wonder if it would be worth the money that I would spend to have the book self published. I sure don't want to spend the money and end up with a bunch of books piled up in my office that I have no way to sell. The first time out can be kind of scary. I have an illustrator/agent for my children's books, so finding a publisher for them will be up to her. My poetry, I illustrate myself, so self publishing might be a real option. I just don't know enough about it. Angel1
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Gary Val Tenuta on -
Hi Angel1
Here's a suggestion. Go to this amazon.com forum:
http://www.amazon.com/tag/thriller/forum/ref=cm_cd_pg_pg1?%5Fencodi...
This is a forum created by a friend of mine, Dennis Batchelder, author of Soul Identity. It's billed as a forum for thriller writers but tell them I sent you and you'll be welcomed with opened arms. Introduce yourself and pose the same question you posed here. There are dozens of the greatest, friendliest, knowledgeable people in that group. Probably 99 percent of them are self-published authors who have been around the block and are eager to share everything they know from experience. I can't imagine a place where you get better opinions, advice and suggestions concerning your question.
Just off the cuff, here, I'd have to admit I don't know much about the market for poetry. My guess is that it is a relatively small market. Therefore, it might be difficult to find venues for promoting your book. But I don't know for sure. For all I know there could be a whole world of online venues for promoting books of poetry. It will probably take a lot of investigating and canvasing the web to find out.
One advantage of self-publishing is that you maintain complete control over your work. If you go with a POD (Print On Demand) publisher, you keep all rights to everything. Another advantage is you can have your book published in a relatively short amount of time compared to waiting many months (even up to a year) for a traditional publisher to actually get the book into your hands.
One of the disadvantages (if you can call it that) is that all of the marketing and promotion up to you. It's all in your hands. Another disadvantage is the cost. Of course that varies somewhat from POD to POD. I chose to go with Outskirts Press (outskirtspress.com). They have four package deals to choose from. I chose the most expensive one (the Diamond package) because it was my first time out and that package had the most options and "extras" to go with it. For example, they provide a lot of marketing and promotional suggestions. My book was published just over a year ago and they still send me marketing/promotional tips and suggestions by email. But the cost for that package was nearly a thousand dollars. There is also the problem of how much the retail price for your book will be if it is published POD. The way the pricing structures are set up if you want your royalty per book to be, say, around $3.00 then it's likely that the retail price to customers could be as much as $18 to $20. Of course , that also depends on the number of pages in the book. The smaller the book, the less it costs to produce so the lower the price that can be assigned to it and vice versa. If your book only consists of, say, 150 pages then the retail price could be maybe something closer to around $12 to $15.
There actually is a difference between "self-publishing" and "POD publishing". The two terms get intermixed but with the POD publishing you don't end up with a ton of books in your garage because they are literally Published On Demand as each order for your book comes in. There is no physical inventory of books sitting around somewhere. On the other hand, if your book is "self-published" (a quantity of them printed up by a small press outfit) then you can set the retail price to be anything you want it to be. Still, the initial printing costs, even for a minimum number of copies, can run into some hefty cash.
But, like I said, go to that amazon.com forum and get more advice and info from those other folks. I can pretty much guarantee you'll end up with a pretty good over-all picture of the situation from various angles.
Best wishes,
Gary Val Tenuta
Author of The Ezekiel Code
www.ezekielcode.com
2012 is coming...The clock is ticking...The code must be deciphered...And only one man can save the planet...If he can just figure out how...Before it's too late.
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Permalink Reply by Angel1 on -
Thanks for the info. Gary. I will go to Amazon and check it out. Angel1
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Permalink Reply by Faye on -
Thanks Gary! That was valuable all the way around. I also recommend Mark Levine's book "The Fine Print of Self-Publishing." He analyzes 45 self-publishing companies, their contracts, methodologies, etc. Regardless of whether you use one of the publishers in the book or not, it will give you a sense of how the contracts work and what he considers to be good and not-so-good in the self-pub world. You can use that info to compare other companies that you might be interested in checking out.
Faye
www.WriteYourBestSellerNow.com
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Permalink Reply by Angel1 on
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Hi Again Gary,
I tried to go to Amazon, but it said I wasn't a member, so apparently, I can't just pop in and ask a question. When I tried to get a membership it said I had to buy something first, so I wasn't able to get a whole lot of answers there, but thanks for trying. I just thought you should know what I experienced in case you might recommend this to someone else. The other information you provided has been very helpful. Thank you so much. Angel1
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Permalink Reply by Ronda Del Boccio, The Story Lady on -
Hi!
I'm having my guest Dr. Patricia Ross talk about this as well as her company on tomorrow's show (Jan 15 '09).
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/empoweringstories.
We're talking about the publishing models at the beginning of the show (12 noon EST)
Distribution is a big deal. Whatever route you go, don't make the mistake I did wiht a novel. I have a publisher without amazon distribution. yes I'm listed but it's because of putting the listing there myself.
Warmly,
Ronda Del Boccio, The Story Lady
Be a blog tour host for one of my book launch authors
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