Once again, Greg Dorchak joins us to share his thoughts and experiences in the writing world. This time he’s back with a good chunk of information about publishing. Publish or self publish? That is the question. Is it better to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or take arms against the sea of Corporations and emerge victorious?

*ahem* My apologies to The Bard.

Take it away, Greg, before I hurt myself over here.

Ok ok, so I recently published a children’s book. Self published, that is. Here’s a quick reference for those of you who don’t know the difference.

Published = a big book company takes your manuscript and turns it into a book, gets it into stores, and then pays you money.

Self-publish = you pay to get your book made, it sits on your desk.

That’s an over-simplification, and not really completely true, because some of us don’t have desks.

The main difference is that a publisher will publish your book, market your book and pay you money based on sales. If you go the self route, you do the work yourself. The publishers just binds book for you and in some cases, help a tad with the marketing.

Years ago, if you were not one of the lucky ones to have a big company grab your manuscript, you could go to what was referred to as a Vanity Press. This was a printer who made books, but you paid them to do it. What you got for your money was a few cases of books that you now had to sell to make you money back. This kind of thing usually cost anywhere from around a thousand bucks up to several thousand.

Not very viable for the average writer. Plus, you had to do nearly all of the marketing yourself, which cost even more money. And on top of that, we didn’t have the Internets to do all the leg work, we actually had to use our legs and telephones and mail.

But fast forward about twenty or thirty years- and there are now many avenues open to authors to self-publish their work.

Why self-publish?

I know, we all want to be picked up by a “real” publisher, that’s true. But we write to be read, correct? And if the big dogs are not banging down your door, the alternative is self-publishing (SP). Keep in mind that SP does not mean you can never be picked up by one of the big companies. In fact, SP can help get your foot in the door, it makes a great calling card, and can generate interest while you slug away at those submissions.

Don’t wait too long – I wrote a children’s book over 20 years ago, and have tried off and on to get it picked up. And here I am now just starting to get it out. If I had been able to print this book years ago, I would have been way ahead of the game in having some advertising and fan base, not to mention still having energy to do the footwork.

You’re not going to get any younger; if you are able, take the plunge. We write to be read, get people reading.

How?

Self-publishing is not very difficult to do. You can get as involved as you want with many of the different publishers out there. You can simply hand over your manuscript to some, or you can create the book files yourself and simply submit ready-to-print files, or you can do a little of both.

Cost can vary from under a hundred dollars to a few thousand, depending on who you are going with and what sort of publishing plan you choose.

There are plans where you can print up a stack of books run on an offset press; or you can go with the POD (print on demand) plan, where your book is kept in a digital file and printed as orders come in.

This is the plan I currently use – it works for me because I don’t have to keep an inventory of books in my house and try to sell them myself. Though I can buy as many as I want at a greatly reduced price, and sell them at book signings, or from my website etc. It is a flexible plan, and works great for me. Find one that works for you.

Where?

Look them up – there are dozens of companies out there now that help writers realize their dream of becoming a published author. You will have to do the “footwork” to find the place that is right for you. Some things to consider with SP:

• Cost: Is it something you can afford. Remember, it isn’t just the initial cost of getting printed, it’s the cost of marketing as well.
• Time: How long will it take to get you published, are you on a deadline/time line?
• Marketing: Will this company simply print your book, or will they help you with some of the marketing?
• Format: What types of books does this publisher work with? I had to find one that did children’s books with a lot of color art inside; not all will work with that. (Deb’s Note: And many publishing houses have their own artists that they pair up with writers.)
• Quality: What will my finished book look like? It is hard to know exactly if you are not familiar with paper types and bindings, but a lot of places can give you examples that you can look up.
• Contract: Will this company put you on a contract that gives them the exclusive rights to your book, or will you be able to pull out at any time and go elsewhere? Some companies actually act as The Publisher and they own your book for the duration of the contract, others are extremely flexible and merely print the book.

If you know anyone who has been published before – pick there brains, look at their book, ask them how they like it etc. Then, pick the best company you can for what you can pay and what you get out of it.

Printed – what next?

As I said, there are some companies that merely print your book, and there are others that will go the extra mile to help you sell the book too. Try to find one that helps you out – whether they do the work themselves or at least connect you to those who can, or teach ‘classes’ on how to market.

I know to many writers it seems like finally getting the book printed is the toughest part – but trust me, marketing the book is where it’s at.

This is where all the work comes in – and quite frankly doing this yourself will give you a whole new perspective on what the big boys do.

Getting your book into the hands of the people is work. Hard work. But done right it can pay off. Get as much info/learning as you can on marketing a book, call stores and get guidelines, get creative about where you may be able to place your book – it can be fun, but make no mistake – it’s going to be hard work. Did I mention it was hard work?

When?
Do it now. Yes, you’re a great writer, and someone will pick up your book someday – but someday turns into years sometimes, and years turn into decades – if you believe in your book, and are tired of rejection letters, think seriously about self-publishing before your book self-perishes.

The Not So Shameless Plug from Sirius: Greg’s book, “Where Monsters Go When You Grow Up” is now on the market and available at Amazon. Now, there’s no family bias here when I say it’s a really cute book with a touch of truth to it. Makes for a very sweet bedtime story and one that your children will want to pass on to theirs. Congrats, Greg and much luck!

Previous

give a man a fish

Next

HTML: Navigation

Related posts you might also like:

• Marketing Monsters: Greg Dorchak on Promoting Your Book
• Getting Your Book from Dream to Done
• Self Publishing: A Question of Sanity? Not Really
• Planning the Perfect Party
• Adventures in ePublishing