Methods of publishing - a summary

[Psyboy101]

I am currently trying to understand the various methods for getting published. I'm not making any comment on which is better, just trying summarise the different processes. Below is a summary of my understanding so far.
Ideas, corrections, additions welcome.

Traditional methods:

• 
  Author writes complete novel manuscript - publisher facilitates production of manuscript in print.

• 
  Author writes chapters of novel - journal facilitates publication of story over a number of issues. Final work can later be published as single volume. (I think this is how Charles Dickens published his work).

• 
  Author can approach print journals to publish short stories.

New methods in digital publishing:

• 
  Author posts a novel in installments on a personal blog (eg. as each chapter is written) - Generate a readership - potentially approach traditional publishers with evidence of established online readership - publish manuscript in print. (This is the process Dmitry Glukhovsky successfully used to publish his book Metro 2033).

• 
  Author writes complete novel manuscript, takes it to a site like podiobooks - facilitates creation of audiobook, available for free download - generates readership - potential to approach traditional publishers with evidence of established audience - publish manuscript in print. (This is the process Nathan Lowell used to publish his Golden Age of the Solar Clipper novels).

• 
  Author writes complete novel manuscript, self publishes as ebook? Attempts to have it sold through Amazon or other online ebook vendors?

I am just trying to pull together information here to better understand the options open to me as a newb author / blogger.

Cheers

Discuss...

 

[Dreamhand]

Don't forget CreateSpace and Lightningsource where the author sends the completed manuscript and pays the printer a nominal fee to set it up for their printers. Then the author can list the book on Amazon who then passes the orders on to the printer, who prints just enough to fulfill the order, sends them back to Amazon, who ships them. Not a GREAT revenue model, but you're listed on Amazon, baby! AND you don't have thousands of dollars of upfront costs or inventory to hassle with.

Also LuLu.com and CafePress.com both offer print-on-demand services.

And there's also the "author writes book, pays for printing, and markets/distributes book themselves" route. Pricey up front, a lot of work, but it's still an option.

And - just an observation and something to keep in mind - very few of the options you listed are mutually exclusive. While big publishers may crack down on your podcasting or e-book activities, if you're flying solo (or have a publisher who actually GETS the new wave of literature in this millennium), then you can pursue multiple publication vectors... and probably should.

 

[Devor]

New methods in digital publishing:

• 
  Author posts a novel in installments on a personal blog (eg. as each chapter is written) - Generate a readership - potentially approach traditional publishers with evidence of established online readership - publish manuscript in print. (This is the process Dmitry Glukhovsky successfully used to publish his book Metro 2033).

• 
  Author writes complete novel manuscript, takes it to a site like podiobooks - facilitates creation of audiobook, available for free download - generates readership - potential to approach traditional publishers with evidence of established audience - publish manuscript in print. (This is the process Nathan Lowell used to publish his Golden Age of the Solar Clipper novels).

I don't really know a lot about Publishing yet, but I don't think these two items are really new ways of publishing. That's more like using alternative media to help you market to a traditional publisher, and it doesn't really generate an alternative revenue stream that's separate from traditional publishing.

Like Dreamhand mentioned, there are vendors you can use to print books as they're ordered or you can list an ebook online and charge per download.

 

[MichaelSullivan]

Don't forget about apps. A form of ebook but sold through the "App stores" rather than Kindle and nook etc.

 

[MichaelSullivan]

I would break the types down this way:

Print:

• Big Publisher - go through agent utilize large print runs and masive distribution (Advance paid, author gets % of sale (i.e. royalty)
• Small press (POD) - agented or direct to publisher - usually no/little bookstore sales, but can have decient online sales (Small or no advance, author gets royalty)
• Small press (short run) - agented or direct to publihser - sold through bookstores (but limited distribution - remain mainly on online sales) (Small or no advance, author gets royalty)
• Self published (short run) - usually need $5,000 - $10,000 investment and must work with a distributor author gets 100% of profit
• Self published (POD) - CreateSpace $39 or Lightning Source$117 setup fee - usually sold through online channels (100% of profit goes to author)
• Self published (vanity) - Lulu, Xlibris, AuthorHouse - Fairly large setup fee ($395 - $1495) author gets % of sale

ebooks:

• Big Publisher - go through agent utilize large distribution network (Advance paid, author gets 25% of net)
• Small press - agented or direct to publisher - (Small or no advance, author gets royalty usually 35% - 50% of net)
• Self published - 70% off list when priced $0.99 - $9.99 and 35% of list when priced outside that window. Distribution through Amazon(kindle, B&N (Nook), Kobo, Apple (ibookstore), Smashwords $0 setup fee
• Vanity - Lulu, Xlibris, AuthorHouse - Fairly large setup fee ($395 - $1495) not sure of author royalties
• Apps - large programming fee (done by a softwar developer) - no setup fee for Amazon (Android) or iApp (apple) - Not sure of the distribution %'s

Audio

• Big Publisher - go through agent utilize large distribution network (Advance paid, author gets 25% of net)
• Small press - usually do not produce audio versions
• Self published (podio)- best bet is to use podiobooks.com - paid by donation and populated to itunes.
• Self published (for sale)- fairly high fees for profressional sound production - not sure of selling/distribution to places like Audible.com - fairly straightforward to sell on Amazon.

 

[Psyboy101]

...very few of the options you listed are mutually exclusive. While big publishers may crack down on your podcasting or e-book activities, if you're flying solo (or have a publisher who actually GETS the new wave of literature in this millennium), then you can pursue multiple publication vectors... and probably should.

Yes I agree, it seems like a good idea to make the most of all the alternatives. A beginning author could initially post samples of his/her work on a personal blog, then upon completion of a manuscript aim to get it made into an ebook and an audiobook... Under that scenario the author could be generating revenue from 1. traffic to his blog, 2. ebook downloads, 3. audiobook downloads (or donations? if using podiobooks).

...That's more like using alternative media to help you market to a traditional publisher, and it doesn't really generate an alternative revenue stream that's separate from traditional publishing.

I guess I was imagining that traffic to a blog can generate revenue via advertising, ie. google ads, project wonderful etc. From what I understand you need to have alot of traffic to your site to generate any real income from advertising but still, it's one of he ways you can profit from posting original content online.

And yes as you say, a flourishing readership can be used by the author to demonstrate the salability of his work. Assuming the end goal is to get picked up by a major publisher (or any publisher at all ), perhaps that task becomes simpler if you can point to xxx unique hits on your blog over a period of time.

 

[Psyboy101]

I would break the types down this way: ...

Man thats alot of work you did there Michael! Thanks for the summary, that does clarify things.

Going by your numbers it seems like a good way to go would be to focus on producing work exclusively for distribution as ebooks and by-passing print althogether. By aiming either to self publish or go through a small press publisher a beginner could keep costs to a minimum and get around the challenge of attracting the attention of an agent / major publisher..

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

Man thats alot of work you did there Michael! Thanks for the summary, that does clarify things.

Going by your numbers it seems like a good way to go would be to focus on producing work exclusively for distribution as ebooks and by-passing print althogether. By aiming either to self publish or go through a small press publisher a beginner could keep costs to a minimum and get around the challenge of attracting the attention of an agent / major publisher..

Yeah, Michael did a good job. =) These days, for ebooks, I would also add Agent/Publishers: agents who are now acting as small epublishers, generally taking 15-50% of the net, and offering a variety of services in exchange for their percent. Some do everything (and tend to take more), some do almost nothing but upload the book the author already paid to have edited, formatted, and a cover made.

Of the stuff above, the only one I would avoid at all costs would be the vanity/subsidy press options. They tend to take 50-80% of your income *in addition* to a hefty up front fee. Basically, for the same up front fee or less, you can pay for the same services, and keep all the cash. There's simply no reason to every pay someone a percentage if you're paying up front for book production.

Psyboy, that's certainly one good way to go. Many indie writers are focusing on ebooks to the exclusion of print. There's a few good reasons to do print as well, even though most indies don't sell anywhere near as many print books as ebooks. But there's additional cost as well, sometimes quite a bit of additional cost if you have to pay for book formatting for a print version. Createspace, for instance, will charge a one time fee of $350 for interior layout of a basic print book, and they're one of the cheaper services (in addition to the $39 Pro Plan and $10 ISBN).

If you can do that work yourself, then all you have to pay is $49 cash to get the book in print through them, but print formatting is harder to learn than ebook formatting. I had a lot of background experience doing print layout (grew up working for parents who owned a company doing that for a living, went on to work for other people doing print design too), but it was an interesting challenge to learn the bits involved specifically for books, and I'm still learning.

 

[Dreamhand]

Kevin (or anyone), do you know of any books or online sites that would help clarify how to layout a book for print and/or e-book? I know CreateSpace and Kindle provide general guidelines, but inevitably there are tips and strategies that make the end result that much tighter and effective.

Like a lot us here, I have Photoshop and InDesign experience I'd love to be able to add "book layout" to my skill set.

 

[MichaelSullivan]

Kevin (or anyone), do you know of any books or online sites that would help clarify how to layout a book for print and/or e-book? I know CreateSpace and Kindle provide general guidelines, but inevitably there are tips and strategies that make the end result that much tighter and effective.

Like a lot us here, I have Photoshop and InDesign experience I'd love to be able to add "book layout" to my skill set.

For ebooks....
Layout for ebooks is insanely easy. Do a search on Amazon for ebook formatting and you'll find plenty of $0.99 and $2.99 books on the subject. It takes my wife about 1/2 an hour to change a book from word to ebook. The short answer...start with a simple html file (containg just text and <p></p> to denote paragraphs, <i></i> to donote italics, and <b></b> to denote bold. This can be done by doin a global search and replace with word then highlighting and cutting/pasting into notepad (because that will remove all the Word formatting). Then push that .html file through Calibre (free software) to produce .epub, .mobi, and all other formats.

For print books...
I always use InDesign - but this is a fairly expensive program with a rather high learning curve and I don't recomend people go out and get this. I already had it for other reasons (used to own my own marketing company) and since I'm experienced this works for me.

For those that don't have that software (or the knowledge to use it) - you can do your own layout using free software. My wife has a blog post on this: Layout Help for Print on Demand Books it has a couple of really good videos that go through the process step by step.

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

Ebooks are getting even easier, too. I've been playing with Jutoh lately - $35 to buy a copy. Takes me a few *minutes* to set up an ODT file (Open Office or Libre Office, easy conversion in those programs from Word DOC if you prefer Word). The program exports flawless epub and mobi formats very nearly all the time.

Had a couple messes early on, but they were *always* based on user error - too much oddball formatting in the original document - price I pay for offering formatting services though. The "minutes" bit is based on the idea that I've typed the document with ebook conversion in mind from the beginning. Writers who don't do that tend to introduce formatting issues which create conversion errors. You learn to avoid things like the Tab key pretty quickly when doing your own conversions.

I want to experiment with Scrivener next. Been meaning to for a while, but the Windows version is out now, and I have this great 50% off coupon from NaNoWriMo, so for $20 I figure why not? It only exports epubs, but Amazon takes those and does the conversion for you as easily as they do HTML, so I hear. Going to check it out.

Always try new things. Play with new tools. Find what works best for you.

For print...? I've used Pagemaker before (Indesign's predecessor). I've used Quark. I've never used Indesign. If I did, for my books, I'd probably do their monthly rental thing, only renting the software when I actually needed it. Much cheaper that way, I think, if you're only using it a few times a year.

However, for my print book I used Libre Office (I've moved on from Open Office; Libre is the O.O fork that most of the devs created to continue working on when Oracle took it over - works the same as O.O, but has continued development where Open Office is probably a dead stick).

I downloaded the DOC template from Createspace. I then made COPIOUS changes to the template, and added my words. Cut and paste. Pretty easy, really. Got compliments as a "good first book" from a professional book designer who took a look at it for me (and some great pointers for next time). I've hand sold a couple dozen copies now, and no one has thought it looked bad. Most folks didn't even realize it was self published unless I told them.

So yeah, check Robin's videos out. Or check out Indesign (grab a free trial and hit some online video tutorials to bone up, then buy the month rental for your actual work), if you prefer. But frankly? Word and Libre Office offer MORE options today than the book publishing software of the 80s and 90s did. And book formatting just hasn't changed all that much since the 90s. Most things you could do on a 90s book, you can also do on a high end word processor today. You need STRONG skills with the word processor, but yes, you can do it.

 

[MichaelSullivan]

For those interestd in learning mor about Scivener I recently did a blog post on it.

Author Michael J. Sullivan's Official Website: Writing Advice 24—Scrivener and Building a Better Book

The Scriverner people were so pleased about it that they tweeting and facebook'd about it.