Hens Lay Eggs
food for thought
Traditional Publishing vs. Self-Publishing
First, let’s settle one question: If you self-publish, then yes, you are published.
There’s a lot of confusion with regard to publishing. The information to clear that confusion is readily available, but for whatever reason, a lot of people don’t bother to do their own research. I’ll break it down and make it easy.
There are three basic options available to the author wanting to be published: traditional publishing, self-publishing, and vanity or hybrid publishing. When it comes to determining a publishing option, follow the money and decide how much of the work you will do yourself.
Understand there is no need to pay for publishing.
Traditional Publishing
When one thinks of publishing, this is what comes to mind for most people. In the last several decades, the process of becoming published through traditional publishing company (e.g., Random House, Penguin) hasn’t changed beyond the transition from analog to digital. The author must follow the rules set by the publisher with regard to approaching the publisher and the package being submitted. It’s safe to say that authors pursue traditional publishing.
Many traditional publishers do not accept unsolicited submissions. This forces an author to approach literary agencies in the hope an agent will agree to represent his or her interests and sell the manuscript to a publisher. Just like publishers, authors pursue representation.
There are a lot of predatory individuals and companies claiming to be literary agencies. To determine whether the agency is legitimate, follow the money.
An agency that charges for its services is predatory. An agency that directs you to pay for publishing is exploiting you. An agency that insists you pay their editors to have your manuscript edited makes its money from editing, not from selling manuscripts to publishers. Such predatory agencies have no incentive to represent your manscript to traditional publishers.
The hard lesson for many authors to learn is that no publisher or literary agent is obligated to accept the manuscript. Because a traditional publisher pays the author, the publisher decides what to accept and whether and whether to publish it. The publisher also hires all the necessary talent required to make the work marketable.
The publisher may provide some initial marketing to launch the book, but the author should not expect sustained marketing efforts. Marketing, as a rule, is the author’s responsibility.
Self-Publishing
There are only two ways to guarantee your book will be published. One is to publish it yourself. When you publish your own work, you are the publisher and therefore responsible for everything a traditional publisher does. This includes hiring the services to make your book marketable.
Many authors unfamiliar with the publishing industry don’t realize this and believe they must do everything themselves, regardless of whether they have any skill at any of the tasks needed. Other authors know they should hire those services, but choose not to do so for reasons ranging from hubris to financial hardship. Self-publishing authors who save their money and budget for the professional services they need support the gig economy by hiring freelance writers, editors, designers, artists, and marketers. In general, those authors also produce much higher quality books than the authors who don’t hire these services.
The issue comes down to you can do it all yourself, but you probably shouldn’t.
There’s subtle difference in self-publishing and vanity/hybrid publishing. If you self-publish, you pay of the services you need to produce a quality book, but you don’t pay to publish the book. If you hire a vanity/hybrid press, then you pay for the services you need and you pay for them to publish your book.
The lack of quality control in self-publishing means the world has been flooded with substandard books. It gives self-publishing a bad reputation, even though many self-published authors produce top quality books that rival anything produced by a traditional publisher.
To make sure you hire a reputable professional, check portfolios (here’s mine) and LinkedIn profiles (here’s mine). Review work samples and speak to previous clients. Referrals are great!
Vanity or Hybrid Publishing
This third option causes enormous confusion. One might rightly call self-publishing a vanity; however, vanity publishers cloak themselves in the mantle of traditional publishing but require authors to pay to be published. Hybrid publishers also require authors to pay for the services they need and to pay to publish.
There are two basic differences between vanity publishing and hybrid publishing. A vanity press will no disclose its predatory practices: it attempts to pass itself off as a traditional publisher. A hybrid press open discloses its service as a one-stop shop for publishing: get all the services you need in one place, and the company will also publish the book.
The vanity press preys on the hopes and ambitions of authors and provides low quality service. A hybrid press encourages the author’s ambitions and provides professional quality services: they care about the products they produce.
It’s a subtle but crucial difference that may be difficult to discern. To help confused authors determine whether a company offering to publish their work for a fee is truly a hybrid press or an exploitive vanity press, Writer Beware offers a valuable service alerting authors to predatory companies. Another service that may be helpful is Editors and Preditors.
Paying to publish is not necessarily “bad.” For instance, it’s a viable option for a business executive who wants to impart the lessons of his or her expertise and establish himself or herself as an authority in the field. A professionally produced book boosts credibility and may also serve as another income stream. Someone wanting to memorialize a family history is also another common scenario when it comes to paying to produce a book in a limited quality for distribution to family members. There are many other reasons why one would choose this option.
The Upshot
There’s no one right and true way to publish your book, just as there’s no one right and true way to write your story. There are, however, best practices that have been proven to reliably produce quality products. Those best practices involve a team of professionals: the writer, at least one editor, a graphic designer, and a book designer. When it comes to publishing, the many variables involved in producing a book influence the book’s quality.
But remember …
Regardless of whether you pursue traditional publishing and all the cachet that comes from being one of the chosen few, embark upon the adventure of self-publishing, or hire a publishing company to produce your book, sales and marketing are your responsibility.
CAVEAT EMPTOR!
Yes, there are companies that specialize in book marketing. Just as you’ll find when searching for a publisher or hiring professional services, many book marketing services are scammers. Do your due diligence to ensure you hire a reputatable professional.
Hen House Publishing provides author assistance with the following professional services: ghostwriting, editing, proofreading, and book design.
Every word counts.
#henhousepublishing #editingservices, #ghostwritingservices, #proofreadingservices, #bookdesign
I have a dream.
No, this is not a belated post lauding Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., although his accomplishments certain deserve recognition and celebration. This post is about me, you, and everyone else.
Each of us has a dream. Most of us entertain multiple dreams at the same time.
When I was young, I dreamed of being a veterinarian. I loved animals. I still love animals. However, I learned I was squeamish and those veterinary dreams faded. If you can’t handle blood, then a career as a veterinarian is doomed.
As I got older, I dreamed of working in the publishing industry. I wanted to work for a publishing company as an editor helping to bring wonderful stories to the world. Unfortunately, that dream required physical relocation to New York or California where the publishing companies were located. Relocation wasn’t feasible, as I’d gotten married two weeks after graduating college and my new husband was the primary wage earner in our new family. Since the internet wasn’t a thing yet, remote work wasn’t a possibility. Another dream was set aside.
I found work in retail sales. I hated it. I interviewed for jobs at a local newspaper, but to no avail. Later I was hired to work in the marketing department of an architectural and engineering firm. I thought my career had finally begun. At least I was earning more than state minimum wage which in 1990 was $2.50 per hour.
Not long after that I learned that my job as a professional in marketing was not viewed as professional, but clerical. To the principals of the firm, I was a mere secretary. I continued perusing the classified ads for job listings and doing my best to keep an ear and eye out for opportunities. I managed to get a few interviews, but received no offers.
I wanted to write, but writing stories was viewed as frivolous, a cute hobby, not something serious because, without a steady paycheck, it didn’t put food on the table. I ceased writing stories for about 20 years; there was more important work to be done, work that addressed the pragmatic necessities of life. I had another dream, this one equine-related. I dreamed of showing and breeding my own stallion.
Years later I got a new job as an executive secretary. I wasn’t happy there, either, but I did what was necessary to help pay the bills. The dream of showing and breeding horses didn’t pan out: it was too expensive. With two children and a small farm, we had lots of bills to pay. I didn’t write. I also entertained a new dream, a new goal: a master’s degree. That dream at least had the virtue of being somewhat practical in that it was expected to propel me into a better job with a higher salary.
I left that job and was hired by an association management firm. Nobody really understood what I did there, but it involved a weird mix of tasks one might now expect from a virtual executive assistants: everything from taking meeting minutes to organizing conferences to producing newsletters, magazines, and manuals. During this phase, I published Rowan, the first branch (aka book) in my Tree of Life series.
I never did earn that master’s degree, another dream abandoned to the forces of pragmatism.
During those long years in association management, I resumed writing and published a few more books. That first year of publication I earned $150 in royalties—enough to be encouraging, certainly not enough to embark upon a career as a full-time author. But the dream that I could earn money with what I’d always been taught was a frivolous hobby was revived.
I lost that job in November 2015, but dreaded the idea of going back into the corporate world. I decided I had valuable skills built and refined over the past 25 years that I could “take on the road” as a freelance professional. I could build a new, sustainable career writing and editing content and designing documents for clients while writing my own stories, too. The dream ignited and I dove right into the flames.
As of today, I have published over 30 books and have ghostwritten several more.
I had a dream and that dream evolved into something I hadn’t envisioned all those decades ago. I now work in the publishing industry as my own publisher and in providing publishing assistance to clients. It’s fulfilling work.
Our dreams evolve. They change. Some of them die, and perhaps we develop new dreams to replace them. Sometimes our dreams shrink to be come feasible, and sometimes they grow and expand beyond our original goals.
But have I achieved my dream? One might think so. Have I fulfilled my dream? No. My dream has changed, and I’m still working to make it happen.
What’s your dream?
Marketing: A Sustained Effort
It’s a truism that you must spend money to make money, although a lot of people substitute skill and effort for money. It’s been my experience that if you need skill, effort, and money to successfully market any product, and a reduction of any of those is commensurate with a larger investment in the others.
I’m a marketing dunce. I freely admit that, despite having worked in the marketing department of an architectural and engineering firm, despite having worked on email campaigns for a credit company, and despite currently working for a marketing firm.
Marketing is not my forte.
Marketing is a complex subject. Entire academic degree programs are geared toward this very topic, indicating just how vast and complicated marketing is.
Regardless of what you’re trying to sell, marketing is indispensable. If you want to sell your services or products, then you have to engage in marketing. The tactics may differ … somewhat … but if you don’t promote what you’re selling, then it won’t sell.
Authors who think their books need nothing more than to be published are doomed to disappointment. Every part of book production pertains to marketing.
- The cover is the book’s most important marketing piece. This is what grabs the potential reader’s eye and hints as to what the book is about. Take a tour of your local bookstore or review various book categories on Amazon. You’ll find that each major genre has its down distinct look. If your book’s cover deviates from that look, then your risk it failing to appeal to your target audience.
- The back cover blurb (aka the book description) is the book’s second most important marketing piece. Many authors attempt to summarize the story in their cover blurbs, which is not the blurb’s purpose. This is copywriting, not content writing. The aim of copywriting is to sell, and the cover blurb’s purpose is to sell the book. A well-written (and well-edited) blurb convinces the potential reader into a buyer. A poorly written (or poorly edited) blurb discourages the potential reader.
- Page layout directly affects the reader’s experience with the story. Page layout or page design entails more than filling the empty page with words. Several factors affect the reader’s experience: margins, leading (or line spacing), kerning, font, etc. For instance, a difficult-to-read font will frustrate readers. That distasteful experience overwhelms any enjoyment to be found from the story. By the way, I offer book design as a service.
- Editing also pertains to marketing, but not in an obvious fashion because good editing is invisible. It doesn’t intrude. Oftentimes, readers don’t preview the story before making the decision to buy the book. However, a poorly edited story makes a bad impression, and readers will remark upon that poor impression when they leave reviews warning future potential readers about the lack of quality. It’s also likely that a disappointed reader won’t purchase another book from that author because the author has already shown the reader that he or she can’t or won’t invest in the book’s quality. I have yet to figure out how to calculate the value of lost sales when there’s no way of knowing how many sales one has lost. Yes, I offer sentence-level editing as a service.
In addition to the marketing aspects involved in creating a book, there’s the marketing required to build public awareness of the book. Authors have a variety of means by which to publicize their work and build demand for it.
- Advertisements. Generally paid, advertisements appear in print and on social media. You might see a paid (or “sponsored”) advertisement in any social media platform, electronic news feed, or on websites. Less often will you see a book advertised in magazines or on billboards or other printed media unless you’re a “Big Name Author” or major celebrity.
- Social Media Posts. In written and/or video format, authors post about their books in the social media platforms they or their audience frequent. They attempt to entice platform influencers to do the same: a plug from a major celebrity or influencer will spike interest and demand from their fans.
- Blog Posts. Many authors maintain blogs. It’s a common, expected activity authors engage in. This, of course, usually means authors also have entire web pages or even websites dedicated to their books. Authors with more than a handful of books published often have author-oriented websites with specific pages focused on individual books. Authors may also register for or participate in blog swaps whereby cooperating groups of authors promote each others’ books as a service to the group. I participated in one for two years. I found the ROI disappointing.
- Podcasts. Of the gazillions of podcasts aired, some welcome interviews with authors. Many require the author pay for the privilege of the interview. The podcast appeals as less of a “buy my book” request and more of a brand-building opportunity. The benefit is the author can share the podcast link via social media and the podcaster or publicist will share the podcast among their fans and followers. I’ve enjoyed the podcasts in which I have participated, although I couldn’t attest to their efficacy in marketing. Here’s my latest podcast.
- On-site appearances. Most conventions, festivals, arts and craft shows, book fairs, and other such events invite a variety of vendors and will accept authors as vendors. Prices for vendor registration range from zero to hundreds of dollars. An unknown or little known author starting out may best view participation in these events as marketing opportunities to build brand recognition rather than as venues for earning profits. I participate in several events each year, having learned through trial and error which kinds of event tend to have the best ROI. I’ve found that book- or author-oriented events don’t work particularly well for me.
The most difficult part of marketing is developing a strategic marketing plan that will be effective and knowing how to implement it. All marketing requires sustained effort because marketing is not a once-and-done activity. Sustained effort requires adjustment because you will encounter roadblocks, and find some things don’t work as well as anticipated and some might work better than anticipated. For instance, I outsource digital marketing. I know my limits when it comes to creating social media advertisements. However, I take charge of podcasts, blogs (like this one), and other activities.
Regardless of what you do and the intensity and skill of that effort—whether you outsource your marketing to paid professionals, do it all yourself, or engage in some combination of hired and personal effort—you must do it if you want your books to sell. Over 1 million titles are published each year. The book you publish gets lost among the crowd without something to make it stand out from the competition.
Author
Hard boiled, scrambled, over easy, and sunny side up: eggs are the musings of Holly Bargo, the pseudonym for the author.
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Karen (Holly)
Blog Swaps
Looking for a place to swap blogs? Holly Bargo at Hen House Publishing is happy to reciprocate Blog Swaps in 2019.
For more information: