Hens Lay Eggs
food for thought
What self-publishing really means
“What are the steps to getting my book published?”
I frequently see this question or some variation of it posted in the writing forums in which I participate. For those writers who are finishing up their manuscripts and eager to launch their stories upon an unsuspecting public, what I have to tell them is not what they want to hear.
You see, there’s a process to publishing. That process isn’t chiseled in stone and not following it won’t break any laws, but following it will help an author produce a better quality book. In a nutshell, here it is:
- Write the story.
- Edit the manuscript. Always. First, you’ll self-edit and revise. This phase may or may not include using editing software and/or beta readers. When you’re finished, it’s time to hire a professional editor. Yes, really. A professional editor’s objective eyes and experience will catch copy errors, plot holes, inconsistencies, and other flaws you missed during self-editing. This is the proof that the author is too close to the story to see what’s wrong with it. Depending on the quality of your writing, your manuscript may need multiple rounds of editing.
- Format your book. When editing is complete, your book has to be formatted for publication. Formatting for print differs from formatting for e-book. If you’re not experienced in page layout, then hire a pro who is. Don’t discount the importance of good page design; it directly affects the reader’s experience.
- Proofread your book. Formatting reveals copy errors that slip through previous rounds of editing. Hiring a proofreader ensures those errors are caught and corrected.
- Design the cover. Your book’s cover is its most important marketing tool, so it should align with other books in your genre while also being distinctive. That’s tough to do. Unless you’re expert at graphic design, hire a pro. Know that the dimensions of your full cover (front, spine, and back) depend upon page layout: the number of pages determines the spine’s width.
- Write the back cover copy. In Amazon, this is called the book description. Informally, it’s better known as the cover blurb. The cover blurb is copy writing, a much different style of writing than the story. Its purpose is different, too: it is supposed to sell your book, not tell the story. Writing an effective cover blurb may require you hire a professional copywriter.
- Plan and execute your marketing strategy. Your book will compete with millions of titles, so marketing is necessary to bring it to the your audience’s attention. If you’re not experienced at marketing, then hire a pro.
You’ll have noticed a theme running through all but the first step: Hire a professional. I’m not kidding.
If you think about it, you’ll see this makes sense.
When you self-publish, you are the publisher as well as the author. It’s your responsibility to do everything a traditional publisher does. A traditional publisher hires or employs professionals for editing, book design, cover design, copywriting, and marketing. Professionals don’t work for free. This is why a traditionally published author receives such a small share of royalties. (A few decades ago, a traditionally published author could expect to earn a measly 7% of royalties—and a literary agent would get 15% of that!)
Self-publishing nets authors much higher royalties, but also puts the onus of quality on them, too. The reading public wants, expects, and deserves high quality books. As a self-publisher, it’s your responsibility to provide them with that quality, and providing them with that quality means hiring professionals.
So, why not do it all yourself?
Let’s consider another anology: construction. Pretend you’re an architect who has designed a wonderful house. You hire a general contractor to build the house, but that contractor doesn’t do all the work himself. He hires subcontractors, each specialists in their own fields: electricians, plumbers, etc. These specialists take care of the foundation, the wiring, the water and septic systems, HVAC systems, roofing, siding, framing, cabinetry, flooring, drywall/plaster, and more. The construction budget must accommodate all the specialities that go into building a quality home.
These professional editor(s), designers, proofread, and marketing professionals know their jobs: they’re specialists. Your budget to produce a great book must stretch to accommodate their fees. How much do they charge? It depends. The Editorial Freelancers Association offers an excellent and realistic guideline to rates.
Are there ways to economize? Of course!
Editors typically charge less for manuscripts that are in excellent shape. That means self-editing pays off in lower editing costs. If you’re skilled in graphic design and/or page layout, then do that yourself. But for whatever task is necessary, don’t subject your readers to amateur efforts. Feel free to learn how to do for future books what you cannot do or cannot do well now.
So, what does self-publishing mean? It does not mean “do it all yourself.” It means you assume responsibility for everything a traditional publisher does—and that includes hiring professionals.
Hen House Publishing offers author support services: ghostwriting, editing, proofreading, and book design. Let me help you share your story with the world.
COMING SOON!
The latest book by Holly Bargo, Single Stroke, will be released on December 15, 2023. Available on Amazon in e-book or paperback format, Single Stroke is the third book in the Triune Alliance Brides series and may be read as a standalone novel. As always, there’s never a cliffhanger!
Don’t fall for it!
One of the job sites/freelance platforms to which I subscribe sent me an alert for a gig that sounds right up my alley: freelance fiction prose writer (forbidden romance, new adult romance) with an estimated salary of $1,250 to $1,300 per month. Whoo hoo! That sounds like decent money and a lot of fun.
Then I read the details.
If hired, the writer is obligated to complete 10 chapters at 1,200 to 1,500 words each per week. That’s 12,000 to 15,000 words drafted, self-edited, revised, and polished each week.
Yep, once again, I’ll get into the numbers.
The average writer takes approximately three hours and 20 minutes to draft, self-edit, revise, and polish 1,000 words of content. Let’s pretend I’m better than average and can produce 1,000 words of good content in a mere three hours. Fifteen thousand words a week will take 45 hours to complete.
Now here’s the kicker: the company will pay $15 per chapter.
So, to work 45 hours per week to produce the minimum required 10 chapters in that week, I’d receive the princely wage of $150. In order to earn that estimated salary of $1,250 per month, I’d have to produce 125,000 words of content in that month. To produce 125,000 words in a month, I’d have to generate 31,250 words each week (assuming a 4-week month). That’s more than twice the amount of content required per week, meaning I’d have to work nearly 100 hours per week to earn that estimated salary.
The company hiring desperately hungry writers for poverty wages is Above Story Limited. Another company offering equally terrible terms is Dibbly. Companies like this make money hand over fist while the writers writing for them are burning their candles at both ends.
Before applying to any such opportunity, it behooves the prospective applicant to run through the numbers and decide whether the terms are reasonable. I do not consider the terms of this particular gig reasonable. I’m better off writing for free and publishing the book myself.
Publishing is a business, and the writers who produce work-for-hire treat it is as a business, then the bad actors taking advantage of writers will be quickly revealed.
Know your value and don’t fall for these exploitive schemes.
Marketing begins before the book is published
Marketing is a crucial part of author success, at least on a commercial basis. When aspiring authors inquire about the publishing process, marketing is often the last thing on their minds. They’re too focused on actually producing a book.
I understand that, because without something to promote, there doesn’t seem to be much sense in marketing.
That “book first, marketing later” approach may work for the first book and maybe even the second, but after that, an author better have a marketing strategy in place to build awareness, generate demand, and sell books.
Personally, I dislike marketing, even though I do understand that it’s essential for commercial success. I don’t understand its many facets. I know what I’m willing to do, some of what I should do, and little or nothing of what else I should do. The heavy hitters in marketing base their strategies and tactics on data. Data-driven marketing is here to stay, and the marketers who understand how to acquire and analyze that data generally get the best results.
The operative word in that last sentence is “generally.” Nothing holds true 100 percent of the time.
When I respond to a question about publishing, my responses often list an abbreviated series of steps to produce a book. Marketing comes last. I don’t list it as the last step because it is the last step, but because it’s something to be started before the book is published and continues long after the book is published.
As soon as the book is published—and sometimes before if the writer has been posting about the manuscript—book promotion offers begin to flood the author’s email account. Most come in two basic varieties: one-shot wonders and unrealistic promises.
The one-shot wonders cater to those authors who don’t know what will work and want to try a variety of tactics on a low budget. These usually consist of social media blasts along the lines of “We’ll promote your book to 50,000 avid readers across our 10 Twitter (X) accounts for only $39!”
Sure, for an inexpensive price like that, you’d think it’s worth giving it try. What you don’t know is who those readers are. Do those accounts even exist? If so, are the account holders readers of your genre? There are other questions to be asked and which never get answered, but you’ve got the gist.
Unfortunately, even though the one-shot wonders fulfill their promises to blast your promo to their tens of thousands of addresses, you’re lucky see a small, short-lived uptick in sales. The royalties earned from that won’t cover the cost of that one-time promotion.
The unrealistic promises made by other book marketers identify them as scams, even though their pitches are designed to appeal to an author’s desperation for validation and book sales. Those marketers, too, often use short-term, one-off social promotions that yield much less than anticipated results.
Let’s face it, no book marketer can guarantee sales. A book marketer optimizes and maximizes a book’s chances of selling, but it cannot force people to buy the book.
Effective marketing arises from a robust marketing strategy that encompasses sustained activity including (but not limited to) advertisements, social media promotions, in-person engagements, reviews, newsletters, blogs, and quality.
Yes, quality.
Remember, these are generalities. I’ve had a one-stop wonder generate amazing results for one book. One book. I’ve made other such efforts that amounted to exercises in futility and wasted time, effort, and money. The high likelihood of failure is sobering, disappointing, and discouraging.
The effort and expense of marketing make earning a profit through writing difficult. That’s one reason why I discourage people from pursuing book publishing if their main motivation is quick money. The reality is that most authors don’t make money. In fact, I’ve read that fewer than 90 percent of authors realize more than $1,000 in royalties annually.
Yes, there are authors who earn six-figure incomes in royalties. It’s possible. I remember coming across one who earned $175,000 in royalties and spent $150,000 on marketing. The pay-to-play nature of publishing might not be fair, but that’s the business. Those authors who treat publishing like a business are the most likely to see profits.
Publishing is the very opposite of get-rich-quickly-and-easily sort of scheme. If you want to publish a book, do so for reasons other than filthy lucre … and do it right so that profit might come.
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)
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Looking for a place to swap blogs? Holly Bargo at Hen House Publishing is happy to reciprocate Blog Swaps in 2019.
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