Jan 22 2008
Random Thought: The Self-Publishing Option
Now this is how to self-publish: Salem author self-publishes herself into a novel $2m payday
Though I’m planning on finding an agent for my novel,* self-publishing seems like a more attractive option for me than POD (print on demand). One reason is because I do have the money and the determination that it takes to sell the books. Hmmm…that was two reasons. Oh well.
And if I’m going to bust my rump selling my book, I might as well keep all the profits.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not against POD. In fact, I’m working on two projects where I will utilize POD. One is a project I’m working on for my family so I can’t mention it here in case one of my family members is reading this. The other, thanks to Doug, is a book called Conversations with Friends (yes, Doug I’m stealing the title).
Neither of these books is intended for the masses. Each is something fun that I want to do.
*For those of you confused, Linda has an agent. I do not. Linda writes nonfiction and her agent only deals with that genre.
Click HERE for who the heck’s Linda
Click HERE for a definition of POD
Click HERE for more random thoughts
i just laughed at my post because implied i have $50,000 laying around. i don’t.
I agree - self-publishing only works when the author markets and sells.
I wouldn’t spend that kind of money. I rather sweat it out and find a publisher to invest in ME.
I read somewhere that is costs a publisher $36,000 to publish a paperback. The cost goes into editing, formatting, art work and so on. I’m not sure if that amount also includes promotion.
I’m going to preface this comment by saying that, yes, indeed, I am anal retentive and yes, indeed, I did used to be an accountant, and yes, indeed, I am anal retentive.
The cost of publishing can’t be narrowed down to one figure, unless you’re talking about an average, and even then, that average must be put into proper context by saying what was the size of the publishing run, in which country was it printed, what quality of paper was used, what year was this for, and so on.
Off the top of my head, I can see a number of variables like the size of the print run as I’d already mentioned (100 books? 1000? 10,000? 50,000?), the size of the marketing budget (as you’d already mentioned), the size of the author’s advance, and so on. If the publisher were going for a fancier book, the variables could include off-set printing versus digital and paper quality.
But, like I said, I’m anal.
Yes, of course Laurie the $36,000 is an average. It wasn’t meant to be a blanket statement. Just a comparison to what the Salem author invested out of pocket vs. the average publishing costs by a commerical publisher.
I know an author who received $30,000 as an advance for her novel. So the publishing costs for her book well exceeded the average.
Also, I imagine that the average nonfiction book costs more to publish than a novel. Based on the advance Linda received the publisher’s cost must have exceeded $36,000.
[…] Auria Cortes mentioned a news story about an author who initially self-published a book and then went on to sign a two book deal for more than $2 million. […]