Self-Publishing On A Shoestring by Mari Sloan

Getting your book out on your own requires an entirely new learning curve, but it can be done. If you are willing to invest time and learn new skills, it can be done inexpensively, look professional, and have the same distribution as many small presses. You will probably not make a lot of money from it, but done carefully, you won't lose your life savings. Before you begin, you need to evaluate what you consider "success."

Success for you may be different than success for someone else. What do you want? If fame and fortune is your goal, you want to keep querying. Marketing is the most difficult part of publishing and without the assistance of a major house, you are, at best, merely going to be locally notorious. The sad truth is that most books that are self-published, or published by a small press, sell to the author's friends and family--about one hundred copies, and sink like a stone. Unless your book attracts someone's attention who has clout, it is an uphill struggle.

But let's say you have faith in your book and if that happens, you still feel successful. There are people who have self-published and have made their self-pub a moderate success. And let's say you've queried and have little or no response. This can happen for several reasons.

You can have little response because your book is not in a popular genre and conventional publishers see it as not readily and easily marketable. Or maybe it is in a marketable genre but there are already many better-known authors writing in that genre, and they don't see your book as "standing out." It may not be a blockbuster, but you still want it in print and are prepared to set limits on your spending and market it carefully. If you are realistic, you can do this.

The second reason for no response to querying is that your book is not ready for publication. If you self-publish, it will be your responsibility not to saddle the book world with another manuscript full of errors and incongruities. You may not knock the socks off the reading public with your originality, but you certainly don't want anyone laughing at your errors. Trust me, you will twist in agony with each one that gets through, and if you self-publish, you can't shift the blame to anyone else. First step, get your manuscript edited by someone who knows how to edit! It’s not always necessary to pay the big bucks for editing, possibly your former teacher, a friend, but they need to have had previous experience in the field. Second step—find a proofreader!

Sorry, didn't mean to yell. After editing and proofing, you may want to query again, just in case your improved manuscript may now attract attention. When you are done with that process, then you can use a trick that my husband and I use just to give it one last check. We make a trial PDF file and send it to Lulu.com and have Lulu make us one book. We limit their use of the file to us only--no marketing, and when we receive the book in book form, we edit and proof again. It's embarrassing how easy it is to see errors once your manuscript looks like a book. Write, right in the book. It's not sacred at that point, even if you are impressed with yourself.

After you are satisfied that it is ready for publication, there are a list of things to do. First of all, before you can even get Lulu to make you a proofing copy, you have to find a decent PDF writer program that can handle text. Even the free and inexpensive programs, and the Adobe website, will handle covers and small text files. To do a full sized book, with cover, you are probably going to have to have late model Adobe Six or Seven software, or know someone who does who will make the files for you.

Other expensive programs that you may need to make your cover are Adobe Photoshop and/or one of the better Printshop programs. The cover has to be made to exact specifications, and your printer will supply these specs, so you may need to decide who you are going to get to print, and distribute, your book. We use Ingram's Lightning Source, which has all of its specs and information online. It also handles distribution for an optional additional fee per book as part of the production cost, a very good deal since we have no idea how to make the connections to the major distributors.

It is a POD (print on demand) printer, which means that books will be printed as they are requested for sale, one or one hundred, any number required. We've been very happy with them, but there are other choices available. Most of these POD printers are the same ones that the small presses use, whether they admit it or not. (Let's face it, thirty books is a POD print run.)

Okay, say you've beat your head against the wall and redesigned it a hundred times, but you now have a PDF-ready cover, and PDF text files, and you tried them out by sending them through Lulu. Your colors look good, your spine lines up, and there are no glaring errors on your front or back covers.

Before we go any further, I need to extend a warning. There are many people out there who are selling publishing services, from editing to designing covers, designing videos, and marketing services. You need to be very, very careful how you spend your money. I have friends who have spent as much as $12,000 on self-publishing, and if you can't master the learning curve yourself, self-publishing may not be a viable option.

You are either going to spend a lot of money or a lot of time. “It can be done” does not necessarily mean that it should be done. If you beat your head against the wall and it doesn't happen, keep querying. Your hard work may have developed a better product to query.

Once you have your book ready to produce and you've chosen a PDF printer, what's next? I suggest making sure that you copyright it. Copyrighting is not what it used to be, and many people say it is not necessary now, but I'd rather send my baby out to face an adult world than send my book out without a copyright. Look up the Library of Congress and submit it online by sending them a PDF file. It works better and is much faster than doing it by mail, now.

Also you are going to have to get an ISBN #. Go straight to Bowker and get your numbers at their source. If you have to, buy ten. Get the smallest block possible, but if you buy them from a secondary source you are registering your ISBN with the company that sold it to you instead of Bowker, because their numbers are registered with Bowker in that company’s name, not your book or your publishing identity’s name. That can cause confusion later with distributors. Bite the bullet and buy a block. Who knows, you may publish another book within the next ten years. ISBN registration is too important to be a place to save money.

Your book will look more professional if you have a name for your printing endeavor. My husband and I are It's ME! Ink Press, which gives us much the same validity as a small press, with one distinction, we will not publish anyone else. We do not accept submissions and It's ME! Ink Press is us, only us. Once you go through what it takes to put out a book that looks right, it is doubtful you will want to do this for a picky stranger, or even your best friend.

When you have everything ready, your chosen POD printer will walk you through the steps to print and distribute. One hint--give yourself two or three months before you reach your publication date. It takes weeks for your information to be posted to the major distributors and Amazon, and if you don't have enough lead-time your book will be listed as "published" before it is there. Also, you want to try to send out some advance copies, probably in protected PDF form. You can order a few from your printer for this in advance, to see if you can get some pre-publication reviews. Don't rush publication just because you get excited.

Other things you may want to create or schedule at this point: a You Tube video (Can be done using simple programs purchased for less than $30 using photos as still frames). Be sure that you get your photos and music from a website that employs a "commons" license and that you abide by the rules of the website in using them. www.morguefile.com is an excellent site for photos. Be sure and get permissions in e-mail or writing for any music or photos that you use in ways that go beyond the range of the commons license.

Schedule any appearances that you can at bookstores in your area at least three months before your publication date and before you expect to begin sales. Marketing is the real problem in publishing. You have to make your books returnable by bookstores to sell to bookstores, so you are going to take the risk of returns every time you sell twenty, twenty-five books to a bookstore. You want to have a reason why people will buy your book at that store. You must link book placements with appearances when you are a new author.

Last, but not least, join a major organization that promotes authors within your genre. You should do this the moment you even think you might publish. Sisters in Crime/LA has been extremely helpful to me and my husband, and has helped us every step of the way. You need the advice and help and support of other struggling authors to make it.

These are the bare-bones, beginning steps to birthing your baby, yourself. It requires the ability to learn new skills, expand your horizons and endure more than a little abuse from people who have never seen or read a word that you have written, but feel entitled to pass judgment based entirely on the assumption that your book cannot be worth reading if it is keeping “bad company” with all of the poorly prepared self-published, vanity, imprints that have clogged the market. This includes the many publication-for-hire houses that cater to authors who just want their family to have their story and never intend to do any marketing to bookstores or the general public, small presses that know that they are only going to sell a hundred copies to friends and family, and other agencies that prey on a beginning writer’s hopes and dreams.

Last year I was selling and signing at the second largest book festival in the United States and was placed next to a well known author who asked me about my book, and, after I summarized it for her, asked me about my publisher. When I explained to her that It’s ME! Ink Press was a self-publish, she looked at me sadly and remarked, very sincerely, “That’s sad. I think your book could have made it.”

You can’t take that personally. It’s a common attitude among authors who have “made it.” I smiled at her and sold books to the next five people who stopped to look while she chatted with the author on the other side of her. A good self-published book, well prepared, has the same problems that any book by a new author is going to encounter and they are ninety percent marketing, just as they are with even the best Imprint houses. The difference is that you are responsible for every step, and you will incur the losses. It’s a harsh world--publishing. Make your goals reasonable, then do what is best for your book