The Word Cloud

Has anyone tried the print on demand route to self publishing, What has your experience been like?
I have just published my book Star of the Four Kingdoms and have used Lulu. Their rates are very competetive and the end result is good for the amount of money outlaid. It was once regarded as vanity press but in these hard times you could wait forever to have a publisher pick up on you work.
Marketing will always be the handicap to larger volume sales because that is what will eat up the cash when it comes to promoting your work. But having the book in print is the best way to start. Just like youtube it could all blossom by word of mouth until eventually publishers take notice, well thats the theory anyway. I am working hard on promoting my book by spending as little money as possible, out of neccessity because I don't have any, but then again I don't expect to get immediate results and it will take time.

Re. "...but in these hard times you could wait forever to have a publisher pick up on you work."

Surely a publisher will pick up what they think will sell?

It's not as easy as that, SM. Firstly very few publishers now will even look at unsolicited material - only what is sent to them by an agent. Secondly agents get hundreds of unsolicited work sent to them every week. So that's 52 'hundreds' a year and they will only take on one, or at most, two new authors a year. So while the corollary of what you surmised, SM, is certainly true - they won't pick up what they think won't sell, they will not necessarily pick up what they think will sell - or better maybe, they will not necessarily pick up what they might have thought will sell, had they really taken the time to consider it fully. The truth is, with such a vast number to get through, if they find any reason to reject a m/s, they will, because there are so many more from which to pick a good one - sorry - an absoutely outstanding one. The good ones are left in the slush pile along with all the mediocre and attrocious ones. A good agent will say they can tell from the first paragraph if a book has no potential, certainly by the first page.
How much time a publisher will spend considering self-published books which might appear to be selling, faced with their severe time constraints, I don't know, but I suspect to gain their interest at all, a book would have to be already something of local best seller. I'm sure Pops is right about that.
Good luck with your publicity, pops.

Yes and good luck from me Pops too. A brave decision.

Re: "It's not as easy as that, SM."

Just to clarify: I'm concerned about people being exploited and given false hopes by vanity publishers, as they have no incentive to make sure that the books sell, and no incentive to publish only what there is a market for. It strikes me as quite a different thing from self-publishing. Is that an inaccurate/ignorant view?

Is vanity publishing not self publishing. Now I am officially confused. Would someone please clarify the difference for me please?

Pops, it sounds as if you're being realistic about it, so best of luck with it all. You're right, it's hard work, though.

"How much time a publisher will spend considering self-published books which might appear to be selling, faced with their severe time constraints, I don't know, but I suspect to gain their interest at all, a book would have to be already something of local best seller. "

A publisher won't look at a self-published book, and so agents won't, because

a) it's published. They want new books, because they're only interested in first rights, not books which have already been out there.

b) they'll assume you self-published because it was much rejected, and if everyone else has rejected it, then it can't be good enough.

c) experience makes them know - however wrongly in your case - that the vast majority of self-published novels are hopelessly bad in the writing, as well as not proof-read, not copy-edited, and not well designed.

There are good reasons for self-publishing - if you want your granny to read a nice copy, or if it's a book for which there's a solid, niche market which you can easily get at. Non-fiction in a specialist area, for example, or a business book to sell at the seminars you run. But being picked up by a publisher is not one of those good reasons.

If you sell several thousand copies of your book (the vast, vast majority sell under 40,) then it might be a hint to a publisher that there's a market for your next, unpublished book. But they're so prejudiced against self-published books, for very good reasons, that I'd always advise not mentioning till an agent's already saying that they really like your work and can you come in and meet them.

SM, no, you're right: self-publishing, where you act as your own publisher, arranging the editing, proofreading, design, typesetting, printing, warehousing, distribution, marketing, publicity, sales, returns and pulping of your own book, is a perfectly honourable occupation. The online PoD services have made it much easier because you don't have to have big traditional printruns, but the flipside of that is that the unit cost of the book is very high, so the upfront costs are low, but in the long term you're even more unlikely to make any money. But the fact remains that getting anyone beyond your nearest and dearest to buy your novel is incredibly difficult. Why should they?

Vanity publishers, having a bad rep, have taken to calling themselves self-publishers. They also sometimes call themselves subsidy publishers. The similarity is that in all cases, the author pays, ( whereas in proper publishing the author is given money, not asked to shell out.) The difference is that self-publisher knows that they've paid to have a book with their name on it, whereas a vanity/subsidy publisher will tell you that having a book with them will make you a 'published' author, which it won't, because they'll publish whoever comes along. They even try to say that they have some kind of editorial/quality control, which is very unlikely because they don't have the editorial skills. They don't have to worry about making a good book or marketing it, after all, because they make their money from you, the author, not from readers. They'll also try to sell you all the other services - editing, marketing, publicity - which a proper publisher does for free as a matter of course after they've bought your book.

Emma

It looks like I have stirred up a hornets nest.
Thanks for the comments Emma, I think its a case of Horses for Courses, my health concerns preclude me from waitng for a publisher to pick up on the story and I don't want my son to have the added burden of fulfilling my wishes. Of course I would still like a publisher to pick it up and I hope that I am not naive enough to think that a publisher will think it so marvelous that it will override his business accumen. I know that will only happen if my book astounds some of the publishing houses editorial staff by being commercially viable by selling anywhere near a print run.
There are so few Scottish Lighthouse Keepers left now and fewer with the inclination to write their stories so perhaps within twenty years there will be no one left to tell of our way of life.
At least I have left a legacy of knowledge for future generations to read about what it was like to be a lighthouse keeper.
You never know I might still have time to enjoy some of the fruits of my labour but in the meantime my book will be there for anyone with the interest to read and I will go on writng my poetry to add to my collection.
By the way, not meaning to plug my printer/publisher it costs next to nothing to have a book published. If memory serves me well even their ISBN was free so all you pay for is the books pod
one book cost £4.63 and there are discounts for bulk purchases. They do give you a recommended sale price at which they suggest you do not sell for less otherwise you will get no royalty. Whether that price is too high will depend entirely on the market.

EmmaD, you've said what I was trying to say, only much more clearly.

There are so few Scottish Lighthouse Keepers left now and fewer with the inclination to write their stories so perhaps within twenty years there will be no one left to tell of our way of life.
At least I have left a legacy of knowledge for future generations to read about what it was like to be a lighthouse keeper.
You never know I might still have time to enjoy some of the fruits of my labour but in the meantime my book will be there for anyone with the interest to read and I will go on writng my poetry to add to my collection.

That's the best possible justification for self-publishing. My writers' group has just published our first anthology and I can see how much it meant to the contributors (most of whom will - for whatever reason - never be published in any other form) to have a real book to sell/give to family and friends with a proper launch party etc.

Sales are never going to be spectacular and people are realistic about what the book can - and can't - give to them. OTOH, we've already gone well past that 40 mark!

As Emma says, watch out for the unscrupulous people waiting to exploit your dreams and - if possible - get someone to at least proof read (and better still do a proper edit). That way, at least you can be sure the book is as good as it possibly can be. We had a careful multi-layered editing and proof reading process for the anthology to ensure the standard was consistent.

Pops - this is not a hornets' nest, just a reality check. I wish you lots of luck with the book, the poetry and with everything else.

Pops, I was just thinking what Debi's just said - that's a classic time when self-pub can really work.

I only put my view in in full because there's so much misinformation flying around about self-pub as the new way to go, fuelled of course by the firms themselves, that I worry about people less clued-up than you...

Emma

Hiya all:
I'm new to speaking on here, but i have just written a zombie/comedy type horror which i am launching on lulu.....
My name is Lee, and i found lulu very helpful when i first used them 2 years ago to make some samples for me. I am now launching the novel with the full ISBN, but i am waiting to see what my samples look like first. If anyone wants to read some sample chapters, then please go to www.leetaylor.me.uk and take a look.
Thanks for reading this,
Lee

Hi all, I am new on here, but I have to say that I self published in 2004 and used Authorhouse to do it. They have been great to deal with and answer all your questions through the process. As my book was an inspirational self help book that I wrote to not only help myself, but to help others, I wanted the book in print immediately because I was donating 100s to charity to assist others. That was my reason for self publishing, but also, who wants rejections over and over from publishing houses then wait ages when you know there is a market you can target yourself. I personally think the marketing packages are over priced, but print on demand is good and my particular deal got my book on Amazon and in Borders Bookstores as well. Hope that helps. Keep writing and do not give up.

Sorry it has been so long getting back to reading new posts, I have had computer problems and in the end had to buy a new one, consequently I lost a lot of contact details and passwords.
Anyway, Skye thank you for your post and I think that most of us if not all of us will agree that your motives are selfless. I am not saintly by any stretch of the imagination and my motives are not 100% selfless mainly because after finding the will and making the effort there would be nothing more rewarding for others to see and appreciate your work. I chose the print on demand route rather than go the Authorhouse route, they seem to want money up front for doing very little and with no guarantees that the book will sell, well that is my opinion. What I do hope is that you found the experience rewarding because that is what counts above all else.
Welcome to word cloud Skye.

I actually make a good living from self publishing/web distribution. Write under several names for differnet genres and it works. Worth the effort, although, building a fan base is slow.

I see writing as a therapeutic past time. It doesn't actually matter what I am writing. I am all for self publishing I have to say. If you have written something down and can make a bit of money from it then fair play. I have done okay from self publishing... to the point I have started a small Ghost Writing, Proof Reading, Editing and Self Publishing Business. Early days yet but I would love to move onto doing this full time.

I wish you every success hotwb. Probably the worst aspect to self publishing is the amount of time you have to spend on marketing your book , that is if you want to get sales.

Thank you

Yeah I know it's gonna be a tough road but should be an interesting journey. And I still have a "real" job to keep me going

Like you Skye I self-published my book through AuthorHouse. I also found them very helpful during the whole process. At the time of writing/publishing my book I didn't really want to be tied into anything as it has generally been a third part-time job that I started to do when my full-time job got far to stressful to deal with. Although at the time I did not really consider just how much time and effort I would need to put into actually marketing and publising my book.

Having my words in print has given me more confidence to re-think how I will publish future books (as I have now decided that I want to do). I have also discovered that I possibly did things the wrong way round and really should have joined sites like Cloud while I was writing, so that I found more options. But hey that is life generally, hind sight is always a good thing to learn from.