How to Publish the Book That's Inside You, Waiting to Get Out
June 2, 2008
One site member posted this question.
I intend to write a (German) philosophical book for a general audience (as opposed to an academic one) on atheism. (Other books shall follow.) My aims with this: 1. Impact, and contribute to 2 Tim 3:9: "Their folly [bad arguments and propaganda] shall be manifest unto all men," 2. Earn money.A good Christian publisher has offered me a contract, with 10% royalties. Is that the best way to achieve (1)? Is that the best way to achieve (2)?
Here is my response.
The contract you have been offered is standard. Very few authors ever get an offer like this. So, you probably should take it. The publisher will take care of all the details relating to the editing, proofreading, typesetting, printing, warehousing, advertising, wholesaling, and other tasks that are associated with book publishing. This is a very complex business.If the publisher does not force you to sign over future books as a condition of publishing your first book, this is especially advantageous for you.
You could self-publish the book. But that will take a lot of money. It won't take as much as it would have taken a decade ago or even two decades ago, but it will take several thousand dollars.
The hardest part is marketing. How are you going to persuade buyers that they should buy your book? They have never heard of you or your book.
Very few books ever sell well enough to make it into a second edition. So, to publish a book is a high-risk venture. The author rarely makes any money. So, I would recommend that you accept the offer from the publisher. If you had a mailing list of 50,000 readers, I would suggest that you drive a hard bargain. You might get 15%. But I doubt that you would get 20%.
Are you going to create a website related to the topic of the book? Are there ways to draw people to this website that you can think of? Will people pay to get information that you provide on that website? Probably not. You might be able to create a blog site for free when you could interact with readers. This is a time consuming process. You may not want to do it.
If your name will not get your book in front of a large audience, then let the publisher do this for you. He will pay you a little money for the privilege, but do not expect to become the next Rick Warren. At two dollars royalty per book, he has earned about $50 million. I assure you, this is not normal.
Now, for the rest of you, consider the following.
If you have not got a publisher who has accepted your manuscript, maybe you should consider self-publishing.
Go to the Web and began to search articles on Print on Demand. There are companies that will take your PDF file, create an order form, take the order, process the money, print the book, put a cover of a book, and mail the book to the buyer. It will then pay you a royalty on the books sold each month. One of them is iUniverse.
Before you do this, consider some basic questions:
Write down the five most important reasons why anyone will feel compelled to buy it. You need these to write your ads. (You are going to have to write a lot of ads. You are going to have to test a lot of ads.)Does this prospective buyer represent 100,000 others?
How will you identify those prospective 100,000? If you can't identify them, you can't design an advertising campaign to reach them.
How will you get an ad to them? Direct mail? Display ads in magazines? Classified ads?
Will you market through Amazon? What is your plan?
How much money do you have for marketing? You must commit 40% of gross sales receipts to marketing. My guess: at least $2,500 to begin. If you can do it for less, how?
These are the basics. There is much, much more.
What sites have you gone to for training? What books on self-publishing have you read? Whose career path are you imitating?
Until you have a specific answers to these questions, don't try to publish a book.
Update, July 23. Now you are ready to read this: //www.garynorth.com/public/5271.cfm