How Will Your Book Be Published?
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| Book Publishing Options |
Let’s talk today about publishing and what are your options for your book now that you have a manuscript. (If you don’t have a traditional publisher like a Simon and Schuster or a McGraw Hill, we will need to talk about the design and production of your book so you can self publish (we’ll do that in the next blog posting). But for now, I will just outline your publishing options.
Basically, your options are the following:
Mainstream or business/trade publisher (you may need an agent for this these days)
Self publishing, which may include working with book printers, POD publishers (Print on Demand) and creating e-books. If your manuscript is accepted and published by a mainstream or trade/business publisher, here is what you can expect:
There is an entirely new set of guidelines which requires getting an agent, or going directly to a publisher such as McGraw Hill, Bloomberg, or John Wiley & Sons, for example. Because of the electronic encroachment on their services, mainstream publishers are not publishing as many books and are very choosy about what they publish.
It can take longer (there are usually only two publishing seasons, spring and fall, with a few exceptions) and they will want you to help with the marketing. Of course, they take care of the printing and distribution (to bookstores and Amazon etc), and limited marketing, if that’s what you need.
They do all of the editing, production, design, and printing.
You purchase copies from them and they can be expensive. For example on a 200-page book selling for $24.95 they might charge you $15 a copy (after the author’s comp copies which are usually only about 25 of them). But you can negotiate. You might suggest that your firm put in an order. That will definitely help the publisher decide whether they want to publish your book!
If self-published and printed:
You determine quantity of books to purchase, review and agree on pricing of printing, then place order with a book printer such as Bookmasters out of Ohio www.bookmasters.com . It’s a good idea to put an order in about 2 months in advance. Unit prices are more economical, the higher the quantity of books. Can be as low as $5 per book for hardcover, color dust jacket and 250 pages. If you work with a book printer you receive a color proof of the cover and a proof of the all the pages to make sure there are no printer errors before it goes to press.
Books are delivered to you by the delivery method of your choice. You have a choice of having them slip-sheeted or shrink wrapped. (so the covers don’t get damaged in shipping—jostling around in the box).
As an e-Book:
Your book is created from the manuscript by a graphic designer using e-Book software (and/or various “reader” applications for iPads etc).
The book can then be uploaded to your website, amazon.com or barnes and noble.com.
It can also be produced to distribute electronically through emails, inserted on other appropriate websites etc. This is the easiest, quickest, and most economical way to publish a book.
POD (Print on Demand) Publishing
This publishing is all done through an online service. There are many of them, but services like AdvisorPress www.advisorpress.com is a good one. They will create the book, print one at a time, take individual or bulk orders for the book, and ship the book. Some also offer e-Books as well as the printed copies. They usually give a royalty of anywhere from 10-30% if you are interested in the profit option, (but AdvisorPress offers 60% and has alliances with other distribution sources.) You keep copyright if negotiated.
With most POD publishers, you do all the marketing and “push” readers and buyers to their site. Even though they can print one book at a time, it can be expensive per unit, more expensive than hard copy printers.
It’s smart to read about POD publishing before choosing a POD service. Be sure to Google those you might be considering and check for reviews and criticisms. There are many services available that have black eyes, so be careful.
Get referrals if you can. Here’s a book you can check out on Amazon. Book Publishing DIY: The Do It Yourself Guide to Print-on-Demand Self-Publishing
I hope this has been of some help to you.
As posted on www.forbes.com by Sydney LeBlanc
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