Self Publishing versus Vanity Publishing
A few of the facts. (And some personal experiences.)
As a few of you may already know, as well as being the Southern and Eastern Africa Manager for StreetLib I am also an established author with nine novels under my belt. But today I’m not talking about my own books, I am talking about yours! (plus a few of my publishing experiences along the way)
I want to take a look at the options available to you when the time comes to publish, I want to take a look at a few of the paths open to authors today.
Of course it’s the dream of all authors to be picked up by a top agent who raves about your work and brings in a fabulous advance from one of the most exclusive publishing houses. And if you are Steven King or J.K. Rowling that dream is a definite reality… but the sad fact my friends is that this only happens to a select few (or in fairy tales)
So let us take a look at the options open to us “mere mortals.”
1. There is still a small possibility of traditional publishers picking up your book!
This is very true and exactly how I started. I won’t be mentioning any names here, but my experience with traditional went sour very quickly: An unclear contract, (written to baffle and confuse rookie authors I think), unclear royalties structure, (the kind of deal that splits the profits after Amazon have taken their bite, and ensures that the author walks away with less than 40% of very little.) Loss of rights to my own work, plus shoddy editing and formatting, (probably my own fault for believing that non-native English speakers could edit… seriously!)
I could go on and on, but I won’t, let us just say that I was naive, and very easily led. But more than just naive… I was also incredibly proud. Someone professional within the industry, a publisher, thought my books were worth their time and effort to represent and publish.
I’ll tell you now, Wow, what a buzz to hear that, the praise, the ego stroking.
The reality may have been that they genuinely saw potential in my work, but that is beside the point, their acceptance and enthusiasm fed my ego, it made me feel special… it led me to believe that my books were the best ever written!
And I think that leads me to my next point quite succinctly!
2. Vanity Publishing
Just the name makes me shudder. It implies, in my opinion, that no matter how good or how bad your book is… throw enough money at it and it will get published. I picture a mediocre author who has been turned down by a long line of agents, an author who isn’t really that serious about writing, an author who just wants to see his (or her) own books lined up on a bookshelf in the lounge, books to show friends, books to impress and brag about.
Now you may say that I’m sounding a little jaded, but I have spoken to authors who have been drawn into the realm of vanity publishing, a realm not unlike my own experience with traditional publishing, where they were told how wonderful their book was, a guaranteed best seller, egos were stroked and massaged, (and then the crunch) “And it will only cost you X amount of dollars to achieve this dream.” (X in this case being many hundreds, if not thousands of dollars)
But let me put personal feelings aside for a moment and take a look at what a Vanity Publisher will do for you.
- Editing: This has to be an absolute minimum for what you are paying.
- A Professional Cover: Considering you can get fantastic, original covers starting from just $30 if you shop around, this isn’t really worth the hefty fee.
- Print and eBook formatting: Conversion to epub, mobi and pdf is common place these days, there is no great mystery, and through ourselves (using StreetLib Write) and a variety of other self publishing companies, conversion to e-book formats is not only easy… it’s also Free!
And if you don’t feel confident to produce your own e-book or print book files, there are hundreds of very capable people just waiting to charge you $10 or $15 to do the conversions on Fiverr or even through StreetLib Market.
So, even getting someone to format your manuscript and make a cover for you isn’t going to cost any more than fifty bucks!!
OK…yes, I’m being very general and penny pinching, but even if you get a professional editor, and a fancy cover, and pay double for conversion to epub, mobi and pdf…. Seriously is the price really going to reach $500? Because that’s the very bottom end of Vanity Publishing package prices.
So what else is a Vanity Publisher going to do for you?
- Marketing: Seriously? No publisher, vanity or traditional will throw money at marketing for you. It is a fact that most traditionally published authors are responsible for their own marketing (J.K Rowling and Steven King being the exception…) but joking aside, other than a few promotional tweets, a facebook post and exposure on the publisher’s website you are pretty much alone to tell the world about your magnum opus.
So to recap Vanity Publishing:
For the hefty fee you will get your manuscript edited, a cover designed (print and e-book), you will get print and e-book formatting, maybe a few paperbacks to hand around, and some very basic marketing. Now sit back and ask yourself, is the fee merited, or is there is a better option…?
But then again, maybe being able to brag to your friends that you are published by Hazelbrook Publishing is really that important to you!
Ah yes… Now I see why it’s called “Vanity” publishing.
(and my apologies to Hazelbrook Publishing if they really do exist somewhere out there, it was a name I plucked from the air at random and not meant as an example of bad publishing practices.)
So let us move on to options 3a and 3b.
Self Publishing.
Self publishing can be split into two camps… Fee, and Free! (So okay, nothing in life is free, but I will explain more in section 3b.)
3a — Fee
There are many self publishing companies out there who are offering to publish your book on your behalf… so for arguments sake, let’s call this “assisted self publishing.” Fee structures vary, from low hundreds… and up (if you take their complete packages)
Most won’t offer you a cover, that is something you need to buy from a designer, they also aren’t going to edit for you, so that is also a separate budget… but they will format for you and produce both epub and mobi (which we have already established is free)
So why? Why use assisted self publishing?
For many authors, they will have already sourced a cover designer, they will have already submitted their manuscript to beta readers (who can be wonderfully constructive in a quite brutal way) and a professional editor. All they need is ebook formatting and distribution.
Just for a moment, let us step away and look at distribution, why get a company to distribute for you in the first place… if you are going to self publish, why not do everything, yourself.
The basic facts are, for distribution, you need help.
Let’s consider a scenario. An author in Botswana for example. Cover designed, book edited and formatted… now time to distribute, but to who and where?
Amazon, the major player will almost certainly welcome you with open arms… except, they will push you toward exclusivity.
So who else?
Barnes & Noble, probably the biggest dedicated book seller out there, but wait, our author in Southern Africa doesn’t qualify to have a Nook Book account because he isn’t in the US or Europe, so he can’t sell on B&N.
Never mind, let’s consider Kobo… Kobo has their own platform to submit books, but wait, damn, yet again he is in the wrong area!
Scribd, oh no, they don’t accept individual authors any more!
Do you see a trend developing here?
Self publishing, both 3a and 3b is all about reach, distribution reach, how many partners out there around the world who are going to offer your book to the paying public?
So now back to the point where I detoured.
Assisted self publishing, what kind of reach are you being offered? This is something that you need to investigate because there is a big wide world that exists in the shadow of Amazon. Scribd, Playster, Tolino, Libreka, Feedbooks… and many, many more. Check how extensive the reach is before deciding to pay for formatting services and assisted self publishing.
3b — Free
Now you may point the finger and say that I am biased because the company that I work for falls into this bracket. And I will say yes I probably am, and I’ll remain unapologetic, because I did say at the beginning that this was also a personal journey through self publishing, and StreetLib was a part of that journey long before I was employed by them.
When I finally got the rights to my books back I self published with a company called Pronoun, (sadly no-longer in business) a company firmly rooted in the Free self publishing sector. Free in so much as they did not charge any up-front fee… for anything. They relied on earning revenue from additional services offered, but as most self publishing authors tend to do everything themselves Pronoun’s model proved not to be viable. StreetLib and several other similar companies work on a slightly different model, a model which is based on commission rather than services.
Pronoun automatically formatted my manuscripts, converted to epub and mobi, then distributed to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, iBooks and Kobo. For every sale made they took a small percentage of the profit for administration. So you see, Free can still be “virtually free” even when the publishing company takes a small slice.
As an example:
Your e-book is selling for $1.00, the online store selling it takes 30%.
When your book sells the retailer will pay 70¢
Your self publishing partner will take 10% to 15% (10% in the case of StreetLib)
So from the original $1.00, you receive 55¢ to 60¢.
The advantage of self publishing via 3b is that you didn’t pay hundreds up-front, you just paid 10¢ on the sale when it happened.
And it is also important to be realistic in such a competitive market.
The reality is, sad to say, that the majority of us are never going to be New York Times Bestsellers, most of us will be lucky to sell a few hundred copies of our books in a lifetime, basic economics tell us to make savings where we can, especially if we are publishing more than one or two books.
So now we come back around again to reach, the more places that your book is available to buy, the more chance there is that someone will buy it.
Every self publishing company in the 3b section will have something different to offer, some way of tempting the savvy self publishing author to put their trust, and their books in their hands. It is up to you to research, to see who reaches the most outlets worldwide, who offers you the best service and best tools to help you along the way… only you can make that decision.
In companies like StreetLib, success depends on our catalog successes. That’s how you can trust that we will do everything we can to help your books succeed: if they fail, we fail with them. There is no magic or dream promise, there is a business model, where everyone wins when books are bought and read.
I won’t try to tell you which way is best for you, I have merely related what happened to me before I really knew the industry, and hopefully given you a few pointers to help you on your way.
Just remember this… do not let anyone tell you that you are not capable of publishing yourself! You have just written a novel and that is quite an achievement, you are in control, you have the ability… nothing can stop you now.
You didn’t need to pay someone to help you write your book, so why pay someone to help you get it published?
The power is within you!
Happy writing (and publishing) until next time.
