Are you thinking of self-publishing your book?
Writing is a creative endeavour, but books are also a product. Are you ready to become an author-publisher?
I consider myself an author-publisher who runs a publishing company with just one author: me! I published five novels and a collection of short stories. The first draft of the sixth novel is not finished. Recently,I had the uncanny idea of writing about self-publishing. Sharing what I have learnt in four years. This is an excerpt from the first chapter.
I have decided to keep my Substack free. However, if you decide to support my work, you can ‘buy me a coffee’ a one-off tip by clicking on this link, or you could buy one of my books (the Amazon link is in the caption of the image at the end of this post) or keep reading my posts, it is entirely up to you.
Congratulations, you have finished the first draft of your book! Now, as you work on revisions (the first draft is also called the vomitable draft, or worse), ask yourself three questions:
1) Why am I writing this book? Broadly speaking, here are three examples:
You write a personal memoir to share with your family and friends. By all mean, go down the self-publishing, print-on-demand route. You are not creating a product that you will try to sell to the rest of the world, but something to keep stories alive in your circle of families and friends and their future children.
You write a personal memoir that may be useful to other people that will go through the same thing or have a loved one that goes through the same thing. Your book has a market.
You have one (maybe more) novel in you; you have written it and you hope people will read it.
2) Who will read my book? Thinking of the profile of one (or more) typical readers will help define any promotional strategy. It will also help you revise your book, but this is beyond strictly self-publishing, you should think of your readers irrespective of the way your book will be published.
3) How will I sell my book? The answer to this question will determine the Print On Demand Platform(s) you select. It will also help you plan any marketing or promotional activities. Your publishing journey has just started. If you are a first-time author, a publisher will expect you to know points (2) and (3). Many first-time authors who found an agent who sold their book to a publishing company will face those two of those questions at some stage in their publishing journey.
Self-publishing is a choice
Self-publishing is not a fall-back position if you do not find an agent, it is a choice. You need to be ready to learn new skills, research, and have some entrepreneurial flair. Being an author is not enough. You must become an author-publisher. You have spent time in a creative pursuit. Now, you need to start thinking of the business of writing before your book is ready to be published.
Why is it a choice? Because you need to think of packaging the result of your creativity into a product, You need to think of a cover, a marketing blurb (it is not the synopsis), a promotional strategy, venues (on line and off-line) where you can promote your book. In other words, you become a publisher of your own books, i.e. an author-publisher, not a self-published author.
An author-publisher needs a creative side to write the book, and an entrepreneurial side to publish it. If you have the budget, you can outsource some tasks, even creative writing (That’s what ghost-writers are for). The vast majority of author-publishers do not have an unlimited budget, so they must have entrepreneurial skills or be prepared to have them.
A publishing company puts a team together: editors, graphic designers for the cover, book designers, marketing people, publicists and someone who can co-ordinate them. You need to co-ordinate those skills. You will learn a new vocabulary.
Do you need help? Get in touch. For further information, check the coaching page.
Are you interested in my forthcoming book about self publishing? (Provisional title “Strictly Self-Publishing), let me know in the comments.
I have decided to keep my Substack free. However, if you decide to support my work, you can ‘buy me a coffee’ a one-off tip by clicking on this link, or you could buy one of my books (the link is in the caption of the image below) or keep reading my posts, it is entirely up to you.
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I admire your commitment greatly, Sylvano. I self-published one book after my enthusiastic agent (who thought it was a best-seller) could not find a publisher (there's a lesson in there too). In my case it was not the writing that gave me the problem but the huge amount of work involved in finding sales. I organised loads of talks, promotions and got myself interviewed in the media. It was exhausting and was then brought to an abrupt stop by the Covid lockdown. I sold 500 books! I have a new book, which has taken me over 3 years to write, now with another equally enthusiastic agent but if he doesn't find me a publisher I will probably just bin it. So well done you.
'Strictly Self-Publishing' sounds like something I'd be very interested in.