Lessons from a first-time self-publisher

First off, I'll just apologize for the lengthiness of this sucker. I didn't mean for it to go so long, but felt that I should give the info I could on the subject...

For the longest time, I've wondered why publishers keep such a high percentage of an author's royalty, well, I'm starting to get it. Now, don't get me wrong, I love the publisher I've worked with so far. They're on the ball, have an incredible designer, and their editors are easy to work with. All in all, I love them. But that didn't stop me from wanting to try self-publishing.

Even before I signed my contract on my first novel, I've wanted to try self-pubbing. Getting a higher percentage of your sales and having the freedom to do what you want with your book (like setting promotional prices, etc) is really tempting. Would I change how I went through a publisher for my Primordial Guardians series? Nope. Not at all. I'm happy with the team I have at Evernight.

But, I mean really, how much does the publisher actually do? They pay someone to edit the book and pay for the cover, and that's it, right? Umm...no. That's not it.

So, how has self-publishing gone so far you ask? Well, I'll tell you some of the things I've learned on this journey, and how it has differed from my experience working with a publisher.

Editing
No matter if you're going the traditional publishing route or doing it on your own, editing is an integral part of producing a great book. Here is how, in my experience, the processes have differed.

• Publisher: Your publisher will take care of not only paying for this, but they've also got editors on-hand that they know and trust to do a good job.
• Self-publishing: You have options. You can decide if you want to pay for an editor (they charge a certain amount per word), which means, unless you know someone will do a good job, it's kind of a shot in the dark. If you don't want to pay someone? Just hope that you have some incredible critique partners to let you know what you need to improve on. Also, you'll want to edit, edit, edit yourself. Just to give you an idea of what it might cost to pay for an editor, let's just say that the average for one of my books would be around $500.00. We'll tally up these costs at the end and see where we're at.

Cover Art
Everyone knows that you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but let's face it...we all do. The cover can make or break a book in those first precious few seconds that a reader is trying to decide what book to buy next.

• If you use a publisher, this is also something they pay for. Again, they work with designers they know will do a good job, and they strive to make it the way you want. They'll generally send you a cover art worksheet that you fill out with character details and the main theme of the story so that the cover artist has a good starting point. Some publishers allow you to reject a cover if you're not happy with it. With others, you're stuck with what they made, even if it doesn't really work with your book.
• If you self-pub, you can pretty much do whatever you want. There are sites out there that offer completed covers, and when you order them, they'll fill in the Author Name, Title Name, Series Name, etc. for you and email you a high res copy of your cover. On the flip side, if you're a master at editing graphics, you can search through stock photos and piece together your own - just make sure you read the policies on what can/can't be done with the photos. In many cases, your cover/stock photos can only be used a certain number of times, so if you sell that many books (and let's hope you do!) you have to buy them again in order to continue using them. As far as costs go, you're probably looking at at least $20.00 for stock photos you put together yourself, vs. up to $150.00 (if not more) for completed covers. For our little tally, let's split the difference and go with $85.00.

ISBN
What's that you say? Yeah, this one snuck up on me in the wee hours of the morning while I was getting ready to upload my file. An ISBN is a unique number that's sortof like a book's social security number. Each version of your book has it's own. So, if you're going to print your book, there's one ISBN, if you're going to do one for Kindle, there's another. Want to do one for Nook, well, there's another...you get my point. In my research, some authors do not assign an ISBN for their eBooks. I'm not sure how they get around it, but it appears publishers do assign one for eBooks, so I followed suit. I also found that some print-on-demand companies offer a free ISBN for your print book. I did not go with that option though, as I found some cons I just didn't want to deal with down the road. Do your due diligence and see what's best for you. Here are the differences between publishers and doing it on your own:

• Publisher: They pay for your ISBNs. The great thing for publishers is that they can order hundreds or thousands of these at a time, so they can get the numbers a lot cheaper than self-publishing authors (unless your well off).
• Self-publishing: You're covering this cost yourself. When you go to the website (for those in the U.S. it's Bowker, or you'll want to check your local ISBN agency), you'll see options to buy your ISBN. You can buy one for $125.00 (I would not recommend this unless you are planning to publish your book in one version and one version ONLY), or it goes up from there, so you can get 10 for $250.00. For our tally, let's go with the $250.00 option.

Formatting
This might not seem like that big of a task, but it adds up with all the different versions. Things I was able to get away with in the print book (fancy text), I couldn't do in the eBook. Not to mention that you might as well start over with formatting between each version because, so far, none of them are even remotely the same.

• Publisher: They take care of this. Whether they do it themselves or they pay someone, it's not on your time, or on your dime (except for a percentage of your royalty).
• Self-publishing: It's all on you, babe. If you're like me and you're trying to save money, you'll probably attempt this yourself. You might pull your hair out, you might not. Either way, you'll either pay someone to do it (I've seen sites that offer it starting at $50.00 for each version), or you'll spend hours figuring it out on your own. For this one, we'll just assume that you do it on your own for our tally, so it costs $0.00, just a lot of time.

Print-book cover art
Wha-wha-what? Yeah, this isn't included in the normal cover (unless you had the forethought to worry about it from the get-go and found a website or stock images that took care of it all in one swoop).

• Publisher: They take care of the costs and design of this.
• Self-publishing: Here again, it's on you. Based on the costs tallying so far, you might just do a plain cover with some fun fonts or even a gradient (like me), or maybe you'll get some more stock images and do a fancy one. Either way, you're going to need good graphic design software (can we say something along the lines of PhotoShop?) because of the requirements on dpi/ppi, sizing, etc. Don't do what I did and assume that you can get away with making one in Paint or PowerPoint, because that was just hours wasted. For the tally, let's go with the $0.00 route and assume that you found a good, free software that can export to print-quality PDF for your cover.

Marketing
No matter which way you publish, you'll be doing your own marketing. Yes, publishers have a good following of people, as well as other authors that support you, but that doesn't mean you can sit back and wait for the money to (hopefully) roll in. Social Media, swag, conferences, book signings, blog tours, etc...you're doing it all. I won't break down the differences between self- and regular publishing since I just listed how similar the two are.


Now, that I've listed the points (I apologize if I've missed anything) let's tally up our totals.
Right now we're at $835.00 on costs to self-pub. To re-coup those costs, here is a fun little breakdown of how many books it could potentially take to earn your money back based on a 70% royalty (this excludes other distribution fees you may incur, and just acts as an example):

Sell price         # of books
$2.99              400
$3.99              299
$4.99              239
$5.99              199
$6.99              171
$7.99              149
$8.99              133
$9.99              119

So, hopefully this little (cough, cough) list of differences will help you decide which route is best for you.

Killing Your Babies

Don't let the title fool you, we're not talking about killing real babies. Our theme for this month is about making your characters do something or change something that you didn't want to do or change, or killing off a character in order to make the story better. A sacrifice you've had to make for the greater good. While I haven't had to kill off any of my characters (yet) I have definitely had to make some hard cuts in order to improve the flow of the story. One particularly difficult cut was a scene where my main protagonist is spying on the main antagonist and overhears a conversation between him his mom. The reason this scene was hard for me to take out is because I think it really shows the motivation and core of my antagonist and reveals a more luring side to him. But alas, as my story developed I realized that this scene not only gave away too much too soon, it also didn't quite fit in with my new revisions of the story and had to go. I still very much plan on adding it as a deleted scene after I publish my book. Want a sneak peak? You got it! Okay, it's not really a peak, it's the whole thing, but I couldn't decide where to stop it. Enjoy.

I crept a little closer so I could hear what they were saying. Mrs. Thomas’s voice cut through the air and it was obvious she was not happy.

“Why her? Darling, you could have so many other girls and they would all be a much better choice than her.”

“No, mother. I want her and I will have her,” Lucas replied confidently.

“But why? She’s nothing special; she’s not even that pretty. I don’t understand why we can’t just get rid of her.” I felt my heart beating faster. I could only imagine what get rid of her would mean for me. Like I was some dog that bit her hand and now had to be put down. That’s how she saw me. I noticed a sliver of light spilling out by the door and leaned toward it to try and see inside. The only thing I could make out was the form of Mrs. Thomas, sitting in a large chair by the fire. From the way she kept moving her head she was watching Lucas pace the room.

“I’ve already told you, I want her,” Lucas said again. When Mrs. Thomas didn’t reply he said impatiently, “You don’t see the way people look at her as she walks by. Or how she lights up whenever she talks about something she’s passionate about. People are drawn to that light and they listen to her.” I felt myself frowning in the dark where no one could see me. He thought people were drawn to me?

“She can be a very powerful asset if she chooses to be on our side,” he finished.

“Or a very powerful enemy if she chooses not to be,” Mrs. Thomas countered.

There was a moment of silence while they both contemplated this. Mrs. Thomas was the one to break the silence. “And she doesn’t even like you.” At that Lucas sighed. I thought he’d lost the battle, but he wasn’t ready to give up yet.

“Just give me time, mother. She’ll come around and you’ll be glad you decided to let her stay. She can live here so you can keep a close eye on her and I’ll be with her at school. If she steps out of line even once, you can send her back,” Lucas said.

“Sounds like you’ve got this all worked out. You realize how much of a liability she is?” Mrs. Thomas asked.

“I do, but I’m willing to take that chance,” Lucas replied. I was taken back at the utter confidence he had in me of all people. I found myself a little flattered that he was willing to risk so much for me, but I felt bad for him. He was a fool to think I’d cooperate. A fool to think I could just sit by and pretend like everything was real. He would risk a lot and he would lose it. Mrs. Thomas seemed to think the same thing.

“I hope you’re right about her darling. I would hate to see you heartbroken over such an unworthy girl, but I love you too much to not give you what you want. Especially when you’re willing to risk so much for it. She can stay,” Mrs. Thomas said as she got up and walked toward the door leading back to her wing. She paused in the doorway.

“For now,” she added. I couldn’t see Lucas through the crack of the door, but I heard the exhalation of breath. He was relieved. I could have hid when I heard him coming, but I didn’t. He came out the door and stopped short when he saw me standing there. He didn’t look embarrassed or angry like I thought he would be. He simply smiled and bowed slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. Then without a word he continued on his way as if he’d never been interrupted. As if he hadn’t caught me listening in on his conversation. He wasn’t disappointed that I heard.
*Copyright Jayne L. Bowden*