Things to Consider When Self-publishing (part 2)

Products, providers, and pricing

Part 2

The next area in self-publishing that I feel is important covers the format that your books can take as well as the way that you can distribute them and how to choose who to use to distribute your work.

Products

The more different formats of your book that you have, the better, even initially. It really is up to you which formats you can run your book in – but it is important to remember that choosing to only use one or two formats can alienate certain customers. The wider variety of choices that you have – the better.

Some people will never buy digital downloads, or even order books online, so ensure that you have physical copies of the book that you can carry around with you like a weirdo to sell in the pub, or sell on stalls (I did it like a sad bastard – but it worked). It is easier in some cases to sell your work to people when you physically put it in their hands also. Even if you only order yourself 20-30 copies of your book, it really is a good way to get your work to new people. You can do this through local printers (but a run of printing books yourself is only really cost-efficient when you buy at least 100), or with KDP Amazon (formerly Createspace) you can order some order author copies for cost and shipping.

Other people will buy things online and these may be the customers that you are trying to get. The print-on-demand services offered by the likes of LULU and Amazon, amongst others take a lot of the work away of selling and posting. It also is handy for sharing links online and growing your audience. The bulk of your sales could be earned this way with minimal risk for you. You do, however, only get a percentage of this so you really need to shop around. Also, you need to check to see if you will be provided with an ISBN (Amazon do it) or whether you will need to buy it yourself. Personally, as much as they are very much an eye-rolling company, I used Amazon, as their percentages were decent, got a free ISBN and their delivery reputation was decent.

Other online formats include e-books and Kindle – which are different formats. The percentage KDP (Amazon) of turnover that you are able to retain on these is actually up to 70% (this may have changed since I did it). This is quite high and depending on how you price your digital download can work very well. Kindle also pays a percentage of profits to writers who let them include their books in their rental membership.

Personally what I opted for with my work was around 120 physical copies of my book (which I could sell in person, at events and readings or through my own personal website), ebook digital downloads (on my own site), Kindle on Amazon, and print on demand with KDP. I had most of my bases covered and with some badly coordinated work (I was learning) sold mostly physical copies and online print on demand ones.

Who should you use?

There are certain companies that require a large upfront payment and may guarantee results with graphic design, editing, and proofing, marketing. You will probably be on a budget and honestly, the majority of these companies seem like a massive risk, even if you are established. 5 years ago I was quoted $1000 to help me proof, edit and even create a cover for my book. I considered it and declined after reading several online reviews of the company. Honestly, I’m glad I didn’t take the risk and tried (with varying levels of success) to complete the majority of the steps in the process myself. To this day I am still hounded by this company despite my stating on several occasions that I was not interested in working with them. As I said above I chose Amazon/KDP, but a quick online search will give you a variety of options. LULU seems like a good option for comics or image-heavy books also, where you can sell on their site and your own site as well as transfer to others.

Once you have uploaded your work – paying attention to the site-specific information regarding sizing and formatting – there will be a period where your work is checked and possibly a wait of up to 48 hours before your work will be available to buy online.

Pricing and Admin

Some people believe to generate interest in your work, even initially, that you should run a promotion and give your work away for free. I strongly disagree with this sentiment. Not only does it automatically devalue your work but it does ruin whatever potential you have for your hard-earned blood, sweat, and tears to earn you anything. Even if you offer something at a ridiculously low price, or run it at a low price initially, you will undoubtedly make a little something for your trouble, and make it more likely that people will actually read your work. I have found that giving things away for free makes people bother even less with the product, and it often ends up in the back of a wardrobe gathering dust or downloaded in a random file on a laptop, never to be opened again. By all means, run a promotion where you give a bundle of your works at a special discount or give free postage for any order over a certain amount – but never indiscriminately give things away for nothing (I will discuss specific ‘freebies’ in marketing later).

Most providers that you can use will have a calculator to help you get an idea of how much profit you will make after the printing and distribution costs. It is up to you to decide how much is acceptable and you will have to factor that into a reasonable price for your potential customers. It probably is best to shop around for the most suited provider for your needs as printing costs can vary depending on the book type that you require for example, is the cover colour, how many images are included in the text, etc. Also, many of these providers (and definitely KDP) will provide you with a dashboard so that you can see how many sales you have made over a certain period.

Boring tax and admin

Now for the boring administrative part of the process – tax and setting up payments. Many of these companies will be based in a different country to you so it is important to fill out your tax information accurately. You may need to supply them with some identification and contact details also to prove who you are and keep your accounts safe. Also depending on how you are accepting payments you will more than likely have to set up online payments like Stripe and PayPal, which will require linking these to your accounts with similar information. If you are self-employed make sure to have these payments (which are usually made in monthly batches on Stripe) in a definite account and consider having them separate from your daily expenses should you ever earn enough to get audited!

Wow, that was a lot and it just flowed like a stream of consciousness out of me! And look at all the hyphens and I made virtually no jokes. WHAT HAVE I BECOME?!

BOOM! BITCHES! Next time in the grand finale I will cover marketing ideas!

Here is the first part of this blog in case you missed it:

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