LARGE PUBLISHER
This is looked on by most authors as the brass ring they are all reaching for. It is a very difficult achievement to realize. Most large publishers do not accept unsolicited works so it almost always requires obtaining an agent first. It is not uncommon to receive multiple rejections from agents then another pile of rejections as they submit to publishers. The process is extremely long. Probably a minimum of 3 years from book completion to printing and 5 years is not out of the question. The author will have little or no say in issues such as book title, cover design, price, distribution methods, or formats produced. On the positive side it will come with an advance (typically $5,000 - $12,000 for a first time author) and the likelihood of receiving attention by reviewers and bookstore shelf space. The downside is large publishers are driven by numbers and while they can produce “buy-in” (putting books on shelves) if there is not “sell through” these books come back to the publisher. If the author does not “earn out” the advance in what will seem like an extremely short time frame they may be quick to remainder (sell the bulk of books “by the pound”) to discount outlets and drop the author. This can mean a very short lived success. But if the book is good, and catches on, then it will probably produce the largest amounts sold and highest income for the author.
INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER (aka Small Press)
Today there are literally thousands of indies so much in fact that they have their own trade associations, awards, and the like. They are much easier for an author to get their foot in the door and are more willing to take on the risk of a new author. They accept unsolicited works (i.e. you don’t have to have an agent). While they can obtain reviews, it will be harder for them (Reviewers typically only critique 1-2% of the books submitted). They may be more willing to listen to authors in the areas of title and cover design, but still will remain ultimate deciding power over these and all marketing activities. They will generally have a “smaller press run” in the neighborhood of 2,000 to 5,000 books and utilize a wholesale distributor which will catalog and sell their titles along with a number of other independent publishers to bookstores. In most cases books will be “available” for order from any bookstore but only a few will actually carry them on their shelves and will probably only try 1 – 2 books. The good news is they have much longer time lines then large publishers and are willing to stick with an author while he grows a following. Success will be highly dependent on the author promoting his own book through time and energy but the publisher will bear the financial burden or copy edit, cover design, layout, and printing.
SUBSIDIZED SELF PUBLISHERS
Here I am speaking of the typical “self-publishing” mainstays such as iUniverse, LuLu, BookSurge, Xliblis, and OutskirtPress. Because of the negative connotations of the term “vanity press” many market themselves as “subsidized publishers”, “supported self-publishers” etc. Here there is no editorial decision made on the “worth of a book” before producing, the author is paying to have their book produced. In almost all cases these companies utilize POD* (print on demand) technology.
They do offer services that most authors would be hard pressed to do on their own such as cover design and book layout (but at a pretty steep markup). In addition, they offer a wide range of services such as copy editing, and marketing assistance but these are ALWAYS overpriced. I highly recommend an author that uses these organizations look elsewhere for these services. For instance copy editing from iUniverse runs $0.022 per word ($2,200 for a typical sized novel) where a freelance editor would charge $350 - $800 for the same service.
As I mentioned these organizations utilize POD technology and once again your books will be available “for order” from a bookstore or on-line from companies such as Amazon when using them. However you will have virtually no success with reviewers (who generally won’t even look at a book with an ISBN from one of these organizations) and since there is no warehousing, bookstores will not carry them on the shelves since they loose the “return policy” aspect that their business is based on.
Now comes the “worst” part of using these organizations. While the author pays all the fees to produce the book they still receive only a royalty on sales!! This makes no financial sense for the author (although a great model for the publisher). What the author is receiving here is convenience. It is analogous to going to the grocery store and buying a shish-ka-bob in the meet section fully assembled. If you were to buy the meet, skewers, and vegetables separately and make them yourself you would save a bunch of money.
I personally do not recommend this method of publishing to anyone except those who have huge amounts of disposable income. There are so many less expensive ways of going about this that puts a higher percentage of the sale into the author’s pocket.
POD INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER
This is a fairly new business model. Many small independents that are wishing to “hedge their bets” on an author may utilize the same POD technology to reduce their initial investment costs. Once again there is no charge to the author, but there is also not an original press run. The publisher will provide editing, cover design, and layout services. This can result in a higher “per book” cost which may make the publisher price the book “above the market”. As a business person I can see the value in this model to both the publisher and the author. There are some downside in the areas of bookstore stocking – but given that even independents that print books have obstacles in this area I don’t think it is significant enough to make a huge impact on the overall success of the book. The biggest problem I have with this model is the publisher is not really doing much more than the author could do on their own. The only difference is they are “fronting” the money to produce the book in return for a bigger percentage of the profit.
POD SELF PUBLISHING
This is actually an extremely attractive model for the person who is not afraid of rolling up their sleeves. It benefits from a relatively small “start up cost” and is definitely more financially lucrative than using the subsidized vanity presses. With this model the author has 100% control of everything: cover price, cover design, layout, distribution channels and the like. For exactly the same investment they would use for a POD vanity press they can receive 100% of the profits instead of a small royalty. If you have any graphic design experience you definitely should take this route as you will have virtually no start-up cost. If you don’t have these skills you can hire a free lancer do your design for $500 - $1000. NOTE: Art school students is a great resource to get good quality design at reasonable prices or use Craig’s list. You will want the cover done in something like Photoshop and should be given to you as a CMYK .tiff file at 300 dpi (at full size). The interior should be laid out in either Qurak Xpress or Adobe InDesign programs.
NOTE: Whether you are using the vanity or self-publishing I highly recommend hiring a professional editor to “polish the book”. Put an ad in Craig’s list and send a sample chapter to a number of the people who respond…you can get a good editor to do a novel sized book for between $350 - $1000). If you are extremely good at self-editing you can of course skip this cost.
Once you have a book in “print ready format” all you need is printing and distribution. This is remarkably easy you will receive the same quality as the vanity POD’s (because you will use the same companies). I suggest you setup both a CreateSpace account and a LightningSource account and sent the same print ready files to both of them. I could write a whole post on why you need to use two but to boil it down …. Lightning Source will get you distribution into bookstores (through Ingram typically 55% discount) and CreateSpace will get you distribution into Amazon (typically 40% discount).
Because it is POD you have a very small start-up cost ($75 for LightningSource and $40 for Amazon). The price of your books is directly related to number of pages (.85 + .012(pages)) for create space and .90 + .013(pages) for Lightning Source). As an example let’s assume you have a 300 page book selling for $15.00. The amount you would receive would be:
TRUE SELF PUBLISHING
The last choice which will potentially place the largest amount of money in the pocket of the author is true self publishing. In this option they basically become a small press. Only an author that really feels confident in their books success will want to go this route. But for instance it could be a good choice for an author that has already established a following through previously published works. The advantage of this over the POD route is a lower cost per book rate. But the downside is a higher up-front cost. I would suggest an initial run of 1,500 to 2,000 books and again for a 300 page novel this could result in unit prices of $2.00 to $2.30 a book. So again with a $15.00 list price the money to the author would be:
SO WHAT SHOULD YOU CHOOSE?
There are many factors to consider when making your choice such as: patience, tolerance to rejection, need for control, desire for external validation, tolerance for risk, whether you are a self-starter or not and ultimately whether you want to just have a book printed for yourself and family or a widespread distribution plays more into the decision making process.
If an author places a high value on the opinions of others then they should definitely avoid any form of self or subsidized publishing. These books will always be thought of as “not making the grade” by many regardless of the number of units sold. There will always be a stigma that if the book was truly “good” then it would have been produced via a traditional publisher.
If the author values control then self-publishing is definitely the right choice for them. If they were a new author I would suggest self print on demand as the cost of full self-publishing makes it quite a gamble. If they already had a few books published I think going true self publishing is worth it as the higher per book profit is worth the up-front investment.
For myself, I would never use a vanity POD – as I think it is a bad call on straight business decision principals. But they do offer a tremendous convenience factor and many people are willing to pay exorbitant prices to have less that they have to do personally.
I will say for myself (in regards to my husband’s books) we have run the whole gambit. I started off by getting an agent and pursuing the large publisher. When we still were without a contract after 15 months I decided to submit to some smaller presses while I investigated self-publishing. I got to the state of actually printing up 300 “review copy” books when a small press offered a contract and we have now produced his first two books (The Crown Conspiracy and Avempartha) through them.
*POD - many confuse this as a publishing format which it is not - it really is just a technology. With POD trade paperbacks are produced literally one at a time. This eliminates large press runs and warehousing of books altogether. When a purchase is made a book is printed and shipped usually within 24 – 48 hours of order. There are many disadvantages with using POD (will cover in more detail in a future post) but paramount is that they are usually not returnable and bookstores won't carry POD titles. Also some reviewers will not consider POD works (or self-published works) as they see these as "inferior products" because they did not have to go through the rigors of a third-party validation.
Of course the book store, or online retailer may receive less if they decide to put the book on sale etc. It is common for Amazon to discount books 10 – 20% do the consumer would get a bit of that money back in their pocket.
I hope this helps explain royalties at a very high level. If you have any questions please feel free to add comments below.
Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.
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...and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.
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We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do.
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And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.
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And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more.
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With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet.
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And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.
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For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies.
Solutions from the Green Economy
January 15, 2008
Everyone now understands that the economy is broken.
While many name the mortgage and credit-default-swap crises as culprits, they are only the most recent indicators of an economy with fatal design flaws. Our economy has long been based on what economist Herman Daly calls “uneconomic growth” where increases in the GDP come at an expense in resources and well-being that is worth more than the goods and services provided. When GNP growth exacerbates social and environmental problems—from sweatshop labor to manufacturing toxic chemicals—every dollar of GNP growth reduces well-being for people and the planet, and we’re all worse off.
Our fatally flawed economy creates economic injustice, poverty, and environmental crises. It doesn’t have to be that way. We can create a green economy: one that serves people and the planet and offers antidotes to the current breakdown.
Here are six green-economy solutions to today’s economic mess.
1. Green Energy—Green Jobs
A crucial starting place to rejuvenate our economy is to focus on energy. It’s time to call in the superheroes of the green energy revolution—energy efficiency, solar and wind power, and plug-in hybrids—and put their synergies to work with rapid, large-scale deployment. This is a powerful way to jumpstart the economy, spur job creation (with jobs that can’t be outsourced), declare energy independence, and claim victory over the climate crisis.
2. Clean Energy Victory Bonds
How are we going to pay for this green energy revolution? We at Green America propose Clean Energy Victory Bonds. Modeled after victory bonds in World War II, Americans would buy these bonds from the federal government to invest in large-scale deployment of green energy projects, with particular emphasis in low-income communities hardest hit by the broken economy. These would be long-term bonds, paying an annual interest rate, based in part on the energy and energy savings that the bonds generate. During WWII, 85 million Americans bought over $185 billion in bonds—that would be almost $2 trillion in today’s dollars.
3. Reduce, Reuse, Rethink
Living lightly on the Earth, saving resources and money, and sharing (jobs, property, ideas, and opportunities) are crucial principles for restructuring our economy. This economic breakdown is, in part, due to living beyond our means—as a nation and as individuals. With the enormous national and consumer debt weighing us down, we won’t be able to spend our way out of this economic problem. Ultimately, we need an economy that’s not dependent on unsustainable growth and consumerism. So it’s time to rethink our over-consumptive lifestyles, and turn to the principles of elegant simplicity, such as planting gardens, conserving energy, and working cooperatively with our neighbors to share resources and build resilient communities.
4. Go Green and Local
When we do buy, it is essential that those purchases benefit the green and local economy—so that every dollar helps solve social and environmental problems, not create them. Our spending choices matter. We can support our local communities by moving dollars away from conventional agribusiness and big-box stores and toward supporting local workers, businesses, and organic farmers.
5. Community Investing
All over the country, community investing banks, credit unions, and loan funds that serve hard-hit communities are strong, while the biggest banks required bailouts. The basic principles of community investing keep such institutions strong: Lenders and borrowers know each other. Lenders invest in the success of their borrowers—with training and technical assistance along with loans. And the people who provide the capital to the lenders expect reasonable, not speculative, returns. If all banks followed these principles, the economy wouldn’t be in the mess it’s in today.
6. Shareowner Activism
When you own stock, you have the right and responsibility to advise management to clean up its act. Had GM listened to shareholders warning that relying on SUVs would be its downfall, it would have invested in greener technologies, and would not have needed a bailout. Had CitiGroup listened to its shareowners, it would have avoided the faulty mortgage practices that brought it to its knees. Engaged shareholders are key to reforming conventional companies for the transition to this new economy – the green economy that we are building together.It’s time to move from greed to green.
--Alisa Gravitz
I use GoDaddy.com and to register a name it is $9.99 a year. And with that you can get free hosting. The hosting costs $4.74 for 12 months ($56.88 for the year). The only difference between free hosting and paying the $57 is that you will have a few adds at the top of your screen when you have a free account.
Of the list above - the most important (IMO) are your sample chapter, the "buy link" and your ISBN's. Having a place where people can "try before they buy" is important. When you meet a "resistant" buyer telling them to go read a sample chapter on-line is a great way to convert them to a sale. The reason you want your ISBN listed prominently is that only the most successful authors have their books sitting on the bookstore shelves. For most they will have to be special ordered and coming in armed with the ISBN will make that process easy.
THE REVIEWS PAGE
Reviews sell...period. One of the things you need to do as an author is encourage those you talk to that enjoy your book to post reviews on-line. Then you need to repeat these testimonials on your website. After about 3 months after release Michael's site had 49 reviews (24 from Amazon, 19 from GoodReads, 6 from Shelfari). I made a table on the review page with the date of the review, its source (including a link so people could go to it) what the ranking was (5 star, 4 star etc) and either all or some of the posting. If the person made a long post - I took the "best paragraph" and posted a link to it so they could read the whole thing if they wanted.
NEWS PAGE
This is an important page to show how active you are. If you are not currently doing press releases....start it is a way to generate some 'buzz' about your book and there are a lot of free sites to post your press releases to (again more in another post). Here use the table format like for reviews and list things such as:
There are plenty of expensive ways to get these materials - going to the office supply store is one that I don't recommend. The best thing to do is buy them from a packaging wholesaler. I did a bit of research and I recommend ULINE they are a large supplier with a wide selection and had the best prices I could find.
WEIGHT
When considering a mailing material - to me the #1 concern should be weight. You don't want to artificially increase the cost of your book because you have crossed the line to a new weight category. If you have a book that ways about 1 lb. This might not be so big of a concern because all of the options will keep you under 2 lb (next level) but if you are at 1 lb 12 oz then you are really going to care.
PROTECTION
Making sure your book arrives in good condition is also a consideration. You want a mailer that will protect it from water...what if it sits outside on a step in the rain before the person gets it? Also protection of the "corners" is a concern you don't want them bent or crushed etc.
COST
In general any cost you incur is either passed on to the consumer or taken from your profit. The shipping material therefore should be as economical as possible it's just not a thing worth spending a lot on this and artificially increase your price or decrease your profit. The best way to control this cost is "buy in bulk" and use free options from the USPS. More on this in a minute.
BOXES
I would not recommend Boxes. Their problems:
ULINE does offer a nice "variable height folding box that accommodates 1/2", 1", 1 1/2", 2" but at $0.53 each they are costly
MAILERS
With boxes eliminated mailers are your next choice. The biggest issue with them is determining the "right" size. ULINE does a really good job listing both interior and exterior sizes. I recommend you choose a few options and ask for "samples" they will gladly mail these at no charge . Find the one where you book fits snugly but not too tight (don't want to damage the book getting it in or out then buy them by the case (Usually 50 or 100 per).
I personally like "bubble wrap mailers" - they are light, inexpensive and provide good protection both on edges and weather. I did here from one customer that one of his corners was a bit damaged but that may have been a fluke - I might do some "rigid mailers" in the future. I don't recommend the "padded" I don't think there is enough protection and I don't trusts them against weather.
The following chart shows the various costs for mailers that fit my husband's book "The Crown Conspiracy" well. His is a 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" book with about 3/4" of a spine. I use Hefty #S-996 mailers which are 7 1/4" x 12" outside dimension.
| Type | Part | # per Case | Cost per case | Unit cost |
| Brown Bubble wrap | S-9986 | 100 | $26 | $0.26 |
| White Bubble wrap | S-5632 | 100 | $28 | $0.28 |
| Brown Padded | S-1413 | 100 | $21 | $0.21 |
| White Poly Padded | S-7544 | 100 | $27 | $0.27 |
| Brown Padded | S-227 | 100 | $24 | $0.24 |
| White Padded | S-7530 | 100 | $30 | $0.30 |
| Rigid | S-917 | 200 | $74 | $0.37 |
I ordered 200 and have just cracked my second box. I will probably shift to a "poly bubble" for my next order because the paper ones sometimes have been "punctured" although not a problem for protection - it just doesn't "look" as good to the customer.
FREE SHIPPING MATERIALS
Don't forget if you mail priority that the USPS provides free mailing materials. If I'm sending a single book - I put it inside a bubble wrap bag then inside the priority envelope because otherwise the book would slide around a bit and might get "scratched". When doing 2 I can put both of them in a priority envelope side by side very snugly so no extra material is needed. If I have an order of 3 or more I use a priority box.
The picture to the left was taken from my husband’s book “The Crown Conspiracy”. The arrow indicates the current sales rank is 57,194 which means quite simply that at this point in time there are 57,193 books that are “better” selling then his at this point in time. Sounds pretty bad huh? Not really when you consider the number of books on Amazon (The worst rank I have seen is 6,958,847 (and I’m sure there are larger ones) which means his book sells better than at least 6,901,653. Not too bad in that context. The number really has the most to do with how long it has been since your last sale.
While doing my research I ran across a fantastic site - Titlez (it is free) it shows the sales history for your book over time. From this I was able to determine for instance that I sold at least one book today (1/13/2009) and prior to that I sold at least one on (1/08/2009). I also can see there was a large period of time: 10/29/2008 - 11/20/2008 when I sold none ;-( I found this very interesting information. For comparison I tried this on a friend of mine book's Griffen's Daughter: 
Again it is quite clear when her sales are being made. 12/26/2008, 1/5/2009, 1/10,2009, 1/11/2009. This site even has the capability to compare your books to others. It is a great site.On October 14th, 2004The next few sections are taken not from my “personal” observations but from posts by others. I tried to indicate of the data when possible.
Amazon made the first major change to their ranking system
that I'd seen in five years. The new system is actually more transparent than
the old system. The new rank is preceded by a # and appears right on the sales
page for any book. There are two main differences between the old system and the
new system. First, the new system includes sales of both Marketplace books (used
and new) and e-books. Second, the new system is based almost entirely on "what have you done for me lately." Historical sales only have a small impact on the
decay rate.
| 1-10 | Oprah's latest picks |
| 10-100 | The New York Times's picks |
| 100-1,000 | topical rants by pundits/journalists,"classics" |
| 1,000-500,000 | everything else (still selling) |
| 500,000+ | everything else (technically in stock) |
In a 2008 post from Foner Books they presented the author proposed a logrithmic chart that allows you to approximate the numbr of copies sold per week. If we use the sales rank of approximately 60,000 from the example above then this graph estimates about 10 copies per week are selling. He mentions: "I've seen ranks as low as the mid-three millions for books that have sold a single copy, the line would be completely vertical by around 4,000,000. I cannot stress enough that checking the rank twice and looking at this graph means nothing. You have to get an average rank for at least a week for it to have any meaning at all."| Weight | Price |
| 1 lb or less | $2.23 |
| 1 lb 1 oz 2 lb | $2.58 |
| 2 lb 1 oz 3 lb | $2.93 |
| 3 lb 1 oz 4 lb | $3.28 |
| 4 lb 1 oz 5 lb | $3.63 |
| Size | US | Canada/Mexico | International |
| 12” x 12” x 5 ½” | $13.50 | $32.95 | $53.95 |
| 11 7/8” x 3 3/8” x 13 5/8” | $10.35 | $25.95 | $41.95 |
