Traditional Publishing:
The gatekeepers to published books have long been literary agents and editors of the publishing houses. Their job is to sift through the submissions they receive in search of the gems that will sell. They don’t always get it right (i.e. several of them rejected Harry Potter), but they do have a deep understanding of the publishing market, and the best ones also understand the craft of storytelling. If they accept your work, they have a financial interest in making sure your work is a success. It is nice to have that recognition and a team of agents and editors to help you make the right choices and produce a well-crafted, polished book.
Advantages: They offer the writer recognition, access to their marketing platform, book cover design, and some editing.
Disadvantages: Traditional publishers take most of the profits, usually 90%-95%. They no longer spend the time cultivating promising authors. If the book you send them isn’t up to snuff, they don’t have time to get it there—unless they believe it’s going to be the next best seller. To Kill a Mockingbird went through five years of careful editing and revisions before it was published. No publisher is going to do that today. The author also has to sign over publishing rights to the book. Contracts tend to want to get as much as possible from the writer for as little as possible. The author will still be expected to do most of the marketing. Most books get no marketing money and very small advances. If the book does not earn out its advance or remains a mid-lister, the press will likely drop the author and quit publishing them.
Self-Publishing:
The danger here is that many authors publish prematurely before they and their work are ready. This has contributed to the reputation of self-published books being of lower quality. If you choose to self-publish, make sure that you study the craft and get a good editor. Take the time (usually years) to get your craft up to publishing quality. One poorly-crafted book can tank a writing career.
Advantages: The author retains all rights to their book and has complete control over cover design, content, and marketing. The author receives higher royalties from 35-70%.
Disadvantages: The author is responsible for everything—cover design, editing, and marketing, which all cost money. A cover can cost anywhere from $100 to $500, and editing can cost up to several thousand dollars with no guarantee of any monetary return. The author also does not have a publishing team with a vested interest in making the book a success.
What follows assumes the author has chosen to self-publish. No single, or even best, path exists in self-publishing. Authors have to try new things until they settle on what works for them and for their books.
Narrow: [i.e. Amazon-only ebook]
Advantages: Amazon advertisement, enroll in Kindle Select, has expanded distribution available, only one site to keep updated, free ISBN, has both print and ebook options, good for new authors who don’t have a fan base. Kindle Select requires that you go exclusive with them for your ebooks, but this does not affect your ability to publish your print books widely if you want.
Disadvantages: Not sold on Barnes & Noble, Kobo or Apple Books. The expanded distribution on Amazon will drive up the price of your book and reduce your profits for that book.
Wide:
Advantages: Potential to reach people who don’t or won’t use Amazon, good for authors who already have a broad fan base.
Disadvantages: Have to upload and manage files on multiple sites, no access to Kindle Select, will need to buy ISBNs.
Publishing Tools:
Formatting: The goal in formatting and typesetting should be to make the book look as professional as possible. You don’t want readers to be able to tell that your book is self-published. You need to use a readable font (Garamond 11 point is very readable).
Ebook:
Scrivener—Has free trial, cost is about $45—compiles ebook in EPub, Mobi, and PDF files, can add images, but not too many. If the file size is too large, it will crash. Could use for both ebook and print. (I have never used the print option, and I find Scrivener a little cumbersome. But this is what I use to compile my Mobi and Epub files.)
Draft2Digital—Has free formatting options for ebooks, and you can publish through them. Limited to their templates for formatting, but pretty easy to use.
Kindle Create—Available from Kindle for free. (I don’t like it because it limits your options in formatting and seems to have a mind of its own. I only use it for ebooks with lots of images because Indesign won’t do MOBI files and Scrivener just crashes with large numbers of images).
Vellum—Only available for Apple users and costs $200-$250 dollars. (I have never used it, but it comes highly recommended by full-time indie authors.)
Microsoft Word—Common word processor that can be used to create ebooks, but it is more cumbersome than Scrivener or Draft2Digital. (I use Word to compose my books and then upload the file into Scrivener and Indesign for the formatting. If you set it up correctly, KDP will convert Doc and Docx files pretty well.)
Print:
Scrivener—Can be used to create a PDF for print, but I have no experience using it that way.
Indesign—Gives you greater control and makes a nice looking book, rather steep learning curve. (I prefer Indesign for formatting the print book.I still spend time on YouTube looking up how-to videos. It is great for adding images and using different fonts. Scrivener is less versatile this way and can’t handle lots of images.)
Draft2Digital—Allows you to create a PDF for print books, but does not distribute print books.
Vellum—Only available for Apple users and costs $200-$250 dollars.
Microsoft Word—I created my first print book in Word and it worked fine, but you have to convert it to a PDF for KDP to accept it. I now only use Indesign for print formatting because it is more versatile and makes a nicer looking book.
ISBN:
Amazon doesn’t require an ISBN for an ebook, but other distributors will. Amazon offers free ISBNs for print and ebooks, but it will list the ISBNs as independently published because Amazon purchased the ISBNs to give to you. If you want to have your own company name listed or you want to publish wide, then you will need to buy your ISBNs. They can be pricey ($125 for 1 or $295 for 10). You should only buy from Bowkers (https://www.myidentifiers.com/get-your-isbn-now). They are the only authorized seller of ISBNs in the United States.
If you are just starting and publishing exclusively on Amazon, I would just use Amazon’s free ISBNs. You will need a different ISBN for each format you use (i.e. ebook, print, audio, large print, etc.) If you want to go wide with your print book, you will need to purchase your ISBN because no one else will accept Amazon ISBNs. (I don’t use ISBNs on my ebooks, and I used the free Amazon ISBNs until I earned enough in book sales to purchase a batch of ten ISBNs.)
Copyright:
Your work is copyrighted the minute you write it. The Supreme Court recently ruled that unless you have registered your copyright with the US Copyright Office, you cannot protect yourself from copyright infringement in court. It costs $35 to declare most copyrights and the cost of a print copy of your book.
Distributors:
Amazon—For a first-time author, this is the most important place to be. In the KDP system, you can publish ebooks, print, and large print books. The set-up is pretty simple and self-explanatory. If you do not already have a large audience, you should seriously consider enrolling your ebook in Kindle Select. It lets potential readers try out your work with very little risk, and you still get paid (not much, granted, but those are all readers you otherwise wouldn’t have had). You can choose either 35% or 70% royalties, and you can control the price and opt for expanded distribution if you like. You can also advertise directly on Amazon for both ebooks and print books.
When setting up your book, you have the option of adding seven keywords. You shouldn’t simply add words that already appear in the title or book description—or you’ll be wasting them. The best keywords are descriptive phrases that are specific to your book. For example, paranormal romance with child ghost or historical fantasy with no magic. You can use paid services such as www.wordtracker.com and kdprocket.com to identify the best keywords for you if you want. Booksprout also has a keyword finder.
IngramSpark—If you want to get into libraries and bookstores you must have your books here. Ingram is THE major book distributor. They offer bookstores and libraries large discounts, which these retailers need if they are going to make a profit on your books. Bookstores do not like using Amazon because they don’t get a large enough discount (40% as opposed to 60%), and they can’t return unsold inventory. Ingram charges $25 to list an ebook, $50 to list a print book and $50 to list an ebook and print version of the same book. They also charge $25 every time you need to make a change to your book. Ingram requires a non-Amazon ISBN and will sell you one for $89. But just like on Amazon, you will not be listed as the publisher.
Beware of the return option for print books on Ingram! Ingram charges you to let buyers return their books. They charge you the wholesale price plus $2 for shipping. Remember that you only get a reduced royalty from the wholesale price. So if you sold your book wholesale for $10 and you received a $2 royalty, Ingram would charge you the $10 plus $2 shipping fee to return the book to you, which means you would have a net loss of $10 per book. That said, many bookstores will not purchase a book they cannot return. The decision is up to you, but I won’t accept a policy that so grievously disadvantages the author.
Kobo—This is a Canadian company that recently cut a deal to sell their ebooks and audiobooks through Walmart. They do ebook and print books and are aggressively growing their market share.
Barnes & Noble/Nook—You can sell ebooks and print books on Nook, but if you use IngramSpark there is no need. Ingram distributes to them.
Draft2Digital—Distributes to a variety of ebook distributors including Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, and Amazon. They don’t offer print distribution. They don’t charge anything to use their services, but they do collect 15% of net royalties if you sell through them.
Smashwords—Also distributes to the major ebook distributors. They offer 60% to 70% royalties.
Marketing: Your book is your most valuable marketing tool.
As a reader, how do you select a book? You probably go through a process like this: 1. You check out the cover and the title. 2. If you like it, you flip to the back and read the cover copy. 3. If that interests you, you open it and read the opening lines. 4. If you are still interested, you might buy it. 5. If you buy it, you expect the book to be high quality and to meet the standards of the genre you are reading. If at any point in that sequence you encounter something that turns you off, the author has lost you. For this reason, your book, and everything about it, is your most effective and most important marketing tools.
The best marketing is word-of-mouth. To achieve this, you need an intriguing story concept, a great title, an eye-catching cover that properly signals your genre, sizzling cover copy, and a fantastic book that fulfills the promises you made and keeps the readers wanting to read more. This usually means that you need to have studied the craft of writing. You also need to have an effective price. To get the 70% royalty on Amazon, you have to price your book between $2.99 and $9.99. The most effective pricing is usually $2.99-$4.99. This is especially true for a new author. If no one knows you, they aren’t likely to want to lay out their hard-earned cash on an expensive book.
Website:
If you are serious about publishing, you need to have an author website that looks professional. This means you have to purchase a domain name and purchase space on a hosting site. (I used Bluehost for my hosting site and WordPress for my website design. There is a bit of a learning curve, but there are plenty of YouTube instructional videos on how to set up and use a WordPress site. WordPress also comes with a wide variety of templates and plug-ins to help create an attractive site.) Be careful of using free sites. They can make publishers, agents, and media believe that you are not serious about your craft.
What do you need on the site:
- A landing page where people can find your books with links to where they can purchase them.
- A way for people to sign up for your email list.
- A way to contact you.
- A “Meet the Author” page with photos and your author bio.
- A blog or newsletter.
Other things you might want to add:
- An “Exclusive Content” page.
- Book recommendations page.
- A media kit.
- Appearances and speaking schedule.
- Works in progress.
Check out this post for web design ideas: https://insights.bookbub.com/author-websites-with-stellar-designs/
Advertising:
Free:
Links: Always put links to your other books at the end of your ebook.
Ask for a review: Reviews are the online version of word-of-mouth. You might get one review per 1,000 books sold, so you need to ask for them. Put a blurb at the end of your book asking the reader to review it. If it’s an ebook, put a link to your Amazon book page to make it easy for them to leave a review.
Discount Marketing: Amazon lets you discount your books for as low as 99 cents or free for 5 days during each 90-day period for each of the markets you are in (i.e. Amazon.com; Amazon.co.uk.). This is a great way to get new readers.
Book giveaways: Amazon lets you run giveaways for ebooks, but the author has to buy the ebook first. Goodreads used to let you run giveaways for free, but now they charge $129 to run one. (It’s debatable if giveaways garner high-quality readers, and I wouldn’t pay $129 to run one when there are better ways to market your book for less money—especially if you are just starting out.)
Short Writing: Consider writing short stories, novelettes, or novellas. You can use them as reader magnets, put them up on Amazon for 99 cents, and give them away on Prolific Writers and MyBookCave to readers looking for new authors. You can also submit them to writing contests, and you can create a book-length collection and publish it. (I use these magnets to get new readers and to build my email list.)
Bookgorilla.com: (I haven’t figured out this one yet. I have an author page there, but haven’t figured out how to use it to market other than having a presence there.)
Advance Reader Copies: Booksprout allows you to set up promotions and Advance Reader Copy (ARC) reviews. However, the free account doesn’t protect you from known pirates. You have to pay at least $10 a month to get that. This can be a part of your book launch to help you get the reviews you need on the day of your launch.
Email Lists: Create an email list through Mailchimp or ConvertKit. These are the folks who have agreed to let you email them about your writing. Treat them kindly. Average open rate on any email list is about 1/3 of those on the list. Average click-through rate is about 1/5. So the bigger the list, the larger your crowd of folks to share information with, interact with, and market to.
Paid:
Reader Magnets: A good way to get new readers and to grow your email list is to create a reader magnet and list it on the various sites that offer readers the chance to download stories for free. This can be a short story or a first book in a series. Most sites require you to pay, and most of them give the readers the option to sign up for your email list.
Prolific Works: Costs $20 a month, and they have group giveaways you can join for free that get your book in front of new readers and help you build your email list.
MyBookCave: Free to sign up, and you can join group promotions that help you find new readers and build your email list.
BookFunnel: Similar to Prolific Works, but don’t be deceived by their $20 a year pricing. They don’t let you collect email addresses unless you pay the $15 a month or the $100 a year.
Bookbot Bob: Allows you to give away books or offer book discounts. They charge you $10 to $15 dollars, and they require you to have at least ten 4ê or above reviews on Amazon.
Amazon Ads: You can run Sponsored Ads. You only pay if someone clicks on your ad. You can set the price per click and the daily cap on expenditures. The secret to making these ads work for you is to create a large list of keywords (300 +) that list comparable authors and titles and every related keyword you can think of.
Facebook Ads: I am still trying to figure out how to make Facebook ads work. They can be quite expensive, and I haven’t yet been able to get a return on them. You can use the ads to attract people to your website, to your Amazon author’s page, or to your book sales page. Facebook doesn’t like wordy ads, so you have to be very specific–but you can use images and videos in the ads. You can set a daily limit on how much to spend and limit how long the ad runs. But the old days when you could count on millions of people seeing your ad on Facebook for little money are long gone.
Goodreads Ads: I am not a fan of Goodreads because I find it cumbersome and time-consuming to use, but I am in the minority. Readers love it, and, if you are going to pay to advertise, you should be paying on Amazon and on Goodreads because these are where the readers are. Their system is similar to Amazon ads with the exception that you have to pay up front. When someone clicks on your ad, the price is deducted from your deposit.
BMI Books: They offer paid marketing for a fee. For $10, you can have your book appear on their website for 365 days. For $55, you get 1825 days with email marketing. For $250, you get 3650 days, email, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
BookBub Partners: Now allows you to advertise to its readers. The system works pretty much like Amazon’s. You can pay for impressions or for clicks, depending on what you want your advertising to do.