Self-Publishing: Running the Numbers

According to Jerry Waxler, author of the Memory Writers Network blog, “I have been attending writing conferences for years, where the advice from established writers has always been to look at self-publishing as a last resort. That advice is now officially ended.”

Interest in self-publishing has never been higher, and it’s entirely doable today. In fact, it’s entirely possible to use a Print-On-Demand (POD) do-it-yourself service like Amazon’s Createspace subsidiary to produce a single volume without investing a single penny in anything other than the cost of printing and shipping.

This no-investment option is perfect for people who are only interested in producing a handful of books for family and friends. It becomes more complicated and challenging when you have a story you want to have noticed (and bought!) by the general public. To gain the attention and respect of the general public takes more time, effort, and – let’s face it – investment of time and/or cash. Below is an overview of publishing elements you absolutely must attend to if you want to have a professional-quality manuscript that will receive the notice you strive for:

Editing
It’s absolutely necessary to have more than one mind and two eyes involved. At the very least you'll need four to six astute "beta readers." At the very most you'll need a professional editor. I use beta readers to check the professional editor's work!

Layout and Design
I've seen some ugly, sloppy books from indie (independent) presses. I mark them down in reviews, and won’t buy from that company or author again. Layout isn't rocket science, but especially if you do it with Word, it takes a huge amount of patience and ability to attend to detail. If you use graphics, you add another dimension of complexity. Precise placement on book-size pages, with controlled wrapping – it’s enough to drive even an experienced user screaming into the night.

You may not even know about details like page and chapter headers, publication data page, Table of Contents (do you need this?) line spacing ... all things that differentiate a professionally produced volume. If you want a commercially viable book, you may need help attending to these details.

Cover
Covers are critical! People see the cover. Even if they don’t judge you book by it, they will form a first impression, whether on Amazon, the shelves of bookstores, or in the library. If you create your own cover, bone up on what needs to be where, and use focus groups of friends to refine it.

Promotion
If you want your book to be noticed, you'll have to send out lots of review copies. To whom? You’ll want too a blog tour. Which blogs? Promotion is a never-ending challenge with more facets than a diamond. You may want to use a publicist.

Cost
All of these services add up. For a 200 page book (around 50,000 words), depending on the level of need, editing will run an average of $3000, maybe more. Layout and design may be another $500 or more. Add another $200 for the cover. With shipping from the printer to you and then to to the reader, 40 review copies will run around $9 each, for a total of $360. So ... you have an investment of around $3000.

You’ll also want to spend about $120 to buy your own ISBN. You can get one for free, but using your own lets become an independent publisher with a name of your choosing. If you use the free one, the Print-On-Demand service will be listed as the publisher. 

A website is another requirement. That will cost another $80 or so per year for a hosted web domain. You'll probably want to pay someone at least $300 to design your site.

Bottom Line

Editing Layout ISBN Review copies Website Web hosting (annual)

$3000 500 120 360 300      80 $4360

Now assume you set the price of that book at $17. The cost to print on a per-copy basis will be around $8, plus shipping to you, so we'll modestly assume your actual net on a per copy basis will be about $7. To recoup your investment, you'll need to sell 623 copies! That's fairly modest, and if you've invested all that income and get decent reviews, it’s an achievable goal. Income from additional sales can go to buy a new computer and fund your celebration party. Book sales probably won’t fund your retirement!

You can control costs by doing a larger print run, but then you also have to store 1000 books (they come 48 to a box, and the boxes are about the size of a small microwave. Figure out where you'll put 22 of those boxes) and cartons of shipping envelopes. You’ll need to mail books out as they are ordered, plus ship supplies to Amazon and ... you'll probably want to invest in fulfillment services which will eat up most of your savings, maybe more. 

That's the reality of self-publishing. If you master layout skills, or barter your layout services for Susie's editorial eye, you trade time, and conserve cash. Which is more important? Which do you have the most of?

These are all factors to consider as you determine whether you really want to publish your own book, and the value of packages of support services if you do.

Write now: spend some time journaling about your hopes and dreams for your book. Run some numbers and think things over. Balance the option of a simpler book for a narrower audience versus making that big splash. Follow your dreams, but don’t walk into total fog.  

I Refuse to Accept Limits!

“WOO HOO! I DID IT!” Even though I was home alone when the last piece of my "impossible" puzzle clicked into place, I sprang from my chair and dashed wildly around the circuit of kitchen, dining room and living room a couple of times in a wild victory lap, waving my hands and yelling. Although I wasn’t sure my aging spine would take it well, I jumped for joy. Oh, sweet, sweet success. YES! YES!

My success was discovering a way to create flawless PDF (Adobe reader format) files for digital scrapbooks made from software you already have or can get for free. There are some pricey programs out there to help you lay out scrapbooks onscreen, but as far as I’m aware, they are all geared toward selling print services that will convert any cash in your estate into a legacy of glossy pages encased in premium bindings. I’m talking about eBooks that can be viewed on a computer and require an investment of nothing more than your time and maybe a blank disk.

The puzzle sprang from a discovery that any object with slight transparency acquired a nasty set of grid lines when converted to PDF format. By a convenient quirk of fate, I made this discovery as a cold and sore throat set in. Not feeling up to doing much else, I camped in my recliner with my laptop and delved into the matter.

For over two days, I Googled, I downloaded and test drove fifteen free or low-cost PDF writer programs. I put together a comparison chart to keep track of the results. Ultimately I discovered that not even the gold standard Adobe Acrobat was up to this challenge. I despaired. I almost gave up. But I was cornered. I’ve committed to demonstrating this magic at the Digital Imagers meeting on January 4, and cringed at the thought of having to back off in any respect.

I REFUSE TO ACCEPT LIMITS!

There had to be a way, and I determined to find it! I joined a couple of user forums to ask for advice. While I waited, I decided to try the built-in PDF function in OpenOffice. I’d been using Word, because most people use Word, and I wanted to share the results of my discoveries. Well! OO does a stellar job. The problem lies not in the PDF programs, it lies in Microsoft’s software structure.

But my search was not over. OpenOffice was not perfect. On pages where I had a stack of objects (think of glass over a mat over a picture that’s mounted on floral background paper inside the mat) the bottom layer did not show in the PDF version if it had a patterned fill. Solid colors were fine. That ribbon at the end of the course was so close, but still out of reach! At that point both PrimoPDF and BullzipPDF, the two freeware programs that otherwise passed my testing, worked perfectly. My problem was solved. I burst through that ribbon and into song.

But the good news doesn’t end there. Later in the day I downloaded and installed the brand new OpenOffice version 3.0. Oh, my, Santa came early. I’m dazzled. It’s so hard to believe that such a polished software package is just sitting there for the taking. It has so many splendid new features, it’s hard to tear myself away to do real writing. And ... icing on the cake ... the upgraded PDF writer now catches all the layers.

Lest this all sound like nothing but crowing, bragging and crowing are good for the soul, in the right time and place, and this crowing ultimately relates back to life writing. It’s more about the packaging than the writing, but it does all fit together.

Write now: a story about some huge personal accomplishment that set your inner world on fire. It only has to matter to you, not be something anyone "out there" would even notice. And help Santa out by giving yourself the gift of a stunning new Office Suite that anyone can afford.

National Day of Listening: an Adventure in Multimedia

Have you ever wished you could watch movies of your ancestors and how they lived, or at least hear their voices? Although it's too late to capture your ancestors on video StoryCorp is doing something about that for future generations. They recognize the value of hearing voices from the past and are dedicated to preserving them. They are an independent nonprofit project whose mission is “to honor and celebrate one another’s lives through listening.” Jerry Waxler wrote an inspiring blog post on Memory Writers Network about his heartwarming experience with StoryCorp.

Realizing that a very small percentage of the world’s population will ever be able to visit a StoryCorp studio, they have begun urging people to use their own equipment to record interviews with family members and others they care about. This Thanksgiving, “StoryCorps asks you to start a new holiday tradition—set aside one hour on Friday, November 28th, to record a conversation with someone important to you. You can interview anyone you choose: an older relative, a friend, a teacher, or a familiar face from the neighborhood.” You can learn more about this and find detailed guidelines to help by visiting their National Day of Listening website.

This StoryCorp request and nudge toward multi-media lifestory and family history projects seems timely. I still advocate print and written stories as the basic medium, because it is the most durable and accessible, but sound recordings, video, digital scrapbooks and photo albums definitely add impact to your stories by involving more channels of sensory input, and younger generations are becoming increasingly used to multi-media, even if they are avid readers.

If all you have available is a tape recorder or an older video camera that records on tape, don’t hesitate to use it. Just keep in mind that both audio and video tapes tend to deteriorate over time, and it’s becoming difficult to purchase players for them, so as soon as possible, get any tapes you have, new or old, transferred to digital format and burned to CD or DVD disks for storage. You can convert audio tapes yourself with a tape player that has a port for connecting to an external speaker, an audio cable (available for a few dollars at any electronics department), and the free open source Audacity sound capture program. If you ask around, you probably know someone with a combination VCR/DVD recorder to use for playing the tape and simultaneously recording it to a DVD disk, or you can purchase such a device for as little as $59 online (check reviews!).

If and when if your budget allows, prices for digital recorders and camcorders are plummeting. If you already have an iPod or other mp3 player, it may have a voice recorder function that will do the trick. My Creative Zen V Plus mp3 player that I spent $79 for a year ago isn’t quite studio quality, but it’s as good as most tape recorders and quite adequate for the purpose. Cnet.com offers excellent product reviews along with buying guides such as this one for mp3 players to help you choose.

Most digital cameras today have a video mode. It may produce a rather small image, but it’s better than nothing, and you won’t be able to turn the clock back later when you get a better one. Even if the video is less than the best, you'll have the audio. Start with an empty card, the largest you have, and set the camera on a tripod or prop it on a solid surface while you do your interview.

A scanner is the only equipment you need to take old photos and pop them into PowerPoint (or the free OpenOffice equivalent, Impress). Add captions, and get as creative as you want with special effects. You can even record a voice track and add music if you feel adventurous and dig around in Help to figure out how.

Think out of the box and use the toys you already have to create something wonderful. Your imagination will be stretched, you’ll form lots of new neural connections to keep your brain healthy as you learn new tricks to use the software involved, and your family will love the results.

Write now: inventory your gear and use the guidelines on the National Day of Listening site to make plans for recording an audio and/or video interview on the National Day of Listening this year. Find half a dozen old photos, scan them into the computer if you haven’t already done so, and make a simple PowerPoint slide show.

Ritergal's Favorite Free PDF Software

We’ve all read PDF files — you know, all those free eBooks, instruction manuals, reports and brochures that open in Adobe Reader. For several years the only way to create files like this was to use Adobe Acrobat, and that is indeed a high end product. The latest version of their “standard” version costs half as much as a new computer. Forget Adobe. Anyone can make PDF files now by downloading software that is absolutely free.

I tried half a dozen free programs, and PrimoPDF stands head and shoulders above the pack. It’s the only completely free program I found that gives you the option of selecting your desired degree of compression and adding security settings. Whether you use PrimoPDF or something else, it serves as a virtual printer. You “print” pdf files rather than exporting them, and you can print to PDF from any program that uses a printer, not just word processing programs. If you need to edit a PDF file, you edit the source document, then reprint it, as you would with a paper document, so always save your source document as well as the PDF version.

When you select PrimoPDF as your printer, several seconds may pass before an options window pops up. Then you'll be able to select from four options, Screen, Print, eBook, and Prepress. These selections determine the resolution of your finished file, and the quality of hard copy if desired. You can also add a password and other security options. Finally, you can add more material to the end of an existing PDF file. This last option sets it head and shoulders above the pack. If you need help with these options, consult the online manual.

You may be wondering why I'm so excited about this freebie and writing about it in a blog about lifestory writing. The PDF file format is recommended by digital archivists as the best available format for long-term document storage. It embeds the fonts you select, and stabilizes format, so it will look the same on any computer, anywhere in the world, whether it's a PC, Apple, Linux, or whatever, and hard copies will print the same way from any printer. Your digital stories will remain accessible longer, perhaps decades longer, in PDF format than any other.

Microsoft Word is notorious for completely changing their format every few years and creating chaos. Most recently, word is out that they have rendered Word documents created with early versions of the program inoperable with the latest version, “because they may contain unsafe material.” That's scary! What if I want to view that story I wrote fifteen years ago? If you open a WordPerfect document from 1990 today (assuming you still have a copy of WordPerfect) I guarantee you it won't look like it did when you created it. Whatever program you use, if you format a document with the Jester font, almost nobody will have that font if you send them the story, so it won't look exactly the way you intend. PDF files embed the font, so it's as stable as hard copy.

I nearly always convert documents to PDF format before I e-mail them to other people or post them on the Internet. Aside from the size advantage and font consistency, there is an inherent element of security in any PDF file. Since you can't directly edit these files, nobody will be able to interject another point of view.

Another advantage of having a PDF printer is the option it gives you to store records on disk rather than in a file cabinet. When I place an online order for anything from books to plane tickets, I “print” the receipt as a PDF file rather than hard copy. I've scanned in oodles of old family history documents like report cards, immigration documents, etc. With the Append feature in PrimoPDF, I can “bind” all those jpg graphics files into a single PDF document for easy reading, compact storage, and simple retrieval.

I strongly urge you to download PrimoPDF and start using it! Even if you are already using OpenOffice (my office suite of choice), the robust PDF generator built into that program only works within the suite. PrimoPDF will do the heavy lifting with website printing, graphics programs and more.

Write now: about all the ways you'd use a PDF printer if you had one, and then surf over to PrimoPDF.com and download your very own copy.