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| Ben Franklin knew how to take care of his business |
Only, suddenly your job description reads more publisher than author. This really hit home over the last month-plus, with the Kickstarter campaign and prepping the second edition. I knew my time and energy would be elsewhere, but still it was basically a month with very minimal, you know, writing.
Conventional wisdom says write every day and writer's write, and that's as it should be. But the modern author calls for more, and frequently it's a delicate balancing act. Sometimes, it's all writing, all the time. Series One was that way- nearly a solid year of writing and editing. 2013 was about publishing. So for (the rest of) 2014, I think more balance is in order.
I had initially kind of meant for this to be a "here's a great way to do it" post, but honestly, it varies tremendously from person to person, so it really wouldn't be helpful. Heck, it even varies within each person depending on where they're at and what needs doing. And you might not even care. I don't write, Dean, you say, I just want a good book to read. Hopefully that is provided for you. There is a lot that goes into bringing it to you.
For more about that, I asked Zachary Bonelli, who is an author and the founder of Fuzzy Hedgehog Press, to share his indie publishing experience:
Building a Small Press For Fun and Profit
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| Fuzzy Hedgehogs FTW |
Well, there’s some good news
about small presses. If you have at least one other person you can team up
with, it’s fairly easy to quality for its definition.
You need to make less than $50
million a year. Likely not a problem. And you need to publish ten or fewer
title per year. Also likely not a problem.
The kicker is that you can’t
just publish your own work. You have to pay to acquire publication rights to
one or more authors’ works and publish them. Here’s where your good writer
friends come in. If you trust these individuals enough to go into business with
them, then you’ve got all the necessary ingredients for a small press that
functions internally more like a collaborative writer’s group with book
industry connections.
As with any route to
publication, there are pros and cons. As a self-publisher turned small press
owner, here’s what I’ve discovered.
Small Press vs. Independent Author: Pros
·
Small presses get access to book distributors,
Barnes and Noble and independent bookstores
·
Small presses get access to book reviewers who
only deal with small presses
·
Small presses get the opportunity to one day
help aspiring authors achieve their dreams, too, should your press grow big
enough.
Small Press vs. Independent Author: Cons
·
Starting and building any business (including a
small press) is a vast time and money sinkhole.
·
Your writing time will be at least partially
compromised.
Small Press vs. Agent/Traditional Publisher Contract: Pros
·
Similar to being indie, being the operator of
the small press give you complete creative control over:
o
Cover Art
o
Content
o
Editorial Review
o
Marketing Decisions
Small Press vs. Agent/Traditional Publisher Contact: Cons
·
Under the traditional route, you will retain
many hours of your life for creative endeavors that you otherwise would have
had to spend on ebook creation, print layout and marketing
·
You will also get access to your publisher’s
marketing network, though the extent of this gain is highly publisher-dependent
Money
·
Agent/Traditional Deal
o
Money will come in modest lump sums. Your hourly
wage won’t be great, but you’ll be in the black.
·
Independent Author
o
Money comes in as a trickle from online vendors.
You probably get to buy yourself a coffee or maybe a pay a bill on your
writing.
o
Occasional big expenses (cover art, interior
layout, etc.) will eat into your personal budget if you let them, but other
funding sources (like Kickstarter)
exist.
·
Small Press
o
A business must be presented professionally.
Expect to have to shell out for cover art, software, printing, etc. You will
spend most of what you make reinvesting in your business. You will also likely
end up investing a lot of your own money in your business, too.
If the small press option is appealing for you, I recommend
you walk through the steps below to make sure you’re ready.
1. Do you have just one book in you, or many?
My mind is kind of a sprawling multiverse of possibilities.
I literally don’t have time to write all my book ideas down. Small presses
don’t run on one book. They run on many. If you’ve got that one book your
passionate about, and you don’t have other ideas simmering on your mind’s
backburner, just waiting to be written, a small press is probably not a great
idea.
2. Do you have a business license?
In the United States, this
should be a fairly simple endeavor. Any individual can start a
sole-proprietorship, and while you’re making less than a couple thousand
dollars a year, this should have a negligible impact on how you do your taxes.
I can’t speak to the business
license practices for every state, but if the other forty-nine are anything
like Washington, this should fairly easy to register and establish (total
investment: 2-3 hours).
Your small business retail
license will also come in handy if you want to sell your books at conventions.
3. How well do you know/trust your friends? How reliable are they?
Going into business together is
a big deal. Especially once contracts get involved. These should not be people
you’ve talked to at writing group a few times, but people you know really,
really well.
Speaking of contracts, be ready
to create those. Be comfortable seeking legal advise on correct wording and
situations to protect yourself against. Learn about what constitutes healthy
and unhealthy contract practices.
3. Are you ready to present yourself to bookstores and book distributors as a business?
This is true of
self-publishing, but it is even more true when you start a small press. Be
prepared to begin the slow and demanding work of building up a network of
individuals in the book business—owners of small bookstores, the Community
Relations Managers at Barnes and Noble stores, and individuals who interface
with small presses at book distributors.
You will need to have face to
face conversations with these people. You will need to be comfortable walking
into their offices and presenting yourself as a business. Are you ready to do
that?
4. Who will print your books? What format do they want for print files? How much money will you make per book?
The per-unit profit on a book
is going to be very low, though it gets higher the bigger the run. Of course, a
bigger run means a bigger monetary investment on your part. Figure out how much
you will have to invest in advance.
Most printers should want PDF
files to print books from. Adobe
InDesign is the industry-standard software for creating a book layout. Do
you or one of your colleagues know this software? Can anyone learn to use it
with high proficiency?
5. How will you generate eBooks? What is your digital marketing strategy?
Do you have software that can
generate eBooks for you, like Scrivener? If you or
someone working with you is a programmer, you could go the route of building
your own eBooks from scratch with a tool like Sigil. All eBooks you generate,
regardless of method, should pass ePubCheck
(to ensure that it works on all devices). Some vendors, like Smashwords, enforce compliance with
ePubCheck.
6. What are your business values and ethics?
I would encourage you to think
about this beyond the all-too-common answer of most businesses in American
society, which is: “To rake in the moola. Duh.”
For example, my company, Fuzzy Hedgehog Press, refuses to
participate in Amazon’s KDP Select program, because one of our business values
is that a healthy and vibrant marketplace contains numerous entities with a
diverse selection of goods for sale. Since the KDP Select program, in my
opinion, seeks to undermine a diverse marketplace by restricting the
distribution of content to multiple web platforms (KDP Select enabled books
must be exclusive to Amazon), the program seems to me to violate one of Fuzzy
Hedgehog Press’s core business values, hence we do not participate.
He’s another business value:
“Fuzzy Hedgehog Press wants customers to be able to access our books from as
many venues and in as many different formats as possible.” All of our eBooks
are available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, iTunes, Google Play and
Smashwords. You can buy ePubs and PDFs of our books directly from us. You can find
our print books on IndieBound and numerous online vendors.
Knowing your business values
helps you better communicate to customers what they’re getting and how they can
expect to be treated by you, and when you’re running a small business, building
customer trust is crucial.
Conclusion
Starting a small press represents a huge time and money
investment compared to other publishing options, but more potential rewards.
Not only do you own all the creative control (like independent publishing), but
you gain access to book distributors and bookstores (like traditional
publishing). The kicker is you have to do all the work and build all the
relationships yourself. If that sounds more fun than scary, then I encourage
you to explore the option further. If the kind of small press you would want to
publish your books does not exist, you might just be able to build it yourself.
Zachary Bonelli is owner and operator of Fuzzy Hedgehog
Press. He’s also a writer with two published books, Voyage
Embarkation and Insomnium.
His third book, Alterra, is due out this summer.
----
-DESR
Dean is the author of the 3024AD series of science fiction stories. You can read his other ramblings and musings on a variety of topics (mostly writing) on his blog.
He is also an aficionado of good drinks (extra dry martini; onions, not olives), good food and fine dress. When not holed up in his office
He also has an unhealthy obsession with old movies and goes through phases where he plays video games before kind of forgetting they exist.
Dean lives in the Pacific Northwest and likes the rain, thank you very much.
