AiIP: Is Self-Publishing Worth It?

It's not as if that is a particularly novel question. In fact, I would wager that nearly every person who has completed a manuscript in the last decade or so has puzzled over that very question. For some, the answer comes rather quickly, usually skewed to the self-publishing side of things (the exceptions being people who have published traditionally previously, or have only ever accepted that as the route to publication). For many, it comes after a string of rejections from agents and publishers. For still others, it's a result of sitting down and calculating costs, time and chances of success (to say nothing of how that success is defined; more on that in a bit).

I've broken down the general costs associated with self-publishing before, and while by no means definitive, it gives you a pretty good idea that self-publishing is an investment. Not a prohibitive one, but it's a cost without any manner of guaranteed return.

Nor should that in and of itself be a deterrent; one of the glories of self-publishing is that you are not married to sales numbers as the sole indicator of success. If your only goal is to make your book available, you can do that. Or perhaps it's a really niche market- also doable. If you're happy only selling a few copies, that is available in a way it wasn't before.

For most, though, they want more. The next 'Great American Novel' or some such thing. Avenues like Kickstarter open the door to defray some of the expenses, to say nothing of helping spread the word before the book is out. There are no promises there, obviously, but it can save a person several thousand dollars (if it is funded).

But then there is the ongoing problem of reach, which I have talked about a lot lately. I was actually going to take this post in a different direction until the purveyor of this fine blog (that's what they're called, right?) send me a link to this post, wherein a fledgeling author decides to invest in 2,000 print copies of his book to distribute to bookstores. As he points out, physical books still make up 80% of marketshare- no matter what die-hard indie publishers say about how many ebooks they sell- print still commands the majority of readership. This will change eventually, but for now, if you want to make it, I won't go so far as to say you have to have a print presence, but you basically do.

Those 2,000 books cost him the equivalent of nearly $5,000 and he hasn't sold, stored or mailed one of them. I'm not saying it's a bad idea; I'm saying it's a lot of cash and time to spend on something like that (to say nothing of the fact that if his garage burns down, he's out five grand).

Which in turn got me thinking, as I read somewhat incredulously, 'that's what I want to do'. Yet, at the same time, my estimator/engineer driven mind is analyzing cost. How much time does he have to spend to move 2,000 copies of his book? If we assume it takes a half hour of labor for every copy sold, that is six months at a forty hours a week. I hope it works for him, but that is a lot of time to spend for that amount of money- and there is the added problem of the stigma of self-published authors, even though he has put a ton of time and effort into making it a presentable as possible).

Time is money, and usually comes at a premium price (at least in my life- this column is already a week late), so I read that and I puzzle over again, is self-publishing worth it? I have always striven to define myself by the quality of my work, not the genre or publication method, but those are big questions a writer faces, and I find myself increasingly on the fence about it. Maybe it is worth it; maybe it's not. Or maybe it is for someone else, or for me, and not for others.

Either way, G knew what he was doing when he suggested 'Adventures in Indie Publishing'.

-DESR

AiIP: Amazon Strikes Back

In what I can only assume* is in response to my boycott of Amazon in favor of pursuing sales through indie bookstores and other avenues, the sales giant and new face of publishing announced that indie bookstores can now sell Kindles and get a 10% cut of ebook sales.

Booksellers responded, in internet parlance, LOL.

And who can blame them? Even if at first blush it seems like something designed to partner up with brick-and-mortars, as a few booksellers point out in there: Amazon has never really done anything to help anyone but Amazon. This certainly fits that- 10% of the five bucks or so most ebooks cost isn't paying anyone's bills, and after two years even that goes away. To be fair, it is at least similar to the model that Kobo uses (I love Chuck from Village Books being super blunt in there). But in the end, the customer ends up at Amazon- or, like many people I have talked to- turned off to the bookstore for throwing in with Amazon.

That same Village Books blog has an excellent post about why it's better to link to a brick and mortar store (who probably sell online and can ship anywhere) than to Amazon (hint: Amazon doesn't care), but that hardly solves the ebook problem.

Which leads to the problem within the problem, namely that Amazon isn't even reinventing the wheel- they're just copying the already-flawed wheel. It's square, it's clunky and it doesn't work. Because if someone is buying an ebook, they're not going to go to a bookstore for it, are they? The overall model of bookselling needs to change in order for this to work.

The first dang thing that needs to happen is every copy of a physical book needs to come with a digital option, one way or another. Be it a code in the hardcopy, or something, just... make this happen. Please.

Secondly, there needs to be a way for those brick and mortar stores to sell directly, not through Amazon or even Kobo. Some indie version of the Nook (how it relates to a chain of bookstores, not how crappy and irrelevant it is). But those titles need to be available for download off that stores website, where that store gets a much larger cut than 10%.

And finally, the Mexican standoff of Amazon vs indie bookstores vs indie publishers needs to stop. Amazon is satiated by the above steps, but it still leaves indie publishers without a way to get their books into book stores. A lot of this is because printing costs can be prohibitive, but I would like to see indie bookstores be more inviting. If nothing else, by selling ebooks on their sites, but even better to have a process in place for purchasing books from indie authors.

I have harped on quality from day one, and I think this would help, since an author who has gone through the process of getting a book to print vs just uploading one to Amazon is likely better and more careful. With more and more authors going the indie route, it only makes sense for bookstores to include them.

I hope you're enjoying this little sojourn with me- I know it's a bit of a deviation from what this space usually is, but I feel this is important and want to highlight it. In any case, I have but one more piece on the subject for next month, along with some (hopefully) exciting announcements, which will put a bow on this whole thing. When I first talked to The G about this, and what it would contain, he suggested the 'Adventures in Indie Publishing' title. It's an adventure, for sure, and I hope you enjoy reading about it.

-DESR

*this assumption is incorrect.