Traditional Publishing

The traditional publisher receives hundreds of book proposals per month and some will only accept a proposal from a literary agent. But there are many independent and university publishers who do not require agents. All these companies pay the author on the basis of royalties or on a work-for-hire basis once a manuscript is accepted.

What is the typical royalty? It’s hard to pin down “typical” because publishers are closed-mouth about what they give and authors rarely share their earnings. Royalties are a percentage of the take. They can range from 15% of the list price for a hardcover book to 10% for a trade paperback. But very often the author gets 10% of the net income rather than the list price. Royalties for mass market paperbacks (such as the ones in drug stores) are less—often 7%, but these books sell in great quantity.

The publishing process: Once a contract is signed, the process begins. An editor takes over the reins and oversees the direction of the book. In some cases the editor may ask for additional material or rewrites. The publisher pays for the book to be copy-edited, designed and formatted. They also pay for distribution of the book (this includes warehousing and shipping) and basic promotion and publicity. The copyright may go to the author or to the publisher depending on the contract.

The Work-for-Hire Publisher

Many well-known travel publishers pay on a work-for-hire basis. The editor for a series simply hires one, two or three travel writers to do a book on, say, Croatia. Romance paperbacks are also often bought on a flat-fee basis. This means a straight payout for work, which then belongs to the publisher. You will sometimes find this arrangement with computer books and with anthologies.

What About Self-Publishing?

In true self-publishing, the author arranges for the typesetting (or does it himself) and the printing, buys his own ISBN number in the name of his company, arranges for his own warehousing, or more often, stacks the cartons in the garage, and of course has to find a way to distribute the book, whether through the internet or through retail stores. One can also self-publish using POD technology. Because traditional printing requires volume to get the cost per unit down to a reasonable fee, the standard print run is a minimum of 3000 books, and more often, 5000. This means an investment of several thousand dollars and requires a place to stack all those cartons. Using POD technology brings those costs down considerably, but you must still pay for editing and book design if you want a decent-looking product.

There are people who will help—-book designers, cover designers, typesetters, website designers, book coaches and publicists but they all come at a price. The biggest problem for the self-publisher is finding a distributor who can get his title into the bookstores. However, local titles can be distributed by the publisher himself or by local “jobbers” who go into bookstores, newsstands and shops. Books that cater to a distinct niche audience can also be successfully marketed by using specialty shops and the Internet. Some self-publishers sell primarily through lectures.

Like all authors, the self-publisher is expected to market his book by making appearances at stores and signings. He also has the extra task of trying to get his book accepted by bookstores, including the chain stores, whose portals are guarded by guard-dogs known as buyers. Internet stores such as Amazon will take any published book as long as it has an ISBN number, a cover, and adheres to basic rules of taste.

The self-publisher must also establish a business identity, print out invoices, collect sales tax (in some states) and of course, accept returns if he sells to bookstores. He also has to buy a string of ISBN numbers from R.R. Bowker, get a Library of Congress card number, register his copyright and learn to announce his book. If his book is accepted in major bookstores he then has to deal with the problem of returns. All bookstores expect this privilege and nowadays returns are sent in any shape or form--banged up, coffee-stained or obviously thumbed through. Traditional publishers accept returns (which can run up to 30%) but they figure that possibility into their list price and market projections.

Vanity or Subsidy Publishing

Vanity is simply a common term for subsidy publishing. Vanity publishers openly advertise for writers. When the author submits a manuscript it is “accepted”. The reality is that vanity publishers accept just about everything they get. However, the editors flatter the writer and make him feel he has passed several hurdles to be part of the publishing pantheon; hence the term “vanity”. In the old days, the vanity publisher printed hundreds of copies and charged the author for the cost of editing, book design and printing. The quality was not high, but the price for the services was. The cost ran into the thousands of dollars because the author had to bear the brunt of everything, plus the shipping of hundreds of books. Most booksellers would not stock titles with known vanity imprints. Therefore, the author ended up selling the books to friends and relatives and to any traffic he could drum up.

Nowadays, the subsidy market is dominated by large, well-funded corporations who use the print-on-demand process to manufacture the books. This lowers the cost of producing each book and has resulted in thousands of subsidy books flooding the market.

What about POD?

Basically Print-on-Demand (or POD) is a method of printing that differs from traditional printing. Traditional offset or web sheet printing is based on volume, so that a print run of 5000 copies costs less than a run of 500 copies per copy — but of course the total cost may be seven or eight thousand dollars. POD printing is done with a large press that prints, collates and binds the book in one operation. In other words, a complete book is produced in about 5 minutes. Because each print run consists of one book, there is no savings in printing 3000 or 5000 copies.

The author/publisher saves money by writing a shorter book because aside from the set-up fee, the charge is per page. So if it costs .015 cents to print one page (plus 90 cents for the cover), a book that is 150 pages long will be cheaper than a book that consists of 200 pages. Obviously, the total cost is more expensive per unit than offset. But since print-on- demand means that only one book is printed at a time (after a setup fee) the total cost is cheaper than offset printing if you decide to print only a few copies. Fifty to 100 is common for a first “printing”. If you went direct to a POD printer the cost for a 240-page book might be around $4.50 per book plus a setup fee. You also save the cost of warehousing 5000 books.  By the way, many small presses who are traditional in the sense that they pay for book design, editing and promotion, use POD technology for some of their niche books. Large publishers use POD to keep an out-of-print book in circulation.

POD Purveyors or Publishers

I am calling them POD Purveyors and some people call them POD publishers, but they call themselves “Self-Publishers”. Whatever you call them, they have managed to muddy the waters so well that the majority of people lump all self-publishers into this one pool. The best known ones are Xlibris, iuniverse, Trafford, Lulu and Booksurge, although new ones and variations on the theme are popping up all the time.

These companies openly advertise for authors on the Internet and in writing magazines. Although they call themselves “self-publishers”, they are really subsidy publishing companies that use the new technique of Print-on-Demand. However they do little in terms of editing or proofreading (unless you pay extra for these services). If you want anything extra such as photos or maps, you have to pay for them yourself. There are also companies like Publish America that masquerade as traditional publishers and do not ask for setup fees but basically use the vanity press model.

The same book that would cost you $4.50 if sent direct to a POD printer like Lightning Source will cost up to eleven dollars (depending on the page count) with a POD “publisher”. There are also many services you buy. For instance, one company charges $150 to register your book with the Copyright Office. If you did that yourself it would cost you $45 plus the cost of the two books, plus cost of mailing. Another charges the author $75 to procure a LCCN -- a number from the Library of Congress that is absolutely free. So you see there is a markup on everything as well as the printing costs. POD purveyors make much more money selling services to authors than they do in selling the author’s books to the public. Even though most POD publishers refer to their clients as “self publishers” that is not really the case. Their advertising stamps them with the dread stigma of the Vanity Press and bookstores and distributors resist stocking them.

However, the general public has accepted them as “self-publishers”. Because POD publishers will accept any manuscript of any quality, they are considered suspect. This is a pity, because there are many quality works buried within the mass, and there are several POD publishers who maintain standards of acceptance. Most authors buy copies of their book direct from the POD publisher (at something like 35%off) and then re-sell them to friends and relatives or at talks. This may work if the author’s intent is to let his friends and relatives read his memoirs. It also works for self-empowerment or business authors who sell primarily through lectures. POD publishers do take a lot of the grunt work off their hands, but these problems remain:

1. The physical quality is not as high as traditional offset printing. (They look almost the same but there is a tendency to waviness in the pages.)The editing is up to the author. Misspellings, questionable grammar and inconsistencies stamp the book as amateurish. (You can solve this problem by hiring a professional editor.)

2. The book covers are often cheesy. (Authors most comfortable with POD publishers have commissioned their own covers.)

3. The POD publisher retains the ISBN number. This means that they are the publisher, not you. This only becomes a problem if your book starts selling well and you want to take over the reins yourself or interest a “real” publisher in your work.

4. Although many of them tell you they can get you into bookstores, what they really mean is that they use Lightning Source as their POD printer. Since Lightning Source is owned by the same company that owns Ingram (the largest book wholesaler in the USA) your book will automatically go into Ingram’s database. But that is all it does. The bookstores have the ability to order from Ingram, but that does not guarantee that they will. The fact is bookstore managers do not like to stock books from POD publishers.

6. The POD publisher puts the price on the book. It is almost always too high in relation to competing titles in the field. The cost to profit ratio is skewed. Even if a bookstore does order your book your take is very small. If you choose a POD subsidy press, check the prices of their other books. Do they look competitive to the market? Some subsidy presses are better in this regard than others.

7. The traditional reviewing community will not bother with books from a POD purveyor. However, many online reviewers will cover them and local newspapers will cover local authors regardless of the publisher.

If you want to use a POD purveyor anyway because you don’t want the bother of setting up as a publishing company, be sure to pick and choose among the companies out there. There are some (like booklocker.com) that discriminate and do not accept every manuscript that comes along. And let’s face it; running your own business is time-consuming and bothersome to many. Whatever you do, look over your contract very carefully. Will you be able to get out of the contract if the book attracts the attention of a mainstream publisher?

And remember, whether you self-publish the old fashioned way or use a subsidy press, the marketing of the book falls on your shoulders. Even traditional publishers expect you to go out there and hustle.

Note: Booksurge and CreateSpace are owned by Amazon and do not use Lightning Source as their POD printer. They have their own rules but operate as subsidy publishers with a direct link to Amazon.

Copyright, 2007 Barbara Hudgins