The Realities of Self-Publishing part two.

Wow, I can’t believe March is over all ready and we are into April. It seems like only yesterday I wrote part one in the realities of self-publishing. if you missed it last month but would like to read The Realities of Self-Publishing part one, I have linked it here. Since then we’ve had even more rain and plenty of follow-up sunshine. The water tanks are overflowing and the lush green grass is in need of mowing, (which it didn’t need all Summer.) Hubby has already had the ride-on lawn mower bogged in the soggy long grass where the septic tank grey water runs off. Oh the joys of living in the country.

You may be interested to know I survived my nerves and our talk at the SCBWI ACT conference last weekend went well. David Conley and I decided to make it more of a conversational chat than a formal presentation. It seemed to have gone across with the audience well. As usual and to be expected the speakers before us ran overtime, so I was concerned we would have even less time to present than the twenty minutes plus ten minutes for Q&A allocated to us so that the conference could still finish on time. However, my concerns were unfounded, we spoke for nearly forty-five minutes including questions and people still came forwards to ask for more advice after we were finished. It was a great day and I felt proud to speak alongside David and impart our combined over ten years wisdom of lessons learned , do’s and don’ts in the the self-publishing industry.

David Conley and I speaking on self-publishing at the SCBWI ACT Professional Development Day.

Now, down to the nitty-gritty I know you have all been waiting for. - Marketing.

Whether you are traditionally or self-published, you will more than likely need to do all of your marketing. There are very few traditional publishers who will invest time and money into a book tour unless you are a well-known celebrity, so don’t count on that as a reason to go the traditional route.

First of all, let’s change the name from self-publishing to independent publishing. It has a more professional ‘ring’ to it. Stand proud and own it, after all, you are now a small independent publisher. As mentioned last month, you have invested heavily in your book, so you are the publishing company.

Marketing should start early. Months before you even have that first copy of the book in your hands. You need to establish yourself as an author on social media, via a newsletter and/or blog posts. These all need to be done consistently. You need time to build up an audience of excited readers anticipating that release.

But what should I be posting? I hear you ask. Establish yourself as an expert in a particular field. For example, well before Fossil Frenzy the Adamson Adventures 3 was to be released, I started discussions about dinosaurs, not just the everyday common variety that every kid knows and loves, but some of the more unusual dinosaurs that are unique to Australia. It didn’t take long before I was known as ‘the dinosaur lady.’ Over the years I have applied this principal to all of my books.

As for a newsletter, I admit I am a bit late to this one. I should have started building my audience many years ago, but like so many authors I didn’t know what to write about. My newsletter finally began as a monthly edition only in January last year. As I am a former primary school teacher and am passionate about helping kids learn to read and write, a decided my newsletter would focus on helping parents and teachers to raise awesome readers ( and writers). If you are interested you might like to sign-up for my newsletter. Simply scroll down to the bottom of this page (or any page on my website) and you’ll find the sign-up form.

Do you plan to hold a book launch? I hope the answer is yes. You’ve worked hard to make your book baby a reality and it deserves to be celebrated. Again, you will need to start planning this well in advance. You may have an independent bookstore you have in mind, or another special place specific to your topic. I often use my local independent bookstore here in Canberra, the Book Cow-Kingston, but for Fossil Frenzy I changed it up and was lucky to have the National Dinosaur Museum agree to launch the book there. As Tracks in the Mist, the Adamson Adventures 4, was set in Tasmania, I reached out to the Hobart Bookshop , (Hobart is the Capital of Tasmania for my overseas readers), who kindly agreed for a launch there as well as my local bookshop. Note; If you are planning a launch somewhere, please be mindful that shops are busy places and need plenty of warning to plan events ahead of time. You will also have more luck if you make a connection with the shop before-hand. Don’t just walk in off the street as an unknown and expect someone to make time to talk to you. Email first is always a good option and ask if you can make an appointment to speak to the person in charge.

Book launch of Tracks in the Mist at The Book Cow - Kingston

the Hobart Book Shop

The National Dinosaur Museum in Canberra agreed to host a book launch and invited me back several times.

Sometimes launches aren’t always possible, or you can’t have a launch in every bookshop in town. An alternative is to request a book signing instead. These can be daunting. The bookshop will give you a table to set-up, then you will sit there for an hour, two or more depending upon your agreement. Signings are often slow, you may only get a handful of people curious enough to speak to you, and that all important buyer can be quite elusive. Launches are for family and friends you know are loyal and want to purchase your books, signings are different, beast, you are relying on the good will and interest of strangers.

Now I am about to contradict myself. I just said email ahead and request a time to speak to someone. Well, believe it or not, cold calling has also worked for me. It’s hard to come out of my shell where I prefer to hide and walk into a store and request to speak to the manager, but I have done it. Going back to the point I made about finding places other than bookshops to sell your books, when I released my picture books, Emma the Eager Emu and Frazzled Freya, I looked for unique places to offer them to. Being both about Australian animals, I decided to try the two local National Park gift shops near me and they both kindly agreed to stock them. To add to that success I decided to try two tourist information centres near me, who also agreed. Then to add further to this, as I did not have a distributor to sell my books around Australia for me, I decided to take a box of books with me when we drove across Australia. Each town we arrived in, I found the tourist information centre and more often than not, they too, took on a few copies. When we were at the Pinnacles in WA, the manager wasn’t there at the time, but the assistant kindly offered to take a copy of both to show her later. A few days on and I received a request for a number of copies of both books, more than any place has ever ordered.

The Big Merino Golbourn

When I was in Hobart, Tasmania for the book launch, I found another store that sold all sorts of items specific to Tasmania. They too, agreed to sell copies of Tracks in the Mist, and in fact have placed several orders since. I guess what I’m saying is, you never know unless you ask. Sometimes you do need a thick skin, but sometimes it’s all worth it.

I’m going to conclude this blog post here. I still have more to say on marketing, but that will have to wait until next month.

Have you found this useful? Then please keep in eye out for the next one at the beginning of May.

The Realities of Self-Publishing part one.

Welcome to March, the beginning of Autumn here in Canberra, possibly my favourite time of year. As I write, the sound of gentle rain has been pattering on my roof for several days now, renewing growth all around me,. The grass, or what was left of it, has turned from crisp, brown, practically dead litter crunching underfoot to lush green fodder for the kangaroos to graze upon again. My maples have already changed to red in preparation for the cooler climate and my granddaughter has spent several afternoons splashing in puddles that provoke excitement, joy and laughter in her and myself. I’ve watched with delight our water tank gradually refill almost back to the top and breathed a sigh of relief that we have made it through another long extremely hot season without the threat of a bushfire. I am hoping that the long hot days of this Summer are almost behind us. I know there are still a few hot days ahead, March can be fickle like that, but it’s good to be able to breathe again.

Before the rain. brown, dry, harsh ground, very little feed for the kangaroos.

After the rain, lush green paddocks, a kangaroos and my delight.

What does all that have to do with the realities of self-publishing? March is the time I am able to consider sitting upstairs in my favourite room at my computer to seriously ponder writing. During Summer it is unbearable to spend any length of time up here. Plus all the family and friends that come to stay over the Summer months, for a ‘country holiday’ have departed and I can now contemplate where I plan to head in my writing journey this year.

My first thoughts come to planning my chat with a fellow self-publishing author at our upcoming SCBWI ACT conference at the end of this month. We have been given twenty minutes to impart our knowledge on this subject and hopefully help new authors decide whether the self=-publishing route is something they would like to pursue.

This afternoon I started jotting down a few questions I thought our audience might like answered and then realised that perhaps I should examine a few of my answers here.

One of the biggest realities of self-publishing if you want to do it right, is the commercial outlay. If you want your final product to look and be as professional as a traditionally published book, (and you should) there is much to consider.

Most of us can’t do it all ourselves. It’s one thing to write the story, but it is imperative that you pay for a good editor. Not just a proof reader, but someone who can do a structural edit, look for holes in your plot and help make your story the absolute best it can be. Regarding writing, it is worth considering paying for some writing courses too if you haven’t already done so. With AI becoming greater competition, you need to make your writing the absolute best it can be.

Then you need a great cover. Whether we like it or not, books do get judged by their cover. If your book doesn’t stand out in a crowded market, it will never be found. Don’t design the cover yourself unless you are a graphic designer. Someone who truly knows what they are doing is worth their weight in gold.

An accomplished formatter is essential too. Someone who can layout the book design with the right font, size and arrangement on the page to make your book look as polished as it should be.

If you have written a picture book or a junior fiction story that requires illustrations, and if you are not an illustrator yourself, then there is the added cost of finding someone who is proficient with illustrating and understands the nuances of the picture book industry. A good illustrator does not come cheap, but the correct illustrations can make or break your book. They need to be pictures that kids will love to look at over and over again just as much as they want to read your story. Illustrations need to engage your young reader just as much as the text.

Do you plan to make print copies of your book? Or ebook copies only? Naturally, ebooks are your cheapest option, but let’s be honest, we all love to hold that new book in our hands and feel we have accomplished something special. To print you have several choices, print-on-demand or find a local or overseas printer. Most people I know these days choose the print=on-demand option as it means you only need to order a minimal number of books at a time. A printer will require you to place an order anywhere from 500 to 1000 copies minimum. Then you have to store all those boxes somewhere and consider whether you might actually manage to sell them all.

That brings me to marketing. That perhaps needs a whole new blog post of its own. I think I will save that for next month.

All in all, self-publishing can be extremely rewarding, but be aware, you are taking the place of the traditional publisher and with that comes the reality of the full commercial endeavour and risk. Again you have several options. Find all the resources yourself, ie the editor, graphic designer, formatter , illustrator etc. This can be time consuming if you don’t know where to start. Lucky for me, I knew all the connections from the first two Adamson Adventures that were traditionally published, so when it came time to self-publish books 3 and 4, I was able to contact the same people and continue to keep the series all looking the same. This resulted in minimal costs, especially as the few illustrations that are in them I did myself. The result being I was able to cover my costs and even make a little return on my investment.

The Adamson Adventures, books 1 & 2 were traditionally published, books 3 & 4 were self published. Can you tell the difference?

On the other hand, with Dragons Drumming, I was looking for a suitable illustrator and someone to help with the editing and design. I used a company that does everything in-house for you except the printing and marketing. That is all over to yourself. This meant I had in my hands a traditional and professionally published looking book baby, but the costs meant I would never be able to sell enough books to recover my initial investment. I knew this right from the beginning, but went ahead anyway because I wanted a picture book that I would be proud of, and I knew kids would love and return to reading time and time again.

In my earlier years of self-publishing, when I was still a bit naive, I went through what I now know was a self-publishing company that in the industry is termed a vanity publisher. You pay them to publish your book, but retain full copyright. They do all the editing, formatting, graphic design, find the illustrator if you don’t have anyone in mind, and even print the books for you. They might even say that marketing is included. Don’t be fooled, you’ll pay out quite a lot for little return. The quality is not usually as good either. Despite all this, with hard work and marketing I did manage to recover my costs.

The reality of self publishing is so much more than just writing a book. However, you retain full copyright and full control over how your finished product looks. You can control the timing of when your book is released, which is usually much faster than all the years waiting for a traditional publisher to accept your manuscript, before the then inevitable waiting before you finally see the finished book in your hands. Added bonus, with a traditional publisher you will receive no more than 5 to 10% royalties, (and that is only after the publisher has remade their initial investment in you), whereas self-publishing taking into account all your costs, you will receive a much higher percentage depending on whether you have a distributor, sell to book stores or sell directly to your customers.

More and more authors are choosing to take the self-publishing route, or even hybrid publishing whereby they have books both self and traditionally published.

Which do you prefer? Are you self-published or traditionally published?

Has this post helped you reach a choice?

Next month we’ll dive further into the realities of self publishing.